Word 12.2.3 Loads FAST
MC
loading Word now.
--
"If you can, tell me something happy."
- Marybones
Jeff Chapman
about 10 seconds (after quitting Word, putting the Mac to sleep and
starting up again) to a blinding two seconds on my system.
Holy Batman, we've got a speed demon on our hands! :D
I'm on Mac OS X 10.6.2, 2 GB Core 2 Duo with 4 GB RAM.
Jeff
On 11/13/09 6:43 AM, in article
copespaz-19F07F...@news.eternal-september.org, "MC"
John McGhie
launches faster than you can hit the stop-watch :-)
On 13/11/09 1:15 PM, in article C722F03E.9CA7%jap...@hotmail.com, "Jeff
Chapman" <jap...@hotmail.com> wrote:
--
This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!
John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:jo...@mcghie.name
Jeff Chapman
On 11/14/09 12:55 PM, in article C724756D.3FE0%jo...@mcghie.name, "John
McGhie" <jo...@mcghie.name> wrote:
> Fit your 'puter with an SSD for the System and Applications, and Word 2008
> launches faster than you can hit the stop-watch :-)
Uh huh... but they do cost an arm and a leg. I can buy a new computer
for the price of refitting my MacBook with a 128GB SSD.
Jeff
John McGhie
one.
You don't need one that big, unless you only have room for one disk.
I have the whole of the System and the Applications folder on a 64 GB disk
with almost 50% room to spare.
SSDs excel at large numbers of small random reads, such as the system makes,
or that applications make when they're launching.
They slow down a lot faced with large sequential writes, such as saving a
movie or photos. The cheap ones can be beaten by a high-speed spinning
disk. So I would try not to put much "data" on one; especially, not
volatile data.
Cheers
On 15/11/09 3:22 PM, in article C725B107.9CFB%jap...@hotmail.com, "Jeff
Chapman" <jap...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Phillip Jones, C.E.T.
go here: you can get a built in 128GB SSD to MacBook Air. Pretty cheap too.
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?mco=MTAyNTQzMjc
--
Phillip M. Jones, C.E.T. "If it's Fixed, Don't Break it"
http://www.phillipmjones.net http://www.vpea.org
mailto:pjo...@kimbanet.com
John McGhie
Yes. Those SSDs that Apple is selling are cheap for a reason :-)
They are first-generation Samsungs with the crappy controller. They slow
down like treacle in winter once they have been in service for a while. And
there is no effective way to restore them, because they do not support the
"TRIM" command.
Let's just wait a while for Apple to work that old stock out of the system
before recommending that our friends buy one from Apple.
Cheers
On 16/11/09 10:19 AM, in article uNS0aok...@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl,
"Phillip Jones, C.E.T." <pjo...@kimbanet.com> wrote:
> You can get one version of the
>
> Jeff Chapman wrote:
>> Hi John,
>>
>> On 11/14/09 12:55 PM, in article C724756D.3FE0%jo...@mcghie.name, "John
>> McGhie"<jo...@mcghie.name> wrote:
>>
>>> Fit your 'puter with an SSD for the System and Applications, and Word 2008
>>> launches faster than you can hit the stop-watch :-)
>>
>> Uh huh... but they do cost an arm and a leg. I can buy a new computer
>> for the price of refitting my MacBook with a 128GB SSD.
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>
> go here: you can get a built in 128GB SSD to MacBook Air. Pretty cheap too.
> http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air?mco=MTAyNTQz
> Mjc
Jeff Chapman
On 2009.11.16 14:44, in article C72731D5.402C%jo...@mcghie.name, "John
McGhie" <jo...@mcghie.name> wrote:
> Yes. Those SSDs that Apple is selling are cheap for a reason :-)
>
> They are first-generation Samsungs with the crappy controller. They slow
> down like treacle in winter once they have been in service for a while. And
> there is no effective way to restore them, because they do not support the
> "TRIM" command.
>
> Let's just wait a while for Apple to work that old stock out of the system
> before recommending that our friends buy one from Apple.
Do you mean to say that the SSD that is preinstalled on
the MacBook Air now is also slow as well?
Since they don't have spinning parts, how can you compare
the speed of an SSD to an SATA drive (rpm)?
The MB Airs have come down to a slightly more respectable price
than before - looks a bit tempting. But I really can't justify
purchasing a new Mac if the drive is slower than an SATA.
Speaking of SSDs, I would prefer the SSD of the Star Wars
variety (Super Star Destroyer) on my MacBook, if it weren't
so bulky to carry around :D
Hmmph, MacBook Airs aren't THAT light. 1.36 kg vs. 2.74 kgs of a MacBook
white?
What's a kilogram between friends? ;-)
Jeff
Phillip Jones, C.E.T.
CD Technology first came out. You made more coasters than reliable CD's.
