A quick note after updating to OS-X 10.10.4. Nothing obviously dumb or stupid on Apple's part, and nothing obviously wrong that I saw in a quick walk through. I have only one suggestion with the update.
After you install it and sign in, after a few minutes, reboot. Then after rebooting, do some of the initial things you ordinarily do when you start up in OS-X, eg. open browser(s) mail, iTunes, apps, etc. Then quit everything and reboot again, and after a minute or so, clear the file cache.
I suggest this because it's my experience that it's the 3rd reboot that stablizes the initial state with the minimum CPU and file cache usage, and it's then the Mac has completed anything extra they put in OS-X and it's working and will work normally.
Just a suggestion, but it's what I've found works for me. I also run the purge command to reset the file cache once it has stablized. That said, here's some new things I found today after playing with some of the apps.
First, it's not a CPU memory hog but it's more CPU consumptive than previous versions. Just after a few hours and going through other updates and all, the memory usages jump to 2.5 GBytes without iTunes or other big apps open and file cache equally jumps from backups and other apps.
The CPU usage is from the kernal task, software update, submit diagnostic information and installed dameons from the intial state of about 1.5 GBytes after rebooting. And it just keep growing after that, so have a lot of memory available for apps and file cache.
On a good note iTunes is better. They finally get all the album artwork into active memory and shared images between mymusic and playlist (different size album artwork before that loaded separately and moved to file cache after a short time). It's there now and easy to see.
I don't share or backup my music with Apple, so if you want to change that user options for both IOS and OS-X, just go into preferences (iTunes on Mac's and Music on IOS devices) and turn off Apple music (sharing).
I don't backup my music with Apple's iCloud. What I have in iTunes are vinyl (some from the 1960's not in Apple Music), CD's and purchased from iTunes store. I control all my music through my iTunes libary for the Mac and the iPhone and iPad.
I also don't want Apple music streaming (above way to disable) anywhere. I don't plan to listen through Apple's Music service, and yes, I don't subscribe to Pandora, Spotify, or other music streaming service. If I want music, I have my library.
A small quirk in iTunes they changed. When updating apps, it doesn't show you the progress bar for downloading individual apps. You have to use the download icon in the upper right corner which shows a dropdown box with the download and installation. This isn't obvious (yeah, took me day to notice it).
What else I noticed is the spinning rainbow wheel is more often for small things, which I assume is due to things in OS-X because it's dumb to wait while the Apple or other apps just sit there with the spinning rainbow wheel.
Ok, other stuff? Still working there. Some apps stopped working, eg. Adobe's CC desktop and menu bar apps (just spinning wheel), and it was due to their servers not allowing people to access and log in. After waiting a day and logging in before starting the Adobe CC manager, it worked.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Seattle Mariners
I posted my view of the Seattle Mariners this season earlier this month, and it seems nothing has changed. Wait, it has. They're now 8 games under .500, losing today (6/26) to the Los Angeles Angels on a passed ball in the bottom of the 10th inning, scoring the man from third.
I still contend they have the makings of a winning team to make the playoffs, but they don't seem to be doing that and now are fighting the Oakland A's for the last place in the division. Really. They're last in the both leagues in hitting, near average in fielding and only good in pitching.
So what's the problem with them? Good question the manager should be asking himself and getting the team to playing better and winning, but this may be a place where the best alternative is what you already have, meaning there's not better choices available and you have to go with the team and manager you have.
After all, will the management of the Mariners realize McClendon wasn't the best choice for manager when they selected him after Eric Wedge quit in a dispute with the General Manager (GM) over player decisions. And sure enough the GM repeated the same practice this year of geting players at the end of their careers who don't perform.
Ever since the Mariners hired Zdurienick as GM they've never finished higher than 3rd in the division, and they're on their 4th manager under his management. Kinda' makes you wonder why the owners and team president hasn't thought of why they still have him as GM. He promises but never fulfills.
