More About This
Mac
What
happened to my
About This
Macintosh ?
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Before there was RAM Charger,
the only place to find out how memory was being
used was to open your About This Macintosh window (or About This Computer
window, depending
upon your System Software version) in the Finder's
menu. While this was useful in
getting a general picture of memory use, there are
some limitations in this display, particularly when
reporting usage for RAM Charged applications. For
example, the segment labeled System Software included all allocated memory other
than that in the other listed program partitions.
In particular, System
Softwareincluded system objects, the Finder
application partition, and any space for
applications allocated
outside of their static partitions (including space
dynamically managed by RAM Charger).
RAM Charger now includes an
improved About
window called
More About This Mac.
This display provides
a more complete and informative alternative to
Apple's About This
Macintosh window.
(This is a version of another product called
More About This Mac
Pro, specially
customized for integration with RAM
Charger.)
Open More About This Macthe same way you would open
Apple's AboutThis Macintosh window--from the Finder's menu. TheMore About This Macwindow is also available from
the RAM Charger
Pull-down Menu. You
may still access Apple's About This Macintosh window from the RAM Charger Pull-down
Menu, from the
Windowmenu of More About This Mac, or by holding down the Shift key
when selecting it from the Finder's menu. More About This Macis kept in the Control Panels
folder and may be opened directly from there, as
well.
The information in the header
of the More About This
Macwindow has been enhanced. The Total
Unused Memory shown there is very useful to keep
track of. As in the RAM Charger Pull-down
Menu, it
indicatesthe amount which is currently
available to each RAM Charged application. Use
Balloon Help to see explanations of the values
displayed in the header.
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Disabling
More
About This Mac
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If you prefer to get the
Finder's About This
Macintosh window when
selecting it from the Finder's Apple menu, simply
move More About This
Macfrom the Control Panels folder (in your System Folder) and
restart the computer. You may still open
More About This Mac
directly wherever you
choose to keep it, in order to display its enhanced
Aboutwindow.
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Memory Bars
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More About This
Macdisplays the applications' icons,
names, and actual memory usage in a numeric and bar
graph representation. Each bar represents memory
reserved for the named application. It is divided
between memory used (dark segment) and memory
available (light segment). Whenever you point at
one of the bars, more details of the corresponding
application's memory use are listed at the bottom
of the window (see Figure 5).
Bars that are displayed with
a fuzzy right hand end represent
applications that are RAM Charged and have the
ability to grow and shrink, as needed.
Normally the bars are drawn
to a scale where the largest application's bar just
fills the width of the window. However, by clicking
just to the left of a bar (where the magnifying
glass cursor appears), all the bars are scaled so
the one so selected just fills the width of the
window.
If there are any bars whose scaled size makes
them wider than the window, they are displayed with
a break near the end.
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What If No
RAM
Charger?
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More About This
Macis able to display a second
About window just like the first, except
that it depicts how memory would be used if RAM
Charger was not active. Just select What If No RAM
Charger? from the
Window
menu. The hypothetical situation
depicted is the best possible use of memory for the
given set of running applications -- since the
history of starting and quitting applications is
not recorded, no fragmentation of memory is
simulated or shown. This means that the Largest
Unused Block would be unrealistically calculated as
equal to the Total Unused Memory, and is not
meaningful. Also, the Total Unused Memory will be
unrealistically high because the simulation cannot
account for some memory used by the system nor
temporary blocks used by applications outside of
their starting memory partitions. Despite the
overly optimistic portrayal of memory use, this can
be an effective aid to understanding the benefits
of using RAM Charger.
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