Useful Information from the Computer Guys Program

Stormy Weather Can Fry Electronics! Late spring is storm season in the Kansas City area.  We’re talking about middle-of-the-night thunderstorms, evening super cell mega-storms and squall lines with  lots of lightning and wind.  Lightning strikes nearby can run into your house along telephone lines, power lines and cable TV lines and deliver a debilitating surge to whatever is connected. Are you protected?  Here are some tips: *Be sure your sensitive electronics are plugged into a high-quality surge protector or UPS (uninterruptible power supply). *You can even go so far as to have an electrician install protection for your entire home. *When in doubt, unplug it!  Turning it off won’t prevent damage from a surge. *Check out KCPL’s storm center web page:  http://www.kcpl.com/storm/storm_prepare.html Information and resources from the “Green Computing” program on 10/22/07: Listen to the program A bunch of facts: •    12% of PCs and cell phones are recycled; however, as a country, the U.S. recycles about 32% of its waste (source: EPA) •    Computer monitors and old TVs contain an average of 4 lbs. of lead, along with cadmium, chromium, mercury, and other toxic materials. (source: EPA) •    You can save between $25 and $75 per year per PC by using its power management features. (source: Energy Star; eWeek) •    Power Down! About 31.2 million of the 104 million PCs in the U.S. are left on all night. (source: EPA) •    A typical Pentium 4 PC with a 17" LCD monitor draws about 102.6 watts of power.  That same PC and display in a sleep state draws only 5.6 watts, or 97 fewer watts.  (source: Microsoft Windows Vista blog)    If you figure that a PC is used for active work for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks per year, that is 2,600 operating hours. With 8,760 hours in a year (365*24), there are actually 6,160 potential idle hours per year.  Since sleep mode uses 97 fewer watts than full power mode, the total savings is 597 kWh per year -- and by the way, the impact is obviously even greater (760 kWh) if you use a CRT monitor since they draw more power than LCDs. Web Resources: Saving power with Linux Energy Star Energy Star Home Energy Yardstick EPA’s Personal Emissions Calculator Other calculators SafeClimate Resurgence Magazine What you can do: 1.    Power Down!  Turn off your PC after work or overnight. 2.    Configure your PC’s power management for savings. 3.    Drop the brightness level on your monitor. 4.    Switch off everything at the wall. 5.    Turn off your ADSL modem at night. 6.    Turn off Bluetooth if you don’t use it. 7.    Get an LCD monitor and retire your CRT! 8.    Recycle your obsolete electronics. Mac User? Pay attention to this: Warning!  A Mac OSX Trojan Horse has been released on the internet.  For instructions on how to detect & remove it, visit this web site:  www.macworld.com/2007/10/firstlooks/trojanhorse/ Partial list of recyclers for electronics and computers: Electronic Shredding Jewish Vocational Service 1608 Baltimore Kansas City, Mo  64108 (816) 471-2808 http://www.jvskc.org (The JVS 'Electronic Shredding' service, starting at $10, thoroughly erases all data from a PC's hard disk drive so that you can confidently sell, donate or dispose of it without worrying that the next user might recover personal or private information.) The Surplus Exchange 518 Santa Fe, Kansas City MO 64105 816-472-0444   Beyond Bytes 17331 E. 40 Highway, Indep. MO 816-479-4100   Personal Computer Center Picks up in volume in MO and KS 913-541-1221    Computers To Go 4055 Broadway, Kansas City, MO 64111 816-753-2002   Disabled American Veterans 919 Minnesota Ave, Kansas City, KS 66101 913-321-4389. Pick up 816-363-5595 Devices must be in working order.  Information from The Computer Guys program on 12/13/07 program: Listen to the program Web 2.0 sites of interest www.meebo.com aggregates all of your IM services in a web browser; single sign-in. www.snoozester.com  wakes you up for a fee.  Basically, it’s an Internet-based alarm clock. www.wists.com social shopping.  http://www.oobject.com/ shopping with category ranks. http://www.cribcandy.com/ cool stuff for your ‘crib,’ that is discovered and shared by others. www.archimy.com draws graphs from equations. www.nymbler.com name your baby. www.1000keyboards.com authors write, comment and collaborate on stories. www.stixy.com Online sticky-board, bulletin board thingy. www.jaiku.com It's similar to twitter. www.pownce.com It's also like twitter, but you can send more than just short messages; you can use like a file sharing service and send files to people. It has a desktop client you can use that's built in Adobe's AIR framework. www.stumbleupon.com Great for finding random, cool websites that you might not find otherwise. www.jott.com call Jott from your cellphone and tell it to remind you by e-mail.  Speech-to-text! www.twitter.com let people know what you’re doing right now. www.iwantsandy.com  Sandy is kind of like a personal calendar assistant. http://bubblus.com online brainstorming. www.stikkit.com helps you organize and share daily details. http://del.icio.us online bookmarks. www.rememberthemilk.com another online assistant like I Want Sandy. www.pageflakes.com create your own customized home page and pagecast it.  www.whatsyour20.com is a travel site with information local to wherever you happen to be.