Review of the Free Verdiem's Edison Power Management Software for PC's

Edison is a free software download from Verdiem Corporation that is an easy-to-use, effective tool for measuring your individual PC's energy output. After downloading Edison, just use the tabs to schedule your peak hours of use and estimated down time. Edison will use that information to power down when the PC is not in use. If you let Edison know how much your electricity costs you, it will determine your savings and display that as well. The Save More feature will turn your monitor and your hard drive off when Edison registers five minutes of inactivity. After ten minutes of nonuse, the software will suspend your PC. But the best news is that these settings are the energy saving extreme -- Edison offers a wide range of energy output settings, all the way up to 45 minutes of inactivity before your hard drive shuts down. By letting you choose your settings, this software puts you in charge of your PC's energy usage the resulting carbon emissions.

Edison works with either Microsoft Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or Vista. Other than that, here are the requirements:

- Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later

- 256 MB RAM

- 7 MB free hard disc spae

- If NET 2.0 is not already installed, you'll need 280 MB additional disc space

The Edison application begs the question of why users would prefer using its energy management tools over those already provided by Microsoft. After all, you've spent a chunk of money on a monitor, hard disc and accompanying peripherals, all of which have some energy monitoring capacity. The answers to the question of Edison vs Windows power management are twofold: ease of use and amount of user control. When you go into your PC's control panel to change its energy usage settings, you'll quickly see that you can't refine your individual energy usage pattern the way you can with Edison. If, for example, your system is on during the day while you're at work,

Edison will know that you're not on your PC, and it will use the highest energy savings level possible. The range of usage adjustments with Edison are impressive. Users will also be pleased by the ease of use provided by the sliding bars and tabs on Edison's visual display. And the Estimated Annual Savings readout lets you know in dollars and cents what you're saving in energy costs on an annualized basis. Even more impressive is the readout in pounds of carbon dioxide NOT being emitted. This information is bound to win over the most fervent energy-saving consumer.

Statistics on the dramatic consequences of the world's computer usage are popping up everywhere. We're all being made aware that building a PC takes approximately the same amount of materials as that required to build a mid-sized sedan. More than 1 billion PCs populate the earth, most with a lifespan of about three years. Without churning out more depressing stats, suffice it to say that the more we make ourselves aware of our own energy usage, and what we can do to limit it, the better off we will all be. Free apps like Edison, that are consumer-friendly and capable of a high degree of personal refinement, make it easier for us to monitor one facet of our energy output. The result is what we all should strive to be, more conscientious energy users.