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  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
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Tuesday, November 19, 2002
17:31 - Writing Without Reference
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/business/articles/1119e-komando.html

(top) link
I'm sure we all remember the last time Kim Komando poked her nose into the fray and talked about how the Mac failed to wow her through its dazzling and inspiring unique abilities to run Word and Excel, and ignored all the iApps because she didn't do things like make movies or listen to music-- evidently they just weren't something she was wired to understand.

Now, I'm glad she's continuing to pay lip service to the Mac in her insightful and informative articles ("RAM is the area where information is stored temporarily while the microprocessor works on it. Random means the data can be stored anywhere in memory, and the microprocessor can go directly to them. That really speeds things up. Many computers will run faster with more memory."). But sometimes, reporting erroneous information-- even if one's market is small enough that it won't really matter-- just makes you look like a doofus.

The procedure is similar on a Macintosh. If you're using Mac OS 9 or earlier, select "About this computer" from the Apple menu when you're at the desktop. In Mac OS X, choose the Memory control panel from the System Preferences application.

Yeah-- A for good intentions, C for effort. There is no "Memory control panel" in System Preferences. If you want to know how much RAM is in the system in total, just use "About This Mac" like in the old days. (Since it's UNIX, though, it's less straightforward to ferret out how much RAM each app is using. But these days that doesn't matter either, thanks to transparent VM. When was the last time you got an "Out of memory" error, anyway?)

That's an interesting point, though. Nowadays, the only clear reason columnists like her can elucidate for buying more RAM is that it "makes things faster" (rather than enabling apps to run that used to result in errors, the former obvious reason). RAM has now become a transparent and nebulous under-the-hood concept, like using higher-octane fuel. Isn't that veird?

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© Brian Tiemann