SoftwareMiser

Welcome to the world of computer energy saving and energy calculation software from JSutils. If you have a suggestion about enhancements or additional functionality for our programs or even an idea for a new program related to energy saving then please feel free to contact us. If you would like to find out more about the practical aspects of home energy saving take a look at Practical Home Energy Saving.

As we move towards the holiday season program updates from us will be slowing down with only a limited number of releases planned - we will deal with any major bugs that may arise.

New Programs & Program Updates Coming Soon

EnCalcOL Version 1.0 - Coming June 2011
EnCalcOL is a brand new program requested by a number of users and is a simplified version of EnCalcOU. EnCalcOL calculates heating oil usage based on tank depth or volume measurements.

AllOff Version  Version 4.3 - Coming June 2011
This is a minor update for AllOff to add a check for updates option. AllOff monitors the mouse, keyboard and CPU load and initiates computer shutdown if there has been no keyboard or mouse activity and the average CPU load has been below the threshold set for the specified time. It also supports fixed activation and shutdown times. AllOff supports all the normal shut down modes. It can also be used to control a remote computer. Uses of AllOff include unattended backup (shutting down the computer when the backup has completed) and shutting down a computer if the user forgets. It can be started at a fixed time, on start up or manually.

If there is time a couple of other updates may appear during the month, probably EnCalcEU and EnCalcGU.

Programs Released Over The Last Month Or So

EnCalcL Version 4.1 - Released 10-May-2011
Water use and cost comparison calculator EnCalcL has been updated by JSutils to add the option to check for the latest version plus the option to run at the end of install. Also fixes some minor bugs. See history for details. EnCalcL calculates the real cost of purchasing and running water using appliances, allowing items to be compared under the same or different conditions, or the true cost of one item to be worked out simply. The results which can include annual inflation can be saved to a log file for later analysis. Variables such as water use, number of uses per day and investment cost can be independently varied for 2 items for specified payback times and water cost to work out the true total cost.

ProcOff Version 1.2 - Released 17-May-2011
This minor update to ProcOff adds the ability to check for the latest version of the program plus fixes a couple of small bugs. ProcOff
monitors up to three processes and initiates computer shutdown if there has been no process activity for the specified time. It also supports fixed activation and shutdown times. ProcOff supports all the normal shut down modes. It can also be used to control a remote computer via a slave program. Uses of ProcOff include unattended backup, virus scan and disk de-fragmentation, shutting down the computer when the tasks have completed. It can be started via the Windows Task Scheduler, a command line, on start up or manually. See history for details of the changes in this version. This minor update to ProcOff adds the ability to check for the latest version of the program plus fixes a couple of small bugs.

AllOff Lite Version 3.3 - Released 24-May-2011
This update adds the option of fixed time shutdown to AllOff Lite . AllOff Lite monitors the mouse, keyboard and CPU load and initiates computer power off if there has been no keyboard or mouse activity for 900 seconds and the average CPU load has been below 15% for over 60 seconds. Designed to be simple to install and use AllOff Lite requires no configuration apart from selecting whether cpu and/or key and mouse control is required during installation. AllOff Lite is suitable for most applications.

Other News

Support Mails
We have just completed an analysis of all the mails over the last few months and it is interesting to note a common theme. 90% of all support calls are related to registration with most being related to case sensitivity of the username with all the rest except a couple caused by trying to use the code from a differenct program. All this is stated on the registration email including a link to the registration FAQ but we would welcome suggestions for improving the clarity of these emails. There is one known bug in the registration system which has affect 2 people so far - it will not accept 4 character extensions such as ‘.name, a fix should be available soon. Of the other 10% just over half are due to problems with Hibernate, we have just published a technical note to help this problem which is a Windows configuration issue called Why Hibernate Doesn’t Work.

Operating System Support
During the second quarter of 2011 we did intend to stop supporting Windows 2000 as products were updated. After recieving quite a few mails we decided to delay this for a few months to the third quarter of 2011 and review it then. This does not mean they definitely won’t work on Windows 2000 rather we won’t be testing on this operating system so it is inevitable incompatibilities will creep in. For the foreseeable future we will make the last version released for Windows 2000 available for download from the archive area when this
happens.

About JSutils
JSutils is the home of a small collection of software associated with energy saving and energy saving calculation developed as a result of a major project to reduce home energy consumption which started in 2004. We are totally independent with no commercial affiliations.