Jaques Law Bits 9609 (© Kevin Jaques 1996) ©(c)1996 Kevin Jaques. All rights reserved excepting that this file may be copied for non-commercial purposes, unchanged. No warranties apply. I am just a user volunteering my observations and collecting those of others. €A problem you didn't know you had - use of Temp memory [Editor - Some vile applications use memory beyond what you give them for their partition using the Get Info box.] From: "David McCusker" Jens asked me to forward the following message about OpenDoc memory use. You should cc Jens on responses if you wish further discussion with him. Jens Alfke (jens@apple.com) writes: : Howard Shere makes some complaints about the use of temporary memory. : The ironic thing is that the Mac is the _only_ current OS platform : that's hobbled by application partition sizes. On Win95, OS/2 and : all Unices, address space is allocated as needed, and an app doesn't : have to pre-specify how much memory it needs. The available system : memory is shared between all running processes dynamically. This : limitation of the MacOS will be fixed by Copland's new memory model : (whenever and however that ends up in the system.) : : Older Apple docs do say that temp mem should be used sparingly and : short-term. That's because in the past temp mem blocks could get : left behind if an app "unexpectedly quit" or forgot to dispose them, : which would make that amount of memory unusable until the next : restart. System 7.0 fixed this. The current Inside Mac may still : contain language like this, but it's an anachronism. (There also : used to be a greater danger of fragmentation, but this has been : reduced with the Modern Memory Manager.) : : QuickTime _doesn't_ allocate temp mem, and OpenDoc parts that play : movies had trouble with this. That's why it's hard for app developers : to figure out how much RAM their app needs if they embed QT movies -- : it's impossible to judge QT's memory requirements aforehand. OpenDoc : has the same problem in spades because _any_ kind of content and : editor can be embedded in a document. Temp-mem style allocation is : the only solution until we can really fix our memory model. : : The typical strategy of an app today is to declare that it needs : enough memory to open the maximum number of documents that a user : will reasonably need to open, or to perform the most complex operation : that will normally happen. This means that in the typical case each : app running is using a lot less memory than it's allocated, and much : of it is being wasted. And in fact one of the primary strategies used : by both RAMdoubler and OptiMem is to make use of that unused memory : and make it available to other apps. : : I'm not sure what your complaint is with using temp mem. I'd much : rather see apps use small partition sizes and allocate their storage : out of shared memory, than launch apps that hog tons of RAM without : using most of it most of the time. Likewise, if an app doesn' t have : enough memory for a particular operation I'd much rather be able to : simply free up memory by closing some windows of (or quitting) other : apps, rather than have to save changes, quit the app, locate it in : the Finder, increase its partition size, relaunch it, re-open the : document(s) and try the operation again. : : --Jens Alfke : Former OpenDoc Memory engineer €The MacAssist homepage The MacAssist homepage has been offering FREE technical support to Macintosh users for just over a month now. We were swamped with questions when we first offered the service and there has been a steady stream of questions ever since. As the months have passed, several of our volunteer questions answerers have gotten jobs, moved, or had other things come up. We would like to continue MacAssist as is - answering all the technical questions that are presented. However, we need some more volunteers willing to answer 1 or 2 technical questions each day. The volunteers are sent questions that relate to their areas of expertise or experience and are free to send the question back to us if they can't answer it. Once you receive a question, you respond directly to the person submitting it, allowing you to clarify or ask more questions if necessary. Volunteers don't need to be professional support staff - anyone who has a desire to learn, help others, and a good knowledge about some aspect of the Mac world can be a volunteer. This is a great service to the Macintosh community, and I for one have learned an extraordinary amount from participating as a volunteer from the beginning. We need a few more volunteers that would be willing to answer 1-2 technical support questions each day. From experience, I usually spend about 10-20 minutes per question. If you are interested in helping your fellow Macintosh users, please send me email at with a short list of your areas of expertise or experience. I will respond as soon as possible and hopefully get you into our volunteer listing. Thanks and don't forget to check out MacAssist. If you can't be a volunteer, but have a question, submit it at: €Simple Internet Version Control protocol SIVC (pronounced "civic") is a system I developed here at the University of Texas to help people on the Internet keep their software up-to-date, while providing software developers with good estimations of the size of their products' Internet user bases. Once a new version of a SIVC-equipped product is released, previous versions of the automatically product begin notifying their users that a new version is available, and provide those users with the option of downloading that new version with the click of a single-button. SIVC even offers adventuresome users the option of being notified when test versions of software become available, while allowing other users to be notified only of actual release versions of the same software. As