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I have been approached by a group of students from our eFutures initiative to try and reduce the power consumption of our computer suites. They've noticed that they remain on during lessons when they are not used and so want to see if I can put them into standby when a user logs off. At first I thought this would be as easy as running a logoff script but that put the computer to sleep during the logoff process and when the computer was brought back the user logoff process had crashed. Has anyone managed to get this to work successfully, maybe with a scheduled task instead. I've found this script as well but I can get it to run as a student as yet as I get an undisclosed error and it just terminates. '** Script Name: "standby-hibernate.vbs" ** Option Explicit On Error Resume Next Dim strComputer, sUserName, bLoggedOn, bReboot, objWMIService, colComputer, objComputer Dim bStandby, objShell, sComputerName strComputer = "." Set objShell = WScript.CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _ & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2") Set colComputer = objWMIService.ExecQuery ("Select * from Win32_ComputerSystem") Do While sUserName <> "null" For Each objComputer in colComputer sUserName = objComputer.UserName sComputerName = objComputer.Name If sUserName <> "null" Then bLoggedOn = True End If Next Loop If Err = 0 Then If bLoggedOn Then WScript.Echo sComputerName & " is not Logged Off." bStandby = False Else WScript.Echo sComputerName & " is Logged Off." bStandby = True End If Else WScript.Echo "Error accessing computer: " & strComputer bStandby = False End If On Error Goto 0 WScript.Echo "bStandby: " & bStandby If bStandby = True Then WScript.Echo "Going into standby..." 'Go to standby objShell.run "%windir%\System32\rundll32.exe Powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState 0", 0, False Else WScript.Echo "Not going into standby..." End If Any suggestions?

Looks like the EPA are going to be mandating energy efficiency stickers on new server gear to make picking a 'green' server easier. Yay, it looks like my new servers will have energy stickers like my fridge . Anyhow this is set to include a power usage vs performance aspect which is sure to stir up the CPU manufacturers regarding the tests involved. Full details on monday (US) apparently so we'll have to wait untill then to find out how many more stickers will need to be removed from new servers. Energy Star server ratings to include power profile | Green Tech - CNET News

Shutdownertron v1.3.3214 is available at Shutdownertron. This release fixes a couple of bugs, plus a full re-write of the local configuration tool and a slight change to the policy definitions (in preparation for a new feature to be released at some future date). Important: The way things are done changes slightly, so please check the following instructions: 1. The Group Policy template is no longer included in the .zip file, but is integrated into the installer. It is not installed by default; you must select it as a feature during install, and it is placed in the INF folder of your Windows installation (usually, C:\Windows\Inf). This makes it much easier to add the template to a GPO if you are installing for the first time, since this is the default location. It also means that if you install the template on a machine with the Group Policy Console, and then proceed to use it, the console upgrades an existing installation automatically. 2. Part of the policy definition has changed, specifically one of the string values has become a numerical value. This means that you must upgrade your agents and your group policy at the same time, and it means that you must check the value of the "Shutdown Mode" setting in Group Policy. Set it to either Shutdown or Reboot. If you have multiple policies, do this in each one. To upgrade the policy, you just need to install the templates on a machine with the Group Policy Management Console installed, and use the GPMC to edit your objects. Shutdownertron's templates will be uploaded to the server automatically. 3. The local configuration tool is now a proper Windows application, rather than an Autoit script with gloss. This reduces the file size by something in the region of 60%, and increases performance significantly. The installer also no longer loses your override preference during an upgrade, however for this release you will still need to set your preference again after upgrade. In the future it will no longer be a problem. All other changes are detailed in the changelog. Once again, your feedback is very much appreciated (especially bugs).

For all of those schools going 'green' or giving it consideration here is an article that I found. It that goes into a few myths about power saveing which could be informative or at the least useful ammo against interfearing consultants. 10 power-saving myths debunked | InfoWorld | Analysis | 2008-10-06 | By Logan G. Harbaugh They do get XPs hibernate and suspend mixed up but other than that the story seems quite good. Interestingly there were a few bits of research a while back that was done to determine how much power could be saved by cooling the equipment using unfiltered outside air and noticed only a 0.6% increase in failure rate but a huge saveing in power. Slashdot | Intel Shows Data Centers Can Get By (Mostly) With Little AC Microsoft took this idea even further and just dumped a whole rack of servers in a tent outside for seven months and had no failures even when they were dripped on by rain. Slashdot | Microsoft Innovates Tent Data Centers Perhaps data centers of the future will look more like wind tunnels than darkened caves, blasted with air from the outside world. Not that I would recommend or consider pushing any of my ageing servers 'out into the cold' but the design of the server room could change dramaticly in the next few years.

