Twitter has been used for lots of experiments, both useful and just for fun. [FIRESTORM_v1] sent in his project that falls under the useful category. When he wanted a way to monitor his server’s power statistics, Twitter was a logical choice. Similar to the Tweet-a-Watt, he wrote a script that posts messages from APCUPSd to a Twitter account that he follows, and gets the updates on his phone. [FIRESTORM_v1] documents all of the scripts he used and the steps to get your server up and tweeting.

salam

I saw various headlines refer to the punjab budget with incorrect figures and call it a surplus budget, then i went to other newspaper sites on the internet and found the budget to be spent at 489 bn and not as stated 314 bn. On app, the amounts that are stated are 489 bn spending, i have noticed that punjab government got money in at 420bn in taxes and share of government awards for 2009 -2010 and spending 489 bn for 2009-2010. Please can any news agency in pakistan not put rubbish figures in their reports, percentages and call things surpluses if they are clearly not. The punjab budget is a deficit budget and is being used to raise revenue by spending on development and extending services.

Any budget should be easy in terms of government spending and how much the government is getting back in taxes. My wish was that pakistan would spend less than it received as taxes and not put itself in deep shit.

Then use aid money to create jobs in education, health and roads in nwfp and other provincea, introduce co2 and road worthiness tests for vehicles, give a tax break for new machinery and spending by companies on their own supply source of electricity in terms of solar and wind power. The government should start a solar panel and wind power building industry in pakistan. Pakistan would produce goods regardless of power problems, new jobs would be created and the country would earn more money from changes.

allah hafiz

salman jafri

Funding Source: Department of Energy
Funding Type: Discretionary
Total Available: $50 Million
Award Ceiling: $10 Million
Deadline: 07.21.09
Eligibility: Unrestricted

Description:
The energy used by our nation’s vital telecommunications and data centers is growing at an alarming rate. As information technology and communications services continue to slowly converge, the data center and telecommunications industries face increasingly similar challenges to control the power usage of their microprocessors or servers and supporting power and cooling systems. The electricity consumed in data centers and telecom systems is already three percent of the U.S. total and growing rapidly. In the face of growing global energy demand, uncertain energy supplies, and volatile energy prices, innovative solutions are needed to radically advance the energy efficiency of these systems, which represent the engine of the American economy today. Enhanced energy efficiency in the central offices and data centers supporting our information, communications technology (ICT) systems will enhance U.S. energy and economic security. This Funding Opportunity Announcement seeks to develop new technologies to dramatically improve energy efficiency in ICT with an the emphasis on new technologies that can be commercialized within the next three to five years, and to demonstrate through field testing highly energy efficient, emerging technologies that are ready for or are in the initial stage of commercial introduction.

Is there anything Google doesn’t or can’t do? It’s a search engine. A photo editing program. A blog service. A social network. A chat service. A Web browser. A cell phone. Now Google is a way to save the world…sort of.

Under the alias Google.org (I assume so no one confuses it with all other things Google) the founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided they wanted to save the world. If you want to read more about how Google.org was started click here.

Okay so Google wants to save the world. Good. How are they going to help do that?

A new Google program called Google PowerMeter.

The program is currently being beta-tested by Google employees. Essentially Google PowerMeter allows you to see your power consumption from your computer. And so far the testers are praising PowerMeter. One program manager claims PowerMeter saved her apartment.

One morning I noticed that my energy consumption was higher than normal. I went into the kitchen and found that the dial on our toaster over was stuck and had been on all night. It was already burning and the once white exterior was now brown. If I hadn’t seen my energy consumption and known where to look, my apartment could have been toast.

Kirsten, Program Manager

Another tester claims he was able to save $3,000 because of PowerMeter. For more reviews click here.

The one thing that Google is a big advocate of are “smart meters.” To utilize PowerMeter you need to have a smart meter. There are only 40 million smart meters in use world wide with another 100 million to be added over the next few years, according to Google.  I know for a fact Middletown, Pa is equipped with smart meters.

You can join the mailing list to keep up-to-date on PowerMeter

Here’s a video on PowerMeter.

I doubt this has a whole lot of utility for the home — unless you happen to live in a really, really big place — but for larger buildings the tech sounds very promising.

From the Technology Review link:

Air-conditioning units and heating systems are examples of power-hungry equipment that regularly switches on and off in commercial buildings. When these devices are all switched on at once, power consumption spikes, and a building’s owners are left with hefty peak-demand charges on their electricity bills.

A startup based in Toronto says that it has come up with a way to reduce energy use by mimicking the self-organizing behavior of bees. REGEN Energyhas developed a wireless controller that connects to the control box on a piece of building equipment and functions as a smart power switch. Once several controllers have been activated, they detect each other using a networking standard called ZigBee and begin negotiating the best times to turn equipment on and off. The devices learn the power cycles of each appliance and reconfigure them to maximize collective efficiency.

The goal is to avoid everything coming on at the same time without sacrificing individual performance. The devices work through this problem using a “swarm algorithm” that coordinates activity without any single device issuing orders.