Saturday, January 31, 2009

Mitsubishi i MiEV electric car in Australia

Mitsubishi i MiEVAccording to a media release, Mitsubishi will be demonstrating their i MiEV electric car in Australia. So called "key stakeholders and decision makers" will be given a drive of an electric car "for the first time". I have already driven an Australian made electric car, but have asked Mitsubishi for a test drive, when theirs comes to Canberra. The i MiEV is an electric version of their petrol engine Mitsubishi i small car. Such retrofits of very small cars have been technically successful, but a marketing failure in the past. The problem is that customers what to show they have an environmental vehicle and that very small conventional cars are already efficient. Toyota's Prius has been a success because it looks different to Toyota's petro cars and is not too small.
"... Do we have sufficient sources of renewable energy to re-charge these cars in growing numbers? Do we have the infrastructure in place to enable full utilisation of electric vehicles? Are the incentives in place to encourage the early adoption of this cutting edge technology? These are the sort of issues that need to be addressed now, in order to create the market and the rationale to bring these cars to sale in this country.

Following display of the i MiEV in February at the Melbourne International Motor Show, Mitsubishi Motors will be moving this ground-breaking technology around the capital cities of Australia in a motorcade of public demonstrations, specialist briefings and individual drive experiences for key government officials, fleet managers, environmental opinion leaders and the media.


Later in the year we will build on this initial exposure program with a diverse range of longer term trials of the i MiEV in government and private fleets across the nation.

With this i MiEV program, Mitsubishi Motors Australia Limited (MMAL) will be seeking to prove to key stakeholders the true viability of this cutting-edge technology, and in doing so lay the foundations for the proposed sale of the vehicle in the Australian market.


The vehicle As one of the company's initiatives for reducing global warming and dependence on fossil fuels, MMC plans to bring the i MiEV electric vehicle to market in Japan in 2009.

i MiEV utilizes a large-capacity lithium-ion battery system and a compact, high-output electric motor in place of the traditional gasoline power train. ..."

Friday, January 30, 2009

EcoButton Energy Saver Gets Mixed Reviews

EcoButton Energy SaverThe EcoButton is a large backlight button which you plug into a computer via USB. Press the button and the computer is put in a low power suspended mode, press it again and the computer wakes up. This idea has got mixed reviews. On the one hand the device doesn't do any more than can be done with built in functions in the computer (my laptop has a suspend/resume button already or you can do the same thing with a few mouse clicks). The device will use extra resoruces to make and use. On the other hand having a dedicated on/off switch, by being simple and convenient, might be used by people who would otherwise leave their computer on. At least this is better for the environment than a USB cup warmer.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Australian Conference on Life Cycle Assessment

The Sixth Australian Conference on Life Cycle Assessment is in Melbourne from 16 to 19 February 2009. Life cycle assessment (LCA), assesses the environmental impacts of products and services. Unfortunately many people will not find out about this worthwhile event, due to the poor web site, so I have extracted some details below to make them more accessible. Also PE Australia are offering a free "Practitioner-Workshop: Using GaBi 4 software and databases for LCA and carbon foot-printing", February 16th, 2 - 5 pm, just accross from the conference.

From the Conference program:
One aim of the conference is to build bridges between different environmental assessment methods that have a sustainability focus. This includes:
  • Life cycle assessment • Life cycle costing • Ecological footprints • Materials flow analysis
  • Triple bottom line accounting approaches • Energy and greenhouse life cycle studies
  • Input Output analysis • Uncertainty analysis in environmental assessment
The conference also aims to provide a forum for sharing LCA experience in different sectors such as:
  • Building applications
  • Waste Management
  • Water issues
  • Food and Agriculture
  • Energy and fuel production system
  • Products and packaging manufacture
Keynote Speakers

Andreas Ciroth studied Environmental Engineering in Berlin, Germany; his dissertation (Dr.-Ing.) in 2001 was on error propagation in LCA. Since
then, he has worked as a consultant and software developer, mostly in scientific projects. ...

Stefanie Hellweg is Associate Professor for ecological systems design at the Institute of Environmental Engineering of ETH Zurich (Switzerland). ...

Hongtao Wang College of Architecture and Environment, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China ...

Bo Weidema has more than 30 years of experience in environmental issues, since joining the emerging environmental grassroots movements in 1972. ...

Optional Workshops

9.00am - 5.15pm: Workshop 1: Introduction to LCA
This introductory Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) course is designed for participants with little or no experience in LCA. The course will provide participants with an understanding of the concepts of LCA including what LCA is, the historical development of LCA, where LCA can be used, and the application of LCAs including steps to undertake a LCA, and how to interpret findings from a LCA analysis.
Presenters: Sean Shiels (EPA Victoria)

9.00am - 5.15pm: Workshop 2: Advanced LCA Techniques
This advanced LCA course is aimed at participants who have experience in LCA. The course will provide participants with a further understanding of market based system delineation, analysis of input output, different environmental valuation methods, toxicology indicators, uncertainty analysis, and new fields for LCA.
Presenters: Tim Grant (Life Cycle Strategies)

9.00am - 12.45pm: Workshop 3: Life Cycle Management
Life Cycle Management is all about how you can make an organisation more sustainable. It is a unique framework of concepts, techniques and procedures promoted by the UNEP SETAC Life Cycle Initiative and various institutions. LCM combines a variety of tools and approaches to look at environmental, social and economic factors that influence the life cycle of products and processes.

This workshop is aimed at business people interested in sustainability and LCA experts interested in broadening the application of their skills. The structure will be:

• Introduction to LCM
• LCM case studies
• Communication of LCM Results
• LCM & Stakeholder Expectations

Presenters: Michael Faltenbacher (PE Australia) and Greg Peters (UNSW)

9.00am - 12.45pm: Workshop 4: Industrial Ecology
Industrial Ecology (IE) is emerging as an effective framework to achieving a zero waste goal within industrial systems. IE promotes enhanced sustainability by stimulating innovations in the reuse of waste materials. The wastes or by-products of one industry are used as inputs in another industry, thereby closing the material loop of industrial systems, while optimising material and energy flows.

If you and your organisation are interested in finding out more about how you can achieve simultaneous environmental and triple bottom line goals, then come and join us for the “Industrial Ecology Workshop”. We will cover:

• What this rapidly evolving concept is all about;
• What initiatives are already in place internationally and nationally;
• How LCA can play a vital role in IE systems;
• How an LCA coupled IE system can help companies turn regulatory compliance into innovation;
• Case study examples drawn from an emerging IE network in Australia.
Convenors: Viviane Clément and Tom Davies (Edge Environment)

1.30pm - 5.15pm: Workshop 5: Greenhouse Gas Accounting
This workshop is aimed at participants who are interested in making their products or the service they provide greenhouse neutral.

Each step of the process will be discussed and will include:

• The LCA process - the system boundary, time period, what activities need to be included, what data is required, greenhouse gas emission factors and the quantification of emissions.
• The verification process and what this involves.
• How to go about offsetting your emissions.
• Gaining and maintaining certification for your greenhouse neutral products/services.

Examples will be given and there will be plenty of opportunity for participants to ask questions.

