Glossary

Bit Depth This refers to the maximum number of different colours that your computer can display at any one time. It is important because some applications will run faster when the computer is set up to use a lower bit depth.

Blessed application We use this term to refer to the application OSBooster has or will launch.

Control Panel A small application that can be accessed from the Apple Menu. Typically, a control panel alters settings that affect the whole computer - or a technology that may be used by many applications. For instance, the Appearance control panel alters the way windows and other operating system graphical objects appear. The QuickTime settings control panel alters the way QuickTime behaves - which is used by many applications.

Display Mode A particular combination of screen size and bit depth (number of colours).

Driver A driver is a particular kind of extension (and sometimes control panel) that controls a hardware device. If you use a third party mouse or graphics card, you probably installed some software that lets the Macintosh computer communicate with that device. The Macintosh may still be able to use the hardware if you turn off a driver, but the Macintosh will not be able to use any special features of that device. This is especially true for graphics cards which will improve the performance of your computer when the correct driver is installed. For this reason we do not recommend turning off the drivers for your graphics card or input devices.

Emulator An emulator is a piece of code (often a stand alone application) that runs software for a different kind of computer. A Power Macintosh has an emulator built into the system software in order to run Macintosh software that was written for older Macintosh computers that used a different kind of microprocessor. Other emulators are available that allow you to run programmes written for Windows or DOS computers. You can also find shareware emulators that mimic arcade games, games consoles or early computers.

Extension We use this term to refer to any file found in the Extensions folder in the System Folder. An extension is a file that is used by the operating system to offer additional features to the Finder or other applications.

Extensions Manager The Extensions Manager is an application installed with the MacOS system software that allows you to control which extensions and control panels load at system startup time. An extensions manager is any application or utility which performs the same function.

Extensions Set We use this term to mean a set of extensions and control panels that have been grouped together in an extension managing tool such as Extensions Manager or Conflict Catcher. You may want to build different extension sets in order to optimise your computer for different tasks. OSBooster uses a set called 'OSBooster' in order to optimise the performance of your blessed application.

Finder The application that lets you browse files and launch applications. You can't normally quit the Finder, it is the first application that starts up when you turn on your Macintosh computer.

Free Memory This term is used to describe memory that is not allocated to either an application or the system itself. OSBooster leaves a certain amount of free memory when it launches the blessed application. This is because the system may need a block of free memory in order to run the application correctly.

Virtual Memory A technique that makes the computer appear to have more memory than is actually installed. This works by moving blocks of memory to and from disk as it is needed. Virtual memory often slows down a computer compared to the same computer just using physically installed RAM. The total amount of memory available when using virtual memory is called the 'logical memory'. The actual amount of RAM installed is called the 'physical memory'. Virtual Memory can be turned on or off in the Memory control panel.

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