Green computing on the Apple Macintosh

There is a lot of interest in green computing and saving energy these days. The Energy Saver preferences in the Mac OS X operating system can help reduce your electric bill and enable your Mac to automatically startup or shutdown at predetermined times. Would you like to schedule your Mac to wake up before you do? Here’s how.

Open the Mac Energy Saver preferences by going to Apple Menu → System Preferences and clicking the Energy Saver icon. Then click the Schedule button located at the lower right and the Schedule option sheet will slide out.

There are two checkboxes that allow you to schedule your Mac for Start up or wake – and Sleep, Restart or Shut Down. Mac OS X allows you to schedule by Weekdays, Weekends, Every Day or any individual day of the week – and of course, to set the specific time of day for these Mac events to occur.

There are additional Wake options under the Options tab. You can even choose to have your Mac restart automatically after a power failure or wake when the modem detects a ring.

Being green is built into the Mac OS X operating system and every Mac computer comes with Energy Saver enabled by default. Even so, you should review and tweak the sleep mode settings and startup and shutdown times to best match your personal routine and lifestyle.

To estimate how much the Energy Saver feature can save you each year, visit Apple’s Interactive Energy Usage Calculator.