Monthly Archives: February 2012

20th Anniversary of “A River Runs Through It”

Saw this article posted on the Flyfish@ list server. It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long. I was a flyfisherman long before, and I hope to have many more years of practicing the craft. As the article states, it’s really hard to overestimate the impact of this flick on this quiet, contemplative pursuit. Its timing was impeccable, coming on with the economic boom of the 1990’s, and thus fueling the accompanying boom in expensive and exquisite rods, reels, and other paraphernalia. The real estate market in many rural areas was transformed, as the article states. Over the years, the number of folks on the rivers has peaked, but I do believe it’s created a lasting conservation legacy. While I like to Flyfish for many species, trout live in such nice places…

What a difference 8 more GB of RAM makes!

I’ve been really happy with my mid/late-2011 model iMac which I’ve had for about 6 months. I got the entry-level version with stock 4GB of ram and a 2.5Ghz i5 CPU. However, the more I tried to run, the more I kept swapping, and I’d watch the free memory (in Activity Monitor) essentially go to zero, as I kept a number of apps up…two accounts logged in (mine and Jan’s) for running iDevice syncs to iTunes, a Linux VM on my profile, a couple of browsers (Chrome and Safari), Tweetdeck, Evernote, Mac Mail, etc. Run Word or Excel and it swaps in and out…try to run Xcode, and it takes a long time to load, and it worked better shutting down several apps.

I decided to price some RAM, and found that I could get 8GB (8.0GB PC3-10600 1333MHZ SO Kit) from Other World Computing for $47 including shipping. What’s not to like?! This iMac has 4 slots, so I just dropped in the two SODIMM’s, and voila, 12GB of RAM. Runs like a champ. Apps load and switch nearly instantly. As an old mainframe systems guy, I should have known it was memory-starved and not been surprised, but I was…reminds me of the time… 😉

Of course, I used to code in 360/370 Assembler, and you could address 4KB (that’s 4096 bytes to you young whippersnappers) from one base register…. 🙂