Is it better to switch off my iBook every time I’m done with it, or is it better to put it into “sleep mode”? I’ve had power management problems before where it just died on me, and I’d really like to avoid further problems in future. So will switching it on and off all the time wear it out faster?
Well, I did know of a tech support person who got tired of the end user rebooting w/o prompting every time she had the guy make a settings change while trying to troubleshoot his Mac, and she finally told him he was going to wear out his “reboot spring” if he didn’t quit it
Aside from that, no, it doesn’t hurt anything to shut down and boot up. Nothing is going to wear out appreciably faster by the bootup process. Nor (for that matter) are they going to wear out appreciably faster by leaving the computer running. Technically, I suppose the hard disk bearings might get more wear and tear in the reboot-often scenario (but not to an appreciable extent) and the cooling fans suffer a bit more from the always-on mode (but most Macs have premium cooling fans sufficent for a lifetime of use; the early SE models being a rare exception).
Black and white CRT monitors would get “burn-in” if you left them on with an unchanging image displayed for hours on end (which is why screen savers exist), and they do chew up lots of electricity (which is why modern CRT screens have the Energy Saver feature by which they turn themselves off after a period of inactivity).
Really, it’s whatever is convenient to you.
All the iBook and PowerBook owners I know put their laptops to sleep. They suffer no ill effects, and they get that nifty “instantly turns on when you open the lid” time saver.