Enable Hibernation (Safe Sleep) on your Mac
One of the few things I miss since my switch to Mac OS X is Windows’ hibernate feature. The hibernate feature allows you suspend your Mac OS X session (running applications) to the hard drive and automatically restore it the next time your machine is powered up. This is useful for two reasons: first, while your machine is on Safe Sleep (the Mac OS X equivalent to the Windows hibernate feature) it is completely shut down so you conserve power / battery and second, the saved session is restored more quickly than a regular clean boot.
Mac OS X versions 10.4.3 and newer support Safe Sleep and this article I found on Lifehacker explains in great detail the configuration steps you need to take in order to enable it on your Mac. The whole process described is a little complicated if you’re not the average geek, but fortunately there is a painless way to enable hibernation by installing the Deep Sleep Dashboard widget, a free download from Apple’s website.
As a final note, make sure that your Mac supports Safe Sleep by reading the requirements posted on the download page.
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