Ticket Options
Question Details
TICKET ARCHIVE -> Finder File Size Errors
cryingraven - Jun 8, 2005 - 7:57 am
Hia
I have noticed that finder frequently reports my remaining disc space incorrectly.
For example when using fetch and copying over a large deal of data from another connected computer. Or, more recently, I download lots of data from another computer, get a disc almost full message, finder reports my size as 18.5G remaining, I look at trash , nothing there, open textedit, save blank file, move to trash, empty trash, space remaining 258K!!!
Finder has been doing this since I got my mac (running Panther) and through all updates. is there an apple script file i can run to make finder correctly check for file disc space or to check for actual disc space when i run it or must i forever more go through the create empty file - delete file - empty trash routine?
lease don't tell me to upgrade to tiger cause i don't have the cash , yet...
Your help greatly appreciated as i am currently making a backup of a 200G hard-drive onto single layer DVDs using my 80G HDD as an intermediary before burning and not knowing the available disc space is a bit of a bother!
I have noticed that finder frequently reports my remaining disc space incorrectly.
For example when using fetch and copying over a large deal of data from another connected computer. Or, more recently, I download lots of data from another computer, get a disc almost full message, finder reports my size as 18.5G remaining, I look at trash , nothing there, open textedit, save blank file, move to trash, empty trash, space remaining 258K!!!
Finder has been doing this since I got my mac (running Panther) and through all updates. is there an apple script file i can run to make finder correctly check for file disc space or to check for actual disc space when i run it or must i forever more go through the create empty file - delete file - empty trash routine?
lease don't tell me to upgrade to tiger cause i don't have the cash , yet...
Your help greatly appreciated as i am currently making a backup of a 200G hard-drive onto single layer DVDs using my 80G HDD as an intermediary before burning and not knowing the available disc space is a bit of a bother!
Drumhum - Jun 8, 2005 - 8:13 am
Hi jacco,
Thanks for using Macosx.com
This all sounds rather odd. just to confirm, this has been happening since you had the computer from new?
have you done the basic disk check routines using diskUtility?...
Repair permissions...
Open diskutility (applications->utilities) and select your system drive. click on repair permissions.
the next thing to do is check/repair your disk. to do this you will need to find your original macos install disk that came with your computer. Insert the disk and restart the computer while holding down the "c" key. This will boot the computer from the CD rather than the hard disk. You will be presented with the install procedure but ignore this and click the menu "utilities" and select disk utilities. Again select your system drive and click repair disk.
How are you measuring how much room you have left on your disk? When you select your "macintosh HD" and then press apple key and "I" (for "get info") does the available space make sense here?
Do the above repairs and let me know how you get on.
regards
Tom
Thanks for using Macosx.com
This all sounds rather odd. just to confirm, this has been happening since you had the computer from new?
have you done the basic disk check routines using diskUtility?...
Repair permissions...
Open diskutility (applications->utilities) and select your system drive. click on repair permissions.
the next thing to do is check/repair your disk. to do this you will need to find your original macos install disk that came with your computer. Insert the disk and restart the computer while holding down the "c" key. This will boot the computer from the CD rather than the hard disk. You will be presented with the install procedure but ignore this and click the menu "utilities" and select disk utilities. Again select your system drive and click repair disk.
How are you measuring how much room you have left on your disk? When you select your "macintosh HD" and then press apple key and "I" (for "get info") does the available space make sense here?
Do the above repairs and let me know how you get on.
regards
Tom
cryingraven - Jun 9, 2005 - 12:21 pm
I recently had a hard drive crash and had the hard drive replaced at the Apple store and had a brand new installation of OSX Panther onto a brand new hard drive and this still happens.
Yes, I have had this problem since I got it new and I have done repair permissions (took forever to complete, sheesh!) with no avail.
Another thing that I noticed on Monday, I actually had two finder windows open and they both displayed different disc size remaining.
Are you telling me this is not a common thing with osx and only a problem on my system? How could this be? I have had two different installations installed by me and by the Apple store respectively onto two different hard drives and both of them upgraded to 10.3.9 via automatic updates.
