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As I flip open my PowerBook, whether it’s at the beginning of a presentation, plane flight, or just about anywhere, people invariably ask me about it. Most are Windows-only users, so I just give them the basics; yes, the screen is big, yes, I can read Word documents, no, I don’t use Outlook, yes, I can run Windows on it, but I don’t have any need to do so, this browser is called Safari, this is how iTunes works, etc. But, sometimes, like at Macworld Expo, in an Apple Store, or even in a coffee shop somewhere, I run into a Mac user.
Of course, we all know there are two types of Mac users: those who run Mac OS X and those who don’t. Yet. For the latter, I run through the OS including the Dock, Column View, applications they can’t run like iTunes 4 and the iTunes Music Store, the Genie Effect, Force Quitting applications without crashing the whole shebang, not setting memory allocations, Mail, Safari, etc. But, it’s those who run Mac OS X, especially on a portable Mac, that I learn the most from and can really get into discussing how to run a portable Macintosh with Mac OS X. After almost four years now with OS X, I’ll tell you how I think a PowerBook or iBook should be run.
I never shut down my computer. Well, hardly ever. My PowerBook has been on or asleep for over three weeks currently. This excludes any restarts due to software updates since I have to keep current. I must have gone over two months at least without restarting or shutting down at times in the past.
Although the frequency of Apple’s incremental OS and other application updates sometimes makes me wonder if they are forcing me to restart when I normally wouldn’t for a reason or just to mess with me.
I use a 21-inch CRT monitor at work at 1600×1200 resolution, monitor spanning with the PowerBook’s display. I use another monitor at home, an Apple LCD display the same way. Obviously, at other times, I just use the PowerBook’s screen. My day starts with sliding the PowerBook into my BookEndz Dock at work, opening the lid, instantly awaking from Sleep, hitting Detect Displays from the Menu Bar, banging to Location under the Apple Menu which sets my Network Prefs with a single click, and starting work from any of ten or more already running applications.
At the end of the day, I simply close the lid, the computer goes to sleep, slide it out of the Dock, slip it into my backpack, and head home. At home, I either open the lid while on the couch or side the PowerBook into my home BookEndz Dock, Detect Displays and start computing again. I have Airport at home and a hard-wired connection at work and various Wi-Fi points in airports and other places.
The next day, I do the same thing again. Just Sleep, no Shut Downs.
After talking with many people running similar hardware and Mac OS X, I’ve concluded that there is almost no need to ever shut down your computer. While in Sleep mode, the PowerBook consumes almost no battery power. I restart very infrequently and I hardly ever Quit applications like Dreamweaver MX, Photoshop, ImageReady, Mail, Safari, BBEdit, iTunes, etc.
I will admit, though, that as a long time Mac user, I still use the Desktop heavily and have drives on the Desktop. It’s a vestige of having used the Classic Mac OS for so long, I guess. Though I hardly ever click on the drives sitting there on the Desktop because I have my hard drives in the Dock and have customized my Finder windows with commonly-used Folders and such.
I’m interested in hearing from you if you’re running your iBook or PowerBook the same way or think I’m crazy for how I’m using my Mac or a little of both.
is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
MacDailyNews Note: This article is an updated version of the original article from June 5, 2003 where other reader feedback comments can be found regarding this subject.]
The only time I shut down my G5 or iBook is for software updates that require it. i have kept nothing at all on my Desktop since the Public Beta came out.
I always shutdown my Dual 1.8 G5 at work every night. It has about 20 things on the desktop. Less frequently I shutdown my Rev A 12″ Powerbook at home. There are various things on the desktop mostly belonging to my wife. It does run for days at a time without restart, but I have found reason to restart when having problems. Just last night my Airport Express seemed to disappear as well as the Airport Extreme base. The Airport card was on but here were no bars. This happened while I was using the computer. Tried a few things to fix it, no joy. Then restarted and all was well. Fixed by a restart: so it seems to me that an occasional restart is not anythng to fear.
