June 2012 – Page 2 – Something Odd!

Windows 7 on desktop machines doesn’t have a hibernate button. It does have a sleep option which in fact is a “hybrid sleep”, a half way house between hibernation (RAM copied to disk) and sleep (RAM kept alive by a small voltage).

Hybrid sleep is a good compromise but I really prefer to have the machine turned off but I like to keep the state recorded. I need hibernation and that’s where this FAQ came in. It has a good explanation of the different sleep states, how to enable hibernation and most importantly, what to do when your machine won’t stay in hibernation (chances are your mouse is waking up your PC).

It didn’t mention “powercfg -h on” which I found recommended on several forums like this one. Odd. I ran that from an Adminstrator’s cmd shell so I can’t say for sure if it’s required or not any more.

In a nutshell:

Turn off hybrid sleep in the Power Options advanced settings.
In your mouse device properties disable the checkbox that allows it to wake up the computer.

Also, if you right click on the Shutdown button you can change the default action to Hibernate, sleep or any of the shutdown options. When updates are to be installed it changes back to “Shutdown”.

D.A.W.G fundraising in Blarney

D.A.W.G are fundraising in Blarney this afternoon. Please support them if you’re passing this way!

Get your adventures on the cheap

The Bundle in a box promotion is still going, but only for the next 4 hours. It’s a collection of point and click adventures and can be bought for the tiny sum of $0.99!

I already had “Ben There, Dan That!” and “Time Gentlemen, Please!” and enjoyed them. I’m hopeless at adventure game puzzles though so I must go look for a walkthrough. I love the stories however. I remember long ago reading through the adventure sections of Your Sinclair. The games mentioned were always just a little oddball, a little out of the ordinary and usually weren’t sold in shops but by mail order. Buying from Indie developers is a lot easier these days.

Thanks Gnome for helping to organise the bundle. Adventures are a niche though but if this is your first exposure to them this is a great way to start. So go on, drop them a Dollar and get some great games!

The Venus Transit: history and stories

Mark Anderson, author of the book The Day The World Discovered the Sun on the Science Talk podcast last week talked about the transit of Venus that’s happening today. Also make sure you listen to part 2 of the podcast!

It’s an amazing story about the efforts in 1760 to measure the distance to Venus. They had to travel far north and also south to the tropics to measure the angle of view from two known locations. Astonishing that they did this so long ago, even using the moon as a GPS, a technique that had only just been figured out.

The global positioning satellite in this case was the moon. In the 1760s science was for the first time able to predict with uncanny accuracy the moon’s exact motion in the sky years ahead of time. So some of these Venus transit pioneers, especially England’s Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne, had mastered a method by which a ship’s navigator anywhere on the Earth could observe the moon with a £8 sextant and a reference manual (costing a few shillings) — and in short order discover their exact location on the planet. The long-sought solution to the longitude problem was now easy, inexpensive and at hand. (source)

Edit: Some amazing photos of the Venus transit, as taken from the Nasa website: 1, 2, 3

Vertigo sitting at my desk

You may have seen these videos before but if not make sure you’re sitting down and play them fullscreen. I promise you’ll go “WOAH!” at least once.

Recurring Nightmares

I’d forgotten how good Batman: Arkham Asylum was but now I’m playing it again having picked it up on release 2 years ago. The Scarecrow character in the comics had some great stories and the recurring nightmares in this game are terrifying the first time you come across them!

(Spoiler alert! Don’t watch or you’ll ruin a great section of the game!)