Have you greened your IT through software?

Are you using desktop power management tools, virtualization, or hosted software packages to reduce your energy use and go green(er)?

Did you decide to move your old-fashioned donor database off your organization's servers and onto Salesforce? Have you virtualized a server or even desktop machine so you can do more with fewer energy-sucking boxes in the room? Have you used a third-party power management program to help users put their computers to sleep when not in use?

Share your experiences with how you've lowered costs and your effect on the environment through using these or other methods here.

If you're interested in learning more about this topic, check out a new article live on our site this week:

Greening Your IT Through Your Software Choices
How nonprofits can make greener decisions when acquiring software

In it, you can discover ways to make your office (and home) computing more friendly to our planet when you acquire new software.

Have any of the tips and suggestions in this article helped you? Were you doing any of them before you read this piece?

For more ways to go green with your technology, check out TechSoup's GreenTech Initiative.

I'm trying out Edison before pushing it out to the office to install.  Really like the $ savings it displays and I think it will help to change some work habits.  The problem - about half of the office remote in from home using logmein.  Works great and telecommuting is a good and green, right?  Is there a way to "wake up" a desktop remotely?  As far as I know, you have to physically touch the mouse, keyboard, or power button.

Well, the new versions of LogMeIn Free and LogMeIn Pro 2 allow you to do this.  I think you need at least one computer left on, the rest can be in "Sleep" mode (I think sleep mode is right).  Go to the LogMeIn Free support site and do a search for "wake on lan".

You can also now remote control Macs in the office from home with this software.  Previously, Macs could only remote control a Windows PC, but now it appears you can use either operating system to remote control the other or the same.