You discover you have a problem with a commercial product. You contact the creators and over 2 weeks, 17 emails, multiple restarts, logging, changing what starts at boot, timing startup and more you are told that something might have been found. Then silence. Then a new commercial version launches several months later. Would you expect an email saying Thanks? Would you buy the new version?
Category Archives: Mac
kernel_task
I’m sure since the last OS X Lion Service Pack (I forget what the slick Apple term is for “here’s a shedload more code to fix stuff” is) that the kernel_task process just takes off on it’s own. 40% CPU? 800mb RAM? Sure, help yourself. It must be very important it’s job whatever it is otherwise Apple wouldn’t let it work this way would they? Between it and mdworker it’s amazing that anything else runs. It is supremely annoying to have other processes judder to a halt because of this.
Notes!
I thought I had a newer license than 1.0 for iWOW but apparently not so off to the SRSLabs site to see the price of the new version. $24.99. Not bad but that’s when I realised I’d lost my password and 3 minutes later realised that my password was not encrypted. (You’d think company’s would have a clue wouldn’t you?). If my password is not encrypted you think I’ll give my credit card details over? It also phones home on activation and after the 3rd call it won’t be answered. Not good at all. Looked around and found an alternative.
Hear. Costs $19.99, I can install in on whatever I own (Mac and Win) and it works for all sound, not just iTunes. This is excellent for gaming on the laptop and TV/film/music on the mac. The email asking about licensing was answered quickly too. So I bought it. And I am finding all new sounds in music I’ve played many many times. Click Hear off and it all goes flat, dull. Very noticeable. Tons of settings which are fun to play with. Tomorrow I’ll set the dogs off with some loud dubstep and heavy on the Bass. The only downside is that it sits in the dock not the menu bar but that’s minor compared to the sound enhancement.
Snagit. Junk
Why is to so damn hard to capture an entire window in a screenshot? Not what I can see but what I can scroll too? Snagit for the Mac – and for Firefox only – says it can. Junk. It can’t. Numerous Chrome extensions say then can and they can’t. I have a long page and I want it all but nothing can do it. And they want money for Snagit too. Pfft.
Lion sleeps and sleeps
Number of times I reinstalled Windows because the system slowed: 1
Number of times I have reinstalled Lion because it has practically ground to a halt: 2
Difference is that I had Windows for years. Lion has been out for 7 months?
System prefs should open fast, not take 30 seconds. Terminal takes forever. Aperture? Go for a walk. OS Lion itself when you have a couple of drives attached? Ages. I could reboot XP is just under 45 seconds. This machine takes that long to shut down.
This time it’s nuke and install. None of that “Restore” rubbish.