Archive for the ‘Green Computing’ Category
March 7th, 2008
I just bought my first printer in nine years. Yes, that’s right, nine years. When I say I am anti-consumerism, I really mean that. If something works, I don’t just throw it out to get something new. I have a perfectly good 1994 HP LaserJet that still does the bulk of my printing. In 1999, I bought an Epson color inkjet. That was the last printer I purchased. I wasn’t using it that much, but it, along with an old printer/scanner combo a friend gave me, finally bit the dust.
So I went to Costco and got a new Canon all-in-one printer for around $100 with tax. This thing is amazing. It prints, it scans, it copies, and it faxes. And excuse me for sounding like an old fart here, but back in the day I used to own a printer, a copier, a fax machine and a scanner. Trying to find homes for these items in my then one-bedroom apartment was a challenge. My home copier was actually situated on the top of my fridge. (more…)
Share on Facebook
January 20th, 2008
In case you had not heard, there’s been a huge brouhaha in the past week over a massive billing error at one of the top webhosting companies, Dreamhost. I found out about it when my friend (who I had referred) asked me why she was being billed in January for a September due date. We discovered that Dreamhost accidentally billed a year in advance (inputting 2009 instead of 2008 or something like that). She got an email back from Dreamhost, felt happy that she had a refund coming, and that was that. (My account was fortunately not charged, since my credit card had expired.)
Well, that wasn’t exactly that. That might have been that for her, but for many others, the charge put them in the red and the refunds were slow in coming. The blogosphere has been aflame with the issue, and the drama has been a whole soap opera of its own. What has amazed me is seeing how many people are living so close to the edge. Dreamhost users were on the official blog, complaining that they had no money for food or baby formula. Baby formula? You’ve got kids, and you spend money for webhosting when you have no savings set aside for emergencies? Yikes. (more…)
Share on Facebook
January 12th, 2008
Linux may be the greener choice when choosing an operating system. Why? Because the latest version of Microsoft Windows is such a resource-hog, you’ll need double or triple the computer power to perform basic tasks with the same speed you might with Linux.
Program that used to require a few hundred megs of RAM on Windows XP now require 2 gigs or more on Windows Vista. Check out this chart on the Audacity download page. To use Audacity on Windows Vista Home Premium, you will need 4 gigs of RAM versus the 512 MB you needed on XP. A whopping 4 GIGS!! Talk about creating unnecessary e-waste! Why force people to buy more electronic chips when the old operating system did everything just as fast if not faster on less hardware? (more…)
Share on Facebook
