Faronics Power Save and Microsoft Windows® 7

My company, Enovative Energy Solutions, recently become a reseller of Faronics Power Save. The Faronics website says that Faronics Power Save 3.3 is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. My question: what about Windows 7, which started shipping last month?

Here are the results of my tests:

• Workstation Computers – Power Save 3.3 client can work with a few tweaks (details later in this post)
  
• Core Console – I was not able to get Faronics Core Console to run on Windows 7, but this is hardly a major issue because it works fine with Windows XP (or Windows Vista). With some futzing, I suspect I could make this work, but it was not a priority for me.
  

Installing FARONICS Power Save on Windows 7 required a few tricks. Neither is very tricky, both involve file compatibility settings. By way of background, workstations need two pieces installed:

1. The Faronics Core Agent provides connectivity for Power Save (and other Faronics products). Its installation file is named Faronics Core Agent.msi.
   
2. The Power Save Add-In provides the power management-specific elements. Its installation file is PowerSave_Ent_32-bit.msi for systems running 32-bit OSes.
   

The first trick starts by manually copying both files to a workstation. Set the compatibility mode for both MSI files to a "Previous version of Windows". (See the Step-by-Step section for details on how to do this.) Then run both install files (starting with the core agent installer).

After installing both components, things look okay. That is, the Core console can see the Windows 7 workstations. Look more closely. The console does not recognize the Windows version. This brings me to the second trick...

The second trick is to modify the compatibility settings to make the applications themselves appear to be running Windows Vista SP2 (instead of Windows 7). Among other things, this enables the Faronics code to know that user account control (UAC) support is present, along with other Windows Vista power management features. Details on this second trick are described below, in the step-by-step instructions section.

Step-By-Step Instructions

Details on the first trick – after you copy the MSI files to the target workstation...

1. Run Windows Explorer.
   
2. Locate the two MSI files (Faronics Core Agent.msi and PowerSave_Ent_32-bit.msi).
   
3. For each MSI file, right-click on the MSI file, and then…
   
4. Select the Properties item on the popup menu. A property sheet appears (see screenshot, below).
   
5. On the property sheet, click on the [Compatibility] tab.
   
6. Click the checkbox labeled Run the program in compatibility mode for.
   
7. Close with the [Ok] button.
   

Details on the second trick are to set the executable compatibility mode to Windows Vista SP2 for all executables and all users:

1. Run Windows Explorer
   
2. Find the Faronics core programs (\Program Files\Faronics\Faronics Core\Workstation Agent).
   
3. Locate the two executable files (EnterpriseWorkstationService.exe and FraonicsCoreAgentConfiguration.exe)
   
4. For each executable file, right click on the file, and then…
   
5. Select the Properties item on the popup menu. A property sheet appears…
   
6. On the property sheet, click on the [Compatibility] tab.
   
7. Very important step! – on the bottom of this page, click the button labeled [Change settings for all users]. A second property sheet appears (see figure, below).
   
8. Click the checkbox labeled Run the program in compatibility mode for.
   
9. Open the list below the checkbox and select Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) from the list.
   
10. Close each property sheet by clicking on the [Ok] buttons.
    
11. Follow steps 4-10 for all Power Save executable files (located here: \Program Files\Faronics\Power Save Workstation).
    
12. To enable these changes, reboot the workstation.
    

I would like to write a utility that enables all these features, and hopefully will find the time. But probably not until after Thanksgiving…

The Lights Are on but Nobody’s Home

You are, again, the last one to leave the office. You turn the lights out as you make your way towards the door. And you notice something that you have seen a thousand times before but never thought about: all the computers in your office are still on. Or, as the title of this entry suggests, the lights are on but nobody's home.

What are all those computers doing at night? In some cases, they are downloading software or security updates. Most of the time, however, they do nothing. More accurately, they burn electricity but produce no useful work. Each is like a tiny furnace, burning chunks of fossil fuel, doing nothing but – at the same time – not doing anything good. What can be done?

Isn't Electricity Clean?

But wait – electricity is a clean source of power. You don't need to worry, right? Actually, each kilowatt of electricity creates 1.33 pounds of CO2. That is the average for the United States, and is based on the fact that 50% of electricity in the United States is generated by burning coal. It is the cheapest form of fuel, which is why it is so attractive to power companies. From an environmental point of view, coal is the dirtiest and so – in environmental terms, at least – is more expensive in terms of its contribution to Global Warming. Is there a good alternative around? Yes, natural gas. Details of that will have to wait for another time.