Presenters: Jean Wiegard and Lisa Opray (JTP Australia)

Tuesday, 17 February 2009
8.00am Registration
9.00am - 12.30pm Opening Plenary: Challenges for LCA
9.00am Welcome
9.20am Australian Challenges, Industry Perspective
Glenn Simpkin
9.40am Making LCA More Relevant
Stefanie Hellweg
10.00am China’s Progress and Plans for LCA and LCI
Hongtao Wang
10.20am Session Discussion
10.30am Morning tea
11.00am Globalisation of LCA Data. Why LCI? Benefits to Business Tim Grant
11.20am Ecoinvent, Future Developments Bo Weidema
11.40am Open Source LCA: Earthster and Other Developments Andreas Ciroth
12.00pm AusLCI - Summary of Progress to Date Alastair Woodard and Greg Foliante
12.30pm Lunch
1.30pm - 3.00pm : Parallel Sessions 1A and 1B

SESSION 1A: LCA, CLIMATE AND THE BUSINESS RESPONSE
1.30pm Australia Post Adam Tennant
1.50pm The State We’re in: Global Corporate Response to Climate Change and the Implications for Investors Duncan Paterson
2.10pm What Role will Greenhouse Gas LCAs Play in an Australian Emissions Trading Scheme? Jean Wiegard and Tim Grant
2.30pm The Internal Greenhouse Gas Emission Trading Scheme at EPA Victoria Krista Milne and Louisa Perrin
2.50pm Session Discussion

SESSION 1B: INTEGRATING LCA WITH OTHER TOOLS
1.30pm Convergence of LCC and LCA Andreas Ciroth
1.50pm Total Cost Assessment - Using TCAce to Support Decision Making in Water Industry. Tim Grant
2.10pm Cost as an Independent Variable in Whole of Life Engineering Mingwei Zhou and Yong Bing Khoo
2.30pm Life Cycle Costing Analysis to Improve Operations and Supply Chain Management of Green Electronic Products Hui-Ming Wee, Ming-Chang Lee, Jonas Yu and C. Edward Wang
2.50pm Session Discussion
3.00pm Afternoon tea
3.30pm - 5.00pm : Parallel Sessions 2A & 2B

SESSION 2A: IMPLEMENTING LCA IN ORGANISATIONS
3.30pm LCA and Carbon Neutrality Assessments: Monetary Implications of Information Unavailability and Uncertainty Mary Stewart and Rob Rouwette
3.50pm Life Cycle Assessment. The Basis of an Innovative Partnership in the Tourism Industry Simon Whitehouse, Andrew Moore, Nicci Whitehouse, Michael Faltenbacher, Alexander Stoffregen
4.10pm Quantification of Life-cycle Carbon Emissions for Australian Retail Property - A Comparison of Methods and Results Caroline Noller and Colin Reay
4.30pm The Driving Factors Behind the Increasing Interest of LCA in Packaging Design Karli Verghese and Ralph Horne
4.50pm Session Discussion

SESSION 2B: INTEGRATING LCA WITH OTHER TOOLS
3.30pm Sustainability Tools for the Chemical Industry Juin Majumdar, Vandit Bhasin and Margaret Jollands
3.50pm The Importance of a Life Cycle Approach in Designing for Sustainability Krista Imberger
4.10pm Industrial Ecology in NSW Vivienne Clement
4.30pm Social impact Assessment in LCA Bo Weidema
4.50pm Session Discussion
5.00pm Welcome Reception

Wednesday, 18 February 2009
8.30am Registration
9.00am - 10.30am : Sessions 3A & 3B

SESSION 3A: CONSTRUCTED ENVIRONMENT
9.00am BPIC ICIP Construction LCA Database Nigel Howard
9.20am Life Cycle Energy and Greenhouse Emissions of Building Construction Assemblies: Developing a Decision Support Tool for Building Designers Robert Crawford
9.40am Application of Ecological Foot-printing to Australian Retail Property - A Case Study of Outcomes from Rouse Hill Town Centre Caroline Noller and Colin Reay
10.00am Whole of Life Impacts of a Building: The Effect of Incorporating Thermal Mass in LCA Mary Stewart and Rob Rouwette
10.20am Session Discussion

SESSION 3B: AGRICULTURE
9.00am AusLCI progress in Agriculture Marguerite Renouf
9.20am Use of LCA Methodology for Greenhouse Gas Footprinting of New Zealand Dairy Farm Systems from Cradle-to-farm-gate Stewart Ledgard and M Boyes
9.40am Life Cycle Assessment in Plant Breeding: An Example Using Porridge Oats from the UK James McDevitt
10.00am Life Cycle Global Warming Potential of Sub-clover, Ryegrass, and Wheat Production in Three Adjacent Plots in Victoria Wahidul K. Biswas, Michele B. John
and John Graham
10.20am Session Discussion
10.30am Morning tea
11.00am - 12.30pm : Sessions 4A & 4B

SESSION 4A: CONSTRUCTED ENVIRONMENT
11.00am The Greenhouse Implications of Using Wood Products and Alternative Building Materials in the Construction of Two Popular House Designs in Sydney Fabiano A. Ximenes
11.20am Product Sustainability Ratings: The Future is Here David Baggs and Delwyn Jones
11.40am Sustainability Aspects of Constructions Based on Clay Roof Tiles and Bricks: The Environmental Pillar Theo Geerken, Carolin Spirinckx and An Vercalsteren
12.00pm Sustainable Building: The Search for an Integrated Method to Evaluate the Sustainability of Different Dwelling Types Theo Geerken, Carolin Spirinckx and An Vercalsteren
12.20pm Session Discussion

SESSION 4B: BIOENERGY
11.00am Greenhouse Gas Sequestration by Algae - Energy and Greenhouse Gas Life Cycle Studies Tom Beer, Peter Campbell, and David Batten
11.20am Life Cycle Assessment of Biodiesel Production from Moringa Oleifera Oilseeds Wahidul K. Biswas and Michele B. John
11.40am The Econo-Enviro-Energy Return (3‘‘E’’s R) Mourad Ben Amor and Réjean Samson
12.00pm Modeling What Happens - Biofuels Case Study in Consequential Aalysis Tim Grant, Tom Beer and Peter Campbell
12.20pm Session Discussion
12.30pm Lunch
1.30pm - 3.00pm : Parallel Sessions 5A & 5B

SESSION 5A: LCA AND DECISION MAKING
1.30pm Green Purchasing for Organisations: Development of an LCA Based Tool to Enable Quantification of the Benefits of Greener Purchasing Scott McAlister and Ralph Horne
1.50pm Supporting Statutory & Strategic Decision-making with Life Cycle Management: A Regulator’s Perspective Sean Shiels and Sally Jungwirth
2.10pm Earthster, Purchasing Decision Tool Andreas Ciroth
2.30pm LCA - Looking Beyond the Project Report Vanessa Lenihan
2.50pm Session Discussion

SESSION 5B: WATER SERVICES
1.30pm Comparative Analysis of Two Decentralised Wastewater Treatment Technologies Using LCA Amanda Binks, Jeff Foley and Paul Lant
1.50pm Greenhouse Gas and Nutrients for the South East Queensland Water Strategy Murray Hall
2.10pm LCA’s Evolution and Integration into Sustainable Business Decisions: A Water Company’s Perspective Francis Pamminger and Rita Narangala
2.30pm Tool for Rapid Cost and Environmental Assessment of Water Servicing Strategies Matthias Schulz, Greg Peters and Hazel Rowley
2.50pm Session Discussion
3.00pm Afternoon tea
3.30pm - 5.00pm : Parallel Sessions 6A & 6B

SESSION 6A: INPUT OUTPUT LCA
3.30pm Hybrid IO Model for National LCI Bo Weidema
3.50pm Using Life Cycle Assessment to Inform Infrastructure Decisions: the Case of Railway Sleepers Robert Crawford
4.10pm LCA of Australian Diets Peter Osman
4.50pm Session Discussion

SESSION 6B: WATER - METHODS
3.30pm Product Water Footprinting: How Transferable Are the Concepts From Carbon Footprinting B. Ridoutt, S. Eady, J. Sellahewa, L. Simons and R. Bektash
3.50pm The Challenges of Using Life Cycle Assessment to Compare Centralised and Decentralised Water Cycle Approaches Joe Lane
4.10pm Water Footprint: the Business Case Peter Holt, Mary Stewart and Rob Rouwette
4.30pm Water Neutrality at EPA Victoria Beth McLachlan
4.50pm Session Discussion
7.00 for 7.30pm Conference Dinner The Observatory Café

Thursday, 19 February 2009
8.30am Registration
9.00am - 10.30am Plenary: Special Session on AusLCI Methods
9.00am Design and Development of a Web-based Life Cycle Inventory Database Yong Bing Khoo, Mingwei Zhou, Julia Anticev, and Rajah Tharumarajah
9.20am Australian Sawmill Life Cycle Inventory Murray Hall
9.40am Setting System Boundaries, Allocation Methods and Functional Units for Australian Agricultural Life Cycle Assessment S.J. Eady and B. Ridoutt
10.00am Data Guidelines for AusLCI Tim Grant
10.20am How to Get Involved in AusLCI Sean Shiels
10.30am Morning tea
11.00am - 12.30pm : Parallel Sessions 7A & 7B

