Zune Thoughts - Daily News, Views, Rants and Raves

Over the last couple of years, we have really been working to reduce our electric consumption with the hopes of eventually having solar panels installed. We’ve succeeded in reducing our electric usage by about 1/3. There were a few big things we did, like not using a dryer anymore and using compact florescent bulbs throughout the house. However, there are lots of little things that also add up and the so-called phantom power draw becomes really evident if you use a Kill-A-Watt [Affiliate] to start measuring the load. Last year I reviewed the SmartHomeUSA's Smart Strip Power Strips which was a great way to automatically cut power to many of your power-sucking peripherals when your computer is off. You could of course achieve similar results by simply manually flipping the switch on your surge protector, but sometimes your surge protector is not placed such that this is easy to do, like on many home theater systems. So today, we are going to look at an alternative solution, called Bye Bye Standby which, in a nutshell, adds a remote control to your power strip. Read more...