Controlling PC Power

Computer power management – also sometimes known as "PC power management" – involves taking steps to reducing the power wasted when computers are sitting idle. At home, the best thing you can do is to turn off the computer when you are not using it. Many people already do this at home, but more people need to get on the bandwagon.

In the office – especially in larger companies – computers are generally left on all night. Why? The stated reason is that IT departments need to update software at night. And yet, the actual time needed for this activity is generally very small (a few hours per month, perhaps). During the rest of the time these systems burn electricity, grind down their parts (especially the motors, which typically turn at 5,000 - 10,000 RPM) while doing no useful work. Quite a bit of money could be saved by turning off these workstations at night and over weekends. How much?

How Much Can Be Saved?

For an example, let's go to Hawaii. It has the highest electricity rates, and so can be used to best illustrate the possible savings. If you worked in Hawaii (I am told that there are people who work there) in a firm with 100 desktop workstations and each workstation used 135 watts of power (an average amount for typical systems), the cost of electricity for each year would be about $26,000. Turning those workstations off on evenings and weekends would save your firm about $20,000 per year. That is a 76% reduction. Run the calculations for yourself by clicking on this link: http://www.enovativenergy.com/Cpm_Calculator.aspx?Systems=100&Watts=135&Rate=22.20

As attractive as Hawaii might be as a vacation destination, it does have the highest utility rates. What kind of savings would be possible for a similar firm in another location – say in Chicago? At 11.42 cents per kilowatt hour, the rates are half of those found in Hawaii. They are also closer to the average for the whole USA. The cost of running the same PCs as in the previous example (100 systems with each using 135 watts of power) is around $13,500. Turn them off on evenings and weekends, however, and those same workstations only cost $3,200 – a net savings of $10,300. Run the calculation yourself by clicking on this link: http://www.enovativenergy.com/Cpm_Calculator.aspx?Systems=100&Watts=135&Rate=11.42.

Automating PC Power Management

When there are many systems that need to be controlled, it helps to have power management software to help automate the process. This allows centralized control over many computer systems, and is surprisingly affordable. In fact, in many cases the electrical utilities will subsidize the cost of purchasing such software. For details on computer power management, check out this page on the Enovative Energy website: http://www.enovativenergy.com/cpm.aspx.

The Life Box – Is It “Biomimicry” ?

I got a "Life Box" in the mail yesterday. Here is a picture of it.

There are many reasons to like the Life Box. But first, what is a Life Box, anyway?

The Life Box is a cardboard box. You ship things around in it. But it is different from other cardboard boxes because the Life Box has seeds impregnated in it (plus some mushroom mycelium). When you are done with shipping it around (and, hopefully, it will get used and reused several times), you "retire" the box to let the seeds germinate. What do they grow? Trees. Trees for shade. Trees for camping under. Trees for absorbing CO2.

The Life Box provides a second use for something that many worry about because of its environmental impact, namely packing material. The Life Box gives a second, long-lasting purpose to what otherwise would end up as trash. This cartoon on the side of a Life Box suggests its destiny in four cartoon frames:

Why the mushroom mycelium? I'm not a mushroom expert (a "mycologist"), but the person who invented the Life Box is. That person, Paul Stamets, has an undying passion for the environment. The role of the mycelium is to help the seedlings along, in a symbiotic relationship that I don't quite understand, except to say that such relationships in Nature are a good thing. Thank God for them! You know what a "Life Box" is, so is this a case of "biomimicry"?

What is Biomimicry? In the words of Janine Benyus, biomimicry is "about taking the genius of the natural world and learning something from it". Benyus coined the term biomimicry in her 1997 book, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.

Examples of Biomimicry can, perhaps, make clear what Janine means. Examples include velcro (inspired by burrs stuck to dog fur), passive cooling (observed in termite towers in Africa), and self-healing plastics (like the way blood clots). You can find more examples in these two articles: Fifteen Coolest Cases of Biomimicry and Nature-Inspired Innovation: 9 Examples of Biomimicry in Action.