SESSION 7A: PRODUCTS LCA
11.00am Development of EPD Programme in China Hongtao Wang
11.20am ISO 14 024 Based Ecolabelling - Making the Principles of LCA Accessible to Everyday Life Sven Paufler
11.40am Online vs Paper Billing Vanessa Lenihan
12.00pm The Life Cycle Paradigm as an Intrinsic Component of Value Chain Analysis - Case Study, The Yalumba Wine Company Cecil Camilleri
12.20pm Session Discussion

SESSION 7B: METHODOLOGY
11.00am Assessing the Sustainability of Aluminum and Steel Production Using Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment Terence Norgate
11.20am Carbon Balance in Wood Products P. Koltun
11.40am How to Obtain a Precise and Representative Estimate for Parameters in LCA Andreas Ciroth
12.00pm Impact Pathways of Water Use Stefanie Hellweg
12.20pm Session Discussion
12.30pm Lunch
1.30pm - 3.00pm : Parallel Sessions 8A & 8B

SESSION 8A: PRODUCTS LCA
1.30pm Life Cycle Assessment: Reusable and Disposable Nappies in Australia O’Brien, K.R., Olive, R., Hsu, Y.-C., Bell, R., Morris, L., Kendall, N
1.50pm LCA Comparison of an ‘Atmospheric Water Generator’ with a Bottled Water Cooler Naomi Blackburn and Greg Peters
2.10pm Application of the Simplified Life Cycle Inventory for a Product Life Cycle Suphunnika Manmek and Sami Kara
2.30pm An Integrated Production Inventory Deteriorating Model for Short Life-cycle Green Product Remanufacturing Hui-Ming Wee
2.50pm Session Discussion

SESSION 8B: IMPACT ASSESSMENT AND
DECISION FRAMEWORKS
1.30pm LCA and Multi-criteria Analysis Vanessa Lenihan
1.50pm Multi-criteria Methods for the Aggregation of Life Cycle Impacts Hazel Rowley and Greg Peters
2.10pm Biodiversity Metrics for LCIA AusLCI Working Group
2.30pm Introduction to Recommended Practice Guide for LCA in Australia Greg Peters
2.50pm Session Discussion
3.00pm Afternoon tea
3.30pm - 4.15pm Closing Plenary

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Government Funded Broadband for Seniors Web Site Fails Accessibility Test

The Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA) is funding 2,000 Internet kiosks via the "Broadband for Seniors" initiative. This is an excellent idea. But unfortunately, "NEC Seniors" the web site provided by NEC to help deliver the service, failed a basic accessibility test. Given that the kiosks are intended for senior citizens who are likely to have poor eyesight and other accessibility problems, it is unfortunate (and most likely unlawful) that the web site to deliver the service is not built to cater to these citizens.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Kinloch Lodge ANU Open

Kinloch Lodge ANUOn my way back by bicycle from the Australian National Portrait Gallery I noticed that Kinloch Lodge has opened at ANU. As well as student accommodation, on the ground floor this has an Hub Asian Supermarket. This is not due to open until 9 February, but had a handwritten sign saying "soft opening". There is also a Mac1 Computer store in the building.

ICT Management Handbook for Developing Nations

ICT Management Handbook - A Guide for Government officers in Bangladesh, by Gregor, S., Imran, A., and Turner, T.At the lunch for Professor Geoff Walsham, at the ANU National Centre for Information Systems Research (NCISR), Ahmed Imran handed me a brochure for the eGovernment capacity building through knowledge transfer in Bangladesh project (PSLP eGov). This is AusAID funded project to improve transparency and efficiency in the Bangladesh public sector. Two deliverables from the project are the report "A Strategic Pathway to Success" and the training course "ICT Management Handbook - A Guide for Government officers in Bangladesh". Unfortunately I was unable to find a copy of "eGovernment for Bangladesh", but the content of the ICT Management course are provided online.

ICT Management is a 14 hour course. It consists of four modules, each 3.5 hours:
  1. Introduction to eGovernment
  2. The ICT Business Case
  3. Project Management
  4. Managing the Outcome
Presentation slides and additional readings, are provided for each module. Unfortunately the slides are provided as excessively large PDF files (3.8 Mbytes for eight pages).

Environment department used 30 sheets of paper per person per day

The "Triple Bottom Line Report 2003-04" of the Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2004 (ISBN 0 642 55046 8) reported they purchased 14,300 reams of A4 paper. That is 15.08 reams per person per year, or 30 sheets per person per day. They were to conduct a paper audit by end 2005 and establish a data collection system for outsourced printing. Unfortunately this seems to be the last such report put out by the Department. The Australian Public Service might like to set a target for the use of paper for all agencies of no more than one sheet per day per person. It should be possible to monitor this electronically direct from the systems.

Improving the efficiency of office use

Improving the efficiency of central government's office propertyThe UK Government released "Improving the efficiency of central government's office property", 28 November 2007. This found that offices ranged from 13.3 to 21.9 square metres per person and recommended a ‘standard’ of 12 m2 per person. This is calculated from the Net Internal Area (the area within a building measured to the internal surface of the perimeter walls at each floor level), not just the floor space of individual offices. For comparison, The Pentagon was designed for 11.6 m2 per person. Offices are designed with provision for paper storage, and more recently for computer installation. Assuming that most paper is replaced with computer storage and the computer storage is located off site, the size of offices should be able to be reduced by about one third, down to 8 m2 per person. Efficient design of desks should be able to reduce this further in open plan offices.

The Pentagon: A History

The Pentagon: A History by Steve VogelSteve Vogel's book "The Pentagon: A History" provides a fascinating insight into how military projects are funded and the changes which occur in the development of a project. Also the way the building was designed and constructed is of interest. Some of the history of the construction of the building was repeated in its refurbishment after the terrorist attack on 11 September 2001.

Some of the history I found of particular interest was that the pentagonal design of the building derived from the shape of the block of land it was originally planned to be built on. After the location was changed the design was retained, even though the original rationale for the shape was no longer there. The building was designed and constructed as five units. The plans for the units where partly reused on subsequent units.

The building was originally planned as a temporary headquarters during World war 2. To justify such a large and clearly non-temporary building, it was strengthened to be able to be used as the government archive after the war. The result was that the building was much stronger than needed for offices. This, and reinforcement installed shortly before 11 September, resulted in less damage and fewer casualties than would otherwise be the case. It is surprising that conspiracy theorists made nothing of the fact that the aircraft on September 11 struck the centre of the only wing of the building which had been strengthened against attack, that the work had only just been completed and the attack occurred before all the staff had moved back in.

RussellOne piece of trivia which Steve Vogel might like to put in a later edition is that Washington is not the only capital to have a pentagon shaped national military headquarters. The Defence Headquarters at Russell Offices, in Canberra, is made up of two five sided buildings (with central courtyards like the Pentagon). These are appropriately located just behind the Australian-American Memorial.

Optus trialling digital video broadcast to mobile phones

According to a report by Stuart Corner, Optus trialling digital video broadcast to mobile phones. This uses Nokia N96 phones and the DVB-H standard. The trial is providing nine programmes. It should be noted that this technology is not using the Internet, or the mobile telephone network for carrying the video, it uses a 7MHz UHF TV broadcast channel (which can carry up to 30 programmes).

Given that the pubic broadcasters (ABC and SBS) and the Free to air TV stations are not using all the spectrum they have already been allocated for TV, there does not seem to be much point in allocating more spectrum to another rival form of TV. The customers for a mobile phone TV service would assume it is carried over the Internet and provides "on demand" Internet type service, they will be rightly disappointed when they find it is just old fashioned TV. The Australian Government has allowed trials, but not rushed to allocate spectrium for this new service and rightly so as no one is likely to want it.

