Many of you have seen the news about Lucille Pitts retiring.  For those of you who haven’t, Lucille retired a few weeks ago after serving Catawba County for 65 years.  Most of us can’t imagine working for one employer for that long and even more amazing, most of us were not even born when Lucille came to work in 1944.  That fact started me thinking about the technology and changes that Lucille had experienced during her employment with Catawba County.

 Lucille worked in the Register of Deeds office and you can look at records from 1944 that were recorded in Lucille’s very neat handwriting.  Through the years things progressed and records were scanned, digitized and everything transferred to electronic format.  From writing to complete records delivered online, from interoffice mail to email, from turning on the lights in the morning to booting up a dozen or so workstations and connecting them to the network, Lucille did it all.  Yes I hear she didn’t really like email to start with but she learned to use it and mastered what she needed to do her job.

So as Lucille worked away in the Register of Deeds office, how did the world change?  The list below contains some of the inventions and technologies that came about during Lucille’s time with us. Some reflect major inventions, some minor but life changing and some are just for amusement.  They are listed in chronological order and some are hyperlinked to give you more information.  Enjoy the changes that occurred while Lucille served Catawba County.  And for those folks that tell me the world is changing to fast and they can’t understand the new technology, trace the timeline, Lucille had already worked 50 years before she learned to use email.  Unless you can break that record, you are still young enough to learn so dig into the new technology…….

The Lucille Pitts Technology Timeline 1944 - 2009

The kidney dialysis machine, Atomic Bomb, microwave oven , Polaroid Camera, Mobile phones invented, transistor, Tupperware seal , electric Guitar, Frisbee, Velcro, Wurlitzer jukebox, Cake mix, credit cards, UNIVAC 1, Super glue, Power steering, video tape recorder (VTR), Mr Potato Head, bar codes, diet soft drink, hydrogen bomb, Heart-lung Machine, Radial tires invented, musical synthesizer, black box - flight recorder, Transistor radio, the pill, Teflon pans, solar cells, McDonalds, Nuclear Submarine, Optic fiber, computer hard disk, hovercraft,  Liquid Paper, Polio Vaccine, Fortran, Explorer I, computer modem, the laser, Hula Hoops,  integrated circuit, pacemaker,  Barbie Doll,  microchip, halogen lamp, Valium, nondairy creamer, audio cassette,  fiber-tip pen, Spacewar, silicone breast implants, video disk, Operating Systems, Acrylic paint, Permanent-press fabric,  BASIC,  Minicomputer, Astroturf, Soft contact lenses, NutraSweet,  compact disk,  Electronic Fuel, handheld calculator ,  Automatic Teller Machine, computer mouse,  first computer with integrated circuits, RAM (random access memory), Moon Landing, arpanet (first internet), artificial heart, bar-code scanner, Optical Fiber, daisy-wheel printer,  floppy disk, dot-matrix printer, food processor,  liquid-crystal display (LCD),  microprocessor, videocassette,  Pong,  word processor, Gene splicing,  ethernet, disposable lighter,  Barcode. post-it notes, liposuction,  Microsoft, laser printer, push-through tab on a drink can, Magnetic resonance imaging, VisiCalc, artificial heart Jarvik-7,  Gossamer Albatross, Cell phones, Cray supercomputer,  Walkman,  hepatitis-B vaccine, Space Shuttle, MS-DOS, IBM-PC, scanning tunneling microscope, Human growth hormone genetically engineered,  PC named Times Man of the Year, Soft bifocal contact lens, virtual reality, CD-ROM, super-conductor, Synthetic skin, disposable camera, 3-D video, Disposable contact lenses, Graphic User Interface, Digital cellular phones,  RU-486, Doppler radar,  Prozac, genetically engineered animals,  Indiglo nightlight, High-definition, Hubble Telescope, World Wide Web, Internet protocol, HTTP, WWW, HTML, digital answering,  smart pill,  Pentium processor, HIV protease, Java, DVD, Web TV,  fuel cell, Viagra, Tekno Bubbles, Segway,  Artificial liver, Self-cleaning windows iPod, Braille Glove, Wireless headsets, Mars Rover, virtual Keyboard, Breath strips, iTunes Music store, Digital guitar, hydrogen fuel-cell generator, camera phones, Prius, Infrared Fever Screening System,  Glowing fish,  Adidas 1, Translucent Concrete, Jawbone, GPS and more, YouTube, hypoallergenic cats, steam clothes dryers, Gorilla tape, iPhone, Ford/Microsoft Sync, Chevy Volt, $4 Gas, Camera pill, Blackberry Storm, Facebook, and Tweeting everywhere, not to mention the tanking economy, and last, a president holding press conferences on YouTube.