Yes, I have had this problem since I got it new and I have done repair permissions (took forever to complete, sheesh!) with no avail.
Another thing that I noticed on Monday, I actually had two finder windows open and they both displayed different disc size remaining.
Are you telling me this is not a common thing with osx and only a problem on my system? How could this be? I have had two different installations installed by me and by the Apple store respectively onto two different hard drives and both of them upgraded to 10.3.9 via automatic updates.
Drumhum - Jun 9, 2005 - 12:43 pm
Jacco,
This really is most odd!
Can you confirm this for me...
You only have one disk drive for you computer?
Have you set up any extra disk partitions or such like or are you just using the disk as it came from the shop?
do you have any computers connected via a network?
do you use idisk or similar - ie some sort of network or internet storage?
Please explain in detail how you are reading/finding out how much disk space you have - ie where is the "disk space remaining" figure you are reading.
Are you having any other issues with your computer? (if you really only have 256k remaining on your drive you would be having major problems, crashes, slow downs etc!)
How big is your hard drive?
This is certainly not a common thing with OSX.
Answer the above questions and I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this!
regards
Tom
This really is most odd!
Can you confirm this for me...
You only have one disk drive for you computer?
Have you set up any extra disk partitions or such like or are you just using the disk as it came from the shop?
do you have any computers connected via a network?
do you use idisk or similar - ie some sort of network or internet storage?
Please explain in detail how you are reading/finding out how much disk space you have - ie where is the "disk space remaining" figure you are reading.
Are you having any other issues with your computer? (if you really only have 256k remaining on your drive you would be having major problems, crashes, slow downs etc!)
How big is your hard drive?
This is certainly not a common thing with OSX.
Answer the above questions and I'm sure we'll get to the bottom of this!
regards
Tom
cryingraven - Jun 9, 2005 - 2:17 pm
Sorry, should have mentioned that from the start, huh:
When you click on the finder icon in the dock and the finder window opens up, right in the center of the window right at the bottom.
At the moment, in my Home directory it shows:
"17 items, 12.46 GB available". That is the setting I am speaking off.
I never use the Apple+i option to get disc space remaining. I always rely on that short text display.
I have one partition as I received it from manufacturer. I did notice this once or twice before when it was on it's own and never paid any real attention to it. Recently I have had a lot to do with disc space and thus noticed it more often. Now I do have it connected to a network, yes, but no online storage options nor iDisk.
my setup is as follows:
Airport connection to router
router connected to
a) a Windows system via ethernet connected occasionally,
but almost never connected to my system
and b) directly to an adsl socket
I have an 80G hdd. As mentioned before, I am busy backing up 200G via my 80G HDD. The 200G is full and not mine so I cannot delete anything. The items are separate and needs to be compressed into separate ISO files so I download as much as I can onto my 50G available space, build them into ISO files, write as many of the ISO files as I can fit onto one disc, delete those and download some more and see which I can fit in. As a result I have lots of files I don't need yet and then some new ones and ones I delete so my disc space fluxuates between 6G and 20G available. On one occasion I thought I had 12G left so I copied the next 4.2G and got the warning message just afterwards.
I then did the whole create empty file, move it to trash, empty trash and voila, my free space went from 12G to 256K.
At the moment I am connecting to the windows system via ftp over direct ethernet connection.
I am almost finished with this whole tedious process so I won't have to sorry about available disc space after this, but I was curious as to why it does this. Like I said, it's been doing this for almost a full year now and nver caused me any problems, just annoyances.
Imagine if you will:
Available space 12G
Move another 4G to Trash
Empty trash
Available disc space now 10.5G
See why it's an annoyance?
Okey: I just emptied the trash, I have 15.4G available
I just copied over another file of 2.6G
and my available space is still displaying as 15.4G
What it seems to be, is that files copied over to my HDD via another method other than finder itself, is not registered. All other files I then add, subtract from the displayed available space, instead of doing a check on the actual hdd and after I do an emppty trash activity, it then gets the actual size and displays that...
That's what it looks like to me.
When you click on the finder icon in the dock and the finder window opens up, right in the center of the window right at the bottom.
At the moment, in my Home directory it shows:
"17 items, 12.46 GB available". That is the setting I am speaking off.