MSI WindBOX LCD Mounted Nettop

MSI have announced that their WindBOX low power desktop computer (nettop) will be available in the first quarter of 2009. This unit is similar to the ASUS Eee Box. It is a paperback book sized box designed to be clipped to the back of a LCD screen and replace a desktop computer. It is essentially the components of a sub-notebook PC, minus the screen, keyboard and battery.

Just as netbooks have become very popular as low cost replacements for laptop computers, these nettops should become very popular replacing many casual use desktop computers in homes, schools, libraries, cybercafes and offices. If a computer is being used mostly for web browsing and some office applications, then there is no need for a high power desktop computer. The small nettop units will save desk space and reduce security worries. This assumes the units will be priced lower than conventional desktop PCs, just as nettops have been cheaper than laptops. The WindBox is fan-less and while it has provision for a SATA II disk, could operate from solid state flash storage, making a low power and robust unit.

Specifications

CPU TypeIntel® Atom™ Processor
ProcessorIntel® Atom™ N270 1.6GHz (TDP 2.5W)
ChipsetIntel® 945GSE + ICH7M
‧ Memory1 GB/ 1 x DDR2 SO-DIMM 553/667, up to 1 G
‧ Graphic EngineIntel® GMA 950 3D Graphic Engine
Display Port1 x VGA
USB3 x USB 2.0 Port
LAN1 x Realtek 10/100 LAN
WiFi802.11b/a
Audio2 jacks Mic In; Head Phone Out
Antenna1 x SMA Connector (Optional)
Card Reader3-in-1 (SD/MMC/Memory Stick)
Storage 1 x SATA II
ApplicationDigital Signage, Thin Client, Low Cost PC
Power Source DC 20V,40W
Form Factor 180 x 255 x 19 mm, 1.08 Kg
Operating Temperature0°C~35°C
Storage Temperature-20°C~80 °C
Regulatory ComplianceUL, CSA (cUL), TUV, TUV-CB, CE-LVD, CE, FCC Class B, BSMI, VCCI, C-Tick, RoHS Compliant

From: Overview, WindBOX, MSI, 2009

Sustainable ICT in UK Universities

Sustainable ICT in Further and Higher Education: SusteIT Final Report by Peter James  and Lisa HopkinsonThe UK JISC (equivalent to Australia's AARnet, providing ICT services for universities) has issued "Sustainable ICT in Further and Higher Education: SusteIT Final Report" by Peter James and Lisa Hopkinson (14 January 2009). This estimates that UK universities and colleges have 1,470,000 computers, 250,000 printers and 240,000 server, and will produce an electricity bill of £116m and cause 0.5Mt of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2009.

The report recommends ‘Thin client’, distributed/outsourced/shared services, information on life cycle management, sustainable data, consolidation and virtualisation. The full report is 137 pages of PDF (891 kbytes).

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Australian National Portrait Gallery

The Australian National Portrait Gallery was opened in Canberra by the then new Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd on 3 December 2008. The building has an excellent cafe, with an outdoor terrace. This reminded me of Café Blom at the Swedish Museum of Architecture, Stockholm. The bookstore is good, but not great. The most disappointing feature of the Gallery is the web site which has an annoying and dysfunctional splash page with large images. The user has to know to click to get to the useful information, such as where the gallery is and when it is open. The gallery must be loosing a very large number of potential supporters due to this poor web design.

The architect, Richard Johnson of Johnson Pilton Walker, has managed to place a large building unobtrusively into the parliamentary triangle. Unlike the adjacent High Court (which is high), the bulk of the gallery seems to disappear. From a distance it is so unobtrusive as to be hard to find. The building makes good use of concrete (polished lower down) and engineered wood. There is filtered reflected natural light to the exhibition spaces, reminding me of the Delphi Archaeological Museum.

One practical problem is that some of the fire exists in the galleries are disguised in the walls, with only the fire exit sign above to indicate there is a doorway, let alone a fire door. This is a hazard as in the event of a fire those attempting to escape will have difficulty seeing the doorway. The exit sign above the door is not sufficient, as similar signs are used to point to a remote doorway. It is very likely someone attempting to exit in the smoke and confusion of a fire will not see the door at all.

Steve Vogel notes in his book "The Pentagon: A History" on page 484: "... how chaotic and difficult it had been to get out ... Exit signs above the doors had proven largely useless ... The smoke had descended so rapidly that workers in office bays were unable to see any signs and had been completely disoriented ...". Like the Pentagon, the portrait gallery is a government building in a national capital and therefore a potential target for terrorist attack, as well as accidents.

The Pentagon: A History by Steve VogelThe door should be painted a contrasting colour. A tactile strip should be placed around the door to distinguish its edge and allow it to be found by touch. A push plate should be placed on the door to indicate it is a door and where to push to open. While the architect and curator may feel this harms the aesthetics of the blank walls, they may prefer this to defending their decisions in the ACT Coroner's Court.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Global Non-Flat World of ICT

Geoff WalshamProfessor Geoff Walsham, from University of Cambridge, gave an entertaining and informative seminar on "ICTs and Global Working in a Non-Flat World" at the ANU in Canberra, 22 January 2009. Professor Walsham rejected Thomas Friedman's hypothesis that ICT has removed barriers to doing business globally. He argues that cultural issues create barriers to a seamless global workforce and this provides opportunities for research. Professor Walsham referred to his paper ‘ICTs and global working in a non-flat world’. Perhaps going against his hypothesis, it happens that the paper is part of the IFIP Digital Library, provided by the ANU and is part of a volume edited by Catherine Middleton,who talked about broadband at the ANU last November.
This paper rejects the hypothesis of Thomas Friedman that ICT-enabled globalization is driving us toward a flat world. Instead, it is argued that the world remains uneven, full of seams, culturally heterogeneous, locally specific, inequitable, not well-integrated and constantly changing. This argument is supported by an analysis of three areas of ICT-enabled global working, namely global software outsourcing, global IS roll-out, and global virtual teams. The paper then builds on these analyses to put forward an agenda for future IS research on ICTs and global working based on three research themes: identity and cross-cultural working; globalization, localization and standardization; and power, knowledge, and control. The paper concludes that the area of ICTs and global working offers the IS field a major research opportunity to make a significant contribution to our understanding of a set of crucial issues in our more globalized world.

Keywords Flat world - globalization - global software outsourcing - global IS roll-out - global virtual teams - IS research agenda - identity - cross-cultural working - standardization - power - knowledge - control

From: ‘ICTs and global working in a non-flat world’, Walsham, G., 2008, in IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, Volume 267, Information Technology in the Service Economy: Challenges and Possibilities for the 21st Century, eds. Barrett, M., Davidson, E., Middleton, C., and DeGross, J. (Boston: Springer), pp. 13-25.

Cover art for Outsourced DVDProfessor Walsham talked about his extensive experience looking at India. For those who have no experience of this, perhaps the film Outsourced would be a painless introduction to some of the issues. This is a romantic comedy about an American sent to India to train staff in the outsourced call center.

It occurred to me that Professor Walsham's analysis could be usefully applied to carbon trading systems now being set up. This is a complex arrangement of state, national and international ICT systems, involving technical, cultural and legal issues. The Australian Department of Climate Change alone is reported to have 20 new IT projects, with tenders for the CPRS auction platform, architecture, systems integration, financial management, identity/access, business intelligence systems, web portal design and hosting services to be announced a few weeks.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Low cost multi-user computers for education

NComputing X300 desktop virtualization kit In writing about the "Multiseat" Computer, which allows up to 12 people to share one PC, I forgot about the similar unit from nComputing , which was on display at ACEC08. The nComputing unit has PCI cards which is inserted into a PC running Microsoft Windows or Linux and allows it to be shared by three or five people. . The nComputing unit uses Ethernet type cable with RJ-45 plugs to locate the users up to 10m from the PC.

