Apple iPad Remote

Apple has what is supposed to be a cool app for iPads, Remote, which controls iTunes through your wifi network. Except it doesn't work! Every time I open it I have to scroll through all the albums, all 1172 of them, to load the artwork, which takes a few minutes, and then as soon as I finish and do something else in the app, it crashes.

And when it crashes, it loses all the album artwork and you have to rescroll through all the albums to reload the artwork. You can start with artists list but then you have to wait while it load the album artwork for that artist, which can take time. In short, it's not useable.

I gave up after the third time it crashed. It may be a free app, but that's more than what it's worth!

OS-X Mavericks

I know there is a lot of good things to say about the new OS-X 10.9 Mavericks, and many computer geeks rave about how it handles cpu memory better than previous OS-X versions, which in part is true since those versions were notorious for just accumulating unused memory from closed apps you couldn't recover without rebooting.

But I have to add Mavericks is worse for cpu memory and unused applications. While I agree if cpu memory isn't an availability problem, meaning lots of it, and you open, close and reopen applications or files, then it's ok as you won't notice anything wrong and files and apps reopen quicker, if that's important.

The problem occurs when you use a lot of applications, often opening and closing them without regard or interest to reuse them, then you will find the app memory just keeps growing like previous OS-X verisions, and then it will begin compressing the memory for more uses.

This means you have unused and unncessary compressed and uncompressed memory sitting there wasting space. The same applies to files you open and close never to use again, but that memory can be reclaimed with the purge command.

App memory can't be reclaimed and won't be reclaimed until OS-X does some maintenance to remove this memory, maybe. What this means is that OS-X Mavericks will use, or really eat, 1-2 GBbytes under just normal use and 2-3 times opening and closing a few large applications.

And eventually you will have to reboot just to reclaim the cpu memory again, but even then you're back to the same issue of Mavericks eats memory. Rebooting alone uses 3 GB where OS-X 10.7 or 10.8 only used 2 GB and that was recoverable with the purge command. Under Mavericks, much of the memory isn't recoverable.

So, the point here is that while some like it for this feature, I don't even though it's not a real issue most of the time on my Mac Pro. With 16 GB, there was lots of cpu memory available before, but under Mavericks, there isn't after working with Abode Creative Suite applications along with other applications, where I'm back to normal working mode to find I'm over 8 GB just sitting there with 4-5 GB of it closed applications I won't use again.

And that sucks waiting if the maintenance clears it or I reboot to recover it.

Adobe Dreamweaver

I use Adobe Dreamweaver as my main Web page developer and editor in several version, Creative Suite (CS) 5/5.5, 6 and CC (Creative Cloud). I don't recommend the CS 6 version as the user interface and windows were poorly designed for larger computer displays.

I would like to still use them but after upgading to OS-X 10.9 Mavericks and they still work but all three versions produce endless messages every few seconds in the Console window crowding out all the other message you need to look at sometimes with OS-X or applications.

Surprisingly the only Adobe Web design/editor application that works and doesn't produce more about a dozen messages is GoLive (version 9, the last version) which I've used for five-plus years now. It has the old-style user interface and windows, but it works and I'm familar with it.

So, until Adobe updates all the recent versions of Dreamweaver I'll use GoLive and the other Web editors I have an use, such as BBEdit, Coda, Espresso.

Google Map API Job

Update.--If you know someone who can do or is interested in the work, please let them know. There is more work available if the person does a good job.

I'm still looking for this help after I updated this work and posted it on the University of Washington Career Connections blog, Google help wanted. It's $25 and hour for 3-4 hours of work, more if proven necessary.

I posted an entry about wanting, and paying for, help with Google map API version 3, which you can read here. Well, I realized I forgot to tell folks what they can see what I want to do with the one map I want updated where I can translate those changes to the rest of the maps.

So, what I want is to change the Web cam map Web page from version 2 to version three which you can see what I've done so far, which is get the map and nothing else. You can view the source of these to compare the Google API code on the bottom of the page (after the address tags).

That's the script to change, which is mostly the call and load statements as I've found the core block of code for the XML files didn't change, or that I can find or read. Unfortunately I can't find any examples using XML files where I can adapt my code using their call and load statements.

Anyway, that's the update. The need is still there and the offer still good. If you know version 3 code, I'm open to discuss the work. I can quickly load any code into the local Website files using Dreamweaver to test them. I'm also open for someone to suggest changes, enhancements, etc. I can always use the help and learn.

And the pay? Negotiatable but in the $20-25 per hour range assuming a few hours of work for a reasonably experienced Google API programmer or student.

Dear Apple

Since Apple plans to seed an update for OS-X 10.9 Mavericks, here's what I want to see fixed.

First, the Menu Bar. Restore the control over the order the user opens them, so they are in the position  right to left as the app is open, just like OS-X 10.8.x, and not random as is now.

Second, fix the Safari bookmarks edit page so it's like OS-X 10.8.x which put all the major folder in a left column and the subfolder in the right section, and the position and folders are kept open when the user returns to the page from other pages.

Third, fix the menu bar apps which open and display from the menu bar only. These broke and don't work under Mavericks. Same deal, fix it like OS-X 10.8.x.

Fourth, fix the activity monitor to look at all HD's, again just like OS-X 10.8.x to show the same information about disk space.

Fifth, purge command. Fix the purge command where it's not a administrator password required command. This is stupid now.

Sixth, fix the memory issue. Mavericks supposedly uses memory better but it's a cpu memory hog. What operating system needs 2 GB's to boot? And what operating system just keeps eating memory just sitting there, like 100's of MB's for what?

This is why the purge command helps. I hate seeing the cpu just keep growing without recovering it when you close files or apps. If I close it, I don't need it, and reopening again doesn't take that long.

And lastly, but more importantly with iTunes, can you please restore the feature from iTunes 10 to keep the album artwork in active memory so I don't have to scroll through the list of albums routinely to restore them?

It is stupid to move them to inactive memory, now file cache, where the user has to keep rescrolling to display the artwork when they're already in memory. Just keep them in active memory where they're always visible.

Anyway, that's it for my suggestions, just restore things you removed. That's not rocket science since you had them and then removed them.