I never use the Apple+i option to get disc space remaining. I always rely on that short text display.
I have one partition as I received it from manufacturer. I did notice this once or twice before when it was on it's own and never paid any real attention to it. Recently I have had a lot to do with disc space and thus noticed it more often. Now I do have it connected to a network, yes, but no online storage options nor iDisk.
my setup is as follows:
Airport connection to router
router connected to
a) a Windows system via ethernet connected occasionally,
but almost never connected to my system
and b) directly to an adsl socket
I have an 80G hdd. As mentioned before, I am busy backing up 200G via my 80G HDD. The 200G is full and not mine so I cannot delete anything. The items are separate and needs to be compressed into separate ISO files so I download as much as I can onto my 50G available space, build them into ISO files, write as many of the ISO files as I can fit onto one disc, delete those and download some more and see which I can fit in. As a result I have lots of files I don't need yet and then some new ones and ones I delete so my disc space fluxuates between 6G and 20G available. On one occasion I thought I had 12G left so I copied the next 4.2G and got the warning message just afterwards.
I then did the whole create empty file, move it to trash, empty trash and voila, my free space went from 12G to 256K.
At the moment I am connecting to the windows system via ftp over direct ethernet connection.
I am almost finished with this whole tedious process so I won't have to sorry about available disc space after this, but I was curious as to why it does this. Like I said, it's been doing this for almost a full year now and nver caused me any problems, just annoyances.
Imagine if you will:
Available space 12G
Move another 4G to Trash
Empty trash
Available disc space now 10.5G
See why it's an annoyance?
Okey: I just emptied the trash, I have 15.4G available
I just copied over another file of 2.6G
and my available space is still displaying as 15.4G
What it seems to be, is that files copied over to my HDD via another method other than finder itself, is not registered. All other files I then add, subtract from the displayed available space, instead of doing a check on the actual hdd and after I do an emppty trash activity, it then gets the actual size and displays that...
That's what it looks like to me.
Drumhum - Jun 10, 2005 - 11:56 am
Bare with me Jacco,
I'm giving this some thought!
proper response will follow (once my brain has got in gear!)
Tom
I'm giving this some thought!
proper response will follow (once my brain has got in gear!)
Tom
cryingraven - Jun 10, 2005 - 12:44 pm
Found a shortcut:
After copying files over, I simply click on the 'jaccojansens computer' icon right above the harddisc in finder and that then updates the setting.
Would have preferred if it would do it automatically, but one click update I can live with.
I am very curious about this only happening on my system, though.
After doing this project, I plan to back up all my own details and then do a clean install again including complete format of the hdd. At that point I can at least prove I am not a nutter
...ahhhh, no! I forgot about the constant update/reboot cycles... phoei!
After copying files over, I simply click on the 'jaccojansens computer' icon right above the harddisc in finder and that then updates the setting.
Would have preferred if it would do it automatically, but one click update I can live with.
I am very curious about this only happening on my system, though.
After doing this project, I plan to back up all my own details and then do a clean install again including complete format of the hdd. At that point I can at least prove I am not a nutter
...ahhhh, no! I forgot about the constant update/reboot cycles... phoei!
Drumhum - Jun 10, 2005 - 3:20 pm
Jacco,
It is an interesting one this. But I am currently thinking that it could be normal behaviour. Calculating the disk space available probably takes the computer time (just note how long it can take if you switch on "calculate all folder sizes" in the view window) and the job could well be being put off till later. Also, the fact that you are slushing big amounts of data through your system could be messing with cache files and other os x background tasks. The result could be that there really is some large invisible files sitting around, taking up space. Or something like that(!). If restarting the computer or doing as you have outlined sorts things out then the computer is obviously sorting things out eventually - which is good. lets face it what you are doing is not really a process the system will be optimised for and hence this apparently odd behaviour.