Same here. I never turn my iBook G4 off, just put it to sleep. The power button gets used very little. I only restart when a software update requires it; my current iBook uptime is 21 days 18 hours.
I do the same thing with my PB17″ – run all day at work, come home and do more there. I hardly ever reboot/shutdown – almost always just sleep (which really doesn’t use much battery at all – I’ve gone over a week without plugging in during sleep). However, from time to time I do close the apps or just log out and back in again… It’s good to do to “keep things fresh” as sometimes you might have a “leak” in an app that slowly saps RAM, etc. I haven’t scientifically tested to see if it’s really necessary, but I do it anyway. I gotta look into these BookEnz though!
I think you’re totally sane. I use my PowerBook the same way.
I also think it’s fair to require a restart when certain system components are changed. They could probably find a way to not require a restart, but depending on the updated services it might still require logging out but not quite restarting, which could confuse novices. I’ll betcha they weighed the support costs of getting that to work successfully vs. the nice clean slate of a restart, and probably decided “screw those anal uptimer fanatics.” Which is fair. It doesn’t take that long to restart if you only do it once every few weeks. I’ve had a PowerBook get 60 days of uptime, but it really is a stupid game.
The other often brought up issue is the overnight cron scripts. What do you do about those? I use Macaroni because it runs maintenance even if the machine was asleep at their scheduled time. I believe Macaroni is essential to true unlimited uptime.
even with 1gb of RAM, my 1 Ghz g4 iMac seems sluggish sometimes. when i quit apps i’m not using, it perks up. so i quit applications. sometimes i even restart to resolve an issue. i use onyx as a maintenance utility and it requires a restart for a full job. i use the desktop as a place to temporarily place items, even when in a finder window, and there is nothing wrong with that. i tried the diskk in the dock technique, but prefer using finder shortcuts to go directly to places like applications and utility’s. hell, now that i use butler i seem to be just using butler. and i have no idea why a person would track uptime like there were a prize to be won. if i were the guy with the g5 at work, i’d leave it on all the time. then os x could run its regular maintanence.
basically same here. I have a 5+ yr old Pismo running 10.3.8 and Bookendz dock w/21″ monitor at work (plus all sorts of USB, network and FW devices plugged into the dock). The dock is handy. Then at home just wirelessly using the PB alone.
But what’s with you having to click on “detect monitors”? I don’t do that – I didn’t even know there was such a thing
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> I just plug the Powerbook into the dock then lift the lid to wake it up and the big screen is detected – the monitor wakes up spanning the desktop as before. I think as long as the monitor is plugged in before the machine wakes, it should detect it fine without any specific user command.
The Locations menu is a real timesaver, I have probably a dozen different settings for the various locations I frequently travel to – just a simple click and ready to go. Meanwhile my Windoze coworkers are busy futzing with TCP/IP settings (“can you connect, yet?…”) Speaking of PCs, what’s with the crazy long sleep/wakeup time for a PC laptop while it saves the world to disk/recovers from disk? The instant wakeup/sleep of the Powerbook is nice, just shut or open the lid.
My powerbook is always on with restarts only for software updates. I am no expert, but I have heard that constant powering on and off can reduce the life of the components. I’d be very interested to know if that is based in fact.
I do, however, shut down apps like Safari when they are not being used. With 512MB of RAM, I notice a difference if too many apps are running simultaneously.
Geez, I tend to not side with never shutting down thing. I have this fear of lugging around my PB (AL 1.25) while on even though, I feel its well protected when its off. It doesn’t make alot of sense I guess, but after that article, I’m thinking about trying that today. Also I can’t sleep my G5 1.8 because of all the sleep issues. I can’t wait for a fix on that..
I wish Apple would advertize this functionality more. I am amazed at how long my Windoze laptop takes to boot up or shutdown. Even the “Standby” and “Hibernate” functions take seemingly forever. Anyone else ever compare their Mac to a Windows machine in this way?
