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A practical guide to sustainable IT

1. 16 Wikipedia Lightweight Linux distribution en wikipedia org wiki Lightweight_Linux_distribution 60 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 4 3 System documentation Even where one user looks after their own system re membering all the relevant information about the sys tem is very difficult Where a group of people look after a number of computer systems it s wholly impractical It s a good time saving and security practice to docu ment each system installation Begin with details such as the model of the computer and any relevant serial numbers this is the sort of data insurers the police or repair agencies may require Then there s the hardware profile itself e g knowing what type of memory modules used in case you need to replace them Finally there s the system specific information such as the type of system installed hard drive configuration and critical passwords If you buy a system pre installed then you should be able to pull together much of this information Date installed technician ID from the vendor s hardware specifications and the data provided by BIOS or the operating system By documenting this information and storing it se curely it simplifies the process of system maintenance especially where there are a number of machines adminis tered by different people If you store this data as a simple text file not on the machine it is related to in the event of a fault you will need this da
2. The ecology of information technology Information Technology Is a tool like all other human tools that we have created through the ages This unit examines the general issue of how the human sys tem uses technology how digital technologies work for us how these technologies influence the wider environment we inhabit and the emerging restrictions on our future use of these tools Hardware Putting the system together 0 cess eeeee An exploration of computer hardware in its various guises and how the choices we make about hardware influence the ecological footprint of our use of IT While many may look primarily at power consumption the manufacture of digital electronics also has a major impact on the global environment In this unit we try and measure these impacts and find some ways to manage our demand for information systems Operating systems Making the system work 0008 What makes computer hardware more than an expensive collection of electronic circuits is the software we use to give the machine a purpose This unit looks at operating systems and computer hardware the issue of intellectual property rights and the influence of our choice of soft ware on the ecological performance of the hardware we use Desktops Programs peripherals and gadgets The computer desktop is the heart of our daily interaction with the power and versatility of information system
3. Adding memory allows more programs to be runin RAM rather than having data continually move to and from the hard disk Doubling the capacity of the RAM or better should make an appreciable difference to a slow computer Add a new hard disk For an existing system you can extend the storage spa ce by adding another hard disk That s the easiest op tion but it will use more power than installing a new larger hard disk but always check the largest size of drive the motherboard can address The drawback of installing a single larger disk is that you have to back up all the data on the system re install the operating software and then put all the old data back again Upgrade the motherboard Many parts vendors sell packs with a compatible mother board processor and memory which is the cheapest way to upgrade the whole system You should be able to reuse the case drives and other parts of the system with the new motherboard If you must install a new power hun gry operating system this is often the cheapest most ecological option Reuse the monitor The life of the monitor is likely if it s cared for to be much longer than the computer unit If you buy a new computer you can save money by reusing your existing monitor Upgrading laptops Laptops are a more technical problem Memory modu les are not always easily available Most 21 2 hard dri ves will work with a range of laptops but always check with the us
4. Cloud_computing an important element of the way they oper ate This is best explained by looking at Apple iTunes or Amazon s Kindle e book system In order to enforce intellectual property rights in the digital world it is necessary to track the use of data The most secure way to do that is to link the storage of data on an individual s computer to the data stored on the organisa tion s cloud servers This is enabled by having to register the device s which use these files with the company s information systems for example Apple s music files or Amazon s e book In this way services can be provided the movement of data tracked and the use of in tellectual property policed While there has been great interest in the efficiency of cloud storage there has been lit tle debate about the enforcement of tighter in tellectual property rights over digital data and the effect this has on society Human culture has traditionally been shared and that s been the key to the development of knowledge and learning In contrast lodging information in the cloud enforces strict boundaries on peo ple s ability to share and re work re imagine the elements which make up our culture One of the most debated points about the cloud is the way in which these systems log large quantities of data about individual s patterns of data use and communication This enables all sorts of profiling activities in order to identify people s attitudes and
5. In the final analysis in choosing which op erating system to use on the equipment you have the most important indicator must be that it satisfactorily does what you need to do Whether that is achieved using proprietary or free software must be part of the decision process that you undertake when you de sign the specification of the computer system The important issue is that you are aware that you have a choice between different operat ing systems that you do not have to accept sys tems as they are installed or provided and that those choices result in very different outcomes in terms of costs intellectual property restric tions and compatibility interoperability 4 2 OPERATING SYSTEMS AND OBJECTIVES perating systems are installed to fulfil a purpose although the system might be the same it is how the components of the system are selected and configured which give the sys tem the ability to carry out the tasks we require of it When it comes to defining the roles of different machines and selecting the software to fulfil those roles we see another distinction between proprietary and open source systems e With proprietary software there is a clear dis tinction between roles For example there is one system for Windows desktop use and another system for Windows server machines You pur chase software to fulfil the role you require of it e With free software and to some extent the Ma cintosh
6. The reason for this relates to the way the first IBM compatible PC was created Rather than being designed as a wholly proprietary product the rush to get a PC into market meant that it was quickly cobbled together from a range of off the shelf components available from hardware manufacturers While each individual module or circuit board is covered by the same intellectual property re strictions as closed hardware assembling these 5 Wikipedia Modding en wikipedia org wiki Modding 6 Wikipedia Hardware restrictions en wikipedia org wiki Hardware_restrictions 7 For example Electronic Frontier Foundation Jailbreaking Is Not A Crime www eff org pages jailbreaking not crime tell copyright office free your devices different elements together to make a computer system is not As we ll examine later this allows greater scope to create a more efficient computer system tailored to the user s needs 3 2 1 Closed hardware as an obstruction to repair and modification The major hurdle in managing the ecological im pacts of closed hardware are the obstacles to changing the components of the system or sim ply being able to repair them affordably Most mobile phones have software based power man agement controls which permit the user to select various modes to reduce the energy consumption of the device but this represents the limit to what is easily legally permitted Other consumer elec tronic devices such as
7. To further improve the demands made upon your system when using the web block pop ups from the browser and consider installing plug ins to filter adver tising and web bugs For a more comprehensive approach to controlling the amount of data downloaded and to filter connections against certain types of content or to block access to certain sites the most effective approach is to set up a proxy server Websites and content Many of the rules which apply for the sending of email attachments also apply for the creation of websites web pages The impact of a website is proportional to its use reducing the size of individual pages and downloaded files will reduce the bandwidth required to serve the site In general static content uses less power to serve pages than database driven websites and static pages require less power to view than pages heavily dependent on client side scripting There has been little debate on the issue of web bloat and its impacts Reducing the amount of data required to serve pages is a design issue and to control that impact requires a positive effort to control the amount of data required to view content across the site Thin client networks Thin clients utilise the power of a central computer to enable low powered terminals to undertake common IT applications consequently they are a way to use much older machines to achieve more powerful infor mation processing tasks As thin client netw
8. and on that simple analysis information technology has a number of serious problems which need to be addressed Some relate to the supply of min erals while others such as energy consump tion are implicit in the nature of the materials involved in the process There are ways to ad dress many of these issues However they re not business as usual which is why it requires a major institutional and ethical change within the information and communications technol ogy ICT industry As consumers of these goods we have a role to play in this process partly by lobbying for better reporting and environmental standards but also by changing our own prac tices to minimise the impacts of the work we carry out using these technologies To make the diminishing stock of raw ma terials last longer we need to extend the life of all electrical goods At present digital electron ics is only achieving a fraction of the lifetime that could be achieve if they were designed for a longer life The difficulty for the electronics in dustry is that longer life will lead to lower turn over and that in turn means that the nations who have specialised in the mass production of electrical goods will grow more slowly Another great step forward would be designing devices in ways that maximise recycling and reuse and to remove as much of the toxic content of elec trical goods as possible so that the end of life reclamation of IT equipment does n
9. open and closed hardware is is to look at one recent trend which defines the difference between the two the jail breaking of Apple and Android phones and the modding of certain types of games console Closed proprietary equipment such as mobile phones and games consoles are not intended to be serviced or modified by their owners In many countries it s an offence under intellectual property law to try to modify the de sign of these devices in order to adapt or extend the way they operate This has come to a head re cently as the result of computer enthusiasts cir cumventing or removing the manufacturer s limi tations on the functions of machines removing blocks to certain types of activity or to allow the running of new or modified software In response the companies involved have brought court cas es against those responsible which has in turn made modding and jail breaking campaigning is sues amongst many digital rights activists For most PCs and similar hardware the restric tions on modification are not so strict Much of the PC hardware people use both laptop and desktop machines are to some extent designed to be mod ified On laptop machines you can in most cases change the memory modules and hard disk drive and replace the internal battery when it fails On desktop machines almost all the components can be modified or swapped allowing much greater freedom over the configuration of the system
10. suchas running websites or file servers While this can be difficult for the average person to organise at home IT recycling projects offer the ideal space to experiment with wired and wireless networks and the configuration of services to run over networks Having such a capability can be ex tremely valuable for training as fully functional networks are usually only found in universities and corporate IT training centres For projects which include arts or multimedia components this also allows the testing and simulation of more complex multimedia content before pub lishing it online If the site doesn t have a live in ternet connection it s also possible to simulate online services over a local network to provide experience and training in the use of email the web and other internet services able disposal route for the waste it generates In those states which regulate electronic waste disposal the waste produced by community groups even not for profit groups may be classed as commercial waste and disposal will cost That need not be a barrier if the groups 16 Wikipedia DIY ethic en wikipedia org wiki DIY_ethic 17 For an example of offline Internet services training see Free Range Network accessed June 2012 The history of the Community Linux Training Centre Project www fraw org uk projects community_linux cltc_history shtml 146 A practical guide to sustainable IT charges a gate fee for the waste
11. we might believe that we are working many times faster than we were five or ten years ago In reality that s not true As the power of computers has developed and the speed of computer networks has increased so the amounts of data being moved around have grown too This raises an interesting ecological paradox for the entire IT industry as its capacity has never been constrained the IT industry has never had to try and make more efficient software or data standards The result of this is that while the pro 7 Wikipedia Moore s Law en wikipedia org wiki Moore s_ law cessing of data has increased for system users the perceived increased in performance is nothing like the actual increase in system speed A large part of those speed capacity increases have been expended moving more and more complex data One factor in the increasing bloat of soft ware is that older hardware can appear to be come slow and inefficient This usually happens when operating systems are significantly up graded for example the transition from Win dows XP to Windows Vista As a result per fectly serviceable hardware may be scrapped due to changes in software not as a result of the hardware s inability to function This is an 6 Wikipedia Cryptographic hash function en wikipedia org wiki Cryptographic_hash_function End of life and disposal 135 example of perceived obsolescence Whether it is because the older hardware can
12. Bremek terete Suara ars ol mip eRe mapt ett Tip en hhi Thap dee palo Popata iha naai ce reee ie eo er nee goara Boy a 82 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 5 5 Check list for desktop systems While the impacts of the machine are important the time the user spends sitting in front of the machine is often more significant in terms of the ecological impacts therefore improving our personal skills and methods of using the system is an ecological issue Always configure the operating system s power man agement settings to minimise energy use both by the machine and by the monitor attached to it Besides configuring the shutdown of the monitor after a period of inactivity if the function is available con figure the system to dim the brightness of the monitor when it is not actively in use Operating systems that allow the configuration of a lightweight desktop environment or the lowering of the display resolution can be used for older hardware to increase the performance of the system and or re duce energy consumption Besides configuring suspend sleep or hibernation when the machine has been left idle include icons on the desktop to activate the suspend hibernation function easily or to lock the desktop when not in use Try to use a monitor speakers and USB devices which are able to power down automatically when the ma chine hibernates or is shut down On newer machines try not to inadvert
13. PHYSICAL SECURITY he physical security of the room or build ing where equipment is kept might not ap pear to be a critical component in sustainable IT However IT systems and information appli ances digital cameras music players etc are expensive pieces of equipment replacing them entails the expenditure of a large amount of energy and resources too Ensuring that they are physically secure both from theft and ca sual damage is an essential part of making the equipment function for as long as possible and keeping the information resources on the equip ment secure Improving the physical security around computer equipment must therefore be considered an essential part of how these sys tems are used 8 2 1 The building Addressing the security of a building is entirely dependent upon those who look after the build ing If you control the building that s simple it s your problem f the building is shared be tween many tenants that s a different problem Likewise if you share a single space be that a formal office or a space in a community centre you are reliant on others to do things for you to assist your security In that case improving se curity isn t just your problem it s about convinc ing others of the benefits they might get from the process The physical security of a building is reliant upon the individual elements from which it is constructed Doors and walls Doors are a weak point because
14. When creating passwords people routinely sub stitute 1 for i O of o 5S for s or 3 for e in order to add numbers to a dictionary word creating something like PaSswOrd instead of password or acc3s5 instead of access Such variations can easily by deduced and tested by password cracking programs using a dictionary or word list to guess words The greater problem is that because we need many different pass words users might use just a few across the whole sys tem or they might add easily guessable changes such as consecutive numbering of a root word password01 password02 etc To produce easily remembered and secure pass words you must find an approach that suits you If you re the sort of person who can remember long strings of numbers and digits then you could use truly random passwords using a random password generator to cre ate them if necessary If that s not the way you think then the strongest approach isn t to use a mnemonic password that reduces an easily remembered phrase into a string of characters To make a mnemonic pass word begin with a favourite phrase such as a line froma song or a poem Then take the initial letter of each word in the phrase to make the password while substituting easily remembered words or numbers to deal with repeti tion and significant meaning such as substituting the word space with a space
15. data downloaded by over 20 More generally proxy servers are becoming an important part of network and internet security Due to their capacity to filter connections made between machines and the outside world the proxy can monitor use of the network and block connections to sites associated with malware and other security problem For example Microsoft s Forefront Threat Management Gateway acts as a router firewall and proxy server integrating net work security and control functions into one sys tem On Linux systems one of the most popular web proxy servers is Squid which can filter net work traffic as well as caching regularly used files 25 Wikipedia Parental control en wikipedia org wiki Pa rental_control 26 Olatunde et al 2008 Proxy Server Experiment and the Changing Nature of the Web www ece jit edu tricha papers 04554305 pdf 27 Microsoft accessed June 2012 Forefront Threat Manage ment Gateway 2010 www microsoft com en us server cloud forefront threat management gateway aspx 28 Squid www squid cache org Local and global networks 107 Box 7 2 A case study The efficiency of web content There is no standard definition of the efficiency of a website Increasingly site design is about the visual appearance and usability of the user interface design not the impact of the data streams generated when the site is used With the wider introduction of broadband many
16. ever after just two years the latest upgrades to the iPad s software cannot be used with the first series iPad and so users of those devices are being forced to upgrade to the latest model 8 Leonard Annie 2008 The Story of Stuff Planned and Perceived Obsolescence www youtube com watch v N2KLyYKJGkO 9 Dannoritzer Cosima 2010 The Lightbulb Conspiracy www imdb com title tt1825163 Packard Vance 1970 The Waste Makers Reissued by IG Publishing 2011 ISBN 9781 9354 3937 0 Wikipedia Planned obsolescence en wikipedia org wiki Planned_obsolescence 1 12 Wikipedia Backwards compatibility en wikipedia org wiki Backwards_compatibility 13 Apple Computer 2010 iPad Environmental Report im ages apple com environment reports docs iPad_Environ mental_Report pdf of hardware if they wish to continue receiving software updates The problem with planned obsolescence is that there is little that the user can do to avoid the cost and environmental impacts of being forced to upgrade that s why many consider planned obsolescence to represent a greater problem than perceived obsolescence because it takes away consumer choice from the decision to upgrade In the final analysis the end of life of any device must be a balance between the service it gives the cost of using it in its current form and the costs or benefits of upgrading it Often that balance is reshaped by external f
17. generator engine should automatically slow down to an idling tick over At the simplest level using the power stored in the battery involves connecting a load across the terminals In practice it is more com plex as you also need to monitor the battery condition to prevent it being over discharged 19 Wikipedia Engine generator en wikipedia org wiki Engine generator Renewable power 157 Just like over charging regularly exceeding the battery s discharge limit will cause damage Most commercial off grid systems have a single com puterised controller This monitors both the charg ing and discharge of the battery store and gives a read out of how much energy is stored inside the battery Self built systems assembled from individual parts usually have a separate battery monitor often no more than a voltmeter and a low voltage disconnect unit Just like a charge con troller this monitors the battery voltage and in the event it falls too far it disconnects the load to prevent damage to the battery The power from the battery can be used di rectly if the equipment functions at that volt age As noted above it s essential to use a low voltage disconnect unit to protect the battery if you use the power directly For devices which do not operate at the battery voltage you will need either a power regulator to drop the voltage down to the required level or a power converter sometimes called a DC to DC or buck
18. issue of erasing data to prevent the disclosure of sensitive information 12 A practical guide to sustainable IT e Reuse and reclamation how machines can be upgraded or recycled and given a new lease of life This is a more ambitious unit which seeks to takes people beyond simply us ing a computer to thinking more technically about how they can reconfigure their hard ware to serve other needs We ll look at the options for donating old equipment but also how components can be upgraded to extend the lifetime of the equipment or installed with different software to give the machine a new function to support your information infrastructure Renewable power the options for sourcing electricity from lower carbon and renewable re sources Computers require electrical power to operate and the generation of electricity is one of the major carbon intensive industries on the planet which gives rise to a number of pollut ants besides carbon dioxide In this unit we ll look at alternative options to sourcing electric ity from the power grid and we ll also look at going off grid both to exploit renewable energy resources and as a means of taking computers outdoors beyond the reach of the mains grid The final unit contains a subject index for all the sections a glossary of the technical terms used in the guide as well as a bibliography and directory of online information sources Green advice for policy makers and a
19. only made the systems cheaper it allowed the devices to be smaller and more mobile mean ing they could be used in ways they hadn t been used before For example the pocket transistor radio or cassette player used pre existing tech nologies but in a way which created a new mass market for electrical goods Today it s the switch from analogue transistors to digital micropro cessors that is achieving the same revolutionary transformation of consumer behaviour 2 1 2 Human tools are based on rocks Within the growing ecological footprint of infor mation technology one of the most important limiting trends is the reliance of human systems on ever rarer materials To understand the sig 4 Information sourced from the World Bank s global indica tors dataset data worldbank org topic nificance of this we have to go back to the very first human technology rocks In our ancient history the first human tools were made of stone and stone is perhaps one of the most plentiful resources on the planet Wood plant matter and animal tissue were equally important resources but little of this material has survived For perhaps two to two and a half million years humans relied upon stone tools to support their daily activities The reason that the Stone Age ended was not that we ran out of rocks it was that we found some thing which was more useful than stone met als Metals are also made from rocks metal ores but these r
20. some of the most successful and longest run ning projects the groups which have had the greatest success have been those which are al lied to the free and open source software move ment It may be that because the free and open source philosophy puts a great emphasis on skills sharing and collaborative development they are more likely to create an environment which is more supportive and inclusive when training new members of the group 10 2 2 Space Most successful recycling projects in addi tion to having the motivated people with the right mix of skills usually possess another im portant commodity space It takes very little space to recycle a computer a small desktop or workbench and a few hand tools is all that is re quired Even so to be successful a project needs sufficient space e To provide for the storage of computers both waste computers which have been through the triage process and also for the secure storage of the tools and test equipment used in the reclamation process e To provide sufficient space for education and 14 Wikipedia History of free and open source software en wikipedia org wiki History_of_free_and_open_source_ software training to take place with sufficient seating to accommodate the groups who take part and e To provide if possible a space for a wider com munity of users to use the reclaimed equip ment informally perhaps with internet access note that public pa
21. 1 Guidance for internet service providers uring the late 1980s when the public first began accessing dial up bulletin boards and internet systems the role of internet ser vice providers ISPs was highly specialised and served a limited audience With the coming of the world wide web in the mid 90s the oppor tunities for public participation in computer mediated communication and expression grew and the role of service providers grew with this trend In turn as the social and political impor tance of electronic media grew civil rights cam paigners and ISPs sought to tackle the legal economic and technological restrictions ham pering wider public access to the internet en suring that the online community was open to as wide a range of social and ethnic groups as possible That objective became easier to secure in the first decade of the new millennium with the emergence of new ways to access electronics networks such as mobile smart phones as well as the development of many different interac tive and social media services which allowed easier communication Almost 30 years after it left the closed world of academia and industrial research the internet and electronic services are a vital part of many people s everyday lives and even those who do not directly use them benefit from their use in logistics manufactur ing and government administration Now we have to deal with the impacts of that success not only in t
22. 1000 512 Windows 7 32 bit P6 gt 1000 1024 Windows 7 64 bit 2048 nu Linux Graphical installation e g desktop Fedora 15 P4 1000 768 Ubuntu 11 04 P4 gt 1000 OpenSuSE 11 P3 gt 600 256 Debian 6 P4 gt 1000 512 Slackware 13 37 P1 gt 166 2128 Gnu Linux Lightweight and live distributions Knoppix 6 4 4 486 gt 90 Puppy Linux 5 2 P1 2166 Slackware 13 37 486 gt 90 Damn Small Linux 486 gt 90 Gnu Linux Text only install e g servers Fedora 15 P3 gt 600 gt 256 Ubuntu 11 04 P3 gt 600 gt 128 Debian 6 P1 gt 100 386 486 386 486 processor or better gt 256 P1 P6 Pentium through to Pentium VI processor or better including 32 bit or 64 bit multi core CPUs gt greater than the minimum for an installation gt greater than equal to the bare minimum required for operation for ease of installation double triple this figure live Live distribution runs from CD DVD so hard disk not required 38 A practical guide to sustainable IT to speed up the operation of the system That s because the more data the processor can hold in the memory the less it needs to access data from the hard disk at a far slower rate Before we move on system memory require ments are often quoted in mega or giga bytes and some new hard disks have a capacity in excess of a te
23. 2 Advanced power management options For servers where you don t always have a per son on hand to press the power button start ing the machine can be a problem especially if there are hundreds of them For machines being used as servers there s an option called wake on LAN WOL If a data packet is sent to a ma chine in suspension or hibernation containing the card s unique address number some also require a security password the machine will restart provided you have a WOL compatible network card Later the machine can be remote 18 Bemowski Karen Windows IT Pro September 2010 Buyer s Guide Power Management Software for Win dows Workstations www windowsitpro com article buyers guide Power Management Software for Windows Workstations Buyers Guide Download the product table from www windowsitpro com content content 125800 101910 updated 125800 table xls 19 For example the Less Watts projects www lesswatts org 20 powertop www lesswatts org projects powertop ly put into suspension hibernation or it can suspend operations according to its own power management configuration until it is needed again Using WOL allows a single operator to have control over hundreds of server machines often using load monitoring programs to shut them down or wake them up in order to match demand while minimising power consumption For small system users it can also be config ured to wake up file servers or data pro
24. 3 fitting machine to hardware 4 2 1 free vs proprietary software 4 1 system requirements box 3 3 thinclients eaea E A 7 4 PernpheralS E 3 4 table 3 3 5 2 1 Printina e a E E 5 3 printing versus screen e readers box 5 2 Repair and reuse 3 2 table 4 1 10 1 10 3 assembling PEST a 3 4 care and maintenance box 8 2 closed hardware aa 372M reclamation projects 10 2 Servicelife aere ee e 9 1 9 2 thimehentS aa a E N N us A 7 4 triage of used equipment 10 1 1 uses for recycled machines 4 2 2 box 4 2 Resource depletion footprint 22 poodim etas eee eer nere Dee Sl elo 8 oY titre Sacer or rerenaerun E ET 2 2 1 SCANGILY ae wea cess ceaseus nea Sele 23 2 SCENE sentence A N 8 2 8 4 buildings workplaces 8 2 configuring programs applications 6 3 PESIN See eee 8 3 2 box 8 2 S staina bility e e rene tats Zal definitions term a a a atta sence 1 1 information technology 1 2 2 4 ODCIONSisae erreur trea mnen rrs 8 1 recycling and downcycling 10 1 renewable electricity 11 1 11 3 resilience anna E e e cca were 8 1 3 technological obsolescence 9 2 Technological convergence 2 1 1 Waster ene enana naaraana 9 3 9 4 10 3 VAD ONE E a na aa aao aaao aaa aa 7212 Web sites online content 7 3 VirUSeS enone see malware Further information and index 163 ANNEX
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26. Age en wikipedia org wiki Stone_age Wi Wikipedia Ore en wikipedia org wiki Ore kipedia Metallurgy en wikipedia org wiki Metallurgy oN AH Wikipedia Liebig s Law of the Minimum en wikipedia org wiki Liebig s_law_of_the_minimum 9 Wikipedia The history of coal mining en wikipedia org wiki History_of_coal_mining The ecology of information technology 17 more heat for the same weight of fuel While the coal is easily accessible and reasonably priced this allows metals to be produced on a much larger scale than when wood was the only fuel source What allowed the Industrial Revolution to take off in the second half of the eighteenth century was the interaction of the technology of coal production and the improved technol ogy of metal production As metal technology improved we see the development of the first steam engines The first major application of the steam engine was pumping water from mines which allowed both greater metal and coal production from deeper mines and it was this self sustaining process which drove the In dustrial Revolution 2 2 GROWTH CONSUMPTION AND RESOURCES he effect of the information and communi cations revolution and its interaction with digital electronics has a direct parallel with ef fects of industrialisation on the use of metals Independently the elements which make up the technology computers communications lines and digital information existed well before the
27. CD R disc 0 7 0 2 0 3 no CD RW disc O17 0 6 0 9 x1 000 DVD R disc 4 4 0 3 0 07 no DVD RW disc 4 4 0 5 0 1 x1 000 DVD R dual layer DL disc 8 0 15 0 2 no 0 1 256 1 600 2 4 x100 000 10 15 0 25 128 6 750 23 x100 000 10 15 Micro drive 0 1 8 20 60 4 7 5 yes 5 Blu ray disc 25 2 0 1 no 30 50 Blu ray dual layer disc 50 iif 0 2 no 30 50 2 160 2 25 0 21 yes 10 12 320 2 000 60 300 0 12 0 18 yes 8 10 500 3 000 60 200 0 06 0 12 yes 5 12 30 50 15 30 30 50 15 30 30 50 USB memory stick Compact flash Smart media Digital data storage DDS tape USB external hard drive Hard drive in drive caddy Cost per unit for CD DVD Blu ray discs this is based on the price for a single disc when purchased in packs of 10 to 25 Price is the recommended retail price averaged across a number of brands sourced from amazon com An x figure represents the number of times the media can be reused before errors are likely to make it unusable If yes then the media can be reused over the expected working life of the technology For USB sticks memory cards this refers to the number of write operations which because of the way the storage is configured gives perhaps a fifth of this figure as complete write delete and re write operations due to the way the internal electronics of flash media function Figure represents the optimal storage lifetime of the technology before the media becomes unreadable ca
28. Hardware and Sound menu The power options dialogue allows you to configure the power management features available with the hardware you are using On the Macintosh OSX you ll find the power man agement icon in the hardware section of the System Preferences menu With Linux based systems the APM ACPI service is usually enabled automatically but to function you must be using hardware which conforms to the APM ACPI stan dard This is a particular problem with certain brands of lap top and desktop hardware developed for use primarily with Windows As is usually the case when installing Linux you need to check the compatibility of the hardware before you start As GNU Linux has become a more popular operating system power management is no longer the obstacle that it was five or more years ago To be certain that all hardware functions are available check the information and reviews of motherboard peripherals and laptop systems at linux hardware net or www linux drivers org The power management controls of the operat ing system interface with the APM ACPI firmware in the machine s motherboard The motherboard will then control both the devices connected to the motherboard as well as sending signals to the monitor and any com patible USB devices Depending upon the motherboard s BIOS settings it s possible that power management has been disabled or limited Although power management is often enabled by default you should check the c
29. Homepower Magazine website homepower com basics started lead acid batteries These have a longer life are more efficient to charge and can use up to half of their rated capacity before battery damage occurs There are a number of dif ferent types of deep cycle battery from the basic leisure batteries used in mobile homes to more advanced industrial batteries used in uninterruptible power supplies to the highly specialised gel batteries designed for use in so lar PV systems How well the system performs over its lifetime depends to a large extent on the type and quality of the battery technology used Which power source is used to charge the bat tery will depend upon the feasibility of each tech nology for the application chosen Some technolo gies are relatively mobile while others are only via ble on a fixed site Another factor is power density how much power can be produced with a given amount of space and equipment e Solar photovoltaic PV panels are the sim plest option They re essentially a passive technology you put them in the sunshine and they produce power e Wind power is the next most dense source of energy This is more complex to construct as it requires a tower to be erected e Hydro power is the next most dense The difficulty is that this requires the installation of pipework to tap a source of falling water the greater the height the water drops the greater the pressure in the pipe and t
30. Parallel processing Power server Download box Lightweight server Network support Educational recycling GNU Linux Windows Recent machine dual quad core 2GHz CPU 2 4GB RAM Good machine dual core 1 2GHz CPU 1 2GB RAM Fairly good single core 1GHz CPU 512MB 1GB RAM Old machine 800MHz 1GHz CPU 256 512MB RAM Older machine 500 800MHz CPU 128 256MB RAM Very old machine less than SOOMHz CPU 128MB RAM Challenge less than Pentium 3 500MHz and 128MB RAM GNU Linux system specs H heavy SuSE RedHat M medium Debian Fedora Mint Ubuntu L lightweight Damn Small Puppy Slackware Windows system specs 7 Win 7 V Vista X Win XP 2K Win 2000 08 Win Server 2008 03 Win Server 2003 98 Win ME 98 NT Win NT 95 Win 95 Note that Macintosh hardware hasn t been considered in the above list Different versions of MacOS are designed for different generations of Mac hardware and so the decision about which machine requires which version of MacOS is determined largely by the available hardware 58 A practical guide to sustainable IT do this but will take much longer to do so For these installations the latest versions of an operating system are used in order to have access to the latest software and hardware Medium desktop general purpose machine capable of most office type tasks communi cations
31. Production Waste reclamation Consumption Bg use of goods repair g spare parts end of life disposal other example are video display screens where although the older glass cathode ray tube CRT displays consume more electricity while in use the newer flat panel displays require as much or more energy to be expended during production 2 3 2 The importance of the embodied energy of equipment The latest digital electronics require some of the rarest metals on earth and this has increased the energy demand required to produce the devices That s partly due to the energy invested in produc ing rarer resources but also because of the high purity demanded by the semiconductor industry The laws of physics require that to make some thing purer through refining you have to use more and more energy to remove progressively more of the unwanted impurities The metals used to make microchips must be extremely pure as any impurities affect the conductive qualities and speed of the chip For those concerned about the ecological im pact of the machines they use this embodied en ergy the energy used to make the device and all the raw materials it contains is rarely measured or reported by equipment manufacturers To put that into perspective with regard to other tech nologies weight for weight the amount of fos 27 Socolof M Overly J Geibig J 2005 Environmental life cycle impacts of CRT and LCD desk
32. a significant effect on the file size The more pixels the more data is required to store the image Where the size of the file is greater than the size of the screen upon which it is displayed the image will automatically be scaled down to fit in which case it would required less data to store the image if it is scaled to a usable size before transmission Older computer monitors had a resolution of 800 by 600 pixels while newer ones can be anything from 1024 to 1920 by 768 to 1080 In deciding what size to scale the image to consideration should be given to the likely resolution of the monitor it will be viewed upon The greater the number of colours in an image the more data has to be stored for each pixel Image editing applications can reduce the number of colours in the image The effect of this makes the image look progressively more grainy although the use of filters to dither the colour distribution can help to reduce this slightly Some file formats e g JPEG allow a large number of colours to be used while others only allow a specific number of colours e g GIF The JPEG format is useful because it uses a lossy compression system to reduce the amount of data used to store colour information This has the effect of making the image look progressively more blurry as the quality factor of the image is reduced and that loss of quality is permanent if you try and re edit the image Other formats such as PNG are lossles
33. a single location such as a home or office is that disasters can happen Buildings can catch fire flood or the equipment can be stolen For this reason keep ing data in another location is advisable espe cially irreplaceable data The simplest method is to create two back up copies and store one of those in a different location The difficulty is organising how the data will be transported to the other location whether it is secure enough to hold the data and accessible if it becomes necessary to retrieve the data Another option for desktop users is to man ually back up their machine to a file server in a more secure location either within the same building via the local network or in a different building using an internet connection This can be done in many different ways e A formal network archiving program which will bundle up data and move it to a server e A network service such as file transfer proto col FTP to allow more secure access to stor age space ona local or remote server machine for sensitive data this transfer can be made using an encrypted connection e A networked file system such as shared fold ers on a Windows network or a networked file system on a Mac Linux network to share files directly between computers or e Amore secure virtual private network VPN which allows files to be shared to other linked computers across the internet both Windows 7 MacOS and Linux systems are supplied wit
34. a warning of the imminent arrival of alonger term decline in pro duction and the economic difficulties that this will create as hizghlighted by the French Prime Minister in April 2011 when told the National Assembly of France that global oil production had reached a peak and that this would have serious implications for the future of the global economy Information technology will be an important part of how humanity adapts to the restrictions imposed by the limits to growth That process begins when we accept that we must adapt our personal use of technology to work within these limits As a priority we must learn to extend the life of our electronic goods Making goods last two or three times longer creates a proportionate reduc tion in the demand for the materials from which they are made and the energy used to produce the raw materials and assemble the components To extend the life of existing equipment or remove the need to buy new more powerful equipment we have to look at the size and complexity of the software and data that are used on the machine By making the size of the software programs and the movements of data smaller and less repetiti ve it is possible to provide the services that we re quire using less powerful electronics and it reduces the amount of energy used by equipment 2 3 THE LIFE CYCLE IMPACTS OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY he ever greater use of IT is taking place wi thin a finite environmental sy
35. and attachments Email is still the backbone of the way people com municate and network online Email is simple to use and has the benefit that files can be 8 For example see LessWatts Tips amp Tricks Ethernet www lesswatts org tips ethernet php 9 Wikipedia Network switch en wikipedia org wiki Net work_switch the cable through twists and turns around the edge of large rooms can quickly reduce the prac tical distance between the network switch and the computer On small networks power can be saved by using a combined broadband ISDN router and multi port ethernet hub rather than using separate devices As part of the initiatives to control total and standby power consumption ethernet Wi Fi hardware now incorporate power saving func tions Unfortunately these only save significant amounts of power on larger ethernet switches For smaller devices for example in the home or a small office the greatest power savings are achieved by physically turning off the power sup ply when the computers network are not in use As noted earlier in the section on hardware it s a good idea to connect computers to a surge pro tected socket with a build in switch In a small office home the broadband router can also be connected to this type of central power socket so that when the computer is shut down the router powers down too attached to the email and easily sent to one or many recipients That ease of sending fil
36. and the server is hacked do you have an up to date back up copy of the site to quickly restore the online service Orif you routinely store data online and lose your internet service could you access that data if it is urgently required All data stored in online systems should if it has value be backed up locally too Replaceable personal data for example emails circulated reports files and informa tion shared between groups of users This type of data isn t irreplaceable because copies will be held on other computer systems The issue is how much effort it would take to reconsti tute this information if you were to lose it In most cases keeping back ups of this informa tion is a simpler option than trying to recover it from many other sources locations later Irreplaceable personal data for example draft work personal images or recordings and files which are not held on any other storage medium or computer system This is the most important data to back up because there are no redundant back up copies to replace this data in the event that the computer system is lost damaged or fails What this list illustrates is the importance of valuing the data we propose to back up If we re trying to minimise the ecological impacts of IT being able to plan how we back up and minimise the use of resources as part of that process is an essential part of a green IT strategy There is one key rule to take note of in this proces
37. and while there is a large effort devot ed to search engine optimisation or the inclu sion of advertising and web analytics as part of site design there is as yet little demand to op timise web content to reduce its download size and demand for power when displayed Many of the rules which apply to the send ing of email attachments also apply to the creation of websites web pages The content created should be optimised to provide the level of design or reproduction quality for the 7 4 THIN CLIENT NETWORKS he first computer time sharing networks were designed around the client server model Staff access the system from a num ber of simple dumb terminals sending com mands to the central computer and receiving the results of the request on their terminal displays As personal computers became more powerful especially with the development of more user friendly graphical user interfaces having many stand alone PCs on a network of fered a more flexible and scalable alternative to traditional client server networks Now the trend is swinging back towards client server networks once more As network speeds increase and cheap and scalable rack servers become more powerful the cost of developing networks of powerful stand alone 36 Wikipedia Client server model en wikipedia org wiki Client server_model application it is intended to serve Optimising PDF and images to reduce their size can save storage space r
38. argued that rather than continuing to rise as the quality of copper ore falls production will reach a peak and then decline What this means is that as they have done for the last decade or so av erage copper prices are likely to keep rising as the economy demands more of the metal and that will impact upon our use of information technology in the years to come 13 Wikipedia Peak copper en wikipedia org wiki Peak_copper 2 2 2 The limits to growth Copper is not the only limitation on our sustain able use of information technology and is not the only useful indicator of the state of human technological sustainability Forty years ago a group of scientists produced a study which fore cast that there were limits to growth This caused great controversy at the time and since then many politicians and economists have claimed that the projections were erroneous However not only does more recent research show that the forecasts are still largely correct when we use the latest data other work has shown that those who objected to the limits to growth hypothesis were wrong on a number of points At a recent conference to mark the fortieth anniversary of the publication of The Limits to Growth various scientists presented work showing that the projections of our future sustainability made in the 1970s are still largely correct today If we are to avoid this outcome then we must seek a radical change in the way
39. because if accidentally tugged they might snag and damage the other more delicate lightweight cables It s not dam age to the actual wire that s the problem If a lightweight connector is tugged hard at right angles to its connector it can be wrenched out damaging the plug the socket or both Damage to any of the essential sockets on the mother board might necessitate replacing the whole board All computer equipment needs good venti lation In a small or confined space the machine will very quickly raise the ambient temperature well above the human comfort zone and in a very small space it might be unhealthy for the machine too If you put any equipment inside a cupboard ensure that there are large ventila tion holes top and bottom either in the back or side of the cupboard to allow air to circulate If you install the computer unit the monitor or a Monitor Network RJ45 Switched surge protected socket Mouse Keyboard Hardware Putting the system together 45 laser printer in a small recess or under a shelf again make sure there is 15 20cm of free air space above and around the machine to ensure the free circulation of air And no matter how tempting it s never a good idea to leave pa pers books and files on top of computer units or monitors or in any position that obstructs the ventilation ducts of the equipment Not only does insufficient ventilation make the machine run hotter shortening the life o
40. been to eliminate the savings from new tech nology as more people use these technologies and generate a greater demand for paper 9 Business Week June 1975 The Office of the Future www businessweek com technology content may2008 tc20080526_547942 htm 10 Global Action Plan 2007 An Inefficient Truth www it energy co uk pdf GAP An Inefficient Truth Dec 2007 pdf The machine and all its peripherals are plugged into the strip and at the end of the day the user can shut down the system and then perform a hard shut down by disconnecting the power using a single switch From an ecological point of view the de bate over paper and printing also misses an important aspect of the technology of the printed word Not all printing is bad see box 5 2 It takes a lot of energy to make paper and a comparatively small amount to print infor mation upon it However once printed provid ing itis appropriately stored and cared for that information can be available to anyone with out investing further energy for years or de cades Digital information requires a computer system powered up with electricity in order to access the data and more equipment to store that data securely Each time it is accessed it requires energy the longer it takes a person to read through the more energy is consumed and if it is kept live online it requires a power ful server machine and network to hold it ready for access Depending on the ty
41. check list for in ternet service providers are then included in the appendices What is sustainable information technology 13 SECTION 2 THE ECOLOGY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY This unit examines the way in which our use of information systems interacts with the human environment It encourages you to think about the context in which we use computers and the internet how our choices effect the wider environment and more importantly how global economic and environmental issues are inextricably tied to our use of information technology This not only includes the direct im pacts of power consumption or the mining of minerals but also the changes to the economy that have resulted from the greater techno logical development and mechanisation of what call the human sys tem the complex and interlinked network of interactions that we have created for ourselves 2 1 TOOLS TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ou cannot look at the ecology of informa tion technology without reflecting upon the human system which has created these devic es Information and communications technol ogy are part of the human development story The trends which have created our modern day world are at work in the reasons why we created these technologies and are behind the explo sive growth in their use around the world As information and communications technolo gies have become more widespread especially consumer oriented technologie
42. con verter to step up the voltage to the required level For example most small self built sys tems operate at 12 volts but most laptops use 18 to 20 volts There are a number of power con verters available on the market Often these are designed for use in cars and can be adapted to work with small battery powered supplies Finally the battery s DC voltage can be convert ed into mains AC using a power inverter Some very expensive inverters can take any input volt age but most inverters are designed to be used with a specific battery voltage either 12 24 or 48 volts There are two general types of inverter e Modified sine wave inverters produce a very rough approximation of mains voltage This means they are more efficient but the modi fied sine wave can affect the operation of voltage sensitive equipment such as TVs and video recorders data projectors and desktop 20 Wikipedia Power inverter en wikipedia org wiki Power_inverter computers Mains lighting and many types of motor driven equipment are usually unaf fected e Sine wave inverters create a fully compatible mains supply although doing this can use 30 to 50 more energy than using a modi fied sine wave If you are only using an inverter a low voltage disconnect is not usually required as most in verters include an automatic disconnect How ever when you buy the inverter you should al ways check the voltage at which the inverter s
43. disk is easily removable and if the sensitivity of the data on the machine is a concern you would need to use hard disc encryption as well to pre vent theft of access to the data on the drive 17 Whole Building Design Guide Use environmentally preferable products www wbdg org design env_prefer able_products php 122 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 8 1 Care and maintenance of electronic equipment The human world is not always kind to ICT equipment Dust can clog cooling ducts and reduce heat dissipation food and drink can be spilled on keyboards and other equipment and for mobile devices careless handling can slowly degrade the internal components until perhaps after a very heavy knock they fail All computers peripherals and other consumer electronics hardware should have a section in their user manual on care of the device This will give you the basics of how to care for your equipment how to carry out any routine cleaning or servicing and what methods not to use to clean the device For example some video displays especially touch screens can be sensitive to the solvents and detergents used in many household cleaners In gen eral all electronic devices can be easily cleaned using an antistatic or microfibre cloth Stains and splashes from food or drink are best removed by gentle scrubbing with a non abrasive cloth using warm water with no added cleaning agents If you spill a drink on a laptop it s
44. drive is removed from one ma chine it can be plugged into another computer and read quite easily Therefore as outlined earlier it is necessary to improve the security of all the layers in the system in order to make sure that security functions as an holistic process Assuming you ve physically secured the sys tem hardware then there are various methods of using passwords to control system access BIOS password BIOS is a firmware program held on the motherboard If you set a user 29 Yan Jianxin 2000 The memorability and security of passwords some empirical results Computer Laboratory Technical Report 500 University of Cambridge www cl cam ac uk techreports UCAM CL TR 500 pdf 30 Computer Academic Underground 2007 Mnemonic Password Formulas Remembering Secure Passwords www uninformed org v 76a 3 amp t pdf 31 Wikipedia BIOS en wikipedia org wiki BIOS Figure 8 2 Use of multiple passwords to secure desktop systems Prevents theft of hard drives Secure box case drives BIOS Prevents access password to hardware Linux only Prevents root account breach Boot loader password Encryption password Prevents access to hard drive data Account password Prevents access to user data Encryption digital signatures Public key encryption Application passworde Secures application files use of email or system password when the machine first starts up this has to be ente
45. enable similar power saving features to those used on laptops on most desktop systems in order to reduce their every day power consumption e For Windows XP to Windows 7 the standard power management system offers three modes High Performance Balanced and Power Saver If you re not editing large colour images or manipulating large databases and spreadsheets Power Saver mode will make little difference to the way the system ap pears to work and you can always switch back temporarily if you need to undertake more powerful data manipulation There are 17 Wikipedia PC power management en wikipedia org wiki PC_power_management Operating systems Making the system work 63 Box 4 4 Power management and the machine hardware Power management is an issue that developed alongside the growth in mobile equipment during the early 1990s especially laptops where prolonging battery life was an important consideration to the usability of the device As the technology has evolved it has become an important factor in managing the power consumed by desktop and server machines too New microprocessors particularly the multi core type can be configured to run at different speeds The amount of power the chip consumes is proportional to its operating speed and the supply voltage of the processor Varying the speed of the CPU from the operating system performs two roles It prevents excessive heat generation when the power of th
46. in curly brackets Over the last few years we ve seen some ports like the parallel printer port and 46 A practical guide to sustainable IT more recently the PS 2 keyboard and mouse ports fade away as the world has switched over to the ubiquitous USB Some like the DVI video port were often included but seldom used Irrespective of their popularity table 3 3 lists commonly occurring motherboard connec tors so that you know what s what To return to a point made earlier even if talking about it feels challenging hardware can not perform any useful function unless told to do so by a computer program Now to make the hardware into something useful we have to load an operating system onto the machine and that is an equally complex subject Hardware Putting the system together 47 Box 3 6 Purchasing and upgrade check list Upgrading is always better in the short term buy new for the long term Providing you can buy affordable components upgrading a system is often cheaper and less ecologically damag ing than buying a new system Most systems if cared for will last three to five years With some upgrading you could get that up to between five and seven years of useful life Unless you have to buy more powerful machine because you are required to use a certain op erating system there are a number of ways to increase the power of an existing system and prolong the life of its components Add more memory
47. inch floppy disk drives became obsolete long ago and even the 32 inch floppy drive is now almost history abandoned in favour of CDs DVDs and USB memory sticks There are commercial archive services which read old computer media and convert old file formats to modern equivalents but they are expensive Therefore much of the data generated on these early computer sys tems has effectively been lost Unlike books which are directly accessible to human interaction access to digital information is intermediated through technological standards and as those standards change important or his torically valuable data can be lost For example if an early Apple or IBM computer user had written a literary or technical work of great significance but it was never published in print it is now inacces sible as a result of the obsolescence of the tech 1 Wikipedia Apple II en wikipedia org wiki Apple_ll 2 Wikipedia IBM Personal Computer en wikipedia org wiki IBM_Personal_Computer 3 Wikipedia CP M en wikipedia org wiki CP M nology used to store the information One notable example of this problem was the BBC s Doomsday Project an update to the English Doomsday Book carried our in the mid 1980s the data from which was almost lost due to the obsolescence of the technology used to store it If data being created today has value for the future then you have to guard against the ob solescence of the hardware and sof
