Comments on: Do you leave your computer on at night? http://www.offassist.com/2009/06/01/do-you-leave-your-computer-on-at-night/ Real Bookkeeping. Virtual Assistance. Wed, 05 May 2010 02:41:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Justin http://www.offassist.com/2009/06/01/do-you-leave-your-computer-on-at-night/comment-page-1/#comment-15 Justin Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:22:54 +0000 /2009/06/01/do-you-leave-your-computer-on-at-night/#comment-15 I leave mine (both my desktop & my servers) on all the time. The servers I guess aren't anything odd - they run all the time because they're needed all the time. My desktop, however, stays on for two reasons. First, it does things over night (like run backups) that would severely limit my use during the day. More important to me, though, is that it collects information.<br /><br />If I turn my box off overnight, my RSS feeds stop collecting. I pull in ~500 news items each day, and ~250 "personal" items (most of which aren't really "personal" so much as "not for a specific client.") Most RSS feeds only feed out the last 10 (or sometimes, 20-25) items. If I turn my box off, I lose all but those 10 items, which can be upwards of 100 posts. I also miss communication: A lot of people like to "leave a message" via IM/Skype, & I respond when I'm back at my desk. With the exception of Skype, I think, when you're offline, you're offline.<br /><br />I also lose social networking, like Twitter. It might be no big deal if I followed 10 people who tweeted twice a day, just to socialize, but with 175 followers, some of whom hit the hourly tweet limit on a regular basis, my timeline on the website literally stops after 2-3 hours - the "archive" just can't keep up with the volume. I'm getting business leads & gathering business intel, not to mention building relationships with clients & potential clients. I can't afford to miss what's being said.<br /><br />It's all made even more important when you don't keep normal business hours. People love that office hours go until 1:30AM when they have a late-night emergency & don't have to wait for morning, but it does tend to mean that anything going on in the AM has to be collected & attended to later. I'd rather pay the extra electric bill than suffer the business consequences. I leave mine (both my desktop & my servers) on all the time. The servers I guess aren't anything odd – they run all the time because they're needed all the time. My desktop, however, stays on for two reasons. First, it does things over night (like run backups) that would severely limit my use during the day. More important to me, though, is that it collects information.

If I turn my box off overnight, my RSS feeds stop collecting. I pull in ~500 news items each day, and ~250 "personal" items (most of which aren't really "personal" so much as "not for a specific client.") Most RSS feeds only feed out the last 10 (or sometimes, 20-25) items. If I turn my box off, I lose all but those 10 items, which can be upwards of 100 posts. I also miss communication: A lot of people like to "leave a message" via IM/Skype, & I respond when I'm back at my desk. With the exception of Skype, I think, when you're offline, you're offline.

I also lose social networking, like Twitter. It might be no big deal if I followed 10 people who tweeted twice a day, just to socialize, but with 175 followers, some of whom hit the hourly tweet limit on a regular basis, my timeline on the website literally stops after 2-3 hours – the "archive" just can't keep up with the volume. I'm getting business leads & gathering business intel, not to mention building relationships with clients & potential clients. I can't afford to miss what's being said.

It's all made even more important when you don't keep normal business hours. People love that office hours go until 1:30AM when they have a late-night emergency & don't have to wait for morning, but it does tend to mean that anything going on in the AM has to be collected & attended to later. I'd rather pay the extra electric bill than suffer the business consequences.

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