c. scott andreas

In case you were looking for another reason to kick that YouTube / CuteOverload habit, researcher-for-hire David Sarokin has calculated that the Internet accounts for 9.4% of all electricity consumed in the U.S. and 5.3% worldwide between clients, servers, and networking equipment (See Fig. 1 after the jump).

That’s a whopping 350 billion kWh at home and 868 billion ’round the globe annually (data breakdown below). And the web’s not getting any smaller.

Uh-oh.

Datacenters suck a lot of power - that’s no secret. Along with ensuring physical security, stable power supplies, beefy backbones, and cooling on a massive scale (!), these server farms pack blades that churn 24/7/365 about as tightly as the poor pigs in the Meatrix. The government is well-aware of all of this - the Congress and the EPA recently had a huddle and concluded that something’s gotta be done (See Fig 2.).

But the real problem is the PC you’re staring at right now.

Individuals and offices who leave their desktop PCs and monitors on 24/7/365 are hemorrhaging electricity and developing holes in their wallets. Turning off one desktop PC + monitor combo will save about $90 each year according to Microsoft’s Small Business Center. “Sleep” mode helps - power consumption drops about 91%. Want to really save the world? Start hibernating.

From MSFT:

Lab tests done by Dell show that a PC running Microsoft Office uses 42.7 watts, McCall says. If it runs continuously at that rate for 365 days, at 7 cents per kilowatt-hour, the power consumption costs would be $26.18 for the PC and $45.99 for a regular monitor, for a total of $72.17 for the workstation.

Meanwhile, if a PC was kept in “sleep” mode for 20 hours, for every four hours “on,” as Dell recommends, the annual energy costs per PC would total $16.17 with a regular monitor and $9.88 with a flat panel. Using “hibernate,” the costs would be slightly cheaper.

It’s also worth pointing out that laptops use roughly 1/6 as much electricity as desktop PCs and almost nothing when in “sleep mode,” in case you were looking for another reason to justify that shiny new MacBook Pro.

But if you’ve got a PC that’s sitting and running just for the hell of it, or one that’s humming 24/7/365 without a pair of eyes gawking, it’s time to pull the plug. Need a little help with energy management and use Windows (for some reason)? Grab LocalCooling and do something nice for yourself.

(ht: Slashdot)

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Earlier today, Apple issued a press release - not via their web site, but through an outside PR firm. Here’s an excerpt:

Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed.

This press release suggests that, one way or another, unlocked iPhones ’round the world may magically do something quite unmagical: brick themselves. The question “why” - malice, brand arrogance, or pressure from the Death Star remains.[1]

The move should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Apple’s long history of toeing the line between a benevolent dictatorship and, well, the other kind. Though many of Apple’s products (both hardware and software) can be taught new tricks once off the shelf, modding has always been discouraged. Instances such as this highlight the distinction between ninth-grade charicatures of the personal autonomy afforded by modern liberalism (do as you please, but do no harm) versus that of a totalitarian sociey in which the prole is “free” so long as s/he doesn’t wake the angry dragon. This dragon’s waking up, and a little smoke is seeping through the nostrils.

I love my PowerBook G4, Apple Keyboard, 5G iPod, and yes, my liberated iPhone. But if things keep going as they are, I might be shopping around.

More Woz, less Steve.

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[1] Confused? Check out the AT&T logo.

Adam Walker Cleaveland (Pomomusings.com) wrote a simple WordPress plugin to display your Facebook status (or any of several other items) on your blog. It’s called StatusPress and is available here. There’s a tip jar, too - drop a buck thirty-five in if you dig it.

I’m a bit of a Facebook junkie, too - notice I’ve added it to the bottom of my header. However, I’ve also taken it a tiny bit further:

• The plugin now retrieves the date/time information from your Facebook status and shows how long it’s been since you’ve told the world what you’re up to.
• StatusPress’ tags are now classed as “statuspress” to allow easy styling via CSS.

Ideally, I’d like to turn it into a sidebar widget. That way, adding it to your site would be as simple as dragging and dropping it onto your sidebar in the Sidebar Widgets panel and setting the options - no editing your template or even seeing PHP code. It’d probably take about half an hour, but that’s a little more than I can handle right now.

If you like, you can download Adam’s plugin with my humble modifications here.

Enjoy!

Last week, I received an iPhone as bounty for some of my work on a super-secret project with a super-secret company (*wink*). You can imagine how stoked I was about this, I’m sure. Since I’m moving to the UK in two weeks, I don’t have service through AT&T but am happily using it as an awesome PDA + camera + iPod combo.