And beside the SSD's as Currently have a limited life. A Hard drive does
as well but if Treated right a HD has very long life. And with the SSD's
If you try to write items such as Music or Pictures takes a very long
time. from my understand if the technology.
I've had to replace one or two of my Cards in my Digital Camera because
they started acting funny. For computer use I want something I can
depend upon.
--
John McGhie
On 16/11/09 7:47 PM, in article C72740BD.E5E%jap...@hotmail.com, "Jeff
Chapman" <jap...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hello John,
>
> On 2009.11.16 14:44, in article C72731D5.402C%jo...@mcghie.name, "John
> McGhie" <jo...@mcghie.name> wrote:
>
>> Yes. Those SSDs that Apple is selling are cheap for a reason :-)
>>
>> They are first-generation Samsungs with the crappy controller. They slow
>> down like treacle in winter once they have been in service for a while. And
>> there is no effective way to restore them, because they do not support the
>> "TRIM" command.
>>
>> Let's just wait a while for Apple to work that old stock out of the system
>> before recommending that our friends buy one from Apple.
>
> Do you mean to say that the SSD that is preinstalled on
> the MacBook Air now is also slow as well?
Yes.
> Since they don't have spinning parts, how can you compare
> the speed of an SSD to an SATA drive (rpm)?
You measure the number of bytes transferred per second :-)
Here: Read it and weep:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=1
> The MB Airs have come down to a slightly more respectable price
> than before - looks a bit tempting. But I really can't justify
> purchasing a new Mac if the drive is slower than an SATA.
Well, when you take it out of the box, it won't be. The issue won't show up
for a month or two. You have to read the whole of the AnandTech article to
learn why: you need to understand how SSDs work internally.
Very simplistically, the current-generation SSDs can never delete anything,
they can only re-write stuff. Because of the way they are built, the
smallest thing they can write is a "page" of half a megabyte. For every
four-byte write, they have to read and re-write half a meg.
The problem will not show up until all the cells on the drive have been used
for the first time, but when it appears, a fast SATA will beat the slowest
of them :-)
> Hmmph, MacBook Airs aren't THAT light. 1.36 kg vs. 2.74 kgs of a MacBook
> white? What's a kilogram between friends? ;-)
How far do you have to carry it? :-) I can recall the Drill Sergeant
assuring me that the pack was not heavy. About three miles into the run
around the airfield, I would have debated the issue with him, had I had any
breath left...
Me? I use a MacBook laptop. According to me, the MacBook Pro is too
expensive and it's unreliable. The MacBook Air is outrageously too
expensive, and it's slow.
Clive will be along in a moment to disagree :-)
Cheers
John McGhie
I agree: I wouldn't argue with any of this.
I have an SSD and I know that it will wear out someday. In my case,
probably not before the system does (or I do...) but it will stop one day.
Cheers
On 17/11/09 3:34 AM, in article u4CT3qt...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl,
Clive Huggan
McGhie" <jo...@mcghie.name> wrote:
<snip>
> Me? I use a MacBook laptop. According to me, the MacBook Pro is too
> expensive and it's unreliable. The MacBook Air is outrageously too
> expensive, and it's slow.
>
> Clive will be along in a moment to disagree :-)
>
<Splutter, splutter>
Words fail me.
... You will be glad to hear.
CH
===
Jeff Chapman
On 2009.11.17 7:29, in article C7281D68.4056%jo...@mcghie.name, "John McGhie"
<jo...@mcghie.name> wrote:
> The problem will not show up until all the cells on the drive have been used
> for the first time, but when it appears, a fast SATA will beat the slowest
> of them :-)
Ugh.
I was always leery of using flash drives for more than temporary
storage, but this seems to confirm my suspicions.
Then again, there seem to be a lot of sites that are touting
the reliability and longevity of SSDs on the other hand.
It's really difficult to find irenic, scientific evidence one way
or the other.
Principle-wise, it makes sense that SSDs would be more reliable -
no moving parts. But the "wearing out" of data cells is a bit
of a wrench in the works, eh.
Jeff
CyberTaz
I'm not sure these would be your words :-) but since you seem to be
uncharacteristically speechless...
On 11/17/09 12:18 AM, in article
C7287D67.453A4%REMOVETH...@ANDTHISstrategists.com.au, "Clive Huggan"
<REMOVETH...@ANDTHISstrategists.com.au> wrote:
Not being judgmental, but I truly believe that anyone with at least
semi-serious computing needs & not infatuated with fads &
techno-conversation pieces would agree with John's perspective on the Air...
Especially many of those who are already in possession of one ;-)
IMO, His comparison of the MB/MBP is not as well-founded. Knowing John, he's
probably comparing a stock MB to a blown-out 17" MBP, though ;-)
It also depends on which respective generations you chose to compare. I took
the plunge in favor of the 15" MBP nearly 2 years ago. My keys for the
decision at that time remain valid as of the current releases. The
difference in price was justified in my mind by the larger screen, backlit
keyboard & inclusion of a FireWire port & higher graphics performance.