48. influence of desktop computers on the sustainability of information technology Surprisingly what we find is that the variable which has the greatest impact is not the ma chine it s the machine s user The way we use desktop computer systems and how we use and gen erate data has a great effect on the ecological footprint of the system For example the programs we use and how well we understand those programs and their functions have an impact on the environment Certain peripherals such as printers also have an impact as a result of the way we use them and if we look at recent trends it s the effects of information capture gadgets such as digital cameras and sound recording that are driving the storage capacity demand of IT When we consider the wider global network of computers the increasingly virtual nature of the relationships people maintain is driving the de mands on network connections and data storage Over the next four units we ll examine the ecological effects of desk top computers and the ways we can tackle them In this unit we ll look specifically at the issue of desktop computers in the next we ll look at information storage and the measures we can use to keep back up and secure information then we look at computer networks and how our use of data influences the efficiency of data movement and resource consumption and finally we ll look at physical security and maintenance 5 1 THE ROLE OF THE USE
49. interests Primarily this data has commercial value to marketing and public relations agencies and that has a whole number of negative ecological impacts given that such a large part of the in ternet s capacity and increasingly direct mail is tied up conveying sales information More controversially this same data has increas ing relevance to the state security role of po lice and security services and by extending the powers of the state over people s data these systems could potentially be used to police the freedom of thought expression and communi cation enabled by digital communications Finally through various online services people are lodging more of their data online As a result the demand for processing power and data storage is increasingly being driven by the 16 Taylor and Koomey 2008 Estimating Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Internet Advertising imc2 com Documents CarbonEmissions pdf 94 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 6 3 Basic rules for making back ups on removable media However you choose to back up files there are certain ba sic rules to ensure that the process works well and that the data stored is readable in the event of the loss of cor ruption of files When regularly backing up current work using reusable media always store the back up in a secure location if storing sensitive information the back up should be stored with a level of physical security that
50. less resource hungry than Gnome although it provides many of the same features Finally LXDE is the lightest and on older hardware it definitely improves the usability of the desktop However while XFCE LXDE will work well with most applications fast video programs or the animated content of web pages may not work well or at all Finally with both Windows and Linux another way to squeeze some extra speed out of the system or slightly reduce power consumption further is to run the display hardware at a lower resolution For example most new high definition HD displays are 1920 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high If you re primarily carrying out office work or internet browsing on the machine rather than playing video games or watching DVDs you might be able to run the display at a lower setting to save pro cessing power e g 1280x1024 1152x864 or 1024x768 You may also be able to reduce the colour depth of the display Provided the video hardware can support the change without causing problems the effect of reducing display resolution and colour depth is to free up memory and reduce the amount of power used by the video dis play electronics 74 A practical guide to sustainable IT ing the equipment or electrical faults causing fires while the machine is unattended As out lined in section 3 4 and figure 3 8 the easiest way to isolate the system from the mains is to use a switched and surge protected plug strip 5 3 PRI
51. more energy during their production they are often no more efficient overall when we look at their life cycle impacts For example a life cycle study of a 2 gram 32 mega byte DRAM memory chip estimated that 1 600 grams fossil fuels 72 grams of chemicals 32 000 grams water and 700 grams of gases mainly nitrogen were used during its production and the production of silicon wafers from quartz used 160 times the energy re quired for ordinary silicon metal That means the laptop in which this chip would have been installed would use less energy during its working life than was required to manufacture its memory chip Note also that carbon dioxide from energy use is not the only significant greenhouse gas produced by semi conductor production For example nitrogen trifluoride is an etchant used in the production of silicon chips and LCD displays and although released in very small quanti ties it is 17 000 times more potent as a contributor to the greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide At the heart of most digital equipment is the moth erboard This is a large printed circuit board mounted with chips and other system components and connectors which link it to other parts of the system using wires and ribbon cables The motherboard is most easily seen inside a desktop computer When you look at a computer motherboard most visible is the aluminium in the cooling fins heat sinks on the microprocessor and other high power heat producing chip
52. of all the pages had a size of more than a mega byte and 2 were over three megabytes e Sorting the web pages by size there is a general trend for larger pages to be dominated by Javascript code files rather than text or graphical data smaller pages were proportionately made up of more graphical data and e Isolating the types of information contained in each page text and graphical data made up a third of the average page the rest was formatting style sheet and control flash Javascript data Using the knowledge gained from the study of other sites the Free Range Network redesigned their site using a minimalist standard Rather than use a database driven dynamically created approach a static page design was used instead of using automated tools to generate page content simple HTML editing tools allowed pages to be created with a minimal amount of HTML tags within them control and formatting data were kept to a minimum graphical data was processed to reduce its size and a design scheme was chosen to minimise the need for overly complex or large graphics At the end of the site redesign the average file size across the 10 pages from the Free Range Network s site was 169 kilo bytes about a sixth of a mega byte and on average each page had just eight graphic style or Javascript files associated with it As a result of the changes the amount of server space the website occupied decreased by 20 When the new site desig
53. of electrical circuits which need to be told what to do by a computer program The central processing unit CPU of the machine is designed to carry out a set of instructions contained in a computer program Each instruc tion is initiated by giving the CPU one or more numbers which represent the instruction called the opcode and any data it needs to carry out that instruction call the operand The CPU then executes the instruction and stores the result if any inside its own internal memory called registers or inside the main memory system Without the instructions supplied by the software program the hardware is just an expensive collection of plastic metal and chemically altered silicon connected to a power supply What makes the computer a useful tool is the operating system that controls the hard ware and that provides support for the appli cation programs which the user runs There are various forms of operating system and some are more complex than others but understanding the role and functions of the hardware is an es 20 Wikipedia Central processing unit en wikipedia org wiki Central_processing_unit 21 Wikipedia Operating system en wikipedia org wiki Oper ating_system sential part of understanding the role and func tions of the operating system By understanding the principles of how the functions of the com puter are organised you will be able to work more easily and efficiently and quickly id
54. of many power ful machines The practical difference is that the power and primary cost of the hardware is based around the server For example client server networks have become an attractive op tion for schools and educational institutions because of the lower upgrade costs Rather than replacing all the machines on the net work the older lower powered machines can be retained and their life extended by using 110 A practical guide to sustainable IT Figure 7 1 A client server network Thin clients them as thin clients Much of the expense of the upgrade is the cost of the powerful server which runs the system Then as the older cli ents fail or become unserviceable they can be replaced with cheaper purpose designed thin clients further reducing the power consump tion of the system The thin clients run a minimal operating system On old PC machines the system is in stalled like a conventional stand alone operat ing system on purpose designed thin clients the system is often an embedded software system held in flash memory Being able to do away with hard drives and other components of the stand alone desktop system is one of the reasons why purpose built thin clients are cheaper and use less power The central server runs a dedicated time sharing system This runs the programs re quested by users and sends information to generate the desktop display back to the ter minals Time share systems were originall
55. off site storage the system user admin istratoris involved but it also relies upon oth er agencies in order to provide these services These might be free services contracted ser vices or informally organised storage offered by virtual communities or social networks The main concern with all off site storage is how secure the data is and whether it can be accessed when required 6 2 2 System level back ups We ll work through figure 6 2 from left to right The process begins with the hard drive inside Information storage and security 89 Figure 6 2 Back up pathways Local network storage Individual files folders Computer hard drive s i 1 a i oy mastering program d 09 CD DVD Blu Ray Optical disc storage Drive caddy Digital tape File server or networked machine System administrator the computer Information on a computer hard drive is vulnerable to hardware failure corrup tion of the operating system for example by malware or user error and of course theft of the machine or a disaster which befalls the building the machine is located in There are various ways to protect the information stored on a machine and each option gives a differing level of protection Firstly it is a simple procedure to duplicate the contents of the hard drive most straightfor wardly by operating a second hard drive within the same machine There are systems which can do this automat
56. or eco nomic to refurbish repair them That does not mean the whole unit has no use and must be scrapped Parts of the mechanism could be stripped down and components reused in order to provide the parts to repair unservice able goods Stripping down old equipment can also act as a valuable teaching aid for those learning the skills of electrical repair and being able to separate waste materials into separate metals plastics and waste elec tronics allows a high price to made from the sale of these materials to commercial recla mation companies Repairing computers and information devices is a very much simpler task than trying to repair the previous generation of analogue electronics That s because digital electronics have a more standard format although the electronics are broadly similar it s the software which makes them function in different ways Desktop PCs are a good example of this As outlined in unit 3 the circuit boards cards hard drives and other components are manufactured according to a standard design which makes individual parts in terchangeable An unserviceable PC or a PC with an outdated motherboard could have its case hard drives and other components reclaimed and rebuilt with a more powerful motherboard only the old motherboard need be scrapped How the reclamation process is carried out is often determined by the structure and objec tives of the project There are many examples of computer reclamati
57. or underscore _ charac ter or the word up with the caret character For example e Take the phrase It is a far far better thing that do this reduces to iaf btld initial letters ignoring the repetition of characters and including the punctua tion e The phrase may the force be with you this reduces to mT4BwU alternates character case with each word but uses the sound of force to indicate a num ber and e The word encyclopaedia stringing out the word by its syllables this can reduce to Ns1clOPdA By turning the characters of a password into mnemon ics small units that represent an idea you can con struct a seemingly random password in a way that s far easier to remember We each have our own meanings and preferred ways of associating and breaking down words and phrases which introduces some randomness in the setting of the mnemonic As a result even if the phrase is the same two people may not reduce it to the same set of mnemonics 126 A practical guide to sustainable IT vent the passwords of the system s root user account Setting a password on the boot loader prevents this e Hard drive encryption password If the file system has been configured to encrypt the contents of one or more hard drives you will be prompted for this password before the ma chine can finish loading the operating system Hard drive encryption is the be
58. owner permission has happened on the Kindle service perhaps ironically one of the books deleted was George Orwell s 1984 5 5 FILES FOLDERS AND ORGANISING DATA A the speed of data networks has increased and with the advent of downloadable TV and radio programmes the amounts of data streaming into computers has grown exponen tially At the same time we have more digital capture devices from mobile phones to digital audio recorders video stills cameras and im age scanners for digitising images and printed materials which routinely generate giga bytes of data see box 5 3 All of this data fills our own computers and we re file sharing and emailing large quantities of it to friends and contacts via the internet replicating multiple copies across computer networks and creating a greater de mand for storage Once data has been downloaded to a com puter the next issue is how those files are or ganised Again the growing size of files has been driving the demand for larger hard drives on desktop computers That s partly due to the downloading and editing of video although the larger capacity of digital cameras and portable music players means that the data imported to the system are becoming ever larger as con sumer gadgets store larger quantities of files As the sources of data have grown so the total number of files on a hard drive has increased substantially too Perhaps a routine example of the growth in files w
59. reclaiming electronic goods so that they can di agnose any faults or problems which exist with them and classify them according to the likeli hood of repairing reconditioning them As the electrical goods come into the project they must be sorted into three categories e Serviceable the goods have no faults and are in working order In order to comply with electrical safety regulations in many states this may require a qualified electrician to carry out earthing and electrical safety tests in or der to certify them ready for reuse Once certi fied these goods can immediately be reused by the local community without the need for further work or modification Unserviceable the goods may have minor faults which need rectifying In contrast to 4 Wikipedia Portable appliance testing en wikipedia org wiki Portable_appliance_testing 142 A practical guide to sustainable IT the financial restrictions which operate within commercial reclamation organisations where the most practical economic option is to re cover the scrap value of the materials this is the type of repair and reclamation work which could be carried out at a low cost if a project could be developed to organise the required training and safety certification Once repairs have been carried out the goods can be passed as serviceable and made available for use e Unusable for a variety of reasons goods can be unusable if it is not practical
60. style cathode ray tube CRT monitors in order to stop the screen s phosphor coating degrading through over use and were use ful because they prolonged the life of the CRT monitor This feature is now redundant with the development of flat screen monitors Moreover screen savers don t save energy In fact when they create complex animated or fast moving images for example music visualisation soft ware they can use far more energy than a blank screen Even so screen savers are important Set ting your screen saver to start after four or five minutes without any activity and requiring a password to unlock it is an effective security measure against casual intrusion on a computer system As in the case of power saving put ting an icon on the desktop task bar to lock the desktop enables the user to activate the screen saver when you leave the computer With newer flat panel monitors it s im portant to configure the system so it turns the display off when not in use This is usually part of the power management configuration re cently manufactured CRT monitors have this feature too After a certain period of idleness the display will be switched into standby mode saving a large proportion of its power consump tion How long before the screen goes blank is set by a slider or list box in the power manage ment menu On most Linux systems and some proprietary Windows applications another im portant saving can be
61. switch to a power saving state when you are away from the computer There are two steps you should undertake to implement this e Configure the power management system to suspend also called sleep or hibernate the computer when you are away from it for a cer tain length of time Of the two hibernate is the most secure because it backs up any open programs to the hard disks rather than to the memory unless the programs used have the option to save a back up copy at regular in tervals to prevent data loss The downside is that restoring from hibernation takes longer than from suspend and for that reason peo ple avoid using it How long you set before the machine automatically enters the suspend hibernate mode depends upon your work pat terns Ideally set this to 20 to 30 minutes or less e A better option is to place an icon on the task bar or desktop that initiates suspend or hiber nation when you click it This is more predict able because you decide when the mode is ac tivated and if used routinely it will save more because the computer need not be inactive for a period before power saving is enabled The default time limit in the power saving configuration should still be set as a back up in case the user forgets to click the icon but putting an icon on the desktop allows more timely control over the power consumption Many people configure screen savers on their desktops These were developed for use with old
62. tal container to exclude all magnetic fields When archiving data onto CDs DVDs always label the disc with an identifiable index for example the date the back up was made and a few words to describe the content When making a large number of archive CDs DVDs crea te a listing of the directory tree on the disc and store it as a text file these files can be searched when you want to find a stored file rather than manually searching the discs Indexing the CDs DVDs according to the date they were made using the format year month day disc number e g 2012 03 12 01 This creates a unique index key to identify the disc and keeping the discs in date order allows them to be accessed quickly when required Optical discs require careful storage to maximise their working life e Store the discs in a CD DVD folder to protect them from damage or if making a large number of discs you can store them on the spindle containers that the blank discs are supplied in e Never expose the surface of the disc to strong light for long periods of time particularly sunlight or near to bright fluorescent lights ultra violet light damages the polymers in the disc e Keep the discs in an environment that has an even temperature and protect them from extremes of heat and cold e Handle the disc by its edge and centre hole and avoid touching the surface of the disc as the grease dirt from fingertips encourages dust and fine grit to stick to
63. text only access op tion which allows pages to be viewed without their active components which can be a prob lem not only for older lower power systems but also for those using Braille text to speech screen readers 7 2 3 Proxy servers So far we have looked at the steps which can be taken to minimise the impacts of world wide web use from the web browser For larger organisations many of the above features can be enabled with a web proxy server Users of the network access the web through the proxy and the rules defined 22 Adblock Plus accessed June 2012 adblockplus org 23 Wikipedia Screen reader en wikipedia org wiki Screen_reader 24 Wikipedia Proxy server en wikipedia org wiki Proxy_ server for serving pages will block and filter certain types of content as well as blocking selected websites Proxy servers are becoming more popular on small and home networks too as they are a simple way to implement content filtering as part of parental control systems The greatest benefit of proxy servers is that they help to control the amount of data down loaded by users of the network As popular con tent can be served from the local network they can also speed up access to information Reducing the amount of data downloaded has a positive ecolog ical impact and where data download is metered it can also reduce costs Recent research suggests that a proxy server might reduce the quantity of
64. that has a high mega pixel count turning down the image resolution will reduce the size of the files produced without significantly affecting the image quality 80 A practical guide to sustainable IT Figure 5 1 A traditional directory tree My Documents ii Holiday images To standardise the organising of files on a computer a collection of embedded labels called metadata box 5 4 has been developed to describe the contents of each file Rather like the track title and artist information used with MP3 music files by labelling files across the system with information on their content it makes the job of locating and using the files data stored on the system much easier In prac tice describing the content using metadata pro duces more accurate results Most desktop operating systems have a desktop search indexing system Windows Vista and Windows 7 come with Windows Search Macintosh systems use an application called Spotlight and Linux desktop environ ments usually have a search facility built in al though many use dedicated search applications such as Beagle In addition there are a variety of proprietary and free desktop search applica tions which can be installed The benefit of a more sophisticated search system is not only its ability to index data Most desktop search applications allow you greater control over the content and formatting of file metadata making the management of metadata
65. their licences in the 1990s they had an incentive to get as much capacity out of their networks as possible and through new transmission pro tocols they achieved a higher capacity than initially expected In contrast the designers of web systems have no such pressures on the quality and efficiency of their work Irrespective of whether we access the web or not we re all paying for bloat Not just in the extra money we have to pay to download and manipulate all that data we re paying for it ecologically Transferring greater quantities of data requires the internet industry to buy higher capacity hardware that in turn uses up the finite stocks of rare metals and generates toxic waste streams from manufacturing new machines and disposing of old equipment Making all that equipment also uses a large quantity of energy as does running it which also contributes to our depletion of finite en ergy resources the production of pollution and climate change Unfortunately there is no simple route to achieving greater efficiency in web design In 2010 the Free Range Network undertook a small scale study to evaluate the design related impacts of web use see summary in Box 7 2 The purpose of the study was to highlight strategies to redesign their own web site in order to make web pages more efficient when accessed reducing data downloads and the amount of processing power required to display the page A general prob
66. they accept and the fees collected are sufficient to fund the disposal costs of the project Before setting up any project it is important to identify any regu latory hurdles that need to be resolved before the project opens Often such restrictions only involve a one off fee for registration although there may be a burden of paperwork to com plete afterwards in order to demonstrate com pliance with the law Another important factor is the availability of disposal contractors These might be e waste reclamation companies but if the project can sort different waste streams to the required standard then they could sell the materials to 18 Wikipedia Gate fee en wikipedia org wiki Gate_fee merchant recyclers This creates a positive envi ronmental benefit because separated waste ma terials can be more easily and cheaply recycled than bulk disposed waste reducing both the pollution created and the resources wasted Bulk electrical waste is usually crushed fragmented and then incinerated to recover only the metal components waste separation allows more met als to be recovered from the e waste and the plastics can be recycled rather than incinerated Separation may also create a stream of usable components which can be sold to others engag ingin similar work for example people who have trained with the project and who are renovating maintaining their own equipment Reuse and reclamation 147 SECTION 11 RENEWABL
67. they are designed to open A door can be strengthened by adding more hinges and locks and reinforcing the door with ex 6 Wikipedia Door security en wikipedia org wiki Door_se curity have a regularly updated list of service provid ers or trades people so that in the event of a problem occurring with the regular provider you can quickly switch to another tra wood or metal If you use a deadlock once locked the door can t be opened from the inside without a key making it harder to remove objects if entry is gained by other means However there s no point strengthen ing a door to a point where it s much stron ger than the walls around it for example a door set in a stud work and plasterboard wall otherwise it s just as easy to go in through the wall e Windows Windows are a weak point but often a last resort for illicit access due to the hazards of climbing over broken glass Using key locks on window frames help be cause once broken the window frame can t be opened which makes it much harder to climb through The only effective way to se cure a window is with internal bars or welded mesh securely fixed to the wall external bars fittings can be removed more easily Roof and floor spaces These are often over looked For adjoining buildings if the roof space is shared then you ll need to secure any access point into the roof space from the inside In offices which share a void above a suspende
68. this is a simpler task because all the programs required to reformat open media files are usually included with the operating system or can be freely down loaded Of the three video is the most difficult media to work with Often reducing the size of vid eo files is a matter of trial and error in each case Using the video editing application s available for your operating system the file is first imported and then various options are tried to reduce the frame rate size of the video frame and the quality of the audio track In contrast the process of re 13 Adobe 2004 Adobe Acrobat 7 Reduce PDF file size www adobe com designcenter archive acrobat articles acr7optimize acr7optimize pdf 14 OpenOffice accessed June 2012 Extensions Presenta tion Minimizer extensions openoffice org en project PresentationMinimizer ducing the size of image and audio files is simpler and has more consistent results Audio and video files are processed using codecs encoding and decoding standards which convert the compressed data into audio video data ready for reproduction and vice versa The main consideration about processing digital media for transmission is quality file size and the quality of the video sound or image reproduction are directly related Often it s not simply shrinking the size of the video image which has the great est impact on file size Reducing the number of colours used to display the visual data o
69. tual property issue as more expensive multi 39 Edununtu help ubuntu com community Edubuntu Documentation EdubuntuCookbook ThinClient see also Hargadon Steve accessed June 2012 Rescuing a School Technology Program Linux Thin client Overview 40 Rais Mark accessed June 2012 Why Linux is the Logical Choice for the Classroom www reallylinux com docs inuxclassroom shtml 41 Lai Eric 2007 Microsoft adjusts to add support for thin client computing ComputerWorld www computerworld com s article 9015280 Microsoft_adjusts_to_add_sup port_for_thin_client_computing_ 42 Microsoft accessed June 2012 Windows Embedded Thin Client www microsoft com windowsembedded en us evaluate windows embedded thin client aspx Local and global networks 111 user licences may have to be purchased to run certain software across a client server network rather than a single licence for use on a stand alone machine Overall whether or not a client server network creates cost and energy savings depends upon the types of tasks carried out by existing network us ers and the extent to which any pre existing hard ware can be reused when creating the network Given the current trends in computing especially the shift towards more centralised online servic es it is likely that client server networks will be come more widely used in situations where many people share the same network system 112 A practical guide to sustainable
70. up as you perceive them the risks reliability and relative costs of different options to develop a sustainable solution to your IT needs and then choose the set of op tions that can be reliably and easily maintained as part of your everyday routine 8 1 2 Modular design It can be difficult to consider the whole system design in terms of its sustainability There are so many different aspects to sustainable IT that it is easy to become overwhelmed with the detail To assist in the design process it helps to break down the system into its constituent parts defining the larger system as a series of interconnected modules For more complex systems breaking down the problem into its constituent parts allows those with needs or expertise in different areas to evaluate the op tions that reflect their interest Creating a module design involves identify ing the physical or logical boundaries which de fine each part of the whole system The value of breaking down our needs or systems into small er parts is that the problems related to each small part of the system are more easily quanti fied and so can be more easily managed Each part independent of the rest can be designed 3 Willcocks and Lester 1996 Beyond the IT Productiv ity Paradox European Management Journal vol 14 no 3 pp 279 290 dx doi org 10 1016 0263 2373 96 00007 2 4 Wikipedia Triple bottom line en wikipedia org wiki Triple_bottom_line t
71. websites have allowed the scale of data transmission to expand without any perceptible check on the impacts this has Although there has been much discussion about the bloat of software as yet there is little information available on the bloat of web content and the impacts of this bloat on the increasing ecological footprint of information networks As part of efforts to produce a lower impact website in 2011 the Free Range Network conducted research on the websites of UK campaign groups political parties and new media Sixteen websites plus the Free Range Network s new site were selected for study On each site the ten most popular web pages were downloaded In most cases a web page is not a single file it is made up of a central HTML page and associated with that are separate files to provide graphical images control and formatting data Together the 170 web pages downloaded amounted to over 10 000 individual files comprising a total of 160 megabytes of data The content was sorted to produce a statistical snapshot of the 170 web pages and while the sample is not large enough to produce statistically rigorous results the analysis produced some startling facts e A fifth of the 170 web pages downloaded had 100 or more files associated with them as a general trend those with a higher advertising content primarily the new media sites had the highest file counts e Measuring the size of the page and its associated files a third
72. whole system and how best to address all the features involved When developing a sustainable IT system it is possible to achieve similar if not greater sav ings by attending to the design of the building and work areas This can be done through a for mal building energy audit or less formal steps to tackle the main areas of energy and resource use e Space heating and or cooling is the major consumer of energy in buildings often mak ing up over half the energy budget of the building Space heating can be controlled through better insulation but it is far more effec tive to reduce the operating temperature of the environment The need for cooling air conditioning can be managed by reducing the heat load 11 Whole Building Design Guide Sustainable www wbdg org design sustainable php 12 Wikipedia Energy audit en wikipedia org wiki Energy_ audit 13 Whole Building Design Guide Optimize energy use www wbdg org design minimize_consumption php Desktop machine Locking mechanism entering the workspace CRT computer monitors use a lot of energy compared to flat screens and switching to peripherals printers and other devices which quickly switch to a low power standby mode when not in use will reduce the heat they pro duce A major source of heating is sunlight entering through windows especially in more formal office environments which have large windows simple light colo
73. 00 000 000 000 000 tonnes or 5 million years worth of production but only a tiny fraction of these reserves is economically viable to extract According to the information from the US Geological Survey USGS which studies the global availability of the most im portant minerals the amount of copper avail able in the future is around 690 million tonnes In figure 2 1 the growth in mobile phones like the rest of the economy is an exponential curve Any exponential trend has a characteris tic called the doubling time a fixed period of time in which the quantity will double Copper is interesting because its growth over the last century is a well defined exponential curve with a doubling time of about 22 years As shown in figure 2 2 we can draw boxes to illustrate how the amounts of copper consumed by the world economy grow with each period of doubling time from around 19 million tonnes in the first 22 years of the last century to about 280 million tonnes in the period which is just ending The issue for our future use of copper and the viability of the technologies which depend on the metal is that the next 22 year doubling period will consume about four fifths of the remaining copper resource identified by the USGS However the production of minerals can t carry on at a constant rate As the best reserves are used up first so it becomes pro gressively harder to find and produce what re mains and more expensive It is
74. 22 VIC EOS play T 3 3 6 box 5 1 UnbUNCIin Coenen cre 4 1 2 Consumer electronics Re MEVCWANG soonssousocnovscusesnecuns 3 1 3 4 disitallcameras ne nenrrre box 5 3 applications and specifications 4 2 2 box 4 2 C NOAGEIS cicnenncu nets een em tenes 5 4 assemble e eee een Tete 3 4 CIBOASEENES onaacanccaccaccanasoanns 92 DUVIN Siete cute a E E E box 3 1 resource footprint ermee ener rer box 2 1 openmnardWare eee eee ner eer 32 Wasteelectronics ae rte rrr 9 4 UP SradinG a E A box 3 6 Data storage amp backing up 6 1 6 2 Intellectual property rights 4 1 1 6 1 1 162 A practical guide to sustainable IT liifescycleranalysis m ete 2 3 AppeCompute T 3292 cCOmpUterS a T box 2 1 MODI PHONG arr rie et box 2 1 Emits torerowthe rere 2 2 2 EInU Xenon e A es eetnlamte nite iia 4 1 box 4 1 Malware and phishing 8 4 Metadata eee ccnnmcuctenens 5 5 box 5 4 Mobile Phoneme reee ne ner nrrrr backing up mobile devices box 6 1 SHOW CMMI SC eerie etre iit 2 2 1 fig 2 1 resource footprint box 2 1 NGtWOnkStmncmecm emer ami nme maie 7 1 7 4 locallnetWOnkS ner rr tern te Tet off site back upS ee000s 6 2 4 Proxy Servers ao eae 7 2 3 sneakernets iaeiae ile emcee seer 6 2 6 thin clients networks 7 4 Wake on WANE 4 4 2 wired wireless networks 7 Operating systems 4 1 4 4 box 3 3 documenting systems 4 3 box 4
75. 24 7 4 2 2 Hardware specifications and practical applications Let s begin with hardware and the demands of different operating systems In table 3 1 we looked at the hardware specifications required by different operating systems In table 4 1 we look at this from a different perspective what applications can be achieved with a certain level of hardware Remember that the minimum requirements of different operating systems given in table 3 1 still apply For example to run a lightweight server on old hardware you would use a lightweight Linux distribution or Windows NT rather than the latest fully functional Linux or Microsoft server systems Table 4 1 lists a number of different appli cations for different classes of hardware Here s an explanation of what each one encompasses Desktops office related graphical and com munications tasks e High power desktop high end desktop work such as graphic design video editing and DVD mastering less powerful machines can 11 Wikipedia Remote desktop software en wikipedia org wiki Remote_desktop_software Operating systems Making the system work 57 Box 4 2 Hardware specs and potential system applications Matching the performance of hardware to potential appli cations is a rather complex subject The more powerful the hardware the simpler it is to install an operating system The skill lies in being able to determine what is the lowest specification you requi
76. DERS P rint is no longer a purely paper based medi um As well as traditional computer screens there are now a number of devices which are specifically designed to replace printed books Unfortunately the ecological impacts of read ing information on the latest tablet devices is a complex issue to interpret For example while designed for reading print based information they are also capable of undertaking other tasks as well It also requires information on the car bon footprint of the e reader and that is not always provided by the manufacturer There are some studies but they are often partisan For example one positive study of e readers didn t consider the lending or resale of printed books to other readers when it calculated the impacts of e books versus conventional books another report more favourable to the print industry notes the uncertainty in the figures which under lie comparisons between print and e books Of course with any electronic technology the gold en rule is always to maximise its use and keep it functioning for the longest time possible before replacing it which appears to be the bottom line of almost all studies on the comparison between conventional and electronic books 12 Palmer Brian August 2010 Should You Ditch Your Books for an E Reader The Slate www slate com articles health_and_science the_green_lantern 2010 08 should_you_ditch_your_books_for_an_ereader html 13 Cleantech Gro
77. Default asp Document ID 6126 Article ID 6471 23 Wikipedia Basel convention en wikipedia org wiki Basel_convention 24 United Nations 2012 UN backed initiative to address electronic waste problem in Africa adopted www un ore apps news story asp News D 415706Cr Electronic Was te amp Cr1 While recent revisions to the WEEE Directive have sought to increase the amounts of electri cal waste collected there has been criticism of the way the problem is being tackled At pres ent the focus of the directive is on waste col lection and without any other legislation which seeks to control the life cycle and service life of goods This means that functional usable elec trical goods can be disposed of which under the current system is likely to lead to them being crushed fragmented and incinerated For those who seek to reuse computers and other electrical items this takes away items which they might have been able to reuse as the centralised collec tion of e waste inevitably leads to usable com puters and other goods being scrapped At present the greatest difficulty with the reg ulation of e waste and to some extent the laws on the restriction of hazardous substances is that they deal with waste as an end point of the con sumer process We are still looking at resource use as a linear process involving production and dis posal rather than a cyclical process which focus es on reuse recycling and zero waste pro
78. E POWER When you have taken all practical measures to adapt your equipment and procedures to more efficient computing there remains one exter nal factor which can be improved the power supply Around two fifths of the carbon emissions produced each year are the result of electricity generation By comparison transportation produces just over a fifth and industrial emissions are another fifth Of the emissions from power generation the majority are the result of coal burning and coal burning also creates problems due to the emission of acid gases which damage wildlife and crops and polluting heavy metals Two thirds of the world s power is generated from fossil fuels and although de car bonising power production will not on its own solve the problem of climate change it is an essential step in tackling the problem For most ICT users their source of power is most likely to be the electricity grid Just as recent operating systems have become inextricably linked to the use of broadband data connections much of our modern electronics is tied to the 24 hour a day availability of a mains power supply and in many states there are few other options In that respect the modern elec tricity grid mirrors the global economic process generally it is built upon an underlying assumption that there will be a never ending supply of energy and resources in order to make society function In contrast users of off grid power systems know that the
79. Free software the freedom to unbundle The problem with bundling is that it removes choice and the ability for people to experiment and extend their knowledge without having to undertake costly and sometimes difficult chang es to their systems Using the breakfast corn flake analogy if there was a separate sachet of chocolate powder it would be possible to choose the strength of the chocolate flavour on the corn flake can decide to add a tiny sprinkle or could pour on half the sachet over a single bowl Free software enables this choice to be made In contrast bundling restricts your ability to mix n match a computer system that suits your own needs Often you get the lowest common de nominator of computer system which may be too much for your budget or too little for your needs It gets more interesting when we start to selectively buy the elements that make up our breakfast If can unbundle the brand I can chose who sells me my chocolate coating if don t like person X s chocolate coating can buy person Y s this was the basis of the anti trust lawsuits against Microsoft specifically the way Microsoft incorporates software such as web browsers into 7 Wikipedia Product bundling en wikipedia org wiki Prod uct_bundling their operating systems could even produce my own coating if no one produced a flavour liked Also if find that the quality of the corn flake is not consistent enough can expe
80. ICT for development ICTD practitioners to begin using technology in an environmentally sound way But its usefulness extends beyond this to everyday consumers of technology whether in the home or office environment We can all play our part and the practice of sustainable computing will go a long way in helping to tackle the environmental crisis facing our planet This is also more than just a how to guide Mobbs brings his specific perspective to the topic of sustainable IT and the practical lessons learned here suggest a bigger picture of how we as humans need to live and interact in order to secure our future The guide is divided into 12 sections or units with each unit building thematically on the ones that have come before They can be read consecutively or separately The unit approach allows the sections to be updated over time extracted for use as resource guides in workshops or shared easily with colleagues and friends The guide has been developed on behalf of the Association for Progressive Communications APC with funding support from the International Development Research Centre www idrc ca It is part of a APC s GreeningIT initiative which looks to promote an environmental consciousness amongst civil society groups using ICTs and amongst the public generally Other publications and research reports completed as part of the GreeninglT initiative can be downloaded at greeningit apc org CZ NON APG
81. IT Box 7 3 Networking check list Networking hardware If possible use wired connections as this has a lower power consumption than using Wi Fi Organise the power supply to ethernet switches Wi Fi base stations so it can be easily switched off when the computer s they are connected to are switched off Configure the network adapter to use the lowest practical speed for data transfer to reduce power consumption This is primarily an issue with gigabit ethernet because its high capacity is rarely utilised in routine operations Use the least amount of network hardware in order to reduce the overall demand for power for example rather than using two eight port switches to connect machines use a single 16 port switch Add new hard ware only when network congestion becomes a prob lem Using networks Take care when attaching files to emails especially when sent to long distribution lists email lists Always consider the implications of sending large multi mega byte files by email and where possible scale down or process the attachment to reduce its size Consider whether you need to use HTML formatted emails all the time set the default on your email cli ent to plain text and use HTML formatting only where it is necessary To reduce the need to repeatedly download data en sure that you have around 100 megabytes in your web browser cache to store the large files often used with advertising driven websites
82. NTING here is a modern marketing myth devel oped in the 1970s when the first word processors were available that one day paper would be eliminated from offices by the devel opment of better computer technology In 1980 before the IT revolution swept across the office environment world office paper consumption was 70 million tonnes a year by 1997 it was al most 150 million tonnes In Britain 120 billion pieces of paper are printed each year The aver age British office worker prints 22 pages every working day and research suggests that 44 of this is easily avoidable and over 21 of this printed matter is disposed of before the end of the day The paperless office hasn t arrived for many reasons These are partly technological not ev eryone uses computers well or feels comfortable reading from screens They are also partly psycho logical research shows that the physicality of pa peris an important part of how we comprehend its content and mentally map that information Per haps most importantly the change in the scale of office administration as part of the modern service led economy has made the market for paper grow compared to the 1970s It s this last point that is the least explored Yes the amount of office paper generated per person may have fallen with the ad vent of new technology but as the global economy has grown so the numbers involved in office and administration have grown too The overall effect has
83. OS are designed to be more secure and to enforce strict control over how users can use the operating system unlike the Windows system which has traditionally been designed for convenience and ease of use There are examples of Linux and Mac viruses In additional there are also cross platform vi ruses that can use Java or the scripting lan guage used in office based programs such as Microsoft Office and OpenOffice which can af fect all major operating systems Even the An droid mobile phone system now has malware developed for it Malware isn t just a security issue Ma chines with malware running in the back ground use more processor power and if part 38 Wikipedia Malware en wikipedia org wiki Malware 39 Wikipedia Linux malware en wikipedia org wiki Linux_malware of botnets they will use the broadband con nection to shift large amounts of data as part of spam or denial of service attacks This re sults in higher energy consumption and for those whose broadband connection is metered it can also result in very large bills for the data sent over the network However it is also true that running anti virus software which rou tinely scans the operating system and incom ing outgoing data for malware will add to the load on the processor and use more energy and on older machines it might reduce system performance slightly For Windows machines anti virus software is an essential part of running an int
84. OS because it is based on a Unix like sys tem the line is blurred It is not possible to enable a strict divide between what a desktop is and what a server is In practice as free software systems allow the installation of additional software more easily it is very easy to set up a desktop machine which can also act as a server on a local network for example running a web server to provide an intranet 4 2 1 Finding the best fit of machine to operating system Unlike the world of proprietary software where you have a limited choice of hardware to fit the power demands of the latest Windows or Apple iOS operating system with free software you have the option to design a system to fit the ap plication you need it for Older hardware which would be difficult or impossible to use with recent versions of Windows can be found new purposes have its working life extended using free software Even fairly new hardware can be configured in dif ferent ways to perform different functions in the process creating different levels of performance or security to match the needs of the user For example if you install a web server on a desktop machine then it is possible to carry out complex web design and then test the designs including scripting and other functions with out a network connection to a dedicated server Additionally when using proprietary systems you re penalised for using more than one ma chine because of th
85. PAUL MOBBS A practical guide to sustainable IT rr Se O gt A APE A practical guide to sustainable IT Author Paul Mobbs Copy editing Alan Finlay Layout proofreading Lori Nordstrom Publication production Karen Banks and Flavia Fascendini Graphic design Monocromo info monocromo com uy Phone 598 2 400 1685 Commissioned by the Association for Progressive Communications APC cr CNA CS a Conducted with support from the International Development Research Centre IDRC 36 IDRC CRDI Canada The views expressed in this publication are those of the individual authors and not necessarily those of APC or IDRC A practical guide to sustainable IT Published by the Association for Progressive Communications APC with support from the International Development Research Centre IDRC South Africa 2012 Creative Commons Attribution 3 0 Licence lt creativecommons org licenses by nc nd 3 0 gt Some rights reserved APC 201206 SU R EN DIGITAL 162 ISBN 978 92 95096 71 4 Table of contents 01 02 03 04 05 06 Introduction What is sustainable Information Technology An introduction to the themes of this series and an explanation of the reasons why we should view our use of technology as a system rather than as separate processes Too often we focus on the de mands or specifications of the machine instead we should look at our information needs
86. PU would find it difficult to shift 150 to 500 megabytes a second to the video display and do all the other tasks it needs to perform If you want to play videos or an animated video game without the display jumping and hiccuping all the time then the video display system has to be handled by purpose designed graphics card working separately from the CPU By making the AGP port an expansion slot you can fit the graph ics card of your choice into the motherboard Then instead of the CPU transferring data from the memory the video display is managed by the northbridge of the chipset without the CPU being involved All the CPU needs to do is update the display image held in the main memory On older machines without AGP the size and quality of the display is limited by the speed of the system With AGP and an accelerated graphics card the system can send far more data to the display and produce a much higher quality picture 3 3 7 The disk drive controller Next let s look at the southbridge and disk drive controller 3 The front side bus works at very high speeds to shift data from the memory to the CPU and AGP port That would be a waste of time when communicating with the hard disk and especially the keyboard because the data can t be supplied by the hardware at any thing near that rate If you can get hold of an old motherboard and look at the little copper wires on its surface you ll see that there s one set of wires linkin
87. R IN THE ECOLOGY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY n unit 2 we looked at the ecology of informa tion technology the effect that our demand for information systems has on the environment generally There was a very important part miss ing from that analysis the user of the equip ment When we think of desktop computers an integral part of the system is the human user who sits in front of the computer The type of job that they are doing and how efficiently they work af fects how intensely the computer is utilised and how great the impact of that activity is There are many facts and figures about the impacts of computing in terms of emissions but because they often consider different sys tem boundaries or because they are based on certain industries or activities the results given vary widely Often the units these impacts are measured in differ too making direct compari sons difficult For example some give the emis sions as an equivalent of elemental carbon C some the emissions of carbon dioxide CO and others give measurements adjusted to reflect the value of different greenhouse gases as an equivalent of carbon dioxide CO eq To make comparing the impacts of using desktop systems less complex we ll take rough figures from the range of information available to look at the scale of the impacts from differ ent parts of a desktop computer system e Firstly the internet the energy used by the global di
88. Synergy s PowerMAN or 1E s NightWatch man and Verdiem produce a free application called Edison There are also proprietary ap plications for MacOS For Linux there are ap plications developed for large servers and as suggested there are also free programs such as powertop Operating systems Making the system work 65 Box 4 5 Operating systems check list Always match operating systems to hardware specifica tions A machine which doesn t have enough system resources to run its installed software will struggle and waste the user s time a system that is too powerful for the software installed upon it represents a waste of resources in effect the user is wasting the system s time What we should find by planning our needs and matching them to a machine specification is a balance between these two extremes Define a role for a machine and install a system that meets that role Operating systems work well when they perform a de fined purpose That could be a general purpose like a desktop machine or a specific purpose like a data server Sometimes you can combine both such as a desktop with a web server installed to allow web development In practice it s better to manage the load on machines in a way that optimises their role rather than obstructing it Find a role for the hardware you have and only buy new hardware when what you have can no longer perform the tasks you require reliably Old machines can be usefu
89. T consumes The more gadgets we have especially mobile devices that require charging the greater the demand for electric ity around the globe Though we might focus on the direct use of electricity by IT because that s the part of the system we can easily mea sure in terms of the overall life cycle of these devices more energy will have been used during their production for example see the figures for Apple computers shown in figure 3 1 As the level of direct energy use by electrical goods has reduced so the energy consumed during produc tion has become more significant For example the memory chip in a laptop computer can take more energy to produce than the laptop itself will consumer over its three yearservice life 7 An 23 Leonard Annie 2007 The Story of Stuff www storyof stuff org movies all story of stuff 24 International Energy Agency 2009 Gadgets and Giga watts OECD IEA Paris Gadgets and Gigawatts Summa ry www iea ore Textbase npsum Gigawatts2009SUM pdf 25 Williams E Ayres R Heller M 2002 The 1 7 Kilogram icrochip Energy and Material Use in the Production of Semiconductor Devices Environmental Science and Tech nology 36 24 p5504 5510 www it environment org publications 1 7 20kg 20microchip pdf 26 de Decker K The monster footprint of digital technology Low Tech Magazine June 16th 2009 www lowtechmaga zine com 2009 06 embodied energy of digital technol ogy html
90. That s because people find it difficult to re member a truly random password and so opt for easily guessable rules or formats which sig nificantly reduce the variability and hence the security of their passwords The solution is to use a mnemonic password created by a sim ple process which takes a more easily remem bered phrase and reduces it to a string of letters and numbers see Box 8 2 Secondly use multiple passwords for dif ferent functions on a machine As more people use passwords on remote internet systems the risks of using the same or similar passwords for all access controls is that if the passwords you use over a network are disclosed it is possible to launch remote attacks on your computer sys tem using similar style passwords to attempt a breach of security Therefore when using mul tiple passwords use different passwords and a different style of password on your local ma chine and on internet services The difficulty is that remembering multiple passwords is dif ficult but again using mnemonic passwords based upon a more easily remembered phrase can solve this problem With most computer systems it is possible to set multiple levels of access control pass words to secure access First and foremost it should be remembered that if the machine it self isn t secure in particular the hard drives containing the data then no amount of access controls will make the system secure If an un encrypted hard
91. While developing a grid connected renewable sys tem is likely to be competitive with buying re newable electricity from the grid it will never be a means to reduce the cost of electricity overall That s because even in those nations where electricity is very expensive the cost of installing and maintaining small scale grid connected systems will be greater than the large economies of scale offered by large power grids But as noted above if we wish to de velop an alternative to the fossil fuelled power grid then it is small local and largely self con tained systems such as this collectively called distributed generation which will be required to address our current demand for electricity Figure 11 1 shows a typical grid connected power system Electricity produced by one Or more renewable generating technologies is supplied to a synchronising inverter This converts the low voltage direct current DC of small renewable technologies into high volt age alternating current AC used by the power grid This allows the locally generated power to flow into the system without generating inter ference with the power from the grid If the renewable power sources do not gen erate enough current the grid supplies the dif ference between what is being generated and 6 For example see Wikipedia Grid connected photovoltaic power system en wikipedia org wiki Grid connected_ photovoltaic_power_system 7 Wikipedia Dist
92. a in Apple s cloud storage system Information storage and security 87 What s important is that we organise files in a way that assists the process of making back ups This means organising information in a way that separates the important data which requires reg ular backing up from other less important data Separating important data from the less used and superfluous files on the computer system is also good practice because it allows low value files to be regularly deleted from the system to free up space on the hard drive Organising data by its importance is easily done using a clear structure of directories folders on desktop or server machine to isolate the most important or regularly edited files from other data which has a low value or is infrequently changed For example e Users should store their current work impor tant files inside a single identifiable work directory This simplifies the process of decid ing which files to back up backing up all cur rent files can be easily carried out by copying the work directory to another machine ona network or to a removable storage media e Other user files that are used infrequently or which have already been archived can be segre gated into an archive directory e Low value or superfluous data such as web pages or downloaded files should be kept separately from the user s recent and archived data and these folders can be regularly sorted a
