Josh -



For our mac user friends I just came across this neat little command: purge
Thanks! I didn't want to admit it in front of the Apple-bashers (especially Doug), but in the last year I've had more problems with automatic resource (usually memory) management on OSX (10.6.7,8) than ever before. The Apple Task Manager is roughly the same (I assume) as the Windows Resource Manager, and I find it quite easy to go see who are the memory hogs.

Not unsurprisingly, the worst hogs are Web Browser plugins that are trying to do more than their share of heavy lifting (Flash and Silverlight). Typically I can just kill one or both of those buggers off and let the web pages using them restart them (simple reload of the page) and for a while I'm all good again. Sometimes iPhoto gets carried away but I'm also pretty willing to just kill/restart it and things usually go back to right.

I am not that clear on how the Inactive memory is managed, but it *is* clear to me that when free memory goes to zero, so does performance!

Purge looks like a winner (and maybe a good alternative to my killing the browser plugins and iPhoto)

- Steve

It apparently frees up memory in caches.  See this:  
http://osxdaily.com/2012/04/24/free-up-inactive-memory-in-mac-os-x-with-purge-command/

--joshua

On Feb 7, 2013, at 7:35 PM, Merle Lefkoff wrote:

Hi Nick.  Tried to send you a message on your e-mail.  I don't have time to go 
through your spam thingy.  Sorry.
On Feb 7, 2013, at 1:54 PM, Eric Charles wrote:

1) I use a PC, because I am cheap and lazy.

2) This sort of thing is a ubiquitous problem on PCs, and is sometimes a 
problem for Macs depending the exact operating system (but I've never seen it 
as bad on a Mac as it usually is on a PC).

3) I would be suspicious of a store-bought expert helping with this... and as 
has been suggested, an expert friend should be cheaper (though not necessarily 
free, as it is time consuming).

4) I know how to use the resource monitor, and often find that it is not 
telling me what I want to know. The long list of Processes often does not seem 
to account for what the Performance screen tells me is the CPU Usage and 
Physical Memory Usage. I've never really figured out why this discrepancy 
occurs... but I haven't tried hard to find out. It is certainly annoying.

As suggested, a complete wipe will fix the problem. I have rarely done this... 
but usually am thinking about getting a new computer at about the time the 
problem is annoying enough that I would consider a wipe... and switching to a 
new computer is pretty much the same thing as wiping the old one. If you do not 
use too many programs, a wipe might be relatively easy.

Also worth noting: Depending on your computing needs, $200 is a significant 
fraction of the cost of a new machine.

Eric


--------
Eric Charles
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Penn State, Altoona

From: "Nicholas Thompson" <nickthomp...@earthlink.net>
To: "The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group" <friam@redfish.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 7, 2013 2:57:32 PM
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Windows Resource Monitor

Thanks owen.  I did lots of stuff LIKE that, but may not have recognized a 
helping hand when it was proffered.  With your reassurance I will plunge back 
in.

The response to this inquiry has led me wonder some wonderings about the folks 
on the list.  Is it the case that:

(1)    I am the only person on this list that owns a PC
(2)    I am the only person on this list that owns a PC who has had this sort 
of problem (=”resource leakage”?).
(3)     I am the only person on this list that owns a PC who is too cheap to 
pay the 200 bucks to get it fixed by an expert.
(4)    I am the only person on this list that owns a PC who is too cheap to pay 
the 200 bucks to get it fixed by an expert and who also too dumb to know how to 
use the resource monitor to fix it, myself.


N
From: Friam [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Owen Densmore
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2013 10:25 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Windows Resource Monitor

Nick: did you google:
    how to use the windows resource monitor
.. it turned up lots and lots of info.

However, the classic solution to a clean machine is to literally start over: 
wipe the disk *after* making a complete copy of its contents to a cheap disk, 
and drag stuff back aboard as you need it.

This is augmented by Dropbox: if you don't have it now, you may want to 
consider it as a backup of your working stuff, stuff that you can't replace 
from other sources and is data you actually created.  It also makes it trivial 
to see/work on the files from any of several computers.

Then the "lets start over" approach is much much easier.  Clean system with one 
folder of your working repository.

I'm always amazed just how zippy a new system is.

I keep a log of all installs I do, you may start doing that .. it makes it easy 
to know what you may need to reinstall if you go the clean install route. And 
what may need removing 'cause you don't use it anymore.

   -- Owen

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 11:11 PM, Nicholas Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> 
wrote:
Thanks for all your suggestions.  Most I actually understood, for which I am 
enormously grateful.

I have the habit of burying my most important question under a lot of verbal 
rubble, so I want to ask it again in case you missed it.  Is there any guide to 
the Resource Monitor that is more forthcoming than the help files that come 
with it?  Stuff like what the various charts and graphs and numbers are telling 
me.

N


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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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