That includes the shekel, which over the past year has lost a huge chunk of its exchange value versus the dollar. A year ago the exchange rate was about NIS 4.20 per dollar; today it is hovering around NIS 3.50 (actually, as I write this, it is NIS 3.39 per dollar).

International finance is a complicated subject – a lot more complicated than computers! Far be it for me to speculate on the reasons for the dollar’s doldrums, much less to predict on where it is headed. What concerns me is the very real issue of what my money – shekel or dollar – can buy.

As everyone who does business in Israel with dollars knows, a stronger shekel versus the dollar means a disadvantageous shekel exchange rate – i.e. fewer shekels for your dollars. If you sold your house for the shekel equivalent of $200,000 a year ago this week, you received NIS 840,000 for your property; today you’d only get NIS 700,000.

The converse is true, too – or should be; prices for products imported from the US (or from China, since they are usually denominated in dollar terms) should be sinking in shekel terms. An item that cost $1,000 a year ago – NIS 4,200 – should now cost only NIS 3,500.

I haven’t noticed a rash of price cutting for products imported from the US, or usually sold in dollars. At 4.2 versus 3.5, the dollar has lost about 20 percent of its value against the shekel; hence, we should see prices on a wide array of products being cut by 20%

But we have not. In many cases, prices on dollar-denominated goods quoted in shekel prices have actually risen. That means, in some cases, prices on these goods are as much as 25% higher in shekel terms than they were a year ago. The folks selling these goods – as diverse as computers, brand-name clothing and footwear, and industrial products – really have a nerve, if you ask me.

When things are moving in the other direction – that of a strong dollar – they don’t hesitate to raise the price of their goods in shekel terms, with the excuse that they have to pay the same dollar amount regardless of the shekel’s value. The same thing should apply when things swing the other way, and the shekel cost of the dollar-denominated goods goes down!

In fact, the gap between what the price is in shekels and what it should be in dollar terms has blown wide open – which gave me an idea. What if you were to take a quick hop over to New York – say for just a couple of days – and go shopping? For one night, I guess you could get away with sleeping on the subway. But even if you wanted to stay for a week or so, you could find a reasonably priced motel (like for $50 or $60 a night) for the price of a train ride to the suburbs, and really have a nice time. And if you have relatives or friends to stay by, this would be a good excuse to visit.

Could you save enough money on the dollar/shekel price “spread” – the extra discount you get by buying things at the real dollar price, as opposed to the now-artificially hiked up shekel price – to make such a trip worthwhile? Such was the question I posed to myself, and here are my findings.

• A cursory examination prices for the same or very similar products here in Israel and at Amazon.com revealed some major price differences. At an Israeli auction site, for example (http://tinyurl.com/2pokzm), a Toshiba Satellite Core 2 Duo 1.5GHz 120GB laptop with 2 GB of RAM was going for NIS 4,568 (plus NIS 69 shipping and handling). At NIS 3.50/dollar, that comes out to $1,325. That doesn’t sound too bad, unless you consider that a better model (with a 200 GB HD) is available at Amazon.com (http://tinyurl.com/34rwwd) for $730. So, if you were buying a Toshiba Satellite laptop, you’d be $595 ahead if you bought it in the US.

• What about an HP laptop? This one (http://tinyurl.com/32yttf) at another site is being offered for NIS 5,999 – $1,714 at current rates. It’s got a Pentium duo-core processor, 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB hard drive. I couldn’t find the exact model and specs at Amazon, but this one (http://tinyurl.com/34jq5m), if you don’t mind an AMD duo-core processor, is pretty close – and it’s only $1,000. If, however, you must have an Intel processor, try this one (http://tinyurl.com/2v9ek3) – for $1,100. It’s got a 240 GB hard drive, Duo Core Intel Processor and a fingerprint reader to boot. Savings on this item – at least $614.

• Let’s move on to the Macbooks (you know you want one). The Israeli agent for Apple products, iDigital (http://tinyurl.com/386vzd), sells the basic 2.1 mhz white Macbook (1 GB RAM, 120 GB hard drive) for NIS 6,199 – or $1,771. Compare that to the price you can get it for at Amazon – $1,094 (http://tinyurl.com/3dvk93). They’re even offering a $75 rebate on this item, which would bring down the cost to $1,019. But we won’t count that. Savings on the Macbook – $677.

And if you’re in the market for the newest edition of Apple’s laptop, the Macbook Air, you’ll save even more – NIS 10,000, or $2,857 for the iDigital version (http://tinyurl.com/2vahb8), compared to $1,794 for the same one at Amazon (http://tinyurl.com/2wl9lq) – a full $1,063 less.

• What about an iPhone? Well, they don’t officially sell it in Israel yet. However, a friend of mine (who couldn’t get a visa to the US and decided he couldn’t wait) told me he spent NIS 3,500 on one – a cool $1,000 – for the same phone the Apple store sells in the US for $399. To be fair, however, if you do buy an iPhone in the US, you have to unlock it to use it with local cellphone networks – a process I’ve seen widely advertised for NIS 249, or $71. Still, for the $529 you save on the iPhone, you could get two of them for the price of one here.

