In my quest for high-efficiency lighting, I came across a new idea for small household lights.

In our bathroom, there are two sconce lights (one on each side of the mirror) in addition to the main lights over the top of the mirror. The side sconce lights are not really necessary for adequate lighting, but they look nice and add some visual charm to the mirror. Therefore I saw them as good candidates for lower-energy substitutes.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, or CFLs, have been generally available and affordable for consumers for quite a few years now. I've been using them for about ten years, and they have steadily improved during that time. Needless to say, they aren't perfect, but there are many ways to use them successfully.

It is not simple to make a new kind of light bulb which can replace the simple incandescent bulb in all situations and still provide significant energy savings. Some tradeoffs are necessary.

I have an old laser printer which does not have a decent standby power-saving mode.  I built a computer-controlled power switch for it, so the computer turns on the printer when there is a print job, then turns it off again later.