By the way, I’m not sure about Lucille and Twitter but rumor has it she was tweeting from the George Strait concert.

This morning I attended an exciting meeting at the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce. This meeting was the first meeting of the Future Economy Council.  So what makes this council different and exciting?  Catawba County has always been pro active in looking to the future and what we need to do to meet the challenges.  However, changes in world, cheaper labor in other countries, and the current economic situation has left us questioning how we position ourselves as a community.

Danny Hearn started the meeting by showing the latest version of Did You Know to the group.  If you have not seen this video, you need to watch it carefully and think about the implications for the future.  It is clear that the world has changed significantly.  Part of this is the result of the technology we have today and the power that goes along with it.  Part is the move to a global society as opposed to local. Part is due to rapid change that allows for the next big advancement to happen before we even know about the previous one.   

The council will have a lot of work to do.  Areas that they will be addressing include: Building capacity for community transformation; How we understand the world and how we relate to each other;  How we think and how do we educate and learn so that our citizens and their children can enjoy a good quality of life;  What type skills do our leaders need and how do we govern in this new world;  The list goes  on but the major discussion will center around how we understand and work within a global economy.  To be competitive, to be relevant, Catawba County must have and continue to have these discussions.

In closing, I noted a few words used in the material.  They include alternative, creative, innovative, collaborative on, non-linear, adaptive, transformative and diversity.  Over the past year I have given a lot of presentations on Web 2.0 and about Digital Natives.  Seems these terms come up a lot when we talk about our youth and the social networks they are using to communicate.  To encourage our youth to live and work here in the future, we must understand and embrace these words and the concepts they represent.

Last week I attended a meeting about Green Initiatives.  The discussion started with what Catawba County is doing now to promote “Green” and I think we should be very proud of things that came out in the discussion.  For a current list, you can go to http://www.catawbacountync.gov/greena.asp.

Next we discussed carbon footprint.  From WIKIPEDIA - A carbon footprint is “the total set of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an individual, organization, event or product”.  For more information and resources about carbon footprints, you can visit the Green Team Blog on our website.

So what is my carbon footprint? Following the links on the Green Team Blog, it led me to www.carbonfootprint.com .  Using their calculator, my carbon footprint for the year is 27 tonnes, a little higher than the 20.5 tonne average in the US.  Not sure why except that I really got a lot of negative points for driving a 10 year old car.  There are a number of ways to offset the footprint so maybe the trees I planted last summer will help.

But this is a technology blog and the survey didn’t ask me about my computer and all the tech gadgets that we Americans carry around.  How do they add into the carbon footprint formula?  Doing searches using my favorite search engines did not reveal much about the carbon footprint of my computer or my Blackberry but it did reveal that every search I performed created between 0.2 grams to 0.7 grams of CO2.  That’s a big range and highly disputed but the fact is, every search you do on the Internet adds CO2 to the atmosphere.  Scientist do agree that power and cooling requirements for data centers in the US contribute about the same amount of CO2 as the airline industry.  That is a fact that I found surprising.

For all of you with mobile devices like Blackberrys and IPhones, there is an application that will actually keep track of your carbon footprint as you move around day to day.  A UK company has created a mobile phone application called Carbon Diem that uses GPS to track your carbon footprint. The GPS tracks the speed you’re moving at, and from that information, the software figures out if you’re walking, driving or in a train or airplane, and estimates fuel use accordingly.

Whatever technology you use, the point here is, we all generate a lot of CO2.  That’s the bad news, the good news is there are ways to offset the amount of CO2 that we generate.  Watch our web page, especially the Green Team Blog, to find out ways you can make a difference.

It is always a challenge trying to predict the future and a real danger in writing down what you think may happen in the coming year.  It is however, the role of the CIO to peer into the crystal ball and try to determine what changes may occur and how to address the changes in the most responsible way for the citizens.  Local governments have a special challenge addressing the many diverse functions and services they are expected to deliver and at the same time, taking advantages of new technologies.  Here are some areas that bear watching in the New Year.

