Dan: This is great information. Since the library servers are still down, I am going to try this at Panera and see what happens. Thanks for taking the time to explain all this.
Randy On Feb 24, 2006, at 1:53 PM, Dan Crutcher wrote: Randy, From what you've said so far, it is not clear to me that your slowdown is related to anything other than your wireless internet connection. You have mentioned two examples of slowness: one at the LCS meeting that involved your wireless connection, the other at the library also with a wireless connection. So it seems to me the first thing you need to do is to determine if your _computer_ is running slow or if your _wireless connection_ is slow. So let's start there and proceed by process of elimination: While connected to the Internet wirelessly (whereever you want to do that), go to the following URL: http://reviews.cnet.com/7004-7254_7-0.html ... enter your area code and click the "Wireless" radio button, then click on the "Go" button, which will check your connection speed. Do this three times, waiting one minute between each time you check it. Report back to us what results you get. For example, I just went to that site and did that. My results were: 685.8, 643.2 and 532.9 Kbps (Kilobits per second). As you can see, the connection can vary fairly significantly even on the same connection because of variables such as local network traffic, Internet traffic, etc. It might be useful to do this at several different "hotspots" -- or with your own router, if you decide to set it up. If you are consistently getting results of at least 400-500 Kbps, your connection is decent (though not great) and I wouldn't think you would notice any obvious slowness. If your results are well below that, then there is something going on with your connection -- it could be that a lot of people are using the same connection at the same time, so you are all competing for the same limited bandwidth (a very plausible scenario at the Free Public Library). If you consistently get low results at different hotspots, then it's more likely that there is an issue with your wireless or TCP/IP setup or with your wireless receiving hardware. Once we've determined this, we can move on to more advanced steps. Dan > Now that you have introduced me to the Activity Monitor and its > help library, from what I can tell, which is about as much as I can > tell when looking under my car's hood, nothing is out of order. > Since I can't attach it to the internet here, I don't know what the > network monitor says so will take it to the library today and see > what that reveals. I wonder if there are other activities I should > monitor while it's online or if that one will yield important info > or not. Needless to say, when clicking on help articles placed me > in the developer connections, I fled. Is there a particular > measurement which indicates that something is amiss? > > Thanks very much for your help. > > Randy > On Feb 23, 2006, at 9:20 AM, Dan Crutcher wrote: > > While it is true that OS X gets unhappy when hard drive space gets > very low, having 6 GB available should be plenty and, no, that > shouldn't be causing any noticeable slowdowns, especially given > that you have 1 GB or RAM. I often run my PowerBook G4 with 3 GB of > hard drive space remaining and haven't noticed a slowdown. > > Nor is that normal with a wireless connection, which I also use. > > Is this slowdown noticeable in a particular program? Are you > leaving a lot of programs active (running in the background) at one > time? Have you tried running Activity Monitor (/Applications/ > Utilities) to see if certain programs or processes are using up a > high percentage of CPU or disk resources? > > Dan Crutcher > >> Hi: >> >> I have only about 6 g. available on my iBook G4 (1.33ghz. with 1g >> ram) and wonder if that's why the machine is so slow or if that is >> normal with a wireless connection with this type of computer. I >> have a router that I never connected and was thinking about having >> it set up until I used the iBook wirelessly at the last meeting >> and discovered how slow it is. I was going to install photoshop >> on it, too, but am afraid that would slow it down even more >> whether it's wireless or not. In october, I took it to the library >> (free hotspot) so I could update the software which I thought >> would take a couple of minutes but it took nearly an hour. >> >> Thanks for any advice. >> >> Randy >> >> | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will >> | be February 28 at Pitt Academy, 6010 Preston Highway. >> | The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. >> | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> >> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup> >> > > > > > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will > | be February 28 at Pitt Academy, 6010 Preston Highway. > | The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. > | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> > | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup> > > > > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will > | be February 28 at Pitt Academy, 6010 Preston Highway. > | The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. > | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> > | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup> > | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be February 28 at Pitt Academy, 6010 Preston Highway. | The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup> | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be February 28 at Pitt Academy, 6010 Preston Highway. | The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
