Power Manager 3 for Mac OS X

Power Manager 3 on Mac OS X 10.5

Dramatically reduce costs

Switching off computers at night saves money. When a computer is switched off, it is using the least energy possible. Computers use different amounts of energy when they are running, asleep, and turned off. When a computer is not being used it should be turned off.

Use Power Manager to make the most of your Macs.

Businesses save

Half of all office computers are left on and idle during the night. These computers are not being used and are wasting electricity. Power Manager makes it easy to automatically switch these computers off in the evening and on in the morning. There is no need to train staff to turn off their computer at night because Power Manager will manage their computer for them.

Nighttime computer power state
“After-hours Power Status of Office Equipment in the USA” — Webber et al, 2006 (Summary)

By using Power Manager as your energy saving solution, you save more than electricity. You save training costs and time.

You save the cost of training your staff and the ongoing burden of reminding them to turn off their computer at night.

You save time every day as Power Manager shuts down and starts up your computers. Power Manager's schedule assistant automatically suggests times just before and after your office hours. This extra time ensures your staff come in to find their computer on and ready to start work immediately. In the evening, your staff can save their work and leave without a further thought; Power Manager will safely shut down their computer a few minutes after they leave.

Labs save

A laboratory of computers requires a lot of energy. Energy to power the computers, and energy to power the air conditioning. Air conditioning is an additional expense often overlooked when calculating the total cost of running a laboratory.

Every kWh of office equipment demands 0.2 - 0.5 kWh of additional air conditioning
“Energy Consumption by Office and Telecommunications Equipment in Commercial Buildings: Volume I” — Roth, K. W., Goldstein, F. and Kleinman, J., 2002 (Summary)

Keeping a laboratory of computers at a comfortable temperature is expensive. If a computer is on, it is emitting a constant stream of warmed air. By switching off computers or putting them to sleep, you stop this stream of warm air.

By deploying Power Manager throughout your laboratory you immediately reduce your computer's running costs, and minimise your air conditioning needs.

Curators save

Macs in museums, art galleries, and educational installations are commonplace; they add an interactive element to an exhibit. It is the lucky curator who does not need to keep running costs down. Use Power Manager to reduce the running costs of your installation's Macs.

Power Manager is flexible enough to meet the demands of complex opening times and out of hours events. Use Power Manager to control when Macs are on and off.

Power Manager includes specific schedules to help museums and installations get started quickly.

Financial savings, environmental benefits

It can be difficult for an organisation to clearly demonstrate a commitment to improving the environment and reducing energy costs. Many organisations turn to carbon offsetting and ignore the most effective course of action - reducing your energy bill.

By reducing your energy bill you are not only saving yourself money, you are reducing your carbon footprint. Reducing your energy use is the best way to reduce your environmental impact.

Computers are one of the largest energy users in modern offices.

Power Manager reduces the cost of running Mac computers. Power Manager is an automated solution that can be set up, deployed, and left alone demanding no further support.

By choosing Power Manager, you can confidently show your shareholders and stakeholders that you are actively addressing environmental concerns and improving your bottom line.

Mac versus PC

Mac computers are generally more power efficient than their PC counterparts, but that does not mean Macs can not be improved. Your Mac computers' running costs can be significantly reduced; office computers are rarely set up appropriately to make the most of the built-in energy saving software. With Power Manager you can ensure your Macs are only using electricity when needed.

Better than Energy Saver

Macs in offices are too often left on and unattended during meetings and out of office hours. Use Power Manager to ensure your Macs enter a low power sleep mode after short periods of inactivity. Unlike the Energy Saver software built into Mac OS X, Power Manager defines periods of inactivity clearly and enforces sleep regardless of rogue applications or processes.

• Power Manager will log out all users before shut down events.
• Power Manager will quit all applications before log out or shut down events.
• Power Manager will wake up a Mac to perform pending events.

9 years of experience

Power Manager's scheduling engine is robust and predictable. Nine years of experience writing energy saving software is embedded within Power Manager. Our experience ensures Power Manager performs your schedule, regardless of events that block the built-in Energy Saver software.

Power Manager v1.0 was publicly released in 1999, and supported System 7. Power Manager has supported every generation of Mac OS since.

How Power Manager works

Power Manager automatically performs events including start up, shut down, and putting your computer to sleep (a low-power state). These events are fully automated and no action is required from a user.

Energy schedule

Power Manager follows an energy schedule. The energy schedule sets out when a Mac should be on, off, or asleep. An energy schedule can include other events such as 'logging out users' and 'restarting' at specific times and dates.

Creating an energy schedule is one-off task that takes a couple of minutes. Power Manager includes an assistant to help create schedules.

The schedule assistant includes specific assistance for:

• Macs in offices
• School laboratory Macs
• School classroom Macs
• Macs in museums, installations, and exhibits
• Home Macs

Adapts to changes

No real life schedule remains unchanged for long; changes happen everyday that affect your need for a computer.

Those changes might be an important deadline that demands extra hours in the office, or maybe your holiday means no work for a couple of weeks.

Power Manager adapts to a changing schedule. Events can be disabled, cancelled, or delayed.

Imagine you run a summer course that uses your Mac lab. You could use two energy schedules to control your Macs. One schedule for when your class is running, and another schedule for the rest of the year.

Power Manager offers an easier solution for managing your course needs. Use one schedule for the entire year and enable course specific events as needed. Using one schedule keeps things simple. All the summer course events are saved in the single schedule but only enabled when needed.

Powerful engine, easy interface

Power Manager is a fully-featured energy saving solution for Mac OS X. Power Manager is easily deployed and requires minimal ongoing support.

Easy deployment

Power Manager can be installed using any management software that supports standard Mac Installer Packages. We recommend deploying Power Manager using any of the following tools:

• Apple Remote Desktop (ARD)
• Netboot
• Radmind

Absolute security

Integration with Mac OS X's authentication and authorisation policies lets administrators keep control over who can - and can not - adjust Power Manager's schedule.

Power Manager uses the Mac OS X authentication policy database to decide what actions are available to each user. This fine-grained control makes Power Manager's deployment across a wide range of users easy to manage. Your staff, teachers, administrators, and students can all have differing relationships with the schedule; some can adjust, others can cancel and delay, while others still can only accept pending events.

Unrivalled automation

Automated work flows are critical to getting things done. Power Manager supports automation on all three levels of Mac OS X:

• Automator
• AppleScript
• Unix command line

Automator Actions

Power Manager includes Automator Actions to provide an easy way of accessing and manipulating the energy schedule. Schedules can be imported and exported from XML files, events cancelled and delayed, and new events added — all through Automator's graphical interface.

Serious AppleScript support

The full power and capability of Power Manager's engine is available through AppleScript. Power Manager provides first-class support to the AppleScript community.

Unix command line control

At the heart of Power Manager is a Unix daemon. Like all great Unix daemons, Power Manager has a command line controller; powermanagerctl provides easy access to your schedule.

Through the command line you can integrate Power Manager with any Unix scripting language of your choice, including sh, Perl, and Python.

Reduce your workload

• Imagine all your lab computers switching themselves off at night and on in the morning.
• Imagine all your teaching computers logging out at the end of each lesson — no more chasing students off to their next lesson.

Power Manager eases the daily burden of managing your lab computers. Teaching staff will be delighted and your organisation can be proud of its new environmental investment.

Power Manager 3 for Mac OS X

Power Manager for Mac OS X is an unrivalled energy saving solution. Buy now and reduce your carbon footprint while enjoying ongoing savings on your energy costs.

• More benefits for businesses
• More benefits for schools

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