The Life Box Is A Clever Way To Transport Seeds, and in that way The Life Box has similarities to pine cones, dandelions, and peaches. Each of these demonstrates Nature's cleverness in propogating seeds. Like pine cones, the Life Box protects its seeds until they are ready to grow. Like dandelions, whose parachutes carry the seeds through the air, the Life Box allows seeds to be carried over a distance. (Since cargo often travels in airplanes, the comparison is even more apt.) Like peaches, whose fleshy pulp nourishes baby seeds, the Life Box has mushroom mycelium that nurtures its seeds.

My Conclusion on the original question, "Is the Life Box the product of biomimicry?", is that I do not know. According to Janine Benyus' definition, it depends whether Mr. Stamets was inspired by the "genius of Nature" or not. For that, I need to ask the inventor. Which means, I'm afraid, it must be the subject of a future post. Whatever the source, there is genius in the Life Box.

For more information on the Life Box, visit this website: www.lifeboxcompany.com.

PC Power Management – Savings Calculator

I wrote a PC power management savings calculator a few weeks back. The purpose of this online calculator is to estimate the savings for adopting a PC power management solution.

The Variables

A challenge in estimating the savings is that there are a few variables that need to be taken into account. Those variables are:
(1) The number of computer systems,
(2) The average power consumption of each system, and
(3) the local utility rate.

My calculator accepts these three inputs and estimates the savings.

Assumptions

The calculator makes two assumptions: (a) in the BEFORE case, all systems are left running all the time without PC power management. In other words, each computer runs for 8760 hours per year. (b) The second assumption is that – in the AFTER case – all systems are run for only 2080 hours per year. While this is something of a simplification, it is not overly optimistic. According to a study conducted by Beacon Consultants Network, fewer than 10% of US-based computers are configured to take full advantage of energy-saving features.

Calculator Link

Here is a link to the calculator: http://www.enovativenergy.com/Cpm_Calculator.aspx

You can also link to the site to add in the values of the three variables (above). This enables two people to share a common view of the data, which should help simplify a discussion of what results are seen. In the following example, the calculator will run be run to perform its calculations for 100 workstations, with an average power consumption of 100 watts per workstation, and a electricity rate of 7.10 cents per KiloWatt hour:

http://www.enovativenergy.com/Cpm_Calculator.aspx?Systems=100&Watts=200&Rate=7.10

PC Power Management Solutions

For PC-savvy people, setting PC power settings is easy. Unless your computer system is locked-down, and then you have to have an Administrator make the settings for you. Let me start again...

For PC-savvy people with Administrator privileges, setting PC power settings is easy. Unless you have lots and lots of computers (more than a few dozen), and well – it is still easy. It is just time consuming. If you have plenty of time, then you probably are not working in IT; because IT professionals are always busy. Busy finishing the fight against yesterday's fires while learning the new technologies in order to prevent tomorrow's fires.

I am in the middle of pulling together the details of all my research on computer power management (or power management software) solutions. Why? Because people need more than just "PowerPoint summaries"; but also I have some great data to share. To start things off, though, here are some useful lists:

• Integrated Solutions – Although the name makes them sound sophisticated, these are the solutions that desktop management vendors added to existing desktop management products. If you are looking for a power management solution, this is a good place to start. If you are already using the desktop management solution, then that is where you want to start your evaluation. integrated solution list


• Stand-Alone Solutions – My mother used to always say that "no man stands alone", and yet there are times when it makes sense for software to stand alone. These solutions provide centralized support for large number (greater than 500) of computer systems. stand alone solution list.


• Home and Home Office Utilities – Here is my list of simple power management utilities best suited to individual users who do not need (or do not have) an IT staff to help them. home office solution list.

If you know of a solution that is somehow not on one of my three lists, please drop me an email. You can contact me at the email address on my website's About page.

I will keep this list up to date. Check the "last updated" date on the bottom of each page.

Where Your Garbage Goes

When you throw something away, can it "phone home" and tell you where it has ended up? If it could, would you want it to?

Researchers at MIT have launched a program to tag trash and watch it as it goes through the system. Read about it in this Scientific American article

Recycling High-Tech Gear

The principle of "biomimicry" suggests that we learn from Nature. Nature is very good at reusing things. Where there are nutrients, some player figures a way to access those nutrients, use them, and discard what is not needed. When living things die, the nutrients that have been captured in their bodies are returned to the Natural world to be recycled and reused.