And that's the sad reality of it. Mariner fans deserve better from this team but not winning. There's no two ways to say, they find ways to lose games. So, while it's too early to say, "Stick a fork in them.", just yet, and the rule is that if they're not better by the All-Star break, they're in trouble and not better by August 1st, they're done.
As one sports writer wrote, they're just a two-week wining streak from being competitive contending for the playoffs, but not if they don't get better. How long can the Seattle sports writers and game announcers keep putting a positive spin on a team that's losing?
How many times do they have to keep saying, "If...", as if the tean would suddenly starting winning? The fans are waiting Mariners. The ball's in your glove now. We can hope, but how long does it take? Or maybe it's time the team, including the executives, to rethink who's running the team?
I still contend they have the makings of a winning team to make the playoffs, but they don't seem to be doing that and now are fighting the Oakland A's for the last place in the division. Really. They're last in the both leagues in hitting, near average in fielding and only good in pitching.
So what's the problem with them? Good question the manager should be asking himself and getting the team to playing better and winning, but this may be a place where the best alternative is what you already have, meaning there's not better choices available and you have to go with the team and manager you have.
After all, will the management of the Mariners realize McClendon wasn't the best choice for manager when they selected him after Eric Wedge quit in a dispute with the General Manager (GM) over player decisions. And sure enough the GM repeated the same practice this year of geting players at the end of their careers who don't perform.
Ever since the Mariners hired Zdurienick as GM they've never finished higher than 3rd in the division, and they're on their 4th manager under his management. Kinda' makes you wonder why the owners and team president hasn't thought of why they still have him as GM. He promises but never fulfills.
And that's the sad reality of it. Mariner fans deserve better from this team but not winning. There's no two ways to say, they find ways to lose games. So, while it's too early to say, "Stick a fork in them.", just yet, and the rule is that if they're not better by the All-Star break, they're in trouble and not better by August 1st, they're done.
As one sports writer wrote, they're just a two-week wining streak from being competitive contending for the playoffs, but not if they don't get better. How long can the Seattle sports writers and game announcers keep putting a positive spin on a team that's losing?
How many times do they have to keep saying, "If...", as if the tean would suddenly starting winning? The fans are waiting Mariners. The ball's in your glove now. We can hope, but how long does it take? Or maybe it's time the team, including the executives, to rethink who's running the team?
Supreme Court Ruling
What the opponents of marriage equality intentionally and knowingly get wrong about marriage is that it has two parts. The first is the law legally recognizing a marriage. That’s what the Supreme Court ruled is now the national standard for any two people meeing all the other current existing criteria legalizing marriage.
This is what the Supreme Court ruled no local or state government can deny, although some will try through religious freedom laws, but those laws will be struck down as unconstitutional or in violation of the Supreme Court ruling. No government employee at any level of government can refuse to issue a lawful marriage license.
The second is the religious recognition of marriage through either a ceremony or recognition by the religion or church. This is optional and what the Supreme Court ruling did not touch and has not changed. This is what the opponents want you to believe is the first part of marriage but this is neither required or legally reconized.
What the opponents of marriage equality are doing isn’t just misleading, it’s lying, something they should read their Bible to realize that’s a sin and something good christians shouldn’t do. But don’t tell them that, they’re too busy preaching lies.
This is what the Supreme Court ruled no local or state government can deny, although some will try through religious freedom laws, but those laws will be struck down as unconstitutional or in violation of the Supreme Court ruling. No government employee at any level of government can refuse to issue a lawful marriage license.
The second is the religious recognition of marriage through either a ceremony or recognition by the religion or church. This is optional and what the Supreme Court ruling did not touch and has not changed. This is what the opponents want you to believe is the first part of marriage but this is neither required or legally reconized.
What the opponents of marriage equality are doing isn’t just misleading, it’s lying, something they should read their Bible to realize that’s a sin and something good christians shouldn’t do. But don’t tell them that, they’re too busy preaching lies.
Friday, June 26, 2015
lsregister
Update.-- It appears the update to 10.10.4 solved the problem of the occasional runaway lsregister process, as it runs twice when you reboot and never shows up again, so far anyway.