You should also note that it really is not good for the computer's system drive to be filled up close to capacity. Mac OS X needs space to breath. It is recommended by Apple to always leave at least 10% free. I find leaving 20GB free on my 80GB drive is about right. Less than this and things can start to creak a bit! Running a drive close to bursting is really asking for major trouble! Note how burning a DVD needs around 5GB free hard disk space as you mac will first write the data for the DVD in a cache file to your hard disk space first. once the DVD is burned the mac will erase this cache file to free up the space but I guess it will take a certain amount of time to do it and you may note your drive is fuller than it should be for a while. Just one eg why OSX needs that breathing space!
If I were you, once your back-up job is done I would run a disk repair utility (eg disk warrior or DiskUtilities) and repair permissions and then I would see how things go. re-installing the OS should be the very last resort. A re-install can often cause more trouble than you bank on!
I'm still pondering on what exactly has happened to you!
Regards
Tom
It is an interesting one this. But I am currently thinking that it could be normal behaviour. Calculating the disk space available probably takes the computer time (just note how long it can take if you switch on "calculate all folder sizes" in the view window) and the job could well be being put off till later. Also, the fact that you are slushing big amounts of data through your system could be messing with cache files and other os x background tasks. The result could be that there really is some large invisible files sitting around, taking up space. Or something like that(!). If restarting the computer or doing as you have outlined sorts things out then the computer is obviously sorting things out eventually - which is good. lets face it what you are doing is not really a process the system will be optimised for and hence this apparently odd behaviour.
You should also note that it really is not good for the computer's system drive to be filled up close to capacity. Mac OS X needs space to breath. It is recommended by Apple to always leave at least 10% free. I find leaving 20GB free on my 80GB drive is about right. Less than this and things can start to creak a bit! Running a drive close to bursting is really asking for major trouble! Note how burning a DVD needs around 5GB free hard disk space as you mac will first write the data for the DVD in a cache file to your hard disk space first. once the DVD is burned the mac will erase this cache file to free up the space but I guess it will take a certain amount of time to do it and you may note your drive is fuller than it should be for a while. Just one eg why OSX needs that breathing space!
If I were you, once your back-up job is done I would run a disk repair utility (eg disk warrior or DiskUtilities) and repair permissions and then I would see how things go. re-installing the OS should be the very last resort. A re-install can often cause more trouble than you bank on!
I'm still pondering on what exactly has happened to you!
Regards
Tom
cryingraven - Jun 11, 2005 - 5:12 am
Hey, man
Thanks for all the time and effort you put forth into this little quandry of mine
I have actually been curious about the burning thingy as well since when burning using Finder I did notice it takes up space before burning and thus figured it writes everything to cache first, but with Toast I have not yet noticed that and was wondering how it does this, but I suppose the reason I haven't noticed this before is simply because I haven't looked yet
On another note, I read in a mag once that repairing disc permitions is important for optimising performance and removing glitches etc so I started doing it also just for safety sake, but I still don't understand why, though.
I am an old time Windows user and only made the switch to Mac less than 1 year ago so I am still learning. Files that are not accessed don't get thier permitions changed, do they? And why would other apps change file permitions? Isn't the entire reason for permitions to determine who can/can't access the file? What's the point of that if apps can change the permitions as they see fit?
Also, my repait normally take 2 to three days and I never see the progress bar reaching the end. After two days or so I normally just stop repairs thinking it must have finished by now and the progress inddicator simply stopped updating after the display went dead.
I have my powersaving settings set up do turn off the display after 5 minutes and the system after 30min and to put the hdd to sleep whenever it can (oh, btw, I am using a powerbook). If a program is running in the background but I am not using my system, does that count as inactivity and will that stop the disc from working and thus stop repairs etc?
And lastly, is it okey for me to ask this here or should I start a new thread?
Thanks for all the time and effort you put forth into this little quandry of mine
I have actually been curious about the burning thingy as well since when burning using Finder I did notice it takes up space before burning and thus figured it writes everything to cache first, but with Toast I have not yet noticed that and was wondering how it does this, but I suppose the reason I haven't noticed this before is simply because I haven't looked yet
On another note, I read in a mag once that repairing disc permitions is important for optimising performance and removing glitches etc so I started doing it also just for safety sake, but I still don't understand why, though.
