DssW Sleep Monitor Lite for Mac OS X

Sleep Monitor Lite is the younger brother to our established Sleep Monitor product.

Sleep Monitor Lite requires Mac OS X 10.6 or later, and a desktop or portable Mac.

Sleep Monitor Lite is available only on the Mac App Store.

Sleep via AppleScript

You can ask the application Finder to put the Mac to sleep on your behalf. The following snippet works on Mac OS X 10.4 through to Mac OS X 10.7:

tell the application "Finder" to sleep

An AppleScript to make your Mac sleep

The Mac will sleep immediately when this AppleScript is run.

Sleep via Automator

Automator does not include a built-in action for making your Mac sleep. We are going to create one using the Run AppleScript action.

1. Create a new workflow in Automator.
   

   Create a new workflow in Automator

2. Find and add the Run AppleScript action.
3. Copy and paste the following AppleScript into the action:

   tell the application "Finder" to sleep

   

   Add an AppleScript action to make your Mac sleep

4. Save your workflow.

When this Automator workflow is run, your Mac will sleep immediately.

Sleep via the Command Line

The easiest way to make your Mac sleep using the command line is with the following:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to sleep'

Terminal command to make your Mac sleep

When issued, this command will immediately put your Mac to sleep.

The Common Theme

You may have noticed all the methods above use a little bit of AppleScript. AppleScript lets you talk to savvy applications in a near English dialect. Different applications can perform different tasks for you, and with AppleScript you can chain these tasks together in powerful ways.

Sleep Monitor is an energy auditing tool for Mac OS X. Sleep Monitor keeps a track of when your Mac is powered on and off, and how the battery is doing. All this information is then transformed into a graph and table for you to browse.

DssW Sleep Monitor 3 on Mac OS X

Download your free 30 day demonstration of Sleep Monitor.

Preview Release

This is the first time we have formally launched a public preview. We are interested in getting feedback and bug reports. We believe most of the functionality is complete and stable, but suspect a few edge cases will appear once more people get to use Sleep Monitor.

As always, please send your feedback and bug reports to support@dssw.co.uk, or through the feedback form within Sleep Monitor’s Help menu.

Special Pricing

To mark this preview of Sleep Monitor 3, we are offering a time limited special price. From now until we launch the release edition of Sleep Monitor 3, you can save 30% off the normal price.

Upgrading from Sleep Monitor 2

Sleep Monitor 2 customers will get Sleep Monitor 3 for free. Once Sleep Monitor 3 is out of preview, we will be contacting previous customers with their new licence details. More information about upgrading is available.

DssW Activity Audit and iCal

Activity Audit creates a calendar showing when you use your Mac and what applications you run. This update introduces support for suspending auditing while your Mac is asleep, the screen is dimmed, or your user account is Fast User Switched.

The ability to automatically suspend auditing creates a better activity journal. You can now see when your Mac is actively being used. Gaps appear in the journal where your Mac is left idle. Previously, it was not possible to capture this level of detail.

The improved auditing agent makes implementing a pro-active energy saving schedule much easier.

Activity Audit now includes a status menu bar to show when auditing is occurring. You can use the status menu bar to quickly launch iCal or Activity Audit. You can also stop auditing at any time from the status menu bar.

Activity Audit v1.1 is a free upgrade for existing customers.

Activity Audit is available now on the Mac App Store and directly from DssW. A 14 day demonstration is available.

New in Activity Audit v1.1

• Added status menu while auditing.
• Added support for auditing until next log out.
• Added option to suspend auditing during display sleep, computer sleep, and Fast User Switch.
• Removed requirement for a login agent.
• Improved detection of multiple agent instances being launched.
• Improved application event matching algorithm.

We have previously seen how Power Manager can make your Mac reliably sleep when it is left untouched. Let’s look at how you can further improve this behaviour.

We are going to do something Mac OS X’s Energy Saver can not. We are going to have the Mac sleep after different periods of inactivity depending on what day of the week it is.