• The Economy: Everyone knows the economy has sufferred and that revenues will decrease. But this could be an optimum time to make changes to the organization. It is a good time to quit looking at the way things have been done in the past and focus on how they could be done better in the future. It is a good time to review programs that need to be discontinued but a few people insist on keeping them. It is a good time to negotiate everything with vendors. Let them know that budgets are being reduced and their services may be discontinued if they are not willing to renegotiate items such as service contracts and maintenance agreements. It is a good time to invest in new technologies that provide for a lower total cost of ownership. The economy will be a major player in 2009, how we respond should be proactive and not reactive. It is up to us to make the best decisions for our citizens.
• Obama’s Technology Plan: With presidential changes come new plans and opportunities. President elect Barack Obama has released his technology plan and there could be positive opportunities , as well as challenges, for local governments. Highlights of the plan include: High speed Internet available to “all of America”, Electronic medical records, Net neutrality, Government data online in universally accessible formats, a Chief Technology Officer, and higher level of technical literacy to the classroom. Local government needs to pay very close attention to high speed internet opportunities. America’s infrastructure is falling behind other countries and this may provide the funds to improve that infrastructure. Two areas that may prove challenging are the electronic medical records and the universally accessible government data. While both of these are going to provide great services to citizens, making them a reality is going to take a lot of time and resources.
• Virtualization: This has been on the list for the last few years and will continue to grow. Virtualizing the server environment offers many positive returns on investment. It allows for maximum utilization of resources while reducing the physical number of boxes needed to maintain services. It also provides a better path for disaster recovery in that setting up and maintaining redundant sites is easier and less costly. Virtualization also allows for government agencies to reduce their power and cooling requirements thus becoming part of the green IT movement.
• Virtual Desktop Interface: VDI brings virtualization to the desktop. Citrix has brought applications to the desktop for years but VDI goes a step further. Using a client on the computer, the user can choose an operating system and an application. VDI requires a good connection to the backend equipment but can run on machines with very little computing power since most of the processing takes place at the backend.
• Less Techs in the Field More on the Back End: This is a result of virtualization and VDI. If all of the applications and operating systems are running on the backend and very little on the user machine, there is less to repair in the field. This shifts the technical support to the backend. Don’t count on this to reduce the cost of staff. While the number of techs may decrease the skill level on the backend will increase requiring higher compensation.
• eDiscovery and Document Management: Government has always produced a lot of documents and a lot of electronic data. How to store all of the documents and data is a continuing challenge and will keep document management in the forefront. Adding to this challenge, local government is just beginning to realize the impact of eDiscovery. Providing the tools to search and retrieve data will be an area that must be addressed.
• Email Archiving: Email archiving is related to eDiscovery. Once documents are requested, how do you find them and make sure that they are not erased? This provides a place for all emails to be stored, searched and retrieved for as long as retention laws require. A secondary benefit of email archiving is better storage utilization. The process only stores one copy of an email and the attached documents.  For instance, if an email that was sent to 500 employees with two attachments would result in three files being stored rather than 1500 files.
• Data Deduplication: Storing data requires a lot of disk space. Many of the documents that local government produces are duplicated several times. For example, a file sent to all department heads who in turn store their copy on the network drives. Data deduplication scans through the stored files and reduces the number of copies of a file to one. Thus reducing the amount of storage space needed.
• Mobilization: The more mobile that a workforce becomes the more agile it is in responding to the public. Mobile workers offer benefits in terms of savings in office space and in terms of time in the field. Mobile workers now have access to everything they had in the office. This allows them to complete their tasks with the information they need and submit information back in real time. It also allows the organization to be flexible with work schedules. This is an area that will continue to grow rapidly.
• Green IT: Local government must be a model for purchasing and recycling green products and IT’s role in this can be significant. Local government should be recycling all of the obsolete electronic products that are being discarded. None should be going to the landfill. Soon, purchasing computers made from recycled material will become a priority as manufacturers move more to green IT products. Reducing energy cost in data centers by moving to a virtual environment, encouraging users to reduce printing and to shut down idol machines all will be steps to go green.
• Disaster Recovery: Disaster recovery has always been a priority but the methods are changing. As storage becomes cheaper and with everything connected and software being offered as a service, more vendors are going to be offering to store your data or a copy of your data as part of the maintenance agreement. This is good for small operations that may not be able to build redundant systems but it is also great for all in that it moves data to a remote site. This offers both flexibility and security for your data.
• Is it Really a Phone: Today’s new mobile devices are so much more than phones and should be viewed by officials in a different light. So much information can be sent and delivered via a phone today that their true potential is only limited by our imagination.
• Social Networks: Local government sometimes shy away from Web 2.0 concepts and social networks is one area where that is especially true. Most avoid social networks because of things they have heard, not because of true facts. In reality, local government should embrace the tools of social networking. Sites like Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube provide opportunities for local government to share information and ideas at almost no cost. They provide a good area to recruit new employees and to involve young adults in government. Internally, tools like SharePoint, provide a place to carry out all phases of projects in a very open and user friendly environment.
• More Government Information Being Shared: We are just beginning to realize the power of taking data and combining it with another source like Google maps to create a product. As tools become easier to use and companies see the potential for selling the information, local government will be asked to provide more data. Requests for this data will not be a one a year data build but a continuous real-time requests. Systems need to be designed with this in mind.
• Customer Experience as Opposed to Customer Service: Local government has always prided itself on providing good customer service however, that may no longer be enough. The next level is the customer experience. For example, when I went online, I did not just find my tax bill and see that it was correct but I expected the experience to be good as well. This is tough to do in our business but expected in a world of high competition and online services.
• Security, Risks and Compliance: Virtualization, virtual desktop interface, email archiving, data deduplication, mobilization, data stored by vendors, phones that reach out and touch, social networks and other Web 2.0 tools, more information being shared, and let’s not forget the users with all types of USB devices. Need I say more? Security will be a challenge.

