Playing on the Halloween theme, Best Buy has declared today Vampire Awareness Day to draw attention to "vampire power", the electricity squandered by devices while turned off. While I'm not one to parrot a company's PR pitch, I thought this was a cool way to address the costly problem. According to the company , 40% of the electricity used in a household is wasted powering turned-off electronics such at TVs and computers, costing us around $4 billion a year.

The company makes some simple suggestions about how to reduce the vampire power drain on your precious electron flow:

• Use power strips, and turn them off when the items are not in use.
• Turn off your computer when not in use.
• Unplug chargers when not in use. They continue to draw current even when not hooked up to the cell phone or other device they are intended to recharge.
• Buy Energy Star products that minimize power waste.
• There are also devices on the market that help minimize vampire power drain, although you should do the math on them to make sure the purchase price exceeds the cost of power saved.
  

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It's hard to figure out how to save energy in your home if you don't know how much you're using and where. That's why those who are serious about saving money or electricity are turning to electricity meters.

Formerly the province of serious electronics geeks with $1,200 to blow on a big, elaborate meter, pocket-sized electricity meters are now becoming popular with the masses.

Daniel Dern at ComputerWorld took a close look at some of the products out there, and recommends a "plug load meter" that measure the output of an individual appliance. It tracks the device over a period of time so you get high and low output numbers, then calculates how much energy it uses and how much money that costs over a typical month or year.