TIPS & TRICKS: Slow Wake for MacBook Pro

Apparently, Apple notebooks have a standby mode that is a deeper sleep than the standard sleep that happens when you first close the lid. This standby mode kicks in after an hour of normal sleep by default to help save battery power. Good feature to really help save battery drain while the computer is sleeping. 

However, there is a draw back. It takes about 10 to 15 seconds after the lid is open before a password can be entered. If I'm a hurry, 10 to 15 seconds seems like an eternity. 

Fortunately, there's a way to adjust this behavior. Here's the command to use in terminal:

sudo pmset -a standbydelay 86400




The 86400 is the number seconds in 24 hours. This can be adjusted to what ever works for you. To check the setting:

pmset -g

See the following blog for additional information:

http://www.ewal.net/2012/09/09/slow-wake-for-macbook-pro-retina/

Hope this helps you. 

TIPS & TRICKS: "Randomly" Waking Windows 7 Computer

Awhile back, I noticed my workstation was waking up in the middle of the night. After checking the system logs, I found that there was a Google update service that woke the computer up. I fixed that one. To my surprise, I found my computer on again at 1:41am. Another piece of update software woke up the machine. This useful command helped to confirm my findings in the log:

powercfg -lastwake


Just need to make sure to run it from a command prompt as and administrator:


- Click Start
- Type cmd in the Search programs and files box
- right click cmd under Programs and select "Run as Administrator"


If this line is included in the results after the powercfg -lastwake command is issued:


Windows will execute 'MicrosoftWindowsMedia Centermcupdate_scheduled' scheduled task that requested waking the computer.


Then, here's the fix:


- Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Task Scheduler
- Expand Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows > Media Center
- Find mcupdate_scheduled (note: make sure to find this one because there's another one called just mcupdate)
- Right click on mcupdate_scheduled and select "Properties".
- Select the Conditions tab
- Uncheck "wake the computer to run this task"

- Hit OK to exit.

Just did this to my workstation and will see if it works. Credit goes to this site:

http://www.beirtech.com/blogs.php?action=view&bid=6