The People Pros

6:00am - Morning

6:45 - Sharpest rise in blood pressure

7:30 - Melatonin secretion stops

8:30 - Bowel movement most likely

9:00 - Highest testosterone secretion

10:00 - High alertness

12:00pm - Noon

2:30 - Best coordination

3:30 - Fastest reaction time

5:00 - Greatest cardiovascular efficiency and muscle strength

6:00pm - Evening

7:30 - Highest blood pressure

8:00 - Highest body temperature

10:00 - Melatonin secretion starts

11:30 - Bowel movements suppressed

12:00am - Midnight

2:00 - Deepest sleep

4:30 - Lowest body temperature

Rinse and repeat.

In an effort to keep my brain moving outside of work and school, I'm spending a few precious moments per day reading some pages in this wonderful book called Your Brain: The Missing Manual. The title might sound a little hokey, but the book is engaging, research-based, and totally not dumbed down.

I'm currently in the chapter about sleep. Like we all know about REM sleep, right? It's when our brains are practically in a state of awakeness and we do the most lucid dreaming. It's a pretty amazing phenomenon, especially considering that we still don't fully know what its function is for our brain or body. It's always seemed to me like a manifestation of our brains trying to make sense of random snippets of information that we take in throughout the day. But REM dreaming might actually primarily be a kind of brain-trainer. We first really saw this in action from a study that was done back in the 50s, when the neurons that cause paralysis during REM sleep (yup, we're actually physically paralyzed during our most lucid dreams) were cut in the brains of a few cats; while the cats were asleep, they got up and did things like clean themselves, pretend to stalk and fight, and go through the motions of attacks and retreats. (I totally want to see a video of this in action.)

If television has taught me anything, it's that when humans break their sleep paralysis, they sleepwalk down to the kitchen and make a sandwich. (Although I personally don't remember ever making lunch in my dreams.) In reality, I guess it's all about what we're especially focused on. One study arranged for people to play Tetris before going to sleep, and the subjects reported having Tetris-playing dreams; even a few amnesiacs dreamt of columns of drifting blocks, despite having no idea why! So it's like the brain tries to determine what's important at any given point in time and then tries to train itself during unconsciousness. Much to the disappointment of Gary Wright, your worries of today are probably not too likely to be taken away on the dream weaver train.

(What I want to know is: why do our brains insist on training us how to handle the situation of showing up to a test naked and unprepared?)

In conclusion, the take-away point of my lecture today is that sleep is good, and I should get more of it. Personally, I don't think I get enough REM sleep; I'd bet that a few too many others are in the same boat.

This actually is making me kind of sleepy right now. Great. I shouldn't have done this before finishing my dissertation work for the night. And what if I start sleepwalking tonight while I'm dreaming about sleepwalking? Man, this is getting heavy...

Then, my friends, you are entitled to your very own gratis (yes, FREE) copy of Windows Server 2008! I know, that doesn't sound like "XP" or "Vista," but it actually is Vista on steroids. Read on to learn more.

Of course, in the cases where an entire system restore is not necessary, it's a cinch to pick and choose, whether it be a version of that book chapter that you regretfully hacked to pieces a week ago, or that folder of beloved photos from Cousin Merl's barbecue that your angel of a nephew not-so-innocently trashed yesterday.

When you plug in a new external drive to your Mac, you should be automatically asked whether you want to dedicate that hard drive to Time Machine. Easy enough. But what if you want to back up a Mac that isn't always physically connected to that drive? Like a laptop, for instance? Apple will tell you to purchase Time Capsule, which is a wireless router and hard drive combination that is designed to backup multiple computers over a home network. However, if you already have a wireless connection and an external hard drive, purchasing Time Capsule may seem a bit frivolous. Fortunately, Apple has built in the capability to use a regular ol' external hard drive for network backups -- they're just not going out of their way to tell you! Continue below to see the steps necessary set it up in almost no time at all...