Four Easy Ways to Green Your Laptop

The laptop computer has become one of the most commonly used electronic devices. Laptops simplify our lives by letting us work (and play) on the go. However, the ubiquitous laptop consumes a lot of energy, which damages the environment. Luckily much of the energy a laptop uses is not spent on the tasks you are accomplishing, but rather on needless, sometimes damaging, processes and function.

As such the following are some easy ways to green your laptop while at the same time extending the real life of your laptop's battery.

Adjust your power options.

The first is the simplest. Go to your Laptop's Windows Vista start menu. Select 'Control Panel' and select 'power options.' Your laptop should provide three power options Performance, Energy Saver, and Recommended. By switching your laptop to Energy Saver, you will reduce your computers processing power, but decrease the amount of energy your laptop uses. I know what you are thinking - 'I don't want this laptop to run any slower than it already does.' Do not fear. The other recommendations both decrease the energy usage of your laptop and free up extra processing power. The net result will be a laptop which runs faster, longer.

Clean out your auto-run programs.

Take a look at the taskbar running at the bottom of your laptop. Near the clock there is a list of programs which begin automatically running whenever you start your laptop. Some of these are necessary, your mouse pad for example, but some of these are not. Programs you download often have a 'start at start up' option automatically selected, which causes your laptop to run unnecessary programs 24/7. In the future always deselect this option. For now right click on the programs you do not need to be running on your laptop all the time. Go to the programs control center and turn of 'start at start up.' Some programs do not want to let your laptop go, once they have gotten a hold of it, and will give you no option to modify 'start at start up.' For these, you can uninstall the program and upon reinstallation deselect the 'start at start up.' If the program does not give you this option, it may be malware.

Remove all malware and spyware.

In addition to stealing information off your laptop, malware and spyware programs constantly running in the background use a tremendous amount of your laptops processing power and energy. There are many good anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on the market, which can help clean out those unwanted programs on your laptop. Regular scans should be done at least once a week for active internet users.

It's time for Spring Cleaning.

Much like the ancient clothes that clog our closets, we often keep programs on our laptops which we haven't used for years and will probably never use again. Many of these programs may be auto-updating or accessing our CPU without us ever noticing. Take a few hours this spring to go through your laptop and remove the programs you haven't used in over a year. Simply go to your Laptop's Windows Vista start menu. Select 'Control Panel' and select 'Programs and Features' and uninstall any unnecessary program.