How Computer Users Can Save Electricity
10/22/2005
When Terry Link, director of MSU’s Office of Campus Sustainability, talks to people about energy conservation, he likes to ask “When you were done brushing your teeth this morning, did you leave the water running?”
Usually he’s greeted with quizzical looks. Link’s point: you wouldn’t leave the water running, but would you let your personal computer and other appliances draw power unnecessarily?
This fall, officials at MSU’s Power Plant asked members of the MSU community to shut off computers, lights, and other appliances that would not be in use over the Labor Day weekend, in order to enable upgrades to MSU’s electricity generation facilities. After the holiday, Power Plant staff observed that electrical usage was down 20% over the same weekend the previous year. The experience shows that the campus could reduce energy consumption significantly—while saving money and reducing pollution.
Computers account for a substantial portion of power consumption on campus. People can take a few basic steps in order to effect dramatic savings:
- When you’re not using your computer, turn it off. This is especially important for longer periods such as overnight or over weekends and holidays.
- Enable power savings functions on your computer. Virtually all newer computers comply with Federal “Energy Star” standards, which allow you to configure the system to shut down components such as the monitor or the hard drive after a period of inactivity. For a desktop computer, this can reduce consumption from a few hundred watts to just a few watts at idle.
- If you’re in the market for a new computer, consider buying a laptop (notebook) computer instead of a desktop. Laptops are increasingly popular on campus as they combine portability and capability at more affordable prices than in the past. They also consume less power than desktop PCs.
- Turn off printers, scanners, and other such devices when not in use. Laser printers in particular may periodically energize the warming element even if you don’t print a single page all day.
For more tips on energy conservation see: the “Green Computing Guide” at http://www.ecofoot.msu.edu/documents/green.computing.guide.pdf.
For instructions on how to enable power saving features on your computer, please visit help.msu.edu and search for:
power saving
Virtually every member of the MSU community—faculty, staff, or student—uses computers extensively. If you follow these simple guidelines, you can save a lot of electricity. Those who live or work on campus can help MSU save money. Students living off campus, and anyone who uses a computer at home, can cut their electricity bills substantially.
High Performance Computing Center Celebrates Ribbon Cutting
10/05/2005
MSU will celebrate the grand opening of its High Performance Computing Center. The ribbon cutting will take place on Friday, October 7, at 3:00 p.m. in room 3405 Engineering Building.
Also, a symposium on high-performance computing will take place this Saturday, October 8, beginning at 8:30 A.M. in the Cyclotron Seminar Room in the Cyclotron Building. The keynote speaker will be Douglass E. Post, Chief Scientist, High Performance Computing Modernization Program for the U.S. Department of Defense.
All members of the MSU community are invited to attend. The events will be of special interest to researchers whose work entails computationally-intensive analysis, as well as anyone with an interest in state-of-the-art computers.
HPCC computers include:
- An SGI Altix 3700 Bx2 with 64 processors and 256 GB of RAM
- A Western Scientific AMD Cluster with 512 cores and 1 terabyte of aggregate RAM.
In its first several months of operation, the HPCC has enhanced research work for a number of MSU scientists, leading to pending articles in scientific journals.
Libraries, Computing and Technology operates the HPCC in conjunction with the College of Engineering, the College of Natural Science, the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, and the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies.
For more information, see http://www.hpc.msu.edu.
Town Halls on Managing Sensitive Data at MSU
10/03/2005
A series of “town hall” meetings will take place to discuss the issues of managing sensitive data at Michigan State University, with the first two meetings on Wednesday, October 5 from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m. in 147 Communications Arts and Sciences, and Tuesday, October 25 from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. in 103 Erickson Hall.
Every one of us is vulnerable to the danger of fraudulent or other illegal uses of information. Much of the data we use on a daily basis at Michigan State University is sensitive in nature. Every one of us who stores, processes, accesses, distributes, or comes in contact with sensitive data is responsible for protecting its privacy and confidentiality.
Examples of sensitive data include medical records, student records, financial records and information used in identity theft. Members of the MSU faculty and staff community are invited to join us at one of these town hall meetings to learn more about managing sensitive data and to discuss this topic in an open forum.
Presenters at the forum include Richard Wiggins, Senior Information Technologist, Academic Computing and Network Services, Davin Granroth, Information Technologist in ACNS, and Ann Thorsen, Assistant Director, Administrative Information Services. Wiggins and Granroth will discuss the core values and principles, as well as, institutional, unit and individual responsibilities for securing institutional data; outline a three-step action plan for securing institutional data; and review available resources including training and events. Thorsen will outline MSU’s approach to compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and the implications for units.
Members of the Managing Sensitive Data and PCI DSS compliance teams, as well as, a computer forensics Detective from the Department of Police and Public Safety will participate in these Town Hall forums to answer questions as well as discuss your issues and concerns, and any suggestions you may have for additional resources.
Libraries, Computing and Technology, the Controller’s Office and Internal Audit have been asked to lead an effort to raise the awareness of and to assist the entire campus community in managing sensitive data and in complying with PCI DSS. A variety and range of activities and tools are in place, or being planned to support these efforts. Additional information on this Town Hall meeting and on the topic of managing sensitive data is available at www.lct.msu.edu/security or by contacting the Client Advocacy Office at 353-4856.
