The Future of Green Computing

What is Green Computing?

Global warming and environmental change have become big issues with governments, corporations and your average Joe alike all seeking out new ways to green up their daily activities. Computers certainly make up a large part of many peoples lives and traditionally are extremely damaging to the environment, which begs the question: What is Green Computing?

Green Computing is the study and practice of minimising the environmental impact of computers through efficient: manufacturing, use, and disposal.

Problems of Electronic Waste

Electronic waste is an increasing problem globally due to the quick obsolescence of electronics, which make up a staggering 70% of all hazardous waste. Computer waste is high in many toxic materials such as heavy metals and flame-retardant plastics, which easily leach into ground water and bio-accumulate. In addition, chip manufacturing uses some of the deadliest gases and chemicals known to man and requires huge amounts of resources.

In an average year 24 million computers in the United States become obsolete. Only about 14% (or 3.3 million) of these will be recycled or donated. The rest - more than 20 million computers in the U.S. -- will be dumped, incinerated, shipped as waste exports or put into temporary storage to be dealt with later. We never stop to consider what happens when our laptop dies and we toss it. The reality is that it either rots in a landfill or children in developing countries end up wrestling its components apart by hand, melting toxic bits to recover traces of valuable metals like gold.

Wasting Electricity

The manufacturing of a computer consumes 1818 kw/h of electricity before it even gets turned on and when running, a typical computer uses 120 watts. Research shows that most PC’s are left idle all day, and many of them are left on continuously. Every time we leave computers on we waste electricity without considering where that electricity comes from. The majority of the world’s electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels which emit pollutants such as sulphur, and carbon dioxide into the air. These emissions can cause respiratory disease, smog, acid rain and global climate change.

The Future of Green Computing

A Canadian company, Userful Inc. (www.userful.com) have come up with a solution that turns 1 computer into 10 - DiscoverStation. Quickly becoming the standard for green computing worldwide, DiscoverStation leverages the unused computing power of modern PC’s to create an environmentally efficient alternative to traditional desktop computing. Multiple users can work on a single computer by simply attaching up to 10 monitors, mice and keyboards. This makes it possible to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 15 tons per year per system and reduce electronic waste by up to 80%. Userful has recently stated that in the last year their software has saved over 13,250* tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of taking 2,300 cars off the road. (More info at: http://userful.com/greenpc)

The European Union

The European Union is tackling the problem twofold. Companies are now required to produce computers free of the worst toxic materials and are responsible for taking back their old products. Faced with disassembling parts and cycling them back into the fabrication process, companies are making more careful decisions about how those parts are assembled in the first place. In 2002 NEC came out with the first computer to use lead-free solder, a fully recyclable plastic case, and which contained no toxic flame-retardants. Since then many computer companies worldwide have started selling lead-free PCs and it is becoming common practice for companies to offer their customers free recycling of their old computers.

Go Green

Here are some suggestions that will help you reduce your computer energy

Don't use screen savers. They waste energy, not save it.

By computers & monitors labelled “energy star” which can be programmed to automatically “power-down” or “sleep” when not in use.

If you are using more than 1 PC, Userful's 10 to 1 advantage can save electricity and your wallet.

Turn your computer and peripherals off when not in use. This will not harm the equipment.

Use flat panel monitors, which use about half of the electricity of a cathode-ray tube (CRT) display.

Buy ink jet printers, not laser printers. Ink jet printers use 80 to 90 percent less energy than laser printers and print quality can be excellent.

If all of us did this every day, we could make a small difference. We only have one earth; let's treat it right.

Firefox download record official!

Mozilla has officially made history with a new Guinness world record for the largest number of software downloads in a 24-hour period.

So far there have been more than 28 million downloads of Firefox 3.0

The final record breaking 8,002,530 downloads for Firefox 3.0 took place in June with parties in over 25 countries.

"The enthusiasm and creativity of Firefox fans was key to making this happen" said Marketing head Paul Kim.

Gareth Deaves of Guinness World Records called it "an extremely impressive accomplishment".

The official figure was confirmed after logs from download servers were audited and checked to ensure duplicate and unfinished downloads were not counted.

Mr Kim told the BBC: "The notion of going for a world record, as gooky and nutty as it may have sounded, was a really sticky idea.

"It was an idea that translated really well across national borders and to all different kinds of people around the world."

Marketing manager Mary Colvig said no party is planned to celebrate the record until the actual certificate is presented by Guinness World Records in London next week.

"Here at Mozilla headquarters (in Mountain View) I think most of us are just going to try and get to bed early now that we have the confirmation. We are all tired."