I am an old time Windows user and only made the switch to Mac less than 1 year ago so I am still learning. Files that are not accessed don't get thier permitions changed, do they? And why would other apps change file permitions? Isn't the entire reason for permitions to determine who can/can't access the file? What's the point of that if apps can change the permitions as they see fit?
Also, my repait normally take 2 to three days and I never see the progress bar reaching the end. After two days or so I normally just stop repairs thinking it must have finished by now and the progress inddicator simply stopped updating after the display went dead.
I have my powersaving settings set up do turn off the display after 5 minutes and the system after 30min and to put the hdd to sleep whenever it can (oh, btw, I am using a powerbook). If a program is running in the background but I am not using my system, does that count as inactivity and will that stop the disc from working and thus stop repairs etc?
And lastly, is it okey for me to ask this here or should I start a new thread?
Drumhum - Jun 12, 2005 - 8:09 am
Jacco,
The subject of Permissions can get very confusing! Its a Unix thing really but its Unix that makes Mac OSX so good! Permissions are all to do with ownership and on one level they provide security to users (ie real people). As a user, and connected to a network you can prevent people from reading your file (even if they have access to it) or modifying your file. But the subject runs deeper than that as it is also connected to the OS, where some files are connected to specific processes or uses. permissions are directly connected to how the OS organises its files, how it keeps track of what and where things are. Files will be written by applications in the background and the OS itself writes many files just to work properly, and how these are handled by the OS is governed by the permissions. Sometimes applications write files or modify system files with the wrong permissions (usually down to programmers error!) and this can result in the OS tripping up. Wrong permissions for files are often written after installation of new software, updates etc. Repairing permissions sorts out such mistakes. These mistakes happen quite a lot (depending on what apps you use/how you work) so its worth repairing permissions regularly (eg once a month or before and after major software installs or upgrades). Having files with the wrong permissions can cause all sorts of odd behaviour, sometimes it has no effect!
On my iMac with a 80GB drive with 20GB free it takes about 5 mins or so to repair. It should not take you 2 days! If you have a nearly full drive this may be causing the problem. If your computer is asleep then no processing is occurring so repairs will only happen when you computer is awake. Also after a repair, if your files are in good order, then you should typically only see a few files have been repaired (ie two or three). If there is a list the length of your arm then you should be thinking "Gosh! my files are in bad shape!". I suggest you repair your permissions with all energy saving switched off and just let your computer do its thing. once its done, if you do it again you should find it does it much quicker with no repairs.
As to what constitutes "inactivity" and hence the energy saver kicking in, I can only say "it depends". If you want a process to complete as soon as possible I suggest you keep energy saver switched off, just to make sure it doesn't interfere with the process. Many folk doing critical jobs do not use energy saver for this reason. You don't want to go and make coffee while your computer renders some movie only to find its gone to sleep on your return!
The fact that it seems to take so long for you to repair permissions suggests your permissions are in a bad way. This could also be a big clue as to why you are getting the problems when checking free disk space. If you want to increase the chances of getting permissions problems then writing and deleting lots of files will certainly help! If you are doing this (which you are!) then repairing permissions every day might be advisable!
There's a lot on the apple site and the rest of the web regarding permissions, if you want to learn more. It can hurt the head though!
Have a look at this for eg...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106712
I don't know if you've had a good look around the apple support site but there's a lot of useful info there. The search facility works pretty well too.
http://www.apple.com/uk/support/
Hope this helps. Feel free to get back to me if there is anything here you don't understand.
Regards
Tom
The subject of Permissions can get very confusing! Its a Unix thing really but its Unix that makes Mac OSX so good! Permissions are all to do with ownership and on one level they provide security to users (ie real people). As a user, and connected to a network you can prevent people from reading your file (even if they have access to it) or modifying your file. But the subject runs deeper than that as it is also connected to the OS, where some files are connected to specific processes or uses. permissions are directly connected to how the OS organises its files, how it keeps track of what and where things are. Files will be written by applications in the background and the OS itself writes many files just to work properly, and how these are handled by the OS is governed by the permissions. Sometimes applications write files or modify system files with the wrong permissions (usually down to programmers error!) and this can result in the OS tripping up. Wrong permissions for files are often written after installation of new software, updates etc. Repairing permissions sorts out such mistakes. These mistakes happen quite a lot (depending on what apps you use/how you work) so its worth repairing permissions regularly (eg once a month or before and after major software installs or upgrades). Having files with the wrong permissions can cause all sorts of odd behaviour, sometimes it has no effect!
