All our computers waste huge amounts of energy by waiting for us humans to do something. Most so called CPU cycles are wasted for waiting for you to press a mouse button or open a new webpage.

LocalCooling is a gadget for WindowsXP users to reduce their energy usage - or at least configure their computers to shut down unused parts or completely. Hey, you can even calculate how many trees you have saved - and there is even a top ten list for your and your buddies to participate in a global energy saving contest.

Let’s all say it: awesome!

Or is it? Overall there is nothing new in here: all energy settings can be found in the aptly named Energy control panel. So it’s only a good remix of already existing.

So if you really want to save some energy, than open your Energy control panel and tell your machine to shutdown the monitor and hard drive after a few minutes idle time … and don’t download that LocalCooling application and don’t waste any more energy thinking about it.

What we REALLY need are computer components that act more energy conscious and use a lot less electricity. Intels newest mobile Core2 processors only know two speed settings: half and full speed. There should be more settings.