93. a lot of cable left over you can coil the cable loosely and tie with a cable tie to keep it together If the power point for the machine is not nearby tie or fix the cable from the switched socket to the leg of the desk table In the event of the cable being pulled hard it prevents the socket and its attached cables being dragged away Once all the mains cables are connected up and tidied away you can move on to the light er weight cables Again work from thickest to thinnest The next is probably the video cable then USB and network cables and finally the au dio cables Again leave loose coils in the cables which might get tugged especially the mouse keyboard and network cable or the phone line is you are using a modem to prevent acciden tal damage Web cams are usually fastened to the top of the monitor if you don t have a com patible bracket you can get Velcro pads stick ing one to the top of the monitor and the other to the bottom of the web cam to stick the two together Headsets and headphones also need to be carefully located to prevent the cable from being tugged You can buy small metal cable clamps with sticky foam backs stick them to the side of the case and then clamp the cable in the jaws to reduce the likelihood that it will be wrenched out Newer systems tend to have USB sockets on the front older ones do not If you regularly plug in MP3 players cameras or other devices get a short USB extension cab
94. a machine is not in use if you have a log of its vital statistics it makes it easier to decide if it can be re installed and put into service or stripped for the required parts if another machine fails In addition to the hardware it s also impor tant to keep a log of operational data For ex ample the connection details passwords for broadband access access configuration details of email and internet services if they are run by a third party and even details of insurance or maintenance contracts covering any equip ment By having a secure central location for this critical information you will save much time and resources at a later date should there be a problem be that with the hardware or an im portant staff member meeting with an accident 4 4 POWER MANAGEMENT SETTINGS ollowing installation the operating sys tem is configured to optimise its func tions to meet the intended purpose s of the machine When configuring a new newly in stalled desktop system after configuring user accounts the next step is to configure power management box 4 4 Power management is important not just because of the power consumption issue When you configure power management you re also setting up features such as screen Savers These are basic security measures to control access to the system Set ting a short lock down period on a screen saver or the power management menu doesn t just save energy it makes the system more secu
95. a person uses a program to generate a digital signature and this produces a block of data which can be attached to the file or held sepa rately Anyone can then check the authentic ity of the data by checking the digital signa ture against the file using another program With public key encryption this has become simpler as the public key can be used to ver ify the authenticity of any file that has been signed with the user s private key Many email programs now include features which allow the use of both digital signatures and encryption This allows the easy encryption of emails or attachments to prevent disclosure or by loading the public keys of email correspon dents into your system every time an email is received from them the program can verify that the email comes from that person email is a very insecure system and without digital signa tures emails can easily be forged As shown in figure 8 2 each user can con figure their own public and symmetric key en cryption to protect their data on the machine and use the passwords lock feature many ap plications use to secure files and the data they contain These work separately from the securi ty of the operating system meaning that each user can implement their own data security irre spective of that applied at the system level The principle security flaw in this process is the sys tem administrator They have the ability to log 37 Wikipedia Digital signat
96. a when the audio information is encoded and so sound quality can be lost with each re encoding What influences file size the most is the bit rate of encoding like sample rates it is measured in kilohertz A 32kHz bit rate sounds like a poor phone line while 320kHz sounds very clear and is often used to encode CD quality music Alternately data can be encoded using a variable bit rate VBR which varies the rate according to the complexity of the sound producing a slightly more space efficient encoding Video files Video files are the most difficult media to edit as the standards used are more complex and are often linked to proprietary codecs which require specialised application programs to edit them For video the frame rate is equivalent to the sample rate it represents the number of pictures displayed every second The standard is 25 and while reducing this can make the video progressively more jumpy it has a large effect on the file size Scaling down the size of the video image also has an effect on the file size The audio track usually represents about a fifth to a tenth of the total file data and while it can be edited it doesn t have a great effect on the overall file size 104 A practical guide to sustainable IT At the simplest level this is done be replacing repeated sequences of numbers with a key which represents that sequence For example if we think of a large file which contains the text of a book we could repl
97. able us to catalogue the files on our computers with far more relevant data than a simple file or folder name Just like web search engines desktop search or index ing systems read the content of the users files and create an index of the information held Of course the problem are those files which do not contain textual information that is intelligible by the machine such as videos sound files and 16 Johnson Bobbie July 2009 Why did Big Brother remove paid for content from Amazon s Kindles Guardian Online www guardian co uk technology 2009 jul 22 kindle amazon digital rights 17 Wikipedia Desktop search en wikipedia org wiki Desk op_search Desktops Programs peripherals and gadgets 79 Box 5 3 Digital cameras mega pixels and data overload One example of the way the increasing data capacity of equipment is driving data storage is digital cameras The obsessive selling point for all new digital cameras is the number of mega pixels inside the image sensor The higher the mega pixels figure the better the images are assumed to be This is not always the case since the true image quality is dependent upon the quality of the optics and the use of filtering and correction software to render a true image under different lighting conditions What has happened as the camera mega pixel count has risen is that the file size of photographs has risen but that doesn t necessarily translate into better pho tograp
98. ace long words with numbers which represent those words Some email applications will give the option of compressing attachments before they are sent Alternately you can use a free or proprietary application to compress the file The problem with many file formats in com mon use today such as OpenOffice or Adobe Ac robat is that they are already compressed as part of their formatting Therefore simply compress ing the file will not reduce its size significantly In these cases you have to change the way these files are created by the original application Adobe Acrobat and the Export PDF functions within office applications allow you to reduce the image resolution of the document and compress any im ages which it contains the text of Acrobat files is already compressed The proprietary Adobe Ac robat application offers many more options to re duce the size of the file which can reduce the size of PDF files significantly Many applications of fer additional plug ins or extensions to add extra functions which optimise file sizes For example OpenOffice Impress has a downloadable exten sion called Presentation Minimizer This adjusts the formatting of fonts images and animations within presentations to reduce the size of the file generated The greatest challenge in minimising the data transaction from email attachments relates to digital media files video sound and image data see Box 7 1 When using free software
99. achines that we use to access and manipulate them That requires that we consider everything from how we define our needs and plan the system the organisation of physical security protection against malware and other system failures right down to basic secu rity measures such as passwords and access controls In many ways this section is all about combining all the actions covered in previous sections into a single integrated method of managing our need for technology Rather than separating different issues and look ing at them in isolation we need to develop an integrated approach to system resilience and security trying to minimise the ecological im pacts of our demand for IT and to refine the elements that make the system function to produce the optimal solution to our needs 1 Wikipedia Resilience ecology en wikipedia org wiki Resilience_ ecology 8 1 SUSTAINABLE DESIGN here is no good or bad way to practice sus tainable design it either works to serve your particular needs or it doesn t In order to adapt to the diverse way in which we use ICTs it is often necessary to unpack and adapt certain ideas and strategies to fit your unique circumstances The true test of any system is that when you depend on it to work at its best it functions as designed to protect the integrity and reliability of the sys tem and the tasks it is designed to perform and does so while internalising ecological principles which mi
100. ack up storage media and to protect files in transit on a network or files stored on remote systems While the math ematical encryption of data is the basis of both file encryption and digital signatures they serve very different purposes e File encryption is intended to prevent ac cess to the data in a file Using mathemati cal functions the digital content of the file is scrambled to prevent access except by use of a digital key In symmetric file encryp tion both the person encoding the file and those decoding the file has to have a copy of the key which presents a problem because sharing the key by any means of communi cation might lead to its disclosure To avoid this public key encryption was developed Anyone can encrypt data using the public half of the key and send it to the recipient The recipient then decodes the data using their own private key and only the holder of the private key can decrypt the data 34 Wikipedia Encryption software en wikipedia org wiki Encryption_software 35 Wikipedia Symmetric key algorithm en wikipedia org wiki Symmetric key_algorithm 36 Wikipedia Public key cryptography en wikipedia org wiki Public key_cryptography Maintenance security and resilience 127 e Digital signatures are not intended to pre vent access to the content of the file they are a means of protecting the contents of the file from being modified As with encryption
101. across the system far easier Note that programs to import sound image or video files often have metadata editing options too and you should learn to use these when creating files in order to make indexing and finding files easier 18 Wikipedia Metadata en wikipedia org wiki Metadata 19 Wikipedia List of search engines en wikipedia org wiki List_of_search_engines Desktop_search_engines Music Singles Finally one of the problems about the large hard disks installed on many new desktop ma chines is the physical volume of data The size of new hard drives increasingly rated in tera bytes a terabyte is a million megabytes al lows users to fill up the storage system with files which are poorly organised and worst of all which are not backed up The physical scale of the data stored can also make backing up an even bigger headache When considering the efficiency of desktop systems having large amounts of files stored on the hard drive can complicate how we manage that data For ex ample the more files the more effort the desk top indexing system has to expend in keeping track of those files and that increases the pro cessor power and drive space required to map the system More problematically in the event of a system failure a drive full of superfluous data can hamper the recovery of more impor tant files With larger hard drives the temptation is to allow data to stack up on the system rather tha
102. ainly longer than the lifetime of the equipment involved By having an idea of what our needs might be in the future it is possible to invest in upgrades and replace ments more strategically to reduce costs and take advantage of new or more efficient sys tems Always consider the effects of changing tech nical standards Where certain technologies will obviously become obsolete we should plan for their replacement although adopting new standards too early for example a new software package or operating system might involve investment in equipment before its design has been perfected or its effectiveness proven Technological standards can create inflexible restrictions for example the use of propri etary designs which restrict compatibility with other similar systems as a classic ex ample think of the many different types of USB or laptop power connectors in common use Choosing hardware or software which uses generic standards avoids compatibility restrictions and allows the switching of com ponents parts between different systems in the event of a fault in the equipment It is important to question the cultural habits in the way people use ICT systems just as we query the technical specifications of different technologies Increasing efficiency and pro ductivity often requires people to learn new skills or adapt their methods of working to avoid habitual practices Improving people s understanding and perceptions o
103. ains electric ity supply However projects which work in less developed states with a poor quality power grid or which work in a mobile environment such as 10 3 WASTE DISPOSAL A noted above space is also required for storing the waste generated by the project In some states this may be required to meet a certain standard in order to comply with envi ronmental and safety laws For projects which accept large volumes of e waste the sorting and separation of different types of waste for recycling can represent a valuable source of in come How much space is required and how it is organised is usually determined by the con tacts opportunities the group has for disposing of its sorted waste to merchant recyclers Ideally no electronics recycling project should operate without first identifying a vi a bus may incorporate renewable energy sup plies They may also teach the skills to create and maintain off grid power supplies as part of the work they do Diversifying from an IT cen tric project to a more broad based approach to education and technology is commonly found in successful recycling projects in part because it reflects the do it yourself culture which mo tivates many of those taking part In unit 3 box 3 3 and unit 4 box 4 2 we looked at the range of applications it is possible to create with reclaimed equipment Many of these are related to the networking of comput ers to perform more complex functions
104. ake these systems perform and how we can maximise the benefit of IT equipment in cluding older equipment to get the most benefit from it and minimise the ecological impacts Even if you do not install the system on your machine by understanding the general principles of how they work you can improve your everyday understanding of how systems operate 4 1 THE DEBATE OVER FREE VERSUS PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE hen evaluating the potential uses of any computer hardware we first need to de cide which operating system to use For some this decision has already made on their behalf as the new systems people buy are usually pre installed For PC type machines bought from most commercial vendors that system will be a Microsoft Windows system Macintosh com puters have their own system that s specific to the hardware but for PC type machines there are also alternative free and open source soft ware FOSS operating systems which will ef ficiently meet the everyday needs of computer users To understand the difference between these two models of computing the proprietary software world and the world of FOSS you need to understand more about the objectives of each model 4 1 1 Intellectual property rights Intellectual property rights are the line which demarcates the clash between the desire for freedom of use and access to data and the need to preserve economic power in the new informa tion age The options available when in
105. amaged power supplies a large proportion of that power might be dumped back into the power grid unused you pay for the power but it s not used by the machine The difference between the amount of power supplied and the amount used by the equipment is called the power factor It s expressed as a number be tween 0 and 1 A high value 0 7 or better is very good a fig ure between 0 5 and 0 7 is adequate a figure below 0 5 is poor and you should consider buying a better power supply When measuring the power factor you shouldn t turn the machine on take the measurement and then switch off As the components warm up the power consumption can wander slightly and so its advisable to leave the me ter in place for an hour or so measure the initial power factor measure the total power consumed after at least an hour or two and then measure the power factor again before switching off This provides a more reliable figure for consumption Whether or not it s worth replacing a power supply is a matter of need or cost For equipment that s powered from an off grid supply minimising consumption is very impor tant irrespective of the cost you may choose to replace the power supply with a higher quality alternative off grid power is inevitably more expensive than grid power For a mains power system it s a matter of cost Let s say the system uses 0 25kW h of which half is the computer Figure 3 7 A power monitor box and runs for e
106. an anti static brush or cloth you can remove the wad of hair and dust which has built up between the fan and the heatsink Finally as well as the physical hardware the soft ware systems of the device may need occasional main tenance This is best carried out on a regular basis such as regular calendar dates for following a routine back up of information on the device How this should be done is explained in the documentation written for the operating system or on the producer s web site An important part of system maintenance is installing software patches and upgrades These not only fix system bugs they also prevent malware infecting the machine from previously unknown flaws in the operating system Some device manufacturers also offer firmware upgrades to fix flaws within the programs which make the hardware function Finally it is important to regularly clean the storage media inside the device of superfluous and unwanted files for example deleting the trash bin on the desk top This is most appropriately done before performing a routine back up Maintenance security and resilience 123 8 3 2 Passwords and access controls The purpose of access controls is to prevent anyone who shouldn t have access to a machine or a place having access We ve had complex machine based access controls in common use for a few hundred years keys Computer based access controls are more complex but that doesn t mean they re
107. an be The solution has been to include more than one CPU within the same chip allowing programs to be run in parallel The greater the number of cores in the CPU the more process ing power it has Multicore CPUs are available in 32 bit and 64 bit versions What makes the greatest difference to the speed of a system apart from the CPU is the specification of the motherboard s chipset in particular the speed of the front side bus FSB The higher the FSB speed the faster the data can move between the CPU the mem ory and peripherals Another feature to look out for is the amount of cache memory that the CPU has usually called the Level 1 L1 or Level 2 L2 cache This speeds up the reading of data from the memory and the bigger the cache memory the faster the CPU can operate Different generations of chip use different sock ets or slots to connect the chip to the motherboard In practice choosing the correct CPU chip to fit to a moth erboard isn t an issue you re likely to deal with Usually your computer will arrive ready built or if you upgrade a computer you can buy a motherboard with the CPU and memory already fitted more cheaply than buying each separately The only time you need to worry about find ing the right processor for a motherboard is when the old one has failed in which case you must get the manual for the motherboard to find which CPUs it is able to ac commodate Every motherboard has a technical m
108. and some graphic design editing It could run a Linux based web server for under taking web design work The latest operating systems would run slowly on these machines While using the latest system is not impossi ble it may be more productive to use slightly older software if that provided the required applications and hardware drivers Lightweight desktop for internet commu nications and simple word processing or it could act as a thin client connected to a more powerful machine over a network A problem when using Windows systems is that hardware drivers may no longer be avail able especially for printers Anti virus soft ware will also not be available and there may also be problems with network integration This makes free software preferable as these system have better hardware support use open network standards and malware isn t such an issue chines as the clients and the powerful ma chine as the terminal server Support systems machines to run networks and store data e Download box a dedicated machine to run 24 7 internet services such as file sharing or remote data file access for non profession al small scale applications this is most ef ficiently done using an old laptop due to its inherently low power consumption Where peer to peer file sharing is used for infor mation distribution the machine could be installed with a standard desktop operating system For low volume web or FTP acces
109. anual written for it if you can identify the design of the motherboard the maker s name is usually fairly prominent but find ing the code which identifies it can be more difficult then you can search online and find a copy of the manual The manual will tell you which CPUs memory modules the board can work with 36 A practical guide to sustainable IT getting rid of the heat generated by the moth erboard is a major problem and they can use as much electricity pumping air to cool the ma chines as the motherboards consume directly For hot climates maintaining the CPU fan or perhaps buying a larger more efficient fan to cool the CPU is essential to keep the machine functioning normally You must also organise a good circulation of cool and relatively dry air humid air can corrode the workings to prevent overheating Overheating will if it takes place for long periods shorten the life of the compo nents on the motherboard What few people seem to realise is that all that extra heat and powering the fans or other technology to remove the heat from inside the case represents wasted energy Many desktop computers now burn hundreds of watts when operating at full power laptops are naturally less power hungry because of the need to maxi mise the battery life For those living off the pow er grid using small power generating systems like photovoltaic panels or wind to charge batteries the power consumption of IT equipment i
110. any less fallible than their mechanical counterparts While there are recent biometric or token access systems available the most common form of computer access control are passwords Passwords are a means of access control guarding against the unauthorised access to an information system Some password systems are fairly weak such as the PIN number used with mobile phones and bank cards Some pass words such as the passphrases used with data encryption are stronger because they are more complex The principle of password access is that as there are so many possible alternatives it s unlikely anyone could guess the password How strong a password is relies on how many characters it contains how many different sym bols each character can represent and whether it has a unique or predictable format To illustrate how strong these access controls are let s look at how they work A PIN number usu ally has four digits each with 10 possible alterna tives 0 to 9 The number of potential PIN num bers is 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 or 10 ten to the power four or 10 000 possible alternatives In contrast an eight character password with at least 62 pos sible alternatives per character A to Z a to z and 0 to 9 has 62 8 or about 220 thousand billion 2 2x10 possible passwords Passphrases are usually much longer and can contain punctuation characters and spaces For an 18 character pass phrase with around 80 poss
111. atural resources isn t random or accidental We ve progressively developed technologies that have required ev er more specialised resources and materials as time has passed Technological progress has inherently increased the complexity of human What is sustainable information technology 11 systems and this has implications for our fu ture as the production of certain essential re sources is limited In this unit we ll look at the resource use inherent in our consumption of information technology but also at the wider human resource issue and the ecological limits which are increasingly apparent as the globe s appetite for natural resources grows Hardware Putting the system together the machine and its impacts on the environment Today computer hardware comes in many dif ferent forms from the large mainframe and server complexes of large organisations to the mobile phones people carry down the street In this unit we ll look at the resource implications of computer hardware and how our choices about design specifications but most impor tantly the period of time we plan to use the equipment affect the ecological footprint of our information processing Software the programs we use on the machine to perform the tasks we require This is a large subject and so it is divided into two sections e Operating systems Making the system work the programs which make the computer function Our choice of operating sys
112. cal guide to sustainable IT 4 4 3 Providing feedback on system load Finally for the user at their computer desktop there is very little indication as to the level of stress that their machine is experiencing at any point in time The machine can appear to slow for no apparent reason or the mouse can stop moving leading them to click buttons and press keys which will often exacerbate the problem The solution is to install a small power monitor application on the task bar of the desktop to give feedback This will show when the system load is reaching a problematic level More technical applications will also break down the display to show the overall system load processor s speed load network activity and hard drive activity By giving feedback you allow the user to moderate their demands on the system making it use less power and avoiding overloading the system to the point where applications crash or the system hangs There are free load monitors available for Windows systems and Linux desk tops usually come pre configured with applica tions such as system monitor Operating systems Making the system work 67 SECTION 5 DESKTOPS PROGRAMS PERIPHERALS AND GADGETS When we talk of computers most people will think of a desktop computer system with a mouse keyboard and video display screen In the previous units we ve looked at machine hardware and software In this unit we ll look specifically at the
113. can vary the theme of the desktop e g in Windows 7 you can configure a display theme which looks like Windows XP you can t change the nature of programs generating the display With Gnu Linux you are free to change the programs which generate user interface in order to change the amount of processing power required to generate the display and that can reduce power consumption Lightweight Linux distributions come with a lower power desktop environment already configured General purpose distributions are usually configured with one of the more powerful desktop environments usually Gnome or KDE but can change the display environment if re quired Often you can select which environment to use when you log into the system The main effect of chang ing the user interface is to reduce the amount of process ing power required to generate the display reducing the amount of memory required for the display which allows other programs to run faster On older hardware this can significantly increase the performance of the system Usually the selection of which desktop environ ments are available is made when the system is in stalled Depending upon which Linux distribution is used other desktop environments can be loaded very quickly from online software repositories The heaviest display manager is KDE followed by Gnome These are the standard desktops with most distributions and are optimised to provide a feature rich desktop XFCE is
114. cation of the hardware design While there has been little movement on this in the world of computing in the fields of intermediate technology and engineering there are a variety of projects now running around the globe which allow the owner or builder of a device or machine complete freedom to vary or improve the design usually on the condition that all such changes are fed back into the community sharing the design Other groups such as iFixit through their Self Repair Manifesto and online repair guides are promoting the rights of owners to maintain and repair their hardware Reconfiguring computer hardware can be fairly simple once you ve got the hang on it as we ll see later In general the aims of the open hardware movement are to extend the scope of people s involvement with their equipment Its key ob jective is to develop the designs and skills that people can use to motivate their involvement and to extend these open principles to a far greater part of the engineered systems which support our lives 3 3 UNDERSTANDING COMPUTER HARDWARE or those who find it difficult to understand how to use computer programs the idea of taking the case off their machine and fiddling with the workings inside can be very daunting There s a great mystique surrounding the workings of com puter hardware although this isn t deserved be cause compared to most other consumer electron ics such as radios or washing machines t
115. cerns about the use of IT were related to energy consumption and were initially addressed through the labelling of more efficient goods such as the US Environmental Protection Agency s EPA Energy Star logo As the ecological issues related to IT have be come more numerous there are various standards which have been developed to accredit goods which are made to a higher environmental standard USEPA DoE Energy Start Program The longest running energy labelling scheme for both commercial and domestic appliances including PC hard ware the scheme provides both audits labels for prod ucts as well as accrediting and giving awards for excel lence by organisations It s significant amongst schemes because it puts as much emphasis on the domestic use of hardware as it does on large corporate installations As well as product labels their website provides a series of downloadable guides on different aspects of energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption For more information see the website www enereystar gov Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool EPEAT This is an accreditation tool for electrical equipment managed by the Green Electronics Council It maintains an online database of products that have been accred ited using various environmental criteria awarding each either a gold silver or bronze classification While there has been criticism of this scheme because it doesn t evaluate more radical measures suc
116. cess ing machines so that they don t use as much power when not required The standard power management menu allows you to configure time limits to put the machine into either sleep hibernation or soft shutdown depending upon how long it has been idle for or for laptops when the battery is running down You will also have the option to spin down the hard drives and shut down the display a certain time before entering suspend hibernation This reduces power consumption without the inconvenience of locking out the user while the system re initialises As noted above of the two options provided the hardware is fully ACPI compatible hibernate is the more secure state In most operating systems strict criteria for power management are not configured as a default they have to be set by the user or the system installer That is why configuring power management should always be one of the final steps in system installation configuration In addition it s also possible to get power optimi sation programs which monitor system usage and suggest ways of changing power settings and system timing signals to reduce power con sumption although these often need more advanced knowledge of the operating system in order to enable them There are various proprie tary programs available for Windows a number of which allow remote system access over a net work so that power setting can be configured to optimise power consumption for example Data
117. ch Trashing of Asia www ban org E waste technotrashfinalcomp pdf Greenpeace International August 2005 Recycling of Electronic Wastes in China and India www greenpeace org international PageFiles 25502 recyclingelectronicwastein diachinafull pdf Global Witness 2009 Faced with a Gun What Can You Do www globalwitness org media_library_get php 980 1277197135 re port_en_final pdf Further information and index 161 INDEX ather than use page numbers the index be developing procedures 6 2 low uses section numbers box numbers to digitallsignatliresmepner ee rererer rer 8 3 3 direct the reader to the most relevant informa file encryption and locks 8 33 tion across a number topics organising files data 5 5 Check lists E Geren a E terete 6 2 4 backing up removable media box 6 3 removable media Box 6 2 table 6 1 backing up mobile devices box 6 1 reducing scaling digital media files box 7 1 desktop Systems n aooaa box 5 5 technological obsolescence 9 1 BaWaSte air vee merece tec ceene box9 1 Ecological design impacts 2 3 fig 2 3 hardware buying 000ee box 3 1 ackinesupidata mA et 6 1 2 Information Storage 6 s4 05 box 6 4 O WASTE oe eee eee eee eee eee 9 3 9 4 MEENOLKS ATE box 7 3 impacts of electricity generation box 11 1 operating systems e000 box 4 5 mod tilardesiontee seman 8 1 2 su
118. ck which clicks shut when pushed is extremely insecure By pushing a plastic card or a thin metal sheet called a shim around the edge of the door it is possible to release the bolt and the door will open un less the mechanism has a dead lock Combination locks are more secure because they don t have a key hole that can be tampered with but they still shouldn t be relied upon Padlocks are also insecure whether you use a key or combination version because like front door locks they can be opened with a shim 8 2 2 The room Working in one space makes it easier to secure the information and equipment that the space contains If security measures can concentrate on that space lesser physical security measures can be applied around the rest of the building Work carried out in more than one location mul tiplies the security problem General building security needs to be improved and secure stor age points such as a filing cabinet or strong cupboards need to be set up in each room work location You also have to give thought to how those measures are installed For example locked tamper proof cupboards are not secure if they can be carried away so if possible fix them to the wall or floor to prevent them being removed 7 Wikipedia Lock picking en wikipedia org wiki Lock_ picking 8 Wikihow How to open a door with a credit card www wikihow com Open a Door with a Credit Card 9 Wikiped
119. ckling this is obviously a very broad agen da While our use of computers has a direct effect on the environment if we re looking at how sustainable our use of those systems is we must include the related factors which in fluence that process Yes we must look at the machine hardware how those machines are made but also how they are disposed of In ad dition it s vital that we consider the features of the operating systems and programs that we use and the processing and storage of informa tion since it is the value of information which defines the purpose for which we build these machines If we re considering how sustainable our information keeping is then the reliability of our record keeping data storage systems is important and that in turn can raises issues related to intellectual property rights and other legal considerations This guide is organised as a serious of themed sections or what we call units each looking at the sustainability issue from a slight ly different angle The objective within each unit is to get you thinking more systematically about how you can physically organise your data pro grams or equipment to achieve the tasks you want to carry out 10 A practical guide to sustainable IT 1 2 IT S NOT EASY BEING GREEN o date there has been a lot of work around the issue of Green IT the design and or ganisation of computers to achieve certain eco logical objectives Examp
120. ctrical goods are dealt with as an other part of the general municipal waste system Cer tain parts of the e waste stream such as batteries or television monitors are covered by other legislation and some states implement controls over the disposal of articles containing toxic substances In 2009 the Sustainable Electronics Initiative was set up by the Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability to en courage a more proactive effort on electronics waste both managing the disposal of waste but also trying to minimise the production of it It is hoped that this and similar schemes will eventually lead to a national federal initiative on e waste Some states such as Washington and California are already enacting their own stricter controls over electronic waste For more information see www sustainelec tronics illinois edu Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive Globally the European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive the WEEE Directive is the flagship scheme for the control and reclamation of electronic waste It covers all electrical goods both computers and every electronic appliances Con sumer electronic goods sold after 2005 are required to be collected by the companies producing or selling them although most companies contribute towards industry based schemes which organise the collection on their behalf through retailers and local authorities For more information see ec europa eu
121. d as required Hard disks have the advantage that they are inside the machine and so are not prone to loss or damaged like floppy disks they also op erate at a far higher speed and have a much larger capacity than floppy disks Although you might still find floppy disk drives on old computers using the drive is difficult as most operating systems no longer include the programs to make the hardware work Even so many motherboards still include a floppy drive connector 7b it looks like a shorter version of the hard drive IDE connector 7a A hard drive is a spinning aluminium disc or platen coated in a magnetic material The heads travel across the surface of the disk to write data by magnetising spots on the surface or read the stored data by sensing the magnetised areas pass ing beneath the head The disk is enclosed in a hermetically sealed metal housing to prevent dust 31 Wikipedia Hard disk drive en wikipedia org wiki Hard_ disk_drive 32 Wikipedia Computer data storage en wikipedia org wiki Computer_data_storage 33 Wikipedia Floppy disk en wikipedia org wiki Floppy_disk 34 Wikipedia Boot disk en wikipedia org wiki Boot_disk Hard disk drive schematic Rotation 0 Heads Armature Platen disc Armature turns to access tracks across the whole platen particles getting inside The heads hover above the spinning disk at less then the width of a human hair in t
122. d ceiling you should also consider the likelihood of access from adjacent rooms Likewise floor spaces can be vulnerable if their construction allows access from other rooms spaces within the building While all the above are sensible measures there is one very big note of caution Yes you can se cure the building against various forms of exter nal intrusion either natural accidental or delib erate However if the house building is on fire and those inside can t get out or the fire service can t get in you ve got a really big problem The general point about security is that by working in layers you can spread the security risks through many different mechanisms rather than relying Maintenance security and resilience 119 on just one or two options By spreading the se curity measures to secure the most important items it can become unnecessary to put intru sive or expensive general security measures in place around the whole building Traditionally the way to secure a building is with a lock Big heavy locks might give the appear ance of security but many locks have basic flaws which allow the perception of security they give to be quickly bypassed Both the building rooms and cabinets cupboards in the room can be locked but don t rely upon mechanical locks to guard against access by skilled operatives All key based locks can be picked if the person has the skills and the tools to do so The standard front door lo
123. d emit more carbon than storing a DVD at a location where it could be held se curely The implication of this is that backing up large quantities of data off site has the lowest im pact if carried out using storage media such as optical discs rather than using electronic networks The difficulty is organising how the data will be transported to the other location whether it is secure enough to hold the data and accessible if it becomes necessary to re trieve the data How these issues are dealt with and solutions found would have to be tackled as part of the process for planning and implementing a back up procedure When data CDs first became widely avail able but the use of computer networks was still in its infancy the publication of digital content often used CD based distribution as a means of moving large quantities of informa tion in a structured format Today with the ad vent of high speed networks disc based dis tribution of publications is going out of fashion in favour of network based web distribution of content and more recently the movement of large blocks of data using peer to peer file 23 BBC News April 2012 Google Drive to offer free storage in the cloud www bbc co uk news technology 17831725 Figure 6 3 Comparison of Internet versus Sneakernet impacts D pes D ct E Kg co2 Energy kWh wn D A 3 2 E Cost UK o Blu ray A DVD RDL A sharing T
124. d if using a machine with limited memory space If the machine has a lot of memory then it is possible from the programs configuration options to increase the number of undo steps How many steps you set depends upon your preference 30 to 40 steps is probably suffi cient for most applications Finally most operating systems use a waste basket to store files which have been removed from the hard drive This means that you have to occasionally go in and empty the waste While it is tempting to simply empty trash or use a delete command to directly re move files from the hard drive the waste basket feature serves a very useful purpose it stops the user deleting files accidentally Also do not blindly use the empty trash command al ways check what s in the waste bin before eras ing the contents 25 Wikipedia Software as a service en wikipedia org wiki Software_as_a_service 98 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 6 4 Information storage check list The more common and easily accessible a resource the less we need to back it up the more unique or expen sive a resource the greater the need to create a back up copy value the files on the computer using this general principle Separate the information held on the machine into diffe rent directories one directory tree for current work ano ther for already archived files and another for low value superfluous files to simplify the proce
125. d of their ser viceable life 1 Wikipedia Downcycling en wikipedia org wiki Down cycling 2 Wikipedia Embodied energy en wikipedia org wiki Em bodied_energy 3 BBC News 2008 Throw away Britain How to recycle a television news bbc co uk 1 hi uk 7747975 stm This is why the level of technical skill pos sessed by the community is so important to how we can maintain the value invested in the production of technology Community based organisations can find ways of reusing electri cal goods which may not be open to commercial reclamation companies for example repairing electrical goods to supply at low cost to low in come families Community organisations can also respond to the needs of a community by using these materials to develop low cost com munity projects such as community ICT ac cess and training projects Such projects help to retain the value of the energy and resources originally invested in the production of these goods and can make them available at low cost to those who may otherwise not be able to ac cess them if they had to pay the market value for newly manufactured goods 10 1 1 Equipment triage The first important step in the reclamation of electrical goods is triage Like medical triage this involves separating the waste goods received by the project into different groups depending upon the serviceability of the items This needs to be carried out by someone with experience of
126. d reliability of household white goods such as washing machines fridges or cookers mean that they can last five to fifteen years before they are physically worn out Why then should a laptop or mobile phone only be used for two or three years and a mobile phone even less We need the same consumer pressure to push the design standards and service life of consumer electronics in a more sustainable direction Box A2 contains a list of points we should be working towards in order to make ICTs more sustainable Note that the list does not include many of the practical ideas outlined in the text of the guide That is because from the design of our hardware to the use of power management or se curity features many of those things are already achievable the fact they are not implemented is because people do not understand how to implement them or the benefits of doing so Box A2 focuses on those essential elements of sustainable ICTs which we currently do not have the ability to enact and for which change in national and international environmental and industrial policy is required to encourage change in the world s manufacturing systems The list represents a kind of sustainability manifesto for the types of political economic and techni cal changes that we need to enact to improve the ecological performance of information systems Finally no matter how clean and green our in formation technologies become it makes little differ
127. d to produce a car are only one to two times its weight and for an aluminium can around four to five times Another aspect of the limited supply of these critical materials is that as scarcity makes pric es rise the shortage of supply is an incentive to their illicit production Unlike conventional ag ricultural resources where supply can be drawn from a wide area and can shift with the global market mineral resources can only be produced where they are found Similar to the issue of oil and the Middle East as pressure is put on global mineral resources it is a handful of states who are becoming the focus of the world s trade in high tech minerals As a result of the problems with supply some governments are arguing for strategic policies to protect these critical raw materials to ensure the world has access to these resources in the future For example an important metal in the pro duction of miniaturised digital electronics is tantalum Half of the world s tantalum supply is mined in Australia and it is produced as a by product of other metal mining operations in many states but between 1 and 10 may be mined illegally in central Africa This trade in turn sup plies the finance that perpetuates the armed con flict in these areas and the human rights abuses thatare the result While it may soon be possible 29 Arizona State University undated Life Cycle Assess ment of IT hardware www it environment or
128. data Let s apply a very broad rule and assume that the total impact of the hardware is around 1 2 times the impact of the power consumed in which case the embodied energy of the PC hardware is 0 23 kilos of carbon per hour of use Finally the computer user The computer user runs on food rather than electricity In the most developed nations where the average diet consists of a lot of processed and out of season fruit and vegetables the amount of energy and carbon is much greater than in less developed states where more local and basic foodstuffs are consumed Research in the United States US puts the annual carbon emissions from the average diet at around 5 500 kilos of carbon per year Other Kris De Decker June 2009 The monster Brighter Planet Wikipedia Comparison of life cycle greenhouse gas emis sions en wikipedia org wiki Comparisons_of_life cycle_green house gas_emissions ootprint of digi tal technology www lowtechmagazine com 2009 06 embodied energy of digital technology html 2010 The American Carbon Foodprint Understanding and reducing your food s impact on climate change attachments brighterplanet com press_ items local_copies 52 original carbon_foodprint_wp pdf 70 A practical guide to sustainable IT estimates put European dietary emissions at about half that figure and in less developed states perhaps a quarter of the value in the US Given that desktop computers domi
129. disconnect functions to ensure that it doesn t over discharge the type of battery you are using For those without experience of electron ics or mechanics all this may seem rather daunting Even so if you were to buy a com mercially produced system the considerations and specifications that you need to answer to make a purchase would cover much of this same ground although perhaps not in the de tail explored here Before moving on to build or use a much larger system you might find it helpful to buy a small educational solar power kit These use exactly the same system com ponents albeit with a fraction of the power capacity This enables you to learn more about the design and construction of these systems and to get a basic grounding in the principles of their operation before you move on to con structing more large scale systems It should be noted that even with the best designed off grid system there may be times when it simply runs out of power That s the nature of renewable energy it is variable and occasional natural variation will challenge the assumptions made in the design of most sys tems On these occasions we just have to ac cept that we do no work nature has given us a holiday and we should do something else which does not involve the consumption of electricity 158 A practical guide to sustainable IT SECON 1 FURTHER INFORMATION AND INDEX FURTHER INFORMATION his publication cannot be a solutio
130. duction 25 Guardian Environment Network 2012 EU beefs up electronic waste recycling www guardian co uk environ ment 2012 jan 24 eu electronic waste recycling 26 Leonard Annie 2010 The Story of Electronics www storyofelectronics org 27 Wikipedia Zero waste en wikipedia org wiki Zero_ waste 138 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 9 1 The control and recycling of electronic waste There are various schemes around the world which seek to control the production and disposal of electrical waste Some are run by industry organisations whilst others are mandated by national and regional law The notable schemes which exist at present are The Basel Convention The Basel Convention on the Control of Transbound ary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Dis posal provides a basic minimum standard for the in ternational movement and processing of hazardous substances including waste electronics In 2006 the parties to the Treaty agreed the Nairobi Declaration on the Environmentally Sound Management of Electrical and Electronic Waste Under this agreement regional systems to control the shipment and processing of electronic waste are now being created The first of these regional agreements covering African nations should be completed during 2012 for more informa tion see www basel int e Sustainable Electronics Initiative The USA has no federal law on the control of electronic waste waste ele
131. e processed into finished goods a large quantity of energy is required and this entails the pro duction of pollution The investment of energy and resources in manufactured goods is often described as embodied energy The benefit of recycling is that much of the energy and re sources investment in the original production of the goods is retained avoiding the need to expend resources again to produce those mate rials Downcycling often involves breaking down or disassembling the goods to produce materi als of a lower quality which while they may be useful require that the value of energy embod ied within the goods is diminished It is tech nically possible to re manufacture goods from the downcycled materials but doing so requires that we invest a greater quantity of energy and resources to achieve this When we look at the options for reusing digital electronics and information systems the principles of downcycling and recycling can help us find the best options for the use of these goods Many commercial electronic waste com panies crush and fragment electrical goods even if they are serviceable because that is the cheapest way to extract value from the collect ed waste Community based schemes provided they have the skilled technicians available can look instead at the options for recycling find ing new uses for serviceable goods and only discarding those items which cannot be reused because they have reached the en
132. e capabilities of the hard ware For small offices older machines can take on roles which support or extend the functions carried out by the machines people routinely use thereby extend ing the functions available to the user or freeing up capacity on their main machine to allow them to work more easily Finding opportunities to do this requires that we understand more about the different roles machines are able to perform and then match the available hardware to those roles Too often the creative IT world focuses on the use of a single often new or powerful desktop machine when if we were to think more openly about using a local network it is possible create some very helpful solutions using older equip ment For example routinely processing large video files or mastering video DVDs can tie up a system for long periods of time affecting the completion of other work on that system But if a second machine were set up with a remote desktop accessed over a network you could undertake these same operation without re stricting the capacity of the main workstation machine This also does away with the need for the second machine to have a keyboard or mon itor Likewise given that laptops use a lot less power than desktop machines an old laptop is a much cheaper option to run 24 hours a day for file sharing or to configure as a server running a small local network rather than leaving a more power hungry machine running
133. e cases they might turn up the contrast to increase the definition of the text on the screen but it doesn t create a great improvement in readability Where users have difficulty viewing what s on the screen or with particular applications the best solution is to experiment with the colour scheme Particularly where the user s eye sight is poor or they have a small colour blindness or sensitivity changing the default colour scheme and changing the font size of characters can make a big differ ent to the readability of the display As well as changing the general desktop theme or colour scheme many applications allow you to vary their default colours to produce a more readable interface 5 2 1 Peripherals gadgets and power consumption Assuming that power management is enabled the machine suspends or hibernates when not in use and video display power management has been optimised the most significant remain ing power usage is going to be the peripherals attached to the computer Computer networks especially with the development of broadband are a problem because they re on all the time we ll examine this in unit 7 We ll also look at printers in section 5 4 below What remains are all those other devices which we plug into the machine speakers USB hard drives cameras scanners web cams etc USB peripherals usually draw their power from the computer and when the computer shuts down hibernates the power to the USB
134. e chip is not required and more importantly it reduces power consumption so that the amount of energy the machine uses can be scaled to the demands on the system On laptops it s often used to deliberately extend the battery life of the machine at the expense of operating speed Depending on the age of your hardware there are two power management systems in use e The Advanced Power Management APM system was developed in 1992 Support for APM be gan with Windows 95 but was not included with Vista the Linux 2 6 kernel still supports APM in most distri butions Any hardware which only supports APM will not be able to function with Vista or Windows 7 unless you have a specific driver for those systems e The Advanced Configuration and Power Interface ACPI was developed in 1996 and has superseded APM in most PC hardware ACPI is more versatile and offers more options to configure power consumption by the processor display hard drives and peripheral devices ACPI has been supported since Windows 98 and is supported in most Linux distributions With Windows systems the power management soft ware for specific types of hardware must be loaded along with the other driver software during system installation Power management is configured from the Control Panel In Windows XP you ll find the Power Options icon on the Performance and Maintenance menu in Vista the icon is on the System and Maintenance menu in Windows 7 it s on the
135. e for use with electrical de vices which have conductive nozzles to prevent a build up of static You can also buy special anti static brushes and cloths to remove dust without generating damaging static Another option is to use small canisters of com pressed air to blow the dust out of the case fans and heatsinks The cheapest option is to put your face close to the fan keyboard or heatsink close your eyes tightly to prevent damage from dust and grit and then gently blow to remove the dust Dust is a particular problem with laptop computers Laptops are often put down on top of soft furnishings and dusty table tops where the internal fan can suck up dirt and dust from beneath the machine and trap it inside against the heatsink The internal heatsink of lap tops use high density cooling fins with only a few mil limetres gap between each one Over a few months of in appropriate use these can easily clog with hair and dust preventing the processor from being cooled adequately You will notice this first when the area of the laptop where the processor is becomes unusually hot then the processor will slow down during heavy operations be cause it can t lose heat at a sufficient rate Finally the laptop may shutdown automatically to prevent damage to the system Laptops usually have a panel in the base sometimes secured by screws which covers the fan and cooling fins the user manual will usually show how to remove it Then using
136. e latest design of Apple products in particular the use of tamper proof screws to hold the case togeth er It is argued that this makes it harder for people to carry out their own repairs servicing in order to extend the life of the device The iPod case and other examples where equipment has been engineered to have a short life and or be difficult to repair were highlighted recently in the documentary The Light Bulb Conspiracy 3 2 2 What is open hardware Today a new open hardware movement is beginning to take off pushing the boundaries of how people can share skills information and designs in order to adapt or modify different types of equipment Open hardware at its 13 BBC News 3rd June 2005 Apple deal for iPod battery cases news bbc co uk 1 hi technology 4606481 stm 14 Kahney Leander January 2011 Is Apple Guilty of Planned Obsolescence www cultofmac com 77814 is apple guilty of planned obsolescence 15 Dannoritzer Cosima 2010 The Light Bulb Conspiracy www facebook com TheLightBulbConspiracy View online at documentaryheaven com the lightbulb conspiracy 16 Wikipedia Open hardware en wikipedia org wiki Open_hardware 17 For example see www openhardware org or opensour ceecology org Watch a short video from Open Source Ecology on the principles of open hardware at vimeo com 30171620 30 A practical guide to sustainable IT most open allows the copying and complete modifi
137. e need to license each instal lation With free software there s no such finan cial penalty additional installations are free In this way we can design machines inexpensively to serve specific purposes and undertake that task as securely and reliably as possible Using more than one machine and through this consuming more electrical power might not appear to be very green This ignores the embodied energy of the hardware If you can make equipment last for longer as such a large part of the overall impact is tied up in manufacturing the hardware you reduce the impacts overall Using an old machine can avoid the need to buy new more powerful equipment which saves money as well as energy and pollu tion For example an inexpensive way to back up a workstation computer without the time and expense of making lots of data discs or buy ing a new external hard drive is to take an old 10 Wikipedia Interoperability en wikipedia org wiki In teroperability 56 A practical guide to sustainable IT machine and install it as a data server to store copies of your important data This doesn t use a large amount of energy either because older equipment often consumes less power and in any case this type of system need only be turned on for an hour or two while the back up is taking place The first decision you need to make is What can do with this equipment This is a complex decision and has a direct relationship be
