Instant On for Computers
Those of you who have smart phones, especially those with usable internet connectivity, have probably wondered at some time or another why your notebook or netbook PC can't start up almost as quickly as your smartphone. The difference, if you like numbers, is pretty big BTW, since a smartphone clocks in under a second to wake up, and a PC takes over 2 minutes to boot. It may seem to be comparing apples to oranges to compare wake time on a smartphone to boot time on a PC, but PC sleep mode draws too much power to be univerally usable for portable PCs, so many users find that startup time for a PC is really boot time.
The systems software mavens at Phoenix Technologies (the team that did the BIOS for most "clone" PCs in the late '80's and '90's) asked the same question. Of course, being PC software nerds, they actually were able to do something about it.
That something is called Hyperspace (www.hyperspace.com). Hyperspace is essentially a second, but very different, operating system that you can choose to run on your PC alongside Windows. I used the version that operates in Dual Boot mode, which means that when you start the PC, you choose whether to use Hyperspace or Windows.
The benefit of using Hyperspace is that the PC then turns on and off (or sleeps with minimal power draw and wakes) instantly. To put your skeptical mind at ease, what I mean by "instantly" is that the PC is on in about the time than it take you to open the screen. A few seconds.
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Of course, there has to be a catch, and there is. The catch is that in Hyperspace all you can do is surf the web. For many people that is enough (that's what most of what you can do quickly on a smartphone that you'd want to do on a PC). That is especially true if you work in netbook mode, where documents are done, say, in Google Docs, email is web-based, photos are on Flickr, etc. Of course you can always switch to Windows, and so the catch isn't much of a catch since you don't lose any capability.
The real issue with Hyperspace is compatibility. That's somewhat ironic, since Phoenix made its' name in the compatibility business. I suspect the issue is that Phoenix is a small company and it is taking them time to test and roll out versions of Hyperspace that work across the dizzying array of notebooks and netbooks on offer. You can check compatibility on the Phoenix site (at http://www.hyperspace.com/hyperspace/Specification/TechnicalInfo.aspx).
Hyperspace is a fabulous idea, that fleshes out the netbook concept (see my blog on the Lenovo S10 for more on what defines the concept and why it makes sense: http://www.avguide.com/blog/more-netbooks-lenovo-ideapad-s10). Hyperspace has the feel of a minimalist product that works well because its authors understood what was necessary and stopped when they had that functionality (see my blog on the Sony Vaio P for another implementation of "instant on" that is useful but quite doesn't fulfill the promise perhaps because it tries to do too much: http://www.avguide.com/blog/review-life-the-sony-vaio-p-netbook).
The basic version of Hyperspace costs $40 per year. If I had a compatible netbook, I'd happily pay that.
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Comments
You obviously haven't used an Apple Mac before.
It turns on instantly from sleep, even before you've fully opened the screen on their notebooks. And that includes not just the OS itself, but even WiFi access.
Actually, my main notebook is a MacBook Pro.
Sleep is nice, and PCs have it too, in some form or another. But what some users find is that sleep (because it powers the microprocessor and RAM) is unreliable because it can deplete the battery. In the PC world, Hyperspace is for those users.
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