Energy Savings - 2

Usage of energy can be calculated through these energy calculators. It helps in monetizing your savings and motivates in implementation.

Template changes (again)

Once again I have changed my template. The previous post on template change is here. This time for the betterment of the world. Not kidding. I wanted to go in for energy saving at my office and as a first step I changed the switch off monitor time from never (yes never) to 30 minutes and then to 15 minutes. This has been implemented in 6 PCs so far and I am trying to get this setting to be implemented in atleast 50 PCs in our office complex. For this I need to project the savings in monetary terms, not in power. As I did some research on it I stumbled on the information that even a white screen uses more energy than a dark screen. So I have started customising my computer to show a less bright screen in as many applications as possible and hence this template change for my blog. Now tell me. Isn't it for the betterment of the world.
More links.
See How you can save $25 to $75 per desktop PC annually here
Some questions on switching off monitors answered here
Energy Star
CIS Knowledge Base

Merge the csv files

For long I have been processing the daily bank statements that we receive at our office one by one. I have always wondered if there is not a better way of doing it. I specifically declined a daily statement for another account fearing having to open multiple files with just a couple of lines to create a weekly or monthly statement. Finally I searched the internet and guess what it can be done through excel itself. No separate tool is needed. How to do it can be seen here. Happy merging now on.

Take "Ctrl" of your browsing / computing.

"Ctrl" really helps in gaining control over the browsing and computing. There are somany shortcuts that make life easier. The ubiquitous "Ctrl+X,Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V" need not be mentioned as they are the most widely used controls next only to "Ctrl+Z. The tabbed browsing of IE has introduced the "Ctrl+Tab" to toggle between tabs. It did take me a couple of days to get out of the hangover created by firefox's "Ctrl+Page Down" to land at the correct shortcut to toggle b/w tabs. There are so many keyboard shortcuts put in place by every software maker to make life easier. Now a days I find myself using less of the mouse (so much for all the ergonomics stuff in it). (I'm planning to post on keyboard shortcuts and expecting it to be a learning experience for me too.)

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It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

www.choladynasty.blogspot.com

Emails and Productivity.

It looks like these two don't go together. Every productivity suggestion includes at least one point about email. Either it is "No email in the first hour" or "No email on one day of a week" or "Separate time slot for emails". In our office we are yet to embrace email for in house communication in a big way. So even internet access is still restricted to a few workstations and mine being one of it. So far I did not have much trouble with spending more time on email. However I used to spend more time on RSS. But once I read that a empty inbox does not help in being productive I made a point not to read more than 10 posts from RSS. I select using the search option (Thunderbird) for random words, read them and in addition something that catches my eye. That really works for me.