Original.-- Apple's Mac operating systems have used an application "lsregister" to link files with applications. You can Google this to get a full description of what the application is about and what it does. And it's the second thing that is troublesome.
The program (lsregister) is supposed to run when you reboot to check and update any changes to the registry of files to applications. It's only takes a second or so and doesn't consume any CPU memory. And sometimes during long operations it will launch, run and quit, and again just for a second or so and not consume much CPU memory.
But every now and then it's decides to run every 3-5 minutes and in the process uses about 1 Gigabytes of CPU memory. Yes, a memory hog, and not when it just runs but that it never releases the memory, and you find the app memory has increased by that ~1 GB of memory which isn't really being used.
What's frustrating is that you don't know it's doing this unless you check the Activity Monitor for app memory use and find it's jumped unexpectedly for no reason related to your work and you when you actually catching in the list of apps, it doesn't show more than about 10-15 Megabtyes of app memory.
Meaning it's using memory the Activity monitor is recording for the total but not for it individually, or if it is it's too quick to see since the program only runs about a second, but still keeps the app memory active as kept by the Activity Monitor.
Are there solutions to this situation? Not really permanent ones. There are commands to kill, clear or reset lsregister, but these only work temporarily and still never releases the app memory afterward. The only solution is to reset lsregister, meaning it kills and rewrites itself, and then reboot to recover the memory.
One thing Apple has done with OS-X is take away the ability of the user with commands to recover inactive app memory that you could under previous versions of OS-X. Now it reserves inactive (opened and closed) app memory until memory is needed and then compresses it for later use if needed.
You can't look at the app memory usage to see what apps are listed with their respective app memory usage, something Apple should have in their toolbox but not for users. This would help to show where lsregister is using it for its use and then keeping it active. And it would help if Apple would fix lsregister since it's been a consistent problem with Yosemite.
Anyway, just a rant about Apple's terrible job of testing, debugging and fixing their OS-X in recent years. They still seem to be more interested in more bells and whistles and adding more security than necessary, than spending time fixing the mechanics.
Original.-- Apple's Mac operating systems have used an application "lsregister" to link files with applications. You can Google this to get a full description of what the application is about and what it does. And it's the second thing that is troublesome.
The program (lsregister) is supposed to run when you reboot to check and update any changes to the registry of files to applications. It's only takes a second or so and doesn't consume any CPU memory. And sometimes during long operations it will launch, run and quit, and again just for a second or so and not consume much CPU memory.
But every now and then it's decides to run every 3-5 minutes and in the process uses about 1 Gigabytes of CPU memory. Yes, a memory hog, and not when it just runs but that it never releases the memory, and you find the app memory has increased by that ~1 GB of memory which isn't really being used.
What's frustrating is that you don't know it's doing this unless you check the Activity Monitor for app memory use and find it's jumped unexpectedly for no reason related to your work and you when you actually catching in the list of apps, it doesn't show more than about 10-15 Megabtyes of app memory.
Meaning it's using memory the Activity monitor is recording for the total but not for it individually, or if it is it's too quick to see since the program only runs about a second, but still keeps the app memory active as kept by the Activity Monitor.
Are there solutions to this situation? Not really permanent ones. There are commands to kill, clear or reset lsregister, but these only work temporarily and still never releases the app memory afterward. The only solution is to reset lsregister, meaning it kills and rewrites itself, and then reboot to recover the memory.
One thing Apple has done with OS-X is take away the ability of the user with commands to recover inactive app memory that you could under previous versions of OS-X. Now it reserves inactive (opened and closed) app memory until memory is needed and then compresses it for later use if needed.
You can't look at the app memory usage to see what apps are listed with their respective app memory usage, something Apple should have in their toolbox but not for users. This would help to show where lsregister is using it for its use and then keeping it active. And it would help if Apple would fix lsregister since it's been a consistent problem with Yosemite.
