And as noted, sleep mode is notoriously flaky. If your system refuses to wake up properly, you'll end up losing whatever documents and/or Web pages you had open.

Consequently, I recommend using hibernate most of the time. Found out how in my earlier post on .

While you're at it, learn how to and, if you're a Vista user, .

Coming up tomorrow: The importance of learning where to save file attachments -- so you can find them again later.