Should I Turn Off My Computer To Save The Planet?

(Note: This is a reprint from our March 2008 Newsletter - Home Customers - This advice was mainly aimed at Corporate Customers but you may still find it interesting)

In the past we have always advised customers that it is best to leave PCs on, for a number of reasons:

• Hardware (particularly hard drives and power supplies) are less likely to fail,
• It allows computers to download their updates overnight without slowing down the Internet link during the day,
• Virus scanners and security software will be kept up to date over night, so it is up to date and ready to protect the organisation when staff start work,
• Having the PCs powered on means staff don't have to wait for the machine to boot before they login – this probably saves you about 3 minutes per station per day.

With many more customers being conscious of green house gas emissions and energy usage, it is time to re-examine this advice.

Let us start by considering the energy usage of the PC. A normal PC consumes around 140 watts when it is fully loaded, 60 watts when it is idle, and 35 watts when it is in full power saving mode. More powerful computers consume more power, but that's about right for an office PC.

Monitors are also part of the story. We are going to assume a 17” flat screen monitor, which will draw about 60 watts, although it needs to be noted that power consumption for flat screens tends to go up quickly as the size does. When they are in power save mode the power consumption of most monitors barely registers – probably less than a watt. Close enough to call it zero.

So during a 9 hour work day, assuming 50% idle and 50% full load a PC will consume 900 watt hours, with a 17” monitor contributing another 540 watt hours, for a total of 1.44 kilowatt hours. If we accept (and there are a few figures around) 600 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour then 864 grams of CO2 is produced each work day. If the PC is left on the rest of the day (so another 15 hours) then another 525 watt hours, or 0.53 kilowatt hours, is used, producing another 318 grams of CO2 Looking at it over a week, allowing two days for the weekend we produce 4.3 kgs of CO2 if we turn off at the end of each day, versus 6.9 kgs of CO2 if left on all the time.

So, there is certainly more pollution being caused by leaving the machines on. However, all the reasons we like the machines to stay on are all still valid as well. For example, if you have 10 staff waiting for computers to power up and boot each morning you probably spend $30 or more while staff wait.

What to do?

As we see it there are three options:

1. Do Nothing: Continue the current practice - not exactly environmentally friendly.
2. Turn the Computers Off Every Night: You have an increased risk of hardware failure and you will spend more money on labour as staff wait for PCs to boot. However you will get a small (very very modest)saving on your power bill and a slight reduction in green house emissions. A lighter version of this is just turning the PCs off over the weekend.
3. Purchase Green Power To Run Your PCs: If you believe CO2 emissions are an issue, then we think this last option, buying green power, is the best choice.

While it might seem a little counterintuitive we think this approach has a lot of benefits:

• It is inexpensive (about 10c a day per day per computer). This is less than the cost of having your staff wait for computers to start every day
• Means you can leave your PCs on with all the benefits that come from that.
• Is more effective at combating green house emissions than simply turning off computers – it eliminates rather than just reducing the contribution of your computers
• Encourages investment in green energy, leading to cheaper green energy in the future

Do you want to know more about buying green power? You can visit ACTEWAGL's green choice site as a starter.

Browsing the Internet Safely

(Note: This is a reprint from our March 2009 Newsletter)

One of the questions we are most frequently asked is how to browse the internet safely and not come in to contact with any nasty or malicious programs. Most people these days have heard of a Computer Virus, some have heard of Spyware and Malware and everyone knows that having an up to date Anti Virus program on their machine is vital in this day and age. The problem is that having an Anti Virus program does not completely stop you from accessing malicious software. It does lessen the risk, either through straight up blocking the program, or warning you of the possibility of a program being malicious and then requesting permission to continue. The problem you may ask yourself is, how do you stay safe? Those of us who are aware of these problems know a few ways of minimizing these risks and we hopefully can pass some of this knowledge on to you.

Assuming you have a virus scanner, probably the most important rule online is “know what websites you are looking at and what you are downloading”. If you are on a website that looks a bit dodgy (good indications can be several advertisements trying to sell emoticons, Viagra or the like), you need to make sure you know exactly what it is that you are looking for on the particular website. I will use an analogy to try and explain this one a bit better. Say you are walking down Kings Cross, shopping for a particular item. On the way you walk past an alley. Now it's possible the item you want is at the end of the alley, but there are some obviously undesirable looking people lurking down there as well. Now we instinctually know to NOT go down that alley as something unpleasant may be waiting down there. The Internet is very similar. It is massive city full of Giant Shopping malls and Theme Parks, but there are also dodgy alleys. The only difference is that in the real world we can all recognize these dangerous places. Not all of us are able to recognize the dodgy alleys that you will come across online.

Another good step is not using Internet Explorer, which is the default Internet Browser that comes with every Windows operating system Internet Explorer is the most commonly used Browser on the planet, which makes it a big target for people who write malicious software. A large portion of malicious software written is designed to attack loopholes and faults in Internet Explorer. Generally we recommend using Mozilla Firefox as a browser (download here), though there are other Browsers out there that do just as good a job. Firefox is free to download and is much less widely used than Internet Explorer. This does not mean that it won't function as well as Explorer. On the contrary, it has many more useful tools that can be added and downloaded to it. Useful tools like Flashblocker, which will stop any Flash images, which can have viruses or malware embedded in them, from loading on a webpage. Flash images are embedded moving images on a webpage, usually used for advertising or displaying movie files, like YouTube. What FlashBlocker does is stop Flash images from loading automatically, but allows you to run them by clicking on the Flash image that you wish to view.

One of the most common ways of having malicious software installed on your machine is for a website to have a popup window with an error that says something like “We have detected a virus on your' computer! Click yes to find out more information or to remove the virus!”. Ironically enough, this is usually a virus trying to trick you into installing itself on your machine. If this warning was not generated by the Anti Virus program that you know is installed on your' PC, then you can safely assume that this is some sort of malicious software trying to install on your' PC. You need to remember that in most cases, you have to physically install or browse to a website that has a virus attached to it. It is very rare that a virus can install itself without your active participation. Several Anti Virus programs have pop up blockers built in to them to stop exactly these kinds of attacks. Most Internet Browsers have programs built in to stop these pop ups as well, Mozilla Firefox has a particularly efficient one.

So, be mindful of where you are browsing (have you turned into a dark alley), think about using a different browser to Internet Explorer, and ignore any virus warnings on websites unless it is software you know you have installed.

Next issue we will talk about some of the free tools and techniques to help keep your machine safe from Internet nasties.