a result, developers that aren't very picky about who tests their products can use SIVC to both advertise and manage software distribution in their testing programs. The benefit to users is pretty obvious, I believe. There are several benefits to developers, including: (1) Support costs can be reduced, and user satisfaction increased, by decreasing the number people using outdated versions of their software. (2) Developers receive a reasonably accurate estimation of the size of their Internet user base (and without unduly compromising user privacy). (3) By providing users with a convenient and definitive means of determining the latest version(s) of a product, and making downloading of those versions a one button process, a lot of "Is there a more recent version, and how do I get it?" correspondence is avoided. Readers may have noticed that developers like Stairways Software (Anarchie, NetPresenz), Neon Software (CTC), Greg Combs (CountWWWebula), Jeff Inglis (Rudolph, AddSIVC) and myself (MacTCP Monitor, Cron, Chris' Puzzle, SIVC Client, SIVC Server), among others, already support SIVC in their products. Also, the Kagi shareware service provides a SIVC server for developers using their service. Developers who want to learn more about SIVC can find complete information, development tools, and server software at . (Note that lingering bugs in Open Transport's MacTCP emulation code may still be giving the server software some trouble, but it's perfectly reliable when used with MacTCP.) Unfortunately, since SIVC support must be built-into a product, users who want to see this kind of functionality included in their favorite products will have to lobby the developers of those products. (Chris W. Johnson) €SpecMarks? A rough examination of SPECmarks published by IBM, Intel and a couple of other places gives me: 603 2.33 SpecInt95 / 100MHz 603e 2.55 - 2.73 SpecInt95 / 100MHz Pentium 2.74 - 3.33 SpecInt95 / 100MHz 604 3.43 - 3.92 SpecInt95 / 100MHz 604e 3.94 - 4.04 SpecInt95 / 100MHz Pentium Pro 4.05 - 4.28 SpecInt95 / 100MHz While there are variations due to external subsystems, I think the ranking is interesting. Specfp95 follows a similar pattern except that the 604e comes in ahead of the Pentium Pro. greg@csc.canberra.edu.au (Greg Preston) €New XFCNs Just a note to let you all know that I've sent out updated copies of the following Xternals to the regular archive sites. Since they may not show up there for a while, feel free to e-mail me for a copy, or for more information. Computer Terms Glossary GetAddressingMode XFCN 2.5 GetAppleTalk XFCN 2.5 GetConnectionManager XFCN 2.5 GetDBAccessManager XFCN 2.5 GetDITLExtensions XFCN 2.5 Get/SetType XFCN/XCMD 3.0 Get/SetStationery XFCN/XCMD 2.5 Get/SetNameLock XFCN/XCMD 2.5 Get/SetModDate XFCN/XCMD 1.5 Get/SetCreateDate XFCN/XCMD 2.5 From: "Jeffrey D. Iverson" €High Level Photo Journalism Episode (Jack Kurtz) I'm a photojournalist covering the Republican National Convention in San Diego, and I'm happy to report that, for the photographers, there is nary a 'Doze machine in sight. In the Associated Press work space most of the AP member photographers are using Powerbook 500 series with Nikon Supercoolscans, there are a few digital cameras and some 180c's and even some 165c's. Haven't seen any 5300's yet. For their part, AP staff photographers are using all digital cameras. The PC cards are being downloaded straight into PowerPC boxes. AP has digital cameras covering the podium giving live feeds to a Mac under the camera platform in the middle of the convention center and going straight out to member papers from there. United Press International is using film. The photoshop work is being done on PowerMac 7500's and sent to Washington where they are transmitted to UPI subscribers. A few of us are even Newtons for caption notes! €High Tech Author Tom Clancy likes Macs Famous author Tom Clancy ("Hunt for Red October", "Patriot Games", "Red Storm Rising", etc.) does a little Macintosh Evangelizing himself in the newsgroup alt.books.tom-clancy when he responds to a flame as follows: >Newsgroups: alt.books.tom-clancy >Subject: Re: macintrash >Date: 20 Aug 1996 19:11:47 -0400 >> Subject: macintrash >>From: Gilbert >>Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 23:49:10 -0700 >>Message-ID: <32195FE6.6033@iti2.net> > >>I ought to torch all of you macintrash heads right here right now! > >Clancy responds: > >I would worry about such things, but first you have to figure out how to >make your IBM-PC do ANYTHING. > >Whereas we Mac drivers merely point and shoot. > >Try again, sport. > >Look at it this way -- IBM : Mac :: Iraqi T-72 : M1A1 > >TC €Updater Update Pages This is to announce that the Macintosh Updater Update Site has moved! Mitch, the creator of the Updater Update Page, having found that he did not have the time to maintain the site the way he wanted it, has asked that the site be taken over by another party. We at Absolute jumped at the opportunity to keep Mac users up-to-date on utility and application software, games, and coming soon Apple System Software & Internet Applications. Please stop by and let us know what you think LEVEL 6 Computing is pleased to announce that our weekly email periodical, the Update Weekly.Mac, is now FREE! To get timely information on updates to Mac platform software, subscribe to the Free Edition at . Though primarily written for Macintosh network managers, consultants, and VARs, this periodical will be of great use to anyone -- including end users -- who want or need to know when new updates are released and where to find them. €Applescript can Tell if an Application is Scriptable From: Engelmann.3@osu.edu (Arnold Engelmann) ŠThe scriptable Finder can test if an application file is scriptable with the following: tell application "Finder" if theFile is scriptable then copy name of theFile to