Information and communication systems account for about 25% of electricity consumption in offices. In offices that have dense use of IT systems or if inefficient systems are deployed, the figure may rise as high has 70%. The following can be done to reduce electricity use by your IT systems:

• Activate sleep/hibernate/standby mode on PCs, laptops, printers, scanners, screens, etc.
  
  
• Review documents and emails on screen instead of printing them. If you do need to print, save paper by printing on both sides or on recycled paper.
  
  
• Do not leave IT and electrical systems running during weekends or overnight.
  
  
• Choose less brightness on screens. Use LEDs instead of LCD, plasma or CRT as LEDs use very less electricity.
  
  
• Activate printer, scanner and other devices only when you need to use them.
  
  
• Reduce lighting in room for better screen visibility. This will allow you to use less brighter screens.
  
  
• Use shared printers, scanners and other devices. Use virtualization to decrease use of computers.
  
  
• Use Green IT peripherals to reduce electricity use.
  
  
• Change in IT service processes may also reduce electricity usage. E.g By eliminating waste, redundant or inefficient process, you can save electricity and other resources.

These are some of the best tips to go green. Do you have something in mind on how to go greener? Please do share it with others by commenting in the comments box below.

Also read:

• Things You Can Do to Reduce CO2 (Carbondioxide) Emission
• Alternative Energy Systems Available for Homes

Do you often purchase air tickets online? How to buy cheaper air tickets online? Have you ever noticed that while checking air fare on different dates on the airline website, the fare drastically changes and goes up in seconds or minutes?

Perhaps you think that fare has quickly changed because people have just booked seats. It is true that lesser the seats, higher the fare. So, anyone booking an airline ticket online will see rapidly increasing fare while looking at seats on different dates and by changing destination, date or time of the flight - all this contributes to higher fare being displayed on the screen even if there is no change in seat availability.

Why Does this Happen?

Of course, it seems to be unfair. The airlines try to fetch more money from the one who they (their intelligent website) think that he/she really needs to buy a ticket and might buy the ticket at that time or within the same hour. The website monitors our activity on the website and if spend good enough time on the website by looking at different tickets, browsing different dates, time, etc, the site has built-in mechanism to increase the airfare.

Can I Prevent Airline Website from Increasing the Airfare?

Yes, you can. There is an easy way to fool the website into thinking that you haven't been on the website for long or that you haven't been browsing through tickets on different dates or times.

Whether you use Chrome, Edge or any other browser, it has a safe browsing mode, often called as Incognito mode (Image at right shows how to open Incognito browsing mode in Chrome). When a website is opened in Incognito, the website can not track and record our browsing activity on that website. This results in the airline website always considering you as a fresh site visitor and thus shows you the lowest fares possible at all times.

Give it a try next time you will buy an online air ticket and enjoy lower fares.

Liked the above tip? Leave a comment below letting others know your experience.

The recent rise of technology has influenced our lives down to our very cores. As Smartphones, tablets and TVs and other electronic devices have taken their place as essential tools in our lives, it has become ever harder, even close to impossible, for us to function without them.

Working Tools?

But what effect have they had on our life aims and personal goals? The first thought is that as these devices are designed to help us, they make it easier for us to get what we want. Sure it is very convenient to have dictionary, a calculator and the most powerful search engine ever, all in one device when we are studying. The power of these Smartphones is such that you have access of vast swathes of information on a tap of a screen.

Where on one hand, technology has made it easier for us to work or study; it has had side effects too. For example, I cannot help but think that if I hadn't had my PlayStation with me in my school days, I would have spent more time studying, or at least I would have done some more productive things.

Technology's Two Faces

It is easy to judge PlayStations and gaming consoles as hindrances towards work, study and goals but it is harder to judge Smartphones or personal computers. Where these devices can be used for playing games or watching movies, they are perfectly suitable to work on too. A person with Smartphone and internet connectivity should be more productive than someone without these tools.  But it provides distractions too. You would think that I am just going to play this game once or I will just check my Facebook wall for one second and you will end up having wasted a precious hour. A person without these perks will surely have lesser tools to work with, but he will also have lesser distractions. And distractions make minds wonder and the productivity falls to ever lower levels.

Sure technology is very attractive as a working tool but on the other hand, it also makes people waste their time. If someone is very determined to work and very focused on it, then a Smartphone in his possession is a fabulous working tool. But for a lazier person who is sitting and trying to study, a Smartphone in his hand will take all his time with zero gains.

iOS vs Android

Over the past decade, Smart-phones have only increased in value and assisted thousands of professionals from important projects to the most basic tasks. The permeating value of smart-phones and their day-to-day applications cannot be ignored as they have great influence on daily routines and business matters.

Today the most common operating system technologies used in smart-phones are iOS (iPhone operating system) and Android operating system. Well the choices between apple iOS and Android depend upon various factors that user value. Let's measure both of them with features which users care about the most.

Ease of Use

• In terms of ease, most of the users will agree that iPhone is the first choice. Android has come a long way and has improved a lot but with respect to ease of use perspective iPhone takes the cake. Android phones consist of a lot of buttons and a home screens too.

Candidness

• With respect to openness, Android takes preference as it is open source, and most users prefer openness in terms of what can be done with the smart-phone. Android market offer variety of apps, majority of them are free as well.

Battery Consumption

• On the basis of battery timing, iPhone is what you actually want. In fact Android devices support a lot of features that is why the battery life is low. Well Android phones vary in terms of battery timing but overall they have less battery time with compared with iPhone.

Keyboard Optimization

• The keyboard of iOS software is appreciably better than the Android's keyboard, but in terms of a system-wide search, both iPhone and Android search out more or less same things. Android devices just cannot search emails

Sync Features

• The synchronization feature of iPhones is traditional one as it requires users to plug in connect to iTunes, while this should be done wirelessly. Android phones or Android tablets have excellent syncing feature supported by Google, and it continues to work even if you old smart-phone has been lost. But iPhone's voice text feature is superb and works much better than any of its counterparts.
  
  
• At last but not the least, Android operating system is better than iPhone because it can convert your device into a Wi-Fi hot spot which can actually provide Wi-Fi connection up to 7 buddies.

Conclusion

It is really hard to decide which is better iPhone or Android. An important indicator for choice between then is Apps: The apps make the phone, after all! Though number of apps available at apple store is tremendously high than Anrdoid apps but a lot of them are crap too.