Hi. I have a 24" Imac running OS 10.5.2.
I have a Wacom graphics tablet and I recently corresponded with Wacom tech support about an issue installing their tablet driver. The tech support person wrote:
"Select energy saver in your system preferences and you'll see an option to change your sleep preferences. I suggest "never" for your hard disk and uncheck "put hard disk to sleep when possible". Display sleep is fine, and restarting the computer each morning is healthier than sleep. You'll tax your system and run your hard disk down sooner by putting the computer to sleep and trash your tablet driver in the process."
I was about surprised about the tech support's suggestion. I have my Energy Saver settings set to put my computer to sleep after 25 minutes. In general, I leave my computer on all night when I'm asleep and I only restart it occasionally when needed.
My question is: does it really matter whether I shut down my computer at night or leave it asleep as I have been doing?
Any advice is appreciated.
Thanks,
Mirsky
In article mirsky-53F86A.12551813052008@redacted.invalid, Mirsky mirsky@redacted.invalid wrote:
Hi. I have a 24" Imac running OS 10.5.2.
I have a Wacom graphics tablet and I recently corresponded with Wacom tech support about an issue installing their tablet driver. The tech support person wrote:
"Select energy saver in your system preferences and you'll see an option to change your sleep preferences. I suggest "never" for your hard disk and uncheck "put hard disk to sleep when possible". Display sleep is fine, and restarting the computer each morning is healthier than sleep. You'll tax your system and run your hard disk down sooner by putting the computer to sleep and trash your tablet driver in the process."
I was about surprised about the tech support's suggestion. I have my Energy Saver settings set to put my computer to sleep after 25 minutes. In general, I leave my computer on all night when I'm asleep and I only restart it occasionally when needed.
My question is: does it really matter whether I shut down my computer at night or leave it asleep as I have been doing?
This is a tired debate that has ocurred in these news groups time and again over the years - and probably will for years more. You should read what others have already said about this subject. I know a lot of people simply won't feel like starting the whole discussion over again.
Google is your friend. For example:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5opytk
In article mirsky-53F86A.12551813052008@redacted.invalid, Mirsky mirsky@redacted.invalid wrote:
Hi. I have a 24" Imac running OS 10.5.2.
I have a Wacom graphics tablet and I recently corresponded with Wacom tech support about an issue installing their tablet driver. The tech support person wrote:
"Select energy saver in your system preferences and you'll see an option to change your sleep preferences. I suggest "never" for your hard disk and uncheck "put hard disk to sleep when possible". Display sleep is fine, and restarting the computer each morning is healthier than sleep. You'll tax your system and run your hard disk down sooner by putting the computer to sleep and trash your tablet driver in the process."
Horse puckey.
In article mirsky-53F86A.12551813052008@redacted.invalid, Mirsky mirsky@redacted.invalid wrote:
I have a Wacom graphics tablet and I recently corresponded with Wacom tech support about an issue installing their tablet driver. The tech support person wrote:
The tech support person is a twit.
In article mirsky-53F86A.12551813052008@redacted.invalid, Mirsky mirsky@redacted.invalid wrote:
Any advice is appreciated.
Sounds like you got a unknowledgeable tech' support person at the Wacom organization.
I have run Macs ever since they were in existence in 1984.
Never once have I ran across any hardware or software that has been "trashed" by the mere action of a Mac going to sleep.
Right now I am posting using a 8-year old "Pismo" powerbook, which I am continually placing into "sleep" mode many times each day, with applications open on the desktop.
Heck, Macs made in the past ten years can't even get their screens "burned" by leaving their monitors on.
I read the website that Jolly Roger suggested, and all the posters there agreed that it does no harm to operate your Mac any way you desire, relative to your concerns about sleep mode.
Mark-
-- Trivia about my particular Mac setup:
I run 6 Macs of various types.
- New Mac Mini Duo
- Older Mac Mini
- Old Mac Pismo laptop (year 2000)
- Even older Mac Lombard laptop
- MacBook Pro laptop
- Mac Pro (desktop)
...plus many very old Macs that I have given to schools etc.
I run all my Macs very hard. For example, my MacBook Pro has two partitions, one for OS X 10.5.2 - - - another partition for Vista Ultimate.
Needless to say, I put my MacBook Pro to sleep any time I desire, with no concern whatever about harming any hardware/software.
The Vista partition has a $1,400 Windows app' on it named "Dragon NaturallySpeaking" (medical version) - - - which is an extremely demanding application.
That Dragon app' can convert speech into text at a clocked speed of 336wpm with zero text errors.
ONLY reason I ran that test was to check the speed and accuracy of the hardware/software combination that I was using.
BTW, my $200 copy of the new Mac app' named "MacSpeech Dictate" passed the same speed test, again with zero text errors.
Unfortunately, MacSpeech Dictate has a lot of work yet to be done on it before it becomes useful for "real" speech-to-text work, but at least it gives Mac users something to look forward to, in say about a year from now.
People normally speak at 140wpm to 225wpm.
A skilled "fast talker" can talk at nearly 600wpm
Fastest talking female-world record set by Fran Capo.
Clocked at 603.32 words in 54.2 seconds.
<http://www.worldrecordsacademy.org/amazing/fastest_talking_female_world_ record_set_by_Fran_Capo_70895.htm>
Not easy, below are some of the rules she had to follow.
"You have to read something from Shakespeare or the Bible. They use an Olympic timer to time you to 1/100th of a second. Then they slow it down with a lexicon compressor that doesn't distort it. Finally, they send the tape to a speech analyst to make sure you're saying every single syllable and match it against the script. A few hours later they let you know whether you got the record or not."
I have no doubt whatever that a modern Mac would be able to handle Fran's 600wpm speech rate and be able to convert it to text with minimum errors, say 99% correct text, before final text corrections.
Unfortunately the Mac user would have to use a Windows app' to be able to achieve that 99% level of raw accuracy, but that might change when MacSpeech grinds out upgrades to their "MacSpeech Dictate" app'.
In message mirsky-53F86A.12551813052008@redacted.invalid Mirsky mirsky@redacted.invalid wrote:
My question is: does it really matter whether I shut down my computer at night or leave it asleep as I have been doing?
Short answer: no.