20 Responses

  1. Snow Leopard Bad for The Environment? We Weigh In… | CentralGadget.com
  2. moole
    moole August 30, 2009 at 3:57 pm |

    Try to use Ctrl-Shift-Eject when leaving your mac to turn the screen off.
    About the first thing: Are you sure that H264 decoding is hw accelerated even on older Macbook Pros with 8600M GT chips? That would be awesome! (for me 🙂

    Reply
  3. Christopher Price
    Christopher Price August 30, 2009 at 8:03 pm |

    Control-Shift-Eject works in Snow Leopard, but triggers a password just like standard display sleep timers.

    I played 12 videos (H.264, Standard Definition) simultaneously in Snow Leopard on a 2.4 GHz 8600M GT MacBook Pro 15-inch. At no time did the CPU break 60% utilization in QuickTime Player. I’d say that’s proof of QuickTime Hardware H.264 Decoding.

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  4. rushN
    rushN August 30, 2009 at 9:26 pm |

    The password requirement after display sleep was the first thing I noticed after upgrading to SL. It is, as you allude, a royal pain in the derrière. Have you reported this to Apple, or made a request to have an option added to system preferences to be able to turn on or off?

    Cheers

    Reply
  5. Christopher Price
    Christopher Price August 31, 2009 at 12:25 am |

    I’ve been asked a few times if I’ve let Apple know about this. I have a standard answer: At MechaWorks we talk to a lot of people at Apple about a lot of things.

    Reply
  6. rushN
    rushN August 31, 2009 at 1:45 am |

    Thanks CP. I look forward to Apple’s response 😉

    Reply
  7. Ed
    Ed September 2, 2009 at 3:51 am |

    Wow! I was about to upgrade to SL and curious about the h264 thingie. Then I find this. It’s the one gem that I totally love about my Macbook. When I’m using some other computer I hammer the corresponding keys for a while before I realize that I can’t turn of the display 😛 Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to fix but no upgrade for me until they do.

    Reply
  8. Dennis
    Dennis September 3, 2009 at 12:31 am |

    there’s kinda a work around:
    in security there’s an option to choose how soon u have to use password…. that might help a bit?

    Reply
  9. Christopher Price
    Christopher Price September 3, 2009 at 12:08 pm |

    Dennis, the problem with the security timer on triggering a password, is that it creates a security hole on the other end.

    If you enable that, you have to make sure to lock the screen before putting the machine to sleep… whenever leaving a secure environment. It’s still not as simple as Leopard, where I could just close the lid.

    Worse, someone could literally rip a machine out of my hands, and even if I managed to shut the lid, they would still have the potential to open the machine, and access all my FileVaulted content. Bye-bye security and encryption.

    Reply
  10. Kyle
    Kyle September 10, 2009 at 12:16 pm |

    I was actually looking for something else… I hate screen savers, I prefer to turn off the screen.

    I needed three modes:
    1 – in which I could turn off the screen without having to enter the password later
    2 – in which I could sleep without having to enter the password later
    4 – in which I could sleep, having to enter the password later…

    Any ideas? Thanx

    Reply
  11. Kyle
    Kyle September 10, 2009 at 12:17 pm |

    … Basically I’m looking for customizable shortcuts that can activate a specific sleep mode.

    Reply
  12. Jon R. Kibler
    Jon R. Kibler September 17, 2009 at 7:11 pm |

    I can see the next Microsoft ad (for home users)…

    “Apple makes you type your password a lot. You have to type your password to
    install software. You have to type your password when you boot your computer.
    You have to type your password when you computer wakes up. You have to type
    your password to stop your screen saver. With its new MacOS, Apple even wants
    you to type your password to brighten the screen. That is a lot of typing!

    Windows is better. We never ever ask you for a password. We save you a lot of
    typing that Apple makes you do. Work smarter. Type less. Use a PC!”

    Reply
  13. Steve Goldfein
    Steve Goldfein September 22, 2009 at 4:18 pm |

    Actually Windows gives you options to control the password behavior.

    Reply
  14. Rob
    Rob October 11, 2009 at 12:25 pm |

    Chris,

    If someone rips your machine out of your hands at any rate, I would say you have bigger problems than the security of your machine.

    Reply
  15. Rob
    Rob October 11, 2009 at 12:27 pm |

    One more thing. Have you used Vista, lately? It prompts you for all kinds of things, while your working on something. I especially love it when I’m working in one app and another one interrupts me (gains focus automatically) to tell me nothing useful…it happens a lot.

    Reply
  16. Rob
    Rob October 11, 2009 at 12:28 pm |

    For what it’s worth, I agree that the password thing on SL should be a toggle.

    Reply
  17. Piers
    Piers October 28, 2009 at 9:50 pm |

    wtf? the password thing IS a toggle, and you CAN set the “grace period” from 5 secs to 4 hours. Prior to SL is was set in stone at a minuteish or so.

    Check you “Security” settings and move on.

    Reply
  18. Christopher Price
    Christopher Price October 29, 2009 at 9:20 am |

    Piers, all I can say is re-read the article. You’re missing key usage scenarios, such as when a user wants to control passwording system sleep, while leaving display sleep un-passworded.

    Again, re-read the article “and move on”. We’re still stuck with a passwording system we hate. It was fine before Snow Leopard, all we’re asking for is an option to put things back the way it was. You seem to fail to see how that is not an option under Snow Leopard.

    Reply
  19. Franco
    Franco January 31, 2010 at 10:44 pm |

    I like the change, before this I needed to use an special screensaver that sleeps the display. Now I don’t need it anymore. But I understand people wanting the old way, it should be an option.

    Reply
  20. Daniel
    Daniel June 10, 2010 at 2:56 am |

    I agree with the gripe about the new password situation. I regularly set my display sleep to one minute and my system sleep to an hour or more when I’m listening to music and working on projects not involving the computer. It’s going to be a real pain typing in my password every time I want to see what song is playing or picking a particular song in the middle of my work.

    Also, they took the power settings menu out of the main toolbar again. Most people don’t need or want to change their settings often, but I like being able to switch between “one minute display sleep, just listening to music while I’m in the room” and “fifteen minute display sleep so I can read news articles in peace” modes without opening system preferences and moving a slider.

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