I took iPhone with me to Seattle last weekend to give it a “travel test” and am very happy with how it turned out. Despite its poor performance in very bright and very dim conditions, I was very impressed with the camera (the next few photos below were taken using it). I’ll definitely be taking more snapshots now that I have a decent small camera to carry around.

Here’s the kicker, though: mobile blogging is astonishingly simple.

1. I took a shot with the camera and tapped “E-mail Photo.”
2. I chose my Flickr Account’s e-mail address out of the address book, added a title and description, and hit “Send.”
3. The next time I walked by an open access point, iPhone hopped on to start sending the messages (via an encrypted SMTP connection).
4. Once the messages sent, Flickr added the images to my account and automatically posted them to my blog

Now that’s cool.

More tricks later.

As some of you know, I’m a web developer and Wordpress is my platform. Though it started as a simple blogging tool, many such as myself see potential for Wordpress as a robust content management system (CMS).

However, Wordpress has a lot of shortcomings – not the least of which is the lack of a “blocks” component that would allow you to easily create an unlimited number of editable regions on your Wordpress site (a la Drupal). That could mean editable sidebars, special content blocks that only show up on certain pages, or a few editable items that are displayed everywhere. It’s time to do something about this.

In a few weeks, I’ll be releasing a plugin + widget called “Elements.”

Right now, I’m using it to create editable sidebar blocks that can display text, images, forms, etc. – all managed in Wordpress’ rich editor. I’m also mixing in some Mootools and sIFR – these sidebar blocks slide in and out when users click the element titles (which generate SEO-friendly rich typography using Flash). It’s flippin’ sweet.

Easy to use. No more template hacks. Based on Wordpress’ built-in “Page” architecture.

Wordpress is awesome. But the dial on this thing goes to 11, right? Let’s crank it.

WebWorkerDaily tipped me off about a new tool put out by a Swedish non-profit organization called Barnraiser. Barnraiser aims to build free collaboration tools that create spaces for groups to meet and get things done for the good of open society. It’s a pretty cool vision.

I tried a quick demo of the software and wasn’t immediately blown away, but it’s worth noting that you can integrate Google Maps, Flickr albums, YouTube videos, and a Last.FM player into your group space.

As I often spend weekends playing with new technologies, I’ll mess around with this a bit and offer some thoughts. This could be handy.

37Signals has a brilliant post on their blog called “I Wonder.”

My son loves toy catalogs. He’ll turn the pages and just imagine. He drinks the koolaid, and loves every minute of it. I love to watch him.

I hope he never gets to the point where he thumbs through a catalog and scoffs. Where he reads the descriptions and cynically dares them to be true. I want him to always retain his sense of wonder, his desire to believe the best.

What has happened to our optimism?

I tried with all of my might to conjure up this sense of wonder while watching Teh Steve’s WWDC Keynote…but it was just so tough. I’m not really exited. I want to be – I want so badly to believe.

I want to believe in iPhone, too. But with no SDK, no support for Flash, and limited availability at present…I can’t. It’s an amazing phone - positively groundbreaking…or “revolutionary” as I’m told to say. But I just can’t do it.

And I want to believe in Coda by the amazing guys at Panic who work a few blocks away. But without great support for content management-based development, I can’t shell out.

I admit that there is a cynical spirit at work in me. But at the same time, I feel let down by these amazing companies to whom I’ll gladly surrender my bank account in exchange for outstanding hardware and software.

The developer in me still has faith. I’m working on a project that has me tremendously excited at the moment - a project that could revolutionize the way churches come together and actually serve their local communities. May you find a project to ignite your undying work-til-3-am-and-sleep-til-7 passion as well.

The bar has been set really, really high, and the web has never been better than it is right now. But that’s no reason to stop making really great tools. I hope. We can keep this up.

Because underneath all of this beautiful code lies the passion.

 UPDATE:  I just bought Coda.  Played around with it for awhile.  It’s cleverly.  Thanks, Cabel and co.  Enjoy my $79…and maybe a cup on me in a couple weeks.

For those of you lucky enough to live in the Bay Area, there’s a party tonight hosted by Delicious Monster called “The Delicious Generation.” According to the invite, a frustrated developer recently declared the present state of coding - especially on the Mac platform - “All sizzle and no steak.”

As any Mac user will tell you, the steak is definitely there and it’s filet mignon. But it’s the sizzle that makes you smile and say, “Oooh!”

I get a lot more use out of apps that are fun to use (and much to the chagrin of my clients, Billings 2.5 is wicked beautiful). If an app is a pain to work with, I avoid it at all costs (sorry Peachtree - never going back).

Here’s one developer proud to be a part of the Delicious Generation.

Because great software is fun(ctional).