IOGEAR GUC2015V External VGA Video CardAnother option might be to use USB external video cards. These are intended to provide a second screen, usually for a Lpatop, where a PCI card cannot be installed. They would have the advantage that a single standard USB cable could be used to connect the video, mouse, keyboard and audio for the user, making a low cost computer terminal. The catch would be that the USB connection could carry a fast moving high resolution video image. But this might be good for a web terminal, which just displays relatively static web pages. Amazon sell two models of USB external video card from IOGEAR: GUC2020DW6 USB 2.0 External DVI Video Card and the GUC2015V External VGA Video Card.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

My First Blended Course: Part 6

Having decided to create a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my fifth task was to expand the networking content. But another issue which came up with the web design content was how much of AJAX and Web 2.0 to cover. My preference was to leave this out completely, as it is an advanced topic. In some ways, Web 2.0 web pages are not really web pages but are interactive computer applications. However, it might be worth tacking an additional section on at the end of JavaScript: "AJAX and Web 2.0" to introduce the topic.

Another issue is how online to make the course. E-learning is relatively new to the ANU's Computer Science department and a new LMS is to be used. So a cautious approach should be taken. The content will be provided online via the LMS, plus some assessment. However much of the material will be presented face-to-face and there will be conventional lectures and examinations. A student could, in theory, download the material, do the exercises, never attending a lecture or tutorial. They need only turn up for the examinations. However, they would have to be a very motivated student to do this, as these are not designed to be online e-learning courses.

My First Blended Course: Part 5

Computer Networks by Andrew S. Tanenbaum
Having decided on the web content for a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my next task was to expand the section on networking and security.

Previously I had:

NETWORKING AND SECURITY
  1. Networking
    1. Lecture 1 - Introduction to Networks.
    2. Lecture 2 - Network Models.
    3. Lecture 14 - Web Servers, Proxies & Caches.
    4. Lecture 3 - TCP/IP.
    5. Lecture 4 - IP Addresses.
    6. Lecture 5 - Telnet & Ftp.
    7. Lecture 6 - Email, SMTP & MIME.
  2. Security
    1. Lecture 15 - Network Security.
    2. Lecture 16 - Encryption.
    3. Lecture 18 - Web Security.
    4. Lecture 8 - HTTP & SSL.
This is eleven lectures of material and needs to be expanded to about fifteen. The ANU runs a course specifically on Computer Networks COMP3310/COMP6331/ENGN4535/ENGN6535. This uses the textbook Computer Networks ( Tanenbaum, Andrew S., Prentice-Hall, fourth edition, 2003) which is available to the students online. This would therefore seem a reasonable source for some more networking content. Topics such as DNS are relevant to web use. The material might roughly form three sections:
  1. Networking
    1. Lecture 1 - Introduction to Networks.
    Chapter 1. Introduction
    Section 1.1. Uses of Computer Networks
    Section 1.2. Network Hardware
    Section 1.3. Network Software
    Lecture 2 - Network Models.
    Section 1.4. Reference Models
    Section 1.5. Example Networks

  2. Internet Protocols
    Lecture 3 - TCP/IP.
    Lecture 4 - IP Addresses.
    Lecture 5 - Telnet & Ftp.
    Lecture 6 - Email, SMTP & MIME.
    Chapter 6. The Transport Layer
    Section 6.1. The Transport Service
    Section 6.2. Elements of Transport Protocols
    Section 6.3. A Simple Transport Protocol
    Section 6.5. The Internet Transport Protocols: TCP
    Chapter 7. The Application Layer
    Section 7.1. DNS—The Domain Name System
    Section 7.2. Electronic Mail
    Section 7.3. The World Wide Web
    Lecture 14 - Web Servers, Proxies & Caches.
  3. Security
    1. Lecture 15 - Network Security.
    2. Lecture 16 - Encryption.
    3. Lecture 18 - Web Security.
    4. Lecture 8 - HTTP & SSL.
    5. Chapter 8. Network Security
      Section 8.1. Cryptography
      Section 8.2. Symmetric-Key Algorithms
      Section 8.3. Public-Key Algorithms
      Section 8.4. Digital Signatures
      Section 8.5. Management of Public Keys
      Section 8.6. Communication Security
      Section 8.7. Authentication Protocols
      Section 8.8. E-Mail Security
      Section 8.9. Web Security
To this could also be added some of the content from the textbook, Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (Jennifer Niederst Robbins, O'Reilly Media, Inc. 2006):
  • Chapter 4. A Beginner's Guide to the Server
  • Section 4.1. Servers 101
  • Section 4.2. Unix Directory Structures
  • Section 4.3. File Naming Conventions
  • Section 4.4. Uploading Documents (FTP)
  • Section 4.5. File (MIME) Types

Lower ICT carbon emissions video

An unedited video of my presentation "Learning to lower costs and carbon emissions with ICT" for the Computers Off Australia - Green IT breakfast briefing, Hyatt Hotel, Canberra, 20 January 2009 is available in two parts: "First global Green ICT Course" and "Understanding climate science". You can read the slides also. The second part of the video starts at the slide for "Some Green ICT Topics". The video is courtesy of Marghanita da Cruz, Ramin Communications.

Learning to lower costs and carbon emissions with ICT

Tom Worthington FACS HLM

Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University

Designer of the Green ICT Course for the Computer Professional Education Program, Australian Computer Society

For the Computers Off Australia - Green IT breakfast briefing, Canberra, 20 January 2008

First global Green ICT Course

Green ICT

Students learn how to:

  • Estimate the carbon footprint of the ICT operations of an organisation,
  • Assess ways to reduce the carbon footprint of an organisation, by changes to polices for procurement of ICT, changes to the ICT operations and revising business processes.

Business ICT Competencies

  • Strategy & planning
    • Technical strategy and planning
    • Business/IS strategy and planning
  • Procurement & management support

Learning by Doing

Two areas of assessment:

  1. Assignments
    1. Write a report on the carbon footprint of the ICT operations of your organisation
    2. Write a report identify ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your organisation
  2. Contributions to the discussion forums

Some Green ICT Topics

  1. Understanding climate science
  2. The Global ICT Footprint
  3. Enabling ICT: Dematerialisation, smart motor systems, logistics, buildings and grids
  4. Energy saving - Data Centres and Client Equipment
  5. Procurement
  6. Compliance audit

Online References Used

  1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008
  2. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.
  3. Energy Star Program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007
  4. The Personal Computer and Monitors Energy Efficiency Strategy, Tom Worthington, Report and Recommended Plan of Action, prepared for the Department of Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Version 1.0, 23 September 2008

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

My First Blended Course: Part 4

Having decided to create a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my third task was to add some less techncial material on Analysis and Essay Writing, Ethics and Copyright. To do this I created an extra topic after "The Web Environment" for "The Social Environment". Also I added an item on Mobile devices, Writing for the Web and Testing Web Pages:
  1. The Web Environment
    • Chapter 1. Web Standards
    • Chapter 2. Designing for a Variety of Browsers
    • Chapter 3. Designing for a Variety of Displays
    • Chapter 5. Accessibility
    • Mobile devices
    • Chapter 6. Internationalization
  2. The Social Environment
    • Lecture 9 - Topic Analysis and Essay Writing
    • Writing for the Web
    • Lecture 10 - Ethics and the IT Professional
    • Lecture 30 - Copyright.
    • Testing web pages
  3. The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML
    • Chapter 8. HTML and XHTML Overview
    • Chapter 9. Document Structure
    • Chapter 10. Text Elements
    • Chapter 11. Creating Links
    • Chapter 12. Images and Objects
    • Chapter 13. Tables
    • Chapter 14. Frames
    • Chapter 15. Forms
  4. Web Graphics and Media
    • Chapter 28. Web Graphics Overview
    • Chapter 29. GIF Format
    • Chapter 30. JPEG Format
    • Chapter 31. PNG Format
    • Chapter 33. Audio on the Web
    • Chapter 34. Video on the Web
  5. The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets
    • Chapter 16. Cascading Style Sheets Fundamentals
    • Chapter 17. Selectors
    • Chapter 18. Font and Text Properties
    • Chapter 20. Color and Backgrounds
    • Chapter 21. Floating and Positioning
    • Chapter 22. CSS for Tables
    • Chapter 23. Lists and Generated Content
    • Chapter 24. CSS Techniques
    • Chapter 25. Managing Browser Bugs: Workarounds, Hacks, and Filters
    • Chapter 36. Printing from the Web
  6. The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript
    • Chapter 26. Introduction to JavaScript
    • Section 26.1. A Little Background
    • Section 26.2. Using JavaScript
    • Section 26.3. JavaScript Syntax
    • Section 26.4. Event Handling
    • Section 26.5. The Browser Object
Each topic would be covered in a week. This approach has the advantage of first introducing the student to the why of the web, then the basic mark-up, then prettying up the web pages with graphics, styles and JavaScript. Ideally web pages should be designed so that these layers can be discarded in the reverse order. That is web pages should work without JavaScript, CSS and Images, at which point they are just text.

