Core Parking and Microsoft Windows Computer Power Management

For years, the issue of computer power management has been, at best, an afterthought in Microsoft operating systems. I have been involved with Microsoft Windows for many years. My involvement started in 1986 when I co-authored the first book published on programming for Microsoft Windows. I have spent the last 25 years in and around Microsoft and their operating systems. I have been watching this for many years.

Microsoft Windows Power Management. It is true that Microsoft Windows have timers to power down. And device drivers could support multiple power modes. And yet, only with its most recent releases has Microsoft started making a serious investment in "Green IT" (or "Sustainable IT") and real computer power management. One of those features is called "core parking". Like so many other names of technologies from Microsoft, the name is meaningless to non-techie types. To understand this term, it helps to look at each of the words that make up the term.

Core. The term "core" refers to a CPU (the brains of the computer). A computer needs to have at least one core. Many high-end workstations will be "dual core", with 2 "logical" CPUs in one physical chip. For server systems, there might be even more. The latest version of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 supports 256 cores.

Parking. Aside from what we do with cars, the term "parking" in computers is often encountered in the context of hard drives. To avoid damage to the physical drive surface, the drive head is moved – or "parked" – away from the read/write surface. Disk drive head parking is related to powering down. In the context of a CPU, there is no read/write head to actually park. Instead, "core parking" refers to the powering down of one (or more) of the logical CPUs.

Supported OS Versions. Which versions support core parking? Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 both support it.

Thank You, Microsoft. For many years, when I posed questions about power management at Microsoft, the answer was often "that's a hardware problem." Before these latest releases, the only folks who seemed to understand the central role that software needs to play in power management were the folks in the mobile phone and embedded divisions of Microsoft. Smart, operating-system power management appears to now be something that the operating systems can do. Thank you, Microsoft.

Reusable Materials Exchange

I only want one thing: to save the planet. This is, I admit, a large and amorphous goal.

Will it ever be accomplished? There are many changes that will need to take place. The fun part of this goal is that I keep encountering different ways that different people are also working towards this goal. I just found another one that seems very interesting and worthwhile.

There is a Reusable Materials Exchange website (www.2good2toss.com), which is sponsored by Pierce County and the City of Tacoma. Think of it like a locally-sponsored CraigsList. Things can be bought and sold, and also there are many materials that will be given away. In browsing through the website, there is everything from tires to clothing to farming materials.

Seattle has its Second Use Building Materials (www.seconduse.com), which has lots of very cool stuff. I have been wanting to buy one of those marble slabs that they have recovered from one of various high-end remodeling projects.

The Dirty Little Secret About PCs and Pollution

Cars pollute. Everyone knows that because when you turn the key, they emit exhaust and fumes. Garages need to be ventilated because of the carbon dioxide (and carbon monoxide) that cars emit.

PCs pollute as well. PCs pollute a lot more than most people might imagine. Because PCs don't emit exhaust and fumes, we don't think about that pollution. It happens in someone else's backyard. Fifty percent of the electricity in the United States is generated using coal. Burning coal is a very, very dirty way to generate electricity.

Both cars and PCs pollute. In fact, it only takes TEN personal computers to create the same amount of pollution as ONE car. That's right, the ratio is pretty small. Ten PCs running 24 hours per day, 365 days a week create the same pollution as ONE average American car (which means it gets 24 mpg and is driven 12,000 miles per year).

Many people keep their computers running all the time. But you don't have to. If you want to reduce the amount of pollution that your PC creates, you can take one simple step: turn it off when you are not using it. People don't run their cars 24 hours per day, and people shouldn't run their computers 24 hours per day.