Anyway, just a rant about Apple's terrible job of testing, debugging and fixing their OS-X in recent years. They still seem to be more interested in more bells and whistles and adding more security than necessary, than spending time fixing the mechanics.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Adobe CC 2015
If you updated your Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) applications to the 2015 versions, you will notice that the installation removes all previous versions of all CC application (CC and CC 2014/2014.1). This is in the installation instruction as the default you can't change or not install CC 2015.
In short Adobe decided to remove all your previous versions for you. The (legal) questions is if they can since you lease the CC applications, or if they can't because they're removing application you paid for which are resident on your computer.
To me, it's a no-brainer, Adobe sucks with this decision. I leased the older version and will continue to use them despite having CC 2015 installed. I use the last 4-5 versions of Dreamweaver for different sets of Web pages so I don't have to keep closing and reopening them. I can simply open and start working.
I also use the last 3-4 versions of Photoshop for the same reason, different single or sets of images where it's easier to manage my workflow. And like Dreamweaver, Photoshop's user interface is very similar between CC versions, although slightly different between CS5/5.6 and CS 6 versions, so they're easy to use.
That said, if you did install CC 2015, you can use any backups, eg. Time Machine to go back and retrieve and reinstall the older versions. Since Adobe's applications are all independent, stand-alone applications, there is no conflict having multiple versions in the applications folder and simultaneously open.
Anyway, that's the update here. I suspect this will be a future policy and practice of Adobe, so watch your updates and check to ensure you have backups of the older versions of CC applications you want to reinstall them after the update.
And yes, even though I like Adobe applications, this company policy sucks.
In short Adobe decided to remove all your previous versions for you. The (legal) questions is if they can since you lease the CC applications, or if they can't because they're removing application you paid for which are resident on your computer.
To me, it's a no-brainer, Adobe sucks with this decision. I leased the older version and will continue to use them despite having CC 2015 installed. I use the last 4-5 versions of Dreamweaver for different sets of Web pages so I don't have to keep closing and reopening them. I can simply open and start working.
I also use the last 3-4 versions of Photoshop for the same reason, different single or sets of images where it's easier to manage my workflow. And like Dreamweaver, Photoshop's user interface is very similar between CC versions, although slightly different between CS5/5.6 and CS 6 versions, so they're easy to use.
That said, if you did install CC 2015, you can use any backups, eg. Time Machine to go back and retrieve and reinstall the older versions. Since Adobe's applications are all independent, stand-alone applications, there is no conflict having multiple versions in the applications folder and simultaneously open.
Anyway, that's the update here. I suspect this will be a future policy and practice of Adobe, so watch your updates and check to ensure you have backups of the older versions of CC applications you want to reinstall them after the update.
And yes, even though I like Adobe applications, this company policy sucks.
Friday, June 19, 2015
How much
How much blood do the Republicans in Congress want on their hands before they stand up to the gun lobby and more so the NRA and pass effectively legislation on guns? How many bodies do they want at their feet? How many funerals do they want to read about in the newspapers? How many grieving families have to ask for action? How many Republicans have the courage to stand up and act? How many care more than just words about loss, but then talk about the Second Amendment? What about the people of this country? Don’t we deserve to be safe and secure in public places?
Thursday, June 11, 2015
They Got it All
According to reports the Chinese hackers got the complete personnel file on every federal employee, former employees and retirees. Everything on everyone who is or has worked for the federal government who’s personnel file was a digital record.
The hackers can sell this information on the black market to anyone who can wreck havoc on all those employees and retirees and their lives. And all the blame, all the heads on a platter and all the political talk and apologies won’t undo the damage to all those lives, mine included.
It’s the old adage about the horses and the barn door. And, “Trust us.”, is not someting the government can use anymore.
The hackers can sell this information on the black market to anyone who can wreck havoc on all those employees and retirees and their lives. And all the blame, all the heads on a platter and all the political talk and apologies won’t undo the damage to all those lives, mine included.
It’s the old adage about the horses and the barn door. And, “Trust us.”, is not someting the government can use anymore.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
I Would Say
I would have said, as I did the last few years, that by June 1st you could stick a fork in the Seattle Mariners as they are done for the season, and will finish near the bottom with a losing record. Last year they surprised everyone almost making the one-game wildcard playoff game.