On my iMac with a 80GB drive with 20GB free it takes about 5 mins or so to repair. It should not take you 2 days! If you have a nearly full drive this may be causing the problem. If your computer is asleep then no processing is occurring so repairs will only happen when you computer is awake. Also after a repair, if your files are in good order, then you should typically only see a few files have been repaired (ie two or three). If there is a list the length of your arm then you should be thinking "Gosh! my files are in bad shape!". I suggest you repair your permissions with all energy saving switched off and just let your computer do its thing. once its done, if you do it again you should find it does it much quicker with no repairs.
As to what constitutes "inactivity" and hence the energy saver kicking in, I can only say "it depends". If you want a process to complete as soon as possible I suggest you keep energy saver switched off, just to make sure it doesn't interfere with the process. Many folk doing critical jobs do not use energy saver for this reason. You don't want to go and make coffee while your computer renders some movie only to find its gone to sleep on your return!
The fact that it seems to take so long for you to repair permissions suggests your permissions are in a bad way. This could also be a big clue as to why you are getting the problems when checking free disk space. If you want to increase the chances of getting permissions problems then writing and deleting lots of files will certainly help! If you are doing this (which you are!) then repairing permissions every day might be advisable!
There's a lot on the apple site and the rest of the web regarding permissions, if you want to learn more. It can hurt the head though!
Have a look at this for eg...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106712
I don't know if you've had a good look around the apple support site but there's a lot of useful info there. The search facility works pretty well too.
http://www.apple.com/uk/support/
Hope this helps. Feel free to get back to me if there is anything here you don't understand.
Regards
Tom
cryingraven - Jun 12, 2005 - 11:22 am
I have to admit I was expecting a vague explanation that didn't really make any sense, but it turned out quite detailed enough for me to realise disc permition repairing really is something to take seriously. Thanks for that I will do it again, right now (as I am finished with that task) and see if it make a difference.
Thanks for all your help and support. I can honestly say you have been a great help! Thanks a million
Sincerely
Jacco
Thanks for all your help and support. I can honestly say you have been a great help! Thanks a million
Sincerely
Jacco
cryingraven - Jun 12, 2005 - 11:43 am
Size: 80G
Avail: 25.72
Time started: 1725
Time ended: 1729
Total time: 4 mins
Forgot, got my facts mixed up. Disc permitions were quick, it was indexing my unindexed HDD that took so long!
Is indexed now, but doing it again also, just for the sake of 'why not'.
I suppose this is also just to make everything run faster, but (maby it was due to the anti virus I had installed, I don't know) my system seemed to run slower after I did it last time. Must have been my imagination.
One thing (actually, this has got to be the only thing) I miss from being a windows user is the ability to delete files without moving it to the trash. Although what I do love about (well, to be accurate, I suppose I should say) Unix is the way the system seems to keep on using files from the trash like it was never deleted and show no performance impact. I really love that!
In all honesty, I preferred DOS to Windows any day, but after some looking into Linux I decided that I wouldn't want to be a Unix user because there are just too many (any way too confusing) command line utils to remember/use well, but thanks to MacOsX, I am now able to wield the power of Unix without the fuss of learning the command line... but doing the occasional command, it has left me wishing to learn!
Not really a question this post, just me raving about how great Mac is
With your excellent support levels, I got all excited today and I just added that to my excitement level over Apple as a whole and got to busting point and simply HAD to tell someone how great I think Apple is
...especially since this may be the last time if the rumor is true that Apple is now moving over to the Intel chipset... I always thought that the CISC chipset, combined with MacOS is what gave Apple the advantage. Is it actually true that Unix on it's own is good enough to make OSX more stable than Windows on any chipset? And if this is in fact the case, and Apple IS in fact moving over to using Intel chipsets, what's to stop people from buying a cheap P4 system, buy a copy of Tiger and hitting FORMAT+INSTALL...?