theResult end tell From: Jon Pugh There's a bit in the SIZE resource which tells if an app "Accepts High Level Events". This is what the Finder is checking. It also happens that MultiFinder introduced a cool hack a long time ago which would allow you to open files in running apps (How many people remember the dialog which preceeded that capability?) and quit running apps. These work by faking menu events in the apps and are now called "puppet strings". It turns out that System 7 introduced a translation so that when you send an Apple event to a non-AE aware app (one with the bit off in the SIZE resource) then it would translate that AE into a couple of yanks on the old puppet strings. Thus, you can send the Open, Print and Quit events to non-scriptable apps. From: jayfar@netaxs.com (Jay Farrell) Indeed. There's a great BYTE (August 1988) article "Multifinder Revealed," by Phil Goldman, which explains this puppetry in some detail. It's reprinted in "The Best of BYTE," McGraw-Hill, 1994. €Weird. Your Applescript Application can move itself e.g. tell app "finder" to move (path to me) to trash [editor - now there's a cool way to crash. To ensure a crash, program it to empty the trash too.] €Impressions of the BeOS From: "Blake Harris" I have recently had the opportunity to see the Be OS and I must say, I was overwhelmed. The machine in question had only 16 MB of RAM, and cost about as much as a new Performa (Just over $2000). Granted, there are two processors (603/66), but the difference in speed was amazing. It handles multi-tasking, is PPC native, and has protected memory. The browser (Finder app) crashed and restarted in the background while I was working in a different application, uninterrupted. The text editor opens documents faster than the Mac Finder opens windows. And Power Computing is said to have agreed to bundle the Mac-compatible Be OS on future Macs! €Domain Name Developments The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is learning this lesson. The IANA is a two person California group that sounds bigger than its name - Jan & Dean for websurfers. Like many groups that govern the internet, the IANA has no formal powers, but it created, fostered and now manages today¹s internet address system. Recently, the IANA put the finishing touches on its plan to (1) expand the number of universal top-level domains from a handful (.com, org, .net, .edu, .gov, .mil) to as many as 150, and (2) expand the number of registries who issue names in these universal top-level domains (except for .gov and .mil names) from one (Network Solutions, Inc., or NSI) to 50 or more. (***Heads-Up Note: For an intelligent discussion of the IANA¹s plan and the internet address system, please see David Loundy¹s Technology Law column of September 12, 1996, entitled Internet Name Game Gets New Set of Rules. Readers of Internet Law Heads-Up will no doubt be interested in David¹s monthly columns, available at his web site, http://www.leepfrog.com/E-Law/. To receive David¹s new columns by e-mail, send an e-mail message to loundy-request@netural.com containing just the word "subscribe" in the body of the message. Do it now!) The opening of many new top-level domains was designed to curb litigation over domain names, while the expansion of domain name registries was designed to take pressure off NSI. According to published reports, new registries to issue names in the new universal top-level domains are waiting in the wings, ready to pay the $2,000 annual fee and 2% of their net profits to IANA. But they will need to wait a while longer. Critics have attacked the IANA¹s failure to consult with international groups, such as the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Trademark Association, who will now be invited to join the committee that activates the IANA¹s plan under new rules to be drafted. Critics have also charged that the IANA did not address international trademark disputes, insufficiently addressed United States trademark disputes, had no authority to assess fees and had no authority to change the domain system on its own. As of this writing, the IANA¹s plan is back on the drawing board. With worldwide input, some form of the IANA¹s plan should become a reality. But will it curb litigation over domain names? Probably not. I expect to focus on such litigation in a forthcoming Internet Law Heads-Up. As Wendy Leibowitz, Staff Reporter with the National Law Journal and a reader of Internet Law Heads-Up, accurately states, ³The administration of the Internet is like the government of Italy: If you don¹t like it, just wait; it will soon change.² Stay tuned.... INTERNET LAW HEADS-UP #1 heads-up@webchoice.com November 1, 1996 €Envoy PlugIns update NEW PRODUCTS AND PRODUCT UPDATES Weíve recently updated our FREE Envoy Plug-ins for you, providing Netscape Navigator 3.0 compatibility and other enhancements such as: ï Live Hypertext Links allow you to jump to other URLs. ï Zoom Features allow you to fit your document to the width or height of the browser, and move in and out of the document from 3 to 2000% magnification. ï Scroll or Pan to different areas of the document. ï Easy Navigation using buttons or the scrollbar. ï Search for text strings within a document. The beta version of the LiveConnect-enabled Envoy plug-in for Netscape Navigator 3.0 is also available. Download these FREE plug-ins now at: http://www.tumbleweed.com/download.htm! If you use the Microsoft Internet Explorer, you should download our demo of the ActiveX for Envoy Control at: http://www.tumbleweed.com/eax.htm €Sorry, that¹s all the time I have. This Jaques Law Bits was delivered by: Kevin Jaques, B.A. LL.B. of the Jaques Law Office #101 - 2515 Victoria Avenue Fax: 525­4173 Regina, Saskatchewan Home: 586­2234 email: jaques.law@dlcwest.com Tel: 359­3041 visit our web page at http://www.dlcwest.com/~jaques.law/