Help with Mac scheduling?

[AlmaataKZ]

Hi,

I hardly know anything about how Macs work and have a MacMini that I use for music.

I want to program it so it

1) switches on and off at certain times and

2) the times should be differnet on weekdays and weekends.

In power options I can set for 1) but is 2) possible with some more advanced scheduleing?

Would somebody help with how?

 

[Andrew Everard]

Had a play with a trial version of this software a while back, and it would seem to do all you require

 

[The_Lhc]

You could pop open a Darwin prompt and see if "crontab -l" does anything. You could use cron to schedule the shutdowns but not the startups (the system needs to be running for cron to work).

Not sure why you need to though, I thought the mini only used about 11 watts when it wasn't doing anything?

 

[AlmaataKZ]

Oh, that was quick! Thank you!

I will ckeck that software out.

I just do not like things powered when there is absolutely no need for that (even at 10 watts - chargers, laptops, tvs, small lights etc etc it all adds on, you know) and I thought these days there must be solutions for that - and it seems there are!

 

[AlmaataKZ]

the_lhc:You could pop open a Darwin prompt and see if "crontab -l" does anything. You could use cron to schedule the shutdowns but not the startups (the system needs to be running for cron to work).

Ihc, that is a bit too advanced language for me... I am a complete mac novice. I thought maybe some scheduler is built-in into the OS X that I do not know of and maybe with some tricks/macros it can be programmed?

 

[The_Lhc]

You might want to spend some time getting to know your system then, all I've asked you to do is run a program that's available from an icon (ie point and click) and then type 10 characters (the last one is a lower case L incidentally). It's not exactly advanced, although editing a crontab might be pushing it a little, especially if you're using vi...

 

[John Duncan]

Except a 'Darwin prompt' isn't exactly normal user language really is it (since I use a mac every day and don't know what it is)?

 

[Anonymous]

Don't worry, it's just th lhc proving his superiority over us poor mortals again

He means open the utilities menu, click on terminal, then enter the command as he has stated.

No doubt he's going to reply to me with his normal sentence by sentence deconstruction of the answer.

 

[The_Lhc]

JohnDuncan:Except a 'Darwin prompt' isn't exactly normal user language really is it (since I use a mac every day and don't know what it is)?

Really? My only interaction with a MAC was fiddling with one for 5 minutes in pc world a year or more back and I managed to find it. I think it was in the control panel type thing but I can't really remember now. It's the MAC equivalent to a dos prompt and probably of equal use to the average user, ie none.

Darwin is Apple's version of Unix btw which is what macos actually runs on.

 

[The_Lhc]

Tarquinh:
Don't worry, it's just th lhc proving his superiority over us poor mortals again

He means open the utilities menu, click on terminal, then enter the command as he has stated.

No doubt he's going to reply to me with his normal sentence by sentence deconstruction of the answer.

What is the problem people have with me answering each point in turn? It's far more logical than trying to address 20 different points in one go.

Perhaps I am superior and it's simply jealousy from people who don't know how to do it? I can't think of any sensible reason why people would take umbrage with it.

 

[AlmaataKZ]

Steady, steady... Let's stay positive... and directed to the OP, at least for now...

Normally I can click on things OK and sometimes even can type caracters. I am re-programming Marantz Pronto 5200 with some long commands as we speak and generally can (eventually) get most of the techy stuff to work as needed (within its capabiliteis), but I know nothing about Macs and could do with some initial pointers.

So, ihc, you were saying ...

 

[chebby]

The only thing I use 'utilities -> terminal' for is to run housekeeping that my iMac would miss out on otherwise because it is switched off at night.

Apparently this housekeeping runs automatically in the 'wee hours' around 2 or 3 am.

So I only know the three commands...

sudo periodic daily

sudo periodic weekly

sudo periodic monthly

I do them every couple of weeks when backing up the iMac.

I am no Mac expert though. (Don't want to be). Mostly the iMac is used by the wife for surfing and watching stuff on iPlayer and playing games. I occasionally use it for my photos (Adobe Photoshop Elements for Mac) because it has the best screen Gamma of all our computers without needing any tweaking.

 

[Anonymous]

AlmaataKZ:
Steady, steady... Let's stay positive... and directed to the OP, at least for now...

Normally I can click on things OK and sometimes even can type caracters. I am re-programming Marantz Pronto 5200 with some long commands as we speak and generally can (eventually) get most of the techy stuff to work as needed (within its capabiliteis), but I know nothing about Macs and could do with some initial pointers.

So, ihc, you were saying ...

OSX is built on an underlying OS which is a variant of UNIX. Terminal gives you a window into this shell but, unless you happen to know it already it is the point where nice and easy suddenly becomes incredibly hard. It isn't as easy as a couple of pointers, unfortunately. If you really want to find out more then there's lots of books available. It is a steep learning curve, though.

By the way, if you google cron or crontab you'll find heaps of examples as it's the standard UNIX time scheduler.

 

[Anonymous]

You got a lot of complicated answers when it is really very easy - Go to System Preferences > Energy Saver > click the Schedule button on the bottom right and tell it when you want it to wake up and when you want it to sleep!

 

[John Duncan]

Yes, but he wants the times to be different at weekends, which Energy Saver won't do...