“I have heard that constant powering on and off can reduce the life of the components. I’d be very interested to know if that is based in fact”
Yes, it is based in fact. There are two stresses that affect a computer on power up/power down: Power stress (the sudden surge of electricity to get the computer going) and thermal stress (cold to hot). Both cause wear and tear on components. IT fundamentalists insist you should never turn your computer off or you will subject it to a power and thermal stress cycle.
The problem is, those guys live in server rooms and their computer have never heard of the concept of sleep. So their advice can’t be taken at face value when applied to PowerBooks. If you let your PowerBook sleep, it will go through power and thermal cycles just as if it was turned off. So if you’re trying to be an anal hardware person, you’re not going to avoid these power and thermal cycles if you never shut down and yet you let it sleep, because sleep isn’t much better from that point of view.
Ultimately, since sleep doesn’t prevent hardware stress, the main reason to sleep is for convenience. Why should you wait a minute or more to boot up every time you want to use it? If the stress is the same either way, might as well use sleep instead of shut down.
If we were to make hardware preservation as much of a priority as the hardware weenies would insist, we would have to leave our PowerBooks on as much as possible, including letting them run overnight with the lids open and without sleeping, and living in fear of the stress cycle every time you have to power it down for transport in your bag. That’s no way to live! It’s much more constructive to assume that Apple designed these machines to be used exactly as they are used by most people: Running when used, sleeping when not used, and not leaving them on overnight. I did that and my 2000 Pismo still works five years later.
(Try to minimize the number of times you open the lid, though. The clutches do wear out. My Pismo lid knows about that one too.)
Well, I let my titanium PB sleep too, but I have a warning. I also left it plugged in to the charger, thinking that I’d NEVER have to restart EVER again, with the battery getting charged all the time.
You all probably know this, but you shouldn’t leave the PB plugged in to the charger. It killed my battery, then it sucked everything out of the internal battery. Now I HAVE to keep it plugged in, because until I replace the battery, everytime I restart the computer it is 1970 again.
Ah 1970. . how i don’t remember it that well being only a very very small boy. but i do remember the carpenters-close to you, simon and garfunkle-bridge over troubled waters, elton john-your song, miniskirts and bell bottoms and the hair oh boy, i rememeber the hair. When you restart your laptop without the plug does your shirt change to tie dye?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> I am not sure what I would do if I had a time machine in my laptop though.
well to be on topic-i normally let my 15Al PB1.5 sleep at nights. but if i think things are getting a bit sluggish i turn it off and restart. . maybe about once a week. I don’t know if that really perks anything or not but at least i get a chance to go grab a coffee or yogurt.
Overnight we shouldn’t be leaving our PB plugged into the charger?
Unfortunately, I’ve been plagued with a load of problems, problems which surfaced in the last 3 incremental OS updates to 10.3. These have ranged from losing my IP communications between any wireless base station and the original powerbook 17 I use.
I’m glad to hear that many folks haven’t encountered the problems I have. I suspect, I need to do a complete reinstall of my system.
Yet, despite these problems nothing compares to the problems present on the Windows platform. I enjoy not dealing with spyware, pop-up and viruses whice pervade that computing platform.
re: 1970—Platform shoes, stripey pants. And I keep hoping the Beatles will get back together, since they’ve just broken up.
Anyway, you can keep it plugged in overnight, but not for weeks. (Actually, I was very sick and left it plugged in by my bedside during recovery. It is also a good way to kill an iPod’s battery.)
From the Apple Support website: “For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally. Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time.”
My PB functions mainly on my desk, so it’s never shutdown, but occasionally (about once a week) I take it out with me. I reckon that runs the battery down enough to keep it active. Other wise I just unplug it for a time while I’m using it. Also don’t forget http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284
I use the desktop a lot, as a repository for temporary items I’m working with, even though I often view it with a Finder window (which is another of the great ideas in OSX). I often drag snippets there when I know I’ll need them later but that I won’t want to keep them forever.
