I’ve posted several times about how I believe you should shutdown your computer when you are finished with it for the day. If not manually then through a scheduled command such as: shutdown /s For cases where a “blind” automated shutdown is not doable, the utility WinOFF can help. AMP WinOFF is an utility designed to schedule the shut down of...

You may know that today is Earth Day. As someone who is personally a big believer and participant in reducing the footprint we have on our planet I feel obligated to post something on this subject. So I am reaching out to our readers to ask that tonight, if you don’t already, turn off your computer when you are done using it. It is a myth that turning your...

At work, we have a typical small business setup with a single server and several workstations. Each workstation has the ability for remote connection for working at home, which requires the computer be available on demand. To save power, we want the computer to be in sleep mode when it is not being used. So to make the computer available when needed a simple...

For some reason the hibernate function is not enabled in either Windows Vista or Windows 7 by default (even if your BIOS supports it). On top this, enabling this power saving feature isn’t as simple as marking a check box. If you want to make use of this rather nice function then here is how to do it in Windows Vista and Windows 7. I find this feature...

Vampire power usage can be a real drain on your power consumption and, in turn, your check book. Wikipedia defines vampire power as: [T]he electric power consumed by electronic appliances while they are switched off or in a standby mode. Basically it is a device which uses power “waiting” for you (i.e. in standby mode). 99% of the time this is wasted...

While not as popular as the PC vs. Mac or Windows vs. Linux debates are today, the argument for either leaving your computer on all the time or turning it off at night has certainly had it’s fair share of discussion. So to revisit this subject, I thought I would pass along a few articles which address this very subject:Q/A on HowStuffWorks – This...

As you can probably tell by many posts I make, I am very interested in cutting down on the power my computer uses. The problem when trying to ‘spread the word’ is you always have to overcome things which may have been true 10 years ago, but are basically myths now. While this is not true in every case, it is true a lot of the time. A good article I...

With energy prices rising and likely to continue that trend for the forseeable future, conserving energy not only makes financial sense, but environmental sense as well. To help with these tasks here are a couple of items which are very valuable:Smart Power Strip – These are really cool as a single outlet on this strip controls whether or not power is...

Not too long ago I wrote about an ‘odd job’ command line tool, but today’s tip focuses on a command line tool which is specifically for controlling power functions: Wizmo. Wizmo allows you to do tasks such as:Turn off your monitor(s) Put your computer into standby or hibernation Mute/unmute, turn up or down your speaker volume Utilize the...

One feature you many not know about Windows is you can easily change how the power button operates. By default it, obviously, turns off the computer but this can be changed so that it puts the computer into standby, hibernate or does nothing. To make this change:Open the Control Panel. Select the Power Options. In Vista, click the “Change How the Power...

A feature I have come to love is wake on lan which allows you to start a computer remotely across the network. One limitation to it, however, is that you can only send the ‘magic packet’ across your local network. Well, if you want to be able to wake your computer from anywhere then check out this tool from DSL Reports. Using the Wake On Lan tool on...

One problem I run into on systems which have USB devices plugged into them when resuming from [S3] standby is an error message which reads: Power Surge on Hub Port: A USB Device has exceeded the power limits of its hub port. This message is followed by a dialog box which forces you to reset the USB device’s connection. Of course, this can get somewhat...

One of the drawbacks to putting your system to sleep is that certain devices or programs can be ‘messed up’ due to the system powering down. This can cause a problem when the system resumes as when power is restored, the item may think it is malfunctioning. If this is a problem, try Hibernate Trigger. This unique program allows you to specify a...

When I am not using my computer, I like to put it into standby mode. This helps save power and cuts down on the heat output when I am not using the computer. A shortcut (literally) that I use is a command line batch script to put the system into standby. From this Microsoft article, the command is simply: %windir%\System32\rundll32.exe...

If you have a media center (or any other) PC which utilizes a remote control or some other USB powered device, you may find that when you resume from standby the device needs to be “reset”. Having this annoyance is probably enough to set your computer to never go into standby. Instead of jumping to this ‘drastic’ measure, check out Slick...