Albeit generally reliable, putting your MacBook or MacBook Pro notebook to sleep can be a bit of a gamble. When you open the notebook back up, you want to make sure the computer will wake up again or your day just got that much worse.
Over on the Apple Core, David Morgenstern has offered the following tips in getting his MacBook Pro to wake from sleep under both Mac OS X 10.4 and Mac OS X 10.5.
Per Mac OS X 10.4:

1. Before I put the machine to sleep, I unplug anything connected, such as an Ethernet cable, hard drive or mouse.
2. Next I use the Sleep command under the Apple Menu to put the MacBook to sleep and I wait until the screen actually goes blank before closing the lid. I don’t just close the lid.
3. When I go to wake the MacBook, I open the machine and make sure that I don’t plug anything into the machine before I wake it.

Interestingly enough, Mac OS X’s Energy Saver panel allows for multiple types of sleep (“computer sleep,” which is what we commonly think of as sleep, where the system sleeps; “display sleep,” where the screen goes black; and “hard disk” sleep, where the drive spins down).
The column then mentions that the following types of sleep can be used:

Sleep, where the Mac saves the state in RAM, which means it can go to sleep and wake up quickly, but could bring trouble if the battery runs down or is removed.
Hibernate, where the state is written to the hard disk (the safest for your data), but takes the longest time to be put to sleep and to wake up.
Combination Sleep and Hibernate, which Apple calls Safe Sleep. It may take the longest time to sleep but it also can wake quickly. And if your MacBook supports it, you can swap in a fresh battery.

For users looking to specify the sleep type used, software developer Patrick Stein’s SmartSleep lets you choose between the modes.
For users experiencing problems getting their MacBook notebook to sleep, Apple’s “Why Your Mac Might Not Sleep or Stay in Sleep Mode” Knowledge Base article offers the following tips:

There are reasons why you may want your Mac to stay awake even though you are not using the keyboard or mouse, such as when you are:
Watching a DVD movie
Listening to your iTunes music library
Running an automated backup
Away from your computer while downloading large files

The article also mentions that using Bluetooth devices can disrupt a MacBook’s sleep function:

You can allow Bluetooth devices to wake a sleeping computer by enabling “Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer” in Bluetooth preferences. A bluetooth device paired correctly should not typically prevent a computer from sleeping. However, some Bluetooth mice can interfere with sleep.

Finally, applications themselves can affect sleep:

If an application uses a custom font to display text but the font resource is marked purgeable, then at some point the memory manager will purge the font from memory. When the application tries to draw text using that font again, it will be loaded from the hard drive, resetting the sleep timer.
Applications can be designed to keep the system awake and prevent idle sleep indefinitely. In developer lingo, an application may explicitly prevent system sleep by calling IORegisterForSystemPower(), and calling IOCancelPowerChange() when it receives a power management kIOMessageCanSystemSleep notification.

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Yesterday, Apple released updates to…well…pretty much everything, so if you’ve got a few free minutes to spare and wanted to use Software Update, you’ll have a field day.
First among the updates is the company’s iPhoto 8.0.2 update. The new update, an 87.9 megabyte download, improves overall stability and addresses minor issues in a number of areas, including Faces, Places, photo sharing, and slideshows.
Next, Apple released its iWork 9.0.1update1 patch, a 42.7 megabyte download, that, oddly enough, lacks specific fixes in its description but is offered as a recommended update for all iWork 9.0 users.
Then, the company released its iMovie 8.0.1 update, a 24.5 megabyte download designed as a bug fix for the recently-released iMovie 8.0 video editing application. The new version improves overall application stability as well as addressing minor issues related to usability.
Finally, Apple released iWeb 3.0.1, the company’s update to its WYSIWYG HTML editing application. The new version, a 14.2 megabyte download, addresses issues when publishing to an FTP server and other minor issues.
The updates requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run.
If you’ve tried the updates and can offer any feedback, please let us know in the comments or forums.

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Late Thursday, Apple released its iLife Support 9.0.2 update, a four megabyte download designed to improve overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues. The update is recommended for all users of Aperture, iLife 09, and iWork 09.
Like most patches, the file can be located and installed via Mac OS X’s built-in Software Update feature.
The update requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run.
If you’ve tried the update and have any feedback to offer, please let us know how it went in the comments or forums.