Is this the beginning of cheap OSX running systems?
Avail: 25.72
Time started: 1725
Time ended: 1729
Total time: 4 mins
Forgot, got my facts mixed up. Disc permitions were quick, it was indexing my unindexed HDD that took so long!
Is indexed now, but doing it again also, just for the sake of 'why not'.
I suppose this is also just to make everything run faster, but (maby it was due to the anti virus I had installed, I don't know) my system seemed to run slower after I did it last time. Must have been my imagination.
One thing (actually, this has got to be the only thing) I miss from being a windows user is the ability to delete files without moving it to the trash. Although what I do love about (well, to be accurate, I suppose I should say) Unix is the way the system seems to keep on using files from the trash like it was never deleted and show no performance impact. I really love that!
In all honesty, I preferred DOS to Windows any day, but after some looking into Linux I decided that I wouldn't want to be a Unix user because there are just too many (any way too confusing) command line utils to remember/use well, but thanks to MacOsX, I am now able to wield the power of Unix without the fuss of learning the command line... but doing the occasional command, it has left me wishing to learn!
Not really a question this post, just me raving about how great Mac is
With your excellent support levels, I got all excited today and I just added that to my excitement level over Apple as a whole and got to busting point and simply HAD to tell someone how great I think Apple is
...especially since this may be the last time if the rumor is true that Apple is now moving over to the Intel chipset... I always thought that the CISC chipset, combined with MacOS is what gave Apple the advantage. Is it actually true that Unix on it's own is good enough to make OSX more stable than Windows on any chipset? And if this is in fact the case, and Apple IS in fact moving over to using Intel chipsets, what's to stop people from buying a cheap P4 system, buy a copy of Tiger and hitting FORMAT+INSTALL...?
Is this the beginning of cheap OSX running systems?
Drumhum - Jun 12, 2005 - 1:18 pm
jacco,
can't help replying (!)...
To move to trash, select file and click apple-backspace or click and hold on file to get contextual menu and select "move to trash or control click and so same.
Not aware of short cut to empty trash - but thats probably a good thing!
Indexing the HDD is just to compile a database used for searching. Sometimes its not necessary (eg when using a borrowed drive) and can be disabled. Look in the spotlight prefs in sys prefs. I'm assuming you have Tiger. Tiger's cool;-)
As for Apple and Intel, you are not alone in your thoughts. I guess only time will tell what the outcome will be. personally I can't imagine Apple allowing its OS to run on anything other than Apple hardware. Its also a great advantage to have the hardware and software so closely related for stability reason etc. and again I can't see Apple letting that position go. Its also huge apple advantage to know that if you get any PCI cards for the Mac they WILL work. A developer friend of mine is looking forward to being able to boot into windows from his mac for work. I understand Apple have confirmed that that will be possible. So longer an excuse for PC folk to not buy apple "cos there are no games to play"?
I'm guessing it will be a couple to three years before we get the answers!
Happy mac-ing!
Tom
can't help replying (!)...
To move to trash, select file and click apple-backspace or click and hold on file to get contextual menu and select "move to trash or control click and so same.
Not aware of short cut to empty trash - but thats probably a good thing!
Indexing the HDD is just to compile a database used for searching. Sometimes its not necessary (eg when using a borrowed drive) and can be disabled. Look in the spotlight prefs in sys prefs. I'm assuming you have Tiger. Tiger's cool;-)
As for Apple and Intel, you are not alone in your thoughts. I guess only time will tell what the outcome will be. personally I can't imagine Apple allowing its OS to run on anything other than Apple hardware. Its also a great advantage to have the hardware and software so closely related for stability reason etc. and again I can't see Apple letting that position go. Its also huge apple advantage to know that if you get any PCI cards for the Mac they WILL work. A developer friend of mine is looking forward to being able to boot into windows from his mac for work. I understand Apple have confirmed that that will be possible. So longer an excuse for PC folk to not buy apple "cos there are no games to play"?
I'm guessing it will be a couple to three years before we get the answers!
Happy mac-ing!
Tom
IF THIS IS YOUR QUESTION AND YOU WISH TO RESPOND, LOGIN HERE FIRST.
