Love the site, but one suggestion :)

Hello everybody! I'm really loving the new site, and I know it's going to be a huge hit. I've learned a lot from everyone over at EcoModder, and am hoping to do the same here.

I did have one suggestion, however, that I just came across and posted to at EcoModder.com. I noticed that this being an eco-friendly site for your home, doesn't include a dark skin as an option. I think it would be an easy step to saving energy in your home, and not necessarily making it the default theme for the site, but like I said, having the option to have a dark theme to save energy (along the same lines as Blackle. I mainly use my computer at night (off-peak power hours )in the dark, have a dark background, black windows, and Firefox theme, with the brightness as low as it goes, and a bright screen glares quite a bit at night, too

Just my $.02, but I thought I would throw it out there for discussion And again, thanks guys, the site is really great.

[SVOboy]

I've read conflicting reports on whether darker colors really save any energy because of issues with the blacklight and such. Personally, I find overly dark themes ugly and might be scared of visiting my own site, so I think perhaps the best solution might be to waste in order to make the site and its ideas more attractive, but that's really a tricky exercise in utilitarian thought... We'll have to do some more research.

[groar]

Black themes works only for CRT screens, not for LCD screens.

For LCD screens you should lower the backlight. With full backlight my notebook consumes 26W. With 50% backlight it's 23W. With backlight off, it's 19W. I'm using 50% almost all the time.

I'm using Linux and I'm adjusting the backlight settings with the xbacklight application. The screensaver is configured to switch "off" (lowest consumption mode) the LCD. I'm also setting the processor's speed and state with powertop but this is another story for another thread about my computers

Denis.

SVOboy - I didn't mean to turn the entire site dark, or to make it the default skin everyone would get when they came to the site, but offer a darker theme in the "style chooser" at the lower left side of the screen (where Ramadhan and Blue VB are) and just offer it so those of us that would want a darker theme for whatever reason could have it there as an option we could choose Again, just my .02

groar - Sounds like you have it set pretty well. What distro are you running? I have Ubuntu on my laptop, I have it set to turn off the screen after 2 mins, but never leave my computer for that long without closing the lid anyways. I'll have to pick your mind and check out your setup if you make a post about it

[Daox]

I'll add to this. I normally use a 21" crt monitor. It uses 98W with a black background and 120W with a white background. I'm currently reviewing a 22" LCD and it uses more elecricity on a black screen than white! Odd how that works huh? Its a very minimal amount at 42W white vs 45W black, but still odd.

[SVOboy]

Originally Posted by Daox

I'll add to this. I normally use a 21" crt monitor. It uses 98W with a black background and 120W with a white background. I'm currently reviewing a 22" LCD and it uses more elecricity on a black screen than white! Odd how that works huh? Its a very minimal amount at 42W white vs 45W black, but still odd.

Interesting point. I wonder what percentage have what type of screen these days.

[knowbodies]

Originally Posted by Daox

I'll add to this. I normally use a 21" crt monitor. It uses 98W with a black background and 120W with a white background. I'm currently reviewing a 22" LCD and it uses more elecricity on a black screen than white! Odd how that works huh? Its a very minimal amount at 42W white vs 45W black, but still odd.

Look for one with the EnergyStar logo. I just put my Viewsonic 22" LCD on my Kill-a-Watt and it's drawing ~17W.

[Daox]

Yeah, after I tweaked the brightness it brought it down to 20W. Pretty drastic difference!