GREEN COMPUTING

We all know that these days everyone is trying to make the world better and to help preserve the environment.  Now there is even ‘green computing’ that is helping with the reduction of energy that computers use.  A definition of green computing from the website I found online that is also attached is ‘the study and practice of efficient and eco-friendly computing resources, is now under the attention of not only environemntal organizations, but also businesses from other industries.  It has been found that going green is good for their public relations AND  it also reduces cost  – so it’s a win-win solution!

Green technology is very keen on reducing the environmental impact of industrial and innovative technology on the Earth because it is expanding so rapidly.  Some of the ways that have been introduced for technology are: sun, wind, water, sugar and others.

Computer viruses

Unfortunately there are many computer viruses that can affect  anyone’s computer.  Anti-virus companies are noticing a major jump in the purchases of their software. 

There are SO many computer viruses: Zotob, Mytob, Netsky, Sober, Gibe, and Mydoom to name a few.  The most reported computer virus is Netsky.  Sadly, more than 90% of computer viruses are undetected!  There are about 60,000 different viruses out there at this point. 

A well known virus is called The Sassar Worm, which cost about $500 million worldwide.  That is devastating.

Some good news is that some virus creating people are being arrested so the virus cannot be a harm to any more computers.

Optical Scanners in the Election!

What an exciting election…  I sure hope you voted!

Optical scanners were brought into some states polls and over 1 BILLION dollars was poured into the new voting machines.  On voting day, almost 90% of voters cast their votes optically or electronically also known as DRE (Direct Recording Electronic) devices.  Only 11 counties out of 3,117 will be using punch cards for the election.

There are some downfalls to this new electronic voting, as with everything.   Some machines crashed, memory cards will be unable to be read, touch screens will flip votes,  and the software will have glitches as well.   However, the University of Missouri study in 2004 that for punch- cards ballots, the error was just an impressive 1%.

In 5 states in America, there were problems reported with optical scanners.  The states were Florida, S. Carolina, Ohio, Washington DC, and New Jersey. 

Also, please take a look at the last website to see 10 ways to unfairly influence an election!

http://blogs.eweek.com/on_the_mark/content/campaign_2008/ten_ways_to_unfairly_influence_an_election.html