More About This Macintosh is a utility that provides more in-depth information for you than Apple's "About This Macintosh" or "About This Computer" dialog in the Finder. It shows memory fragmentation, volume information, processor speeds, and other useful tidbits.
This probably happens to you all the time. You've got a machine stacked with plenty of memory (thanks to the recent rock-bottom prices). You've been working all afternoon on a project, opening and closing applications right and left. You're almost finished, and you go to launch an advanced application, when you're greeted with this message:
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You know you've got that 24 megs free, but this is what "About This Macintosh" tells you:
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So which applications can you quit to get back all that memory? You could try guesswork, quitting applications one at a time until the largest unused block grows large enough. Or, you could launch "More About This Macintosh". Here is what it tells you in a situation like this:
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As this screenshot shows, there are two large blocks of memory that are broken up by one application, Claris Emailer. To gain back the full 37 megabyte block, all you need to do is quit that app.
If you prefer not to see the blocks of free memory graphically, you can turn them off using the "Show Empty Blocks" selection in the Edit menu.
Another situation you may have enountered is when an application doesn't free up all its memory when it quits. The used memory sits in the middle of your available space, and keeps it from being used all at once. Netscape Navigator frequently does this when accessing pages where plugins are required, especially QuickTime. This situation can be extremely frustrating, because even if you quit all of your applications, your memory will still be fragmented, preventing you from using it effectively.
More About This Macintosh¬ (MATM for short, pronounced "Madam") will tell you when this has happened, which looks like this:
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MATM is simply telling you that to gain back the full 31M block, you will have to restart your computer - quitting any of the other applications open at the time won't help you. A future version may attempt to dispose of the extra memory that is causing the fragmentation.
More About This Macintosh also shows a few more useful pieces of information. If you select the "Volumes" tab, the window will look like this:
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This shows a unique view of the volumes on your machine, graphically displaying the relative sizes and amount of used space on each.
The third tab shows some useful information about your computer in general:
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This tells you the speed of your computer's CPU, the speed of its bus (the connection between the CPU and the memory), and the type of CPU.
If the processor type field shows "Unknown", please e-mail me and tell me the number listed after the "Unknown" and the machine type you are using. This way, I can update MATM's records to reflect the correct processor type. Also, if any of MATM's information is incorrect, please let me know.
Unlike "About This Macintosh", MATM displays the specific type of computer you are using. In the cases show above, it shows that my machine is a Power Macintosh 7200, instead of simple "Power Macintosh".
As new machines are released by Apple, MATM will continue to be updated to show the correct machine type. However, seeing how fast Apple has been cranking out models, this may prove to be a daunting task. Periodic updates can be found on my web page. If you have questions or comments, or if your machine type is listed incorrectly, email me at either of the addresses listed below, and tell me what the "Machine ID" is listed under the System Info tab.
About High Memory: I have received many questions about what is stored in the High Memory partition. The system software uses this area of memory to store some extensions and other blocks it knows it won't have to move around. Just consider it a part of the system software that exists on the other end of memory.
Contact information
Kevin Tieskoetter
34 Benford Drive
Princeton Jct, NJ 08550
<http://pobox.com/~albtrssp>
albatross@kagi.com
Also try my other product, a freeware image slideshow application called ImageBrowser. You can read about it, as well as get information on any new products, on the web page listed above.
Registration
MATM has the following pricing.
Single user license, $15 per user
A Site License costs $400 ( roughly equal to 25 users) and covers all locations for your organization within a 100 mile radius of your site (100 km). One big advantage of a Site License is that you do not need to keep track of how many people at your site are using the software.
A World-Wide License costs $800 and it covers all locations for your organization on the planet earth.
Paying for MATM is fairly simple. Open the Register program that accompanies MATM. Enter your name, your email address, and the number of single user licenses you desire for each program you wish to purchase (or Site or Word-Wide licenses). Save or Copy or Print the data from the Register program and send the data and payment to Kagi. Kagi handles my payment processing.
If paying with Credit Card or First Virtual, you can email or fax the data to Kagi. Their email address is sales@kagi.com and their fax number is +1 510 652-6589. You can either Copy the data from Register and paste into the body of an email message or you can Save the data to a file and you can attach that file to an email message. There is no need to compress the data file, it's already pretty small. If you have a fax modem, just Print the data to the Kagi fax number.
Payments sent via email are processed within 3 to 4 days. You will receive an email acknowledgement when it is processed. Payments sent via fax take up to 10 days and if you provide a correct internet email address you will receive an email acknowledgement.
If you are paying with Cash or USD Check you should print the data using the Register application and send it to the address shown on the form, which is:
Kagi
1442-A Walnut Street #392-3UN
Berkeley, California 94709-1405
USA
You can pay with a wide variety of cash from different countries but at present if you pay via check, it must be a check drawn in US Dollars. Kagi cannot accept checks in other currencies, the conversion rate for non-USD checks is around USD 15 per check and that is just not practical.
If you have a purchasing department, you can enter all the data into the Register program and then select Invoice as your payment method. Print three copies of the form and send it to your accounts payable people. You might want to highlight the line that mentions that they must include a copy of the form with their payment.
Kagi can not invoice your company, you need to act on my behalf and generate the invoice and handle all the paperwork on your end.
Please do not fax or email payment forms that indicate Cash, Check or Invoice as the payment method. As far as we know, there is still no technology to transfer physical objects via fax or email and without the payment, the form cannot be processed.
Payments send via postal mail take time to reach Kagi and then up to 10 days for processing. Again, if you include a correct email address, you will hear from Kagi when the form is processed.
When you have been registered, you will be informed on how to turn off the shareware registration notice. Please be sure to include an email address when you register.
