SetPower is a utility that lets you choose different power management profiles for your computer based on the time of day. So, if you want your computer to stay on during the day, but sleep overnight, that's not something you can do with the built-in power management functionality in Windows. SetPower adds the ability to control which profile is in effect at a given time.

As the world becomes more environmentally conscious, the benefits of putting your computer to sleep when you might otherwise be inclined to leave it running are obvious. In fact, SetPower claims that you could save up to $10 per month simply by putting your computer to sleep overnight.

One of my pet peeves about software is that developers tend not to pay attention to whether the machine is running on battery power or not. This is particularly troublesome with software that runs jobs like indexing your hard drive, which can take a long time and keep your CPU running at a higher level then it otherwise would. That drains your battery when the software could very simply notice that the machine is on battery power, and wait until it is plugged in again. SetPower pays attention to the battery state, and can alter the machine's power management behavior depending on whether it is plugged in or not.

SetPower is free for home use, and an enterprise license is available at a reasonable $5 per machine.

Finding the proper balance in your power management scheme can be challenging; sometimes you need all the horsepower you can get, while other times battery life is your top priority. If you find yourself regularly navigating to your power management settings as your priorities change, you might benefit from being able to create hotkeys that will instantly switch you to a different power management profile.

A poster at How To Geek outlines how to create a shortcut that will switch your system to a specific power management profile. Once you have the shortcuts you need set up, you can then either set a hotkey in the shortcut itself, or use your favorite hotkey utility to launch each shortcut based on your preferred hotkey.

[Via Lifehacker]

It's 2 in the morning and you really want to go to bed, but you've got another 72 minutes before that game/video/other thing you're downloading finishes.

Most of the time if you're in this situation you just leave your PC on all night, sending your energy bill up and killing the environment just a little bit more. If you use Firefox, there's a better way.

Auto Shutdown is a Firefox add-on that will shut down your computer when Firefox finishes downloading files. No, not every time you finish downloading a file. That would be silly. Instead, the application adds an option to your download menu and an icon to your status bar.

Unfortunately the application is Windows only for now, but the developers plan to port the add-on for Mac and Linux users soon.

[via Mozilla Links]

So you're in the middle of downloading a large file, or sending a huge batch of photos to your mom. The file transfer's going to take another 40 minutes, and you really want to hit the sack. But you don't want to leave your computer on all night sucking up energy.

WinOFF is a nifty utility that lets you schedule all sorts of power-related actions. You can set your computer to shutdown 60 minutes from now. Or you can tell it a specific time to shut down. There's even an option to shut down the system when your CPU is idle, under the assumption that this means your computer is probably finished with whatever task you set for it.

Don't want to do a complete shutdown? You can put your computer in suspend or hibernate mode. Or if you just want to make sure your PC is fresh and ready to go in the morning, you can schedule a middle of the night reboot.

[via CyberNet]

Two of the biggest battery hogs in Windows Vista are the flashy Aero user interface and the gadget sidebar. So it stands to reason that if you want to get the most out of your laptop's battery life you'll disable these features when running on battery power.

Vista Battery Saver does more than save your battery. It saves you time. Every time you unplug your computer, it can automatically switch off Aero and your sidebar. Plug the power cable back in and they'll reappear like magic.

Tamir Khason has just released a new beta version of Vista Battery Saver with bug fixes and one new feature: the ability to automatically switch between power management plans when you plug/unplug your laptop.

[via jkOnTheRun]

Modern computers have power-hungry, but often configurable CPUs that adjust speed based on the manner in which it is being used. Nowhere is this more evident than in portable computers, and more critical to control. Although processor makers and OEM computer makers try their best to put together power management schemes to meet the needs of the average user, often it can be frustrating to notice that while you're frantically trying to open a large document or webpage, your processor is loping along at 1/3rd of its top speed.

Although there are many utilities out there to help you take more control over your processor, none seem to be getting more attention lately than Notebook Hardware Control. Recently updated with a second pre-release version, NHC now supports Intel Core Duo processors properly, and has added support for Windows 2000 and more interestingly Windows Vista processor control. Since Vista's power management leaves a lot to be desired (at least as it is in the publicly released Vista beta 2), this update is a welcome addition to the long list of features NHC already supports.

[Via JKOnTheRun]