In practice for a course also covering networking for the web, it may be necessary to interleave the web and networking topics. However, I will proceed on the assumption they are two separate modules.

Monday, January 19, 2009

My First Blended Course: Part 3

Having decided to create a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my second task was to reconcile the material which was in the previous lectures with that in the new textbook and divide all that into logical units. I decided to divide the course into two equal size components, on on web and the other networking/security (with some material on Analysis and Essay Writing, Ethics and Copyright to fit in somewhere).

An ANU semester is 13 weeks (same as an ACS one). So dividing this in half gives six weeks for each half (assuming the thirteenth week is for revision). For the web half of the course I had five topics:

Refining the "wanted" list more:
  1. The Web Environment
    • Chapter 1. Web Standards
    • Chapter 2. Designing for a Variety of Browsers
    • Chapter 3. Designing for a Variety of Displays
    • Chapter 5. Accessibility
    • Chapter 6. Internationalization
  2. The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML
    • Chapter 8. HTML and XHTML Overview
    • Chapter 9. Document Structure
    • Chapter 10. Text Elements
    • Chapter 11. Creating Links
    • Chapter 12. Images and Objects
    • Chapter 13. Tables
    • Chapter 14. Frames
    • Chapter 15. Forms
  3. Web Graphics and Media
    • Chapter 28. Web Graphics Overview
    • Chapter 29. GIF Format
    • Chapter 30. JPEG Format
    • Chapter 31. PNG Format
    • Chapter 33. Audio on the Web
    • Chapter 34. Video on the Web
  4. The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets
    • Chapter 16. Cascading Style Sheets Fundamentals
    • Chapter 17. Selectors
    • Chapter 18. Font and Text Properties
    • Chapter 20. Color and Backgrounds
    • Chapter 21. Floating and Positioning
    • Chapter 22. CSS for Tables
    • Chapter 23. Lists and Generated Content
    • Chapter 24. CSS Techniques
    • Chapter 25. Managing Browser Bugs: Workarounds, Hacks, and Filters
    • Chapter 36. Printing from the Web
  5. The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript
    • Chapter 26. Introduction to JavaScript
    • Section 26.1. A Little Background
    • Section 26.2. Using JavaScript
    • Section 26.3. JavaScript Syntax
    • Section 26.4. Event Handling
    • Section 26.5. The Browser Object
    • Section 26.6. Where to Learn More
So the eaiest approach would be to have one of these per week, and add another topic to make six. There were three lectures which did not fit in this structure, so they could be sued to make the extra topic:

The Social Environment
  • Lecture 9 - Topic Analysis and Essay Writing
  • Lecture 10 - Ethics and the IT Professional
  • Lecture 30 - Copyright.
These could be placed first, to give context to the course, but the student may then wonder where the web stuff is, so it might be better to put this second, after web standards and the like are introduced. Three lectures are insufficient content and so more will be needed.

Clinical Information System Request for Comment

The ACT Government has issued a request for comment for a draft "Clinical Information System: Intensive Care Unit" for Canberra hospitals. Having had recent first had experience of being in the system and attended a talk on ICT in Health Delivery in the 21st Century I found this of interest. One aspect of the requirements is the use of a web interface:
Functionality unique to the ICU environment (representing well over 80% of clinical care delivered in the ICU):
• Real time interfacing to unique bedside devices and equipment
• Flow-sheet and decision support assisting clinical decision making using unique parameters with unique clinical interrelationships
• ICU specific medication management with a superset of medications prescribed in a unique environment
• Maintain the patient’s medical record for the duration of their ICU stay in accordance with legislated requirements for record keeping and contribute to the centralised hospital clinical record.
• Retain records of all interactions and interventions applied to the patient.
• Manage the large volume of data obtained from the regular and frequent downloads from monitors and ventilators, with the ability to drill down to the smallest time interval captured from each device
• Assist in the reduction of errors associated with patient records relating to legibility and calculations.
• Assist in the reduction of errors associated with the prescribing and administration of medication.
• ICU specific terminology for clinical notes and pathways tightly integrated to the decision module
• Have the ability to take information stored about one intervention or modality and populate it through related clinical flowcharts / forms
• Assist in the medical/nursing care of the patient by facilitating the tracking and recording of medical/nursing tasks.
• Remove the need for unnecessary duplication or reproduction of patient data
• Provide query and reporting capabilities including standard and ad hoc reports to meet the requirements of - Commonwealth, Territory, Facility, ICU, Research, ANZICS, ANZPIC
• Provide ad hoc and standardised reporting functionality for quality improvement activities and improved clinical management
• Provide the ability to perform timely audits including the provision of a clear audit trail.

Functionality provided by interfacing with other Clinical Systems:
• PAS (ACTPAS at TCH, and IBA at Calvary)
o Obtaining Patient Identifier and Demographic information, to do the following:
• Patient registration
• Patient admission and discharge
o Episodic Information
• Patient bed movement within and outside the ICU, for example, whilst in
Radiology
• RIS/PACS
o Viewing of medical images / reports
• Pathology Information System
o Importing a subset of available atomic pathology results, to allow intelligent decision rules to be used, for example, low potassium level and alert would flag the user to this situation and suggest a predefined course of action; and the viewing of all pathology results and medical imaging reports via a web-browser interface
• CRIS
o Export of data to centralised TCH Clinical record
• Future Scope
o Ordering of diagnostic imaging and pathology requests
o Pharmacy (Medication and Infusion Management).
o Provide Pharmacy electronic ordering and bar-coding capability.
o System to integrate with Clinical Portal application
o All environments to be integrated into one environment
The solution should be suitable for use in an acute clinical environment by providing the following general features:
• Easily navigable
• Facilitating the recording of clinical data in a structured (e.g. selection from reference table, numeric), and unstructured (free text) format.
• Intuitive (e.g. requiring minimal training for use).
• Presentation of patient data in clear and informative manner.
• Easily and extensively configurable ...

From: Clinical Information System: Intensive Care Unit, Statement of Requirements, ACT Health, January 2009

Telstra now-we-are-acting on greenhouse?

In "Innovate, don’t compensate", Tesltra's green guru, Dr Turlough Guerin argues that there should be strong leadership on climate change from the Australian government. However, Tesltra might like to lead by example and provide some concrete measures on reduction of their own greenhouse gas emissions. I suggest Tesltra commit to a 5% annual cut in emissions, starting in 2009, up until 2020. To acheive this, Telstra could commit to have 10% of its senior IT staff compete a Green ICT course , such as the one the Australian Computer Society is running, by the end of 2009.

Data Centre Energy Calculator Project

The British Computer Society (BCS) have announced work on an energy and cost simulation tool for data centres. This will use a mathematical model of energy use in data centres allowing changes to be simulated. The software will be Open Source and released in April 2009.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Defence Data Centers Carbon Footprint Problem

In a speech to the Lowy Institute for International Policy "Mending Defence’s Broken Backbone", Nick Warner, Secretary of the Australian Department of Defence singled out the large number of corporate data centres as wasting energy and creating a large carbon footprint. Unfortunately the ICT strategy outlined by the Secretary later in the speech does not address these problems. Defence needs to specifically aim to reduce the number of data centres and reduce energy consumption. Broad strategies to improve governance and review sourcing are not sufficient. The Secretary could direct the Defence CIO to have at least 10% of senior staff trained in Green ICT this year, so that the Department has some staff who know what to do and how to do it. The Defence CIO could be directed to reduce the number of data centres by 20 per year, starting in 2009, until the total number is reduced from 200 to 20. The Defence CIO could be directed toreduce power consumption at data centres by 5% per year, starting in 2009, until a target of a 50% reduction is reached.

