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Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Freeware, Beta

SmartSleep 1.0 Beta 1: Your Macbook or Macbook Pro will sleep smarter

SmartSleep 1.0 is a Mac preference pane designed for the MacBook or MacBook Pro that will help your computer get the most from its Da Vincian cat naps.

SmartSleep sets a schedule for your Mac laptop's sleep patterns: when your battery has a high level, SmartSleep sets the computer to sleep only (sans hibernation). If your battery goes below 20% (the default setting, user customizable) then SmartSleep will tell your machine to sleep and hibernate. If your battery sneaks below 5%, you should really find an outlet -- but in case you can't, SmartSleep will set the computer to hibernate only (thus preserving the battery completely).

SmartSleep also allows you to choose any one sleep setting as the default, useful if you want your computer to always sleep and hibernate, or hibernate only, etc...

Now some of you might be asking: if it ain't broke, why try to fix it?

SmartSleep was created to free the user from certain limitations of each individual sleep setting. If your computer is set to sleep only, for example, you cannot change the battery, because the battery is needed to keep the contents of the memory. If your computer is set to sleep and hibernate, there might be a significant delay before your computer actually goes to sleep because the contents of the memory are being saved to disk. SmartSleep maximizes the effectiveness of each setting to give you the fastest response time based upon your computer's current power state.

SmartSleep is a free download, Mac OS X only, and is best suited for MacBooks and MacBook Pros (trust us, you won't get much out of the program if you're on an iMac or Mac Mini).

[via Softpedia]

Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Shareware

Wake Assist for the snooze-loving Mac

Wake AssistWake Assist is a free utility (which runs as a daemon) that aims to fix a common problem that occurs on some Macs: the Mac is sleeping and when the user attempts to wake it, it rolls over and hits the snooze button. On our Macbook Pro for instance, we often open the lid after it has been sleeping only to receive a black screen and a still sleeping Mac.

The Wake Assist download comes with a .pkg for installing the daemon and an uninstall shell script should you choose to remove the utility. The daemon works by sending mouse clicks to the OS to show/hide the Apple menu when you attempt to wake the computer if it detects no user activity first.

[Via MacUpdate]

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

Schedule a PC reboot, shutdown, or hibernate with WinOFF

WinOFF
So you're in the middle of downloading a large file, or sending a huge batch of photos to your mom. The file transfer's going to take another 40 minutes, and you really want to hit the sack. But you don't want to leave your computer on all night sucking up energy.

WinOFF is a nifty utility that lets you schedule all sorts of power-related actions. You can set your computer to shutdown 60 minutes from now. Or you can tell it a specific time to shut down. There's even an option to shut down the system when your CPU is idle, under the assumption that this means your computer is probably finished with whatever task you set for it.

Don't want to do a complete shutdown? You can put your computer in suspend or hibernate mode. Or if you just want to make sure your PC is fresh and ready to go in the morning, you can schedule a middle of the night reboot.

[via CyberNet]

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