Top tips for how to make your iPhone battery last longer!

 
Now we will get practical from a consumer point: lets fix the problem of bad battery life on your iPhone (or even Samsung Galaxy). Getting your iPhone battery to last longer is actually quite easy and only requires a few simple steps and changes in your iOS 7.

The new iPhone 5S for example offers a mere 10 h talktime and internet. The problem in essence here is that your phone will not even last one day.

So lets start with the basics of battery saving:

• Update to the latest iOS. Usually this always includes optimizations in regards to battery life.
• Reduce brightness. Slightly reducing your brightness already helps a lot. Make sure you are at around 40% brightness on iOS 7 and have auto-brightness activated. 
• Use more Wifi instead of 3G/LTE.  Cellular takes a lot of energy and Wifi is much more friendly in that regard. Always join your local office network and possibly even turn data usage off while at the office. You do not need it if you have Wifi!
• Turn off Bluetooth if you do not need it. That's not just more secure, Bluetooth sucks your battery dry. 

 Now some more tips if your still craving for more battery life:

• Turn off a few iOS 7 features you do not need:
• Turn off Airdrop (unless you are sharing contacts daily)
• Do not use animated backgrounds
• Turn off Raise-iPhone-To-Talk for Siri
• Do not enable the auto-update feature. Especially if you are more on-the-go and never in a Wifi network.
• Limit push notifications. Do you really need Shazam and your favorite games to send you push notifications? No! Let Facebook, Whatsapp and mail apps keep pushing you notifications but the rest is just wasting your battery life.
• Do not keep heavy apps open all the time. If you have heavy apps like Skype, Spotify or Pandora installed, just close them if you do not use them. Especially apps which stream things or do VoIP, try to limit their usage and certainly avoid using them over 3G/LTE.
• Recalibrate your iPhone at least once a month. Use your iPhone and let it completely go dry. Then completely charge it in one go without interruptions. This will recalibrate the calculation for the battery life and hence become more accurate.

As a last resort: go into Airplane mode!

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The challenges of implementing green IT

Green IT is become one of the top priorities of CIOs and managers at companies. There are however several challenges that they face in implementing green IT. The challenges vary from difficulty in incorporating a green culture to the ever-growing demand of IT. What are these challenges?

According to Catherine Doran at Network Rail, one of the most important challenges is to incorporate a green culture that motivates the staff to play their part. Also, to consider environmental issues when designing and developing new systems. While this is arguably not easy, there are solutions that do not require a lot of effort. A notable example is the green printing solutions Yashilife looked at a few days ago.

For Steve Lamey at HMRC, it is crucial to influence hardware and infrastructure suppliers of IT equipment to reduce the costs across the entire supply chain. He argues that IT is estimated to contribute 2% of the world's CO2 emissions and its growing exponentially.

A recent study from Microsoft, shows that companies that run their applications in the cloud can reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions by 30% or more rather than running those applications on their own infrastructure.

Steve Wexler addresses the main challenge of Green IT when he explains that the most difficult issue is to establish a measurement and reporting format that accurately and fairly represents data center efficiency which can be easily compared to other data centers. This is currently presenting another challenge to cloud computing as the industry needs to establish agreements on what should be measured and how often.

It is expected that sooner or later every organization will go green, and cloud computing will play a major role in this.

If you want to stay updated on the latest trends in Green IT, please follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

Now or never - Green Printing & Future

While green IT is mostly about bigger technologies, there are also small tools that can help a business, or even a consumer, to be more efficient and more green.

Nowadays, the average daily web user prints 28 pages daily, as a result 115 billion sheets of paper are used annually for personal computers. All these result in the high paper usage as a result cut of trees. For instance, the average American uses 18 cubic feet of wood and 749 pounds of paper - equal to a
100-foot tree with an 18-inch trunk. Each year and taking account that each tree provides enough oxygen for 3 people, we are literally "printing away the oxygen" of our children.

Most people consider that these facts are huge threat but they can not do anything to stop it, but indeed you can. Green Printing (GP) provides you opportunity to be the "superman" of the future.

GreenPrint is a software that helps you identify and eliminate print waste before it is printed, thereby dramatically reducing print volume as well as associated costs. In addition, this gadget measures print volume for both on- and off-network printers, identifies cost savings opportunities and enables better print management over time. Besides, GP enables you to use low cost printer options, so at the same time you can get both ecological and financial benefits .

