Leave It Run, Or Not?

 

This is one of those topics that always seems to make digital sparks fly.

I guess I'll give you the thoughts from both camps and let you decide.

Those are the main reasons both ways. My opinion? I let it run during the day when I'm using it and shut it off at night.

I don't think it's good for the computer to have someone poking at the power switch constantly. If you're going to use it in the morning and then again in the afternoon, leave it run till you're finished for the day.

I used to leave mine run 24/7, but a few things have changed my mind.

For one, any chip faster than 133Mhz needs a cooling fan to keep it from burning itself into a silicon cinder. These fans are not totally reliable.

If I'm using the computer and am getting signs that I have a CPU that's overheating (your computer will act *really* strange, some will play a little tune through the internal speaker), I can shut things down and get it fixed. If it happens in the middle of the night, I'll have a roasted CPU in the morning.

Another reason is that I've seen power supplies go bad and try to catch themselves (and anything nearby) on fire. Again, not something I want to have happen at 2:00 AM when I'm asleep dreaming about program code.

Finally, anyone who uses Windows knows that it should be re-booted on a daily basis. So, by shutting it off at night and turning it back on it the morning, I automatically get my re-boot (that's not to say I don't have to do the occasional re-boot during the day though with win 9.x type machines).

So, my advice is to run it when you need it, and when you're done for the day, shut it down.

Wheel Mouse Warning!

 

So, you have one of those cool little wheel mice. Great aren't they? Once you start scrolling with a wheel, you never want to go back - that's for sure. In fact, one day you may be telling your wide-eyed grandkids about the way you used to have a mouse that didn't have a wheel between the keys.

Well, there's something you need to be aware of - call it "the dark side of the wheel" if you like.

Wheel mice can change drop down box selections.

OK, that doesn't sound all that bad, does it? In fact, if you know that you can use your wheel mouse to change selections in a drop down box, you may even think that it's a handy little feature.

Here's the problem. Let's say you come across a drop down box and make a selection. Now, you need to move down the page so you instinctively spin the little wheel on your wheel mouse. Well, if you didn't take focus away from the drop down box first (i.e. you didn't click on a different are of the web page) you'll find that you may have inadvertently changed your selection!

Of course, while your changing the selection you don't scroll. However, what most people do is scroll a little, see that nothing happens, then click a blank area on the web page and the scrolling starts again. They don't even realize that they have changed their drop box selection.
 

Want to see what I mean? Try selecting something in the drop box below, then spin that little wheel mouse wheel (don't click outside the box though!)

Sample 1 Sample 2 Sample 3 Sample 4 Sample 5 Sample 6 Sample 7 Sample 8 Sample 9 Choose Sample 5 and scroll

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