Additionally, at that time MBs were limited to 2GB & offered slower
processors. A few less significant features factored in as well.
As for reliability, I've had zero problems. Performance has been flawless &
it has accepted every device I've connected to it -- physically or via
Bluetooth. And the weight difference -- that amount to probably 1/10 of the
weight of all the other needless junk most folks cram into their laptop
bags... And then complain about how heavy the *computer* is :-)
Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac
John McGhie
A "good" SSD will bean a good SATA by at least a thousand to one, on small,
random reads. And it will do that every time.
A good SSD will beat a good SATA by something like 100 times on small random
writes.
For "large" sequential reads, the limitation is the speed of the SATA
interface that they both use. SATA II tops out at 260 mb/s: the wire won't
go any faster. Mount the SSD on a PCI card, and the SATA is toast...
For large sequential writes, the question becomes "how full is the disk"?
The SSD has an easy advantage right up until the SSD has used every one of
its empty cells. Remember: the current crop of SSDs have no way to know
that data has been deleted, so they can never empty themselves.
So then a "write" actually becomes a "read, re-order, re-write". On a slow
SSD, the SATA will beat it.
There's a new command coming: TRIM. It enables the OS to indicate to the
SSD which data has been deleted, so it knows it can simply overwrite it
without having to preserve it.
Windows 7 supports the TRIM command already. OS 10.6.2 has all the plumbing
in place, but the command is not there yet: maybe 10.6.3.
On the other hand, none of the SSDs on the market support it either, yet.
The Intel drives will be the first, next month. But they will require a
firmware upgrade. Intel has had a discouraging experience with its firmware
upgrades: a couple of them had a bad habit of bricking the drive.
The expensive SSDs are built of single-level cells. These read and write
faster (they write much faster) and each cell can be re-written 100,000
times before it begins to throw errors.
The cheap SSDs are built of multi-level cells. They're slower, they suffer
more from the old-age slowdown, and each cell can be written only 10,000
times before it starts to fail.
However, SSDs have cunning firmware that always writes to the least-recently
used cells, which means the writes are spread evenly over the drive. Some
files are very active: for example, various caches and paging files. Some
files almost never change. So it can take many years before an SSD gets
around to re-writing any particular cell.
This makes SSDs a good candidate for things like the operating system and
the applications, which get written only when you apply updates, and then
not all of it gets re-written. It could be well over a hundred years before
an SSD containing the system and the applications starts to reach its wear
limit.
That's a bit of a nonsense figure: the practical limit is ten years: after
that, unless the information is refreshed, an SSD begins to suffer
Alzheimer's disease.
There's another bit of good news: SSDs don't typically fail "all at once,
bang, you've lost it". They start throwing single-bit errors. Correctible
errors. The system usually has years to detect these errors and warn you
that the drive is on the way out before it gets to the point where it begins
to lose data.
SSDs are a good thing: but the current crop is "a good first attempt".
Watch this space...
Cheers
On 17/11/09 4:56 PM, in article C7286A0C.E8B%jap...@hotmail.com, "Jeff
Chapman" <jap...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Jeff Chapman
"John McGhie" <jo...@mcghie.name> wrote in message
news:C728FF7C.40A8%jo...@mcghie.name...
> There's another bit of good news: SSDs don't typically fail "all at once,
> bang, you've lost it". They start throwing single-bit errors.
> Correctible
> errors. The system usually has years to detect these errors and warn you
> that the drive is on the way out before it gets to the point where it
> begins
> to lose data.
>
> SSDs are a good thing: but the current crop is "a good first attempt".
> Watch this space...
Thanks for all of the background information on this.
Think I'll hold off for a little while before getting that new MacBook
Air... hahaha...
Jeff
Phillip Jones, C.E.T.
> keyboard& inclusion of a FireWire port& higher graphics performance.
> Additionally, at that time MBs were limited to 2GB& offered slower
> processors. A few less significant features factored in as well.
>
> As for reliability, I've had zero problems. Performance has been flawless&
> it has accepted every device I've connected to it -- physically or via
> Bluetooth. And the weight difference -- that amount to probably 1/10 of the
> weight of all the other needless junk most folks cram into their laptop
> bags... And then complain about how heavy the *computer* is :-)
>
> Regards |:>)
> Bob Jones
> [MVP] Office:Mac
>
When I get so I ca buy one I will get the blown out MBP 17" I bought a
Blown out PBP when it came out. and I have immensely enjoyed. but
systems wise it long in the tooth. I don't whether I get an excessively
large drive. But will get try to get as much RAM as I ca afford. 2GB is
not enough.