... Most large corporations run between three to fi ve data centres. We’ve got 200, all of them power-hungry and giving us a large carbon footprint.

Our strategy for fixing IT focuses on four key areas—improving service delivery; improving governance of the whole IT enterprise; reducing the time it takes to deliver new IT capabilities; and reviewing our sourcing strategies.

While this list is probably typical of any agency or corporation we have taken a deliberate 'back to basics' approach.

On the service delivery side, based on feedback from customers, our Chief Information Officer has identified the ‘top ten irritants’ that he and his people are working to resolve.

On the governance side, we’re overhauling the process of how we set priorities and assign resources—replacing a bottom-up, uncoordinated approach with one led by CDF and me that looks across the enterprise and takes the hard decisions about where investment will get the most return.

We’re reducing the time it takes to introduce new IT capabilities from literally years to 90 days. We simply can’t continue to deliver obsolete technology to support our war fighters or our business reform efforts.

And we’re trying to be much smarter about how we use our signifi cant buying power. Over time, we’ll replace a multiplicity of IT contracts with a smaller number of larger, more costeffective ones. ...

From: "Mending Defence’s Broken Backbone", Nick Warner, Secretary of the Australian Department of Defence, Lowy Institute for International Policy, 10 June 2008 (audio also available). Reprinted in the Australian Defence Force Journal (Issue 177, November/December 2008, Defence Magazine (Issue 9 2007/08 )

Google Public Transport Map to Reduce Carbon Emmissions?

Google has added Transit maps for public transport to its online maps. In Australia there is coverage of Adelaide (Adelaide Metro) and Perth (Transperth). There are also walking directions, as an alternative to directions for car drivers in the maps. This could be very useful for familiarising drivers, and those used to taking taxis, with public transport alternatives, reducing fuel use and carbon emissions. Where the Google transport maps are done in cooperation with the local transit authority, they are very detailed. Sydney's excellent Trip Planner, provides a similar service, but is not integrated with Google.

Australian Clean Energy Research Proposed

The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) has issued "Energy Technology for Climate Change – Accelerating the Technology Response". This report proposes $6B for clean energy research by 2020. That may sound a lot, but is much less than that committed by government to support the car and finance industries in the last few months. ATSE also proposed an Energy Research Council to administer the funds for research, development and demonstration projects. This would be in addition to the Renewable Energy Fund, Energy Innovation Fund, Australian Solar Institute, National Low Emissions Coal Initiative and Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute.

As the report points out, the incentives of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme's carbon trading will not be able to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG), if there are not technologies to make it happen. However, I am not sure that the ATSE's solution of low-emission technologies for electricity generation on a massive scale is the answer.

Even if clean energy technology is developed, it may not be possible to deploy it by 2020. Measures to make the use of electricity more efficient and so reduce demand are also needed. In many cases these measures depend on small additions to existing technology, changes to software and changing the way people use energy. Rather than requiring new large machines, these techniques require minimal investment in hardware, but large investments in the behaviour of the users of the technology. This is a less glamorous, but important area of engineering research, which the ATSE should support.

An example of the large effects of small scale development, the Climate Change Group has suggested that the use of ICT could reduce carbon emissions by 15% by 2020.

The ATSE report was prepared by Dr John Burgess FTSE and is 55 pages long (674 kbytes of PDF). In addition to the ATSE report there is a media release "Energy research needs $6 billion", 16 January 2009. It will be interesting to see the response to the report. In the late 1990s I was on the steering committee for the ATSE "Discipline Research Strategy on Information technology''. There was a disappointing response to that report's recommendations, although it might be argued that this lead to the creation of NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Centre of Excellence. However the funding may have been diffused too far across Australia, for political reasons, to emulate the Cambridge phenomenon.
Recommendations
  1. Pursue relentless application of cost-effective energy efficiency and conservation strategies so that stationary energy demand growth is less than one per cent a year, over a sustained period.
  2. Form an overarching Energy Research Council to identify and fund necessary RD&D proposals so that no worthy project is denied funding. Use the Council to supervise existing funding in these areas. To encourage early investment by private companies, limit the life of the Council to 10 years.
  3. Continue to support existing Australian programs (including the Renewable Energy Fund, the Energy Innovation Fund (including the creation of an Australian Solar Institute), the National Low Emissions Coal Initiative and the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (including demonstration programs for CCS, and the Otway CO2CRC project).
  4. In terms of support for RD&D on the new technologies:
    • provide support for CCS for coal-fired electricity generation with high priority and emphasis on an accelerated program of technology demonstration at the largest possible scale in Australia;
    • provide support for geothermal technologies with high priority, and an emphasis on the demonstration of feasibility at commercial scale in Australia;
    • provide support for solar energy, aimed at increasing the efficiency and lowering the investment costs of solar PV and solar thermal technologies, preferably through participation of Australian researchers in international consortia and Australian demonstration of larger scale facilities.
    • accelerate the deployment of wind generation, where economic, using the best international technology at suitable sites in Australia. Undertake a review to establish the maximum possible future generation of wind power as a function of the number of feasible sites, expected capacity factors and the investment costs per unit of energy obtained. The review should include offshore sites;
    • undertake RD&D to support the introduction of energy storage mechanisms applicable for renewable energy technologies;
    • critically evaluate nuclear energy as a base-load technology option for the longer term; and
    • accelerate the deployment of gas-fired plants for electricity generation, based on coal-seam methane.
  5. Ensure that resources are made available for improvements in electricity transmission technologies and electricity grid infrastructure. Undertake a review of the national energy market to identify strategies that will optimise the market and maximise the capital efficiency of the suite of new technologies deployed.
  6. Allow accelerated depreciation or tax credits on new equipment aimed at greenhouse gas abatement and energy efficiency.
  7. Consider introducing a government guaranteed electricity procurement scheme at favourable prices to encourage investment in the success of new low-carbon technologies.
  8. Ensure that there is adequate provisioning for training of sufficient personnel in the skills that are necessary for the new technologies.
From: Energy Technology for Climate Change – Accelerating the Technology Response, by Dr John Burgess FTSE for the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), December 2008, Released 16 January 2009.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

New ASUS Eee PCs

Eee Top ET1602ASUS has launched a range of new and upgraded Eees. The Asus Eee Box B204 and 206 models look most useful, being a hard disk upgrade of the desktop PC. They have a HDMI video interface, hardware assist for video playback and a remote control, making it useful as a low power media centre computer. Eee Box can be attached behind an LCD panel using the VESA mount, as well as making for a neat installation for the home theatre, this could make them popualr for school and office desks.

Likely to be least successful is the Eee Top ET1602, a desktop computer built into a 15 inch LCD screen, which has the fatal flaw of a touch screen. This appears to be designed for the classic non-application of a kitchen computer where you can write a note for someone to buy some milk on the screen. It is a shame ASUS didn't leave out the touch screen and lower the price to produce a useful home and education computer.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Learning to lower costs and carbon emissions with ICT

Here is the outline of my presentation on "Learning to lower costs and carbon emissions with ICT" for the Computers Off Australia - Green IT breakfast briefing, Canberra, 20 January 2009. All are welcome for the event and you get a free breakfast. ;-)

Learning to lower costs and carbon emissions with ICT

Tom Worthington FACS HLM

Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University

Designer of the Green ICT Course for the Computer Professional Education Program, Australian Computer Society

For the Computers Off Australia - Green IT breakfast briefing, Canberra, 20 January 2008

First global Green ICT Course

Green ICT

Students learn how to:
  • Estimate the carbon footprint of the ICT operations of an organisation,
  • Assess ways to reduce the carbon footprint of an organisation, by changes to polices for procurement of ICT, changes to the ICT operations and revising business processes.

