I don't have a laptop... Well, I have the company one, but I switch that off when I go home.

If I am not going to be using a device for more than a few hours, I tend to switch it off and unplug it.

But Gav does, and that's what we were talking about - close the lid, put it to sleep and bingo, no bong when you use it next. Although it's just as relevant to desktops - why shut down?

As far as ideas go, it's a stinker! The MBP comes with a 160gb hard drive. I have roughly 18gb worth of photo's on my laptop hard drive, so storing them twice just to have some photo's to upload from within my browser is just daft!

As for the applications I'm missing - QTPFSGUI - OSX version doesn't run without GTK installed. Rawstudio is available in DarwinPorts, but doesn't run because I'm missing a C compiler, GIMP runs in X11 and is noticably more clunky, OSX version of Scribus runs terribly slow and Wine is in a bit of a mess compared to the linux version. In fairness, Openoffice is a bit prettier on the mac!

Maybe I'm just being cranky!?

iPhoto keeps you away from the original files because it keeps them intact, so no matter how many adjustments you make to the image, you can always undo the whole lot and go back to the original.

But why do you need to store all 18GB twice? Why not use iPhoto to select the ones you want to upload and export only those. If space is a concern you can even dump the exported images once you've uploaded them as the originals are still intact in iPhoto.

If you were to do the same with Photoshop - or the image editor of choice - you'd have to keep two files anyway: one original and a copy that you worked on. Unless you thought you'd never need the original again.



Looks like you need to find developers who know how to write for OS X.

I don't think you're being cranky. It's just you are seeing stuff most of us don't worry about - which is not a bad thing, if I'm honest.

Getting OT, I got in a right old mess with my images. I ended up with Aperture, which I let handle everything as far as the filing is concerned (it's what computers are good at, after all). I import every image, including stuff from iPhoto, and they're all there in the application to be found, catalogued, adjusted, uploaded, made into web sites, books, PDFs, whatever. (Lightroom does the same, but I'm unsure of the interlinking between the iLife apps.)

I don't keep copies of the images outside Aperture, though I know of people who do make archive backups of the original RAW files once they're imported. Of course, I have to rely on Aperture's humungous single database file (think iPhoto on steroids), but there are built-in backup routines you can do to archive a copy of the database regularly. I also moved it to an external drive to make it easier to manage.

I now hand you back to the regular scheduled topic...

Because they don't tend to respond very well if you put them to sleep them remove all electricity from them...

Not running my machines 24/7 saved me several hundred Euros a year in electricity. Reducing the number of machines, and using more efficient machines another hundred or so, and switching them all off and disconecting them from the mains, when they aren't in use, saves another reasonable wedge...

My MacBook Pro survives quite happily, asleep for up to a week with no connection to the mains. It's 'cos it's got a battery in it.

So, you can have the best of both worlds. Let the Mac sleep, and unplug from the mains.

But surely the really annoying blinking light on the leading edge under the trackpad uses more battery power than when it is completely off!?

Experimental Max OS X version of GIMP is available.

http://gimp-app.sourceforge.net/

It’s gut a truly non Mac UI at the moment, and a lot of broken button images.

Like I said, it is an iMac. It definitely doesn't like have mains power taken away from it, when sleeping.

Well, yes, obviously. But it's such a tiny amount it doesn't draw more than a few milliamps.

As I say, I let the machine sleep on battery and it can still have a good 60% of charge capacity after a nearly a week.

Dave, I know you have an iMac, but we're discussing laptops. At least, I thought we were.

You can activate Safe Sleep mode too - which is total power down, but when you restart it, you’ll be exactly where you were before.

Is that when it runs out of battery power and everything you're doing gets dumped to the HD? Very handy that, but a bit disconcerting the first time it happens - I thought my MBP was having "a moment".

Gav and I were discussing the annoying boing sound when ANY modern Mac is switched on, not just notebooks.