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Simple questions about os x
- Thread starter cool11
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robbieduncan
Moderator emeritus
iSync is bundled with the OS. If you have the latest OS update you have the latest version of iSync.
I discovered that every new file I create, is at least 4kb big!
Thats a problem for me.
For example, I optimize my graphics for web pages in photoshop cs3. Although photoshop tells me an estimation of 1kb of a new gif file, when I save it to disk it occupies 4kb! That seems to be the minimum file size!
Imagine that all my efforts about small-sized graphics are gone!
But it is not only graphics.
I create a new text file, nothing within it. I save. Guess what: 4kb size.
Why this happens and how can I solve the problem?
It is a disaster, especially for web designers.
Thats a problem for me.
For example, I optimize my graphics for web pages in photoshop cs3. Although photoshop tells me an estimation of 1kb of a new gif file, when I save it to disk it occupies 4kb! That seems to be the minimum file size!
Imagine that all my efforts about small-sized graphics are gone!
But it is not only graphics.
I create a new text file, nothing within it. I save. Guess what: 4kb size.
Why this happens and how can I solve the problem?
It is a disaster, especially for web designers.
mkrishnan
Moderator emeritus
Is that happening on an internal drive or an external drive? It isn't by any chance happening on a FAT32 volume, is it? 😉
mkrishnan
Moderator emeritus
Hmmm... I think it still might be a block / cluster issue. Try accessing your website from a foreign entity (i.e. over the inter or intranet) and see how much is actually transferred. It may be that the file is represented by HFS+ as being 4kb in size because of the HFS+ minimum file size, but in actuality is not that big even when transfered over the internet. (see ref)
I did another thing.
I transfered the 4kb gif file(created on mac-originally under 1kb estimation of photoshop) on windows. It took 2kb.
I created a blank txt on windows. Windows display 0 kb file size. I transfered it to mac hard disk. Mac displayed 0 kb file size.
What is going on?
Can I see the original file size of every file on mac os x, instead of doing speculations?
I transfered the 4kb gif file(created on mac-originally under 1kb estimation of photoshop) on windows. It took 2kb.
I created a blank txt on windows. Windows display 0 kb file size. I transfered it to mac hard disk. Mac displayed 0 kb file size.
What is going on?
Can I see the original file size of every file on mac os x, instead of doing speculations?
This is a nice thread, I have some questions too...
1) What is the button to use to zoom in on something? In Windows I use ctrl + scrollwheel. Although that does work in OS X, it is not what I'm looking for, since it zooms in the entire screen, not just the app I'm working with.
2) What are the shortcuts for closing, maximizing and minimizing a window. I know that
+ Q ends the program. But what are the shortcuts for the three colored balls on the top of a window?
3) Is there a way to open things directly from Spotlight? When I press + spacebar, I can open the spotlight search dialogue. I type in something and then how do I open it, without clicking on it, but using the keyboard? Enter only opens a spotlight window with all the search results, which is something I don't want.
Thanks for all the help!
1) What is the button to use to zoom in on something? In Windows I use ctrl + scrollwheel. Although that does work in OS X, it is not what I'm looking for, since it zooms in the entire screen, not just the app I'm working with.
2) What are the shortcuts for closing, maximizing and minimizing a window. I know that
+ Q ends the program. But what are the shortcuts for the three colored balls on the top of a window?3) Is there a way to open things directly from Spotlight? When I press
+ spacebar, I can open the spotlight search dialogue. I type in something and then how do I open it, without clicking on it, but using the keyboard? Enter only opens a spotlight window with all the search results, which is something I don't want. Thanks for all the help!
mkrishnan
Moderator emeritus
You may be able to get some kind of utility that lets you do this with a standard mouse maneuver, but otherwise, it's not consistent across apps (just as not all Windows apps respect ctrl+scrollwheel). Most often, it's Command (Apple) + the +/- keys.
2) What are the shortcuts for closing, maximizing and minimizing a window. I know that
Cmd-W is close (I don't know where this started, but you'll note ctrl-w is frequently close in Windows; Cmd-w in OS X is also analagous to Ctrl-F4 in Windows, as opposed to Alt-F4). Cmd-H is hide (note there is a separate hide and minimize in OS X... hide behaves more or less like hiding in Windows). Cmd-m is minimize (not in every app, though, I think). I'm not sure if Cmd-Z is zoom (the green ball) or not.