Security flaw

On launch day some of the shine was taken by security firms claiming to have found the first flaws in the new software.

Within five hours of Firefox 3.0 making its debut, DV Labs/Tipping Point reported a flaw that potentially let an attacker take over a PC if a user clicks on a booby-trapped link.

Mr Kim told the BBC "Firefox users are safe. We have a patch in the works and hope to release it very soon."

Mozilla says the number of downloads surpassed their expectations

Another potentially disastrous glitch ahead of the world record attempt came when servers handling the downloads collapsed under the weight of visitors checking to see if the new version of the browser was available.

Once they were all up and running the clock started counting down.

At their busiest the servers were handling more than 9,000 downloads per minute. Within five hours the number of downloads for Version 3.0 exceeded the 1.6 million set by Firefox 2.0 in October 2006.

Market share increase

Another boost for the open source browser comes with the announcement that it has boosted its market share to over 19% making it the second most popular browser after Microsoft's Internet Explorer, or IE.

Net Applications says a chunk of the gain seems to have come from rival IE, although much of the growth came in users upgrading.

The company said while IE reached a record low last month, it predicted Firefox will break the 20% share bar sometime this month.

Mr Kim said "We offer the best browsing experience and this shows people are getting the message and voting with their browser choice."

Meanwhile Mozilla has shipped a high priority update for Firefox 2.0, warning that there are at least five serious vulnerabilities that could lead to code execution attacks.

Mr Kim said Mozilla will continue to support Firefox 2.0 until the middle of December.

After that users will be expected to switch over to Firefox 3.0 which since its launch over two weeks ago boasts 28 million downloads and counting.

Medical Records on Your Cell Phone!

Computer Scientists Turn Cell Phones into Health Care Resource

SAN DIEGO--Imagine if your medical records were lost or misplaced. It can cause more than aggravation; it could impact the care you receive. Now, imagine being able to download your own health records -- even X-rays and diagnostic scans -- right into your cell phone or PDA.

The same technology that brings games to life in your cell phone can also help you and your doctor keep track of your health. Gregory Quinn, a computer scientist at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego, says, "We can do quite amazing things in terms of presenting information."

Many of the newer cells phones and PDAs have a graphics chip like the one in your PC. The chip can turn your phone into a virtual medical library, complete with stunning 3D computer graphics and medical scans.

Quinn is developing a program that will allow doctors to view a patient's medical history on mobile devices.

Cardiologist Michael Wright believes mobile medical records will not only help doctors, it will simplify things for patients. Dr. Wright, who is medical director at the LifeScore Clinic in San Diego says: "Right now your medical records are scattered here and there. You don't really have easy access to them."

With Quinn's program, medical notes and patient tests can be downloaded onto a cell phone in just minutes. "Let's say, for example, I had done a scan here and had picked up a narrowed blood vessel coming down the surface of the heart. That would be visible on this 3D model," Dr. Wright says.

All the data on a phone is stored in the memory expansion slot. In these medical phones, however, Instead of music and digital pictures, it could hold a virtual scan of the body and much more. "It really does provide a, an on going, growing medical record that they can always have with them," Dr. Wright tells DBIS.

The 3D mobile medical data program should be available within a year. Quinn's program isn't limited to medical information. He says students will be able to retrieve science and other information on their cell phones during class.

BACKGROUND: Half a billion cell phones are sold each year, and within two years most of these will be inter-connected devices and contain built-in 2D/3D graphics accelerators. Scientists may be able to use these devices to disseminate visual information and scientific data, such as real-time molecular and medical data. For developing countries in particular, the cell phone will become their first and/or primary computing device. It's high-end data visualization for the masses.

MAKING PHONES SMARTER: So-called "smartphones" relate to a single device that can take care of all your handheld computing and communications needs in a single small package, integrating digital photography, cellular communication, calendars and address books, GPS navigation, email, and even play music or games. The biggest advantage is that smartphones allow users to install, configure and run their favorite applications, creating individual, tailor-made service. In contrast, most standard cell-phone software offers only limited configurations for personalizing the device.

ABOUT GRAPHICS ACCELERATORS: A graphics accelerator is a type of video adapter that contains its own microprocessor, enabling higher performance. It has its own memory for storing graphical representations. Among other advantages, graphics accelerators free up the computer's central processing unit. The CPU can do other tasks while the graphics accelerator is processing the graphics. When computation tasks are divided in this way, it is known as "load balancing." Today, graphics accelerators are not just an enhancement, but a necessity, and are bundled automatically into mid-range and high-range computers.

