Power Issues: Government, Monitors, and Laptops

The Geeks talk about phantom power draws, monitors that take no power in standby, Obama promises a CTO, and Lyle orders a laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project. These stories and more while we take your calls and comments.

Monitor Draws Zero Power In Standby

A new range of Fujitsu Siemens monitors [don’t draw power during standby|http://www.pcw.co.uk/personal-computer-world/news/2202970/computer-monitor-zero]. The technology uses capacitors and relays to avoid drawing power when no video signal is present.

Obama to Name CTO

The CTO’s mandate would be quite different from the Cybersecurity czar appointed under the Bush Administration. Bush’s czar helped defend against cyberattacks. [Obama’s CTO|http://venturebeat.com/2007/11/13/exclusive-barack-obama-to-name-a-chief-technology-officer/], by contrast, would ensure government officials holds open meetings, broadcast live webcasts of those meetings, and use blogging software, wikis and open comments to communicate policies with Americans, according to the plan.

OLPC Give One Get One Program

Between November 12 and November 26, [OLPC|One Laptop Per Child] is offering a [Give One Get One|http://laptopgiving.org/en/index.php] program in the United States and Canada. During this time, you can donate the revolutionary XO laptop to a child in a developing nation, and also receive one for the child in your life in recognition of your contribution.

!Useful Links

[Smart Powerstrips|http://www.smarthomeusa.com/Shop/Hardware-Cable/Item/LCG1/]
[100 Tbps connections |http://www.digitalworldtokyo.com/index.php/digital_tokyo/articles/terabit_class_fat_pipe_delivers_online_movies_in_an_instant/]

!! Shawn from Loveland, CO

Asked us about personal management applications. We suggested taking a look at [Apple’s Productivity Tools download list|http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/], and Lyle suggested looking at [PersonalBrain|http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/personalbrain.html] and you might also enjoy [MINDMAP|http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/productivity_tools/conceptdrawmindmap.html], good luck.

Shawn also asked us about getting to minimized windows using the keyboard only.

[wtich|http://www.manytricks.com/witch/] is an Apple OS X application that shows you a list of windows that you can select..
Judith from Watsonville, CA, suggested using the shortcut to get to your dock, ctrl+F3. You can then use your keyboard arrow keys to move around. (On a laptop this will probably be ctrl+fn+F3, because of the laptop hardware keys.)

! Lyle Works DANM

The [Digital Arts and New Media|http://digitalarts.ucsc.edu/] is an interdisciplinary masters of fine arts program at [UCSC|http://www.ucsc.edu/] that has a focus on technology.

[Sharon Daniel|http://arts.ucsc.edu/sdaniel/] has an art piece called [Palabras_|http://palabrastranquilas.ucsc.edu/] which uses very inexpensive video cameras and a website to help people tell their stories.

Michael Dale and Aphid Stern created [MetaVid|http://metavid.ucsc.edu/] which allows you to search congressional video footage.