138. ed it is a fraction of the cost of a DVD For longer term archiving of data CDs DVDs and Blu ray discs are the cheapest and easiest option For infrequently used data or for regular back ups of user files they are a simple way of preserving files Optical discs can be a reliable means of storing data for a de Table 6 1 Profile of removable storage media Capacity cade or more if the contents of the discs are indexed to indicate their contents clearly and are stored in optimal conditions While you can reuse CD RWs and DVD RWs they can take more time to wipe and re record than using other reusable technologies such as USB sticks For larger quantities of data external hard drives digital data storage DDS tapes and hard drives mount ed in a drive caddy are the best option Digital tapes are good for cheaply backing up a single large volume of data but take longer to record and to read compared to hard drives External hard drives are a simple option to mirror a user s files on a large drive and are very simple to use because they are organised in the same way as the computer s internal hard drive Internal drives mounted in a drive caddy are cheaper to use than consumer oriented external hard drives but require a little more knowledge to use as it may involve re configuring the hardware or operating system permissions in order to ac cess the drive Cost per Cost UK Reusable Life years gigabytes gigabyte
139. eds from renewable sources While the cost of a renewable supply tariff is usually higher than the average grid price how green the sources are is often re flected in that price Large scale hydro and waste incineration are often priced around the same rate as fossil fuelled electricity The most sustainable sources such a geothermal wind and solar power are usually more expensive While not a solution for all the ills of the modern world buying renewable electricity is an important step in moving society towards more sustainable operation Unless people are willing to invest in non fossil fuel electricity the alter natives required to address climate change will not be created If it is affordable buying renew able electricity is a means to encourage invest ment in those alternative sources of energy 5 Benjamin Sovacool 2008 Valuing the greenhouse gas emissions from nuclear power A critical survey Energy Policy Vol 36 pp 2940 2953 www nirs org climate back ground sovacool_nuclear_ghg pdf The figures from this paper are quoted for each energy source listed in Box 11 1 Renewable power 151 Box 11 1 Impacts of electrical power generation technologies The impacts of our electricity supply depend upon the sources used to generate it At present the global power system is dominated by the use of fossil fuels renewable power sources make up less than a fifth of supply The list below outlines the impact of diff
140. educing the costs impacts of web hosting as well as reducing the scale of data downloads Reducing the energy required to generate and serve content is directly relat ed to the way the data is stored For example static web content does not require significant processing compared to dynamically generated content held in databases Finally managing the energy required to display a page is more complex as it requires optimisation of the scripting code used to control the page The difficulty is that the software industry does not apply consistent standards in the way browsers readers interpret the content This leads to an unnecessary duplication in script ing and style information in order to handle the display of content consistently across dif ferent operating system browser platforms It is especially difficult for sites which accept advertising as these blocks of code are loaded from external servers and unless they are will ing to look at the efficiency of their code it is not possible to address its impacts computers is becoming comparatively more expensive Add to that the reduced costs of managing one large server rather than main taining the operating systems of many stand alone computers and the costs of using client server networks rather than many powerful desktop systems becomes an attractive option for larger organisations and education institu tions In many ways a Client server network looks similar to a network
141. efforts created commercial or semi commercial organisations retailing their own version of a Linux system These different ver sions of GNU Linux became known as distributions or distros There are a whole range of Linux and Linux related systems available today Some are primarily desktop systems providing an equivalent range of creative and office based software that is commonly available with proprietary systems others focus on data servers and more technical computer science related applications while some have evolved into single purpose systems such as network routers firewalls and even digital vid eo recorders or media studios Other than the versions meant to be conventionally installed on computers sys tems are also configured as live media that boot direct from a CD DVD or memory stick into a working desktop system The issue when comparing Linux distributions isn t necessarily which is the best Usually a distribution represents a certain design philosophy that is optimised for certain applications rather than attempting to be the best distro There are many different Linux based systems to suit different needs and you need to find the distro that meets your expectations which is quite sim ple as you can freely download most Linux distros to try out For the latest news about Linux distributions avail able go to the DistroWatch site distrowatch com Operating systems Making the system work 55
142. embodied energy of the computer and to balance that we ll ignore the energy used in printing We ll also ignore the energy required to store and transmit the digital information Let s assume it takes three minutes to read a single side of A4 paper Let s also assume that the desktop computer consumes a quarter of a kilo Watt or 250 watt hours of electricity Therefore in a fifth of an hour or 12 minutes the computer will consume the same amount of energy as making a sheet of A4 paper If reading a page every three minutes the user is consuming a quarter of the energy reading from the screen than if they were reading from the paper which is obviously better for the environment However let s optimise this system Let s assume the paper is double sided That uses extra energy for printing but not significantly more because much of the energy is contained in the paper itself Reading from the screen will now take almost half the equivalent energy as reading both sides of the paper Now let s assume that three people read the information sharing the same piece of paper and reading it one after another They are now using the less energy reading the paper copy than it takes to read the information from the screen individu ally And of course if ten people read it then the paper version is using far less energy In reality the figures are not so simple For example if we were reading the information on a laptop comput er that uses a
143. ence if the rest of our everyday lifestyle is not sustainable ICTs are only one small aspect of our personal ecological footprint food trans port buildings and the use of other consumer goods far outweigh the effect of using comput ers and electronic networks Adapting our use of computers to significantly reduce energy and resource use is very important ICTs are reliant of certain types of minerals as well as fossil fu els and chemicals the production of which will become more constrained as we move through the 21 Century However in terms of the rela tive scale we cannot solve the ecological prob lems of the human system with ICTs alone we must also adapt those other aspects of our lives to take control of the unique set of impacts that our demand for those goods has Guidance for policy makers amp campaigners 167 A practical guide to sustainable IT This practical guide to sustainable IT offers a detailed hands on introduction to thinking about sustainable computing holistically starting with the choices you make when buying technology the software and peripherals you use through to how you store and work with information manage your security save power and maintain and dispose of your old hardware Suggestions and advice for policy makers are also included along with some practical tips for internet service providers Written by IT expert and environmentalist Paul Mobbs the purpose of the guideis to encourage
144. entify faults and problems when things start to go wrong 3 3 2 The motherboard Irrespective of what type of computer system you use all its components are arranged on a circuit board usually a single large board called the motherboard On a desktop computer you can see the motherboard quite easily if you re move the left side cover for tower cases or the top cover for desktop cases On laptops the motherboard is buried deep inside and you can t get at it without dismantling the whole ma chine so best not to try Even mobile phones and MP3 players are usually designed with a single large board which contains all the main components of the system That s because it s the simplest way to manufacture and assemble the device The easiest way to learn how to manipulate the hardware of a computer system is to get an old desktop computer take it to pieces and then put it back together again When assembling a new computer or recycling an old one you don t work inside the case of the computer it s too cramped a space to work without risking dam age to the components Instead you assemble the separate parts of the computer system on a bench desktop and then when you know ev erything works as it should you dismantle the system and then install each part into the case we ll return to the process for doing this in the unit on Reuse and reclamation Figure 3 2 shows a logical layout of acom puter motherboard It does
145. ently plug USB peripherals into the yellow sleep and charge ports un less they require power when the machine is shut down Use a printer that meets the demands you require Ink jet printers are better for low volume but for higher volumes laser printers are better suited to the task and in most cases it is better to share a printer between multiple users rather than each user having their own printer For information which is not time sensitive or does not date quickly and is to be widely shared print ing a hard copy on recycled paper for many people to read often requires less resources than each individual reading that information from a computer system Where possible use 100 recycled paper and ensure that white office paper is collected separately where a segregated collection can be arranged For larger print runs a photocopier is usually more ef ficient than a laser printer and for regular large print runs using the services of a commercial printer is more efficient than using a photocopier Take care with data capture devices such as digital cameras scanners and sound recording applications to store or encode the data at a quality or resolution that s compatible with the types of application you require the data for Storing excessively high defini tion data requires far more hard drive space To simplify finding or locating information on the computer use an organised system of directories subdirecto
146. environ ment waste weee index_en htm contacts for each EU member can be accessed from this site Chinese RoHS electronic waste law In 2007 the Chinese government enacted the Admin istrative Measure on the Control of Pollution Caused by Electronic Information Products law This law has many similarities to the European Union s Restriction on Hazardous Substances RoHS laws and is intend ed to encourage more responsible waste disposal pro vide better information on consumers of the hazards of certain goods as well as providing an incentive for cleaner production For more information see www chinarohs com End of life and disposal 139 SECTION 10 REUSE AND RECLAMATION Computers and the internet have enabled a capacity for human in teraction and creativity that has not previously existed in our history However while many enjoy the products of the digital electronics revo lution comparatively few understand the principles behind how these tools function and fewer still have the skills required to reconfigure these systems to perform different functions In order to ensure that these technologies support the needs of the broadest spectrum of civil society more people need to engage with the technical mechanics of information systems both to improve their everyday use and extend and adapt their function to meet new challenges One of the simplest ways to engage more people in the techniques and skills required to main
147. eplacing peripherals for newer ones which include more efficient stand by power supplies the power saved is negligible com pared to the waste of embodied energy caused by discarding a functional device when you replace equipment ensure that it meets these new standards While we can minimise power use from pe ripherals the most effective way of eliminating stand by power consumption is to have the abil ity to switch off the entire installation by having easy access to the mains switch This allows the user not only to shut down the computer but also to isolate the power supplied to all its as sociated peripherals It is also safer as it guards against the likelihood of power surges damag 8 Wikipedia One Watt Initiative en wikipedia org wiki One_Watt_Initiative Desktops Programs peripherals and gadgets 73 Box 5 1 Changing the desktop environment configuration On any desktop system the size of the video display has a significant impact upon the power consumed by the system As we saw in unit 3 when discussing video hardware and the AGP slot the higher the resolution and colour depth of the display the more data it requires to generate the display In turn the programs which create the graphical desktop and organise display data for other programs add to the demand on the system and that in creases with the scale of the display With Windows and MacOS you are locked into a sin gle display system while you
148. er manual first The most problematic part of laptops is the battery If regularly discharged it can lose a significant amount of storage capacity in 12 18 months If this happens there are suppliers who specialise in battery replacements Whether buying laptop memory modules hard drives or batteries it s worth shopping around as prices vary considerably Don t purchase on the processor speed alone both new systems and upgrades As noted earlier while the speed of the process is impor tant having a high quality chipset with a larger amount of cache memory and a fast front side bus will provide far more power overall especially when combined with a large memory capacity Buy the machine you need not what you are being sold Machines sold for the home market are increasingly be ing optimised for video gaming they have power hungry video cards and a large processor and memory capacity If you want a machine for browsing the internet and ba sic office tasks buying that extra power in not necessary Simple usage requires only a low end specification video gaming large quantities of video editing and graphic de sign require high spec machines Match the power of the machine to the operating system you wish to run Table 3 1 lists the bare minimum system specification quoted to run various operating systems Ideally you should double or triple these figures If you are buy ing second hand equipment and what you re buying is sli
149. ere are various colour codings in common use Lime green line out front speaker out Light blue line input Pink microphone input Orange centre subwoofer Black rear speaker out Grey side speaker out used with surround sound audio Ethernet port 20 RJ45 Ethernet connector Usually with indicator lights to show when connected in use Firewire port 21 IEEE 1394 firewire socket Alternative format to USB used on some video cameras digital AV equipment S PDIF coaxial output port RCA or phono coaxial connector used to connect digital sound output to home theatre system Usually yellow coded USB port 23 Universal serial bus USB standard type A socket Digital video port 29 pin Digital Visual Interface DVI socket used to connect digital video output to home theatre system video capture devices High definition multimedia interface HDMI HDMI type connector used to connect high definition HD video monitors video games displays Wide RS232 serial port 25 pin D plug Was once used for connecting modems but superseded by Ethernet USB devices a decade or so ago S video port Four pin DIN socket provides video output to a compatible TV video display Hardware Putting the system together 49 SECTION 4 OPERATING SYSTEMS MAKING THE SYSTEM WORK A good computer system isn t simply bought or built it s designed Even when you buy a syste
150. erent energy sourc es ordered from the highest to the lowest level of car bon emissions The figures are the life cycle emission of carbon dioxide in grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour gCO2 kW he for a unit of electricity produced from each source Coal 960gC02 kW h Coal is primarily used for power generation around the world There are different grades of coal and while high quality bituminous coal produc es less carbon emissions the use of lower quality brown coal and lignite or even peat will produce more Heavy oil 778gC02 kW he Heavy oil is a low quality sticky tarry form of oil and for that reason it is cheaper than the price of oil quoted in the media While its low price makes it an alternative to coal for power produc tion it tends to produce more soot acid gases and heavy metal emissions than higher quality diesel fuel Diesel 778gC02 kW he Diesel is often used for power generation as a back up for the large power plants which supply the grid In states with a poor quality power supply diesel generators are often used as an alternative during blackouts Natural gas 443gC02 kW he Natural gas is used pri marily in more developed nations As it is a higher quality fuel it produces less emissions than other fossil fuels Nuclear 66gC02 kW he While there is much contro versy over the use of nuclear power it only makes up 13 of global power generation less than is produced from large hydroelectr
151. erial_ ATA 37 Wikipedia SCSI en wikipedia org wiki SCSI 38 Wikipedia CompactFlash en wikipedia org wiki Com pactFlash 40 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 3 4 Hard disk drives Most PC hard drives until recently used the IDE stan dard The motherboard has two sockets called IDEO and IDE1 A 40 wire ribbon cable plugs into a socket and each cable has either one or two connectors so a maximum of four IDE drives can be attached to the motherboard Although all IDE drives work the same way when connected to the ribbon cable for two drives to share the same cable one has to be classed as the master drive and the other as the slave This is done by changing the position of a small jumper connector on the back of the drive If the drives are not correctly selected then there will be a clash when the motherboard tries to talk to them and they won t work Not all drives have the same jumper order to select the drive but the correct order is usually displayed on the top of the drive There is another option called cable select but in many cases that doesn t work Over the last few years a new standard serial ATA or SATA has been introduced This is an improvement over the previous IDE system not only because it gets rid of some of the barriers to the size of drive but it also gets rid of the ribbon cable Having two connectors on a rib bon cable was always difficult to arrange when putting a system
152. erms of direct energy consumption but also the indirect use of en ergy and resources in the manufacture of digi tal electronics and the waste and pollution this generates This creates a number of problems with many people s expectations of information systems because just like the problems of the human system within the physical world bal ancing the demand of information systems for materials and resources with the ability of the environment to sustain those activities indefi nitely will require redesigning our use of certain technologies At the same time the present economic crisis which arguably has a relationship to energy and resource use is generating calls for much wider social and economic change from the online organisation of the Occupy movement to the use of electronic media in the organising of the Arab Spring Electronic communications and internet services have a role to play in enabling these changes giving society a means to un derstand debate and act to solve its problems more directly In the short term addressing the historic leg acy of our development of IT systems is likely to involve slowing the pace of development That s not just an implication of the current eco nomic downturn and the financial pressure it is creating in order to improve the quality of the systems we use and reduce their ecological im pacts we have to extend service life and that in evitably means slowing the pace of upg
153. erms of the scale and speed involved it s been likened to a 747 airliner travelling at full speed about six feet off the ground Particles of dust or worse still a human hair would cause damage to the disk and the heads which is why it s sealed away The metal housing also protects the sensi tive magnetic materials inside from stray magnetic fields that might affect its operation There are two standards now in common use for PC drives Integrated Drive Electronics IDE or Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment E IDE or parallel ATA and Serial Advanced Tech nology Attachment serial ATA or SATA Any motherboard more than four or five years old will use IDE E IDE 7a a motherboard less then two years old will use SATA 6 although some retain IDE sockets for compatibility those motherboards manufactured between these times will use ei ther and a large number use both There is a third standard drive interface Small Computer System Interface SCSI but that s not commonly found on PC machines It was mostly used on server ma chines because it allowed a large number of hard drives to be connected to the system Early Apple Macintosh machines also used it Compact flash memory cards are used in stead of electro mechanical hard drives on note book and tablet machines and the latest disk 35 Wikipedia Parallel ATA en wikipedia org wiki Paral lel ATA 36 Wikipedia Serial ATA en wikipedia org wiki S
154. ernet con nected system There are some free anti virus packages available for Windows most nota bly Microsoft s own Windows Security Essen tials Programs which are paid by subscription usually provide a higher level of protection providing not only regularly updated anti virus functions but also the filtering of web traffic and email A particular problem with Windows are trojan programs which infect the machine and monitor its operation potentially sending secure personal data to online fraudsters who can use it to commit crime For Mac and Linux machines anti virus software is still an optional extra as it s not essential to everyday operation although it might be if these systems grow in popularity Where some form of anti virus software is re quired is on Linux servers not to protect the server but to prevent malware being trans mitted by the server which might affect Win dows users While Linux users often talk of the system s immunity to malware it is just as susceptible to unknown security flaws as other systems although one feature of open source software is that programmers are free to study the code in order to find such flaws and fix them Even if someone were to know ingly download a program or script containing 40 Wikipedia Botnet en wikipedia org wiki Botnet 41 Microsoft accessed June 2012 Microsoft Windows Secu rity Essentials windows microsoft com en GB windows products security esse
155. es is also one of the greatest problems with email If the at tachment has not been formatted for efficient de livery it will use an excessive amount of bandwidth in transmission and if saved it will occupy a large amount of storage capacity The simplest way to reduce the size of the files sent via email is to use a data compression pro gram This converts the data in text files and other raw data into a file which occupies a fraction of the space of the original file 10 Wikipedia Residential gateway en wikipedia org wiki Residential_gateway 11 Wikipedia Energy Efficient Ethernet en wikipedia org wiki Enerev Efficient_Ethernet 12 Harris Tom accessed June 2012 How File Compression Works How Stuff Works www howstuffworks com file compression htm Local and global networks 103 Box 7 1 Reducing scaling digital media files Howto edit and reformat digital media is a highly complex subject certainly too complex to explain here Even so there are certain options in the editing of digital media which influence the size of files produced reducing the energy used when they are sent over a network Image files There are three factors which influence the quality of an image file The size of the image in pixels the number of colours used to display the image and the file format the image is stored as specifically whether that format is a lossy or lossless format The size of the image file has
156. ess the re sources they require to work That might be on one machine or it might require configuring machines across the network for example allowing access to file servers or shared resources such as printers It helps to plan these details first so that you can organise how you will install any new machines or modify the configuration of others Where a group of people look after a small network keep ing written logs and procedures is essential so that everyone can co ordinate their efforts and not lose vital information about changes or modifications to machines or system settings Even when there is only a single machine in use there is still infor mation that is essential to its operation and main tenance such as the critical passwords for the machine and also the passwords to access and configure a broadband router or similar devices Each system that is installed should have its own log of critical and background data box 4 3 A system includes details of not just the machine but also any hardware that one or more machines are attached to While not es sential it s good practice If a machine should fail or if a critical password is forgotten by its user keeping a log securely stored on another machine or on a back up memory stick allows quick and easily access to the data you need to unlock the system or gives information to technical support staff so they can diagnose problems more easily Even if
157. essures are causing more businesses and individuals to make do with the resources they already have the skills ISPs develop to manage their own systems of fer the potential to offer new support services to solve their customers problems Changing the way society uses online services is a complex problem like many other eco logical issues Encouraging people to change their lifestyles requires that they understand the links between their own small actions the global impacts of all those similar actions by society and understand why changes to our established ways of working can have both per sonal and global benefits Education and raising awareness is the most direct method to allow people to understand their everyday impact and make the types of changes which benefit them the most This is a role which the internet and ISPs as the creators or hosts of content are well suited Alongside their traditional role in providing internet services ISPs are in an ideal position to provide advice and training on minimising the impacts of ICTs Whether they draw on their own knowledge and abilities to produce their own resources tailored to their users needs or work within the projects and programmes developed 2 WWF UK 2010 Common Cause The Case for Working with our Cultural Values assets wwf org uk downloads common_cause_report pdf by the industry or collaborate more proactively with researchers educators and campaig
158. euse and Abuse to Africa www ban org films TheDigitalDump html 19 Greenpeace International August 2005 Recycling of Electronic Wastes in China and India www greenpeace org international PageFiles 25502 recyclingelectronic wasteindiachinafull pdf 20 Basel Action Network Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition 2002 Exporting Harm The High Tech Trashing of Asia www ban org E waste technotrashfinalcomp pdf 21 United Nations 2010 As e waste mountains soar UN urges smart technologies to protect health www un org apps news story asp News lD 338456 amp Cr waste amp Cr1 End of life and disposal 137 Environment Programme has been working to develop a framework to control the impacts of e waste under the Basel Convention see box 9 1 which controls the global trade in hazard ous wastes In March 2012 the Basel Conven tion adopted new rules to address the move ment of e waste to African states Slowly the regulatory process is catching up with the problems of e waste To make this pro cess successful a more general change in the culture of use surrounding our consumption of electrical goods is required both reducing their toxic content and maximising their useful life in order to minimise their impact on the global en vironment In the end this is a design issue it is a matter of how we choose to build technologi cal systems It also requires the users of elec trical goods to be mindful about the impacts of the g
159. eveloped is a perfect example of the strength of this model of working The Linux system kernel was developed by Linus Tor valds during the early 1990s while he was a computer sci ence student in Finland The internet allowed him to share his ideas with software writers around the world which led him into organising a collective effort to develop an alterna tive Unix like operating system kernel for the PC Rather than a wholly proprietary system like Windows or a partial ly open system such as the Macintosh operating system Linux has been developed under a free licence allowing the code to be shared and modified by users The idea of free software was developed by Rich ard Stallman founder of the GNU Project The object of GNU was to support the development of free computer software by both professional and amateur program mers These programs were made freely available for others to use or adapt under the conditions of the GNU General Public License or GPL The Linux operating sys tem is the product of these two groups so it s often called GNU Linux to reflect the contribution of both Linus Torvalds in the development of the kernel and the GNU Project for the development of the licensing sys tem and the other programs with which the Linux kernel was originally developed The success of GNU Linux has been driven by its li cence It enables programs to evolve in a way that serves the needs of computer users rather than
160. f its components the thermal controls of the CPU and chipset will slow down the computer to re duce the heat load generated Next electrical power The electrical mains brings with it certain problems Electrical noise spikes from heavy industrial machines or loose electrical connections can accumulate damage to the components of the power supply and shorten its life In the worst case a prolonged power surge can disable the power supply and in the very worst case such as a lighten ing strike damage the motherboard as well The simplest solution to this is to plug all the mains plugs into a single switched and surge protected socket Surge protection minimises electrical noise and hopefully blocks the power surges More importantly having a single point to switch off the whole system means that with one switch it s possible to disconnect all the standby power drains of the computer unit printer and other power supplies Arguably assuming you always remember to switch off when the machine is not in use the electricity saved over the lifetime of the system will easily pay for the cost of your surge protected socket When laying out power cables always leave a little slack Ideally you place the switched sock et near or next to the computer partly so that it s always convenient to turn off but mainly so that you can plug in all the mains cables without leaving loops of cable which might get caught and pulled If you have
161. f the eco logical impacts of their work to be mindful of them and to understand how they can work differently to address them can be as cost effective as finding technical solutions Concentrate on what resources you already have Optimising existing systems using auditing or benchmarking tools to measure performance can reduce the pre existing eco logical footprint and might reduce the run ning costs or extend the working life of the equipment More importantly the process of optimising existing systems and working practices can highlight options or needs which 116 A practical guide to sustainable IT were not previously understood and this in formation and experience can become essen tial when planning a longer term strategy e Measurement is critical what is not mea sured is not managed In order to compare the effect of two different ideas or options we have to be able to objectively measure their costs and impacts Traditionally we use costs or prices to measure the bottom line By building in values of both ecological and social impacts in addition to traditional economic values it enables decisions to be taken ona broader triple bottom line Planning the transition towards a more sustain able way of working requires a balance between the ideal goals of sustainability and the prac tical ability to find better methods of purchas ing operating and maintaining equipment You must weigh
162. f the role of social media in recent protest movements see Mason Paul 2012 Why It s Kicking Off Everywhere The New Global Revolutions Verso Books ISBN 9781 8446 7851 8 tions which they ordinarily would be unable to accomplish The difference with information systems compared to for example a hammer is the advanced level of complexity required to create and use these tools If we re considering how sustainable information technology is then this inherent complexity has significant implications for the ecological footprint of the technology and also its future viability 2 1 1 Convergence The importance of programmable electronics has been the ability for one electrical device to serve many different purposes By varying the software program the electronic hardware can perform a wide variety of complex operations As a result not only have digital electronics made the production of technical or consumer goods simpler and cheaper what we increasing ly find is that different kinds of technology are converging into a single device removing the need to have separate devices to achieve those same functions That may seem environmen tally beneficial having one device instead of many but what has happened is that their suc cess has led to their adoption by an ever greater part of the global population and so over the last two decades the material and energy foot print of IT has steadily grown today its carbon fo
163. fe cycle assessment LCA of the prod uct Not only is the composition of the product measured but also the energy pollution and waste production that results from raw materials production manufacturing and use The avail ability of this data generally would enable policy makers and companies to tackle the problematic features of industrialisation more easily Perhaps more importantly for the users of technology it enables the consumer to preferentially buy goods which meet their demands for higher environ mental standards see box 2 2 The life cycle assessment studies carried out over the last decade or so have given us the first snapshot of the energy and resource foot print of IT see box 2 1 By studying the whole ecological footprint it has put the impacts of the consumer in context with the impact of the industries creating these goods and this has focussed the ecological agenda upon the manu facturers That in turn has allowed academics and campaigners to concentrate on the process 22 Wikipedia Life cycle assessment en wikipedia org wiki Life cycle_assessment 20 A practical guide to sustainable IT Figure 2 3 Ecological design and cyclical resource use Energy Resources Raw Inert waste disposal es which produce these goods in an attempt to apply greater pressure for change With the rising concern about climate change there is an increasing focus on the amount of electricity that I
164. fered by the manufac turer When a number of identical computers are purchased at the same time the chances are that they will begin to break down at roughly the same time too especially if a cer tain batch of equipment contained a systemic flaw Alternately if you plan the procurement of equipment to a longer term plan then the purchasing or renewal of equipment can be staggered and the chance that a large amount of equipment would break down over a short period is reduced At its simplest creating resilience is all about having pre planned alternatives to business as usual It begins with everyday procedures such as backing up data sothatifa computer fails you can still have access to the data it contained In addition you might choose to have email accounts with more than one ser vice provider so that if one provider s system fails you can still send and receive messages As part of the design process when evaluat ing options for different elements within the IT system it is wise to provide alternatives to essential parts or services to maintain the sys tem in the event of unexpected occurrences If you have the in house skills failures can be quickly fixed or worked around by repairing or 118 A practical guide to sustainable IT reconfiguring existing systems perhaps util ising components from an expendable ma chine until longer term repairs are made For external services and support it s important to 8 2
165. fferent pathways for backing up Which is the best suited most convenient pathway to use will depend upon how your data is organ ised what the objective of the process is and whether you are trying to secure just a few files or an entire computer hard drive 1 Wikipedia Backup en wikipedia org wiki Backup 6 1 DATA SOURCES AND REDUNDANCY he purpose of backing up is to preserve im portant data if we have to spend money and time backing up superfluous files then that represents an unnecessary waste of resources Therefore the first step in developing a system to back up data is to identify what needs to be backed up and avoid including data that does not need backing up 6 1 1 Identifying what to back up If we characterise the types of files manipulated or stored by computers and the need to back up that data we can broadly identify six categories e Freely available downloaded data for ex ample web pages commonly available files and data While this data may be important it is not irreplaceable Unless it forms an important part of the information we keep backing up this kind of information is not a priority because we can easily and cheaply using less time and resourc es than keeping our own back up copy down load another version if we need it Paid for downloaded data for example downloaded music subscription publica tions and paid for data files As this is not irreplaceable data the quest
166. fferent music delivery methods download intel com pressroom pdf CDsvsdownloadsre lease pdf 21 Taylor and Koomey 2008 Estimating Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Internet Advertising imc2 com Documents CarbonEmissions pdf 22 Pitney Bowes Inc 2008 The Environmental Impact of Mail A Baseline www pb com bv70 en_US extranet landingpages Environ_Impact_Mail_Web pdf 96 A practical guide to sustainable IT e Moving less than two or three gigabytes of data via the internet is more efficient in terms of energy and carbon emissions than posting an optical disc however that s primarily be cause of the high energy and carbon density of the disc If reusable media were used such as a rewritable CD or DVD that would signifi cantly reduce the impacts Even if only reused four times a CD RW disc would then be more efficient than the internet e Taking the cost of data at 1 per gigabyte if using commercial postal services it is cheap er to send up to two to three gigabytes via a network than via an optical disc e While for everyday small scale data move ments e g web pages download or email this analysis doesn t have a great relevance where these figures are very significant is the use of networks for backing up data For example Google has recently launched a large capacity cloud storage service If used for backing up routinely moving that quan tity of data via the internet would take more power an
167. fraud avoidance rule any organisation wishing to of fer money products or IT support either on the phone or online should not object to giving you a company name land line telephone number and postal address at which you can contact them In order to ensure that you have redress for any consumer fraud it s important that the organisation is based within your resident legal jurisdiction Any organisation which is not will ing to give a telephone number or postal ad dress to verify their identity or which insists on conducting business only through websites or email should not be trusted Maintenance security and resilience 131 SECTION 9 END OF LIFE AND DISPOSAL All types of tools and machines have a limited functional life How they are used cared for and maintained has an important role to play in maximising that working life but in the end they will fail or compared to a new device become inefficient to use Electrical devices due to the toxic materials they contain represent a hazard when disposed of inappropriately For this reason ensuring that all electrical items are collected and reprocessed to maximise the recovery of materials and minimise the impact to the environment of waste disposal is an im portant part of how we manage this equipment at the end of its life Assessing when a device has reached the end of its life and then dis posing of it in an ecologically safe way are the last two stages in the
168. freedom of expression and communication and which systems software applications allow this without expensive lock ins to one particular company or service provider Distinguishing the full range of options you have to solve a particular design technological or communications problem and managing the legal or other implications of pursuing those solutions is the practical method by which you enact this freedom of choice There is of course no easy way to acquire these skills it s something you have to work at by learning more about the systems and technologies involved 8 Wikipedia European Union Microsoft competition case en wikipedia org wiki European_Union_Microsoft_compe tition_case 9 Wikipedia Linux distribution en wikipedia org wiki Linux_distribution 54 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 4 1 Free software and the GNU Linux system The free and open source software FOSS movement began in the 1980s as a reaction against the increasingly closed world of computer software A large part of the computer industry grew out of academia where the idea that knowledge should be open is generally cherished being open for this community was not a novel con cept Sharing prevents the duplication of effort and en sures that potential solutions can be peer reviewed and implemented far faster than if small groups are working in isolation GNU Linux the first viable free computer operating system to be d
169. g As a metaphor for the idea of moving data on foot this method of data transfer became known as the Sneakernet While we may focus on the use of the inter net it is arguable that a person walking with a bag full of data can move information faster than many electronic networking technolo gies That s because while the internet is fast for everyday small files and email transfers when considering the movement of giga bytes of data the throughput of the network can be 17 WSP Accenture 2010 Cloud Computing and Sustainabil ity The Environmental Benefits of Moving to the Cloud www accenture com SiteCollectionDocuments PDF Accenture_Sustainability_Cloud_Computing_TheEnviron mentalBenefitsofMovingtotheCloud pdf 18 ZDNet October 2011 BlackBerry issues statement over downed services www zdnet com blog btl blackberry issues statement over downed services 60450 19 Wikipedia Sneakernet en wikipedia org wiki Sneakernet very slow The different ecological impacts of moving data via electronic networks or manu ally carrying or sending storage media via the postal system or a courier service are also sig nificant There are various figures for how much en ergy it takes to move a gigabyte of data across the internet A general figure is somewhere around seven kilowatt hours per gigabyte and with power generation producing around 600g of carbon dioxide per kilowatt of power that entails the emissions of ar
170. g consumables and power consumption Often paying more initially can reduce the costs later The warranty period is the best guide to the ex pected service life The longer the warranty period the greater the likelihood that the machine will have a long service life In a choice between hardware with a similar specification a longer warranty can represent a more reliably engineered sys tem which is less likely to go wrong Does the manufacturer provide environmental reporting information The issue with environmental reporting such as mea surements of power consumption embodied energy waste production and carbon emissions isn t simply that it gives you extra information to decide between different brands or devices Companies which issue environmental reports are more likely to police the activities of their sup pliers to ensure that they conform with the product stan dard and that ensures that tight environmental stan dards are applied in everyday industry practice Check for non branded equivalents for the equipment Branded goods have the greatest exposure in the me dia but often more generic non branded equivalents are cheaper The spares for non branded goods may also be cheaper and more easily available as they are more likely to be used in a range of consumer goods Warranty periods terms are also important in making a choice be tween branded non branded goods Is the user able to service and repair the device E
171. g about 20project 20 20 LCA 200f 201T 20hardware html 30 European Commission 2010 Critical raw materials for the EU CEC ec europa eu enterprise policies raw materials files docs report_en pdf 31 Global Witness 2009 Faced with a Gun What Can You Do www globalwitness org media_library_get php 980 1277197135 report_en_final pdf 32 Sourt C The Congo s Blood Metals The Guardian Friday 26th December 2008 www guardian co uk commentis free 2008 dec 25 congo coltan to buy equipment which is accredited as blood metal free the basic laws of economics mean that everyone is benefiting indirectly as a result of this illicit trade By increasing supply within are tight market it lowers the price of these resources for all The only way to address the issue of con flict resources is to have a globally policed system which is able to accredit the trade in all resources The debate over green IT shows the value of life cycle analysis and also demonstrates the complexity of how we must manage the transition towards more sustainable industrial processes Some of the leading hardware manu facturers are now commissioning reports on the impacts of their activities and life cycle analy sis is a key part of providing this information But while life cycle assessment allows us to look at the impacts created by our demand for certain goods for those whose work or lives have be come dependent upon these technologies it can also thro
172. g metered access having to pay for the amount of data they transact down loading unnecessarily large files unfairly penalises them when the same quality of communication could have been achieved with a smaller file size 7 2 2 Web browsing Over recent years especially since the widespread adoption of broadband connections the size of web pages has grown significantly This is in part the result of more graphically complex pages and the increasing role that advertising and content tracking have in the design of many websites and blogs Especially for sites with animated advertis ing and which require large quantities of script ing code to control the behaviour of the page the ecological impacts are not just related to the amount of data downloaded executing local scripting can also require a large amount of the machine s processing power For example some newspaper sites now required a megabyte or more of data to be downloaded for each page and on some web pages especially where poorly designed or incompatible Javascript controls are used view ing the page will increase the load on the processor increasing the machine s power consumption The need to download data can to some ex tent be controlled through the configuration of the web browser Some aspects of minimising 17 Wikipedia Client side scripting en wikipedia org wiki Client side_scripting the downloading of data are part of the browser s config
173. g the CPU the northbridge and the memory a second set links the northbridge and Hardware Putting the system together 39 the southbridge and a third links the south bridge to the disk drive connectors and PCI card slots The southbridge runs its own slow data bus which controls the input output devices on the motherboard It collects together a large quantity of data in its memory buffer and then when there s a gap available on the front side bus it moves the data at high speed into the main memory This allows the CPU and memory to continue operating at high speed without continually being interrupted by data travelling to and from the peripheral devices Hard disk drives have been the main meth od of secondary storage on personal comput ers for over 20 years Before we had hard drives PCs relied entirely on cassette tapes or on floppy disks First the truly floppy 54 inch disks made of a plastic film sandwiched in a card sleeve then the more sturdy 32 inch disks held inside a rigid plastic shell The very first PCs used a floppy disk to boot up the computer with an operating system In fact most operating systems allow you to create a removable boot disk to restart the system in the event of a hard drive er ror although today you might use a CD or a USB stick since floppy drives are now obsolete When complete the system disk could be removed and other disks used to store data were inserte
174. gh HTML formatting will not be significant for small volumes of email when sending to popular email lists or emailing to long distribution lists the additional formatting can represent a large quantity of data Many email applications now select HTML formatted email by default Instead it would be more efficient to 15 Wikipedia Codec en wikipedia org wiki Codec 16 Wikipedia HTML email en wikipedia org wiki HTML_ email Local and global networks 105 use text only email by default and send HTML formatted email only when the use of formatting has a beneficial effect on the clarity presentation of the data being communicated Reducing the impact of our email use is quite simple to achieve provided that we are mindful of the way we construct the message before we send it Controlling our use of email and email attach ments quite apart from the issue of their environ mental impact is also an issue of digital equity and inclusiveness In less developed states par ticularly in South America and Africa which have lower regional connectivity accessing the internet at any appreciable speed can be difficult Even in many developed nations residents of more re mote rural areas cannot connect to high speed broadband If those with high speed broadband routinely email large data files across the web that can create problems for those who do not have the capacity to download those files at high speed For those who are usin
175. ghtly under spec you could perform a motherboard processor upgrade to boost the power at a lower price than a new machine Beware when buying hardware for Linux always check for compatibility Always check compatibility before buying computers or peripherals for Linux Laptops from certain manufactur ers are a problem as are some brands of scanner printer and imaging devices This is much less of a problem than it used to be as more manufacturers now sell Linux com patible hardware or provide driver software for these de vices on their websites 48 A practical guide to sustainable IT Table 3 3 PC ports and connectors DESCRIPTION PS 2 Keyboard 15 Round six pin PS 2 socket coloured purple on later boards It was the keyboard connector until recently when it was superseded by USB PS 2 Mouse 16 Round six pin PS 2 socket coloured lime green It was the standard mouse pointing device connector until superseded by USB Parallel printer port 17 25 pin D type socket coloured magenta on later boards Superseded by USB SPECTR ERR E tt bt tieistaee RS232 serial port 18 9 pin D plug coloured dark green on some boards Superseded by USB VGA video port 19 VGA graphics output 15 pin D socket coloured dark blue on some boards Audio lines 22 Between two and six 2 5mm stereo audio jack sockets microphone which is usually mono Audio input output from the sound card Th
176. gital devices irrespective of the impacts that might have For example we may argue about the carbon footprint of air travel or power gen eration at great length but the ecological foot print of consumer electronics is equally prob lematic As discussed in unit 2 our dependence upon scarce mineral resources poses some difficult questions for our technological society If digital and consumer electronics require these resourc es then just how much are we willing to compro mise to own them This is not an abstract ques tion it s one that s already being played out in the global market for resources and the ways in which the high prices for these materials drives 15 Greenpeace International 2010 Why BFRs and PVC should be phased out of electronic devices www green peace org international en campaigns toxics electron ics the e waste problem what s in electronic devices bfr pvc toxic 16 De Decker Kris 2008 The right to 35 mobiles Low Tech Magazine February 13th 2008 www lowtechmagazine com 2008 02 the right to 35 html 17 Greenpeace International 2010 Toxic Transformers Brief ing www greenpeace org international en publications reports toxic transformers briefing their production in areas stricken by conflict or using forced labour so called blood metals Similarly poor conditions exist in relation to the breaking up and reclamation of waste electron ics in many parts of the developing world T
177. gital networks that the computer is connected to This is a difficult figure to find because it assumes certain things about the user of the system To give a general figure let s take the annual estimate for the inter net s carbon emissions 300 million tonnes of CO2 and calculate that as an average figure for two billion internet users connecting for eight hours a day That gives a figure of around 0 05 kilos of carbon emitted per hour of use Secondly power consumption How much energy or carbon is produced for each unit of 1 Guardian Online August 2010 What s the carbon foot print of the internet www guardian co uk environ ment 2010 aug 12 carbon footprint internet electricity consumed depends upon how ef ficient the power generation system is and the types of fuel it uses Coal power plants generate around one kilo of carbon dioxide for each kilowatt hour of power consumed while natural gas produces around 0 44 kilos and wind turbines about 0 01 kilos Therefore as suming a mix of fuels which give around 0 6 kilos per kilowatt hour and assuming the desktop system consumes an average 250 watts of power the PC emits around 0 15 ki los of carbon per hour of use Thirdly embodied energy How much energy it takes to manufacture a PC and how much greenhouse gases are released as a result vary widely The results usually depend on what the researchers carrying out the work measure and where they sourced their
178. guring screen savers setting the sus pend period to a few minutes after the screen saver activates will save a lot of power The problem is that those who use their com puter as a high powered media player will object because their music will stop playing Consequently it s often less intrusive to leave the suspend option for ten minutes to half an hour after the screen saver activates A problem with suspend is when power is inter rupted or the laptop battery runs down Ona laptop the normal procedure is to transfer to hibernation mode or to execute a soft shut down On a desktop which has no battery back up a power cut or inadvertently turning off a machine in sleep mode can cause data loss from any open applications For this rea son of the two options hibernation is more secure 3 Hibernate this halts the machine backs up an image of the working machine on the hard drive and then powers down to an off state The difference between hibernation and sleep modes is the amount of time it takes to restart A machine in sleep mode will wake up after five or ten seconds of the wake button being pressed Restoring full operation from hibernation can take thirty seconds or more depending on the speed of your BIOS self check it is quicker than having to power down and reboot but some users find the wait problematic Hibernation can sometimes cause problems if an error occurs when the hardware is powered down or the machine
179. h the software required to configure VPN con nections allowing computer systems to se curely back up to a remote server The problem with network back ups is that even for a handful of machines this represents gigabytes of data being routinely transferred across the network and that requires a lot of energy we ll investigate this in unit 7 The shift to faster networks which use comparatively more power compared to the older slower stan dard is in part driven by running more opera tions across local networks such as data back ups While the centralised automated backing up of PCs from a server is very simple to organ 14 Wikipedia Virtual private network en wikipedia org wiki Virtual_private_network Information storage and security 93 ise the use of the network for backing up can create a heavy drain on the network s capacity Seeking the least ecologically damaging route to backing up requires us to value to the data we are copying against the impact this ac tion creates In many cases backing up across a small wired network using 100 megabit rather than gigabit speeds will use less energy than a wireless connection Backing up more than two or three gigabytes of data to an online service that keeps files live 24 7 is likely to consume more energy overall than reusable storage me dia In devising a policy for backing up it is nec essary to weight these different factors to pro duce the least ecologica
180. h as the elimina tion of common PVC polyvinyl chloride and flame retar dant plastics it is currently the main labelling scheme used by most IT equipment manufacturers To access the products database and learn more about the scheme see the website www epeat net Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive RoHS This is a European law introduced in 2006 which seeks to restrict the use of certain metal and flame retardant compounds in all consumer goods Goods produced or marketed in the European Union EU have to meet these standards While there is no specific logo for goods those which are compliant have RoHS printed on the packaging or on the body of the product The RoHS legislation has recently been merged with the EU wide controls under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive WEEE this is discussed in detail in unit 9 By being WEEE compliant you not only tackle some of the toxics issues but you help to simplify the way that the waste industry collects and processes the equipment at the end of its life Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics This is the most wide ranging rating scheme for elec tronics based on energy use carbon emissions the use of recycled materials and the management of chemical hazards As well as the general report Greenpeace pro duces a report card for each major hardware manufac turer detailing their performance generally and which products meet Greenpeace s re
181. have a similar environmental footprint even though they have very different storage capacities For the greatest efficiency use the largest capac ity disc that s suitable for the scale of back up operation required Creating CDs DVDs and Blu ray discs re quires the use of a disc mastering application These come as Standard on all current operat 11 Wikipedia Optical disk authoring en wikipedia org wiki Optical_disc_authoring 92 A practical guide to sustainable IT ing systems although third party applications are often used as they give more functionality The mastering program bundles up the data files into an image of the disc to be created then writes that image to the blank disc in a single operation Third party applications usu ally provide extra often proprietary options to configure the format of the disc and to enable the creation of other disc formats such as au dio CDs and video DVDs CDs DVDs created on Windows machines have traditionally been a problem due to the use of Microsoft s proprietary format for cre ating data discs which restrict their compat ibility with non Windows systems Since Win dows Vista users have the option of creating a live file system format which is only com patible with Windows Vista Windows 7 or a mastered format which is more widely com patible with Mac and Linux machines MacOS and Linux machines usually create discs using the SO9660 international standard and
182. he higher the power output e It is possible to use a generator powered by biofuel or biogas This is a heavier and more complex operation but it represents a very dense source of power as gas and biofuel contain a lot of energy in a small volume of fuel The battery store has a fixed capacity If the battery was continually charged past that point it would slowly degrade the battery and in the worst case could lead to a fire or release of flammable gases To protect against this 14 Wikipedia Photovoltaic system en wikipedia org wiki Photovoltaic_system 15 Wikipedia Wind power en wikipedia org wiki Wind_ power 16 Wikipedia Microhydro en wikipedia org wiki Microhydro 17 Wikipedia Biofuel en wikipedia org wiki Biofuel 156 A practical guide to sustainable IT Figure 11 2 A typical off grid power system Charge controller Shunt regulator Generator the battery must have a cut out device which prevents overcharging e Certain power sources such as solar PV can be automatically disconnected to pre vent overcharging This is achieved with a voltage controlled switch called a charge controller When the battery reaches full capacity its voltage begins to rise expo nentially As it rises above a set point the controller disconnects the panels More ad vanced controllers for larger PV systems half a kilowatt or greater called maximum power point tracking controllers sense t
