Don't let your Mac fall asleep.
Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menubar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Hold down the Command key while clicking to show the menu.
The menu now has a sub-menu for deactivating Caffeine automatically after a number of minutes.
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56 Caffeine Reviews
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1) has a auto launch/auto activate on system startup option, great for remote systems, like a laptop, that need to be always on for access. No human needed to activate.
2) Has options to only activate when powered by AC, versus battery, or both. Again, great for laptops.
3) Display sleep can be set separately from machine sleep.
I provide remote assistance to family. When they need me to look at something on their system, I just need to tell them turn on the laptop, plug it in, leave the lid up. They don't even need 'activate' since it is set to auto launch and activate if AC power is on. I can then log in anytime thereafter, even late night. I set options auto launch/activate at startup, activate only when AC is on, and stay awake indefinitely.
Options 2 & 3 are nice options
Yes, true, and for geeks like us, that's okay, but for non-techies, like in my family, I try not to encourage them to mess with Login items. True story, I showed an in-law once about Login items. Week later, he calls me complaining his system has a virus, he's been hacked, etc. I asked, "what makes you say that?" He says, "It's really slow when I turn it on, and I can't do anything for several minutes, and the beachball spins, like somebody is accessing my computer." Well, he had added like 20+ apps to Login Items at startup. "Why did you do that?" I said. "These are the apps I use the most, I want them all available as soon as my machine is turned on." And funny, when I tried to explain why that would slow down his mac at boot, he just couldn't grasp it, because when he launches indivdually, they load (from his perspective) almost instantly. LOL...so yeah, gotta be careful not to give people too much rope :-)
also for non techies, I believe it is critical to have the program recognize if the mac is running on battery and have an option to disengage. Non techies who just unplug power and close the lid, without thinking, will risk draining the battery dead and worse, overheating the laptop.