Cardinal Chronicle
BY MICHAEL PEÑA
In the current economic climate, every little bit of savings helps. The university stands to save $200,000 per year thanks to an energy-efficiency program running on almost 7,800 Windows PCs throughout campus. The program is a feature of BigFix, an operating system patch management service launched by IT Services. Those PCs now running the Power Management feature represent one-third of the more than 22,000 computers across campus with BigFix installed, so there's potential for even more savings. How does this look at the department level? SULAIR, which has almost three-fourths of its 700 PCs on the Super Green setting, is looking at annual savings of $25,750, according to the latest numbers from JOYCE DICKERSON, Stanford's director of sustainable IT. One of the recommended Power Management settings has the program turn off your monitor after 15 minutes of inactivity. More information is available at http://www.stanford.edu/services/bigfix. There, Apple computer users can find instructions for installing BigFix for Mac OS X.
Speaking of Computers—consider that a segue and a name drop—the e-newsletter for the academic community recently ran an article describing how Stanford staff and faculty can now try out WebEx for videoconferences and virtual meetings for free during a one-year pilot phase. WebEx Meeting Center software allows desktop and application sharing, integrated audio-conferencing and simple video for basic meetings. In January, only 112 minutes of usage were logged. But that jumped to just over 9,400 minutes in February, according to NOEL HIRST, director of budget and facilities for Business Affairs and sponsor of the Work Anywhere project. If the amount of activity on the first day of March continues at that pace, Hirst said usage could reach approximately 15,000 minutes this month. Information on other Work Anywhere tools is available at http://workanywhere.stanford.edu. The WebEx site is at http://stanfordconference.webex.com.
In another cost-cutting measure, the Diversity and Access Office has announced that Multicultural Springfest, the staff-appreciation picnic traditionally held in May, has been canceled due to budget reductions in various sponsoring departments. The office nonetheless thanks all the departments and individuals who have volunteered their time and energy over the past 14 years to make Springfest a success. The office also encourages staff to continue recognizing diversity at Stanford by participating in staff groups. They are listed at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/diversityaccess.
Write to Michael Peña at michael.pena@stanford.edu or mail code 2245.
Share This Story