During the week we want the Mac to sleep after twenty minutes of inactivity. Weekdays are when the Mac is used for work and we want to be able to read long documents on screen without needing to move the mouse to keep the Mac awake.

During the weekend the Mac is used less frequently and should sleep much more quickly after inactivity. We want the Mac to sleep after just five minutes of inactivity but only on Saturday and Sunday.

Create a Conditional Sleep After Inactivity Event

1. Launch System Preferences and select Power Manager.
2. Click Add…to create a new event.
   

   Click Add to create a new Power Manager event.

3. Choose the template Power off after inactivity.
   

   Select the Power off after inactivity Power Manager task.

4. Click Continue to the What and When step.
5. Adjust the required period of inactivity to 20 minutes. Type 20 0 into the After how long inactive? field; the 20 is the minutes and 0represents the seconds.
   

   Adjust when the Power Manager event should be triggered.

6. Continue to the Time Constraints step.
7. Enable the The day of the week is: check box. Enable all the days except Saturday and Sunday.
   

   Adjust when the Power Manager event can be performed.

8. Continuethrough the remaining steps until your event is created.
   

   Provide a note why this Power Manager is needed.

   

   Confirm the Power Manager event can be created.

With the steps above completed you have one half of your schedule ready. The Mac will now sleep after 20 minutes during the week.

The first Power Manager sleep after inactivity event is ready.

Repeat the steps above and create a second event with these settings:

• Change the After how long inactive? to 5 minutes.
  

  Use a different trigger time for the second Power Manager event.

• Change the days to only Saturday and Sunday.
  

  Use a different set of days for the second Power Manager event.

You will now have two events scheduled in Power Manager. One event will deal with inactivity triggered sleep during the week, and the second event will deal with sleep during the weekend.

Both Power Manager sleep events are ready and scheduled.

Supporting Multiple Events

Power Manager supports multiple inactivity triggered events. You can create more than one event that is triggered when your Mac becomes inactive. Each event can be triggered after different periods of inactivity.

Power Manager also supports conditions. If an event’s conditions are not met, the event’s actions will not be performed.

By combining the ability to support multiple inactivity triggered events with conditions, we have been able to create behaviour that is not possible with Mac OS X’s Energy Saver.

We have created two sleep events that are triggered after different periods of inactivity, on different days of the week.

Mac OS X’s sleep mode is controlled by the Energy Saver. To adjust how and when sleep mode is triggered, open the System Preferences application and select Energy Saver.

Energy Saver System Preference in Mac OS X 10.6

Idle Time

Energy Saver will put your computer and display to sleep after a period of idle time. Idle time is Mac OS X’s measure of how long your Mac has gone unused.

What surprises many Mac owners is that idle time is difficult to judge. Predicating when sleep will occur is far from an exact science.

This confusion is not helped by the number of factors that can prevent sleep from occurring. Running applications and background processes can block sleep. Hardware and network activity can also block sleep.

Inactivity Time

There is an easier means of deciding when to make your Mac sleep.

Inactivity time is the time since the Mac was last interacted with. Inactivity time starts ticking up when you stop typing, moving the mouse, and leave the Mac untouched. Pressing a key or moving the mouse, resets inactivity time back to zero.

Let’s walk through how Power Manager can use inactivity time to put your Mac to sleep.

Create a Sleep After Inactivity Event

1. Launch System Preferences and select Power Manager.
2. Click Add… to create a new event.
   

   Click Add in Power Manager to create a new event.

3. Choose the template Power off after inactivity.
   

   Select the Power off after inactivity task.

4. Click Continue to the What and When step.
5. By default, the event will Sleep after 15 minutes. You can adjust the required period of inactivity to match your needs.
   

   Adjust when your Mac should automatically sleep.

6. Continue through the remaining steps until your event is created.
   

   Continue passed the Time Constraints.

   

   Continue passed the Interactive Constraints.

   

   Describe why you want this event.

   

   Confirm the event can be created.

Having followed the steps above, you will have created a new event in Power Manager. This event will start working immediately and will put your Mac to sleep after a period of inactivity.

Your new sleep after inactivity Power Manager event is ready.