And this year they are supposed to be in the playoffs, even challenging for, if not being in, the lead of the western division of the American League. Well, so much for early season predictions as they have proven they can lose with better talented players than last year but underachieving for their career statistics.
They're currently in a seven game losing streak, going from .500 at 24 wins and 24 loses, to 31 loses. Robinson Cano said this was a team that could reel off a 10-game winning streak if they wanted, but he didn't say they could also reel off a 7-game losing streak with the same players.
Granted they've lost two of the starting pitchers, but they hitting is near the bottom, even with the addition of Nelson Cruz who's playing great, because the rest of the team isn't hitting their career numbers, and they're losing games by 1 or 2 runs, something good hitting overcomes.
So far they have to get their act turned around and start winning, and if they can't be at or over .500 by the all-star break, they have a deep hole to climb out and likely won't to make the playoffs. As they say, it's a long season, especially if you're losing, but they have to play better.
I attribute this to their manager. While you can argue managers don't change the win-loss stats, players do, managers set the tone for the team, and I thought they had a good one in Eric Wedge, with a proven record of winners, Lloyd McClendon doesn't and his style doesn't appear to encourage enthusiasm.
This is noted when the Mariners were in a 5-game losing streak recently and all he could say was, "It's ok. They'll get things turned around." So what's the excuse this time in a 7-game losing streak? The team is supposed to be winning and fighting for the division lead, not 4th place ahead of Oakland.
McClendon was kinda' lucky the team overachieved last year to come up one win short of the playoffs. This year expectations are the playoff, and I expect the owners should and will fire McClendon if the team doesn't have at least a winning record and maybe make the playoffs.
The fans deserve it, and yes managers are often scape-goats for team failures, but they have the makings of a good team, they're just not playing to the level they have and can, so how about it Mariners? Do what Cano said, win.
And this year they are supposed to be in the playoffs, even challenging for, if not being in, the lead of the western division of the American League. Well, so much for early season predictions as they have proven they can lose with better talented players than last year but underachieving for their career statistics.
They're currently in a seven game losing streak, going from .500 at 24 wins and 24 loses, to 31 loses. Robinson Cano said this was a team that could reel off a 10-game winning streak if they wanted, but he didn't say they could also reel off a 7-game losing streak with the same players.
Granted they've lost two of the starting pitchers, but they hitting is near the bottom, even with the addition of Nelson Cruz who's playing great, because the rest of the team isn't hitting their career numbers, and they're losing games by 1 or 2 runs, something good hitting overcomes.
So far they have to get their act turned around and start winning, and if they can't be at or over .500 by the all-star break, they have a deep hole to climb out and likely won't to make the playoffs. As they say, it's a long season, especially if you're losing, but they have to play better.
I attribute this to their manager. While you can argue managers don't change the win-loss stats, players do, managers set the tone for the team, and I thought they had a good one in Eric Wedge, with a proven record of winners, Lloyd McClendon doesn't and his style doesn't appear to encourage enthusiasm.
This is noted when the Mariners were in a 5-game losing streak recently and all he could say was, "It's ok. They'll get things turned around." So what's the excuse this time in a 7-game losing streak? The team is supposed to be winning and fighting for the division lead, not 4th place ahead of Oakland.
McClendon was kinda' lucky the team overachieved last year to come up one win short of the playoffs. This year expectations are the playoff, and I expect the owners should and will fire McClendon if the team doesn't have at least a winning record and maybe make the playoffs.
The fans deserve it, and yes managers are often scape-goats for team failures, but they have the makings of a good team, they're just not playing to the level they have and can, so how about it Mariners? Do what Cano said, win.
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Car Toys
I have a 1991 Vanagon Syncro with the original cassette deck radio. Yeah, right, being old, but I haven't had reason to replace with a CD-radio because the ride is so stiff, it rattles everything and I didn't want to put a CD player to that abuse.
But in recent years there are great versatile receivers with bluetooth, USB and other connections. I've been looking at them for the last 2-3 years and finally broke down to replace the radio with a new generation one from Alpine.
