{"id":1449,"date":"2008-12-26T13:54:55","date_gmt":"2008-12-26T13:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/new\/?p=1449"},"modified":"2014-10-26T14:44:25","modified_gmt":"2014-10-26T14:44:25","slug":"greening-your-gadgets-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/?p=1449","title":{"rendered":"Greening Your Gadgets"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was originally published on the Earthjustice Blog<\/a> in December of 2008.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a conundrum: how can you reduce your carbon footprint without giving up all of your nifty electronic gadgets?\u00a0 And, if this isn\u2019t your conundrum, it\u2019s surely your spouse\u2019s, or your kid\u2019s or your cousin\u2019s, right? Cell phones, iPods,\u00a0 PCs, laptops, TVs, DVDs, VCRs, DVRs, GPSs, radios, stereos, and home entertainment systems are just a fraction of the energy leaking devices we all have a mix of these days.\u00a0 While selling them all on Ebay is an option, it might not be the preferred solution.\u00a0 So here are some tips on how to reduce the energy output of those gadgets.<\/p>\n

Shop Smart<\/strong>.\u00a0 Look for energy-saving features supported by the product, some of which will be listed as such, some not.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Energy Star<\/strong> compliance.\u00a0 Dell and HP sell lots of systems, and some are designed to operate more efficiently.\u00a0 The Energy Star program<\/a> sets environmental standards for technology and certifies them for compliance.\u00a0 You can browse Energy-Star compliant products at their web site.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 EPEAT<\/strong>. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool<\/a> is a website that, like Energy Star, rates products according to environmental standards.\u00a0 Focused on computers, laptops and monitors, this is another great resource for identifying green products.<\/p>\n

Use Only What you Have To<\/strong>.\u00a0 Most electronics continue to draw power after you turn them off.\u00a0 This \u201cfeature\u201d is designed to allow them to boot up faster and be more responsive, but it\u2019s been widely deployed with no sensitivity to environmental or even budgetary concerns about idle power use.<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Truly turn off devices<\/strong>. Newer electronics, such as DVD Players and stereos, offer options to truly turn off when the power isn\u2019t on, with an accompanying warning that the product might take longer to start up.\u00a0 It\u2019s worth the wait.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Convenient, green charging<\/strong>. Of course, when you charge your phone or iPod, you don\u2019t leave the charger plugged in when you\u2019re done. But this makes it dangerously easy to plug a cord into your phone without remembering to plug in the other end.\u00a0 Look for devices that can charge via the USB ports on your computer, instead of a wall charger, not because that takes less energy to charge them, but because it eliminates the need to plug and unplug the wall charger.<\/p>\n

Be Virtual<\/strong>.\u00a0 If there\u2019s a way to do what you want to do without buying another electrical device, go for it!<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Backup online<\/strong>. Instead of buying a backup machine or drive for your computer, use an online backup service like Mozy<\/a> or Carbonite<\/a> (There are many more online backup options, as well \u2013 these are two popular ones).<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Squeeze multiple computers into one<\/strong>.\u00a0 Sound like magic?\u00a0 It\u2019s not.\u00a0 If you use a Mac and a PC (say, because you love the Mac but need a Windows machine for work compatibility), pick up Parallels<\/a> or VMWare Fusion<\/a>, programs that allow you to run multiple computer operating systems on one computer, and retire the second machine.<\/p>\n

Go Solar<\/strong>. Costco, Target and other retailers are starting to carry affordable solar chargers, $30 to $50 devices that can replace your wall sockets as the power sources to charge your phones and iPods.<\/p>\n

Be Vigilant<\/strong>.\u00a0 Turn things off when they\u2019re not in use, aggressively tweak the power settings on your systems, and make green computing a habit, not a special project.<\/p>\n

Take it from a techie like me: we don\u2019t want to abandon the 21st century in order to insure that there\u2019s a 22nd.\u00a0 But we do want to curtail our energy use as much as possible.\u00a0 These are relatively easy first steps in our personal efforts to stop global warming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was originally published on the Earthjustice Blog in December of 2008. It\u2019s a conundrum: how can you reduce your carbon footprint without giving up all of your nifty electronic gadgets?\u00a0 And, if this isn\u2019t your conundrum, it\u2019s surely your spouse\u2019s, or your kid\u2019s or your cousin\u2019s, right? Cell phones, iPods,\u00a0 PCs, laptops, TVs, DVDs,
+ Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,31,82],"tags":[248,249,98,250,251,151],"class_list":["post-1449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-computing","category-mobile","category-tech","tag-earthjustice-blog","tag-energy-star","tag-environment","tag-epeat","tag-solar","tag-virtualization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1450,"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1449\/revisions\/1450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techcafeteria.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}