Re: Misc OSX q's

T i m <news@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[..]
Out of interest, what is it you need to see that iStat doesn't do? I
have an icon up with two arrows that flash activity, as well as a pop-up
that shows disk usage, and an activity graph.

Oh, well just HDD activity on the menu bar itself (rather than having
to pull anything down, I'm interested in activity not history), I
didn't see that happen with iStats?

Yes, that does work quite well, indeed you can configure it for quite a
few different ways to view the activity too. I only chose iStatMenu as
it has a few more features, and it's being developed more too.

[..]
That's very unusual behaviour, although I don't like Skype myself. I've
tried using it to contact Mum by video chat, and it's pretty awful, most
of the interface is pretty awful too. I use iChat and GoogleTalk now,
and that works fine.

I can try iChat now but haven't tried GoogleTalk yet.

You need to set it up as a Jabber account.

I really only use Skype for voice. I occasionally chat to a game
player in Denmark and it's as clear / stable as a local telephone
call.

Fair enough.

Normal behaviour should be:

Red button, close window.
Yellow button, minimise to Dock.
Green button, maximise window.

However, some programmers do other things, so that many unexpected
things can happen. Such as some apps quit when you use the red button,
and the green button doesn't always maximise as expected.

Well I;'I'm still at the stage with OSX where I have no real
expectations as to exactly what will happen when I press what and
often find myself effectively closing stuff twice (one with the red
button and again with quit from the dock or from the menubar (if that
app is showing at the time).

I usually use keyboard shortcuts myself. Command-tab to select apps, and
Command-Q to quit - in fact you can just hit the Q key after tabbing and
keep the applications selector open.

[..]
IIRC there's a selection to automatically join 'known' networks in
Tiger. In Leopard it just connects. But yes, I found that certain
combinations of client machines and router can have various levels of
reliability.

Ok. In XP I can set a priority list for WiFi networks and I was
looking for something similar (and thought I found it at one point).

Yes, you can also drag the Network types themselves into an order. I
think the WiFi networks are under the 'Advanced' button (they are in
10.5).

The Belkin G router I put in my sister's wouldn't work with Windows any
better than with my Mac. The Buffalo is equally good on both, although
sometimes it wouldn't connect after a sleep.

With my recent playing with Linux I have found more compatibility
issues between WiFi card make / model and my Fritz router
particularly. Certain cards simply won't show that router at all and
some will show it under Windows but not under Linux (and visa versa).
Funnily I've recently replace the same make / model of card in a mates
setup for similar reasons.

There can seem to be a bit of Voodoo sometimes :-/

[..]
Although Linux may work anyway, doesn't it use CUPS printing? - which is
what OSX uses.

Erm, it might do, luckily it supported my actual printer
out_of_the_box so didn't need to play with it much.

Yes, it should, the CUPS drivers are pretty comprehensive.

--
Andy Hewitt
<http://web.me.com/andrewhewitt1/>
.