A common topic of discussion in the Windows world - in fact, in any operating system - is boot performance. Many systems take a long time to reach a usable desktop from the moment the power switch is pressed, and this can be quite annoying if it takes too long. In a post on the Engineering 7 blog, Michael Fortin, lead engineer of Microsoft's Fundamentals/Core Operating System Group, explains what Microsoft is doing to make Windows 7 boot faster.
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Member since:2006-01-19
If you let an average desktop (100 W power consumption) run for a MONTH, guess how far you can drive your average american car for that amount of energy.
The answer is: Between 50 and 150 miles, depending on your car, speed, traffic.
You can also cool your average american house for about half a day.
So if you are serious about mastering the energy crisis, move close to your working place so you can go there by bike or walk, and build a well insulated house which has some thermal inertia (brick walls + insulation outside). Once you have accomplished this, start worrying about the leftovers like enery efficient lights, computers and the likes.
The energy crisis it definitely not something which can be mastered by living the same lifes as now. Seriously living new ways of life is unaviodable.
Please, guys, you are the more technically and mathematically savy people on the net (otherwise you would probably be reading "knitting adventures" blags 
, get your orders of magnitude straight.
Power needed by:
Light bulb: 100 W
Low energy light bulb: 20 W
Desktop PC + LCD screen: 100 - 200 W
Laptop: 20 - 70 W
Kitchen hotplate: 500 - 1000W
Kitchen oven: 1000 W
Air condition: 1500 - 10000W
Car, average: 20000 - 40000 W
Car, peak: 50000 - 250000 W
Multiply above figures with the time which you use it, and you get the energy which is consumed by the device. These numbers you can compare, and then you can decide which change in YOUR life would have the biggest effect on energy usage.
Member since:
2008-05-22
A sleeping computer uses bugger all electricity. And if that is too much, moan at Dell, etc. until it is better.
I barely ever reboot my Mac, boot time is irrelevent once sleep works.
As a slight aside, making sleep work would do more for the energy crisis than faster boots as so many people leave their computers on all the time because boot time is too slow.