3) Is there a way to open things directly from Spotlight? When I press
After you type apple-space, and then enter in the search item, when the results come up, if you cursor down to the one you want, and press enter after you're on top of it, it should open. It only shows you the full window when you press enter before cursoring (because the first / default option is "show all.")
Hope that helps! 🙂
Wow, that is a fast reply. I found something for the last question. If you type in something in spotlight and then press + enter, it will open the first search result. This was exactly what I was looking for 🙂.
Unfortunately CMD+Z for the green button doesn't work.
+ enter, it will open the first search result. This was exactly what I was looking for 🙂.Unfortunately CMD+Z for the green button doesn't work.
I am novice to mac.
I know to run terminal. How can I see info about the file? Type what?
mkrishnan
Moderator emeritus
That would be:
ls -la
As in my previous post. 😉
You can type
cd pathname
to change directories. If you're unsure of how to specify a path, type "cd " in the terminal window (cd with a space after it), then open it in finder, and then click and hold on the icon next to the folder name top center in the finder window. After waiting a second, drag it (you should see the icon drag with you) into the terminal window. It'll finish the cd command, and then you can press enter. 🙂 You'll figure it out.
When you get it....
Note for example that the first item, .CFUserTextEncoding (probably a text file) is just three bytes long.
How much is "good deal of space"? Certainly well less than 1GB. Not really worth the bother. So you save space. What does that gain for you? A bigger number on some staus display but nothing else. When the disk gets to nearly full, then delete stuff. No need to do it now.
Space is allocated to files in 4Kb chunks. So files can be 0kb, 4kb 8kb,.. but they can't be say 20462 bytes. Ok some display might list a file as being some size not a multiple of 4K but there is a difference between how much space a file takes and how much data is in the file.
What's the problem?
mkrishnan
Moderator emeritus
As Chris said. Just ignore it. It's normal. It happened in Windows also, you just didn't know it did. The file is 1025 bytes or whatever the actual file size is. When it gets transfered from one computer to another, it is still transferred as 1025 bytes. It occupies 4kb of disk space.
It isn't a new problem -- it's that you don't understand how filesystems work.
It's a tradeoff -- you can design the filesystem so that files can occupy just one byte on the hard drive, but such a design becomes very inefficient for most uses. The 4kb is a tradeoff that generally works pretty well.
Computers have done that for years, probably since hard drives were invented. Files are allocated in 4kb chunks. If there's a single byte in the file, it's going to be 4k. When you upload it to a server, it will take up 4k (or maybe something else depending on the server's file system, but thats in chunks too). BUT, whenever the file is downloaded, only the actual file size will be download. So a 1k gif may take up 4k on disk, but only 1k of data will actually be downloaded from the webserver. But when the file is stored locally in the browser cache, it will take 4k. This is nothing specific to Macs, Windows, Linux and every other OS do it too. There is no problem here. It is how computers have always worked.
Say I have 3 different liquids, 8oz of one, 10oz of another, and 12oz of the other. They have to be stored in separate containers. But I only have 16oz containers. So I store each in its own container. I've got 16oz of storage capacity in a container, but I'm only storing 8, 10, or 12 in said container. And if I drink it, I'm only drinking 8, 10, or 12oz of whats in that container, even though it holds 16oz. But if I have 20oz of a liquid to store, I have to use 2 16 oz containers, and have 32oz of storage capacity, but only 20oz of actual liquid. That's basically how a hard drive works.
yg17 said:
"BUT, whenever the file is downloaded, only the actual file size will be download."
Then, thats ok for me. Today we all have big drives, I care about web site traffic and fast display.
All of you helped me to understand the whole matter about disk space and actual file size. Thanks 🙂
"BUT, whenever the file is downloaded, only the actual file size will be download."
Then, thats ok for me. Today we all have big drives, I care about web site traffic and fast display.
All of you helped me to understand the whole matter about disk space and actual file size. Thanks 🙂
I'm still new to Mac and OS 10. I am running Tiger on an iMac (six months old).
When I go to the Apple Store to look at the features to the upcoming Leopard I have the following problem. When asked if I want to view a demo on the new features of Leopard it takes me to a new screen that should show me a video. I have sound but no picture. Just a blank white screen.
Do I have some sort of preference setting wrong? What am I doing wrong?
When I go to the Apple Store to look at the features to the upcoming Leopard I have the following problem. When asked if I want to view a demo on the new features of Leopard it takes me to a new screen that should show me a video. I have sound but no picture. Just a blank white screen.
Do I have some sort of preference setting wrong? What am I doing wrong?