183. he highly complex mixture of materials in e waste and the problems of recovering the substances they contain without causing any toxic pollu tion make their reclamation in the developed world expensive Even when the best reclama tion technology is used and high recycling rates are achieved toxic waste streams requiring safe long term disposal are still produced As a result when many electronic devices reach the end of their life they are exported from western states to poorer countries with less demanding environmental laws for recy cling In many west African states India and east Asia this is creating a highly toxic legacy for future generations As these schemes tend to target only the easy to extract metals gold or steel it means that the metals valuable to digital devices are scrapped or lost in the sys tem Even when old computers and mobile phones are exported to Africa for reuse they will after a short period of use be discarded and in many African and east Asian states the lack of any formal collection systems and advanced processing of e waste means that they are un likely to be responsibly recycled As pressure groups highlight the issue and consumers begin to question the environmental costs of the products they buy government and policy organisations are beginning to address the problem of e waste The United Nations 18 Basel Action Network October 2005 The Digital Dump Exporting R
184. he optimum operating voltage of the solar pan els and adjust according This increases the efficiency of the system by 15 in summer and up to 30 in winter e Other power sources especially wind and hy dro cannot be disconnected to prevent over charging For example if you disconnected a wind turbine the resistance to the wind creat ed by the battery is removed and the turbine would spin faster and faster until it ripped itself apart In these cases a shunt regulator 18 Wikipedia Charge controller en wikipedia org wiki Charge_controller Voltmeter battery condition monitor Low voltage disconnect Inverter DC power AC mains power is used Like a charge controller it senses the battery voltage but instead of disconnecting it switches the current to a bank of high ca pacity resistors which dump the excess cur rent as heat in the most ecological designs the excess power might even be used to heat water Note that many of the diesel petrol genera tors designed for use with batteries include over charge controls as part of their design and will gradually slow the engine to an idle tick over once the battery is charged more ad vanced models will automatically turn off and on in response to the change in battery volt age If using a very basic generator without these advanced monitoring systems it should be connected to the battery using a charge controller This will disconnect the load and the
185. he phone line The router unit on a broadband phone connection should unless you get a direct lightening strike prevent power surges reaching the computer The ATX power socket on the motherboard has a lug on one side and the plug on the end of the cable has a small hook that engages with the lug to stop the connector working loose Since the development of the Pentium IV the CPU now needs its own power supply and this is provided by the four pin connector 12 on more recent ATX power supplies it also has the lug hook ar rangement to stop it falling out Also before you turn the power on the large fan on top of the CPU needs a power supply Depending on the type of fan you ll find either a two or three pin connec tor 14 somewhere near the CPU where the fan can plug into the motherboard Sometimes the northbridge chip also has a fan in which case that should plug in somewhere nearby too al though some are directly wired into the mother board meaning they re a pain to remove if they fail and have to be replaced As computers have become more power ful so their power consumption has risen Early PC power supplies were rated at less than 200 watts Most PCs today have power supplies rated at 600 to 800 watts and some of the latest high performance PC used for video games and num ber crunching can have power supplies of over 1 000 watts with water cooling of the chips to increase the rate of heat removal On top of
186. he relative ecological impacts of networked versus stored data distribution in dicate that we may need to re evaluate how information distribution is planned As general rule where the content is relatively static or is 24 Wikipedia Peer to peer file sharing en wikipedia org wiki Peer to peer_file_sharing Information storage and security 97 not regularly updated the impacts of distribu tion via optical discs may be lower than holding that information live online For example the data required to install an operating system to day fills a DVD and arguably the ecological im pacts of distribution on DVD would be marginal ly better than via the internet and yet the trend today is for greater network based software distribution to install and maintain operating systems or to run software remotely within the a cloud system 6 3 CONFIGURING THE DESKTOP TO IMPROVE DATA SECURITY AND USABILITY nother significant area of everyday data loss is user error or system crashes which affect the work program in current use While many programs are getting better at recovering data following a system crash it is possible to improve the way we use programs to reduce the likelihood of losing data Firstly many programs particularly word processor office applications and text editors can routinely create a back up copy This feature is enabled from the user configuration options for the program While some will create a bac
187. he way computer hardware works is fairly simple Even if you don t bother to modify your system know ing how the insides of the machine function can be very helpful to finding faults with your system and it can be immensely useful to understand all the acronyms and specifications you are bom barded with when you buy equipment 3 3 1 Types of PC hardware When we talk about computers we re conven tionally shown a large box with a screen and keyboard or a laptop which combines these el ements In fact computers come in all sorts of sizes and many don t have a screen or keyboard e At the smallest end are plug systems very small low power consumption computers such as the GuruPlug or SheevaPlug which plug into a mains plug socket and run your local network You access the machine over a network connection and the machine itself usually runs a Linux operating system 18 Ifixit Self Repair Manifesto www ifixit com Manifesto 19 Wikipedia Plug Computer en wikipedia org wiki Plug_computer e Next are mobile phones and palmtop ma chines and tablet pad computers and we should add games consoles and similar devic es into this category too As outlined earlier these are made from proprietary hardware components modules and are very difficult to modify Even the open mobile handsets which use the Android operating system are largely intended to allow users to change the software on the machine not the hardware
188. hough in some parts of the world off grid power supplies are the only option to run ICT equipment 150 A practical guide to sustainable IT 11 1 IMPROVING THE SOURCE OF YOUR ELECTRICITY SUPPLY he ability to vary the source of your electric ity supply is dependent upon the level of liberalisation of the power grid in your area In more developed states the supply of electricity is carried out by private companies either partly or wholly regulated by government As part of this process consumers may have a choice of different power suppliers and each supplier will have a range of electricity tariffs for different types of electricity generating technologies In less developed states power generation comes in a variety of forms from wholly state con trolled to wholly privatised The general prob lem here is that there is often a restricted choice of power sources available to purchase through the grid Different power generation technologies can be grouped according to how green they are see Box 11 1 While some forms of power are obviously renewable other power sources are less beneficial for the environment For example municipal waste incineration can create electri cal power and it is often promoted as an envi ronmentally advantageous technology although research suggests that waste incineration pro duces less power than the energy which could be saved if that waste had been recycled especially paper and plast
189. hs If we look at the mega pixel rating and the size of print that can be produced most cameras are taking impractically large images They are much higher resolu tion than commercial digital print machines which usu ally operate at around 300 pixels per inch resolution are far higher than can be displayed on the computer moni tor which operate at 75 to 150 pixels per inch and are excessively higher than is required for producing every day documents or web based content where images of a few hundred pixels square are often all that is required Buying a camera purely because it has more mega pix els is once it exceeds six to eight mega pixels an excessive use of resources for most everyday purposes Instead by matching the resolution of the image to the application you Camera mega pixel MP rating and maximum photo print size MP rating Maximum print size 3 6 8x5 1 inches 17x13cm 6 10x6 7 inches 25 4x17cm 10 12 9x8 6 inches 32 7x21 8cm 12 14 3x9 3 inches 36 3x23 6cm 16 16 4x10 8 inches 41 7x27 4cm To calculate the relative size of the image take the pixels width and height and divide by the image resolution E g a 3MP image with 2048x1536 pixels at 300 pixels per inch gives an image of 6 8x5 1 inches require the image for you can produce smaller image files and as a result fit more images on the camera or the stor age device where you keep the image files If using acamera
190. ia Dead bolt en wikipedia org wiki Dead_bolt 10 Lock Pick Guide Padlock shim www lockpickguide com padlockshim html The greatest problem with securing the items in a room are those things which are physically difficult to secure books large desk top computers DVD players etc Small high value items such as digital cameras or external hard drives can easily be locked in draws or cup boards Laptops can also be locked away when not in use Which items we choose to secure in a room depends upon their value and or whether they can easily be replaced For those things which are replaceable such as books subscription publications and computer peripherals the simplest option is to have insurance if they re taken or destroyed you buy another with the in surance money although some insurance poli cies might ask you to list all such items when obtaining the policy If you want to keep other non digital information safe such as the origi nal copies of important papers certificates and other documents then you ll need a fire proof cupboard or safe to lock them inside when not in use For irreplaceable items such as film based photographs or rare printed materials and books the best option is to scan digitise them use the digital copies day to day and store the originals in a secure location away from the workplace The general problem is desktop computers servers laser printers and other expensive pe
191. ible alternatives per character that s 80 or eighteen million billion billion billion or 1 8x10 3 possible alternatives 18 Wikipedia Access control en wikipedia org wiki Ac cess_control 19 Wikipedia Biometrics en wikipedia org wiki Biometrics 20 Wikipedia Security token en wikipedia org wiki Secu rity_token 21 Wikipedia Password en wikipedia org wiki Password 22 Wikipedia Personal identification number en wikipedia org wiki Personal_identification_number 23 Wikipedia Passphrase en wikipedia org wiki Pass phrase Manually entering a PIN number every 10 seconds assuming an unlimited number of tries it would take nearly 28 hours 10 000 x 10 seconds to enter them all This process is called a brute force attack 4 By using many processors in parallel the specially designed cracking computers created for IT research and intel ligence agencies can try millions of passwords per second Against such professional cracking technology an eight character password doesn t stand a chance and could be broken in a few weeks but an 18 character passphrase might take months or years to crack In reality a brute force attack doesn t start at O and step through each alternative The process of password cracking uses many steps to guess the most likely password passphrase based on the occurrence of certain words or let ters in the language used Another option is a dictio
192. ic dams Geothermal 38gC02 kW he Geothermal power is produced in volcanically active areas such as Iceland the US or Kenya It uses hot rocks to create steam to generate power Solar photovoltaic 32gC02 kW he Photovoltaic PV cells turn sunlight into electrical power While the greatest solar resource is in the tropics even at higher latitudes photovoltaic cells can still produce a viable amount of power Some manufacturers now produce solar PV kits to power laptops and mobile phones Biomass 14 35gC02 kW he Biomass is plant matter It can be burnt in power stations in the place of coal or turned into liquid fuels such as biodiesel for use in generating equipment Solar thermal 13gC02 kW he Solar thermal genera tion is used in desert regions using mirrors to focus solar heat and create high pressure gas to turn power generating turbines Small scale hydroelectric 13gC02 kW he Small scale hydro uses small flows of water in streams some times without the use of a dam to trap water As wa ter is relatively heavy micro hydro is a good source of power for off grid electrical systems Biogas anaerobic digestion 11gC02 kW he Biogas is created by the digestion of animal manure and plant matter by bacteria It produces methane which can be burnt in modified generators or gas engines to pro duce electricity Onshore wind 10gC02 kW he Onshore wind is one of the fastest growing sources of renewable electricity Whi
193. ically such as RAID hardware which automatically duplicates data on two hard drives This is effective at preventing loss due to hardware faults but will not prevent loss es from malware user error or physical dam age to the hardware Additionally running hard drives in parallel increases energy consumption in the machine Therefore for most small serv ers and desktop computers the simplest option is to copy an image of the hard drive to a back up storage system 5 Wikipedia Malware en wikipedia org wiki Malware 6 Wikipedia RAID en wikipedia org wiki RAID 7 Wikipedia Disk image en wikipedia org wiki Disk_image Removable media storage Archiving E E cS oe compression hice program USB USB external System users Off site storage Free rented server space Flash stick card Friends Removable contacts storage k et ssneakeng Social networks Commercial services e Using a drive caddy a second hard drive can be inserted into a machine but as it is removable it doesn t require a power supply at all times only when it is being used to record a back up This is often a cheaper option than using USB hard drives especially if you are reusing old hard drives from other machines When the machine is booted up the operating system can read and write from the hard drive allow ing individual files or the entire hard drive to be copied across When the operation is complete the
194. ics In the same way the burning of biomass wood and plant matter can be less damaging to the environment but if the land the fuel was grown upon had previously been forest or agricultural land producing food crops the im pacts are not much better than using fossil fuels For this reason it is essential to consider what 3 GAIA 2007 Incinerators vs Zero Waste Energy and the Climate www no burn org downloads GAIA_Incinera tors_vs_ZeroWaste pdf 4 European Environment Agency 2006 Paper and card board recovery or disposal EEA Technical report No 5 2006 www eea europa eu publications technical_re port_2006_5 at_download file power sources are used to create the electricity that support our ICT needs Rather than consid ering just the direct carbon emissions it s impor tant to use life cycle analysis studies of power production which take land use change and other indirect effects into account In states with a liberalised energy supply many different producers supply the grid with power The power produced from these sources is then balanced by the amount of power individual us ers buy from the grid Therefore with a green energy tariff while you may not be physically us ing renewable generated electricity the amount you consume will be balanced by the amount of renewable power entering the grid By contracting with a provider of renewable electricity you can purchase some or all of your electricity ne
195. ield Ac cess Space Irrespective of the purposes reclamation proj ects are usually based around the vision and drive of a handful of people Most computer rec lamation groups are motivated by people who have in depth practical ICT skills although they may not necessarily be employed by the in 10 Hole in the Wall www hole in the wall com 11 NepaLinux www nepalinux org 12 iStreetLab istreetbhae ning com video mervin s bin 13 Sheffield Access Space access space org 144 A practical guide to sustainable IT dustry Others within the group may represent specific community or educational stakeholders who work alongside the more IT literate mem bers bringing their community organising and networking skills to the project While groups may come and go what marks out the most successful projects is that they are able to transfer the skills held by the founders to successive members who have joined at a later date Although organisational and logis tical problems often dominate the activities of the organisers particular in more commercial projects the longest running projects are of ten the most successful in transferring skills to a large number of people within their com munity of users Without such skills transfer the whole project might be jeopardised by one or two members leaving taking with them the essential skills required to undertake practical recycling work As it is the sharing of skills which identify
196. ig difference to the efficiency overall when multiplied by the millions of transactions a day that flow through a single large computer installation However equally significant sav ings in time and energy can be made for small office and individual computer users and multiplied by the millions of computer users 1 Wikipedia Operating system en wikipedia org wiki Operating system around the globe that potentially adds up to a very large amount of time and resources too If we include the human resource side of the system not just the hard ware the use of operating systems and configuring the features of the system to protect data is a critical resource issue as significant as energy consumption If data is lost it has to be recreated if files are corrupted and there is no effective system of backing up the work has to be done again Secure and resilient system design ensures that data loss is avoided and security is maintained and in this way we avoid the need to expend more time and energy recreating lost or damaged information In this section we re not going to examine the mechanics of how an individual operating system is installed There are more than enough books and guides already available on this subject as well as the oper ating systems own installation documentation Instead we re going to look at how operating systems are configured to provide certain func tions or services what useful functions we can m
197. ight hours a day five days per week 46 weeks per year That s a total consumption of 460kW h year Taking a typical UK electricity tariff as an example at 0 14 kW h that s 64 year If you could improve the power factor from 0 5 to 0 7 that saves around 20 or 12 year but only half of that figure 6 year is due to the computer box and its internal power supply Whether or not it s worth replacing the power supply depends upon the costs of replacement A high efficiency power supply might cost 50 Assuming a usable life of four years it will never repay the cost of the new supply Let s say that the power factor was 0 4 increasing to 0 7 would save almost 10 year which makes it almost worthwhile That s why the adequate power factor is 0 5 a result any higher is unlikely to merit changing the power supply unless you were able to do so at a negligible cost There are of course other ways to save energy and costs A laptop computer will generally use a tenth of the power of a desktop its monitor and speakers An LCD monitor will generally use around half to two thirds of the power of a plasma display Again these are the kind of decisions you need to take before you buy or obtain equipment changing components after the purchase is unlikely to pay for itself in the amount of power saved even if you re sell the unwanted parts 44 A practical guide to sustainable IT 3 4 PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER y walking through
198. ill be restricted not to improve our experience of the technology or to protect fun damental civic rights but primarily to protect the economic interests of their manufacturers These new systems backed up by the pro tection of intellectual property law create other restrictions which generate a number of hidden costs to the computer user Once a user commits to a certain system standard for example the choice of using either a Macintosh Windows or Linux based PC the barriers that this creates can make it difficult to change after that deci sion is made Primarily there is a cost penalty either for changing the machine technology buy ing new operating software and licensing it or converting the media that you used with the old technological standard to the new Technological standards create a means whereby system de signers have control over the market for certain goods and services locking people into using their products in the future As we move towards a society where information systems are an ines capable part of everyone s lives we have to pose a very important question about the informa tion systems we create How do we square the development of a new networked society where information is intended to flow more freely with an intellectual property system whose primary purpose is to restrict information flows in order to extract greater value from them To examine this idea in more detail lets con sider somethi
199. inting or copying devices e Purely on the basis on the embodied energy of manufacturing having a large number of users share a printer is more efficient than having a printer for individuals small groups The capital savings also means that buying a more expensive more efficient printer is cost effective for larger groups e Small laser printers which will duplex are now available This means they print both sides of the sheet automatically Even though they cost more routinely double siding print jobs will cut paper use and due to the high price of paper pay for itself fairly quickly While you can print both sides by printing odd and even pages separately and reloading the paper if there is a fault during the printing of the second side this can often waste paper so a duplexing printer is the best option Duplexing can be enabled from the printer configuration interface in order to reduce the amount of paper used in routine print operations users can still print single sided but they must deliberately select this option before printing e Most word processors and other applications create documents from a standard template and most allow the configuration of this template file to be edited Editing the tem plate can enable a a specific set of printer settings in order to ensure the most efficient Fraunhofer IZM PE Europe 2007 EuP Preparatory Stud ies Imaging Equipment Lot 4 www eup network de fi
200. ion is whether backing up would cost more than the value of the data you may potentially lose Another difficulty is that music or other downloaded files may only work on the authorised com puter they were downloaded onto backing up digitally locked files such as this only has value if you can transfer them to another ma chine later e g the iTunes service allows you to authorise up to five machines to play your downloaded music e Stored data offline for example software installation discs bought CDs DVDs or your own data back ups As with downloadable data if you already have an offline copy there is no need to back up this data again unless there is a reason to do so for example if you have edited changed the contents of a stored file since it was read from the storage me dium e Stored data online for example websites files kept in online systems e g social media or information stored in online services e g web based email and file storage One of the problems of backing up is the scale of the data that is now routinely stored on many different computer systems With the growth of online services this data is increasingly not under the control of the person who created the file or data While backing up to an online system is a way to avoid backing up using physical media DVD USB sticks etc the question is what would happen if the online system was unavailable For example if you run a website
201. ipheral parts of the system 3 3 4 Assessing the speed of the system Whenever you see adverts for computers they always stress the speed of the processor as the most important selling point That s not wrong but it s not necessarily true see box 3 2 While the speed of the chip is important the design of the other components in the system also has a big contribution to the overall speed The main difference when you buy a very expensive com puter isn t just the speed of the CPU or the size of the memory it s the quality of the other chips on the motherboard This increases the data transfer rate between the CPU the memory the disk drives and the accelerated graphics display The more expensive the motherboard the faster the chipset of the motherboard will function and so you ll squeeze more data through the system every second Even so and irrespective the sys tem specification of your computer you need to match what your hardware can provide to the de mands of the operating system see box 3 3 When you look at a motherboard the CPU ap pears to be the largest component on the board That s because it has to have a large fan fixed to the top of the chip to remove the heat it gen erates In older designs of CPU if the fan failed the chip would burn itself out Modern designs of chip are temperature controlled and will slow down as they heat up so if your computer ap pears to be working very slowly it s possible that
202. is switched off at the mains When the machine restarts instead of booting the operating system it copies the memory im age back from the hard drive and resumes operation from the point it was told to hi bernate Errors can cause the reboot to crash and the machine has to be reset and rebooted from scratch e 4 Soft shutdown telling the machine to shutdown powers down the system This means that the system is off but the power is still connected at the power supply hence soft shutdown as only the software has been stopped With soft shutdown you restart the machine by pressing the power button and then the system reboots from scratch e 5 Hard shutdown the human operator physically switches off the machine at the mains This disconnects all power so that the machine consumes nothing On laptop systems not only are the major components integrated into a single unit they are optimised to use as little power as pos sible but to do this you trade off some of the processing power available with desktop ma chines For demanding jobs the power saving limitations on laptops mean that jobs can take longer unless you deliberately turn off the power saving features on the laptop at least while its running on AC power However for most everyday office related tasks a lot of processing power isn t required and so enabling these features will have little effect on the speed of operation You can also
203. itself e Next there are laptop and notepad comput ers Unlike wholly proprietary systems which are not intended to be modified by their users these allow limited scope for maintenance and upgrading Usually you have the option to change the memory hard drive and internal battery although finding the right memory module or drive can be difficult e Next there are desktop machines the large metal boxes that we traditionally associate with the term computer With the excep tion of Apple machines and some other pro prietary designs almost all of the components in a PC compatible desktop machine can be modified or upgraded This not only allows you to increase the power of the machine easily but the hardware itself is far easier to reuse recycle at the end of its life e Finally there are server machines These are like the plug in machines noted above but they re many times more powerful and for that Hardware Putting the system together 31 Box 3 1 Hardware buying check list Cheapest is not necessarily best Often you get what you pay for Devices which use non reusable or disposable goods such as the ink or toner in printers are often sold at cheap prices because the proprietary components they consumed are sold at a relatively higher price What you need to consider is the total cost of ownership how much over the likely life of the equipment you are going to spend on purchasing servicin
204. ive rather than two or three smaller drives The exception would be where you are using another hard drive as a back up for the primary hard drive but as we ll examine in the section on Infor mation storage you can use a removable drive caddy to avoid the need to have that drive connected to the sys tem at all times Finally hard drives also produce a lot of heat and in hot climates they can become very hot which can signif icantly shorten the life of the electronic components If a drive is running too hot to touch when in use you should consider adding an extra fan to the system to draw air across the hard drives That might use more electricity but that s not much when compared to the embodied en ergy of the hard drive if the excess heat causes it to fail connector Serial data connector Power connector SATA drive 0 SATA O SATA 1 SATA 2 SATA 3 a Motherboard a v D v m D A SATA cables SATA drive 1 Hardware Putting the system together 41 less low power notebook computers These use IDE parallel ATA electronics However there is an issue as to how long lived this technology is especially if the card is used heavily for very long periods Flash drives rather like the USB sticks commonly used with computers work very fast and don t use much power The largest amount of drive space you can organise on the machine is limited by the num ber of hard disks you can attached to the s
205. k up file with a slightly modified file name others will set up a specific directory to store back up copies of the files documents being worked on Each time you save a copy of the file it stores the previous version as a back up If a crash cor rupts the original file or the contents of the file are accidentally lost or erased or if saving the file erases some valuable data that had existed in the previous version of the file it is possible to revert to the back up copy and recover lost data Secondly it s always a good idea to regularly save work Some programs allow you to configure an auto save option to save the document at a specified time interval Rather than remembering to save the program will take care of that for you The difficulty is that sometimes if you make a mistake the auto save option can over write the back up version of the file being worked on The trick is to set the auto save interval to be short enough that you will not lose data if the system crashes but not so short that it repeatedly stores the current document which restricts the ability to reuse the previously saved copy of the docu ment if data is lost during editing Thirdly most programs allow you to undo the editing or processing of data The more steps that it is possible to undo the greater the chance that mistakes can be corrected The main restriction on the undo facility is the amount of memory it takes up Your options are limite
206. ks used a number of different systems but over the last two decades network connections have become standardised around different technologies that have been adapted to work in different spatial environments e Ethernet is a wire based network which physically links machines together In terms of the number of machines connected it is the most widely used networking standard eth ernet uses multi core cables to carry data be tween a local hub and the machines connect ed to it In turn that hub can be connected to other hubs and machines or using a router it can be connected to the global internet Eth ernet has historically used different speeds the most common today being fast ethernet 100 megahertz MHz and gigabit ethernet 1 000MHz Faster speeds are now in devel opment and while some use wire based con nections increasingly fibre optic cables are used to connect devices together e Wi Fi is a radio based network operating around 2 4 gigahertz The frequency band is divided into a number of channels and ma chines switch between them in order to find an unused space to establish a wireless link With the development of more portable equipment and changes in the way workplac es are organised to encourage more mobile working Wi Fi has become a popular means of connecting to a local network because it is not necessary to find a cable or network sock et to connect to It has become popular in the home as it allows compu
207. l if you assign them a suitable role in the system Some roles require little processing power such as a printer server file server or running network services such as DHCP and email A new server will do all this and more but if you have a suitable old machine the ecolog ical option is to use that equipment until it can no longer reliably fulfil the role Always document the machine hardware and the system installation Knowing your hardware is essential to maintaining it and especially for dealing with faults and bugs when they crop up More importantly data secured behind password access controls and especially encrypted data can be lost if the password is forgotten Securely stored system documentation listing system and hardware configurations can avoid this Configure power management options to reduce consumption but avoid settings that are so obstructive that the user disables them Power management can make savings in energy use provided that it does not become so obstructive that the user disables it After a period of idleness switching to hibernation is more secure than sleep mode as it s less likely to create data loss in the event of a power failure the machine being switched off Give feedback on power management The best way for a user to understand the load of their system is to get direct feedback on the desktop allow ing them to change their behaviour and not over tax their system 66 A practi
208. l with a computer the machine should be designed to serve its purpose as well and securely as possible For example a general purpose desk top machine could undertake all the roles listed in table 4 1 but to do so simultaneously would drain some of the CPU s power if it all took place on the same machine every extra program running on the system takes a little bit of power away from the important job you re doing at the time It s more efficient to design boxes for specific tasks optimising the hardware and software to provide both functionality and an efficient level of power consumption for the job concerned for exam ple server machines do not need a monitor Making a redundant computer into some thing useful doesn t require an expensive up grade of its components as outlined in unit 3 as is usually the case when installing a fully functional desktop system Again it s a matter of design and matching the minimum specifi cation of the job to the hardware available Of course there comes a point when a machine is beyond practical use usually when it can only run a lightweight text only operating system or you can t install enough hard disk storage or memory to provide a useful level of service Even then old machines can be useful for learn ing how to maintain or rebuild computers or installing operating systems These matters are examined further in unit 10 Reuse and reclama tion and unit 9 End of life and disposal
209. le plug it in around the back and then trail it around the front of the computer This prevents continual rummaging behind the computer which will eventually cause cables to work loose or break Finally let s look at the dazzling array of port connectors which emerge from the motherboard through the back of the computer case It s very difficult to plug a connector into the wrong sock et as they are all constructed very differently More often the question arises as to whether the motherboard has the connector you require There is no standard set of ports on moth erboards although with more expensive boards you are often presented with a wider range of sockets Depending upon the design of the motherboard you ll have a variety of standard ports video USB and Ethernet but new moth erboards might not be compatible with older peripherals If you re in the situation where you need a port but there s none provided or if there are not enough provided then you ll need to in stall a PC card in one of the slots to provide the extra interface s required For very old ports such as the 9 pin serial connectors used by vari ous old types of technical equipment you can buy short adapter cables which will connect the serial cable to a USB socket although not all software may be able to work with this system Table 3 3 lists various ports and shows the design of their associated connectors the index numbers from figure 3 3 are also listed
210. le the largest turbines now produce up to five mil lion watts of power small scale turbines producing 75 to 150 watts can be used to power a laptop computer Large scale hydroelectric dams 10gC02 kW he Large hydroelectric dams which tap the power of the world s largest river basins produce 16 of the worlds power While they produce low carbon electricity they are highly damaging to build and often flood valuable ag ricultural land and wildlife habitats Offshore wind 9gC02 kW he Offshore wind is slight ly more efficient than onshore wind because of the higher and more consistent wind resource available out at sea Even so it is more expensive because of the problems of building and developing turbines at sea 152 A practical guide to sustainable IT 11 2 GRID CONNECTED RENEWABLE POWER SYSTEMS A nother way of using renewable electricity is to generate your own from on site re newable systems This option depends upon the suitability of the location to construct an efficient renewable power system and wheth er the electricity supplier power grid operator allows power to be fed back into the grid Ide ally the amount of generating capacity should match the average amount of power con sumed although the cost size and ability to dump excess power back into the grid are all factors in the planning and installation of grid connected systems An important consideration in creating a grid connected power system is cost
211. leadmin user_upload Produkt gruppen Lots Final_Documents Lot4_T5_Final_Report pdf use of paper and ink toner In addition by minimising the size of the margins and not using an excessively large font size it is pos sible to increase the amount of information on the page The use of ink or toner use can be minimised if the draft mode is used for printing not only with draft documents but for any pub lication that is not intended for formal use memos circulars etc Again this is some thing that must be set in the printer con figuration menu on the operating system or software application Most printer control software allows control over who has access to printers Filtering which users have access can limit the use of more expensive high quality machines and allow general printing to be carried out from a cheaper to run general purpose printer which uses lower quality paper This will save money and environmental impacts for ex ample limiting access to printing on colour printers and allow all access for printing on the cheapest printer On a plain printed page only 5 of the area is covered with ink toner If printing graphs or slides using solid blocks of colour the amount of the paper covered is far higher Using a hatched infill on graphs images rather than solid colour especially when us ing ink jet printers reduces the amount of ink or toner required for printing documents significantly Recyc
212. led paper requires half the energy and produces less pollution than using non re cycled paper If possible rather than bright white paper which has to be chemically bleached to get it clean using lower grade off white paper will save more While there are various various sustainable forestry cer tification schemes for paper these products still use new rather than recycled pulp which uses more energy and emits more pollution Using 100 recycled paper or paper with a majority of recycled pulp is always the better option Waste white office paper is worth more as a product for recycling and is more efficiently recycled if it is segregated from other lower quality coloured papers If it is possible to or ganise a separate paper collection for higher 76 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 5 2 Printing information is not necessarily a bad thing Paper is a very energy intensive product to manufacture There are various estimates for how much energy it takes to produce and the impact depends upon many variables from whether the paper plant is run by coal or hydro power to how far the paper pulp is transported For the sake of this comparison let s take a general figure of 10 kilo Watt hours per kilo of paper The weight of a single A4 sheet of 80 gram per square metre paper is around five grams The energy required to produce one A4 sheet is therefore 50 watt hours For the sake of simplicity we ll ignore the
213. lem is that 32 Faist et al 2005 Life Cycle Assessment of the Mobile Communication System UMTS Towards Eco efficient Sys tems www fraw org uk files economics faist_2005 pdf 33 APC 2010 Global Information Society Watch 2010 ICTs and Environmental Sustainability www giswatch org en 2010 34 Pelley Janet 2009 Consumer culture keeps carbon emissions high Journal of Environmental Science and Technology vol 43 no 16 p 6116 pubs acs org doi pdf 10 1021 es901774u 35 As yet unpublished a general summary of the findings is available Mobbs Paul 2011 Web design environmental impact and the much ignored ecological efficiency of the Internet Ecolonomics No 12 May 2011 www fraw org uk mei ecolonomics 01 ecolonomics 012 20110523 pdf Local and global networks 109 the use of content creation programs encour ages inefficient site design those creating content do not understand the factors which cause bloat in online content and so cannot format their information in a more efficient manner The solution to this is to seek more direct means of content creation which allow for the optimisation of the content generated This would require a greater level of training and knowledge of web design and the methods which can minimise the impacts of online con tent such as the reformatting of files to reduce their size outlined above in relation to email at tachments At present this is a novel area for research
214. les of recent green IT studies and useful publications are listed in the bibliography at the end of the guide Green IT studies and programmes often take energy con sumption as the lead indicator of sustainability for example the Energy Star labelling scheme developed by computer manufacturers and the US government in 1992 Others go further con sidering the effects of disposing of those ma chines on the environment More recent work seeks to examine the machine as part of a ho listic system considering the whole life cycle of the machines during production and use Across the array of green IT publications available there is little connection made to the other equally important issues related to our use of computers such as systems standards data formats or information security That s a pity be cause there are many common themes between green issues and the everyday concerns which arise from our use of computers and information networks It s by combining the existing green ideas of sustainability with a far broader con sideration of the factors which influence our ev eryday use of IT that has led us to produce this guide to sustainable information technology 1 2 1 The information flower Rather than base our considerations around a definition which begins with hardware in this guide we ll look at our use of IT from the point of view of the information which the system manipulates I
215. life cycle of ICT equipment In this unit we ll examine the environmen tal impacts of electronics and electronic waste disposal In the next section we ll examine ways in which devices might be reused to prolong their service life 9 1 THE PROBLEM OF TECHNOLOGICAL OBSOLESCENCE hen we examine our use of computers the issue of obsolescence not only applies to failed hardware we also need to consider the logical as well as physical methods used to store data A desktop computer or any other informa tion storage device such as a smart phone is only as sustainable as the software and hard ware used to store the data it holds The rea sons behind that statement are not obvious so let s consider a practical example One of the earliest mass market personal computers was the Apple Il It used 51 4 inch floppy disks and ran a bespoke disk storage system and could store around 100 kilobytes of data In the early 1980s the first versions of the IBM Personal Computer also used 5 inch floppy disks and ran the PC DOS disk operating system which wasn t compatible with Apple s system At the time there was another competi tor disk operating system CP M which was also incompatible Jump forward 25 years to the world of computing today Both the Apple early IBM and CP M disk operating systems are ob solete If you had any 5 4 inch floppy disks con taining some important information it would be very difficult to access it 54
216. lly damaging option 6 2 5 The cloud The greatest movement in computing at pres ent is the storage of data in the cloud Cloud computing has evolved with the ever greater use of mobile handsets and computers Ten years ago this wasn t viable but with the greater availability of broadband services and the development of cheap high capacity serv ers storing large quantities of data online is now a viable option Apple s mobile devices Google s Android operating system and Microsoft s new Win dows 8 system are tied to the use of cloud stor age Online services such as banking or social media also use data stored on many machines which are part of the cloud Unlike an identifi able server where you know where your data is stored how the cloud handles and stores data isn t managed by the user it s automati cally determined by the rules that govern the cloud system Cloud storage operators often run multiple data centres and files can be spread across one or many of those locations depending upon which represents the most ef ficient way to move and hold the information concerned However the important issue about the cloud is that it s not just a data storage sys tem it represents a whole business model for online commerce If we look at the services using cloud storage enforcing intellectual property rights in the digital domain is often 15 Wikipedia Cloud computing en wikipedia org wiki
217. longer functions it s broken or when it can t isn t capable of performing a useful function any more This unit examines how much life we can extract from our information systems and what we should do with them when they have served their useful purpose 10 Reuse and reclamation 0 0 00 ccc cee cece eens Can we recycle digital equipment And how can we determine what s best to do with old equipment when it no longer serves its primary purpose To answer these questions we need to consider the options available for reusing or upgrading old equipment and identify what the limitations are on using old equipment 11 Renewable power 220 2000 ccdiecneracia nied nticen bed anne cad Information systems consume electricity and while in most cases the power might be sourced from the electricity grid there are alter natives Renewable electricity can offer an alternative lower carbon source of electricity For those who live away from the electricity grid or where the grid is unreliable it can also offer a means to use IT with out the restrictions imposed by the local grid 12 Further information and index 00 cee ccc eee ee eens Annex A Suggestions and advice for policy makers A digest of the ideas and information for managers and policy mak ers and those campaigning on access to information and communi cations technology Annex B Suggestions and advice for internet service providers server opera
218. losophers Exploiting the revolutionary information technology of the 16 Century the metal movable type printing press they were able to share and then collab oratively develop ideas which formed the basis of the political economic and technological sci ences which make society function today Today the technological diversity and ease of use of information systems is driving a similar revolu tionary process However this time the process is broadening the ability for groups across the social spectrum to access and share information The result from the crowd funding of social projects to the production of computer software which uses first native languages to the recent upheavals in the Middle East is a trend towards greater social debate and diversity within societ ies where ICTs are widely available The downside of this is that as more people access and use the network so the ecologi cal impacts of this the system multiply At the same time while computing and network speeds increase the movement of more data at higher speeds creates a rebound effect eras ing many of the technological efficiencies and energy savings that these new system create Finding solutions to these ecological impacts does not require prohibiting or restricting the use of ICTs in the future By redesigning the technologies involved to reduce the impacts of their use both the physical hardware soft ware and technological standards the s
219. lying link takes the user to a web site where they will be persuaded to release sensi tive information or load software which might install malware on their system Before click ing on any link in an HTML email it is always essential to look at the web address Often this will give an indication of fraudulent use as the address does not match the site organisation it claims to represent While a more technical issue for novice users if you inspect the head er data contained in the email it is possible to look at which address the email originated and then check if that address matches the real ad dress of the organisation s claimed identity Another recent phishing phenomena are hoax phone calls where an operator tells you that they have detected a problem with your Windows computer at present this is a prob lem specific to Windows Mac Linux users usually have the call terminated when they say that they do not use Windows The caller asks 45 Microsoft accessed June 2012 Avoid tech support phone scams www microsoft com en gb security online privacy avoid phone scams aspx 130 A practical guide to sustainable IT you to perform some commands on your com puter and then pay to download some software to solve the problem In fact apart from the scam of making you pay for software that is not required downloading that software is likely to introduce real malware onto the system As a general anti phishing online
220. m commercially the process of defining the correct hardware specification and operating system components still applies The process begins with the construction of computer hard ware then installing the operating system and finally you decide what application programs to install how to protect data on the machine secure access to the system and devise back up systems for data to look after your information To a great extent the specification of the hardware affects which op erating system s can be installed on the machine Even so operating systems the collection of programs which run the hardware and pro vide programs and functions for users and networks are themselves very versatile and define what the system will provide for the user A single machine can have many different functions These can be very general such as in a work station for office or creative work or they can be highly specialised such as a file server which shares informa tion across a local network What determines the role of a system is the type of operating software used desktop server or a thin client terminal and how it is installed and configured Traditionally green IT has concentrated on power consumption and carbon emissions and has largely been centred on the needs of large data centre operators In this kind of environment saving a few mil liseconds here or there by changing the way the operating system is configured can make a b
221. machine can be shut down and the second hard drive removed and securely stored in an other location In the event of a loss of data the removable drive can be re inserted and the re quired data restored e Using a digital tape drive a copy of the hard drive can be written to tape and then removed and securely stored As with the removable hard drive data can be read back from the tape although the process for doing this can take longer Removable media represents an extra level of data security because the data they contain 8 Wikipedia Drive enclosure en wikipedia org wiki Disk_ enclosure 9 Wikipedia Tape drive en wikipedia org wiki Tape_drive 90 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 6 2 Removable storage media for backing up For offline storage and backing up of data there are a number of different technologies available Which is the best suited depends primarily upon cost the storage Capacity the viable lifetime of the storage media and whether or not the media can be reused Selecting which technology to use should be considered part of develop ing backing up procedures For day to day backing up of small volumes of data such as the daily weekly backing up of current work cheap reusable USB sticks or flash memory cards are the simplest option For the amount of data stored they are faster to use than DVDs and although more expensive than DVDs when you factor in the number of times they can be reus
222. made by dimming the dis play brightness after a certain period of idleness usually around ten or twenty seconds without movement of the mouse or pressing a key This reduces the level of power consumed by the monitor s back light This feature is also en abled from the power management menu usu ally a check box to dim display brightness For both CRT and flat monitors the bright ness of the monitor is also an issue Bright ness isn t usually a feature solely related to the workings of the monitor It is influenced by the 72 A practical guide to sustainable IT relative contrast of the background we view the display against For example if there is a bright sunny window behind your monitor or the sun shines across the monitor it appears that the display is dimmer than it actually is In these situation users are often tempted to turn up the brightness and that in turn will increase power consumption A brighter monitor can also cause greater stress on the eyes of the user Locat ing the monitor in a position where it is viewed against a darker background and where bright lights or sun light do not shine directly across the surface of the screen achieve the opposite the monitor will appear to look brighter This allows the monitor brightness to be reduced and that in turn can reduce the stress on the user s eyes Sometimes particularly where the moni tor is small users can have problems reading the screen In thes
223. maintain than storing data live using online services e Where data is not updated on a regular basis the embodied energy of complex or semicon ductor based technologies is higher than oth er storage options e g keeping archived data on magnetic tapes or discs or on optical CDs DVDs has a lower impact than using external hard drives memory card USB sticks or online storage e Where data is regularly updated meaning that any static back up would quickly become out of date then online storage external hard drives and memory card USB storage are a better option Figure 6 1 illustrates the relative embodied energy of different storage technologies and their relative storage capacity Certain technologies offer a high er storage capacity but often this is associated with a higher ecological impact Even similar tech nologies can differ for example a local PC or server machine has a higher impact than an online service because in most cases online services will be opti mised to operate more efficiently than a compa rable small server or PC There are also differences between compatible technologies for instance because a re writeable CD RW or DVD RW can be reused many times it has a comparatively lower impact than a single use CD R DVD R 6 2 DEVELOPING BACK UP SYSTEMS AND PROCEDURES eciding how often to back up is a balance between practicality and the cost of data loss Where back ups can be automated for exa
224. mall wires on the board leading away towards other chips on the circuit board That s the front side bus FSB Near to the processor there will be an other large chip on the board usually about an inch 2cm to 3cm square often it has its own small metal heatsink on top and sometimes a fan to keep it cool That s the northbridge 2 a chip that controls communication between 34 A practical guide to sustainable IT Figure 3 3 Physical organisation of a motherboard 1 CPU heatsink fan 2 Northbridge chip 3 Southbridge chip 4 Memory slots x3 5 AGP graphics slots 6 SATA sockets x6 7a IDE sockets x2 7b Floppy disk socket 8 PCI card slots x3 9 Front panel connector 10 CD DVD audio input 11 Battery and BIOS 12 CPU power 13 Main power 14 CPU fan power 15 PS2 keyboard 16 PS2 mouse 17 Printer port 18 Serial port 19 Video port 20 Ethernet port 21 Firewire port 22 Audio ports 23 USB ports x4 the memory the CPU and the rest of the ma chine Some of the latest machines don t have a northbridge because due the problems of trying to increase the speed of the system many of its functions are now carried out by the CPU itself A little further away from the northbridge you should see another fairly large chip that should be the southbridge 3 sometimes especially on fairly new motherboards this has a heatsink on top as well This controls the disk drives and the other per
225. me retardants vinyl chloride and other vola tile compounds which affect air quality e As well as using more sustainable IT systems it s important to use products which have a lower environmental impact generally Using recycled materials helps but as a general rule we should seek to use fewer goods overall more reusable and repairable goods and try to extend the working life of products for as long as possible One solution for electricity supply is to buy from a renewable energy supplier or seek to develop a renewable power installation This issue is considered in section 11 Laptops are a different problem It is pos sible to take the hard drive or on new disc less machines the flash card out of a laptop Usu ally they slot into a compartment inside the body accessed through a flap in the case The problem is the connectors on the laptop s hard drive are not designed for regular removal if you did this repeatedly they will become damaged However if you were in an exceptional situation where you felt it necessary to secure the data on the laptop you could remove the hard drive from the laptop in order to store it in a more se cure location For more effective laptop security the most common option is a cable lock One end of the steel cable is bolted to a wall or worktop and the other slots into the body of the laptop and is locked with a key preventing it from being taken away The problem is that the hard
226. monplace the use of UPSs to prevent data loss can be more common although often the costs of these units deters their wider use How expensive the UPS is depends upon how long you want it to function The cheapest only provide a few minutes of power just enough to enable the server desktop to close down the running programs and prevent data loss or to prevent small fluctuations in the supply interrupting the computer More expensive systems use a large bank of batteries to provide power for longer periods or have a small battery bank to keep the equipment running while a generator starts up to supply power If data loss from an unreliable power supply is a problem using a UPS is often a good investment because of the time and data saved However for most small computer users having a UPS for a single desktop machine can be expensive it is more practical to use a laptop computer instead The internal battery of the laptop will cover temporary losses of power just like a UPS although you will have a problem if using other mains powered printers and peripherals Using a laptop is also better suited to off grid power supplies not only because of their greater efficiency but also because laptops run at low voltages which can be matched by most small renewable power systems 154 A practical guide to sustainable IT Figure 11 1 Grid connected power system Electricity meter s the building To get around this problem some sy
227. more processing power than the van sized CPUs of the 1950s There are many types of CPU available and often what you pay for isn t simply a higher speed it s the amount of extra memory or par allel processing systems that the chip contains For much of their early lives Macintosh comput ers used a different type of processor to IBM PC style machines That changed a few years ago when Apple adopted the same processor family as the PC the x86 The first generation of x86 processors was produced in 1978 and formed the heart of the first IBM compatible PC which 23 Wikipedia Microprocessor en wikipedia org wiki Micro processor 24 Wikipedia x86 en wikipedia org wiki X86 all later designs emulated We re now up to somewhere around the ninth generation of x86 processor and the range of processors has broadened to include designs for desktops low power versions for laptops basic chips for cheap mass market machines or more advanced ver sions for those who need lots of computing power More specialised computers such as the server machines that run the internet often use more specialised chips that are designed to perform a narrow set of functions at very high speed unlike the standard x86 family of PC chips which are made to perform a wider variety of functions from processing graphics data or doing complex decimal arithmetic If you look around the processor connector on the motherboard 1 you ll see a network of s