Business ICT Competencies

  • Strategy & planning
    • Technical strategy and planning
    • Business/IS strategy and planning
  • Procurement & management support

Learning by Doing

Two areas of assessment:
  1. Assignments
    1. Write a report on the carbon footprint of the ICT operations of your organisation
    2. Write a report identify ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your organisation
  2. Contributions to the discussion forums

Some Green ICT Topics

  1. Understanding climate science
  2. The Global ICT Footprint
  3. Enabling ICT: Dematerialisation, smart motor systems, logistics, buildings and grids
  4. Energy saving - Data Centres and Client Equipment
  5. Procurement
  6. Compliance audit

Online References Used

  1. The Engineering Sustainable Solutions Program, Sustainable IT Lecture Series, Natural Edge Project, 2008
  2. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), Green Electronics Council. GEC 2006.
  3. Energy Star Program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, 2007
  4. The Personal Computer and Monitors Energy Efficiency Strategy, Tom Worthington, Report and Recommended Plan of Action, prepared for the Department of Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Version 1.0, 23 September 2008.

More Information

My First Blended Course: Part 2

Having decided to create a Blended Course about Web Design at ANU, my first task is to divide the topic up into modules. This is not starting from scratch, as I am using the content from an existing course, "Networked Information Systems" (COMP2410/6340). The task is to try and divide this into logical units.

The existing course is 6 "units" (8 such units make up a year of a full time course). The simplest arrangement seems to break the course into two 3 unit components. Dividing up the existing lectures gives:
  1. NETWORKING AND SECURITY
    1. Networking
      1. Lecture 1 - Introduction to Networks.
      2. Lecture 2 - Network Models.
      3. Lecture 14 - Web Servers, Proxies & Caches.
      4. Lecture 3 - TCP/IP.
      5. Lecture 4 - IP Addresses.
      6. Lecture 5 - Telnet & Ftp.
      7. Lecture 6 - Email, SMTP & MIME.
    2. Security
      1. Lecture 15 - Network Security.
      2. Lecture 16 - Encryption.
      3. Lecture 18 - Web Security.
      4. Lecture 8 - HTTP & SSL.
  2. WEB TECHNOLOGY
    1. HTML
      1. Lecture 7 - HTML & XHTML and an XHTML example.
      2. Lecture 11 - More XHTML & XHTML Forms and an XHTML & form example.
    2. CSS
      1. Lecture 12 - CSS and an XHTML example with style sheets 1, 2 & 3.
      2. Lecture 13 - More CSS and an XHTML example with a style sheet.
    3. Intranet website development and maintenance
      1. Lecture 17 - Web Standards
      2. Lecture 19 - Website Design - Introduction & Testing
      3. Lecture 20 - Website Design - Structure
      4. Lecture 21 - Website Design - Design
    4. Java Script
      1. Lecture 27 - Web Programming - Client-side with an example and a JavaScript file.
      2. Lecture 28 - Web Programming - Server-side with an example and the script.
      3. Lecture 29 - Cookies.
    5. Portable devices
      1. Lecture 22 - Website Design - Mobile & E-web
This creates a few problems. There are 12 web lectures, but only 7 networking and security ones. Also there are some topics from the course which do not logically fit in either category:
  • Lecture 9 - Topic Analysis and Essay Writing
  • Lecture 10 - Ethics and the IT Professional
  • Lecture 30 - Copyright.
These are the sort of topics which tend to get left out when courses are modularised. They were included because web design is about more than the technology of serving up web pages. The content of the pages has to make sense to human readers and has to meet legal and social requirements.

Looking at the textbook, Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (Jennifer Niederst Robbins, O'Reilly Media, Inc. 2006) might provide some clues on a better way to arrange the material:
  1. The Web Environment
    • Chapter 1. Web Standards
    • Chapter 2. Designing for a Variety of Browsers
    • Chapter 3. Designing for a Variety of Displays
    • Chapter 5. Accessibility
    • Chapter 6. Internationalization
  2. The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML
    • Chapter 8. HTML and XHTML Overview
    • Chapter 9. Document Structure
    • Chapter 10. Text Elements
    • Chapter 11. Creating Links
    • Chapter 12. Images and Objects
    • Chapter 13. Tables
    • Chapter 14. Frames
    • Chapter 15. Forms
  3. The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets
    • Chapter 16. Cascading Style Sheets Fundamentals
    • Chapter 17. Selectors
    • Chapter 18. Font and Text Properties
    • Chapter 20. Color and Backgrounds
    • Chapter 21. Floating and Positioning
    • Chapter 22. CSS for Tables
    • Chapter 23. Lists and Generated Content
    • Chapter 24. CSS Techniques
    • Chapter 25. Managing Browser Bugs: Workarounds, Hacks, and Filters
  4. The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript and the DOM
    • Chapter 26. Introduction to JavaScript
    • Section 26.1. A Little Background
    • Section 26.2. Using JavaScript
    • Section 26.3. JavaScript Syntax
    • Section 26.4. Event Handling
    • Section 26.5. The Browser Object
    • Section 26.6. Where to Learn More
  5. Web Graphics
    • Chapter 28. Web Graphics Overview
    • Chapter 29. GIF Format
    • Chapter 30. JPEG Format
    • Chapter 31. PNG Format
  6. Media
    • Chapter 33. Audio on the Web
    • Chapter 34. Video on the Web
    • Chapter 36. Printing from the Web
From this list I removed the items which belong in "Networking":
  • Chapter 4. A Beginner's Guide to the Server
  • Section 4.1. Servers 101
  • Section 4.2. Unix Directory Structures
  • Section 4.3. File Naming Conventions
  • Section 4.4. Uploading Documents (FTP)
  • Section 4.5. File (MIME) Types
And items I didn't want to cover at all:
  • Chapter 27. DOM Scripting
  • Section 27.1. A Sordid Past
  • Section 27.2. Out of the Dark Ages
  • Section 27.3. The DOM
  • Section 27.4. Manipulating Documents with the DOM
  • Section 27.5. Working with Style
  • Section 27.6. DOM Scripting in Action
  • Section 27.7. Supplement: Getting Started with Ajax
  • Chapter 32. Animated GIFs
  • Chapter 35. The Flash Platform
Refining the "wanted" list more:
  1. The Web Environment
    • Chapter 1. Web Standards
    • Chapter 2. Designing for a Variety of Browsers
    • Chapter 3. Designing for a Variety of Displays
    • Chapter 5. Accessibility
    • Chapter 6. Internationalization
  2. The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML
    • Chapter 8. HTML and XHTML Overview
    • Chapter 9. Document Structure
    • Chapter 10. Text Elements
    • Chapter 11. Creating Links
    • Chapter 12. Images and Objects
    • Chapter 13. Tables
    • Chapter 14. Frames
    • Chapter 15. Forms
  3. Web Graphics and Media
    • Chapter 28. Web Graphics Overview
    • Chapter 29. GIF Format
    • Chapter 30. JPEG Format
    • Chapter 31. PNG Format
    • Chapter 33. Audio on the Web
    • Chapter 34. Video on the Web
  4. The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets
    • Chapter 16. Cascading Style Sheets Fundamentals
    • Chapter 17. Selectors
    • Chapter 18. Font and Text Properties
    • Chapter 20. Color and Backgrounds
    • Chapter 21. Floating and Positioning
    • Chapter 22. CSS for Tables
    • Chapter 23. Lists and Generated Content
    • Chapter 24. CSS Techniques
    • Chapter 25. Managing Browser Bugs: Workarounds, Hacks, and Filters
    • Chapter 36. Printing from the Web
  5. The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript
    • Chapter 26. Introduction to JavaScript
    • Section 26.1. A Little Background
    • Section 26.2. Using JavaScript
    • Section 26.3. JavaScript Syntax
    • Section 26.4. Event Handling
    • Section 26.5. The Browser Object
    • Section 26.6. Where to Learn More
This merges "Web Graphics and Media" and moving it just after "The Structural Layer". I extracted "Printing from the Web" and placed it at the end of "The Presentation Layer" as it depends on using Cascading Style Sheets.