by , 7:30 AM EDT, April 23rd, 2007

Mac OS X 10.4.9 reintroduced an especially annoying problem for me: Occasionally when my Powerbook wakes up, my display stays black. Luckily, I found a workaround to this problem that has the added bonus of improving my Mac's security.

Setting my PowerBook to require a password when waking from sleep or screen saver has allowed my display to come back to life without forcing me to restart my computer. Here's how to enable Tiger's password on wake feature:

• Launch System Preferences. You can find it by choosing Apple Menu > System Preferences.
• Select the Security Preference Pane.
• Check Require password to wake this computer from sleep or screen saver.

Requiring a password on wake overcomes Tiger's black screen bug.

Any time your Mac goes to sleep or your screen saver launches, you will have to enter your user password to regain access to the Desktop and any open applications - and if you are experiencing the display wake up failure bug, your display should also function normally.

The upside is that you won't have to force your Mac to restart, which could potentially damage Mac OS X, and your documents are protected from prying eyes. The downside is that you have to use a workaround to overcome a system bug - something I find very annoying as a Mac user.