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Late Tuesday, Apple released its Mini DisplayPort to VGA 1.0 firmware update, an 11.4 megabyte download which addresses intermittent flickering and compatibility issues such as no video on some external displays when using the Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter on your Mini DisplayPort-enabled Mac.
Once downloaded, the firmware update will be installed into the “Utilities” folder and will automatically launch to update the firmware on the Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter.
The Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter must be plugged into your Mac and a compatible VGA display. The Mac power adapter must be plugged into a power outlet.
The updater is also available through Mac OS X’s built-in Software Update feature, provided you have qualifying hardware that uses a Mini DisplayPort.
The updater requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run.
If you’ve tried the firmware update and have any feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments or forums.

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Onyx, Titanium Software’s popular freeware multifunction utility for Mac OS X, has been updated to version 2.0.4. The new version, a 16.4 megabyte download, adds the following fixes and changes:

OnyX requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run.
If you’ve tried the new version and have any opinions about it, please let us know in the comments or forums.

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Late Wednesday, Apple released Front Row 2.1.7, an update to its media control system for Mac OS X. The 12.6 megabyte download provides iTunes 8.1 compatibility and is available via Mac OS X’s Software Update feature.
Front Row 2.1.7 requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run.
If you’ve tried the update and have either positive or negative feedback about it, let us know in the comments or forums.

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Capping off the update-o-rama, Apple also released version 8.0.1 of its iPhoto image editing and categorization application yesterday. The update, an 11.6 megabyte download, improves overall stability and addresses minor issues in a number of areas, including internet connectivity, keyword import, and slideshow export.
The update is available via direct download as well as through Mac OS X’s Software Update feature and requires Mac OS X 10.5 to install and run.
If you’ve tried the update and have anything to offer about it, let us know in the comments or forums.

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Amid a slew of product releases yesterday, Apple also released its iLife Support 9.0.1 patch. The update, a 50.6 megabyte download, improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues. It is recommended for all users of Aperture, iLife ’09, and iWork ’09.
The update requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later to install and run and is also available through Mac OS X’s built-in Software Update feature.
If you’ve tried the patch and can offer any feedback on it, please let us know in the comments or forums.

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Late Monday, Apple released its Battery Update 1.4 patch for its older 13″ polycarbonate (black or white) MacBook notebooks. The 210 kilobyte download improves the ability of MacBook batteries to maintain a charge when the system is shut down and not used for an extended period of time.
Users can determine whether their notebook requires this update by following these directions:
1. From the Apple menu, choose About this Mac.
2. Click More Info to start the System Profiler.
3. Locate the Hardware section and select Power.
4. Batteries with this information in the Battery Information section need this update:
1. A device name “ASMB016″ or “ASMB013″ in the serial number
2. A Pack Lot Code is 0002
3. A battery firmware version of 0110
The update requires Mac OS X 10.5 to install and run.
If you’ve tried the update and have any feedback to offer, let us know in the comments or forums.

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By Robert Kaneko
Roxio has once again updated their flagship authoring software package. The latest update, Toast 10 Titanium, continues the natural evolution of a mature product. It gives the user some hints about where Roxio might go with the product as we begin to approach the end of the general use optical storage era. It also presents users with a choice. Roxio has, for the first time, split the product into two versions. There is Toast 10 Titanium, which is the standard version of Toast that users have come to know and love. There is also Toast 10 Titanium Pro, a new variant that basically includes four extra third party authoring solutions in with the basic Toast package.

Let me admit up front that I am a long time fan of Toast. It sits on my short list of “must have” applications. As I noted in my Toast 9 Titanium review last year, I find it an invaluable resource for authoring and archiving beyond the basics provided by Apple’s iDVD, iTunes and Finder disc burning features. In addition, Roxio seems to anticipate that one new feature that I didn’t even know I needed that makes me want to open my wallet one more time.
Toast 10 Titanium has joined the growing list of applications that now requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later. The funny thing is, I didn’t know that when I started this review. Sitting comfortably in my world of ignorance, I installed Toast on my trusty PowerBook G4 running OS X 10.4.11. It worked beautifully! I used most of the new features, including the ability to download and convert flash video from sites like YouTube, and they worked perfectly. I might have run into problems with AVCHD support or Blu-ray, but since I don’t have hardware that supports those features I remained blissfully unaware. Toast and SonicFire Pro 5 (part of the Toast 10 Titanium Pro package) both worked flawlessly. It wasn’t until I tried using the new Mac2TiVo feature that I realized there was a problem. That’s when I actually read the system requirements and moved the installation to a Leopard machine.
If you are familiar with any of the recent versions of Toast, especially Toast 9, Toast 10 is nearly identical. Roxio has once again polished the interface, dropping the styling of Toast 9 in favor of a more Leopard-friendly look, but the general structure of the program remains largely unchanged.


Click the jump for the full review…

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