Terry L. Bledsoe

Chief Information Officer   

Catawba County Government

PO Box 389,  Newton, North Carolina 28658-0389

CIO Blog http://enewsletter.catawbacountync.gov/ITC/?page_id=36

TBledsoe@catawbacountyNC.gov      Visit Our Website

One of the pleasures of my job is occasionally having the opportunity to work with the Catawba County Youth Council.  The Youth Council is a standing committee of the Catawba County Board of County Commissioners.  It is comprised of student representatives from each of the high schools and representatives from community organizations.

During a meeting in the Fall, I asked them about some of the features on our website and how we could improve it.  I asked if they would be willing to review the site and give me some thoughts. A young lady responded, “I didn’t know that you would want my opinion.”  I asked why she thought that I would not want her opinion and she responded by saying the nobody ever asked youth about government and they felt that their involvement was not really wanted.

This statement reflects a real issue with citizen engagement, or at the very least, a real communication breakdown.  This particular young lady was not old enough to vote but her ideas about government are forming and will definitely influence her in the future.  The fact is that our youth have a lot to offer local government besides a vote.  They see things in different ways. They have different perspectives on everyday issues. They question things that adults have quit questioning even though they know things could be better.  They bring creativity to the table.  They see the environment and earth’s resources as their future.  They live and breathe the new technology and use it in ways that older adults never imagined.

Does their opinion matter?  Yes! Local government can learn so much from the youth in the community and we should take every opportunity to do so.  They are our future, but working together in the present will take the journey to new heights and lead to a better future for all.

You can visit the Catawba County Youth Council’s Facebook Group at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30409116365&ref=ts   

You can visit the Catawba County’s Facebook page at: http://www.new.facebook.com/pages/Newton-NC/Catawba-County-North-Carolina/25829482210?ref=ts

So you like your cell phone.  You’ve had it for years.  You know how it works and you are comfortable with it’s features.  That’s great but if it doesn’t have the latest cell phone tracking technology, then you may want to consider a new phone.

A recent call to the Catawba County 911Center illustrates the point.  The telecommunicator that received the call did not get a response when he asked what the emergency was.  There was just silence.  After repeatly asking and trying to get a response, silence.  Finally, a faint moan, “Help me”.  No address, no identification, no information. Where is the caller?  Fortunately, the call was from a cell phone, a new cell phone and with the new technology the telecommunicator was able to locate the position within a matter of feet.  EMS, fire and rescue were dispatched to the location where a lady was found in a car having a seizure. Another few minutes and she would have died. 

Older cell phone technology does not provide for this kind of accuracy in locating the caller.  It locates based on tower location and that can cover a large area.  So even if you really like that old phone, you may want to consider retiring it for newer technology, it could save your life.