GOING DIGITAL: Digital cell phones use the same radio technology as analog phones, but unlike analog signals, digital signals can be compressed and manipulated to fit more calls onto a given bandwidth. It's also why more cable companies are switching to digital to gain more channels. Using digital cell phones, three to ten digital calls can occupy the same space as a single analog call.

Todays Headline :Private Forums in Drupal : Drupal Notes.

groups.drupal.org serves the Drupal community by providing a place for groups to organize, plan and work on projects. Real world local user groups in particular are encouraged to setup their online presence here.

http://groups.drupal.org/

Drupal Notes: http://www.group42.ca/drupal

Drupal Association : http://association.drupal.org/

Top 7 Useful Adobe AIR Applications for Bloggers!!

Adobe AIR aims to facilitate access to web apps and services from your desktop. I was introduced to Adobe AIR applications just a few days back and now I am totally addicted to them. Out of a number of Adobe AIR apps that I tried and tested, here’s a compilation of the top 10 which bloggers would love to have in their armoury.

But before that just make sure you have the latest version of Adobe AIR installed on your system. You can get it from here.

1. Google Analytics Reporting Suite

The Google Analytics Reporting Suite brings Google Analytics to the desktop. You can access your blog’s traffic statistics from your Desktop itself - you need not necessarily login to the analytics website.

2. ReadAir

As mentioned before, you can access Google Reader from your desktop using this Adobe AIR application. ReadAIR’s features include:

• Mac themed scrollbars and form elements
• Add/Remove/Manage tags
• Subscribe/Unsubscribe from feeds
• Search your feeds
• Auto software update

Another similar app is the Fresh RSS Reader

3. Twhirl

Twhirl is again a desktop twitter client, based on the Adobe AIR platform.

Some of twhirl’s features are:

• connects to multiple Twitter and Friendfeed accounts, cross-post updates to Pownce and Jaiku
• notifications on new tweets
• post images to TwitPic
• search tweets using TweetScan
• timeline filtering
• localized to English, German, Italian and Spanish

4. Webkut

WebKut is an Adobe AIR application that allows you to capture web pages, or parts of them in a very simple way. It provides you 3 capture options: the entire page, the current view, or only a selection.

5. AIRPress

AIRPress is rich blog editor. You can create new posts, and manage your WordPress blogs AIRPress. The only issue is that it requires an older version of Adobe AIR (i.e., Adobe AIR beta 2)

6. Color Browser

Colour Browser lets you create and organize your favourite colour palettes. Sets of colours are easily viewable in a clean interface. Edit them, rearrange them, create new sets, and make your own. This is a must have application if you are going to design your blog theme or redesign an existing blog template.

7. ShifD

With ShifD, you can create notes and bookmark websites. You can add content with tags that are easily editable. These are then synced, and you’ll be able to access them from your mobile too.

I hope you like the above mentioned applications. If you know any other apps that may be useful to bloggers, please tell us in the comments.

Think Today: What is the commonest problem we face today? Too much efficiency and not enough effectiveness.

Efficiency is based on doing what you already do — only faster and cheaper. Effectiveness comes from doing whatever you need to do to be a success. Since that is often something new and different, you’re usually not that efficient (at least at first). That’s why efficiency is what keeps dying businesses (and careers) afloat, while effectiveness is what launches new ones into the stratosphere.

Building effectiveness into your life
Look at your own life and work. Are you fixated on being more efficient: on doing more and more of what you already do (though perhaps more easily, cheaply, and with less effort)? Or are you looking to make yourself more effective: to learn new skills, add new experiences, become more creative, and follow your ideas wherever they may take you?
Many people rush about being efficient while strangling their effectiveness. They follow the latest fads in time management and personal productivity, yet cannot spare a moment to discover if what they are getting done so much faster and more easily is worth doing at all.
Here’s the fundamental difference: efficiency tries to save time to do more of the same. Effectiveness uses time to avoid doing only what you have done before, in favor of working out how to do something better. And since time cannot be saved — you can’t store it somewhere to use later — only redirected, saving time to do more of the same is no saving at all. Only by choosing to use your time in new and different ways can you let go of the past to find what the future will offer you.

India's best-known soldier dies!

The Indian general who commanded the military campaign that led to the creation of Bangladesh has died at the age of 94.
Sam Manekshaw, whose career spanned four decades, was one of India's best known and well-respected soldiers.
Under the British, he was decorated for gallantry in World War II for his part fighting the Japanese army in Burma.
After India gained independence, he became chief of the army in 1969 and in 1973 was made field marshal.
Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw: Hero or villain?

http://churumuri.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/field-marshal-sam-manekshaw-hero-or-villain/