Do You Shutdown Your Laptop?
Perhaps we can also apply the question to your other computers, too–do you shutdown your desktop computer?
Today’s busy lifestyles usually necessitate computer users’ not shutting down their machines completely. Some would leave their computers powered on the entire time. But if you’re energy conscious, you would opt for Hibernating instead.
For example, I’ve always had the habit of switching off my work desktop computer using Hibernate rather than a complete shutdown, so the next morning I can always just get back to doing whatever tasks or processes I left undone the night before. This was the same at home. I never really shut down my home PC, but also just used Hibernate, so the apps I have running would still be there, saving me the few minutes or seconds wait having to open them up after boot up.
I only restart or shut down a few times in a month, when I install software that absolutely needs rebooting (such as Windows updates) or when I feel my system is getting so bogged down that I need a fresh start.
The same goes with my laptop. Being a mobile device, I’m fond of just transporting my laptop from one place to another, and it’s great to be able to pick up from where I left. And this is why I usually configure my Power button to put my computer to Hibernate instead of shutdown.
I loved it even better when I started using a PowerBook as an additional work machine–the sleep feature was great. It consumed practically zero power whenever the laptop was in sleep state. And this wasn’t even the safe sleep feature of newer powerbooks that actually saved RAM data onto hard disc and killed off all power running through the computer (which is the equivalent of Hibernate in Windows).
Hibernation gripes
Hibernation doesn’t come without its disadvantages, however. First, with the increasing amount of RAM we put into our computers these days, it’s taking longer and longer to resume from hibernation (since the computer reads the RAM contents that had been saved into the hard drive). Also, hibernation takes as much space on your hard drive as your total RAM size. So if you have 2 Gigs of RAM loaded on your laptop, then Hibernate (at least in Windows) eats up that same amount.
Of course, this wait is non-existent with the Mac’s sleep function, although it’s not really a true “hibernate” or save-memory-to-disk operation.
And then there’s the risk of losing all your unsaved data or work if the hibernate file gets corrupted, forcing you to do a fresh reboot.
It’s the workflow!
The biggest disadvantage, however, is that the Hibernate feature encourages people to be procrastinators!
Imagine that instead of trying to finish a task at hand–say, an article you’re planning to publish on your blog–right now, you would choose to leave that hanging and return to writing later. Or perhaps you’re doing some number crunching with several Excel spreadsheets open. Chances are, you’ve already lost your flow. You’ve probably lost a lot of writing ideas you could have otherwise put into black and white. Or you’ve probably already been confused which spreadsheet, and which particular set of cells or functions you were working on.
Is it practical?
So the shutdown versus hibernate question is more complicated than you think. It might be practical to keep your apps open and to keep startup times quick. However, it might also be tempting to just procrastinate and set aside things for next time.
In the long run, I would think the best way to go is to finish up all work (or other tasks) and close all your applications before hitting that Hibernate button. This way, you get the benefit of keeping your essential programs running, but you’re still able to finish what you’re supposed to.
And if you’re like me, transferring from my home office to Starbucks for some fresh scenery could mean Hibernating and then forgetting what I was supposed to be doing. The best way to deal with it? I usually write a note to myself about my pending tasks I wanted done in the first place.
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