2320
SpotInside and Clipper
Interpreting Memory Information
Re: Test Driving The Firefox 3 Beta 4 Browser
Re: Opening And Saving Word Documents In OS X Leopard Text Edit - OS X Odyssey 916
Opening And Saving Word Documents In OS X Leopard Text Edit
Photoshop Elements 6 and The "Grey Wall"




___

SpotInside and Clipper

From Frank;

Hi Charles,

I hope this finds you in good health and spirits.

A simple question regarding your review of SpotInside:

I am more likely to search for a file name, as opposed to a content-string, within a file. I have not discovered the means to to this. When using "Find" in OS X, you are given a choice between "Contents" and "File Name." Have I overlooked something within SpotInside???

Another question concerning Clipper. You state in your review:

"Any complaints? Well, it would be nice if there was a cache so the Clipboard history didn't get deleted in a reboot, but then that would no doubt make the program bigger and more complex."

Another If I understand that very simple declarative sentence, ALL clippings are lost upon shutting down. Who was the Braniac that thought up that totally ridiculous, non-feature. I need something that saves my clippings from reboot to reboot - or the application is totally useless to me. Any alternate suggestions for an app or utility that maintains your clippings for as long as you want them to remain? Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Keep up the good work.

Regards,
Frank

___

Hi Frank;

I agree. Simple file name searches are still not well supported in TIger and Leopard, and are the one thing I miss from OS 10.3. Spotinside doesn't do simple file name searches.

I resort to the Find dialog's Name Is or Starts With configuration pull-downs, which is a cumbersome hassle that I dislike, but the best that's available.

As for Clipper losing contents on a reboot, I don't suppose that was deliberately programmed as a feature, but rather no provision was programmed in to retain cached clippings.

As an alternative, you might try PTHPasteboard, which does preserve clippings through restarts and is also free:
http://pth.com/PTHPasteboard/

Charles







Interpreting Memory Information

From Marshall

Dear Charles,

I have a question concerning memory information that I'm hoping the answer to which will be useful to other readers as well as myself.

With your encouragement, I'm still a Pismo user, running 10.4.11. There are periods of sluggishness. I'm trying to decide whether to spend a little more money on this old veteran of a machine by purchasing more memory. I'm at 640 mb, thinking about purchase additional 512 mb. Question: How can I interpret memory info on my machine to help me decide if a boost will make a difference for my usage?

For example, right now istat pro tells me I have 208mb "inactive" and 10 mb "free". Is there a point where your free memory reading is low enough that it tells you, get more memory?

A related question concerning hard drive space. I've read that you have to have free hard drive space, that a too full hard drive will decrease performance. With a smallish 40 GB drive, I still have about 10 GB free. How much free hard drive space do you need?

Sincerely,
Marshal

___

Hi Marshall;

There are utilities that can give you a readout of how much memory is being used by what application and so forth, in fact OS X's Activity Monitor can do this to some degree, but I'm not sure that would provide a definitive answer to your question.

I have 1.5 GB of RAM in my PowerBook G4, and still find I'm into the pageout parade after a day or two of uptime after a fresh reboot. OTOH, my workaday Pismo has only 578 MB of RAM installed, it hasn't been restarted for nearly three months, and it's still struggling along reasonably well, although I really should get around to restarting it.

Going to 1 GB from 640 MB should provide you with a noticable boost in performance, and the rule of thumb remains that you can never have too much RAM.

My old Pismo also has a 550 MHz G4 processor upgrade and a 5400 RPM hard drive, both of which help.

10 GB of free HD space should be plenty of room to let Tiger breath easy. That's more than I have on either the G4 or the Pismo. The rule of thumb there is more than 20% drive capacity free is ideal and you should think about deleting some files or getting a bigger drive when it drops to 10% free.

Charles






Re: Test Driving The Firefox 3 Beta 4 Browser

From Czarembo

It is superbly fast! I agree with you on almost all counts. Except, it doesn't break all the plug-ins - just most of them. An excellent browser, I wouldn't go back to the old Firefox 2 browser, even for the ability to keep my non-working plug-ins.

My Google toolbar plug-in works on my Macbook, but not my iMac or Mac Mini. Kind of weird. Just a darned fine, fast browser.

___

Hi Czarembo;

Glad to hear they don't all break. I didn't have a whole bunch, but they all broke. A temporary issue I expect. Actually one of mine was a "skin" and I like the new interface so much I wouldn't want the skin anymore anyway!

Charles






Re: Opening And Saving Word Documents In OS X Leopard Text Edit - OS X Odyssey 916

From Mark

I think the key to your article is "reasonably accurately". It all depends on what you consider to be reasonable and that is quite a subjective term. When I have tried using Text Edit the needed copying and pasting cost me a lot of time. It seems to me that if you really need compatibility the best bet is the $149.00 student edition of Office. It will save you a lot of time. But I will concede that in a pinch Text Edit will allow you to access the information.

Mark

___

Hi Mark;

The subjectivity is why I used the "reasonably" qualifier.

I've found that Text Edit's support of Word formatting is good enough for my purposes, but I appreciate that it may fall well short for some users.

Charles






Opening And Saving Word Documents In OS X Leopard Text Edit

From Ben;

I wish there was some way of just getting the text out without all the formatting but get it so it works on every document. Most people designs are so horrid that I really would rather just get the text. If it was a fool proof way to do so on every web page, I would set up my browser to do the same. It is hard for me to understand how people could choose such visually assaulting combinations. And these are generally the ones "proudly hand coded" without any interactivity, so it shouldn't be that hard to find some combination of colors and basic design that doesn't hurt the eyes.

___

Hi Ben;

Like you seem to be, I'm a devotee of plain text with minimal formatting.

I usually just open anything I want to archive in Tex Edit Plus or TextWrangler and delete the extraneous junk.

Incidentally, iCab has a nice Text Only option in its Save As dialog.

Charles






Photoshop Elements 6 and The "Grey Wall"

From Ben;

I look forward to getting PSE 6 after I buy my new Mac Mini in May. I heavily use just a few features which help me create graphics much easier and with many more possibilities than I can with Gimp, but having to wait so long for a native version has really tested my patience.

___

Hi Ben

At least I think you will really like PSE 6 when you get your hands on it.

Charles



***



Charles W. Moore


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

Tags: Blogs ï MooresMailBag ï

Login † or † Register † †