If you are on the "right" side , then watch the link bellow and start printing greener:

Even a simple software solution like this can provide value to a company. Most notably, costs are being saved by reducing paper waste. This is breakthrough innovation on a remarkably simple level.

The benefits are clear: save costs and save time. You do not have to waste time trying to think how many pages you can save by printing double paged or which page you can skip because it is just advertising. This is done by the software automatically. As a result, less paper waste and costs saved there. This certainly helps the environment more than adding a "please consider the environment before printing" message at the bottom of every email.

This technology does not have any implementation problems, as shown in the video. It has a problem though. It does not get rid of the actual problem of people still printing.

Nevertheless, GreenPrint is a great technology that deserves its rightful spot in the world of green IT. Download and start using it!

If you want to stay updated on the lastest trends in green IT, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook.

How Energy Control Systems Curb Emissions

While much of the focus on reducing environmental impact has been placed on converting to renewable energy sources, some have overlooked the importance that IT systems can play. Reducing impact by improving efficiencies is a more cost effective way of cutting emissions without requiring as much investment. In fact, correct power management is one of the most powerful tools that green IT has to offer. This alone makes green IT a number one reason for businesses and management to implement.

To be able to cut energy uses and achieve greater efficiency, one must know exactly the energy supply and demand of their system. This approach has created the need for IT systems that can show real time data and use it to forecast energy needs in the future.  Simply put, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

At the University of Iowa, an Energy Control Center was created with IT systems that would allow the university to monitor their power plant production of steam, electricity, and chilled water and relate it to the demands of the buildings on campus. This central system allows weather forecasts and building energy levels to forecast how much energy production should be brought on or offline in the power plant.

The Control Center is not just a way to save money and energy, but also a learning tool that allows the public to access campus buildings’ energy usage at any given time. It is one demonstration of how many organizations around the world are looking to IT departments to help them become greener.

There are obviously some challenges to this approach. By predicting patterns, things become very aligned to usual procedures. If however anything out of the ordinary happens, problems could occur. Stronger storms or unexpected colder weather could threats like that.  Taking electricity produced through an atomic reactor as an example, if suddenly more energy is required, the reactor would require at least a day to increase production again to meet the demand. Usually, this results in blackouts until then. As with every challenge though, this only represents an opportunity to improve further.

Similar energy analytics software examples include ERACS and ZEUS. They provide the same benefits to businesses who have high energy usage: pattern analysis, need recognition and output optimization and suggestions.

In conclusion, energy control systems are a form of business intelligence and analysis. By learning from usage patterns one can reduce costs and optimize resource allocation. This is a great business value proposition, not just to energy producers, but also to companies that require a lot of energy. Analyzing and adapting leads to correct power management. In turn, this becomes a correct implementation of green IT.

If you want to stay updated on the latest trends in green IT, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. 

High in the sky: kites for electricity

Green IT, or IT in general, has one major problem: its power supply. Where is the energy source? Dirty coal or something more innovative? Maybe we should give kites a try:

The love affair between kites and electricity have gone back since the time of Benjamin Franklin‘s pioneering theory of electrical fluidity. Fast forward to the 21st century and latest innovations in green technology have utilized the power of the kite to generate electricity through wind power. Wind energy is the second largest renewable resource after solar energy.

The higher the altitude the higher the energy source. Wind at higher altitudes are a major source of renewable energy. Wind turbines can only span to 300ft in height, while kites can in fact fly much higher. The aerospace engineering department of the Technology University in Delft, have an altitude record of 9,740 meters. According to Roland Schmehl at TU in Delft : "With a 25 square meter sail like that we can produce enough energy to cover the needs of 40 households, with less environmental impact than a conventional windmill and at reduced costs," Kite wind generators are also cheaper to produce as they require less material.

The constant tugging of the kite against its tether creates a pumping motion, similar to a piston in a car’s engine. The action produces mechanical energy which can then be sent into the grid or stored in a battery.

With the growing need for renewable energy it is no wonder everyone wants a piece of the trend. Google acquired Makani a Kite Power Company this May 2013. This a good start for big companies like Google, to pave the way for sourcing cleaner energy to manage their large server farms.

Opportunities are being made in Advance Emerging Markets with the example of UK based start up - Kite Power Solutions, exploring opportunities in Brazil. They aim to launch their patented two kite wind generators to tap into two markets. First market being in mineral extraction where remote power is required using diesel generators and the second being offshore wind.