Applied to high-tech gear, you want to recycle that gear. You want to send your used PCs, mobile phones, and other such electronic gadgetry somehow back into Nature. That does not mean throwing it into the general waste stream where it will end up in a landfill.

Instead, you want to recycle it. How? Here is one vendor's solution. OFFICE DEPOT sells boxes for $5, $10, and $15 that you fill with used electronics and return to an Office Depot Store. They ship the boxes to a recycler, who crushes the products to extract useful glass, plastic, copper, and aluminum.
URL:http://www.officedepot.com/promo.do?file=/promo/pages/0928_recycling.jsp

Of course, there are other places you can go as well. A search for Computer Recycling through Google or Bing will yield many local businesses that can help you do the right thing with your used high-tech gear.

WA State Building Energy Efficiency

My Energy Efficient Workplace. I wrote in a previous post about my Energy Star office building. Okay, it isn't really mine. It belongs to Clise Properties, which also owns a number of other office buildings in and around the cities of Seattle and Tacoma. My office is located in their building at 1700 – Seventh Avenue in downtown Seattle. I am pleased to be in a building that is more energy efficient than the average office building.

WA State Energy Efficiency Bill. I am also pleased that my state is moving to implement measures to make office buildings more energy efficient. This past year, the Washington State legislature passed a bill with the simple title of Reducing climate pollution in the built environment. I find the first two lines of the bill somewhat enlightening:

"The legislature finds that energy efficiency is the cheapest, quickest, and cleanest way to meet rising energy needs, confront climate change, and boost our economy. More than thirty percent of Washington's greenhouse gas emissions come from energy use in buildings." – From State Bill 5854 – 2009-10

The bill calls for the state – through the Washington State Department of Community, Trade, and Economic Development – to develop "a strategic plan for enhancing energy efficiency". That must be a good thing, although I have no idea about what progress has been made on this plan since the bill was signed into law in May of this year.

Coming Soon – Office Building Energy Efficiency. This bill requires the disclosure of energy use benchmarking data starting in January 2011. That means if you are going to purchase a commercial building, or even sign a lease in a commercial building, you can ask for information about the building's energy use. Why is this important? Because everyone pays energy bills and this benchmarking data will help measure the energy costs in one building over another. Over time, this approach will encourage building owners to invest in energy efficiency because an energy efficient building will be economically attractive to both buyers and tenants.

The Future – Residential Energy Efficiency? The specific buildings that are covered are "all non-residential and qualifying public agency buildings." At some point, I expect that a similar kind of benchmarking will be done for residential buildings as well. The European Union has an Energy Performance Certificate for homes. These must be in place for a building to be bought or sold. The attached image shows part of one of the certificates. I expect something along those lines will eventually be required in our state and – in time – in all states.

State versus Federal Legislation. I found it a bit of a challenge to read the 14 pages of this bill. Little did I know that state bills are nothing compared to the massive numbers of pages involved in federal legislation. The recently passed American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (also known as the Waxman-Markey bill) has 1,090 pages in its final form. Wide margins and double-spaced output helps, no doubt! But still – a lot of words on a lot of pages…

Computer Power Management

About half of office computers are left running at night and on the weekends. The dollar cost of this practice is huge. In a given year, a 200 watt computer will consume about $200 dollars. Your costs will vary, based on your local electricity rates. This online CPM savings calculator lets you use the average electricity rate for your state: http://www.enovativenergy.com/Cpm_Calculator.aspx.

Consider a company with 1000 computer systems. If each uses $200 worth of power per year, the electricity cost is $200,000.00. With the right computer power management settings in place, that amount can be reduced by 75%. In other words, savings up to $150,000.00 could be realized. Why aren't more people implementing the right computer power management settings?

One concern might be that 1000 computer systems is a lot to maintain. No one wants to sit and change the power settings for that many computers. Fortunately, there is an easier way. Computer power management (CPM) software from companies like FARONICS will let you change the settings from a central management console. Here is a link to more information about FARONICS Power Save: http://www.enovativenergy.com/Solutions_Faronics.aspx.

The page includes a link for downloading a demo version of the software. It supports both PC and Macintosh systems.