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When I downloaded Hillman Minx Software's Do I Need More Memory?, I figured that this little utility would simply confirm my assumption that 640 MB is ample RAM for running the suite of applications I use in OS X. Instead, it turned out to be a bit of the wake-up call. At least I think. Do I Need More Memory? is a simple little application designed to tell you if you need more memory in OSX, and if so, how much. I freely concede that my grasp of how OS X handles memory is hazy at best. I know that OS X features "Dynamic RAM Allocation," which I gather to mean that the OS allocates memory to respective running applications on as-needed basis, which at face value would imply that when an application is open but "idling," the RAM it requires is mostly free up for use by other applications and functions. If not enough RAM is available, OS X will "page out" memory from physical RAM to the hard disk (ie: virtual memory). Unfortunately, pageouts will slow down your computer, particularly when you are requesting significantly more memory than you have physical RAM. Do I Need More Memory? reports when this pageouts are happening, and how often, and suggests to you whether you need more memory. So, how much extra should you buy? 128MB? 256MB? 512MB? DINMM will estimate your total memory requirement; ie. the total memory that would be required to avoid pageouts for the typical set of applications that you use.
OS X nominally requires 128 MB of RAM. I know from recent experience running my
Anyhow, I started up Do I Need More Memory? after logging out and logging back in again has instructed. The program informed me, that on a fresh login, I only had 331 megabytes of RAM free. Whoa. 640 minus 331 equals 309. Does that mean OS X 10.2 running with the minimum 128 MB of RAM is dipping into virtual memory even before you start up any applications? As I said, beats me. 
I then opened the usual slate of OS X native applications I customarily have up and running. That ate up another 166 MB of RAM leaving me with 165 MB free. 
Finally, I started Classic Mode, and opened the handful of Classic applications I haven't found satisfactory OS X native substitutes for. That left 124 MB free of my "luxurious" 640 MB, andn that was before I actually did any work. 
I suppose this represents a reasonably comfortable cushion, but it doesn't seem like more than enough. Do I Need More Memory? seems like a useful little tool.
System requirements:
Do I Need More Memory? like all Paul Johnson's Hillman Minx Software applications,is donationware
Incidentally, If you're curious about the name "Hillman Minx Software," The Hillman Minx was a little four door sedan ("saloon" in Britspeak parlance) built by Britain's Rootes Motors (subsequently taken over by Chrysler and then Peugeot-Citroen) in the '50s, '60s, and .70s. 
Minxes were also bullt under license by Izuzu in Japan. 
A very few were sold in the US, but only aging British car nuts like me would remember them. The Minx was quite popular in Canada, and an uncle of min was an aficionado. His last one looked exactly like this one: 
I expect that there were plenty in Austtralia, where Paul Johnston hails from as well. Several friends and buddies of mine owned Minxes. The last ride I had in one was in Montreal in 1976, during which the water pump blew, but never mind. 
There was even a sporty convertible version. 
For more than you probably want to know about HillMan Minxes, visit: http://www.charm.net/~pdbragg/whatsahillman/ Odyssey 259: Ink Internet Connect Jaguar No dialup speed Jim Jeffers Charles, As a recent convert to Jaguar, as a dialup via modem to Internet user on my Grape 400 mz iMac, modem speed 56 K, I cannot find the speed I am connected. My Mac OS 9 dialup on Remote Access does give me speed, e.g 45333 bps. So when in OSX the response rate on my browser is slow, I cannot check on Jaguar if my dialup speed has degraded. Anyone know how I can get this connection speed on OS X using Internet Connect. Jim Jeffers
Hi Jim;
Download the freeware Net Monitor utility. You can read more about it in OS X Odyssey 250. http://www.applelinks.com/news/odyssey/
Charles From Jonathan Tyzack Hi Charles,
Good grief, have you been smoking something? j/k ;-) Good to see you've finally passed the threshold of tolerance... I was thinking it would take a hardware upgrade for you to finally start appreciating OS X more. Btw, if 10.2.3 is causing problems it may be due to a bug with the fix_prebinding process (this runs whenever you launch an app that hasn't already been prebound and is the reason why the prebinding update for system optimisation isn't necessary under 10.2.x any more). It seems to me that fix-prebinding is crashing a lot in 10.2.3 but when and why is somewhat random. You can check if it is an issue by launching Console.app and monitoring the system.log and console.log to see what is going wrong (under the preferences you can also enable crash reporting and have it automatically come to the front whenever a crash log is generated). Personally, I would just stick it out for 10.2.4 which allegedly is due anytime now. FWIW, I bought my folks a Wacom Graphire 2 tablet for Xmas and I have to say that from the little playing I managed to do with it (a few hours at most), I found Ink to be hugely impressive. By the end it had even started to recognise some of my cursive writing such as t's joining to i's, but it isn't quite all there yet - it needs to be a much more natural writing process IMO so that, e.g. a line or scribble through a word on the Inkpad prevents that particular word from being inputted, and going back to e.g. cross a t is recognised at the correct point in the text instead of occurring in order of input. Incidentally, my non-cursive handwriting is quite clear but not hugely so... For people that are having problems with Ink, there are three things to check: 1) are you using the latest drivers for the tablet (obvious) 2) delete the com.apple.ink.plist file(s) to refresh the preferences (obvious) 3) and also check the /Library/Cache and ~/Library/Cache folders for any Ink cache files and delete them. I'm not so sure if there will be any for Ink - I don't recall - but from what I am seeing around the net, these cache files can be one of the causes for problems in other apps such as System Preferences (if a pane is disappearing for some reason, then deleting the com.apple.preferencepanes.cache file will cause it to reappear on next launch).
Cheers,
Hi Jonathan;
Nope. Haven't been into the weed. OS X performs quite decently on the iBook -- still dog-slow on the Pismo. I attribute much of the difference to Quartz Extreme, although I expect the extra 200 MHz of clock speed doesn;t hurt either.
Glad to hear that Ink has potential. Christopehr Breen of MacWorld suggested some of the troubleshooting ploys you mention, but to no avail. I was using the latest Wacom drivers on a new (last fall) tablet, but to no avail.
I just installed the Wacom drivers on the iBook and will try to check out Ink there someday soon.
As for 10.2.3, I installed it over Apple's 10.2.1 factory system before I had installed much of anything else, and the bugginess showed up immediately. Weird.
Charles
The OS X Odyssey archives may be accessed here: Note: Letters to Moore's Mailbag may or may not be published at the editor's discretion. Correspondents' email addresses will NOT be published unless the correspondent specifically requests publication. Letters may be edited for length and/or context. Opinions expressed in postings to Moore's MailBag are those of the respective correspondents and not necessarily shared or endorsed by the Editor and/or Applelinks management. If you would prefer that your message not appear in Moore's Mailbag, we would still like to hear from you. Just clearly mark your message "NOT FOR PUBLICATION," and it will not be published. CM
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