Instant Messaging and the 'Always On' Computer
, 2005.05.27
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How long do you leave your computer on - a few hours at a time? a day at a time? a week?
The way people use the computer has changed drastically over the past 6-7 years. In the mid-90s, it was a business machine, an educational tool, a word processor, a place to get your email.
By the late 90s, companies like AOL started offering instant messaging clients. This allowed non-AOL users to "instant message" their friends without having to sign up for America Online itself. The advent of "away messages" meant that people would leave their computer on and their IM programs running while they went to lunch.
With cable Internet showing up in the late 90s and becoming popular 3-4 years ago, this gave people an excuse to leave their home computers on even longer. They could leave their IM clients open with an away message letting their friends know that they went out to see a movie and won't be back until 10 p.m.
For the most part, the operating systems of 5-6 years ago weren't really up to being left on for so long. Windows 98, for example, frequently developed little bugs after being on for a day or two, and the computer would then end up crashing.
Mac OS 9, 8, and the rest would gradually slow down and display memory errors if many applications had been opened and then closed. Restarting was the best way to fix it.
Today, most people seem to leave their computers on constantly. When so much of our lives seems to revolve around something on the computer, why turn it off?
My blue G3 has been on for 12 days and 36 minutes, according to the very useful 'uptime' command. Type that in your Mac OS X terminal, and you'll immediately be told how long your computer's been running, how many users are logged in, and load averages.
Mac OS X is designed to be left on all the time. As many have noted, it is set to automatically perform many maintenance tasks during the night. While OS X may not be as easy to crash as the classic Mac OS, it's still not perfect. I find that it tends to slow down a bit after a couple weeks. Sometimes it's not noticeable, so I wait until it gets slow before I restart.
I once had my PowerBook running for 46 days before I restarted it.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, Windows XP still has issues with being left on. Most obviously these days, there's all the spyware and network attacks that can come upon your machine while you're not expecting it. Some cable companies suggest turning off your Windows PC while you're not using it in order to help protect against hackers.
Then again, the number of times you may have to restart Windows in a day will probably make you want to turn it off after you're done. My PC tends to develop errors with the sound card drivers - the sound stops working, and I have to restart. This generally happens at least once a day.
I suppose that's not as bad as a friend's PC who seems to restart on an average of 2-3 times a day. It's still a huge improvement over Windows 95/98 (especially early versions), which often gave the infamous 'blue screen of death'.
Power management has gotten much
more sophisticated over the years. The compact Macs (except the Colour Classic) all had a power
switch in the back. You could have the computer on or off. Later
machines added a low-power function, which put specific parts of
the computer, such as the display and hard drive, to sleep after a
specified amount of time. The PCI-based Macs added a genuine sleep
option, which was available in the Apple menu. This was a great aid
for those who wanted to leave their machine on but didn't want to
worry about the energy the machine was using.
The newer Macs put the power switch in the back (the Mac mini, eMac, iMac), a hint that the way people have used computers has changed again - or at least that Apple would like people to change.
Face it: Some will always turn off the computer when they're
done using it. Others will always leave it on. If nothing else, the
fact that Apple's done that and gotten away with it shows a greater
acceptance of the 'always-on' computer. 
- Link: AOL Instant Messenger
- Link: Yahoo! Messenger
- Link: MSN Messenger for Mac
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