Wind power is definitely a key player in the world of renewable energy. Although Kite wind generators have a long way to go before it can be fully commercialized, this simple childhood toy presents a promising key to the future of renewable energy and our future.

The important key takeaway here is that while green IT needs to be implemented in businesses, it is also about the innovation for finding novel and new solutions to providing energy. After all, without electricity there is no IT at all.

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Why Green IT can be a competitive advantage for your company?

    

Throughout the last years, there have been many initiatives regarding business environment.

What's in it for you? 

Green IT can help your company increase its reputation and brand image. It is a clear competitive advantage in today’s business environment. This would increase sales as consumers are becoming more and more green oriented. Apart from this marketing effect, there are several internal effects that can have a huge benefit. Examples include: more efficient resource allocation, saving production costs or increased product longevity.

New technology - Cost saving benefits

IBM reports states that there are several initiatives for companies to participate in Green IT. For instance, it will be possible for your company to decrease electricity use, consumable use and expenses on hardware.

An example of green IT would be server room upgrades. By updating your server your company will be able to decrease energy costs and enhance effectiveness of cooling systems. Moreover, from an environmental point of view your company will be more efficient in terms of its use of energy watts, which enters the server room.

Furthermore, according to IBM “most of our carbon footprint – 50 or 60 percent of it – is cause by employee travel". The rise of fuel cost has made companies realised that they need to find new tools of communication. Companies have access to video conferencing and teleconferencing facilities, which reduces travel costs and meets employee satisfaction.

Using the examples from above, such as more efficient resource allocation, allows you to save costs. If you know that by using exact prediction models you can predict demand and supply, you can buy at the right moment and use exactly those resources needed. The necessity of storage space would therefore disappear.

We will look at how these benefits affect your business, in the coming articles on Yashilife.

The challenges

Obviously, new technologies will be a challenge to implement. There will be organizational and process changes and there will be resistance to them. It is therefore more than essential to understand the benefits that green technologies can offer and how that can positively influence your business model.

We are looking forward to keeping you informed about this interesting topic and let us engage you in the world of green IT as well. Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook as well.

· "IBM Says Green Spending Lets Companies Save Long Term | TechWeekEurope UK." TechWeekEurope UK | Enhancing business with technology - in association with eweek.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2013. <http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/news-it-infrastructure/ibm-says-green-spending-lets-companies-save-long-term-3021>.

· "Green IT in your company." . Ministry of science technology and innovation, n.d. Web. 8 Oct. 2013. <www.digst.dk/Styring/~/media/Files/Styring/Groen%20it/Green%20IT%20in%20your%20company%20-%20ideas%20and%20inspiration%20for%2 >.

Why Green IT should be blogged about?

Following a year with record heats, multiple deadly hurricanes and typhoons, the environment is showing more and more its true colors and the effect of global warming. It is time that the environmental focus that has captured most of our industries, notably the car industry, shifts to the information technology world as well. This is why we have decided to create this blog, Yashil, to inform the world about the latest advancements in green IT and where there are still areas of great improvement.

It is worthy to start mentioning why green IT is actually important. In many ways, greener IT is linked to cleaner energy production. This however is another topic of heated discussion (see a very interesting short documentary by DeutscheWelle) and we would not like to focus on that. The focus is to make sure that the IT in itself becomes considerably more green. After all, our inefficient and high usage of IT just aggregate the demand for primary energy sources such as oil and electricity. This is why, greener IT is very important.

A study by McKinsey showed that big data centers, the massive backbone of our new economies like Facebook or Google, will produce more greenhouse gases by 2020 than the entire airline industry. Considering around 20 000 airplanes in the air at any given point in time and a per-airplane fuel consumption of 4 liters per second, we see the sheer size of the problem. IT, which is not green, will completely out-dwarf any industry we currently have. The inevitable conclusion is that our IT systems have to become a lot cleaner!

It is about finding high impact, cheap and novel solutions that keep our world comfortable but make IT much greener. All this has to play in tandem between being economical, environmental and social.

On the one hand, consumers have to become more conservative in their energy consumption. On the other hand, businesses and management also need to adopt an environment of greener IT. This goes from anything like saving costs to optimizing output. It is about managing power wisely, storing data securely and environmentally, efficiently managing processes and data and keeping up the great rate of technology advancements.

Green IT has to move to the business world and with Yashlife we will be exploring the advancements and concepts of that topic.

We are looking forward to keeping you informed about this interesting topic and let us engage you in the world of green IT as well. Please follow us on Twitter and Facebook as well.