The only reason I shut down my 17″ 1.3Ghz is to plug-in/unplug my S-Video cable. Is that hot-swappable now? I know in my G3-250 that was about the worst thing you could do. And I had no idea you could plug in an external monitor without shutting down. Guess growing up with the original Mac Plus has made me a bit too cautious with modern machines
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My other big reasons for restarting are to clear page-outs (even with 2GB of ram this is still an issue with apps like Golive, Flash MX, Quark and PS CS running at the same time) as well as getting back space from FileVault.
All the same here. I Rarely shutdown. In fact I can’t remember that last time I had to shutdown. Always the Sleep for my mac. I figure, I never shutdown, I only go to sleep. Why should it be different for my mac?
The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle. It’s not good to keep the PowerBook plugged in without ever draining it, but on the other hand, you don’t want to run the battery all the way down every time. The lesser of the two evils is to leave it plugged in most of the time, since lithium-ion batteries vastly prefer to be trickle-charged over being deep-cycled. So Apple’s advice here is sound. It’s OK to leave it plugged in much of the time, as long as you run the battery down every month or so to maintain proper calibration.
“The only reason I shut down my 17″ 1.3Ghz is to plug-in/unplug my S-Video cable. Is that hot-swappable now?”
No way! You shut down for that? I hot-swap the S-Video cable all the time on my PowerBook Aluminum AND on my PowerBook G3 FireWire. Never a problem.
Granted, I did see stability problems hot-swapping video cables in the earlier days of OS X, but those problems went away as OS X got upgraded.
That’s great to hear; I guess I was being paranoid about it. My G3 powerbook was first generation, no USB or Firewire, just SCSI and ADB, and the warnings about unplugging S-Video without shutting down were scary enough to make me do it on this machine. But what about external monitors? They’re plug-and play as well?
I’m on my first PB (12″ 1.33 Ghz) after 5 yrs of a PowerMac and I’m in good agreement with the “sleeping preferred” mode. However, I don’t find that sleeping uses next to no battery power, which surprises me. After maybe 48 hours of sleep, I’d guess the power meter shows perhaps 80-85% left. I calibrated the unit just after I got it by doing a full charge/run till dead/full recharge cycle, so that shouldn’t be an issue. I would have expected less of a drain.
“But what about external monitors? They’re plug-and play as well?”
All the ones I’ve tried. The TV through S-video on my G3 (10.2.8), and my CRT through the included VGA adapter through the DVI port on my G4 PowerBook. It’s a little disconcerting because the screens fade in and out of a blue screen as it does the switchover, but it doesn’t matter what’s running when I do it, it all comes back smoothly. (10.3.8) I’ll have to leave it up to someone else to talk about actual DVI LCDs, but I’m going to guess that those are hot-swappable too since I have not been able to bring the machine down hot-swapping the other video interfaces.
I never shut down but I do log out every night. I find apps tend to bog down after a while — but maybe just quitting them would be sufficient. And Virtual PC routinely can’t wake from sleep properly (or maybe it’s just taking ages and I lose patience).
the only negative impact of just putting your computer to sleep is that the OS never runs its little “housekeeping” routines. There is a daily, a weekly and a monthly version.
Got 10.3 or higher? Go into Applications/Utilities and run Activity Monitor. Check out your System Memory. Opening and closing windows & running programs whittles that down. but, remember those numbers, they’ll change in a minute.
Okay, now open up a terminal window and type: sudo periodic daily
(all lower case, and hit return)
it’ll ask you for your password.. enter your regular password (assuming your an administrator).
after its done and returns to a prompt, hit your up arrow to get the previous command back; now backspace over daily and type in weekly
(thus: sudo periodic weekly)
it’ll take longer to run…. but when its done, go back and look at your system memory. Voila!
wait, don’t forget to run: sudo periodic monthly
want to know what they do? type: man periodic
these programs are set to run at 3am~5am and if your Pbook is asleep, it wont’ wake up to run ’em.
anyway, your system memory is back to full availablity and you can go for YEARS without rebooting.
welcome to the world without Gates.