Your new Power Manager sleep event will not be blocked by running applications or background processes. You can be assured that after 15 minutes of not using your Mac, it will automatically go to sleep and save you energy.

For curators and exhibitors looking to reduce your running costs, Power Manager includes a Schedule Assistant built for you.

We built this schedule to handle Macs that are distributed around museums but that are often in difficult to reach locations, or are actually integrated with exhibits. These Macs are typically left on over night.

Worse yet, some Macs are powered down by cutting the mains power to the exhibit each night. Each morning a member of staff needs to walk around switching each Mac back on. Why is this a problem? Your Macs are not designed to survive repeated power cuts. Over time this method increases the chances of damaging the hardware and the data stored within.

Let’s walk through the Museum Schedule and see how Power Manager can solve this problem.

Our schedule will automatically power on the Mac each morning, and power off the Mac at night. Each day of the week can have different times for powering on and off – perfect for matching the museum’s regular opening hours.

Create a Museum Schedule

1. Launch System Preferences and select Power Manager.
2. Click Add… to create your new schedule.
   

   Click Add to start creating your Power Manager museum schedule.

3. Choose the template Museum Schedule.
   

   Choose the Museum Schedule energy saving task.

4. Click Continue to the Opening Days step.
5. Select the days the museum is open.
   

   Select the museum opening days.

6. Click Continue to the Opening Hours step.
7. Enter the opening times of the museum. You may want to enter times slightly in advance of the opening times to give the Mac time to get started.
   

   Enter the museum opening times.

8. Click Continue to the Closing Hours step.
9. Enter the closing times of the museum. As with the opening hours, you may want to add a little time before automatically powering down the Mac.
   

   Enter the museum closing times.

10. Continue through the remaining steps until your events are created.
    

    Confirm the events match your museum times and days.

    

    The museum events are now ready and scheduled.

Having followed the steps above, Power Manager has created a series of events for you. The schedule is separated into individual events; one for powering on and another for powering off. A pair of events has been created for each day the museum is open.

While it is possible to create one event to power on your Mac at a given time each day of the week, the more verbose method used here has distinct advantages for museums.

The advantage of this method is being able to adjust your schedule well in advance of changes. Many museums operate one-off or occasional events outside of standard opening hours; with an individual event per power change, you can easily make changes up to a week ahead using the status menu bar or through Power Manager Remote.

Museum events can be adjusted up to a week ahead.

For those needing to set up numerous Macs, you can create your schedule once and then export it for transferring to other Macs. Alternatively, take a look at Power Manager Professional for a complete remote management solution.

One place where Power Manager differs from traditional tools is in its ability to treat a sleep and wake pairing as a single event. As one event you can adjust, delay, and cancel the period of sleep without needing to also adjust the corresponding wake event. Power Manager makes those changes for you.

This ability to treat a pair of events as one is particularly useful when creating a schedule around your daily routine. You can now a create single event to put your Mac to sleep during lunch, and that same event also deals with waking your Mac up afterwards.

If you need to adjust your schedule, you can use the status menu bar or Power Manager Remote. One adjustment moves both the time your Mac will sleep and when it will wake. No need to adjust a sleep event, and then adjust the corresponding wake event.

Let’s walk through how to schedule your Mac to sleep over lunch, from 12:30 until 13:30.

Create a Scheduled Sleep For a While Event

1. Launch System Preferences and select Power Manager.
2. Click Add… to create a new event.
   

   Click Add to create a new Power Manager event.

3. Choose the template Sleep for a while daily.
   

   Select the Sleep for a while daily Power Manager template.

4. Click Continue to the What step.
5. By default, a one hour duration is already selected, but you can adjust the number of hours, minutes, and seconds your Mac will sleep.
   

   Adjust the hours, minutes, and seconds your Mac should sleep for.

6. Click Continue to the When step.
7. Adjust the time and days to read 12:30, with only Monday through Friday selected.
   

   Select the time and days when your Mac should sleep.

8. Continue through the remaining steps until your event is created.
   

   Continue through the interactive constraints steps.

