For those who have transitioned from PC to Mac, how did it go?

[Jake Bunce]

However, I think memory is way more important than CPU. Especially in Lion. As nice Apple usually is, they simply do not have an idea how to handle with memory (Look at Jakes screenshot: 6 GB are inactive (usually blue in the graph) but instead of using inactive memory, OS X starts swapping, kinda stupid.)

Inactive memory is effectively free:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1342

Inactive memory

This information in memory is not actively being used, but was recently used.

For example, if you've been using Mail and then quit it, the RAM that Mail was using is marked as Inactive memory. This Inactive memory is available for use by another application, just like Free memory. However, if you open Mail before its Inactive memory is used by a different application, Mail will open quicker because its Inactive memory is converted to Active memory, instead of loading Mail from the slower hard disk.

 

[rellek]

But it only works well when you reopen the program the inactive memory is assigned to.
I grepped a fairly large XML file (like 500 MB) and afterwards additional 500 MB went blue in the graph. When I then opened EyeTV (which buffers into RAM on my machine), free memory got smaller and smaller, Mac OS X started swapping, however, that 700 M in blue remained. Finally, when free memory was close to zero then, inactive memory was freed. However, I had 300+ MB in my swap file, coming from Firefox. (I think... because after I quitted FF, swap went lower).

I still don't really understand the point in remaining that large file in inactive memory, even after closing the terminal. Chances are bad that I want to re-grep it when Cmd+Q'ing terminal, don't you think?

I know, that is how Windows did it as well until XP, but I think, Apple could look at MS managed it in Vista and 7. "Inactive" memory ("Cached" in Vista and 7) is freed immediately if needed, so swap will only be used if there's no other way to handle memory...

 

[Shamil]

Talking of memory, does anyone know if the Safari memory leak bug is fixed yet?

 

[Jake Bunce]

But it only works well when you reopen the program the inactive memory is assigned to.
I grepped a fairly large XML file (like 500 MB) and afterwards additional 500 MB went blue in the graph. When I then opened EyeTV (which buffers into RAM on my machine), free memory got smaller and smaller, Mac OS X started swapping, however, that 700 M in blue remained. Finally, when free memory was close to zero then, inactive memory was freed. However, I had 300+ MB in my swap file, coming from Firefox. (I think... because after I quitted FF, swap went lower).

I still don't really understand the point in remaining that large file in inactive memory, even after closing the terminal. Chances are bad that I want to re-grep it when Cmd+Q'ing terminal, don't you think?

I know, that is how Windows did it as well until XP, but I think, Apple could look at MS managed it in Vista and 7. "Inactive" memory ("Cached" in Vista and 7) is freed immediately if needed, so swap will only be used if there's no other way to handle memory...

Inactive memory is free.

Swap happens. It is nothing to do with inactive memory. Get a SSD to speed up your swap.

You can disable swap if you want, but I wouldn't recommend it:

http://osxdaily.com/2010/10/08/mac-virtual-memory-swap/

 

[Kevin]

PC (at least what I have been doing) to get a screen shot of just a portion of the screen:

Windows 7 has a "Snip" tool as stock utility (don't know if it was in Vista); perfect for partial screen grabs.

If you're stuck using Irfanview, then skip MS Paint Entirely and instead...

• Print Screen
• Start IrvanView
  • Image => Create New (Empty) Image
  • Edit => Paste

There are also apps like MWSnap which are great for the kind of stuff you're describing. It is an older program but for WinXP users it comes in handy. For partial screen grabs I'd recommend MWSnap over your current method.

 

[grant sarver]

Windows 7 has a "Snip" tool as stock utility

I've never seen it and I still can't find it.

There are also apps like MWSnap which are great for the kind of stuff you're describing. It is an older program but for WinXP users it comes in handy. For partial screen grabs I'd recommend MWSnap over your current method.

Think he just meant out-of-the-box.

 

[Paul B]

Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Snipping Tool

I've been using it for years; it's what I use for all the screenshots I post here.

 

[Kevin]

I've never seen it and I still can't find it.

Start => All Programs => Accessories => Snipping Tool

Some OEMs will put a shortcut on the desktop or start menu but if you don't see one then the path above will take you to it.

