Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 23 March 2008 12:29
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
As one of the commenters at the Blorge story reported, Mac OS X itself on iMacs rarely needs restarting, something that is the same for many Linux and Unix boxes.
Windows PCs need regular restarting, even Windows Vista hasn’t eliminated the need for a reboot every now and then to clear out the cobwebs.
Sometimes technologies just decide they’re going to crash, and restart themselves. Earlier firmware versions of the Nokia N95 would do this from time to time, and while the latest v20 firmware seems to have fixed the random reboots, I’ve still seen my own N95, now on very rare occasions, decide that it wants to restart.
That actually brings up a very important point in today’s world: most technologies have the capacity to be upgraded in some way through a new firmware update.
If you are finding that your iPod Touch or iPhone regularly needs restarting, here are some questions. What firmware are you using? If you’re not using the latest 1.1.4 firmware, which has had many bug fixes and updates, it’s certainly worth trying to see if it makes things better.
Also, if you’ve jailbroken your iPhone or iPod Touch, and have all kinds of third party software running on it, none of which is, as yet, authorised, it could easily be badly written third party software that is causing the problem.
I’ve seen people who have wireless broadband ADSL routers that seem to drop their connection or regularly restart themselves.
Checking to see if the latest firmware was applied – which in 99% of cases wasn’t – managed to fix the issue in 99% of cases, making for a very happy user afterwards who had learned the value of updating their technology – the hard way.
Of course simple technologies like your radio can be left on indefinitely, if plugged into power, although that is a waste of energy.
Many devices have a stand-by mode, but if your mother was anything like mine, she’d insist on things being turned off at the wall. Now, in these energy conscious times, the official advice of many (rather than just mothers) is to turn things off the wall completely, where possible, rather than relying on standby modes which still sap small amounts of power, small amounts that, on a worldwide scale, add up to big amounts.
Are there any technologies that do, for the most part, stay permanently on (and aren’t Unix boxes)? Please read onto page 3 for the conclusion.