228. mple copying a whole hard drive to a digital tape the process is less demanding of time and so can be carried out more frequently Where individual users back up their files to removable storage such as a USB hard drive it requires more time and so would be carried out less frequently What s important is that some form of back up is put in place and then proce dures are agreed to ensure that these systems are used on a regular basis 6 2 1 Backing up pathways Figure 6 2 illustrates various methods of back ing up There are three different roles in this process which are defined by who has control over the system hardware e System administrators are responsible for back ups which require special actions or se curity privileges for example backing up a hard drive to digital tape Where a single user looks after their own system they would carry out this role but for larger installations where there are defined roles these actions are the responsibility of the individual who has re sponsibility for the IT infrastructure e System users are responsible for the files which exist within their own storage space whether that be on their own machine or ona networked server While their machine can be backed up centrally encouraging users to un dertake their own back ups of essential files adds an extra level of security to the process and helps discriminate between essential data files and other superfluous data e For
229. ms equipped with e reader software there is greater scope to share files but only while the operating system permits that to take place Consequently it s hard to minimise the resource impact of e books by sharing the files between many readers Additionally all the transactions of book download and loans are logged and that poten tially has an effect upon our privacy and free dom of thought When you download files to the e book reader from a service the details of the book and the account are logged and data is available to the company and its corporate part ners to mine as a source for marketing or cus tomer profiling or by security services profiling members of the public from their online brows ing habits While intended for use by com 15 EFF 2010 Digital Books and Your Rights A Checklist for Readers www eff org wp digital books and your rights 78 A practical guide to sustainable IT mercial interests this same technology could enable control over public debate traditionally associated with more repressive states On certain services it is also possible for the service provider to read and manage the content of the e reader device For example it is pos sible for the online services to delete books on a device if there are rights issues about selling the book meaning that a book could be digitally banned from e readers by the service provid er Deletion of books on customers e readers without
230. n be much less if not optimally stored and cared for especially optical discs Information storage and security 91 can be stored securely for example inside a fire proof safe This protects against theft and disasters The difficulty is that restoring just a few files from removable bulk storage devices can take time For this reason it is often more convenient to use a file server machine con nected to the local network and allow users to back up files from across the network The data held on this machine can also be backed up to a bulk storage device such as a tape or remov able drive If restoring files on other computers on the system it will be relatively faster to read back files from the central server than having to locate and install removable media However if there is a disaster then the back up of the central file server can be used to restore all the important files held on the network Where there are a number of machine shar ing a network using a file server is likely to be more efficient than individually backing up each system on the network both in terms of the administrator s time and the hardware required Windows 7 has a built in software application for network based back ups for Windows 7 and earlier Windows systems there are also various third party applications that run across a network to automate backing up to a central server For Linux systems there are a number of free network back up and a
231. n in it self it is a starting point from which you can hopefully gain the inspiration to change and adapt your use of ICTs to minimise your impacts on the environment Below sorted by theme is a list of reports books videos and websites which can help to fill in the detail that is beyond the scope of this guide Green amp sustainable IT Global Action Plan 2007 An Inefficient Truth www it energy co uk pdf GAP An Inefficient Truth Dec 2007 pdf Unhelkar Bhuvan 2011 Green IT Strategies and Applications Using Environmental Intel ligence CRC Press ISBN 9781 4398 3780 1 Willcocks and Lester 1996 Beyond the IT Productivity Paradox European Management Journal vol 14 no 3 pp 279 290 June 1996 dx doi org 10 1016 0263 2373 96 00007 2 Murugesan San Harnessing Green IT Princi ples and Practices IT Pro Journal of the IEEE Computer Society January February 2008 www sis pitt edu dtipper 2011 GreenPaper pdf International Energy Agency 2009 Gad gets and Cigawatts Summary OECD IEA Paris www iea org Textbase npsum Giga watts2009SUM pdf Velte and Elsenpeter 2008 Green IT Reduce Your Information System s Environmental Impact While Adding to the Bottom Line Mc Graw Hill Osborne ISBN 9780 0715 9923 8 Whole Building Design Guide Sustainability www wbdg org design sustainable php Ecological limits sustainability and resource depletion Leonard Annie 2007 The Story of Stuff www sto
232. n moving the important files to a back up storage system and deleting the outdated un wanted files One of the most important skills to learn in organising the files on a computer system is to know when to delete them or to move them onto other forms of data storage that are less demanding of power and resourc es We ll examine this subject in detail in the next unit Desktops Programs peripherals and gadgets 81 Box 5 4 Using metadata to label files Metadata is often described as data about data In addi tion to the image or textual information in a file additional strings of information are used to identify the content of the file when it was created and copyright or other information on ownership Almost all commonly used file formats sup port metadata in order to describe the content of the file and other statistics relevant to it When creating images or capturing other data many of the latest gadgets will auto matically add metadata tags to describe the conditions setting under which the data was processed and stored For example the type of metadata that people commonly see is the track and artists information displayed when playing MP3 music files by labelling the sound file with text which identifies the music the computer is able to order the files more logically when they are queued for playing The value of metadata is that by allowing the operat ing system to know what is inside the file it allow
233. n t really look like this and the precise design of motherboards vary but if you look at most motherboards there are various illustrated guides available on the net you ll probably be able to pick out the components listed in this diagram Figure 3 3 shows what a motherboard might physically looks like and the important parts are labelled to help you these are referenced in the text be low in curly brackets Let s go through the dia gram and explore what each piece does within the system 22 Wikipedia Motherboard en wikipedia org wiki Motherboard Hardware Putting the system together 33 Figure 3 2 Logical organisation of a motherboard Fast graphics port AGP Microprocessor CPU Front side bus FSB On board 1 0 sound USB IR keyboard mouse on board graphics amp network control BIOS chip Northbridge Input output or Memory controller D 3 f lt 3 i a E R Chipset Southbridge or Disk drive controller controller Expansion slots PCI 3 3 3 The processor and chipset Firstly let s look at the microprocessor or CPU the chipset and the front side bus The CPU is the heart of the machine In the 1950s the cen tral processing unit would have been a cabinet the size of a delivery van containing the racks of circuits which made up the CPU Today it s a single chip about the size of a postage stamp and it has thousands of times
234. n was evaluated alongside the results from the other sixteen for most of the indicators used to assess efficiency the Free Range site had the smallest data transaction for an average web page The Free Range Network s efforts were essentially a scoping study to explore the issues related to the bloat of web content and the type of steps which could be taken to address it as part of site design This project is ongoing and it is hoped that this snapshot of the influence of data bloat on web use and its ecological footprint will spur a more general debate and research on ecological web design strategies 108 A practical guide to sustainable IT 7 3 WEBSITES AND CONTENT Ithough email and file sharing download ing make up a large part of internet traffic a significant quantity of the impacts are re lated to everyday web browsing While the im pacts of the world wide web can be controlled to a small extent through the configuration of the browser or use of a proxy server the great est savings on the impacts of the web can be made by the design choices which guide the development of sites It s not so much a tech nological issue or the type of content created it s all about design The operators of websites and services must deliberately set out to cre ate a site that uses the least possible resourc es when it is accessed by its users The IT industry has been able to grow sig nificantly over of the last thirty
235. nary attack which tries words from a dictionary first on the assumption that peo ple use plain words for their password By us ing people s habit of selecting whole words names birth dates people s names and other such trends the most common options can be eliminated first However an equally success ful means of getting passwords is not the use of technology but the use of human to human social engineering techniques Given the right scenarios people will give away passwords or can be tricked into doing so There are two ways to create strong security using passwords Firstly by using more complex and random passwords and passphrases While there s all sorts of recommendations on the length and format of passwords such as how many up per lower case letters and numbers you should use research on the use of passwords suggest 24 Wikipedia Brute force attack en wikipedia org wiki Brute force_attack 25 Wikipedia Password cracking en wikipedia org wiki Password_cracking 26 Wikipedia Dictionary attach en wikipedia org wiki Dic tionary_attack 27 Wikipedia Social engineering security en wikipedia org wiki Social_engineering_ security 28 Mitnick Kevin 2003 The Art of Deception Controlling the Human Element of Security John Wiley amp Sons ISBN 9780 7645 4280 0 paperback 124 A practical guide to sustainable IT that this doesn t create much better security
236. nate the business world in the US and Europe let s take a figure for food emissions as some where between Europe and the US 4 000 kilos of CO per year Therefore averaged over a year the computer user emits 0 46 kilos of carbon per hour of use While green IT guides often look at the carbon emitted by the system hardware it s the sys tem s wetware the human component that s also a significant source of carbon emis sions In the example above the desktop com puter system emitted half the carbon emissions of the food used to fuel the system user if we had used the example of a laptop computer the user might have emitted twenty times more than the computer system they were using Yes the efficiency of power generation and how we make our IT equipment is very important but if we look at the factors which influence the use of IT then the role of the computer user is very important too As the computer user is a significant part of the process it s important that our efforts to re duce energy and resource use include the needs of the computer operator For example e Training learning how to use all the features of the system allows us to more efficiently use the software on the machine and helps us to work more fluidly e Software and hardware if the computer can t easily run the software programs or the operating system regularly crashes and requires rebooting then that affects the ef ficiency of
237. nce PCs became widely used consumers and the PC marketing companies they bought their systems from has a wide choice of parts with different qualities in order to construct the type of system that suited them but due to the IBM compatible PC standard the compo nents could work together Now that era is slowly coming to an end as the world moves away from desktop PCs to other kinds of information appliances As we move from the open design of the IBM PC to mobile phones tablets notepads and palm top devices we are losing the freedom to maintain repair reconfigure and reuse computing technologies Unlike the ad vantages of the IBM PC s open design these new appliances are mostly closed technology unable to be modified by the user or retailer and which vest control over the technology they contain to a handful of companies involved in their production In sustainability terms this is taking us in the wrong direction it encourages obsolescence and short service lives because of the lack of compe tition in the market for parts and because there is very little chance that we could repair the technology if it went wrong proprietary compo nents are often linked to one manufacturer so buying one small part can often cost a large pro portion of the cost of buying a new device To make this clearer let s look at this another way Even without a coherent policy on sustainable design consumer pressure for greater service an
238. nd its MAC address Administration Root password Critical password you should log this and keep it safe User accounts For each user account document user ID and any user specific configurations used with the account e g access permissions Boot loader password Linux A boot loader password prevents bypassing of the root password Hard drive encryption password Critical password if you use hard drive encryption log this Enabled network services upon the technical level of control you wish to have over the system Finally all this information is of course very sensi tive It s not the sort of data that you would print and pin to the wall For that reason the file should ideally be encrypted Keeping the information on an encrypted memory stick or hard disk is one option Another is to Note which services are enabled on the machine use a symmetric cipher so that it is not necessary to keep a public private key pair with the file In the event of someone needing to access that data they could read the file from the network and decrypt it to obtain the in formation they require If changes are made it s a simple matter to decrypt edit and re encrypt the file and then replace the copy kept for maintenance with the new file Operating systems Making the system work 61 4 3 PLANNING AND DOCUMENTING INSTALLATIONS hen installing systems planning is impor tant each user needs to acc
239. nd their contents deleted to free up hard drive space e Where digital rights copyright is an issue data which presents a legal problem if copied or backed up for example commercial music or video files can also be segregated from the bulk of user data and excluded from the back up process to avoid any legal difficulties which result from making copies of that data 6 1 2 Ecological impacts of backing up How we decide to back up will have an impact on the ecological footprint of our IT needs For ex ample if we use reusable back up media such as digital tape or external hard drives that can over time have a lower impact than options where we use the storage media once The difficulty is that there is little detailed information on the impacts of different back up technologies and there has been no comprehensive life cycle analysis of backing up options to compare one option di rectly to another While there are some studies Figure 6 1 Relative storage capacity and embodied energy of back up technologies Local PC External hard drive Digital tape Embodied energy Memory card USB stick Storage capacity which show that downloading music is less eco logically damaging than buying music on a CD or that buying software online is better than get ting it on DVD once you back up those files onto a CD DVD or other offline storage media to keep them secure most of these benefits are lost Much of
240. nels iaa 6075432 more efficient way If those involved know the standard or purpose of equipment they require waste can be refused before delivery and when waste goods are accepted the triage process can focus more clearly on accepting only that equip ment which meets their specifications As a re sult of a more focussed approach the project is less likely to become a dumping ground for un usable superfluous types of waste electronics cycling projects as a means of providing skills training in economically disadvantaged areas such as supporting practical training for the long term unemployed Such funding can form an important part of the project s bud gets as well as providing connections to the local business community in order to source discarded equipment There are a number of examples of this around the globe such as Hole in the Wall education in India e For some reclamation work is incidental to the purposes of the project but the work car ried out can provide a means to provide cheap IT equipment to support the educational or cultural activities of the group Some groups have developed operating system support in native languages usually ignored by main stream systems developers as part of their work to support the local indigenous culture for example the NepaLinux system in Nepal others use recycled technology to offer new opportunities to express local culture such as the iStreetLab project or the Sheff
241. ners ISPs are in a position to help promote change in the way society uses ICTs through the contact they have with their users customer base Box A1 lists 10 priority areas for change some are found in all green IT guides such as improv ing energy efficiency others are rarely included in guides such as highlighting the role of ISPs in defending the public s right to expression and communication If you review the content of the whole guide the points in Box A1 are not exhaustive What they are meant to dois act as general headings or signposts they are there to point a direction from which you can carry out your own research measurement and analysis Unit 12 1 1 Green amp sustainable IT lists a number of publications and reports which ex amine the issues These are usually intended for use by medium and large system operators smaller systems have not been well served by green ICT research as the costs and savings are often only significant when applied across a large IT systems To redress this balance much of this guide is tailored to the needs of those using small networks and stand alone com puter systems The publications listed in unit 12 1 1 are more appropriate to the highly specific needs of large IT system users Guidance for internet service providers 165 ANNEX 2 Guidance for policy makers amp campaigners M odern democratic principles are founded upon the work of 16 and 18 Century Enlightenment phi
242. new mother board with a processor already attached However no matter what speed your processor runs at add ing more memory to the system will usually help Hardware Putting the system together 37 Box 3 3 System requirements Each operating system is usually accompanied by a wad of documentation called release notes a list of the fea tures of the new system installation instructions and any significant changes from the previous version It should list the system requirements a specification of the type of processor s the minimum speed of the pro cessor and the amount of memory and hard disk space required to run the operating system When installing a computer or recycling old parts to make a new one you need to have an idea of what Table 3 1 Systems and system requirements Operating system the system is capable of doing To a great extent that is determined by the memory but also by the processor Table 3 1 lists the system requirements for various oper ating systems Consider all these figures the minimum for installation Wherever possible use the fastest processor the largest amount of memory and the largest hard disk drive to make installation and use as simple as possible Note also earlier versions of the Linux distributions listed in the table will require less RAM and HDD space to function Microsoft Windows Windows ME P2 gt 233 Windows XP P3 gt 600 Windows Vista P4 gt
243. nformation is after all the vi tal human resource which we wish to sustain independently of the hardware with which we choose to process it at any point in time In order to give this definition of sustainability a practi cal meaning we ve broken down the operations 4 Wikipedia Green computing en wikipedia org wiki Green_computing 5 Murugesan San Harnessing Green IT Principles and Practices IT Pro Journal of the IEEE Computer Society January February 2008 www comp dit ie rfitzpatrick Business Perspectives slides Papers Harnessing Green IT Principles and Practice San Murugesan pdf Figure 1 1 The sustainable IT flower Resources al 6 Ss Disposal Hardware Storage Renewable power or processes which define our use of informa tion technology and from each we have drawn a set of ideas and activities which allow us to review audit and improve the way we organise and work with information To illustrate this we ve organised the guide s themes around the holistic motif of an informa tion flower each petal representing one aspect of the sustainable use of IT and the stem as the source of electrical power Each unit in the guide corresponds to an element of the flower Resources or perhaps more appropriately The ecology of technology ageneral outline of how our demand for computers affects the world but also how those demands have changed us Our use of energy sources and n
244. ng that we do every day breakfast When we eat a modern consumer friendly pre prepared breakfast meal we eat brands we chew on other people s intellectual property At the same time the acceptance of the brand means that you leave it to others to decide the taste or texture of your breakfast It s difficult 6 Wikipedia Digital rights management en wikipedia org wiki Digital_rights_management Operating systems Making the system work 53 to customise the brand To make a branded commodity meet the needs of the individual user invalidates the generic standard that the purchase of a national or global brand implies Instead we are required to adhere to the stan dards the brand conveys and conform to the conditions that this entails The process of combining one product with another to create a distinctive brand identity is called product bundling For example Microsoft select what they believe you need to have on a computer or home entertainment console and in the process confer a certain amount of economic power not just on their own products but on the product or hardware providers that Microsoft retains an economic relationship with Likewise Sky s satellite TV system is based upon bundling different pay per view channels and increasing ly telecommunications companies offer bundles containing land line broadband internet and mobile services as well as the ability to down load TV programmes or films 4 1 2
245. nimise the impacts of the system upon the environment 8 1 1 Examining options There is no one method to achieve a good sus tainable design When we build in an ecological dimension to planning our IT needs it quickly becomes apparent that we have to change our working practices not just the tools we use to carry out our work For example while us ing more efficient machines can lower energy use changing the culture or expectation of the people using the equipment offers many more options to reduce impacts for example turning it off using power saving options when equip ment is not in use The best way to approach sustainable design is to think more strategically about our present and future needs Thinking over a longer period allows time for cultural changes changes in working practices to evolve alongside technical change In practical terms what many organisa tions seek to achieve is a compromise between deep green sustainability where ecological principles completely determine how we work and more practical sustainability where we try and implement what is possible today and set longer term goals for improvement How we do this is a matter of setting the context within which we ask questions or find solutions to problems e Take a long term strategy which defines the need for certain equipment over a number of 2 Wikipedia Sustainable design en wikipedia org wiki Sustainable_design years cert
246. not run new software to the users expectations or because older hardware is rejected because of the appeal of new more fashionable products the user scraps the system and buys a new one The idea of perceived obsolescence has been at the heart of the marketing of new products since the 1950s and has been criticised since its devel opment because of the costs to the consumer and the environment Another process related to the use of tech nology is planned obsolescence This involves the developers or vendors of a particular system or product deciding not to support or service older equipment in order to promote the adop tion of a newer model Sometimes the operat ing life of a device can be hard wired into the logic of its electronics and without having access to the detailed designs of the system it can be difficult to circumvent these restrictions More commonly the producers of hardware or software will upgrade systems without back wards compatibility restricting the ability of the latest systems to read files from or export data to older versions This tends to be more of a problem with proprietary systems as open source free software systems allow developers and enthusiasts to continue support for older versions long after the equipment has ceased being supported by its manufacturers For example according the environmental report produced for the first series of Apple iPad it has a design life of three years How
247. nquire if the device is a sealed unit or whether the user can easily replace components which might fail over its operating life Check if the device uses proprietary or standard generic cables connectors If a device uses a generic power supply and the connectors e g sound audio or ethernet use standard fittings these will be easier and cheaper to replace For power supplies especially being able to use a generic power supply means that you can reuse the unit with other equipment when the machine reaches the end of its working life Check that repair is an option rather than whole sale replacement Check that spares for the most likely parts of the equip ment to fail such as rechargeable batteries hard drives cables and connectors are available at a reasonable cost even if it requires a service technician to undertake repairs Does the equipment contain hazardous substances In compliance with recent legislation in Europe and else where goods should indicate whether they contain haz ardous compounds such as mercury cadmium or lead Some manufacturers are also producing goods which are free of PVC and flame retardants Is there are take back trade in option If you rent lease goods you should expect them to be taken back at the end of the lease For goods which are bought check if the manufacturer runs a take back scheme for the machine or the machine s consumables such as ink toner cartridges Does the warran
248. ns the same piece of equipment might be repli cated two or three times which of course has a much higher ecological impact In high avail ability computer systems multiple machines work in parallel enabling the whole system to keep working if one or two machines fail and 5 Wikipedia Redundancy engineering even data storage might use an array of hard drives so that if one drive fails there is an exact copy of the data it contained on a second drive ready for use Unlike these highly specialised examples improving the resilience of our everyday use of technology need not entail a large amount of expenditure and high ecological impacts For example on an average PC the only unique part of the machine is the data stored on the hard drive the rest of the machine is expend able By using a removable hard drive taken from the machine at the end of each day and secured in a safe or locked cupboard if the computer is stolen the data can be quickly re loaded from the old drive onto a new machine Another option is to regularly back up the com puter to an external hard drive so that if the machine breaks down the information on the external drive can be used on another machine Another way to develop resilience is to plan the purchase of equipment so that the likeli hood of many failures occurring at the same time is minimised All hardware has an ex pected working life defined as a minimum by the guarantee period of
249. ntial part of carrying out the initial triage on the waste goods taken in by the project To en sure safe working a bench is required for each person undertaking recycling work In addition to the basic hand tools required for servicing projects can also benefit from hav ing access to 15 Paul Mobbs accessed June 2012 The Container Project www fraw org uk mei container_project Reuse and reclamation 145 Sufficient storage space both racks shelving and drawers to safely store IT equipment computer components and tools A properly installed signal earth to connect anti static mats and wrist straps to for servic ing computer circuit boards connecting to the mains earth can be highly dangerous A voltmeter electronic multimeter for circuit testing e A bench space for soldering de soldering and electrical assembly work with good ven tilation to extract the fumes created by this process this is an important part of electron ics multimedia based projects as they of ten involve the assembly and repair of many different types of audio hifi equipment and cables e Test units for identifying testing memory modules and other components Network cable test unit for checking manu facturing ethernet cables e A bench power supply Speakers audio amplifiers data projectors and other peripherals to aid in the practical use of the equipment refurbished by the project Ordinarily projects would have a m
250. ntials Renewable power 129 malware and execute it depending upon the permissions used to configure the system it is likely to affect only the user account it is run from The use of the suite of security harden ing tools which are now available for use with Linux such as Security Enhanced Linux re duce the likelihood that malware would cause significant damage to the system Lastly an increasing problem on the in ternet is phishing Phishing is the use of the internet as a means to make people disclose sensitive financial and personal information That information can then in turn be used to perform various forms of fraud and identify theft Often such frauds ask people to pay small sums of money as a handling charge in order to arrange the transfer or to receive the goods promised which ultimately will never turn up Email users will regularly receive emails telling them that they have won money or someone wants to give them money in return for their bank details The best response to emails such as this is to hit the delete key A 42 Wikipedia Security Enhanced Linux en wikipedia org wiki Security Enhanced_Linux 43 Wikipedia Phishing en wikipedia org wiki Phishing 44 Wikipedia Identity theft en wikipedia org wiki Iden tity_theft significant problem is the use of HTML emails as this allows the display of web addresses to indicate one web location such as a bank when the under
251. nvironment reports Hardware Putting the system together 29 a half or more are produced during the produc tion of the device the remainder is expended in transport and during materials reclamation One of the important variables in the calcula tion of these impacts is the length of product s service life For the Apple devices shown above they are expected to have a three year life span except for the Macbook which is expected to last four If you can make these devices work for lon ger than this then you will decrease the impact of the product overall Even though using the de vice for longer will mean that the user s propor tion of the total impact will rise because you use more power that fact the most of the impacts are created during production mean that you are unlikely to tip the balance the other way And in any case by delaying buying a new product you are delaying the creation of new pollution in order to replace it with a new one For example using an iPod or iPhone for four years instead of three will reduce the overall impact by almost a third The problem with trying to use many con sumer electronics goods for longer than their manufacturer s anticipated life span is that you run up against the issue of planned obsoles cence Analogue mechanical devices will work right up until individual components fail or wear out although it might be that the device has had its components engineered to last a certain pe
252. o display Next let s look at the accelerated graphics port AGP 5 A modern video display is made up of points of data called pixels the more pixels and the more colours they use the finer the image your display can reproduce The first computer terminals didn t do pixels at all they just dis played characters In terms of the amount of data 28 Wikipedia ASCII en wikipedia org wiki ASCII 29 Wikipedia Unicode en wikipedia org wiki Unicode 30 Wikipedia Accelerated graphics port en wikipedia org wiki Accelerated_graphics_port involved 24 lines of 80 characters at one byte per character is 1 920 bytes Now think of a modern wide screen video display It usually has 1 366 pix els across the screen and 768 from top to bottom Each pixel is capable of representing in excess of a million colours which means each pixel takes 24 bits or three bytes of data to represent its value 1 366 pixels x 768 pixels x 24 bits three bytes is 3 147 264 bytes and given that the screen re freshes its image at least 50 times a second that represents a data flow in excess of 150 megabytes per second In physical terms that s the content of a data CD disc every 434 seconds In fact the AGP slot is designed to handle over 500 megabytes per second equivalent to a blank DVD disc every 834 seconds that s far more data than the mother board s PCI slots can handle which usually have a capacity of 128 megabytes per second The C
253. o function in the best way possible and it is by systematically working through each mod ule one by one that we progressively produce a more sustainable system For example an ethernet network operates according to a technological standard The ma chines which connect to the network use the same standard irrespective of which manufac turer s equipment is used For that reason we can consider the network and the machines which connect to it as representing different modules and each module can be evaluated as a single unit in order to select the optimum design For network hardware this division en ables us to measure the different performance of a wired network versus wifi or a single large network versus a series of smaller subnets and then combine those options to produce a sys tem with the least impact in terms of economic and ecological costs The software that comput ers use to connect to a local server on the net work also functions according to a technological standard distinct from the network hardware This allows us to consider the desktop machines people use as distinct from the servers routers and other parts of the network enabling mea surements or research to be carried out to find the most effective efficient solution for each of these parts By adopting a modular plan as part of a lon ger term strategy for improvement it is possible to progressively upgrade different parts of the system in isolation withou
254. o longer has a useful application should it be disposed of and even then other uses may be found for it if the machine is recycled via a local computer refur bishing or training scheme 14 Bevan Kate 2012 You mean my two year old iPad can t take this year s software The Guardian 4th July 2012 www guardian co uk technology 2012 jul 04 apple ipad software update 136 A practical guide to sustainable IT 9 3 IMPACTS OF E WASTE hen hardware does reach the end of its life it has to be disposed of How that is carried out is intimately linked to the types of materials these devices contain and how the ecological impacts of those materials can be controlled to prevent harm It is difficult to control what substances our electrical devices are made from as many manufacturers provide little information on the environmental impacts of production with the goods we buy although some manufacturers now produce goods free of toxins such as brominated flame retardants and PVC Ultimately no matter how much we can reduce the toxic load the physical volume of electrical waste will always represent a large expenditure of energy resources and pollu tion to create it which is why concentrating on maximising the use of these systems for as long as possible is so important Perhaps due to the separation of our use of modern technology from wider ecological debate there seems to be a sense that people have the right to access di
255. oads blocking pop ups will reduce the load on the processor and avoid loading more data into the system memory each time a new browser window is opened e Advertising filters Even with a pop up block ing enabled many sites now use dynamic HTML to display adverts or animated content which float over the browser window As these stay within the control of the existing window this circumvents control by pop up blocking Instead what is required is an advertising filter plug 18 Wikipedia Web cache en wikipedia org wiki Web_cache 19 Wikipedia Pop up ad en wikipedia org wiki Pop up_ad 20 Wikipedia Hover ads en wikipedia org wiki Hover_ad 21 Wikipedia Advertising filtering en wikipedia org wiki Ad_ filtering 106 A practical guide to sustainable IT in for the browser such as Ad Block which monitors the use of dynamic HTML to prevent frames hovering over the browser window As with pop up blocking this saves processor pow er and memory Disabling Java Javascript and flash The dy namic content of web pages especially that related to advertising can be a drain on the power of older hardware If this presents a prob lem the simplest measure is to disable Java and Javascript and perhaps de install Adobe flash player This difficulty with this approach is that disabling Javascript will prevent many websites displaying their content properly Few websites now maintain a static or
256. ocks are far less plentiful as a proportion of all the stones available This meant that in ancient societies metals had very high price and were only used for very special applications What eliminated the rarity of metals was in dustrialisation and more importantly the early use of fossil fuels to power the furnaces which made metals Before the eighteenth century the limitation on metal production even where the rocks it is produced from were plentiful was the amount of wood required to fire the furnaces to produce pure metal In short the limitation was the quality and scale of the energy available to smelt the ores not just the minerals resources avail able to produce metals This restriction known as the Law of the minimum applies to all other living organisms on the planet too and in that sense today s technological society is no differ ent from our ancient arboreal past In ecological terms the limiting factor is time and the shift to coal allowed the human econo my to escape the restrictions imposed by nature Wood represents stored solar energy and that takes time to grow and mature and so metal pro duction was constrained by the sustainable limits of local wood production For that reason coal has been used in metal production since the time of the Ancient Greeks Coal represents thousands of years of stored solar energy meaning it has a higher energy density than wood and so produces Wikipedia Stone
257. of using large amounts of online data storage When moving large quantities of data between two systems posting optical discs digital tapes can have a lower ecological impact and financial cost than transfer over a network Configure the features of desktop applications to preser ve data Always create back up copies of files being wor ked on auto save at regular intervals set increase the number of undo operations and always use the waste basket rather than directly deleting files Information storage and security 99 SECTION 7 LOCAL AND GLOBAL NETWORKS Early personal computers had a number of advantages over previous infor mation technologies especially in fields such as word processing and the use of spreadsheets However it was when personal computers were first networked together so that data could be shared between users in the same building or across the globe that they began to reshape the world of infor mation and communications Today it is difficult to conceive of a desktop or laptop computer without a network connection and over the last few years the general expectation is that this connection will be a high speed broad band link rather than the slow dial up connections which preceded them While the use of electronic networks has developed computers into a significant new global technology this has not come without an adverse impact As communications have increased so the amount of data flow ing be
258. on figuration of power management in BIOS and change as required if necessary identify the make model of the motherboard then search for and download the board s user manual to check power management options 64 A practical guide to sustainable IT also a number of third party power appli cations which allow you to refine these set tings and which manage the programs that run on the system to reduce the demands on the processor memory and hard drive e Most Linux distributions offer similar power management features to Windows As with the FOSS world in general there are also spe cialised projects which develop power man agement systems for use across the Linux community Many of the popular Linux dis tributions are now producing their own de tailed system documentation on implement ing power saving features policies in server and desktop machines and these guides are available free on the distribution website For the more technically minded there are also free programs which work across most distri butions to audit and improve power perfor mance The leading application is powertop which not only monitors how the system run ning programs consume energy it also sug gests ways of improving system configuration to reduce power consumption e MacOS also has its own built in power man agement modes and there are third party applications which can monitor and optimise the operation of the system 4 4
259. on projects in operation around the world International organisations such as Compteraid specifically work with aid organisations to provide computers to devel oping countries for education and community projects some groups are more focussed on 5 Computeraid UK www computeraid org recycling such as Free Geek an urban project in the US who work on a semi commercial ba sis providing a community service training and volunteering opportunities related to the reuse of ICTs others such as The Container Project based in rural Jamaica are wholly community based using IT reclamation as part of wider cul tural and educational projects within the local community 10 1 2 Finding a purpose for the equipment Projects can run into trouble if their objectives are poorly designed or because they lack the capacity to provide the service they desire In the worst case they can rapidly become a dumping ground for waste electronics Espe cially in those states where the disposal of electrical goods is regulated donating equip ment to community groups can be seen as the easy option for disposing of old equipment As a result the groups can become quickly sub merged in old equipment with no immediate outlet for its reuse and no funds to pay for the disposal of it An important element within community based recycling projects is having a community or body of people who are ready and able to put the reconditioned equi
260. oods they demand and how they should care for and responsibly dispose of those goods in order to minimise the global impacts of their use If we respect the physical boundaries to the natural world then we can make a truly sustain able culture The difficulty is that recognising these limits inevitably means applying limits to ourselves 9 4 E WASTE DISPOSAL SCHEMES A legislation has only recently begun to catch up with the increasing use of electri cal goods the system of controls for e waste management is at the global level still frag mented see box 9 1 While global legislation is in development both the electronics industry and many national governments are waiting to see what procedures current negotiations will enact At present the world leader in the control of e waste is the European Union The directive on e waste the WEEE directive was agreed a decade ago This enacted controls over the dis posal of e waste Since then the EU has also agreed on the Directive on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment RoHS This seeks to control the range and concentration of toxic ma terials in industrial and consumer products and complements the objectives of the WEEE Direc tive by reducing the toxic contaminants present in the waste stream 22 UNEP 2010 Urgent Need to Prepare Developing Coun tries for Surge in E Wastes www unep org Documents Multilingual
261. orces rather than being motivated by a change in the way we organ ise our use of the system For those who perform largely office related and internet communica tion activities the use of the same computer sys tem fora significant length of time should no af fect the way they carry out that work What tends to create problems are changes to the applications and related software required to view web con tent to read documents or files imported onto the system or problems finding compatible hardware when existing devices cease to function As noted elsewhere in this guide one of the best ways to minimise our ecological impacts is to extend the service life of the equipment we use In order to achieve that goal we must find ways to manage these external incompatibilities find ing alternatives which avoid the need to upgrade until it is absolutely necessary Just because a computer or other device ceases to have a viable function in one role does not mean it would not have a viable future in another As outlined in unit 4 older PC hardware can perform a variety of functions from a small file server to back ing up a laptop or other machine via a network cable to a machine which provides local services on the network or just a machine to play with practising your skills manipulating hardware or installing software Provided that the application serves a useful purpose it is a valid use of that technology Only when a machine n
262. orks become a cheaper and more popular way of providing access to information and networks specialised low power consumption termi nal clients are being developed these consumed much less energy than traditional stand alone fat com puters used on large networks Switching to a thin client network is most commonly associated with the need to perform system upgrades where the reduced cost and ability to recycle existing equipment create a more affordable alternative to re placing many stand alone PC systems Local and global networks 113 SECTION 8 MAINTENANCE SECURITY AND RESILIENCE The term sustainability generally means the ability of a system to continue to function In practice we must not only consider the abil ity to function it s the ability to function even when external events are destabilising the system Just like natural ecosystems what a truly sustainable system must embody is not just the ability to work but to continue to work after events have caused temporary interruptions or problems This characteristic is called resilience and it s a feature that can be designed into the way we build and use computer technology This section looks at resilience of information systems in the broadest sense considering how the equipment is used how the hardware is maintained and how the software is configured to maximise security The objective of this process is to protect our information resources and the m
263. ot create in tractable toxic waste residues While making gadgets last longer has an impact on manufacturers perhaps the great est impact will be upon the software commu nity They too focus on short product lifetimes planned obsolescence and restricting back wards compatibility to ensure that users must upgrade However this culture of obsolescence is predominantly the preserve of the proprietary software industry The most sustainable life cycle for IT involves the use of open standards and open intellectual property This enables a progression of development rather than con tinual reinvention and is far more likely to lead to extended lifetimes because the pressures to continually upgrade are not so great For this reason the free and open source software movement and fledgling open source hardware movement offer a greater potential to develop a more sustainable IT industry in the future and we need to work to support them both as users and if possible developers In the end this is a design issue it is a mat ter of how we choose to build human systems If we respect the physical boundaries to the natu ral world and work within these limits then we can make a truly sustainable culture The dif ficulty is that in recognising these limits glob ally we must begin the process by first applying these limits to ourselves 24 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 2 2 Sustainability check list The initial con
264. otprint is of a similar scale to that of the glob al air transport industry The clearest example of technological con vergence is the smart phone This is a telephone with a video display screen and digital camera built in capable of playing music radio television and radio Most importantly backing up these various functions is a powerful computer able to interact with the internet via communications networks allowing all the information stored or captured on the device to be shared and ad ditional information downloaded As a result we are no longer restricted to communicating with spoken words we can converse in text images and video or even in the machine instructions 2 Wikipedia Complexity en wikipedia org wiki Complexity 3 Wikipedia Convergence telecommunications en wikipedia org wiki Convergence_ telecommunications 16 A practical guide to sustainable IT Figure 2 1 Global growth in communications technology Internet users n 2 E o 2 E E 2 Telephone lines 1980 1990 2000 Year or language required to manipulate the net works we are connected to As shown in figure 2 1 4 the global growth in the new digital commu nications services has been exponential for the last three decades This same kind of transition took place forty years ago but then as a result of the electronics revolution created by the technological advance from thermionic valves to the transistor This not
265. ould be saving a web page with allis associated formatting and image files which for websites with large amounts of adver tising can produce 40 to 100 files along with the main HTML page file The traditional method of organising data is by using directories or folders describing the types of file contained in the name of the folder as shown in figure 5 1 As we work and create files it is important to store these in subdirec tories folders to hold them separately from the mass of data held on the system Ideally the folder name should identify the contents but as time passes and as old files get shuffled around the system keeping track of all these files folders names and what they relate to becomes progressively harder The difficulty with this approach is that the directory names only have meaning to the hu man operator They have no special meaning to the operating system and may even be vague or confusing for other users too Organising files into a directory tree also requires care and con sistency Without attention to the details of which files go where important data can be lost in a sea of files and subdirectories very quickly The point is the user can soon spend progres sively longer periods of time searching for infor mation and that s because the design of the storage system does not match the complexity of the collection of information being held What has developed over the last decade are systems which en
266. ound 4 2 kilos of CO per gigabyte of data An optical disc with a plastic jewel case takes around 16 kilowatt hours of energy to produce releasing about a kilo of CO2 as a result of its production and while there are no detailed figures a DDS tape might take three times that because it is more complex product containing mixed materials Figure 6 3 shows a comparison of moving data via the internet shown as hatched bars and using storage media via Sneakernet shad ed dots For the given storage capacity of each media type the impacts of moving that data electronically via the internet or creating the back up and then transporting it are calculat ed There are studies of the ecological impacts of the postal service and conservatively these figures have been multiplied by a factor of five to take account of the higher package weight The costs of moving data online have been as sumed to be 1 per gigabyte while the cost of sending an optical disc DDS tape via post and purchasing the blank media is also calculated for comparison What the results show is that e Producing an optical disc and a plastic jewel case to protect it takes around 16kW h of energy and emits a kilo of CO2 however as moving data via the internet is also energy intensive sending a DVD via the post has a slightly lower impact than sending the same data across the internet 20 Koomey et al August 2009 The energy and climate change impacts of di
267. pe of publica tion there will inevitably come a point when it is more efficient to print information which will be required in an unchanging form for the long term for example libraries of books technical information and important reports Where information is short lived or changes rapidly or is only valid for a short period then it is more suited to storage and viewing on digital media The two printer technologies in widespread use are laser and ink jet printers How you interpret the ecological impact of these two technologies is complex and depends upon how much printing you do There are some life cycle studies of different printing tech nologies but they do not produce a clear result Desktops Programs peripherals and gadgets 75 in terms of which is the better option While laser printers are cheaper to run for large vol umes and so have a lower energy expenditure per sheet printed they can produce a larger vol ume of solid waste if they require replacement of the toner cartridge refilling with toner pow der is usually only an option on larger more ex pensive laser printers In contrast while ink jet printers produce less solid waste they use more energy per sheet and can have a higher embodied energy because of the smaller vol ume of printing during their operating life If we look for some general rules and advice about printing there are a number of ways we can maximise the efficiency of using pr
268. pen source software FOSS e Free Software Foundation www fsf org e Free Range Network 2009 Thinking Out side the Cage An introduction to Free Open Source Philosophy www fraw org uk fwd j1 e Lesswatts Saving Power with Linux less watts org e Open Source Ecology opensourceecology org e Open Hardware www openhardware org e Open Source Windows opensourcewindows org 160 A practical guide to sustainable IT Electronic waste management and cleaner production e Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Di rective ec europa eu environment waste weee index_en htm Leonard Annie 2010 The Story of Electron ics www storyofelectronics org U S Geological Survey July 2006 Recycled Cell Phones A Treasure Trove of Valuable Metals USGS Fact Sheet 2006 3097 pubs usgs gov fs 2006 3097 fs2006 3097 pdf Greenpeace International 2010 Why BFRs and PVC should be phased out of electronic devices www greenpeace org international en campaigns tox ics electronics the e waste problem what s in electronicdevices bfr pvc toxic e Greenpeace International 2010 Toxic Trans formers Briefing www greenpeace org in ternational en publications reports toxic transformers briefing Basel Action Network October 2005 The Digital Dump Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa www ban ore films TheDigitalDump html Basel Action Network Silicon Valley Tox ics Coalition 2002 Exporting Harm The High Te
269. pent searching for or recreating lost data How we configure the operating system and programs we use and how we run systems for backing up and data storage can have an im pact on the extent or likelihood of data loss 6 Guardian Online October 2010 What s the carbon foot print of email www guardian co uk environment green living blog 2010 oct 21 carbon footprint email 7 For example QASys 2009 Statistics About Leading Causes Of Data Loss www aztecsystems com downloads OASys_Protect_FAQ pdf Desktops Programs peripherals and gadgets 71 5 2 MANAGING THE ENERGY USE OF DESKTOP SYSTEMS et s consider a more traditional approach to green IT the energy and resources con sumed by the desktop system In section 4 4 we examined the power saving features of operat ing systems Changing the way programs are executed or the system is configured can eas ily save 5 to 10 of the power consumed by a desktop machine perhaps more if the system is switched into the most efficient power saving mode Unlike laptops desktop systems often have no power saving features enabled by de fault it requires the user to manually activate these features Of all the power saving features perhaps the most valuable is the hibernate or sleep mode This is often used with laptops for example when you close the lid the system is suspended into memory For desktops it can save a large amount of power by configuring the system to
270. plications it s likely the password will be lost If you need to en sure the integrity of files use detached digital signatures to verify their authenticity for ex ample by using a cryptographic hash function such as MD5 or SHA2 e A popular file format or a format conforming to an open standard not a patented software format is preferable to storing data usinga file format tied to a single program or application What s important is that the conversion of data files is carried out when you are finishing and ar chiving a large project That s because at a later date when the system application is about to become obsolete to suddenly convert all the data that you have created over many months or years will be an onerous chore By converting the formats when you finish a project writing a significant piece of work you also guard again hardware obsolescence If all the files are openly readable on their current storage media e g CD DVD memory card etc then they can be eas ily copied to any new standard of storage media in the future By collating our data in a future proof way today we remove the obstacle of con verting large amounts of data in a short space of time in the future and make it easier to migrate those files to new types of storage media 9 2 PLANNED PERCEIVED OBSOLESCENCE AND SERVICE LIFE f we look at graphs of how fast computers have become for example the graphs which illustrate Moore s Law
271. pment to good use Ir respective of how many technicians the group has available to carry out work without a group of people ready and able to use take away the equipment the project will again become a stor age area albeit a store of repaired rather than scrap electrical equipment Setting up a recycling project depends upon finding people with the skills and motivation to seed their skills into the project Even if the project has sufficient people to undertake the work it is important that those adminis tering the project take a cold hard attitude to the acceptance of any and all waste electron ics There has to be a balance between the de mand for the service by the wider community the project supports and the acceptance of ex cessive volumes of waste or unusable types of equipment Although having too little waste to recondition can be a problem for projects hav ing too much is equally problematic because it gives rise to storage problems and potential 6 Free Geek www freegeek org 7 The Container Project www container project net Reuse and reclamation 143 regulatory liabilities for storing e waste all of which increase the costs and legal liabilities of the project Ideally any community based recycling scheme should have its purpose defined by the users of the goods to be recycled In that way the sup ply of waste goods doesn t drive the project it s the needs of the users By having a clear pur
272. porting criteria For more information see www greenpeace org rankingguide In addition to the above sources you can often find more in the environmental reporting or corporate social respon sibility of most IT equipment manufacturers websites The ecology of information technology 25 SECTION 3 HARDWARE PUTTING THE SYSTEM TOGETHER Hardware is the physical components which make up a computer sys tem In this section we ll look at hardware computers and how we can design and arrange the components of computer systems to work more efficiently Today computers come in all shapes and sizes and the electrical technologies on which they are based can have a serious impact on the environment How we plan our need for information and communications and the equipment we use can in turn have an ef fect on the level of these impacts That doesn t just involve what type of machine you use one of the important factors is to maximise the working life of the device before you dispose of it 3 1 WHAT IS COMPUTER HARDWARE F ifty years ago a computer was a collection of electrical hardware which filled a small build ing Today that term encompasses a very broad variety of equipment some of which are the size of a grain of sand The commonest programmable computer devices do not resemble the archetypal vision of a machine with a screen and keyboard Most computers are small and insignificant chips embedded in
