Thursday, August 04, 2016

When Your Computer has the Slows — Maybe it Needs More Fiber

Or another way to say it is the beach ball of death appears on your screen. When my Mac is trying to accomplish a task and is stalled you get this small multi-color ball on your screen that spins. It sort of looks like a beach ball so I call it the beach ball of death.

I call it that because it signals that for some period of time (hopefully a short one) your computer is stalled. It's trying as hard as possible to complete the command you just gave it but is having problems doing it.

It seems to be happening more and more these days and for the slightest of reasons. It used to be if you opened 20 picture files in Photoshop you expected it to take a while. That's because of the number of files and the size of the files being opened. Or if you had many programs opened and you were trying to watch a video then the computer would slow down.\

Now it happens when I open a new browser window. One single window. Many times when I don't have any other applications open. In the old days if this happened, you'd rebuild your desktop. But you can't do that any more.

There have been times when I've wanted to rip all the cords out of the back of the computer and throw it some place. That would be completely unproductive. But for just a minute it would make me feel good. Then I think oh shit now I have to go out and buy a new computer.

I'm wondering if there's some way to add the equivalent of fiber to a computer the way you add it to a person. Maybe that way the computer would operate more regularly. One can hope.

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