Inquiring minds want to know

2. Katherine from Montreal urged us to change the background for our website to black, as this saves energy. We considered this, but it apparently only saves energy on the old CRT screens (the big ones), whereas it actually uses more energy on many LCD monitors (flat screens). And since the flat screens now dominate the market, we opted against this. Thanks to Darren Yates over at Techlogg for testing 27 monitors to figure this out.

3. David was reading our article on Energy Vampires, and asked if turning the power off at the power bar means that the surge protection is still on (his house has older wiring and he doesn’t want his sensitive electronics to get fried).

Turning the power off at the power bar (or unplugging) is the best form of surge protection, and is definitely worth doing during lightning storms. Many power bars (i.e. the cheap ones) don’t have a built-in surge protector, and in the ones that do, the surge protector can actually wear out over time.