Easy Peasy Tip: Shut off your Computer!
By tinychoices | March 28, 2009
USA Today reported last week that “U.S. organizations squander $2.8 billion a year to power unused machines, emitting about 20 million tons of carbon dioxide — roughly the equivalent of 4 million cars — according to a report to be released Wednesday.” That’s a lot! We’ve talked before about shutting off your monitor, and the energy savings to be had for putting your computer to “sleep” when you’re not using it - Karina started a new job a month ago and has been religiously shutting her computer off every night before she leaves the office. Take a couple of minutes this week and check your power settings at home and at work, and make an effort to turn off your computer - or at very least, make sure it goes to sleep. You’ll save energy, carbon, AND money.
Bonus points for sending this Easy Peasy Tip (and/or the USA Today article) to your IT person or office manager at work!
Do you shut off your computer, or send it to sleep?
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[[Photo from flickr user dmealiffe via creative commons license.]]
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Topics: Easy Peasy Tips |
I saw a comment elsewhere talking about the lost productivity because of boot up times. It was really just an excuse for the commentator to tell everyone to get a mac or something.
We used to shut everything down every night when we had a home office with a few employees. One day we had ISP trouble and it turned out that we had missed some kind of firmware update that the provider sent out to the routers overnight. The tech advised me to always leave it on :(
Yup, heard that one before. :( Honestly, do people expect us to believe they start working the very second they arrive at the office? I know where I work, you generally have to take off your coat & put it in the coat closet, put your lunch in the fridge, get your coffee or your breakfast, etc. People just have to remember to walk to their computer and push the power button before doing these things, then the computer will be ready by the time you are!
PS: I have a Mac, so I’m guessing the comment you saw was regarding the scheduling tool, which allows you to set a time for auto start up & shut down. I have no doubts that there is Windows software available that will do this, too. I find the auto start up unnecessary (due to the reasons above), but auto shut down is handy when you need to run software updates or something at the end of the day but don’t want to wait around.
PPS: Most updates, when unable to run overnight, can be pushed to the morning when a computer comes on (like any other Mac or Windows update). And if it really isn’t possible, techs should be communicating with the ISP to allow employees to leave their computers on for one specific night, rather than every night.
I have a Mac that sleeps after a few minutes of being idle. I always shut it down at night and if I am leaving the office for more than an hour. On the off chance that I, more often my husband, forgets to power down it is scheduled to automatically shut itself off at 11 pm. We also flip the switch on the power strip that it is plugged into after shutting down to eliminate any phantom draw along with killing power to all peripherals. (printers, scanner, modem)
I work out of a BLM office - BLM mandates computers are kept on every night. It’s a huge waste of energy/money - as Brandy pointed out, it would be way, way better if computers only had to be left on one night a week. (Forest Service employees, on the other hand, are allowed to turn their computers off. Lucky ducks!)
[…] Easy Peasy Tip: Shut off your Computer! […]
We have laptops at my office and everyone shuts them down at night to either take them home or to lock them down.
I turn mine off everyday when I leave the office, though I’m probably one of the few that do.