273. ports is cut As a result they won t draw power when the machine is not in use The exceptions are the yellow coloured sleep and charge USB ports included on more recent motherboards These are intended to power charge mobile phones and other devices and keep the power turned on even when the machine has been put in a soft shut down not turned off at the mains When using USB hard drives and other similar devices don t plug them in the yellow port or they will keep running even when the machine has powered down When the machine shuts down or goes into a suspend hibernation mode the power to de vices which have their own power supply will not be cut Ideally these devices should have their own internal electronics to monitor the activity of the machine and go into a standby mode when they receive no signal Most new video displays and PC speakers have an auto power on off feature and will turn on and off depending upon whether they receive a video audio signal Of course all mains powered devices even if they power down with the system are still drawing power in their stand by mode All re cently manufactured devices should when in stand by mode meet the requirement of the International Energy Agency s One Watt Initia tive This requires that devices marketed after 2010 should have a maximum standby power demand of one watt and after 2013 that fig ure should be halved While it s not worth de liberately r
274. pose the triage of equipment can proceed in a 10 2 RECLAMATION PROJECTS f we look at the examples of successful com puter IT recycling projects around the world we can find that there are certain characteris tics which are common to all Those wishing to develop ICT education and computer recycling projects should consider these factors and look at the information available to guide their own thoughts and planning 10 2 1 Types of project As outlined earlier projects which recycle com puter and other electrical equipment can have a varied purpose e For some groups the recycling of equipment is the only reason they exist and those joining the project would not look at social or educa tional applications of their work An example would be local Linux user groups who under take recycling work as part of their promotion of free and open source software This is not always the case and for some technology centred groups reclaimed and re purposed technology is a critical part of how they pro mote their social and political agenda for ex ample the Institute for Applied Autonomy e Others may use the equipment they recycle to support community based education and training initiatives Some charities and edu cation agencies give financial support to IT re 8 Wikipedia Linux user group en wikipedia org wiki Linux_user_group 9 Vimeo accessed June 2012 Institute for Applied Autono my vimeo com chan
275. r chiving applications such as Amanda or Bacu la For Mac OS there is also a built in applica tion Timemachine which will back up across a network or to an external hard drive and third party applications are also available Another advantage of network back up software is that it can incrementally back up the contents of a desktop PC while it is in use meaning that PC need not be left on to perform back ups when the operator is not using the machine The concern with any backed up data par ticularly removable media is the security of the information stored With file servers it is pos sible to configure additional security measures such as hard drive encryption to preserve the security of the data stored on the machine Similar encryption options are possible with removable media The difficulty is that encryption uses more processing power and that in turn increases power demand overall if routinely used for servers or desktop PCs Also 10 Wikipedia Disk encryption en wikipedia org wiki Disk_encryption if the encrypted media degrades or is corrupt ed compressed or encrypted data is also more likely to suffer a catastrophic loss of the whole block of data rather than the corruption of one or two files within the back up 6 2 3 User based back ups Now let s look at the computer user The benefit of the user backing up is that because they know which files are the most important it is pos sible to targe
276. r consumption and power factor measurement For mains powered systems the simplest way to mea sure power consumption is to use a plug in power meter These are available for both 230V and 110V supplies and can give a variety of data about the power consumption of the computer system If you plug the monitor into the socket which powers the system you can measure the consumption of all the parts or you can isolate just one component the monitor printer or computer box to see how much power it consumes What is important to understand is that the power a PC system consumes varies all the time When idling it may consume only 15 of the maximum load if you re encoding video or some other power hungry exercise and using the speakers at full volume it will use much more Most power monitors will measure the supply volt age and the instantaneous power consumption What s more useful is to use the power meter function which measures the supplied power in kilo Watt hours kW h from when the unit is turned on This allows you to plug in the meter and measure consumption over an average day or week in order to get a more realistic value for the energy routinely consumed by the system Another important test these meters can perform is to measure the power factor The mains electricity supply is an oscillating wave When that waveform interacts with the electronics of the power supply most of it is used but not all of it In poorly made or d
277. r depleting the resources from which they are manufactured we must learn to plan our use of information systems to maximise material efficiency while minimising their environmental impact In short we must make them more sustainable 1 Computing climate change How much carbon dioxide do computers emit The Economist 24th August 2009 www economist com node 14297036 2 Wikipedia Sustainability en wikipedia org wiki Sustainability 1 1 A PROBLEM OF WORDS AND DEFINITIONS H ow do we define sustainable That s a question which has been taxing the brains of policy makers scientists and environmental ists for the last few decades The problem is that over the years different groups have applied slightly different meanings to the term often based around the objectives of the study or policy they were considering at the time A literal definition of the term means the ability of an activity to endure or function for a certain period of time or perhaps indefinitely Unfortunately for computing telecommunica tions and related technologies there is no agreed standard on how we should measure these im pacts Narrow definitions of sustainability may only consider one or two features of an activity without looking at how other important factors interact with the wider world More general defi nitions may look at a larger number of related factors which collectively define how sustain able the activity i
278. r reducing the sample rate of audio files or the frame rate of video files will reduce the file size without neces sarily affecting the quality of reproduction For example one common problem is that the popularity of digital cameras camera phones has led to people routinely emailing multi megabyte images files If they had taken a few minutes to scale the image to a fraction of its original size it could shrink the file significantly As discussed earlier in Box 5 3 each one mega pixel of a digi tal camera is roughly equivalent to 100 dots per inch DPI when displayed printed Therefore a six mega pixel camera is roughly 600DPI which is four to six times higher than the resolution of most video displays As a result that image could be scaled to a third of its former size without sig nificantly affecting the picture quality Last but not least over the last few years the original standard of plain text email has been slowly replaced by HTML email Rather like web pages these use formatting codes to specify the font size and text decoration of the text as well as adding features such as lists and tables The difficulty is that all this additional formatting data adds to the size of the transmission and when formatting is configured used badly or only a very small email is sent there can be up to three or four times more formatting data within the body of the email than data texts and images that humans actually see Althou
279. r sensitive work as they re a weak link in system security Another potential problem is the local network Any other computer con nected to the network due to deliberate use or infection with malware can monitor data pass 32 Leyden John 2007 Microsoft wireless keyboards crypto cracked www theregister co uk 2007 12 03 wireless_ keyboard_crypto_cracked 33 Securiteam 2007 27Mhz Wireless Key board Analysis Report www securiteam com securityreviews 6G0030KKKI html ing between local machines in order to detect passwords and other security information ex changed between machines 8 3 3 File wrappers and locks If you are the only user of a machine security is less of a problem but if a machine is shared be tween a number of people that creates security issues that must be addressed That not only includes desktop machines but also access to a shared file or network server and of course online services As more data is lodged within the cloud using online services how we secure the files we use from unauthorised access is be coming a more important issue There are two ways of securing the data in side files Firstly using file wrappers As the name implies a wrapper is something the file is enclosed in in order to protect it The two com monest forms of wrapper are file encryption and digital signatures Wrappers can be used with files stored on the hard drive of the computer files stored on a b
280. rabyte What do these numbers mean Computers use binary numbers or num ber base two Humans use decimal or number base ten Counting in magnitudes of 1 000 the human readable sequence would be 7 1 000 1 000 000 etc The nearest whole value to 1 000 in binary is two to the power ten 2 10 or 1 024 Table 3 1 shows the magnitude of the different prefixes applied to the size of data storage As the difference between each magnitude is a multiple of 1 024 this means a megabyte con tains 1 024 kilobytes a gigabyte contains 1 024 megabytes or 1 048 576 kilobytes etc Also what is a byte Today PCs use 32 or 64 bit processors A bit is one binary digit a single binary 0 or 1 When a CPU reads data from the memory it reads 32 or 64 bits at a time The greater the width of the data bus the more data the computer can read in one action and the faster the CPU processes data The first PCs had an eight bit data bus and eight bits were known as a byte As one byte eight bits is what you need to represent a single character of informa tion using the ASCII encoding system we came to associate one byte with one character of text However today s computers need to represent far more characters including those from lan guages other than English than are available us ing ASCII As a result ASCII has been superseded by Unicode which requires at least two bytes 16 bits or more to represent a single character 3 3 6 The vide
281. rading If we look at the roots of human sustainability it is the scale of growth in the use of information systems which has driven the ecological issues surrounding their use today Slowing that physi cal scale of growth by optimising the productiv ity of existing infrastructure can reduce the cap ital costs related to the turnover of equipment The primary role of ISPs is to provide network connectivity technical services and training to those who use its electronic networks In car rying out these functions ISPs have to oppor tunity to take a lead in reforming the way we acquire use and dispose of technology That begins by changing the way the service provider meets its own needs As their own efforts to ad dress these problems develop it is likely they will need to engage their users customers in that process to make the changes viable and more effective for example optimising soft ware to reduce system load or bandwidth use or scheduling tasks to spread the load across a longer time period utilising the space capac ity available at off peak hours This requires change in the ways ISPs function although it might also create new areas to provide support 1 Hall and Klitgaard 2011 Energy and the Wealth of Na tions Understanding the Biophysical Economy Springer Publishing ISBN 9781 4419 9397 7 164 A practical guide to sustainable IT and services as part of their business model In a world where economic pr
282. radios which run the electronics of TVs cars and washing machines If we look at the number of high perfor mance processors which are intended for crunching data many of those are in computer servers telecommunications centres and su percomputers invisibly serving data to other machines rather than real people Even if we think of devices specifically intended to con nect people directly to information there are between five and six billion mobile phone ac counts in use around the world compared to around two billion personal computers And even when we talk of personal computers PCs many people accessing the internet and online services are doing so via video game consoles and set top TV boxes not just stand alone PC style computers That s why putting together a guide to sus tainable IT is so difficult the market is so diverse that it s difficult to give a concise guide which will cover all the possible means by which people might use computers and electronic networks 1 Wikipedia Embedded computer en wikipedia org wiki Embedded_computer 2 BBC News July 2010 Over 5 billion mobile phone connec tions worldwide www bbc co uk news 10569081 3 Wikipedia Personal computer en wikipedia org wiki Personal_computer Even when we talk of PC hardware there are many different types of machine in use which loosely fulfil the definition The managers of data centres made from thousands of micro p
283. re by preventing casual access 4 4 1 How power management functions Power management offers various options The primary one is giving the machine time limits to define what happens after it has been idle for a certain period There are five levels of power management which determine how much power the system consumes 1 Fully operational the machine is work ing normally Note that the level of normal power consumption can be also modified in various ways The hard drives can be powered down after a certain period of inactivity and the priority given to different parts of the op erating system The user applications can also be changed to manage the load on the operat ing system This is normally only implement 62 A practical guide to sustainable IT ed on laptop systems but there s no reason you cannot implement the same policies on a desktop machine The trade off for optimis ing power management is to lose some power for user applications which often means that users playing high power hungry video games will deliberately disable power management 2 Stand by sleep or suspend this is a low power standby mode in which the machine s operation is halted hard drives and the video display are powered down but power is main tained to the memory It does not consume as much compared to running at full power but it s significantly more than if the machine is put into hibernation or shut down When confi
284. re are finite limits to their power supply and the scale and seasonal variation of off grid power systems requires that electricity use must be monitored and adapted if they are to have power available when they need it How we use electrical power is influenced by the equipment we use but the source of power production has a significant effect on our eco logical footprint How you go about addressing this issue is dependent 1 International Energy Agency 2011 CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion www iea org co2high lights co2highlights pdf 2 International Energy Agency 2011 Key World Energy Statistics www iea org publications freepub lications publication key_world_energy_stats 1 pdf upon the budget you have available to purchase alternatives to fossil fuelled grid power and your technical capabilities to purchase and op erate these alternatives In this section we ll look at three potential options for improving the ecological impact of your power supply Changing the contract or tariff paid to your electricity supplier in or der to support lower carbon or renewable energy technologies this is the simplest option as it requires little change on the part of the consumer Installing a grid connected renewable power generation system this is a more complex and expensive option than simply changing electricity supplier and Developing an off grid power supply system this a more techni cally challenging option alt
285. re for a certain task so that you can maximise the lifetime of equipment and keep costs down Installing systems on older equipment with restricted memory and disk space can be more of a challenge espe cially if it requires the use of a text command line interface which requires more details knowledge of the operating system rather than a graphical interface where the options are usually presented as simple menus If you only want a desktop machine you need a com puter with a desktop level specification Even then there s Table 4 1 a considerable difference between simple typing word processing applications and the type of power required to edit large colour images or process video files When considering the more creative use of computers such as backing up or networking support you can use a far wider range of equipment to solve a particular problem Table 4 1 lists various grades of hardware and the types of application that it can perform Note that the demarcation between what is possible and what is practical isn t as clear cut as shown in the table what matters is that the machine can run the tasks that you design it to perform at the speed reliability that you re quire of the system The use and reuse of computer hardware for different applications Application Desktop processing Operating Support systems system System specification High power desktop Medium desktop Lightweight desktop
286. recent growth of electronic networks It was only when these technologies were brought to gether at prices affordable in a mass market that the power of the network generated its own self sustaining growth It s not just that these trends allowed people to do pre existing jobs more easily the process created wholly new applications which caused the level of con sumption and the economy as a whole to grow Like the step change in energy and resource use 250 years ago with industrialisation or the first use of metals over 7 000 years before that the information and communications revolution is creating a fundamental change in the organisa tion of human society 2 2 1 Copper an indicator of technological development and sustainability As noted above advances in human technol ogy consume comparatively rarer metals Of these copper provides one of the best case studies of the importance of minerals to the global economy but also the fragility of that global system due to the natural constraints on human resource consumption Copper is one of the most important minerals in the technologi cal economy It s important for micro electron 10 Paul Mobbs Free Range Network 2011 The Limits to Technology www fraw org uk fwd wslimits Figure 2 2 Growth in world copper consumption and future projections 1944 1966 1922 1943 TEAMS 38Mte 1990 2011 282Mte 1967 1989 163Mte 2012 2033 USGS world copper reserves e
287. red before the machine will boot an operating system Un fortunately the BIOS password is easily cir cumvented by clearing the contents of the BIOS chip or removing the internal battery from the machine although if that were the case you d notice when you next used the computer because you wouldn t be asked for your usual password Boot loader password This is only of relevance on Linux based operating systems Ordinarily the boot loader program would load the oper ating system When the machine boots it is possible to interrupt the boot loader to give it instructions which can with a little knowl edge of the Linux system be used to circum Maintenance security and resilience 125 Box 8 2 Mnemonic passwords Almost all user based security features are based on the use of passwords and understanding how passwords should be constructed and used is an important aspect of user security For example if the password password were used for many years for every password on a com puter system that would be incredibly insecure likewise if the same password was used with a sequential num ber added for different programs that s insecure because the pattern can be easily guessed In contrast if each of the different passwords required to start and login to the machine were different was only used for a few months or preferably less and looked something like cv6Td2Qb that presents a far greater security challenge
288. reflects the importance of the data it contains If data is to be archived and is of great value two copies of the archive media should be created and one of those should be stored in a different location This ensures that the data it contains can be recovered even if the copy kept locally is lost damaged or destroyed Always check the readability of back ups after creating them e When making CDs DVDs and Blu ray disks always ensure that the disc mastering program performs a verification read after writing the disk to check its content e Back up applications should automatically check that the files moved are readable but if manually copying files to a USB stick or external drive copy them back into an empty directory to ensure that the back up is readable Mechanical external internal hard drives and micro drives can have their lives shortened if shaken or dropped and must to be stored in a location that is well away from strong magnetic field electric motors video displays etc USB sticks and memory cards should also be care fully stored in secure locations as mechanical stress e g being dropped or subjected to heat and cold can break the internal electrical contacts and render them unusable Magnetic media such as digital tapes must be kept at an even temperature protected from extremes of heat and cold and shielded from magnetic fields ideally if stored for a long period they should be kept inside a me
289. ributed generation en wikipedia org wiki Distributed_generation what is being used Where the local system produces more than required it is possible if the grid operator allows it to feed that excess power back into the grid This is usually done by having two electricity meters One mea sures the power used from the grid while the other measures the power flowing back to the grid When the utility company sends the bill they calculate the price of the power supplied to the grid and subtract that from the price of the power consumed note grid operators may not pay the same amount for the power you supply them as they charge for the power they supply to you Over the last two decades grid connected renewable power systems have become popu lar in many states because they allow people to produce their own energy without the prob lematic restrictions of being wholly cut off from the grid In some European states govern ments pay a premium for the power produced and so the public can earn money from oper ating these systems in homes and businesses they have become especially popular on rural farms where the large space available allows a much larger scale of installation One difficul ty that has arisen with these systems is that the synchronising inverter requires electricity to function If the generating system produces insufficient power or it s sited in a very poor location the system can actually consume more elec
290. rid power supply manageable the equipment used must function as efficiently as possible The cost of supplying each additional kilo watt hour of power is greater than for mains powered equipment and adding more power generation or storage capacity to supply inef ficient equipment represents an unnecessary expense As a result the cost of more expen sive but efficient computers and other equip ment can often be justified by the cost savings from the power saved Figure 11 2 shows a schematic of a typi cal off grid power system By examining this you should be able to understand how these Renewable power 155 systems work There are many companies producing systems such as this and they will construct install it in order to ensure its safe operation in accordance with national building and electrical codes With a basic understand ing of electronics it s relatively simple to con struct one from individual parts Either way in order to specify the size and performance of the installation it is necessary to have a basic grasp of the principles involved At the heart of the system is the battery storage Its capacity determines how much power the system can supply and for how long It s also the most significant hazard in the system A battery is a reserve of potential energy When supplied at the required rate that s quite safe but if a major fault occurs that potential energy can be released almost instantaneously crea
291. ries to hold the files and also configure a desktop search indexing system to make finding indi vidual files easier and quicker When creating documents or files always try and complete the metadata properties provided with that file format to allow easier and more accurate indexing by desktop search systems Desktops Programs peripherals and gadgets 83 SECTION 6 INFORMATION STORAGE AND SECURITY Managing information storage securely and reliably is one of the ways that we can reduce energy use in IT Apart from the impacts of creating and storing information a significant factor in the energy and carbon footprint is the human user and if the user has to spend time search ing for information or recreating lost information that represents a waste of time and resources Learning to manage our use of storage devices is where we begin to tackle this problem Then we can move on to looking at solutions that protect sensitive data from disclosure important data from being lost on the hard drive and all data being accidentally lost wiped or corrupted This unit examines various methods to improve the security and reli ability of computer systems and the information that they contain by considering the work of backing up The simplest rule to secure information on a computer system is to back up Backing up works on the principle of redundancy if one copy is lost or damaged you can revert to the back up copy There are many di
292. riment and switch to another manufacturer s flake with out sacrificing the use of the particular chocolate flavour had grown to love When we unbundle products we allow a greater number of options as to how the collection of products can be config ured by the user It is this kind of real choice that branding or bundling stifles by managing the menu of consumer selections those involved dictate the market The fundamental difference between the proprietary versus the free open model of com puting can also be demonstrated using the corn flake analogy The FOSS movement would stress the ability to chose the flavour of the flake and the quality of the chocolate coating For example the GNU Linux operating system has many different flavours called distribu tions box 4 1 They are all roughly compatible and run the same standard set of programs even though they are made by different organisations You can even combine elements of the different flavours to make your own customised version of Linux and a number of Linux developers distri bution producers provide information and extra programs for free to help you do this To sum up the intellectual property issue and how it relates to software what defines the dif ference between the proprietary and open models of the Information Society is The dif ference between what constitutes selection versus choice how this preserves our creativity and
293. riod of time and then fail In contrast digital devices can have their service life programmed into them They are designed to work for acertain period of time and then irrespective of whether they are serviceable or not they will cease to function The only way to circumvent problems such as planned obsolescence in order to ex tend the service life of a product is to find ways of repairing the hardware or reprogramming the firmware the counters or other limiting controls set in the on board programming of the device which is preventing the device operating For example returning to the Apple iPod again in 2003 it was the subject of a short film which highlighted how the batteries in the early models failed after 18 months As a result of a 10 Wikipedia Planned obsolescence en wikipedia org wiki Planned_obsolescence 11 Wikipedia Firmware en wikipedia org wiki Firmware 12 The Neistat Brothers 2003 iPod s Dirty Secret www ipodsdirtysecret com Film available via YouTube www youtube com watch v F7ZsGIndF7E Figure 3 1 Carbon emissions from Apple products iPhone 4 iPod Classic 15 Macbook Pro Proportion of life cycle CO emitted during D Consumer use Device production subsequent court cases brought against Apple which showed that the design of the battery limited the life of the device Apple offered re placement batteries for the early iPods More recently claims have emerged about th
294. ripherals If we look at where the value lies in computers the hardware is expendable but the data that the computer contains is not it s very valuable and often irreplaceable For that reason it is easier to treat the hardware as ex pendable but organise the data it contains so it can be easily secured On desktop computers use a removable drive caddy to hold the ma chine s hard drive so that when not in use the drive can be removed and securely locked away Compared to the value of the information on the hard drive a drive caddy is a minor expense and can be easily installed in the machine Lap tops mobile phones and other mobile devices should be backed up to some form of removable media as outlined in unit 6 8 2 3 Other building impacts IT equipment uses electricity but the environ ment within which these systems are used also consumes energy in the form of space heating air conditioning lighting and fresh water for 120 A practical guide to sustainable IT Figure 8 1 Removable hard drive caddy IDE SATA connectors to motherboard Caddy frame Hard drive Caddy body human consumption and flushing toilets Cre ating a super efficient computer system makes little sense if the environment within which it is used is not also optimised to minimise the impacts of the activities that the IT system supports Again this is the value of thinking in modules and layers we can consider the needs of the
295. rm a useful function as a training platform to learn practice hard ware and operating system installation skills By dismantling re assembling and then in stalling the machine people get the skills confidence required to do the same types of operation on more expensive equipment but without making expensive mistakes if they do something wrong Any quality of machine can perform this purpose although because of the risk of damage to the machine it should be considered expendable e Scrap scrap doesn t necessarily mean throw the whole thing away Old boxes can be scavenged for their screws cables connec tors fans heat sinks and other reusable com ponents to be kept as spares for the repair of other machines Hard drives can be used with drive caddies to back up large amounts of data from other machines Unless they have no further use or have a poor picture quality one or two old monitors can be kept for use in emergencies if another monitor fails The only thing that must go for electronic waste dis posal and recycling as they have little value for reuse are the metal chassis of the desk top box plastic enclosures and motherboard electronic circuits 15 Wikipedia Downcycling en wikipedia org wiki Down cycling Looking at the list of potential uses for equipment above it might seem a rather com plex approach to design different machines to perform different jobs In practice to perform a task wel
296. rocessors and consuming perhaps thousands of kilo watt hours of electricity have a strong influ ence over the ecological footprint of IT The fact that most green IT reports address large com puter centres is a measure of their importance Even so if we weigh up which group of computer users collectively has the greatest influence on the ecological footprint of IT then it s the ev eryday users of personal computers and com munications devices That s partly because their equipment does not function as efficiently as the highly managed computers of data centres and primarily because it s the mass of computer users at work and at home connecting to online services who are driving the demand both for new hardware and the greater network capacity required to support online services In this section we ll look first at the issue of open and closed hardware and using propri etary devices such as mobile phones or games consoles in contrast to more conventional per sonal computers Then we ll move on to look specifically at PCs and the factors which influ ence the way they work At each stage what we ll try to do is give an idea of the impact of these devices and how you can get involved in changing managing that impact 4 Wikipedia Personal computer hardware en wikipedia org wiki Personal_computer_hardware 28 A practical guide to sustainable IT 3 2 OPEN AND CLOSED HARDWARE he simplest way to consider what
297. rticipation is an important part of promoting the work of the project and a means to gain new active members e For the most successful projects an exhibi tion space or small theatre space for show ing training educational films or multimedia presentations created by the project Many projects fold when the space they origi nally used is lost Some get around this by using vans or buses converted into travelling work shops to act as a base for the project Others use low cost or reclaimed buildings such as shipping containers Projects which do not have a secure base will often founder because of the problems of continually relocating and because not having a fixed base prevents them from building up a critical mass of membership in the area Often the most successful projects have an association with educational establish ments particularly universities as this provides a secure base and a regular turnover of enthusi astic members 10 2 3 Tools The simplest recycling projects can be based around nothing more than a workbench and some hand tools For more ambitious projects particularly tied to education and training a larger and more secure space is required in order to store the test equipment required for servic ing IT equipment As outlined earlier in unit 3 computers are assembled and serviced on a workbench A bench with sufficient lighting to allow for the inspection and repair of equipment is also an esse
298. ryofstuff org movies all story of stuff Smithsonian Institute MIT March 2012 Per spectives on Limits to Growth Challenges to Building a Sustainable Planet si edu consor tia limitstogrowth2012 e Randers Jorgen 2012 2052 A Global Fore cast for the Next Forty Years Chelsea Green Publishing ISBN 9781 6035 8467 8 e APC 2010 Global Information Society Watch 2010 ICTs and Environmental Sustainability www giswatch org en 2010 e Bardi Ugo 2011 The Limits to Growth Revisit ed Springer Publishing ISBN 9781 4419 9415 8 e Turner Graham June 2008 A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Re ality Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation CSIRO www csiro au files files plje pdf e Raghavan and Ma 2011 The Energy and Emergy of the Internet www cs berkeley edu jtma papers emergy hotnets2011 pdf e European Commission 2010 Critical raw ma terials for the EU CEC ec europa eu enterprise policies raw materials files docs report_en pdf e WWF UK 2010 Common Cause The Case for Working with our Cultural Values assets wwf org uk downloads common_cause_report pdf Computer reclamation e Computeraid International www computer aid org e Ifixit Self Repair Manifesto www ifixit com Manifesto e Sheffield Access Space access space org e Mueller Scott 2011 Upgrading and Repair ing PCs 20th Edition QUE Publishing ISBN 9780 7897 4710 5 Free and o
299. s How we configure the desktop but also how we use the various gadgets and peripheral de vices that we connect to the system has a big effect on the ecological footprint of our use of technology Information Storage s 0 4 cccccac esa ed idee ae eens ea EE Information is a resource and obeys many of the physical laws that govern our use of matter and energy How we choose to store and back up information has a direct bearing on the ecological impacts of our use of IT in general and also the reliability and resilience of the information that we store 07 08 09 Local and global networks u c become so versatile but that in itself has spawned the exponential growth of both data transactions and the growth of power hungry online storage systems to support them Understanding how the net work consumes power and how our use of the network drives con sumption can allow us to keep these demands under control Maintenance security and resilience a All tools need looking after if they are to have a long and productive life and that requires that we understand a little more about how they work and how to care for them This section considers the ba sics of system maintenance both hardware and software and the basic physical security precautions to take in order to prevent theft and damage End of life and disposal 0 00 cece eee eee When does the life of digital equipment end Is it when it no
300. s The circuit board itself is clad in a thin layer of cop per The various connectors on the board are made of iron copper and tin alloys often with a gold layer of electroplat Figure 2 4 Composition by weight of a typical computer system and mobile phone Computer system with CRT monitor Mobile phone Metals Plastics N Ceramics glass ing to enhance the conductivity of the mechanical connec tions The small round components are capacitors manu factured using titanium barium and sometimes other rarer metals Some of the minute devices on the board are also capacitors but their small size means they contain much higher quality and rarer materials such as niobium or tantalum minerals extracted from the ore coltan which is associated with the blood metals trade in Africa The board itself and most of the connectors are made from laminated materials or thermoplastic resins which are made from oil Most of these components are fixed to the board with solder made from alloys contain ing tin copper silver bismuth indium zinc antimony and some other metals Many circuit boards are also given protective lacquer coating made from oil based resins to prevent moisture corroding the circuit board or its components 22 A practical guide to sustainable IT sil fuels required to produce a computer chip are 600 times greater than the weight of the chip by comparison the fossil fuels require
301. s The more common and easily accessible a resource the less we need to back it up the more unique or expen sive a resource the greater the need to create a back up copy 86 A practical guide to sustainable IT Box 6 1 Backing up mobile devices Today there are a variety of mobile computing devices in use from mobile phones to personal digital assistants and fully functional laptop PCs Mobile devices need spe cial attention when it comes to backing up their contents because they are more likely to be lost stolen or dam aged Many smart phones have built in back up software to copy the files they contain to a PC Connect the phone to a PC and the contents of the phone can be copied either to a single large file full back up or a directory containing the files on the phone selective back up It s important to use the internal back up software of the device in order to capture the operational and configura tion files the device requires but which are not normally available for the user to manipulate Android phones are technically already backed up to the cloud the data storage system operated by Google It s not technically possible to make a local back up although there are third party applications which allow an Android phone to back up to other online services There are also an increasing number of commercial services usually run from pre paid mobile applications which will automati cally back up the data on
302. s and so produce the same quality no matter how many times they are edited although the cost of that is a larger file size Sound audio files Sound is recorded as raw audio data this is what is found in WMV files and so WMV is the least efficient way of sending audio data Other file formats encode the data and while this reduces the file size it progressively results in lower quality sound reproduction There are three factors which have a great influence on file size The sample rate the number of channels and whether the codec the standard used to encode decode the audio data is lossy or lossless The sample rate measured in kilohertz kHz is the number of sound measurements taken each second the higher the sample rate the clearer and more deep the audio reproduction will sound Most audio codecs require specific sample rates to be selected 8kHz sounds like a bad phone line conversation 22kHz sounds like an FM radio while 48kHz has the quality of a CD For speech a low sample rate is possible for music higher sample rates are required The number of channels increases the file size a stereo two channels file has almost twice the data as a mono file To reduce the channels use an application to down sample from stereo to mono The file format chosen also has an effect on the file size FLAC files are a lossless format meaning that they do not lose their quality if edited In contrast MP3 files lose dat
303. s or to run encrypted tunnels for remote access to the network a server system is a better op tion Lightweight server a simple server machine to support services across a network rather than a single user Like the power server class above powerful machines could be used as a terminal server service for a thin client network but many older machines might struggle to do that for more than one or two client terminals Instead older equip ment could be configured as a file server en crypted storage server for backing up desktop machines using FTP or a shared networked file system or a simple web server to run an intranet for a small office or a mail server to Data processing heavy duty data processing storage and network control e Parallel processing use as a second machine for processing tasks that interfere with your everyday work For example video file con version DVD mastering creating DVDs and any other tasks that runs for many hours or use a lot of power You could use a screen and keyboard but it s easier to access the box from your main machine using a remote desktop for graphical applications or secure shell for command line control As well as single machines many small machines can be connected together to form a more power ful cluster for specialist applications e g video animation scientific analysis Power server a dedicated server machine for a small office or to
304. s be coming a pressing issue If you want to conserve power then you need to use a laptop and other battery operated mobile digital equipment as these are optimised to use a little power as pos sible 3 3 5 System memory Next let s look at the memory 4 also called the primary storage or random access memory RAM Over the last decade or so memory chips have become extremely complex devices Depend ing upon the speed of the motherboard the mem ory modules must match the transfer speed of the front side bus or you ll get errors or more likely it ll refuse to work and the motherboard will signal a hardware error Confusingly there are different classes of memory DRAM SDRAM etc which operate at different data rates DDR DDR1 DDR2 etc and which come in different sized packages to fit different sized slots on the motherboard If you look at the Wikipedia page for DIMM dual in line memory module you can get a list of all 25 Wikipedia Computer data storage en wikipedia org wiki Primary_storage 26 Wikipedia Random access memory en wikipedia org wiki Random access_memory 27 Wikipedia DIMM en wikipedia org wiki DIMM a Bytes and magnitude Magnitude Size bytes 1 byte 1 1 kilobyte 1 megabyte 1 048 576 1 gigabyte 1 073 741 824 1 terabyte 1 099 511 627 776 1 125 899 906 842 624 1 petabyte the different types Look under the speeds sub sec
305. s such as mo bile phones they have become invisible They have become such an everyday part of people s lives that we blindly accept they are there In fact we only understand their significance to our lives when the electronic device or the in formation network it connects to breaks down The implicit association of these technologies with a modern lifestyle has in turn become a driver for their adoption in less developed states The rapid adoption of information tech nology has not only enabled greater economic development it has arguably brought with it social and political change as people have used these same media as a conduit for political ex pression for example the events of the Arab Spring Computers and information systems are tools human made technologies intended to extend our biological capabilities We might in vest our lives in them commit our most secret facts and thoughts to them and rely upon them to organise our work and social lives but if we are to understand how information systems operate then we have to examine them as we would any other aspect of human society and that means looking at the role of these tools in the human system and how that in turn relates to the global environment that humanity is a part of Like other tools made by the human species technology extends the physical and or mental capabilities of its user achieving practical ac 1 For a detailed exploration o
306. s the search for files to be automated For example instead of searching the content of a file for keywords which often will result in many false matches for common words if the metadata contains a string of keywords which spe Document properties cifically describe the file the system can present you with far more relevant results Taking a minute or two to add metadata to a file can over the period that the file is kept save far more time when you are trying to mange hundreds or thousands of data files Most applications have a properties option usually in the file menu where you can add metadata labels Fig ure 5 2 shows the properties menu from OpenOffice other applications are very similar Usually there will be a default list of properties allowing a title keywords and other com ments to be defined top box It is also possible to define additional labels that provide a more narrow description of the content bottom menu box and which provide descrip tions that are relevant to your own work In addition to providing information for desktop searching and indexing many applications and online services now use metadata to configure imported up loaded files automatically inserting into the relevant fields the labels which describe the data This makes uploading easier and also ensures that the labels used properly describe the content Girmi Geetripiss Cathars Pipihi eternal Gecrity aian De ee ee ES bee
307. s when considered as a whole Many definitions take their cue from the United Nations World Commission on Envi ronment and Development report also known as the Brundtland report published in 1987 which launched the modern policy debate on sustainability Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs Going from this all encompassing definition of sustainability to one which fits the peculiar features of information technology is a very big jump We could take a very narrow definition for example looking purely at the electricity con sumed by machine hardware but if we are to give the consideration of sustainability a broader and more meaningful definition then we have to con sider the operation of the whole system 3 World Commission on Environment and Development Paragraph 1 chapter 2 Our Common Future report to the UN General Assembly 1987 www un documents net wced ocf htm Assessing the sustainability of our use of information technology isn t just a matter of measuring environmental pollution It s an all encompassing view of how we design organise and operate the information systems that allow us to carry out our work and live our lives and doing so in a way which considers not only the impact on the planet today but also how we de velop use and preserve information resources for ourselves and others in the future Ta
308. sabled in the hardware BIOS set up options in order to conserve power if allowed to routinely search for wireless connections the interface will create a large power drain as the device will search using full transmitter power Most Wi Fi routers and other hardware allow you to configure power saving options from their configuration interface For example where wireless devices are used in a small area it may be possible to switch the base station to transmit using its lowest power set ting Operating systems also give some scope to control the use of wireless links In contrast to Wi Fi bluetooth uses less power because it involves short distance links The next significant factor in local network power consumption is the speed of communica tion As a general rule of thumb doubling the pro cessing speed of digital electronics can increase power consumption by up to four times This has relevance to the increasing use of gigabit ether net For most online browsing and video stream ing fast 100MHz2 Ethernet has enough capacity to handle routine data movement Higher speeds become more relevant when very large files are routinely moved between computers for exam ple backing up machines across a local network 7 For example see LessWatts Tips amp Tricks Wi Fi Wire less www lesswatts org tips wireless php 102 A practical guide to sustainable IT or for the connections between the ethernet hubs which link gro
309. serve content to a busy network running a range of protocols data bases or even thin clients using older ma 12 Wikipedia Cluster computing en wikipedia org wiki Cluster_ computing 13 Wikipedia Thin client en wikipedia org wiki Thin_client forward incoming mail for users on the local network Network support if good quality it could perform some lightweight server functions although it may be difficult creating enough hard drive storage to make it worthwhile If using a system which required minimal hard ware it could be used to run the programs required to operate a local network and per haps act as a firewall gateway for a broad band internet connection Note that as well as installing a full operating system there are a number of stand alone installations which will provide dedicated secure network servic es Wi Fi access points and router firewalls They boot from CD DVD install largely auto matically and can be configured from menus rather than requiring the more expert skills 14 For example Smoothwall www smoothwall net En Garded Linux www engardelinux org or Zeroshell www zeroshell net Operating systems Making the system work 59 required to configure an operating system to perform these functions Downcycling productive end of life uses for old machines e Educational reuse if the machine can still run a lightweight Windows or Linux system then it can still perfo
310. set top boxes and TVs may also have such options built in The general problem is that as the power consumption of individual devices has dropped a greater proportion of the ecological impacts occur during manufacturing If we look at the life cycle impacts over a wide range of digital consumer electronics much of the energy and carbon impact and certainly much of the waste is created during the production of the device Therefore the majority of the impact that the device will have on the environment already ex ists on the day it is purchased our ongoing role as the user of the device powering it from the electricity grid is less significant For example let s look at Apple s products as shown in figure 3 1 Usefully Apple produces life cycle environmental reports for their prod ucts compiled under international standards for environmental reporting Apple should be praised for this and it is something that all manufacturers should be required to compile for their products Roughly a quarter of the life cycle carbon emissions of Apple products are the result of their use by the consumer around 8 The Story of Electronics Annie Leonard Free Range Stu dios 2010 www storyofelectronics org See also The Story of Stuff Annotated Script Annie Le onard Story of Stuff Project 2010 www storyofstuff org wp content uploads 2011 02 SoE_footnoted_script pdf 9 Apple Computer Apple and the Environment www apple com e
311. so are more broadly compatible across different ma chines and operating systems A problem with keeping an archive of many CDs or DVDs is that it s not possibly remember what is on every disc and it s very difficult to handwrite the contents on the disc itself The solution is to capture a directory tree listing of the directory and file names on the disc and store it as a text file Then instead of search ing the actual discs one at a time looking for a file search the text files containing the di rectory trees using the find tool of the word processor text editor Microsoft keeps a guide to capturing directory trees on its website For Linux and MacOS the Unix command tree if path_to_directory gt file_name txt will create a directory tree which can be captured as a text file While it takes a few minutes to make a directory tree and store it keeping a tree of each disc in the archive can cut the amount of time it takes to find a file That s because the search process can be automated by word searching the text files to find which disc contains the data rather than manually searching each disc to find the data 12 Microsoft April 2011 How to add the Print Directory feature for folders in Windows XP in Windows Vista in Windows 7 support microsoft com kb 321379 13 See the manual page for tree command at linux die net man 1 tree 6 2 4 Off site and online storage The risk with holding data in
312. ss of backing up and reduce the amounts of data requiring storage Identify roles and responsibilities for backing up data and agree policies and procedures for regularly backing up data e System administrators managers should be respon sible for backing up at the system level and co ordi nating the use of network based software for backing up to a central server e Computer users should be responsible for backing up current work and other important data using remov able storage Backing up with the least ecological impact requires that we match the type of data being stored with the charac teristics of the storage media used e Data that is being archived for long periods and other data which changes infrequently should be backed up on optical discs as these have the lowest ecological impact and a long storage life e Routine daily weekly back ups should be made using reusable media such as USB sticks memory cards or removable hard drives When creating archives on optical disc create a text file containing a directory listing of the disc s contents searching this disc using a text editor or integrating it into a desktop search system takes less time and energy than physically searching each disc Using the internet for backing up has a high impact when moving many gigabytes of data While cloud computing is becoming popular always consider the alternatives to overcome the data security and ecological drawbacks
313. st line of de fence against the theft of the computer or its hard drives The disadvantage is that it uses a lot of processor power to run the encryption process a problem on older machines and if you experience a data corruption problem you ll potentially lose access to all the data on that partition or the entire hard drive e User account passwords These are set when the computer is installed and users can select their own passwords afterwards The purpose of a user password is to protect data on a shared machine or prevent opportunistic access to the user s files after they have logged in for example through the use of a password lock on a screen saver and through the access per missions controlling access to files within the system Although the system administrator can still change and override the user s account password users can implement their own pass words outside the control of the system admin istrator using file locks and file encryption If you use a wireless or infra red keyboard that can be even more insecure because it s de signed to transmit a weakly encrypted signal which can be easily cracked by those with the required expertise and computing power In turn any strong encryption codes entered and intercepted from a wireless keyboard can be disclosed by cracking the weak encryption its signals are encoded with Basically never use any wireless gadgets including networks for secure o
314. stainability check list box 2 2 Restriction of Hazardous Substances box 2 2 lipetading a eens ee box 3 6 technological obsolescence 9 1 coud compute eer 6 2 5 toxicmaterio le mE Doa Economicerowtme T 2 2 Computers Ema E E TA E ES 2a BOS E E A A A E SE mMbodied ener T 2 3 2 CHIPSELS Taare nate sata E E A os wts Shee M ENerey USE 5 2 11 1 11 3 hard drive drive caddy3 3 7 box 3 4 6 2 2 8 2 2 building Si oases sea seta ecto ces scree 8 2 3 IMOMOIV naea E cavteem eee 335 Enerev Star ta a eee ree box 2 2 motherboards aa aE Ble lee EPEAT A eerae ae reerinienn mere box 2 2 PGiG ard Sie sccercc use wily ence sisters sesteren 3 3 8 scaleiof impact rereana oreen eer Sal ports and connectors table 3 3 measuring consumption box 3 5 power management 4 4 box 4 4 Ofif erni dleleCtricity e tnt ew ie 11 3 powersupplies E 399 one watt initiative 5 2 1 Brocessor GRU i errr rer 3 3 3 box 3 2 OMEN HEN oo acaocageaaadnaaener box 3 5 oreanisinemles data maa T 5 5 power management 5 4 4 resource footprint 2 3 box 2 1 power supplicsae annaa 33 9 SECUN a a E E recat 83 sources of electricity 11 1 box 11 1 Speed POWER renin 3 3 4 uninterruptible power supplies box 11 2 s staima DIEVA 2 2 8 1 userfeedbDack etnies 4 4 3 5 1 LVPeSiotshandWar ernrn ttre ntti 3 1 1 Free and Open Technology 4 1 Uperadine a eer box 3 6 Naa A A AS 3
315. stalling operating system software are wholly entwined with intellectual property issues and the choices we make will in turn affect how users are affected by the growing restrictions on in tellectual property Intellectual property rights are the issue which will more than any other political or technical obstruction define the economic and legal pressures governing how in formation systems and the internet will evolve in the near future Unlike the technology humans have developed over history the technology of the information society is not benign Devices can be made to be semi intelligent able to control the terms of how we use the operating system and or its stored N Wikipedia Free and open source software en wikipedia org wiki Free_and_open_source_software w Wikipedia Proprietary software en wikipedia org wiki Proprietary_software 4 Wikipedia Intellectual property en wikipedia org wiki Intellectual_property ea Wikipedia Information society en wikipedia org wiki Information_society information after we have bought them In this way society is becoming increasingly constrained by the technological standards that manufactur ers develop rather than the political decisions of policy makers And if with the development of more intelligent systems manufacturers choose to lock up the functions of their products with digital rights management systems then society s use of these new tools w
316. stem which means our technology must also have finite li mits 2 To understand the sustainability of com puters and information appliances we must look at the life cycle of the devices themselves from the source of raw materials they are made out of through the production process their use by the consumer and finally their disposal This will give us the information we require to redesign the products and the systems which produce them to shift from a linear to a cyclical system of resource use as shown in figure 2 3 This repre sents a challenge to many aspects of the way our industrial systems work today For example shi fting away from the maximisation of production and short product lives and instead designing go ods to have a longer life and be easily repairable 18 Wikipedia Peak oil en wikipedia org wiki Peak_oil 19 Matthieu Auzanneau Le Monde April 2011 Petroleum blog 8th in French Fillon la production de p trole ne peut que d croitre in French petrole blog lemonde fr 2011 04 08 fillon la production de petrole C2 AB ne peut que decroitre C2 BB 20 Wikipedia Limits to Growth en wikipedia org wiki Lim its_to_growth 21 Leonard Annie 2010 The Story of Electronics www storyofelectronics org 2 3 1 Measuring what goes into the system In order to make sense of this complex system we need more precise information on what each product contains This is produced by carrying out a li
317. stems incorporate battery storage allowing them to keep the inverter running without a grid supply In effect they function like a large unin terruptible power supply for the whole building Due to their greater complexity these systems Building power supply Synchronising inverter are more expensive to install and require more maintenance Even so if the reliability of the grid supply is an issue grid connected renew able generation can be a means of securing the power supply to the building in the event of the grid going down 11 3 OFF GRID RENEWABLE POWER SYSTEMS A n advantage of renewable power technol ogy is that it allows the development of power systems well beyond the reach of the power grid This has obvious benefits for de veloping nations and also for the use of mo bile systems for example built into vehicles or vans which allow ICTs to go on tour into rural areas The critical factor in the design of an off grid system is the average amount of power that needs to be supplied and how long it must be supplied for These two measures determine the amount of equipment required and thus the costs of the system Unlike the power grid where more power can be supplied instantaneously on demand 11 Wikipedia Off the grid en wikipedia org wiki Off the grid the generating and storage capacity of an off grid system has absolute limits to its use In order to make the costs and scale of the off g
318. stimate approximately 690 million tonnes Consumption in next 22 year doubling period approximately 564 million tonnes ics although the bulk of annual consumption is for electric cables pipes and metal alloys For example a quarter of the weight of a mobile phone is made of metal and up to half of that could be copper As the world economy grows so the amount of copper demanded by the world economy grows too Copper has been in use for at least 7 500 years but more than 95 of all copper ever mined and smelted into metal has been ex tracted since 1900 Despite the fact that cop per is one of the most recycled metals and per 11 U S Geological Survey July 2006 Recycled Cell Phones A Treasure Trove of Valuable Metals USGS Fact Sheet 2006 3097 pubs usgs gov fs 2006 3097 fs2006 3097 pdf 12 U S Geological Survey Copper Statistics and Information minerals usgs gov minerals pubs commodity copper 18 A practical guide to sustainable IT haps 75 of the copper ever mined by humanity is still in use in 2011 around 16 million tonnes of new copper were produced from mines around the world This is because as society becomes more technological and especially as many developing countries begin to build power and telecommunications infrastructures the de mand for copper continues to grow year on year As with many natural resources the amount of copper in the top kilometre of the earth s crust is huge around 9