EDIT: ... and I was Ninja'd by Brogan.

Think he just meant out-of-the-box.

Works wonderfully out of the box on Win7.

 

[Dean]

I see this place has 8GB for $54 - 2) 4GB chips. LINK

Can I assume there are only 2 memory slots on a mbp 13" i5, and the options are 2GB or 4GB for each slot?

I was in terminal using the Top command and it was definitely using close to 2GB without too many things running.

At the moment I am tempted to go cheap and if the 2) 2GB chips are not enough memory I could later upgrade to 2) 4GB chips.

 

[grant sarver]

Found it! Thanks Bro.........gan!

 

[Dean]

Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Snipping Tool

I've been using it for years; it's what I use for all the screenshots I post here.

I cannot find the snipping tool in the Windows XP version that I am using.

 

[Kevin]

I cannot find the snipping tool in the Windows XP version that I am using.

See my response above; it is not in WinXP. For WinXP try either MWSnap that I linked to or the alternative method of using Irfanview.

 

[Dean]

See my response above; it is not in WinXP. For WinXP try either MWSnap that I linked to or the alternative method of using Irfanview.

Thanks

It's fairly obvious to me, that my operating system is old, and ancient MS Office 2000 is a bit lacking. Not to mention the hardware is quite old, heavy (laptop), and the battery will only run the laptop for 5 minutes..

 

[grant sarver]

Cool, put the snipping tool on my taskbar. I think win7 has lots of nice features, just dang hard to find them most of the time! Or they are not where they used to be.

 

[rellek]

I see this place has 8GB for $54 - 2) 4GB chips. LINK

Can I assume there are only 2 memory slots on a mbp 13" i5, and the options are 2GB or 4GB for each slot?

I was in terminal using the Top command and it was definitely using close to 2GB without too many things running.

At the moment I am tempted to go cheap and if the 2) 2GB chips are not enough memory I could later upgrade to 2) 4GB chips.

You're right.

 

[Fred Sherman]

Looks like the MacOS learning curve is heading in the right direction...

http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/30/windows-8-vs-mac-os-x-and-ios/

 

[Shamil]

On that article, I have to be honest, I would much rather click a button that right click and then click again. The Windows UI is much more friendly for older people. I've been trying with my parents for the past 9 months to get to efficiently use OS X, and it's still not going anywhere.

That UI is useful for touch based devices. I mean, right clicking on a touch-based device isn't very ideal to the experience.

That said, OS X and Windows have taken two entirely different approaches. One's application based, the other is document based.

 

[Forsaken]

On that article, I have to be honest, I would much rather click a button that right click and then click again. The Windows UI is much more friendly for older people. I've been trying with my parents for the past 9 months to get to efficiently use OS X, and it's still not going anywhere.

That UI is useful for touch based devices. I mean, right clicking on a touch-based device isn't very ideal to the experience.

That said, OS X and Windows have taken two entirely different approaches. One's application based, the other is document based.

Chances are you can also disable all that crap and use the same lean Windows UI.

That screenshot is obviously with every option turned on. I'd be surprised if that was shipped as the default.

 

[Shamil]

Chances are you can also disable all that crap and use the same lean Windows UI.

That screenshot is obviously with every option turned on. I'd be surprised if that was shipped as the default.

It might be shipped on default for those with a new installation or with tablet/slates.

You can, disable the ribbon though, or hide it at least - there's an arrow like you have in Office 2010.

 

[Dean]

I see absolutely no reasons stated in this thread not to get the littlest mbp 13" i5.

What truly blew me away, I was discussing the one-on-one service with the apple person, and they said that one of the people might be willing to debug bash scripts, depending on the circumstances.

I will wheel my current laptop in its 'wheelie' briefcase that I have for it (no joke), and let them migrate everything over and keep my existing laptop for a spare.

And I've decided that I really do not need MS Word or excel which appear horribly complicated these days, and just get 'Pages' and 'Numbers' for $20 each in their app store. Add in Text Wrangler, ftp program, and that might do it for the time being.

edit: I just counted, I have almost 40 programs installed on my PC which I will no longer need.