For more information about the technology used in your cell phone, contact your provider and ask about how they can locate callers and how accurate your phone tracks your location.  Also ask them what information is sent to the 911 Center in case of an emergency. Below you will find another story about a cell phone saving a person’s life. 

NC Woman saved by 911 call from car trunk

KERNERSVILLE, N.C. - A North Carolina woman who was kidnapped at gunpoint and forced into the trunk of a stolen car has been found safe, thanks to the GPS tracking of her cell phone.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported the Kernersville woman was kidnapped early Wednesday by two men in a residential area.

Forsyth County sheriff’s Maj. Brad Stanley said the woman called 911 from the trunk, which allowed authorities to use GPS data from the call to track the general location of the car.

Without that call, Stanley said authorities would have had no information to go on in the search.

A Kernersville police officer tried to pull the car over, but the driver sped away. The car was later found crashed in a driveway in Kernersville. The suspects had fled, the woman was found unhurt in the trunk. Her name hasn’t been released. Information from: Winston-Salem Journal, http://www.journalnow.com

 Catawba County now has a page on Facebook and a Twitter page. Why you ask? Distributing information to the public in the past has been through TV, radio, and newspaper.  In recent years our website has been added to that toolbox.  But young members of our community may never see those sources.  Checking Facebook reveals that thousands of people in Catawba County have accounts and use it on a regular basis. Most of the information on this site is being created automatically from our homepage through RSS feeds.  Other information is being added by staff.  Examples include our work at Habitat and the video for the United Way.  Special features of Facebook allow us to send information to fans of the page. Facebook fans recently received information about the early voting locations and will receive information next week about the hazardous waste drop off.  

Our website also includes a connection to Twitter.  Twitter allows us to send text messages directly to cell phones.  The Twitter site receives all of our RSS news feeds and my CIO Blog feed.  This allows our residents to receive information automatically without having to visit our website.  

To visit our Facebook page go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Newton-NC/Catawba-County-North-Carolina/25829482210?ref=nf. 

To visit our Twitter page go to http://twitter.com/catawbacounty .

In 2000, Catawba County, in partnership the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, applied and was awarded a Homeland Security grant to construct a communications tower in the Northern part of the County.  This tower was to expand the NCSHP’s VIPER system in the western part of the state and to provide an upgrade path for future communications systems in Catawba County.  This upgrade path included better coverage and service for the VHF system and interoperability with the state and surrounding counties via the state’s 800 MHz system.  In addition to the grant, the County agreed to provide land in the Riverbend area to construct the tower.  In May 2008, Commissioners approved deeding a plot of land on Riverbend Road to the state.

In September 2008, the State began construction of the tower by pouring the footings.  In October, assembly of the tower began and is nearing completion.  Once complete, radio equipment will be mounted on the tower and installed in a small equipment house at the base of the tower.  No time frame has been given by the state for completion of this part.

The construction of this tower is part of the build out of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol’s VIPER system.  The VIPER system is a shared radio network that provides for interoperability across the state.  Catawba County is currently using the VIPER system on a limited basis to provide interoperability and better coverage to several agencies.

With the construction of the tower, Catawba County has complete coverage across the County on the NCSHP’s VIPER system.  Catawba County can then use the VIPER system as an upgrade path for the radio system.  This path will provide for better service using 800 MHz radios, it will also provide interoperability with surrounding counties and across the state, and will use towers and equipment maintained by the NCSHP.

When tragedy strikes, the first person to respond is a telecommunicator. In the following seconds, decisions are made that can mean the difference between  life  and death. At the same time, information is transferred to public safety professionals,  who also have only seconds to respond. Whether responding to a crime, an accident, or a health emergency, seconds can literally be the difference between life and death.

It is Catawba County’s responsibility to make sure the 911 Center is properly equipped to ensure telecommunicators have the right information to make the best decision and the tools to relay the information to responders.

 To help meet these demands, Catawba County is implementing Automatic Vehicle Location using GPS technology.  This will allow telecommunicators to instantly locate and dispatch the closest unit to the call using a real-time vehicle tracking system.  Currently, EMS, fire and rescue are dispatched by the nearest base.

Once a call is dispatched, information will be sent to the responding unit containing the address, phone number, and onscreen mapping of their current location and turn-by-turn directions to the scene of the incident.  This reduces the possibility of missed turns and ensures the shortest route is taken, thus reducing response times.

