It is truly amazing how small we are.

Green Hosting

As you sit surfing the net have you ever thought about how much energy is being consumed to deliver web content to your home? Until recently I had not. It is so simple to surf the web expecting pages to load lightning fast but this comes with a cost. Vast data centers consuming large amounts of power are required to deliver rich web content in this plugged in age.

I was very pleased to find out that my webhost 1&1 is now 100% green hosting. Does this mean that they have windmills sitting on top of their data centers or some fancy geothermal energy production plant on site? Well the answer is no. Well in this case does it mean that there is some special renewable energy electricity grid? Again the answer is no, all the energy produced is delivered to the same energy grids.

How does it work?

Consumers buy renewable energy credits (RECs). For every 1000kW hour of energy produced by a renewable energy generator a single unique REC is issued. This provides an audit trail which ensures that although the energy a consumer receives may not technically have been generated in a renewable manner the energy they are funding is renewable energy.

For more information look at the following links

Renewable Energy Certificates

Green Certificate

EPA Green Power Partnership

Green Web Hosting Review

My Website

QtiPlot

QtiPlot is a great full featured open source alternative to Origin. It is free for the linux platform but for OS X and windows 32 a fee of 20-50 euros is required for access to the binaries. In the spirit of open source I decided to compile it myself. After failing a few times I investigated compiling it via macports. Again the process failed with an error relating to python scripts. The following workaround details how to disable python scripting and successfully install qtiplot on osx using macports.

1. Install macports from the macports website.

2. Open Terminal and issue the following command

sudo port install qtiplot (all the dependencies should install however the qtiplot build will fail)

3. Remove the qtiplot download with the following command

sudo port clean qtiplot

4. Fetch the qtiplot archive

sudo port fetch qtiplot

5. Configure the qtiplot install

sudo port configure qtilot

This will extract the qtiplot files

6. Navigate to the qtiplot folder in /opt/local/var/macports/build/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_aqua_qtiplot/work/qtiplot-XXX/qtiplot

7. Open qtiplot.pro with TextEdit and comment out the # SCRIPTING_LANGS += Python line with a #

8. Return to the Terminal and issue

sudo port build qtiplot

9. Install qtiplot with

sudo port destroot qtiplot

10. Finally issue the following command to install qtiplot in /Applications/Macports

sudo port install qtiplot