Remember it's a Syncro. It's noisy, windy, rattles and everything else, so it doesn't pay to put anything expensive in it and there isn't much room for larger or bigger speakers where the existing ones are located, so I did some homework and found some models I liked which Car Toys had in stock and could install.
So that's half the story. The other half is that Vanagon, and especially Syncro's, have twin batteries, the primary (starter) battery under the driver's seat and the auxillary one under the passenger's seat. They charge when driven but kept separate by a relay so can't run down the primary when the engine isn't running.
The auxillary battery takes over and runs everything one you shut off the ignition, so VW put the radio on the hot lead to the auxillary battery to work with the ignition off. The folks and techs at Car Toys know this and the sales rep told the installation tech not to wire the new one through the ignition, but as the old radio is installed.
Apparently he didn't hear or wasn't listening, and I watched him through the viewing window wire the radio through the ignition. I wondered why he was taking the ignition cover off and installing a wire from there to the dashboard, and true to form, I thought, "I hope he's not doing what I think he's doing."
Yeah, he was and did, and when he delivered it the radio didn't work with the ignition off. I wasn't happy and explained the situation to the tech. The manager finally intervened to say they'd fix it if I would wait 10 minutes, and they did fix it, but the extra wires from the ignition and fusebox deadend at the radio, wires I didn't ask for, didn't want and now have.
They're harmless and useless now, and it cost me an hour waiting for something they didn't need to do, and someday I'll remove. It was a straight replacement with adaptor harness and USB wire out the dashboard for the iPhone or iPod and another for the microphone, which I also didn't ask for, didn't want and is now tucked inside the dashboard.
Anyway, I like the new receiver to connect my iPhone and play my iTunes music library via bluetooth or USB, far better than the box of cassette tapes I kept in the van. And the folks at Car Toys were decent and did a good job so I don't really have a complaint, except if you get work done there make sure everyone understands exactly what you want before they start.
But in recent years there are great versatile receivers with bluetooth, USB and other connections. I've been looking at them for the last 2-3 years and finally broke down to replace the radio with a new generation one from Alpine.
Remember it's a Syncro. It's noisy, windy, rattles and everything else, so it doesn't pay to put anything expensive in it and there isn't much room for larger or bigger speakers where the existing ones are located, so I did some homework and found some models I liked which Car Toys had in stock and could install.
So that's half the story. The other half is that Vanagon, and especially Syncro's, have twin batteries, the primary (starter) battery under the driver's seat and the auxillary one under the passenger's seat. They charge when driven but kept separate by a relay so can't run down the primary when the engine isn't running.
The auxillary battery takes over and runs everything one you shut off the ignition, so VW put the radio on the hot lead to the auxillary battery to work with the ignition off. The folks and techs at Car Toys know this and the sales rep told the installation tech not to wire the new one through the ignition, but as the old radio is installed.
Apparently he didn't hear or wasn't listening, and I watched him through the viewing window wire the radio through the ignition. I wondered why he was taking the ignition cover off and installing a wire from there to the dashboard, and true to form, I thought, "I hope he's not doing what I think he's doing."
Yeah, he was and did, and when he delivered it the radio didn't work with the ignition off. I wasn't happy and explained the situation to the tech. The manager finally intervened to say they'd fix it if I would wait 10 minutes, and they did fix it, but the extra wires from the ignition and fusebox deadend at the radio, wires I didn't ask for, didn't want and now have.
They're harmless and useless now, and it cost me an hour waiting for something they didn't need to do, and someday I'll remove. It was a straight replacement with adaptor harness and USB wire out the dashboard for the iPhone or iPod and another for the microphone, which I also didn't ask for, didn't want and is now tucked inside the dashboard.
Anyway, I like the new receiver to connect my iPhone and play my iTunes music library via bluetooth or USB, far better than the box of cassette tapes I kept in the van. And the folks at Car Toys were decent and did a good job so I don't really have a complaint, except if you get work done there make sure everyone understands exactly what you want before they start.
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