Green Computing

I've been doing alot of reading lately on how to be a greener consumer. About a month ago, I changed all the 60 watt light bulbs in the house for 14 watt compact fluorescent bulbs. I know they aren't "green" because of the mercury content, but they do use only a quarter of the electricity. I'll probably change out the rest of the bulbs in the apartment for fluorescents very soon. After the initial purchase of power saving bulbs, I started to look into cheaper computing. I've always been a fan of desktop computers because of their lower pricetag and higher performance., but after reading some more, I found that the total cost of ownership is the same or higher than laptops. A typical laptop only uses around 65 watts when the system is fully used give or take. Compare that to a desktop which uses easily twice that without even considering the monitor. A gaming machine can use quite a bit more. Then I read somewhere else that an LCD monitor uses only a quarter of the power of an old CRT the same size. WOW! Once you do the math, the total cost of ownership can be much less with a laptop. The exception: Apple! iMacs use less than 100 watts at full performance, and the mac mini uses about the same as a laptop. One more reason to switch to a mac.

If anyone actually reads my blog at this point, please leave more energy saving tips in the comments if you know of any. Thanks.