GPS and AVL technology also offers a new degree of safety for personnel in the field.  Law enforcement officers are in constant motion and go into some very isolated areas, often during the night.  If radio contact is lost, it could require substantial time to locate these personnel.  With AVL, the location of the unit is known at all times.  If the unit does not respond, backup can immediately be sent to the location.

AVL is part of a complete mobile package that allows field units to be integrated with the 911 Center and with other databases.  Supervisors can monitor units from any other mobile units and notify units by audio and visual signals.  Call-related information and alerts may include fire information, medical information, subject information, vehicle information, hazards, images, warrants, geographic information, building schematics and more.  Field units can access in real time the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and the Records Management System (RMS) to  obtain information on suspects.

In addition to obtaining information from the system, field units can complete and submit reports to the system.  This allows them to be in the field longer,  thus providing more service to the public.

None of us want to be the reason for a 911 call but in reality, all of us will use the service sometime in our life time.  The new tools being implemented by Catawba County ensure that you will receive the quickest response possible with the best information available.  That truly could mean the difference between life and death.

Green is the “IN” color this year.  It seems everyone is talking about ways to conserve energy and our natural resources.  And we should be talking about conservation.  Energy usage is at an all time high and so are the costs associated with energy.  It is up to all of us to do our part and IT is a good place to start.

So what can one person do?  As an individual, it seems whatever we do will not make a difference.  But let’s apply Web 2.0 concepts of collaboration, community, openness, and trust to the effort.  By sharing green practices with all our friends we build that community and by being open and trusting with the community, it will in turn respond with other green practices that we can use.  Using the power of working together, all of the little things we do add up and can have a huge impact on the resources that we are now consuming.

Below are some small ways that you can change IT habits to save energy.  Please share these with your friends and colleagues and let’s watch the solution grow.  They work at home or at work so share them everywhere.  If you have other suggestions, please pass them back to me in an email or the comments section of this page.  Together, we can make a difference.

My Green IT Checklist:

1.    Unplug phone chargers, iPod chargers, GPS chargers and other chargers when not in use.   Each of this type of charger continues to drain small amounts of energy even if the device is not plugged into them.  If you don’t want the bother of unplugging them, hook them all to a power bar and turn it off when you are not charging equipment.

2.    Turn off you computer if you are going to be away for an extended time.  Especially, overnight.  In the past, you may have been instructed to leave your computer on overnight, mainly to avoid signing back on the network the next time you used it.  We no longer need to think this way.  Actually, shutting the computer down properly and then bringing it back up has advantages.  So turn it off when you are not using it.

3.    Turning the computer off saves energy but don’t forget everything attached to it.  Be sure to turn off the monitor, the speakers, the printer, the scanner, and even the paper shredder.  A good test is to look back into the room after you turn the lights out.  If you see any LCDs, you may need to turn it off.

4.    Don’t be a “Virtual Packrat”. Don’t store something just because you can.  Data storage has become very cheap to buy, however, it takes energy to store and maintain data.  When you read something on the Internet, don’t store it because you may use it again in the future.  This is especially true at work where your data may be stored on network drives.  Power consumption for data centers has been increasing at an alarming rate and storing something just because you can, requires more hard drive space and thus more energy.

5.    Don’t print just because you can. Most information that you have on your computer can be read just as well on the screen. Think before you print and ask yourself the question, “Do I really need a paper copy?”

6.    If you are a presenter and usually give your audience a copy of your presentation, think about using a web service like SlideShare.net .  They can view the actual presentation and if you want, give them permission to download and view.  YouTube works great for videos and Flickr for photos.  The web gives you a great place to store information and a great place for your participants to view it without printing it.  Please remind your participants that they should avoid becoming the virtual packrats, they can read it online so don’t worry about storing and printing a copy.

7.    Be sure your computer monitor and hard drive are set to sleep mode after 15 minutes.  This is an easy step that costs nothing.  Refer to your manual for this.

8.    Speaking of the monitor, if you are still using a CRT monitor, replace it with a new LCD monitor.  This costs less to run and you will gain space on the desktop.

9.    Check energy consumption on all purchases.  When buying any technology look beyond the price and look at the continuing cost of ownership.  One computer may be priced attractively but consume a lot more energy for the same processing power.

10. Technology has become part of our lives but remember, at times you need to turn it all off and enjoy time without it.