Clive Huggan
I agree entirely with you, Bob.
As Stirrer McGhie knows, my MacBook Pro is my sole computer, whereas his
MacBook is not. So the investment in it is well justified. And any question
of MacBook Pro unreliability is unknown to me.
But the key to John's praise of the MacBook over the MacBook Pro could be
his Scottish origins. ;-)
I do confess I agree with John about the MacBook Air. However, such
considerations are as nothing for fashionistas: my words of caution a couple
of weeks ago, when a salesman friend at our Mac outlet was showing Herself
the MB Air while we were waiting in the shop, were not even heard. Her eyes
were glazed over. Mr Toad, lusting over his latest automobile acquisition,
was a mere shadow in comparison...
Cheers,
Clive
======
On 17/11/09 10:46 PM, in article
C727F763.5767D%onlygen...@com.cast.net, "CyberTaz"
John McGhie
On 17/11/09 10:46 PM, in article
C727F763.5767D%onlygen...@com.cast.net, "Bob Jones"
<onlygen...@com.cast.net> wrote:
> IMO, His comparison of the MB/MBP is not as well-founded. Knowing John, he's
> probably comparing a stock MB to a blown-out 17" MBP, though ;-)
Yes, I am. And I am making the comparison with meticulous detail right now,
because I am trying to help a mate in China buy one.
I note that with the Unibody series, Steve has sharply reduced the prices on
the MacBook Pro line. It used to be that a "Pro" was almost exactly twice
the price of the MacBook.
Now I see that the MacBook is about 7,900 RMB with the 250 GB disk and 2GB
of RAM, the Pro is 11,100 with the 250 GB disk and 4GB of RAM.
Extra ram is 500 RMB for two 2GB sticks to take the MacBook to 4GB, leading
to a price of 8,400 for the MacBook and 11,100 for the Pro.
Those unused to working in Renminbi will be pleased to learn that the
Chinese prices are $US 1,156.49 for the fat MacBook and $US 1,624.95 for the
Pro (she's looking for the 'hand-bag-sized' 13" screens).
>
> It also depends on which respective generations you chose to compare. I took
> the plunge in favor of the 15" MBP nearly 2 years ago. My keys for the
> decision at that time remain valid as of the current releases. The
> difference in price was justified in my mind by the larger screen, backlit
> keyboard & inclusion of a FireWire port & higher graphics performance.
> Additionally, at that time MBs were limited to 2GB & offered slower
> processors. A few less significant features factored in as well.
Now, this is where I am exercising the brain muscles on behalf of my
friend...
Like many young Chinese, this girl lives in a dormitory, so she has to carry
her computer with her if she wants to keep it. She's only a little girl.
Another friend of mine was into photography, so she had a 19" lappy. Great
for processing photos, but the longest "journey" you would contemplate
without a removalist was from the bedroom to the lounge room :-)
My MacBook still has a FireWire 400 port, but the new one does not.
According to Steve Jobs, that's because nothing's using it anymore (outside
of the professional media space, and if she was working there, she would be
buying a Mac Pro).
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/10/steve-jobs-concisely-answers-the-m
acbook-firewire-question.ars
I don't think that's going to be an issue in China: FireWire never really
caught on there.
The new MacBooks have the backlit keyboard to shorten the battery life, and
the non-replaceable battery to thin the wallet.
As far as I can tell, the only thing that "uses" the hot graphics cards is
games. As far as I can tell, all other applications and the OS never use it
(or never use the 3-D part of it). The latest MacBook has the NVIDIA
9400M, which will power a 30" display at full res (but it costs you up to
256 MB of RAM to do so).
> As for reliability, I've had zero problems. Performance has been flawless &
> it has accepted every device I've connected to it -- physically or via
> Bluetooth. And the weight difference -- that amount to probably 1/10 of the
> weight of all the other needless junk most folks cram into their laptop
> bags... And then complain about how heavy the *computer* is :-)
I am a big fan of the polycarbonate plastic cases. Not only do they provide
superb wireless performance, but they are rugged :-) Every plastic MacBook
I have had (three of them...) is still running, following substantial abuse
at the hands of QANTAS, BA, United, and several Chinese airlines :-)
Every MacBook Pro I have heard about except yours has had a hardware failure
of some kind. Two had screens replaced. One blew a motherboard. One had a
hinge failure. One had its keyboard replaced.
Having travelled on Chinese busses over Chinese roads (they're not quite as
bad as Sydney roads, but Chinese bus springs are harder...) I am going with
the MacPlastic for my friend, based on their original design spec, which was
"to survive in a schoolkid's backpack". Now, when you're talking about a
hostile computing environment, I cannot imagine one more hostile than a
school backpack. I bet the US Military incorporates that as part of the
MIL-SPEC test for ruggedness :-)