Go green

I notice some company started to be environmental friendly, running some campaign and conform to the ISO 14000 standard. The ISO 14000/14001 is an environment management standard. Simple steps you do may help the environment, like switch off the light before you leave your office, don't keep the water pipe running if you are no using it...

IT people try to be environmental friendly these days, by cutting down paper usage. They use email, and not fax, they exchange documentation using PDF attachment in email. They use electronic yellow stickies on desktop...

Most software developers read their program source on their screen (monitor). I notice a lot of the junior programmers (or you can call the rookies if you want), always print out their source code on papers for reading, it is a waste of paper usage. Read it on the monitor or read it on printed paper is just a habit. Once you get use to it, is not a problem for most software developers to read program source code on monitor.

I know some senior programmers still need to print out their source code on papers, they must be born at 60s or earlier, then be it. If you are newer generation, please read your source code on your monitor, just get a bigger (19", 20") monitor, if one is not enough, get two.

My first job as a programmer in a MIS department, print a lot of papers. When they found out any bug in a program, the first thing they will do is print out the program source code (on paper). Even is just a minor change like adding an arithmetic operator or one line if condition checking code, they still print it out. Even we use up both page of the paper before we recycle it, is still a waste of paper.

The modern CPU design is not just go for speed, but target for low power consumption. It generate less heat, save more power and more cost efficient. Especially for those data center, running hundreds of cpu, lower down the power consumption will save the cost.

blackle.com, dark surfing experience.

Black web page surfing idea, try to create web page with back insteed of white background. They claim that back display consume less watts compare with a white display (refer here) on cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor, but not LCD. Some software developer quickly develop a dark google search page, like Blacke. But there is a debate on white web page display really consume more energy or not.

This girl send 30 to 35k sms per month!

Recently I read a news on the internet, an iPhone user (Justine Ezarik) received a 300 pages bill, printed both side, from AT&T. The phone bill are so detail that, every call and data transaction was listed on it. The user has posted the video on youtube. AT&T announce that they will simplified the phone bill. That is good.