   

   Give your event a name and mention why this event is needed.

   
   
   

   Confirm the Power Manager event should be created.

Having followed the steps above, Power Manager will have created a single event. The event is immediately scheduled and your Mac will now go to sleep for an hour over lunch.

Your new Power Manager event to sleep for a while is ready.

You can see your new event in the Power Manager status menu bar. The event can be adjusted, cancelled, and delayed as a single item.

The single event representing both sleep and wake appears in the Power Manager status menu bar.

Your Mac can go to sleep after being left idle, but this is not always reliable. Most of us have a reasonably predictable daily routine and getting your Mac to work effortlessly with your routine is desirable.

Using Power Manager you can schedule your Mac to go sleep at a specific time each day. You can even schedule your Mac to go to sleep at specific times on weekdays, and at a different time on weekends.

Let’s walk through how to schedule your Mac to sleep at 9:00 pm every night of the working week.

Create a Scheduled Sleep Event

1. Launch System Preferences and select Power Manager.
2. Click Add… to create a new event.
   

   Click Add... to create a new Power Manager event.

3. Choose the template Power off daily.
   

   Choose the Power off daily event template.

4. Click Continue to the What step.
5. Select Sleep for What should be performed?.
   

   Select Sleep from the choice of power events to perform.

6. Click Continue to the When step.
7. Adjust the time and days to read 9:00 pm, with only Monday through Friday selected.
   

   Adjust the time and days of the Power Manager sleep event.

8. Continue through the remaining steps until your event is created.
   

   Continue to the Why step.

   

   Confirm the creation of your new Power Manager event.

Having followed the steps above, Power Manager will now show your newly created event. The event is scheduled immediately and Power Manager will now put your Mac to sleep every weekday evening at 9:00 pm.

Your new Power Manager sleep event is ready.

You can see your new event in the Power Manager status menu bar, and through Power Manager Remote.

Your new sleep event appears in the Power Manager status menu.

Previously we covered how to run an AppleScript when switching to battery power. This recipe deals with the opposite situation, where your MacBook or MacBook Pro has its power adapter plugged back in.

For this example, we are going to run an AppleScript to ask iTunes to check for new podcasts. You could use this trigger to perform an action or sequence of actions, for example launching an application or running a shell script.

Create the Mains Power Triggered Event

1. Launch AppleScript Editor: Applications > Utilities > AppleScript Editor.
2. Copy and paste the following AppleScript into a new document:

   -- The AppleScript to run when mains power is connected
   set myScriptContents to "#!/usr/bin/osascript
   
   tell application \"iTunes\" to updateAllPodcasts
   "
   
   tell application "Power Manager Scripting"
   
   	tell workshop
   
   		set myEvent to make new event with properties {trigger ID:"myBatteryEvent", name:"Run script on switch to mains"}
   
   		-- Create a power source trigger
   		make new trigger power state at front of triggers of myEvent with properties {now:ac power}
   
   		-- Create an external inline script to store the AppleScript
   		set myExternal to make new external inline with properties {inline:myScriptContents}
   		set myAction to make new action execute external at front of actions of myEvent with properties {external:myApplication,proceed:on exit}
   
   	end tell
   
   	-- Deploy the event
   	tell Event Store to store these events myEvent
   
   	-- Clean up
   	tell the workshop to empty
   
   end tell

   

   AppleScript to create a mains power triggered Power Manager event.

3. Save the script: File > Save.
4. Run the script: Script > Run.

When run, this AppleScript will create a new event in Power Manager. The new event contains one trigger and one action. The trigger tells Power Manager to trigger the event when any power source’s state changes to “ac power”.

Power Manager showing a mains power triggered event.

The new event’s action tells Power Manager to run the script in the front most user’s session. If no-one is logged in, the AppleScript will not be performed. This is the ideal behaviour for this AppleScript.

Trigger the event manually from the Power Manager menu bar item.

You can try this event immediately. Thanks to the event’s on-demand behaviour, the event can be triggered through Power Manager’s status menu bar, or via Power Manager Remote on your iOS device.