There's an odd little thing I frequently see coworkers do (there are many, actually, but I'm going to try to focus). They'll walk down the hall to a meeting with an open laptop awkwardly balanced on their extended arm, rather than close it and hang onto it more securely. When I asked someone about this, she told me she didn't like to close her laptop because it would go into standby mode and could be harder to wake up than a teenager on summer break.

That made sense. When your laptop goes on standby, you never quite know what connections will be severed or applications will die. But there's a hidden little setting that can help.

From within Windows Vista or XP, select Start; Control Panel; Power Options (this may be in your System and Maintenance group). The options you see here will vary by laptop model, and your laptop must be "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface"-compliant in order to offer power options.

Click the Advanced tab. If you have a Power buttons group here, set When I close the lid of my portable computer to Do nothing.

Now, when you close your laptop, the screen stays lit and everything continues to hum. Of course, this is not the best option if you're interested in conserving battery life, but for the quick walk to a meeting, it can help prevent a computer crash of the gravitational variety.