I know I bang on about it a lot, but I'm after some feedback for development (otherwise I bore easily, and nobody wants that ) So if you've deployed it (or haven't) any comments?

There are plenty of greens here: Link: Starting with Lizard

For those with a current subscription to a premium upgrade assurance plan, you can now download the latest version (12) of papercut. A couple of really nice features - convert to grey scale (auto convert colour prints to grey scale) and auto convert singled sided to duplex. Could save a fair bit on paper and toners. PaperCut 12.0 automatically converts print jobs to grayscale and duplex – PaperCut Blog / News

Shutdownertron is a decentralised, fully group policy-controlled, automated shutdown mechanism. Features: Group policy control over every feature User abortable if permitted Runs as a service, even if there is no user logged on Decentralised (policy is cached in case of network loss) Customisable display text and warning time Local override tool to prevent specific machines shutting down Can shutdown or reboot MSI agent deployment Version 1.2 is available at http://www.powdarrmonkey.net/shutdownertron/ This is a production release. (Requires .NET v2.0) Contents: MSI for deployment by your chosen method; transforms to control installation of the local override tool (by default, installed on demand); group policy template to add to a GPO. Shutdownertron understands group policy inheritance, so you can specify generic options near the top of your units and more specific differences (eg. shutdown time) further down. If you use Shutdownertron (or evaluate it and choose not to), please detail your experiences to shape future releases.

Very large 16-18 school looking for a new recycling contract which is of mutual benefit to your company and ours. We have large quanitites of IT materials to be recycled and in return are looking for a usable IT suite for our technology dpt base stations and TFT monitors minimum specification dual core 2gb ram or better. At present considering becoming a base for recycling from our feeder schools. Very attractive PR package as our partners. Please PM me with details

Cloud Computing : Top 5 checks 1) Does your cloud provider offer security appropriate to the service? For example, ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security and CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checks where access to data about children is concerned. Where does the service operate from and is it covered by Data Protection Act (DPA)? This is crucial where personal data is sent outside of the European Economic Area (EEA)! Safe Harbor is an alternative safeguard Export.gov - Safe Harbor. Remember the 8 key DPA principles are: - Personal data shall be processed fairly and lawfully and, in particular, shall not be processed unless – (a) at least one of the conditions in Schedule 2 is met, and (b) in the case of sensitive personal data, at least one of the conditions in Schedule 3 is also met. - Personal data shall be obtained only for one or more specified and lawful purposes, and shall not be further processed in any manner incompatible with that purpose or those purposes. - Personal data shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purpose or purposes for which they are processed. - Personal data shall be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. - Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes. - Personal data shall be processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects under this Act. - Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data. Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data. 2) What are the stated availability targets for the service and against what timeframes are these measured? How quickly will the service be recovered in the event of a major incident, or even disaster? What penalties, or credits, are in place if Service Level Agreement (SLA) targets are not met? 3) Do you have enough bandwidth capacity? Remember, you, your colleagues and your customers may be accessing multiple services from differing bandwidths with varying contention ratios. Whilst most web traffic is efficient over HTTP and HTTPS (ports 80 and 443), other methods for accessing services such as Citrix, or Terminal Services, can be less efficient – even when encapsulated within HTTP/S. 4) What options are available for offline productivity? Gears is Google’s way of offering access to some online files offline by adding additional features to your web browser. However, Google’s strategy is shifting from Gears to online storage and development ceased in February 2010. Features available in HTML5 offer equivalent alternatives to Gears and can clearly be taken advantage of by all web service providers. Unfortunately, HTML5 as a ratified World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard is some way off! However, parts of HTML5 are already implemented in browsers including Web Storage and DOM Storage (Document Object Model) – web application software methods and protocols used for storing data in a web browser. 5) And finally portability! How easy will it be to move, or share, your data? Look for open standards for data migration and interoperability. In the education marketplace the Systems Interoperability Framework (SIF) is your best bet! You may also consider options to improve your customer experience through standards for Single Sign-on such as OpenID or Shibboleth (SAML 2.0). This will allow you to provide many cloud services from many different providers, whilst maintaining a single set of access credentials with one-time login and increased security.