If you were to use my modest shopping list as a purchase guide, then, you could buy two laptops – the HP and a plain white Macbook – and an iPhone (with the Israeli conversion fee factored in) for $2,663 in the US, compared to $4,485 in Israel. That means to make a trip to buy these three items worthwhile, you’d have to spend less than $1,822 in airfare and expenses. Can it be done?

I checked the Web sites of several airlines for prices on flights between today and tomorrow, returning in a week (you could return in as little as three days on all of them, actually). On Turkish Airlines, with a stop in Istanbul, a round-trip ticket this week is $1,032.26, and on Lufthansa it’s $1,033. Cheapest ticket: Olympic Airways, which will get you to New York and back for $987. I checked El Al, of course, but for some reason their Web site doesn’t let you price round-trip flights leaving from Israel.

If you take the Olympic flight, you’ve got $835 to spend for the vacation part of your trip. But of course, we haven’t factored in staying by relatives, buying other expensive stuff (maybe your friends will want to give you a list), frequent-flier miles toward your ticket, etc. Whatever is on your list, remember: the spread can be your friend!

Well, guess what else is responsible for 2% of air pollution: Your computer! Yes, you read that right: According to the Gartner computer industry analyst group, the total amount of electricity used to power PCs, servers, office telecommunication systems, printers, etc. – and the air conditioning units used to keep them from overheating – is the same as that consumed by big, bad jet airliners! And the problem is just getting worse: the amount of energy used in IT environments doubles every five years!

That unfortunate fact doesn’t sit well with Yisrael Katzir, HP’s national Israel technology solutions group presales manager – and he, along with the HP Israel presales team intends to do something about it. Actually, the efforts by Katzir and HP Israel to increase awareness of the negative energy implications of large scale “computer pollution” is just a part of Hewlett-Packard worldwide’s attempts to raise consciousness about reducing emissions resulting from computer use and support, Katzir says in an interview.

While “green computing,” the moniker given this new concern for IT systems’ impact on the environment, extends to all levels and aspects of the industry – from energy saving monitors to low consumption printers – the biggest and fastest energy saving yields come from working with large corporations with numerous server installations. There’s a lot that can be done on that front, says Katzir – cutting emissions for the environment by cutting energy use, and saving some hefty sums to boot, he says.

Howso? Well, Katzir says, there are a number of strategies – using efficient hardware, innovative software, and clever data management techniques – to reduce energy use in large server farms and IT installations. Sometimes it’s a matter of something as simple as repositioning the way servers are set up in a server room – called “best practices” in the HP green philosophy book – to enable more efficient server room cooling, reducing the amount of juice being drawn by the a/c. Other strategies consist of consolidation of servers in different parts of the building or city, utilizing the resources of a single room more efficiently (server racks in many companies are often half empty, HP studies have shown, so if a company is doing serious cooling in numerous half empty server rooms, it can easily and simply save power by consolidating its servers into one room). In fact, says Katzir, many of the actions that companies can take to save energy – and money – are easy, logical, and are likely to be implemented anyway.

Then there are the more active steps companies can take – steps and procedures that Katzir’s team helps companies around the country to implement. One strategy that saves not only energy but also outlay on hardware is server virtualization – running two or more servers on the same hardware, thus reducing the physical number of servers used by an organization and saving on the power required to run both systems. Between virtualization and its first cousin, consolidation – packing more data onto single machines – companies can reduce their IT department energy use by as much as 25%, Katzir says Remember, it’s not just about making do with less hardware – it’s about bringing everything together, preferably in a single location, thus reducing the area of the building that needs to be cooled. Then there are the blade server systems that, where modular components come together under a managed energy policy, another electricity saver even midsized businesses can take advantage of.

“Dynamic power throttling” is yet another innovative technology. Using this system, software determines whether or not max power is needed to run the currently active application. Applications that don’t require a lot of processing power, for example, would be run with less power coming into the server, as it may need only one of the several processors in the server. Why not turn them off when not in use?

And then there’s the “crown jewel” in HP’s stable of energy saving techniques – dynamic smart cooling. One of the biggest power drains in the server room is air conditioning; keeping the machines from melting down is one of the most challenging tasks for server system managers. With standard a/c systems, the cold air blows around the room, with some parts of the room cooler and some parts warmer – another enormously inefficient energy waster. The dynamic smart cooling system saves energy and money by regulating the flow of air inside a server room, ensuring a uniform temperature in all parts of the room.

While it’s very sporting of companies to care about the environment, you would think that, with all they have on the their plate, green computing would not be at the top of many corporate executives’ agendas. Wrong, says Katzir – the response to his team’s efforts in this area have been met with great interest among many mid and large sized companies, he says. “With the environment becoming such a major issue for governments around the world, companies have become much more aware of the problems of excessive energy consumption,” says Katzir. “Their stockholders demand it, and in many places, governments are going to begin demanding it as well.” In fact, he says, more and more requests for proposals for computing systems – especially for new facilities – include requiring provisions for green computing. It’s not just about energy, Katzir says – it’s about money, too, and during these days of mounting oil costs, that counts for a lot.

And HP practices what it preaches, Katzir says. The company aims to reduce its total energy use by at least a quarter within the next two years – and will consolidate what was once over 300 data centers into just three, with each providing all services and backup for each other. If the company is putting its money where its mouth is, there can be no doubt about it – green computing is here to stay.