We just had a heat pump installed two weeks ago and removed the solar hot water system that was installed on the roof when the house was built.
It just did not make sense economically to keep the system. To integrate the existing panels in the new system would have cost EUR 5000. With current electricity prices (30-35 EuroCent per kWh) and the system only working good only during summer, roi would have been more that 30 years, so I skipped this and keep the space on the roof for a future PV installation

I have to refer to my sig

The whole thing is only worth it, when it comes with a three SIM card multi-SIM setup, so I can share the same data and voice plan on three devices (phone, notebook, tablet), without the hales to either swap SIM card or do WiFi tethering.

I think this will be in violation of

Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data

especially Article 7

but apparently nobody cares about what is legal anyway

further reading to be found here:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=en&numdoc=31995L0046

I only looked at electricity.
Last billing cycle I used a little below 2400 kWh in a year. Now with a second child it will increase a bit, but I think that I have only a few options left.
Power prices in here a higher that in the US.
I pay EUR 6,95 (USD 9,20) as a base price and EUR 0,189 (USD 0,25) per kWh. the power company announced an increase to EUR 0,212 (USD 0,28) per kWh as per January 1st, so I am shopping for a new supplier.
I live in a 80 sqm flat with three rooms plus kitchen and bathroom.
Main consumers are:
my server ( ~ 40 W = 350 kWh)
fridge (12 years old, back then A grade power efficiency)
washing machine (6 month old, A grade power efficiency)
dishwasher (1,5 yeras old, A grade power efficiency)
almost nothing on standby, all systems equipped with real switches in the power cord, CFL lightning.

I could optimize the server or shut it down entirely, but investments in this area are not cost efficient. When the fridge dies or in 5 years, I will replace it with an even more efficient system.
When the price for LED lights gets lower they are an option too.
We are looking into building a house and it will be highly optimized, so we should not have to spend more on total power (electricity & heating) than we do now.

So I believe that there should be massive potential for savings in your situation

Especially when traveling with small children security on Heathrow was always a show stopper for me. There a plenty of alternative hubs to fly from, unless you want to go to London.

IT does not need a special treatment, but all other areas like accounting, HR, etc. have already been accepted to be part of doing business.
There is usually no question why a company need accounting and even controlling, especially one needs special knowledge to do this.

IT is seen as something that is not hard to do, so this problem gets even bigger.

IEC 60906-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEC_60906-1 because it is the best compromise for a standard that could be accepted at least in all over Europe. Which will be an improvement in the mess of incompatibility

It is definately not ITs job to decide what and if people waste company time. This is something to be decided by the management.

Online application for the business that require IE6 are a lame excuse. If IT had a propper release and retirement schedule in place this would not be happening. Keeping a crutial security hole for years in a business only because other departments did not do their job is not really an option.
Just announce until when you will support an environment so everybody can adapt to it.

pc vs mac is right (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkrn6ecxthM/), but it's not ps2 vs xbox, but ps3 vs Wii (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1hwb5yGZZQ/)!

I asked about a german version of "Das Keyboard" v. 1, but still no luck with it. Well maybe they now will make versions for other keymaps as well.