When I started writing this blog series at the beginning of the week, one of my posts was going to be on the effects of those wall bricks, warts, or other euphemisms for the power adaptor that powers numerous pieces of equipment in your home and office.

These units use power whether the DC power they are providing to the device is being used or not, and much of that disappears as heat (something you'll know if you've ever picked one up while it's on).

The problem is that these things have become a vital part of any type of electronics -- from the PSU in your desktop computer through to your laptop, speakers, printers along with mobile phones, PDAs, cameras and all sorts of things in between.