319. t have direct effect upon the handful of hardware and soft ware companies who produce the bulk of the world s information systems As a result new programs or operating systems could introduce restrictions on communication and there would be nothing the public could do to remedy that situation Consumers could change their oper ating system or hardware but as the produc tion of equipment is concentrated amongst so few companies there is not a lot of choice to be had and often these choices lead to other problems or arbitrary incompatibilities between different hardware and software technologies There are a number of solutions to this and many of them have a positive effect on the sus tainability of ICT equipment In unit 4 we exam ined the idea of unbundling removing the restrictions which close the design of products to a limited set of technologies preventing the use of components from other manufacturers On this 4 APC July 2012 The UN recognises freedom of expres sion on the internet as a human right www apc org en node 14772 5 Wikipedia Product bundling en wikipedia org wiki Prod uct_bundling 166 A practical guide to sustainable IT issue we re approaching an interesting moment in time One of the successes of the IBM compatible PC was that while the design was copyrighted the functional components of which it was made were the property of a range of hardware manufactur ers That meant o
320. t necessitating the upgrading or modification of other parts Or ganisational complexity also plays a role here Breaking down the organisation s infrastruc ture into manageable sections which mirror the structure of the organisation allows roles to be assigned projects developed and targets set to implement changes and the monitoring of longer term objectives to be reported For large IT systems developing a modular plan can be an elaborate process involving con sultation planning and finding options which meet the needs of many different system us ers For small or stand alone IT systems it can be a more informal process because in practice there are fewer alternative options to consider What s important in either case is that for each part of the system you have a clear view of the purpose and function of the module the op tions available to provide it and the costs and impacts of each option The overall cost or per Maintenance security and resilience 117 formance of the system as a whole is then an aggregate of the results for all the modules and providing that each module represents the optimum design the whole system will then provide the best solution 8 1 3 Building in resilience While modular designs allows more flexibility in planning or upgrading making it easier to optimise performance when we consider se curity and resilience we think of layers The concept of layering involves systematicall
321. t which sections of the hard drive are backed up This can generate a much lower demand for data storage making it a popular option Because of this a wider range of back up technologies are available for use How and how often the user backs up should integrate with the types of activity carried out on the system the sensitivity of the data and the frequency with which that data is changed What s important is that those carrying out the process know how to create reliable back ups how to configure the programs used to create the right kind of data format and ensure that the back up media is tested afterwards to be certain it is usable Box 6 2 table 6 1 outline various storage me dia and their characteristics Which is the most appropriate depends on the skills of the user on the costs of the media and most importantly on the scale of data to be stored Some me dia can be reused to reduce costs and ecological impacts Due to their high environmental impact USB sticks and memory cards should be regularly reused many times for as long as possible Al though single use optical discs cannot be reused their benefit is that they have a long storage life For these reasons USB sticks and memory cards are better for routine daily weekly backing up while optical discs are preferred for the long term archiving of data and the offline storage of in frequently used data While there is little hard data available CDs DVD and Blu ray discs
322. ta it can be used as a working document adding information on system maintenance any faults which occur and any remedial action which was taken In this way it s possible to keep a log for the machine which makes system maintenance a far simpler procedure The table below outlines the types of data that is relevant to keep Whether you keep all of this depends It s useful to keep a note of the date installed and the identity of the person installing the system Operating system version Include details of any service pack upgrades Linux kernel ID Processor type Make model speed number of cores L1 L2 cache System memory Note the type speed amp no of modules not just the memory size Hard drives For each hard drive note the make model its capacity and an outline of the partitions on the drive and file systems used BIOS serial number Usually displayed on the BIOS splash screen useful to keep in case of theft or if the insurer or repair contractor asks for it BIOS key Which key to press to enter the BIOS configuration menu BIOS passwords Note the BIOS set up administrator and user passwords if used Motherboard Make and model as well as the serial number if you can find it Plug in cards peripherals Make and model and serial number IP configuration address Note whether the interface is configured with a static IP address or DHCP its gateway DNS addresses a
323. tain and adapt information systems is to set up computer reuse and reclamation projects Such projects offer a wide scope of opportunities for those who wish to take part e They can learn more about how these systems can be used to create more interactive media through the development of online content and audio video media recording editing e They can learn about the functioning of information systems through the installation and configuration of operating systems and software and e They can develop electrical and mechanical skills through the main tenance disassembly and construction of machine hardware In this unit we ll examine the last of these options developing prac tical computer reuse and recycling projects Such projects are the foundation on which the community use of information technology is based Creating the independent capacity to reclaim and re purpose IT hardware allows a whole range of other projects which rely on the use of these technologies to take place 10 1 ICT RE CYCLING AND DOWNCYCLING he term recycling has been widely used since its promotion by the green movement in the 1970s What is less familiar if the term downcycling Recycling implies that goods or materials are reused for similar purposes downcycling implies that the waste is processed to produce materials of a lower quality The quality of the material produced by rec lamation is important When raw materials ar
324. tem has an effect on how the hardware functions and more importantly it can have an impact on the service life of the machine e Desktops Programs peripherals and gadgets in which we consider how we interact with our computer systems and the programs we use to perform the information processing tasks that we demand from our computer systems Information storage or more precisely informa tion storage and backing up Information pro cessing is the reason we have created a diversity of machines and networks and in turn preserv ing that information is a vital part of making the system secure resilient and sustainable In this section we look at how we store information the options for backing up data and how our choices create different levels of security and determine our ecological footprints Local and global networks it is by linking computers together that we have created such a powerful system for human interaction and exchange but this in turn has amplified the environmental impacts of information technol ogy As more information and services are digi tised so the energy and resource demands of the system grow In this section we look at how we network computers together to meet our own information needs and how all machines have become increasingly dependent upon the global network both for communication and as a means of storage and distributing updating software Care or more precisely Maintenance sec
325. tenth of the power of a desktop system you d have to share the piece of double sided paper be tween twenty five to thirty people before the paper ver sion was better than reading it on a laptop Quite simply we must think before we print What we can say is that where often used information is static meaning it is infrequently revised or changed it is probably better that this information is kept as a printed volume which people can pull from a shelf and read at any time For example reference materials and technical manuals Where information is in flux and in continually being updated or it is only required for a single use by a few individuals then online distribution is probably the best option For example news bulletins and memos emails What this analysis shows is that there is no one sim ple solution when it comes to the ecological footprint of our decisions on the use of technology It is the peculiar characteristics of the factors in each decision which de termine what it the best option overall Desktops Programs peripherals and gadgets 77 quality paper segregate the collection of white waste printer photocopier paper e Most digital photocopiers are little differ ent in function to a laser printer although they are usually more energy efficient than a laser printer when producing a large num ber of copies For making a large number of multiple copies a photocopier is likely to be 5 4 E REA
326. ters to be connected without the inconvenience of having to set up a wired network e Bluetooth is also a radio based network al though it only functions over very short distanc es It became popular as a result of its adoption in mobile phones and wireless mobile headsets 3 Wikipedia Local area network en wikipedia org wiki Lo cal_area_network 4 Wikipedia Ethernet en wikipedia org wiki Ethernet 5 Wikipedia Wi Fi en wikipedia org wiki Wi Fi 6 Wikipedia Bluetooth en wikipedia org wiki Bluetooth but is increasingly used to link computers and peripherals such as the mouse keyboard and printer Recently it s become commonly used in games consoles to connect controllers and mo tion capture devices to the main console Each networking technology has a different eco logical footprint For example Wi Fi uses more energy to function than ethernet sometimes twice as much in order to communicate between the base station and the mobile device That s because the energy of the radio signal falls away quite quickly the further the user is from the base station and so both the base station and the de vice must use a high signal strength to maintain the communications link On a typical laptop while the video display and processor use the most power the next most significant power drain is likely to be the Wi Fi interface This assumes that the Wi Fi interface is used if not then it should be di
327. that the monitor might consume anywhere from 50 watts LCD to 250 watts plasma and printers speakers and other peripherals can consume an other 50 to 200 watts Put to gether a high pow ered PC can consume about the same as a small electric heater when running at full power which is why they produce so much heat However how much power the computer appears to use might not actually be consumed by the computer That s because the quality of power supplies varies and lower quality power supplies can have a very low power factor a value which expresses the amount of power drawn versus that actually used by the equip ment Measuring power consumption and es pecially measuring the power factor can give you an idea of how much power is consumed by all or part of the computer system Whether you choose to upgrade or replace parts of the system then depends on the likely cost savings and the cost of upgrades see box 3 5 Recently anew 80 Plus standard was introduced for power supplies guaranteeing a very high power factor and thus much lower power consumption When replacing power supplies look for an 80 Plus certified unit or browse the web for accredited suppliers 41 Wikipedia Power factor en wikipedia org wiki Power_factor 42 Plug Load Solutions 80 Plus Certified Power Supplies and Manufacturers www plugloadsolutions com 80PlusPowerSupplies aspx Hardware Putting the system together 43 Box 3 5 Powe
328. that human society produces and uses goods and manages the unwanted materials from in dustrial processes As noted earlier energy is an important part of our ability to produce raw materials What s also important is price as this affects the price of commodities generally Over the last half of the twentieth century the price of energy and mineral resources was at an all time low but in the first decade of the twenty first century both energy and mineral prices have been con stantly rising This it is argued is a symptom of the ecological limits predicted in The Limits to Growth For example oil production data shows that since 2005 global oil production 14 Wikipedia The Limits to Growth en wikipedia org wiki The_Limits_to_Growth 15 Graham Turner June 2008 A Comparison of the Limits to Growth with Thirty Years of Reality Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation CSIRO www csiro au files files plje pdf 16 Ugo Bardi 2011 The Limits to Growth Revisited Springer ISBN 9781 4419 9415 8 17 Smithsonian Institute MIT March 2012 Perspectives on Limits to Growth Challenges to Building a Sustain able Planet si edu consortia limitstogrowth2012 View the conference presentations on the YouTube playlist at www youtube com watch v ZiG3ISDaPrE amp feature list_re lated amp playnext 1 amp list SP2817969CA87E5B47 The ecology of information technology 19 has reached a plateau This is
329. the CPU fan has broken or it needs the dust cleared from the cooling fins to improve the rate of heat loss As the amount of heat that the CPU and motherboard generate increases with the CPU s power some manufacturers are even de veloping miniature refrigeration systems to fit inside the computer s case For the large server farms and data centres which run the internet Hardware Putting the system together 35 Box 3 2 Processors and motherboards A PC motherboard is designed to take a specific type or range of x86 CPU chips There are two main manufactur ers of x86 CPUs Intel and AMD Each produces a range of chips with different specifications but there are two general differences between all CPU chips e 32 bit versus 64 bit The bits refer to the width of the data bus What this means is that a 64 bit chip will move twice as much data during each operation as a 32 bit chip For 64 bit chips you have to use a 64 bit operating system a 64 bit processor might work with a 32 bit operating system but you ll be wasting its processing power as none of its 64 bit features will be available Even if you use a 64 bit operating system some programs might not be able to use the extra power available from the chip and so for some tasks you re not going to be processing data much faster than on a 32 bit CPU e Number of cores A recent innovation As the com plexity of CPUs has grown we re reaching the physical limits of how big they c
330. the ambitions of the developers which gives it a significant advan tage over closed systems such as Windows where adaptation or extension is usually prohibited The fact that systems programs can be downloaded for free or bought at a low cost has implications for its users too You can install it on any number of computers without having to pay for extra licences you can copy the system for friends or colleagues to use if required you can take the system apart and modify it to suit your own needs and pass on those modifications to others If these same actions were carried out with the programs developed by closed software developers those involved would be liable for prosecution Linux is the kernel of the GNU Linux system the core program which runs the computer hardware and makes the memory disks and other components avail able for programs to use Within the whole GNU Linux system there are hundreds of other programs required to provide all its functions and the user friendly applica tions that provide for people s everyday needs Early on in the development of GNU Linux enthusiasts devel oped FTP sites containing all the files to install a Linux system Then shortly after that as the internet was slow when moving large quantities of data they developed CDs with helpful installation programs which automated the process of installing and configuring the system for less experienced users Eventually these
331. the components which make up a desktop computer system you should hopefully have a better idea of what s in the box and what each of those parts does If you wish to take these ideas further we ll cover maintaining and assembling computers later Hopefully what you have gained from studying the innards of a computer system is an under standing of the significance of system specifi cations and what those specifications relate to This should enable you to purchase or plan the upgrade of systems with a little more attention to the details which influence the power of the system and the energy consumed by the ma chine Box 3 6 contains a check list of points to consider when purchasing a system or deciding how to upgrade it Once you have a system you have to connect all the parts together With a laptop that s done already all you do is plug in the power and network connectors and perhaps an external speaker With desktop systems it s a little more difficult You have to connect many different cables to the main computer unit and there are Figure 3 8 Schematic of a desktop computer system speakers Router gateway Video 15 pin D or HDMI Sound Printer 2 5mm USB jack keyboard PS 2 or USB Computer some simple rules which can help protect and preserve the equipment Figure 3 8 shows a very simple desktop system as an example As a general rule you connect the thickest and heaviest cables first
332. the computer user 5 Wikipedia Wetware brain en wikipedia org wiki Wet ware_ brain e The use of networks if the user is overloaded by emails not directly related to their work or are swamped with spam email that affects the rate at which they can use the system and e The way we create and manipulate files with a little training or practice we could minimise the resources our work required increasing the efficiency with which we use the system One of the most important factors is data loss Information is a resource just like metals or other commodities It costs time and energy to create the information we store on our comput ers and in that process the emissions created by the computer user are as significant as the machine itself The loss of data especially if such losses are avoidable represents a waste of energy and an excess of carbon emissions Surveys on the causes of data loss show that hardware or system malfunctions account for 44 of data losses human error 32 software errors 14 computer viruses 7 and natural di sasters such as fire or flooding only 3 An other problem when machines become clogged with files is that we can lose track of data and spend time on the computer blindly searching for something stored on the hard drive By avoiding data loss or losing track of in formation and spending a lot of time searching we can reduce the repetitious and unnecessary time s
333. the recent research on the impacts of computing to date has focussed on the use of servers and cloud computing rather than the impacts of everyday data storage technologies such as CDs external hard drives or tape stor age Just as many green IT studies do not con sider the embodied energy of the equipment involved studies on the electronic distribution of data do not consider the human resources in volved in creating or purchasing data and the relative value of backing up that data via differ ent means to prevent its loss or corruption 2 Koomey et al August 2009 The energy and climate change impacts of different music delivery methods download intel com pressroom pdf CDsvsdownloadsre ease pdf 3 Accenture WSP October 2009 Demonstrating the Ben efits of Electronic Software Distribution A study of green house gas emissions reduction www digitalbychoice com en gb 483648_CarbonFootprint PDF 4 Wikipedia Embodied energy en wikipedia org wiki Em bodied_energy 88 A practical guide to sustainable IT While we can t make decisions with certain ty what we can do is form general rules on the impacts of different storage options based upon the characteristics of the technologies involved e For long term storage years rather than months passively held data has a lower im pact than actively maintained data e g stor ing data for long periods on optical discs like CDs or DVDs requires less energy to
334. the surface Information storage and security 95 needs of large data centres rather than individ ual computers The ecological advantages of the cloud are predicated on the basis that this new demand for computing power can be managed more efficiently in a large data centre than on a large number of small systems The difficulty is that by keeping data in the cloud you are put ting all your trust in the availability of the online services If the service fails e g the problems with the Blackberry service in 2011 or the us er s account is compromised or blocked or the company providing the service collapses access to data in the cloud can be lost To have secure access to our most valued information at all times it is necessary to keep back ups where they can be accessed locally The difficulty for the cloud computing model is that if users keep back ups of their information on their own machine for the purposes of secu rity many of the arguments for the ecological efficiencies of the cloud system disappear 6 2 6 Manually transporting data the Sneakernet In the early days of personal computing dial up internet connections were very slow While to day s broadband internet connections run at a few hundred to a thousand kilo bits per second early dial up modems ran at 0 3 kilo bits per second For this reason the fastest way to move data wasn t via a network it was physically car rying floppy disks in a ba
335. ting both a fire and flash burn hazard Guarding against this is a matter of system design protecting against short cir cuits power surges etc and mechanical good design ensuring that the battery is housed in a suitable enclosure to protect it against physi cal damage rain frost and heat Off grid systems operate at low voltages using direct current A commercial system might use 24 volts or 48 volts whereas most self built systems will use 12 volts as this is the standard used in leisure off grid consumer systems The voltage is a factor because it has an effect on efficiency the higher the voltage the more efficient the system It is also impor tant to consider the ease of maintaining and repairing the system 24 and 48 volt compo nents are relatively harder to source than the 12 volt units available through many outdoors and mobile home dealers There are a number of different battery technologies available each with different costs and characteristics The batteries used in cars and lorries are of low quality and while they can be used to store power it s very inef ficient to do so as they lose so much during charging and can only be discharged by a small amount before cell damage occurs Most bat teries for power systems while similar to auto motive batteries are more advanced sealed 12 Wikipedia Lead acid battery en wikipedia org wiki Lead acid_battery 13 For a general introduction see the
336. tion for a list of the different classifications of DIMM module Usually a motherboard has at least two memory slots Sometimes the board requires that they are used in a certain order and so problems arise when you use more than one memory module If the memory modules do not have exactly the same speed data rate speci fication the board may have problems reading data because it can t synchronise the reading and writing cycles It s all very complicated and on older hardware where you might have problems finding large memory modules it can be quite annoying The general rule is to either use one large memory module big enough to provide the memory space you need or to find matched pairs of modules and always keep them together For all operating systems the amount of memory that the system has is one of the most critical limitations The table in box 3 3 lists a number of different operating systems and the absolute minimum system requirements to run them Although the system designers say that the system will run with these specs that doesn t mean that it will do so comfortably These are the bare minimum and so in practice it s best to dou ble or triple these figures e g if it states a Pen tium 2 processor use a Pentium 3 or 4 if it says 256MB of memory use at least 512MB or more In practice you re stuck with the processor that you have for the cost of buying a new processor on its own you can often buy a whole
337. together and it also interfered with the air flow needed to cool the drives SATA uses thin cables which are far easier to connect up than ribbon cables and also does away with the need to select the drive using a jump er Instead each drive plugs into a socket on the mother board so the maximum number of drives is limited by the number of SATA sockets available on the board Figure 3 5 IDE and SATA drive configuration Enetenene srererese state 40 way ribbon cable connector Power Jumper connector block Ribbon cable Motherboard d IDE 0 slave device 49 Se i E IDE 0 master device Note Not all drives use this order Note that the miniature 22 inch hard drives used on laptops operate in the same way as the standard 31 2 inch hard drives used in desktop PCs and come in both IDE and SATA versions If you want to upgrade a laptop hard drive the manual for the machine should tell you what type of drive is used and what capacity of drive the machine is capable of accommodating One very important point adding extra hard disks can add a large power drain to the computer system For that reason you need to have the minimum practi cal number of hard drives to create the amount of data storage required For example a single one terabyte TB hard drive will use less power than two 512 gigabyte GB hard drives If reducing power consumption is important then use just one large hard dr
338. top computer displays Journal of Cleaner Production 13 p 1281 1294 28 Wikipedia Embodied energy en wikipedia org wiki Em bodied_energy The ecology of information technology 21 Box 2 1 The resource footprint of consumer electronics Computers mobile phones and other digital electronics are a modern treasure trove of rare and exotic substances For example a quarter of the weight of a mobile phone is made of metals about half of that is copper and the rest is most ly aluminium tin iron silver and gold as well as minute quantities of platinum palladium barium hafnium indium gallium and rare earth metals You also get metals cropping up in unexpected places such as the 2 or 3 kilos of lead in the glass of old TVs and computer monitors or the gold which coats many of the connectors inside our IT equipment The diagram on the right shows the relative com position of a computer system with old style glass CRT monitor and a mobile phone There is little detailed in formation on the composition of most digital appliances although that situation is improving with the introduc tion of life cycle analysis reporting By their nature devices that rely on extremely pure materials engineered at microscopic levels of detail re quire far more energy to create than old fashioned ana logue devices Digital electronics might be more efficient or require less energy during their operational lives but as they demand
339. tors A check list of procedures and options for IT managers service pro viders and data centres SECTION 1 WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Welcome to A practical guide to sustainable IT This publication will guide you on a journey to examine how the information systems which support our lives work and how their ecological footprint has grown to become a distinct part of the human impact upon the planet In developed nations information systems are now an indispensable part of most people s lives In developing nations information systems are a means of enabling communication and exchange where no such infra structure existed before and that in turn creates many new opportunities from education to economic development But the development of the global communications network and the equipment attached to it has come at a cost The reality is that these services are not free quite apart from the financial cost the produc tion and use of these systems is affecting the global ecosystem which supports life on earth For example by some estimates the impact of information systems and telecommunications has as great an effect on climate as the air transport system How great those impacts are or how we can reduce or manage them is defined by the choices we make when buying using or disposing of these machines If we re going to have access to these technologies in the future with out harming the planet o
340. tricity than it creates this was a par ticular problem identified with small wind tur bines designed for installation on rooftops in the UK The problem with grid connected renew able systems is that many of them do not function during a power cut That s because the synchronising inverter requires the signal from the power grid to function even if you are generating power it will not be supplied to 00 Wikipedia Grid connected photovoltaic power system en wikipedia org wiki Grid connected_photovoltaic_pow er_system 9 Wikipedia Feed in tariff en wikipedia org wiki Feed in_tariff 10 Encraft 2009 Warwick Wind Trials www warwickwind trials org uk Renewable power 153 Box 11 2 Uninterruptible power supplies While not directly related to renewable energy this is a topic of relevance to the provision of power to computers Uninterruptible power supplies UPS are a means of protecting equipment against power cuts For servers and small networks especially when using a client server network a UPS protects against the data loss caused by small fluctuations or temporary interruption of mains power In the most developed states where the electricity grid has a very high reliability UPSs are only used in large data centres and corporate networks where high reliability is an essential part of the services provided In less developed states where brown outs and temporary interruptions are more com
341. tware used to create it Thinking about how we create in formation and how we store it for the future is an essential part of how we should plan our use of computers The physical media which we store the data on the file formats which we use to hold the data and the operating systems which we use to run the programs which read those files are all likely to become obsolete one day While operating systems evolve many of the programs we run on them stay largely the same Even so while the name or purpose of the program may not change the way the data is physically stored by those programs changes from generation to generation of technology In the proprietary software world newer appli cations retain some backwards compatibility with the older version but only for two or three generations As a result old files can after a time become inaccessible to more recent pro grams If we are creating valuable work and we want to ensure that the information is available for future generations an idea which forms the core of the concept of sustainability then we have to think carefully how we decide to cre ate and store our data The basic rule to guard against future obso lescence is to keep copies of data in different formats preferably formats which do not use proprietary encoding systems and do not lock up the data in ways which might block access to it in the future There are a number of com monly used formats which d
342. tween what functions you need from the machine and what its internal electronics are capable of supporting see box 4 2 Breaking down our IT needs into a series of clear roles and specifica tions requires thought and planning to define what we really want In the corporate environ ment the aim is often to provide new infrastruc ture usually under contract because it repre sents the most economically efficient solution In contrast in smaller organisations and the voluntary sector there is the option of adapt ing existing hardware to work more flexibly us ing the skills of those who will use the system because that represents the least cost route to finding a solution to their needs As outlined in unit two one of the impor tant objectives of sustainable IT is to maximise the life of the equipment There are two ways of looking at this e Firstly we can maximise the use of a sin gle machine so that it is using as much of its processing capacity as possible for as much time as possible This is the objec tive for dedicated server machines and large data centre rack servers often because there s a cost penalty to hav ing unused machine capacity sitting idle Achieving this outcome requires attention to the minute details of system configu ration and the organisation of hardware e Secondly we can prolong the life of equip ment usually older equipment by giv ing it less intensive processing tasks which match th
343. tween users around the globe has increased leading to a leap in the amount of data now routinely stored on personal computers as more people connect to the network through mobile devices more data is stored in large online systems to enable people to communicate on the move and this is now maturing as a large cloud storage network and while the efficiency of online technology has increased the increase in data traf fic more than offsets that improvement and so the energy and resources used to support the global communications network are still increasing As users of this global network there are various measures we can take to improve the ecological footprint of our network usage Some of these steps are simple while others are a matter of adopting differ ent working methods Some such as the way we design websites are more problematic because they entail redefining the way in which we present ourselves to the world online breaking with the fashion for more elaborate web interfaces in order to slim down the amounts of data transacted 1 Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies accessed June 2012 Internet Growth Trends amp Moore s Law www dtc umn edu mints igrowth html 2 Raghavan and Ma 2011 The Energy and Emergy of the Internet www cs berkeley edu jtma papers emergy hotnets2011 pdf 7 1 LOCAL NETWORKS ocal networks connect computer users in a building or people at home to their broadband router Early networ
344. ty offer on site service If the device fails you may have to send it back to the manufacturer s service department for repair which is likely to cost time and money Check if the manufacturer can offer a contract with a service company to carry on site repairs as this may take less time to organise 32 A practical guide to sustainable IT reason power hungry They are intended to run computer networks or large internet data cen tres and so are not the sort of machine you d use for general purpose computing Some servers are stand alone boxes rather like a desktop machine For the last decade or so the trend is to shift away from single machines to rack or blade hardware where multiple server machines operate in a single large case In the rest of this unit and the unit on Reuse and reclamation later we ll primarily deal with desk top computers The principles involved in desktop machines also apply to most laptop machines although the hardware is more difficult for the inexperienced user to modify We ll investigate the installation software on the machine in the next section Operating systems What we ll look at below is how a standard desktop machine works how to identify the different parts of the machine and what all that jargon about hard ware specifications actually means There is one golden rule to remember when using computers Computers are stupid At the simplest level computer hardware is a col lection
345. ue to their history of use to exchange data between different op erating systems or software applications are more suited to long term data storage 4 Wikipedia BBC Doomsday Project en wikipedia org wiki BBC_Domesday_Project 5 Wikipedia Backward compatibility en wikipedia org wiki Backward_compatibility 134 A practical guide to sustainable IT e Ifyou are using a proprietary program such as Microsoft Word then save copies of the most important files in other file formats such as plain text RTF PDF or an open formatting standard such as XML or HTML e When creating graphical data or using pro prietary CAD or publishing programs export a copy of the final work to a common open im age format such as TIF JPG PNG or GIF or if the program permits export it as a PDF e When using databases or spreadsheets ex port a copy of the data into flat text based files such as tab or comma separated tables or as an XML data file e Avoid compressing or collecting data inside archive files for example ZIP RAR TAR GZ etc Not only are compressed files more likely to suffer a greater amount of data loss as a result of later file corruption certain proprie tary compression formats may fall out of use and become inaccessible in the future e As a general rule when storing data for long term retrieval unless there are security con cerns do not lock files using the encryption or password locks of ap
346. uilding de signs which reduce ventilation The solution is to use products which do not contain solvents 8 3 THE MACHINE M any aspects of the installation and configu ration of the computer are dealt with in units 3 4 and 5 All machines need care and mainte nance as outlined in Box 8 1 and by regularly attending to the well being of the computer sys tem you can improve its performance and extend its operating life What is equally important in the day to day use of these systems are the security specific aspects of computer use 8 3 1 Securing the machine Computer security begins with the design of the the box the case containing the com ponents of the computer system The most important component in your computer is not the CPU or the memory or even the mother board it s the hard drive s That s because the hard drive holds all the data on the system Protecting the box is therefore primarily centred around protecting the hard drives and the data they contain The simplest option is to install a hard drive caddy into the machine as discussed earlier The other option with desktop boxes is to get a cage or a clamp These fit over the case and then bolt to a table top or the floor Com mercial ones are quite expensive but they re fairly easy to make by anyone with basic met alworking skills 16 Whole Building Design Guide Enhance indoor environ mental quality www wbdg org design ieq php fla
347. ument s contents rather than just restrict access to it cryptographic digi tal signatures are far more complex and can t be easily circumvented 128 A practical guide to sustainable IT 8 4 MALWARE AND PHISHING alware or to use the more popular la bel viruses have been a problem with computers for at least the past 20 years Origi nally they were carried in files and on floppy disks swapped between machines Today with the advent of high speed broadband the malware problem has become much larger and more complex and can be transferred from the active code used in websites email as well as software programs The motivation for pro ducing malware has also changed 20 years ago writing malware was a past time for computer geeks and pranksters whereas today the pro duction of malware is increasingly related to organised crime and the work of intelligence agencies Most of the viruses trojans and related malware in circulation are designed specifically for use with the Windows operating system That is partly a reflection of the widespread use of Windows if you want to write malware for nefarious purposes then it makes sense to target the most popular operating system Both Linux and Mac OS have far fewer prob lems with malware That s partly because they are used less than Windows but it is also re lated to the design of the operating system itself Unix like operating systems such as Linux and Mac
348. up 2009 The environmental impact of Amazon s Kindle www tkearth com downloads thoughts_ereaders pdf 14 Green Press Initiative 2011 Environmental Impacts of E books www greenpressinitiative org documents ebooks pdf more efficient than a laser printer However if you are routinely producing large print runs on a photocopier getting the job produced by a conventional commercial printer using wet inks and a conventional printing press will be more efficient Using conventional printing also al lows a range of lower quality recycled papers to be used Another aspect of e reader technology not of ten discussed is intellectual property and in par ticular the use of digital rights management to control the use of the devices and the files they contain For example Amazon s Kindle service al lows books to be shared by up to six devices reg istered to the same Amazon account but not be tween Amazon accounts There is a facility to loan an e book you have bought to another Amazon user but only once and only if the publisher per mits it One of the great features of the traditional printed book is that it can be shared freely by many people and can be given sold back to shops who will re sell the book The resale recycling of sec ond hand books means that the impact per person of printing the book becomes progressively less as it is passed around With e readers the sharing of the data is usually blocked on desktop syste
349. ups of computers and the network s data servers or high speed internet connection Depending upon the capability of the hardware and the operating system it is possible to switch gigabit ethernet to work at the slower fast ether net speed and conserve power Another major factor in running a network is the power used by the network electronics to provide connectivity All devices use power and when not in use they will still draw a minimum amount of energy while they wait to move pack ets of data between machines For that reason it is better to have the smallest number of eth ernet switches or Wi Fi base stations and use them to their maximum capacity only add ing new devices when the network experiences congestion There is no easy advice to give on this point How a network is physically laid out depends upon both the number of machines involved and the layout of the space they oc cupy Theoretically the maximum length of an ethernet cable is 100 metres although taking 7 2 USING NETWORKS sing networks efficiently has many benefits The energy used to transmit data is directly proportional to the size of the files being trans mitted therefore using various means to mi nimise the amount of data you need to send will reduce the energy consumed by your use of elec tronic networks And a result by minimising the data moved we can also reduce the amounts of data which clog the file systems of our computers 7 2 1 Email
350. uration while others require plug ins or ad ditional software Web cache Web browsers use a cache to hold copies of commonly downloaded files When a page is requested if the cache al ready has a copy it checks if the copy on the site has been changed since it was last down loaded If the content is unchanged the local copy is used and so it need not be repeatedly downloaded If routinely browsing advertis ing graphically rich websites it is a good idea to increase the size of the cache to take ac count of the large script and image flash files used by these sites For example the Firefox browser defaults to a limit of 50 megabytes of cached files extending this to around 100 to 120 megabytes will allow more of those re peatedly displayed adverts and the code data files which go with them to be cached and will help to speed loading of the page and reduce the amount of data downloaded e Pop ups A common feature on advertising driven sites is that certain actions by the user such as clicking on buttons or lists will cause another browser page to pop up This page invariably contains advertising or other un wanted information and can launch additional code within the browser than can tie up the processing power of the system and even com promise security Most browsers include an op tion to block pop ups which is enabled from the browser s configuration menu Quite apart from avoiding additional data downl
351. ure en wikipedia org wiki Digi tal_signature the user s activity using key logging software which monitors the keystrokes entered from the keyboard Therefore if you don t know or trust the system administrator of the machine you have to work on it s best to assume that the system is not secure even if you have the ability to configure high grade encryption of the data on the system The second type of password protection is the built in passwords used for many popular office based applications This allows the use of passwords to control access to the content of files without the password the file cannot be opened and read Some applications such as the programs used to create PDF files allow you to set conditions for how the document can be accessed preventing those accessing the file from printing using cut and paste or modifying the contents unless the file is unlocked with the correct password The general problem with the file locks used by application programs is that they re very weak Most applications such as PDF files word processor files and spreadsheets or ZIP archive files have downloadable crack ing programs available to find the password and unlock the file These are brute force pro grams and with a reasonable amount of paral lel computing power it is possible to crack the passwords on applications within a matter of hours or days In contrast if you wish to protect the integrity of the doc
352. ured screens and curtains are the simplest way to reduce the solar gain from windows e Lighting is a significant factor in commercial office environments While compact fluores cent lighting reduces energy consumption significantly compared to incandescent bulbs the latest tubular fluorescent luminaires and LED lighting modules require even less pow er for the amount of light they can generate Using timers on lighting systems can also en sure that lights are automatically switched off outside normal office hours e Water resources are an increasingly press ing ecological issue Public water supply re quires one to two kilowatt hours per person per day to treat and supply drinking water 14 Whole Building Design Guide Energy efficient lighting www wbdg org resources efficientlighting php 15 Whole Building Design Guide Protect and conserve wa ter www wbdg org design conserve_water php Maintenance security and resilience 121 perhaps two or three times that figure in those areas which rely on desalinated wa ter or water pumped for tens of miles from the nearest source Minimising wastage and using low flush toilets are essential and will become more so as the global climate warms e Indoor air quality is becoming a more signifi cant health issue as research highlights the pollution created by modern construction materials and furnishings This can be exac erbated by sealed air conditioned b
353. urity and resilience looking after our information sys tems Like any complex tool or mechanism com puter systems need care and maintenance While solid state technology of the silicon chip may have no moving parts there are many aspects of every day computer use which require physical care and maintenance Besides hardware the computer s software and the file system also need occasion al attention to keep the logical elements of the machine working reliably In this unit we look at how we can care for our information systems to keep them functioning reliably but also to get the greatest possible service life from the hardware We ll also look at how we can plan for system fail ures or more serious events to secure our infor mation even when the hardware fails Disposal in which we examine how we can deal with equipment which has reached the end of its useful life This is divided into two parts End of life and disposal how to know when equipment has reached the end of its useful life and how to dispose of it safely The com ponents inside computer systems can fail but sometimes they are discarded because of other factors such as changes in software or operating systems which necessitate us ing more powerful hardware In this unit we ll look at the environmental risks of computer hardware how to determine if any item of hardware can be used for other tasks how to dispose of it if necessary and the problematic
354. usual ly easier to buy a replacement keyboard for the machine and that s certainly cheaper than buying a whole new machine For mobile gadgets the greatest risk is dropping them on a hard surface The simplest way to guard against this is to buy a purpose built soft case to hold the device In the event the gadget is dropped the case prevents a large mechanical shock being transmitted from the hard surface through the case Many mobile devices such as iPods or mobile phones can be fitted with a lanyard so the device can be worn around the neck or wrist Some even incorporate headphones so that you do not stress the headphone connector of mobile phones and MP3 players by tugging on the cord A major problem for digital electronics is static elec tricity This can be generated by human made fibres in clothes and carpets and is made worse in a hot dry envi ronment such as an office Static discharges can damage electronic components when the inside of the machine is exposed or when you touch the metal contacts on cables or connectors Another way of generating static electricity is from air moving across dry plastic surface For this rea son you should never use an ordinary household vacuum cleaner to remove dust from electrical equipment Quite apart from the static risk the high force of the vacuum can damage internal fans or rip the keys from keyboards If you wish to remove dust there are small low suc tion vacuum cleaners availabl
355. w for your laptop if you forget the user set up password you ll need to download the manual for the motherboard laptop and look up the BIOS settings information 3 3 9 Power supplies Next let s look at power supplies These days PCs only have one large power connector 13 In ancient times before the Pentium ll and the introduction of the ATX motherboard the AT power supply used two connectors side by side 39 Wikipedia BIOS en wikipedia org wiki BIOS 40 Wikipedia ATX en wikipedia org wiki Atx 42 A practical guide to sustainable IT but you re unlikely to run into one of those these days The advantage of the ATX supply is that it gives the computer the ability to turn itself off when it shuts down However the ecological cost is that when the ATX supply shuts down the sys tem it s still consuming a small amount of power to keep the electronics in standby mode ready to start the machine when the user presses the on button Therefore when you ve shut a system down it should also be isolated from the mains power supply Not just because of the power con sumption on older desktop machines usually the power drain is about five to 15 watts about the equivalent of a small low energy light bulb but also because power surges might damage the electronics Note if you use a modem connect ed to a phone line disconnect that too or get a surge protected phone adapter to prevent dam aging power surges coming down t
356. w up some problematic questions on the impacts implicit in their use of technology Knowing that the activities which you undertake on a daily basis require the expenditure of such resources puts our individual lifestyles under a critical microscope Although the scope and standards of life cycle analysis reports vary if we utilise what information is available see box 2 2 we can make better purchasing decisions and so begin to address the impacts created by our demands for these technologies The ecology of information technology 23 2 4 IS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SUSTAINABLE he answer to that question is both yes and no Under its current design the way we build and utilise information systems is completely unsustainable for many different reasons In part that s linked to the unsustain ability of the human system in general as de scribed in The Limits to Growth However that s not to say that we couldn t address many of the present problems with IT to keep these technol ogies functioning in the future The difficulty is that doing so will require the structure of the IT industry and the products it designs and mar kets to change to a wholly different model of working and without consumer and legisla tive encouragement that is likely to result in both a cultural and economic resistance from the industry as it exists today The bottom line of sustainability is the abil ity of a system to keep functioning
357. without installing a card in the machine this will minimise power use If you must install a card such as a parallel interface card for an old style printer cable then check with the manufacturer s specifications to find a the card which has a low power consump tion Next let s look at the front panel connectors 9 A PC has a power and reset switch a hard disc A PC card drive HDD and power light and recently a sleep light These all connect at a small group of ter minal posts usually in one corner of the mother board There s also an internal speaker that makes a beeping noise to warn of errors although some motherboards have the sounder fixed on the board and so don t need an external speaker The small button cell battery on the mother board 11 is there to keep power to the machines Basic Input Output System BIOS chip when the machine is switched off This stores all the configuration settings for the motherboard If removed after a few hours you ll lose these set tings which is a good way of clearing the access passwords on the motherboard Also if this bat tery runs down the BIOS settings might be lost or corrupted in which case you ll need to replace the button cell Most motherboards especially laptops where the battery is buried deep inside the machine have a pair of terminals which can instantly reset the contents of the BIOS memory if connected together To find them very useful to kno
358. y building in security and reliability by spread ing similar functions across different systems This approach ensures that if one layer fails then there are further layers to maintain sys tem security and resilience As with defining modules within a system by breaking down the problem into individual layers those re sponsible for that segment of the problem can take responsibility for it and work these tasks into their everyday routine rather than having one person take on the whole task For example the physical security in a building protects the computers inside the building but if physical security fails and the computers are stolen then data back up proce dures should minimise the loss of data the ma chines contained We can in turn break this ex ample down into further layers to improve the system design Building security can be broken down into separate zones meaning that more important machines or information are pro tected by more levels of security In a similar way on a single computer non sensitive infor mation can be stored insecurely while secure data can be stored in encrypted formats Another common means of achieving better security and reliability is through redundancy In the event of one piece of equipment a mod ule in the system failing there is always a spare available to replace it For certain applications where high reliability is essential for example the safety systems of nuclear power statio
359. y developed for Unix machines These ideas were taken on by the Linux community and developed into a variety of low cost terminal server systems Their low cost and ability to utilise cheaper recycled equipment has made these systems especially popular in education 37 Wikipedia Thin client en wikipedia org wiki Thin_client 38 Popular systems include The Linux Terminal Server Proj ect www Iitsp org OpenThinClient openthinclient org and Thinstation thinstation org Network Internet router gateway Server al establishments particularly in developing nations While initially sceptical even Mi crosoft now offer a terminal server system compatible with Windows applications and there are programs available to convert older Windows XP machines into thin clients The major difficulty with thin client net works is that the server represents a single point of failure With stand alone PCs even when the network is down it is still possible for people to carry out some work With client server systems any failure of the server or the network prevents everyone connected to the network from using the system The other problem with thin clients is that they are not very flexible in their application Although for routine applications they have few problems if specialised or unconventional software is re quired for certain tasks it may not be easy to run this on the server There is also an intellec
360. years due in a large part to the increasing power and pro cessing capacity of the equipment involved It s really easy to grow your industry when the tools of the trade double their power and halve their utilisation costs every 18 months or so As a result the industry need not put a lot of effort into being more productive getting a greater output from your existing body of pro duction resources when the power of IT sys tems is growing exponentially This is the root of the IT productivity para dox paradox It is not necessary to work hard to increase productivity if there is no incentive to create efficient resources the rising power capacity and functionality of technology is able to make up for the lack of attention to the ef ficiency of design This of course is where the problem of bloat arises If computers become more powerful there is no incentive to improve the quality of the code use to make them func tion and for web bloat if network speeds are rising there is no need to be more creative with site information design For example when 29 Wikipedia Moore s Law en wikipedia org wiki Moore 27s_law 30 Willcocks and Lester 1996 Beyond the IT Productiv ity Paradox European Management Journal vol 14 no 3 pp 279 290 June 1996 dx doi org 10 1016 0263 2373 96 00007 2 31 Wikipedia Software bloat en wikipedia org wiki Soft ware_bloat mobile phone operators paid billions for
361. your phone In the event of loss or damage to the phone the data can be recovered from the service and downloaded to a new phone For ordinary mobile phones there are methods to back up the contents of the SIM card but these tend to be expensive as they often require a physical device to read the card Some mobile operators give the option of back ing up the address book and other features of the phone to the operator s system and these can be downloaded to a new phone in the event of loss or damage Backing up iPods and similar music playing devices is more complex in part because it runs into problems of digital rights copyright In most cases you are loading data from another machine so keeping a back up copy is un necessary unless files are only stored on the device and nowhere else Most music download services will register a number of playing devices and so again in the event of loss or damage the old device can be unregistered and the new device registered in order to transfer files onto it Finally laptop and notebook PCs can be updated just like any other desktop system The machine can perform a back up over a network either to another PC or to a network server or connected to an external stor age device such as a hard drive USB stick external hard drive or memory card to copy the files that require back ing up iPads can back up to another computer via a cable or Wi Fi connection or you have the option to store dat
362. ys tem and how big those drives can be see box 3 4 A problem with IDE was that the mother board could only handle a certain size of hard drive beyond a certain limit the motherboard couldn t address the disk That can be a prob lem when using some older motherboards be cause only small hard drives are accepted by the motherboard This limits the maximum storage available and is a problem because small hard drives a few gigabytes or less are hard to find these days SATA doesn t have these same re strictions as it is designed to handle very large storage capacities and as a recent standard there s no problem getting hold of large SATA compatible hard drives 3 3 8 PC cards front panel connectors and BIOS The AGP 5 and PCI 8 slots are edge connec tors they re designed to have a circuit board slotted into them to extend the functions of the motherboard For most everyday functions you won t need to bother about the slots It s only when you need something out of the ordinary such as an internal modem or something non standard like a data logging or specialist inter face card that you ll need to use these slots An important consideration about PC cards is that they consume power Some such as the high performance AGP card used by the lat est video gaming machines use a very large amount of power a good indication that a card consumes a lot of power is when it has its own cooling fan If you can get by
363. ystem is built upon and the manufacturing and waste disposal processes related to the device we can create a significant reduction in the global impact of these systems To illustrate the subtle implications of this ap proach let s look at a highly significant develop 1 Wikipedia Age of Enlightenment en wikipedia org wiki Age_of_Enlightenment 2 Wikipedia Crowd funding en wikipedia org wiki Crowd_ funding 3 Wikipedia Rebound effect conservation en wikipedia org wiki Rebound_effect_ conservation ment in the field of ICT policy On 5 July 2012 the UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution stating that the right to freedom of expression on the internet should be protected by state parties To quote the most significant part of the text the General Assembly at its sixty sixth ses sion on freedom of expression on the Inter net affirms that he same rights that people have offline must also be protected online in particular freedom of expression which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one s choice in accordance with articles 19 of the Universal Declaration of Hu man Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights This is a significant breakthrough in the long campaign for digital rights and should be cel ebrated Unfortunately while this applies to the policies created by national and international governmental agencies it does no

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