Google.com Vs Blackle.com... Is it really worth?

Since there was a discussion about blackle.com in one of the comment, just thought could put this as a seperate post.

It has been very evident that people insist on using BLACKLE.COM as an alternative to GOOGLE.COM on the basis of power saving. And in fact the site "BLACKLE.COM" itself speaks about huge power savings that could be achieved this way...... Now the question is how far is this true?

As everyone of you know, the GOOGLE site has a white background by virtue of which it consumes the maximum power when compared to other colours. (RGB in ratio 1:1:1)

So lets get into the actuals which speak of how worthy is blackle.com in comparison with google.com.

If u r using a CRT monitor, then ofcourse using blackle.com can save a lot of power. Why? As expained above, the RGB ratio of white color. CRT uses the generic RGB principle to lit the screen by different colors owing to which the power consumption is high for white and low for black.

But just in case if u r using a flat/ LCD monitor, think again.. because LCD monitor ends up using more power in case of blackle.com when compared to normal google.com. Why is this? Its just because the way LCD's work. In LCD's, continous light is lit behind which passes through the subpixels and based on polarization and with a proportionate charge, it is displayed as a respective color pixel. When no electricity is passed through the polarized filters, all the backlight will be allowed by the subpixel to pass through to the front screeen,which means white light takes no additional electricity to be displayed on the screen. But when black pixel needs to be shown, additional electricity will be used to block the light which means more power consumption.

And just for statistics, blackle.com ends up using 3-5 WHr more power than google.com in case of LCD / Flat monitors.

But one more fact to be considered here is that almost all search engine users in the world usually keep there search engine screen open for only about 2 secs on an average after which they navigate to the respective site according to search results. This is just for ur information, which means power saving is minimal on per-user basis but definitely a large quantity when collectively visualized.

So, in short, if u r using CRT monitors, use blackle.com as ur home page and if u r using a LCD monitor/ flat monitors/ laptops, use normal google page as ur home page :-)

Happy Power Saving!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Energy Savers - What's on the card?

When I was browsing through the newspaper, I came through a press statement, which stated about the inability of the electricity board to provide 24 hours power supply following the poor monsoon conditions. It also said that if the current situation continues, the power generation will come to a hault due to non-availability of water in the dams.

Myself being a software professional, I just wanted to see what could be done from my side, rather our side that could help to handle the power crisis situation. I know I myself can't do a great deal but probably following few regular tips may really help to give a supporting hand to handle the power crisis as well as a great deal of money savings for your organization.

Before I continue, let me give few statistics :

The average power consumption of a desktop when it is fully functional is about 300-400 watts per hour depending on the graphics card and other power driven equipments connected to your desktop. And when the system is idle, it draws approximately 150-200 watts per hour. A 17 inch monitor alone draws approximately 80 watts per hour.

The above are just an approximate statistics of power utilized by a standard PC provided by any software company to its employee.

Now let me take an example of an IT firm which has about 10,000 employees. Assuming each employee using a desktop, there are 10,000 desktops being used by the firm. Assuming that the employees ideally work from 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM (Approximately). I am quite sure that almost all employees would just lock the system before leaving for their homes. This means that the systems will be idle for about 14 hrs a day. So taking account of the 10,000 employees of the firm, number of hours the systems are idle in a day is approximately 1,40,000 hours.

Now summarizing the above cost factor and idle time factors:

Power utilized by a idle system : 200 watt-hour
No of idle hours of desktop of a firm : 1,40,000 hours

Total power consumed during this period : 2,80,00,000 watt-hours = 28,000 KWHr

So this comes to approximately 28 Mega Watts Hour just for one software firm with 10,000 employees.

Now let me summarize this for just one city, Bangalore. Statistically, Bangalore has around 1000+ software firms. Assuming that there are around 5,000 desktops being used by these firms, the total number of desktops in Bangalore alone will be around 50,00,000.

Again summarizing the above,

Power utilized 10,000 desktops : 28,000 KWHr
Power utilized by 50,00,000 desktops : (28,000 * 50,00,000) / 10,000 = 1,40,00,000 KWHr = 1,40,00,000 Units

If you are surprized, then probably you have not yet realized that the above figures are only for a single day in Bangalore.

Alone in Bangalore, the power wasted in a month is about 42,00,00,000 Units.

Don't you think all this could be just prevented by a simple "Alt + F4" and "ENTER" before you leave for your house. These are just statistics of a single city, 42 crores of power units per month can be saved by just switching off your desktops before you leave for the day.

And for those people who think that blank screen saver could save power, it has been very much evident that a blanking screen monitor consumes 30-40 watt-hour in comparison to "NIL" of a monitor switched off.

Ofcourse, System in standby mode absolutely utilizes no power, but again a desktop power settings usually has a standby mode gap of one hour. Let me not get into those calculations again.

Its quite simple,
Switching off the monitor with blank screensaver saves 40 WHr.
Switching off the monitor in general saves 80 WHr.
Switching off your desktop saves overall 150-200 WHr.
Setting standby mode for system saves 90% of power utilized after idle state.

So for the next time, you leave your office for the day, please switch off your monitor, switch off your computer and help save precious power. Just to save your 2 mins to start your desktop in the morning, why to waste crores of precious power units, ask this to yourself and you can provide your helping hand for a noble cause to care for our environment.

The statistics above may be approximate, but the purpose can still be served even if each one of us could save one power unit per day.