A few weeks ago, I started doing research on smart power strips, mainly for computer usage, to add to my holiday wishlist. A friend of mine has one with a motion detector that his company supplied for his home office set-up. The idea is to shut off non-essential items, such as printers, usb hubs, external flash media readers, cell phone chargers, etc. when the computer is not in use. More often than not, these devices’ power supplies (the ubiquitous “wall wart”) are not designed to stop drawing current even when the device is not attached to the power supply!I sent a tip to Treehugger detailing my find with the hopes that someone else may have used one or knew of others that are available, as I was only able to find two models online. Unfortunately, neither goal was fulfilled, though it did spark some discussion among the readers. Hopefully the more people talk about them and use them, the more awareness there will be and the demand for them will increase.
Invisible Elevators 
Another good tip is to try to replace your DC power adapters with a switching one, which is terribly more efficient than traditional DC power adapters. I got this one:http://www.designnotes.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PSSMV7U&Category_Code=cospsfrom Frys a while back (but don’t see it on their website anymore), and it’s been quite useful, especially since you can vary the voltage and it comes with a variety of plugs. I need to get some more of these, in fact, as they are even more handy for me now since they accept 240V in 🙂
USB powered chargers are very handy too, as they obviously draw no current if your PC is switched off, and they only require you to bring your charging cable (and not the whole wall-wart) around with you.