How to Free Up Memory on Your Mac

 General  Comments Off on How to Free Up Memory on Your Mac
Aug 082013
 

In any computer, memory (RAM) is as important, or more important than the processor speed.

It’s good to have as much memory as your Mac can support.

How to Get Back Inactive Memory on Mac

But when you play a game, run 3D modellers, graphics applications or do photo-editing of large files some of the existing memory can become inactive after you leave the app slowing down your computer.

When I purchased my iMac (which came with 4GB of RAM) about 18-months back, I frequently used to get the dreaded beachball and my applications used to hang.

Since I did not then know about restoring inactive memory, I went to Amazon and purchased another 16GB.

Only later did I learn about restoring inactive memory.

Optimizing Memory

There are two ways to optimize the existing memory on your Mac.

1. A simple technique to get back inactive memory is to run the purge command in Terminal. To get to Terminal, go to Finder on your Mac, click on Applications and then scroll down to the Utilities folder. You’ll find Terminal in the Utilities folder. Double click Terminal, type in purge and hit the Enter key. Voila, your inactive memory is restored.

2. The second technique to restore inactive memory on the Mac is to head to the Mac App Store and get one of those memory cleaning apps. There are a bunch of such apps like Memory Clean (free), FreeMemory (free), Memory Booster (free), MemoryFreer (99-cents), iCleanMemory ($1.99), Memory Magic ($2.99) etc. Read the reviews and go with whichever app you feel comfortable with.

Memory Clean App for Mac

Personally, I’d recommend running the purge command in terminal but I recognize some users may prefer an app to handle the job.

Whichever approach you prefer, make sure you retrieve inactive memory so that your Mac runs in great shape.

Tidemark Picks Up $13m in New Round

 Cloud Computing, General  Comments Off on Tidemark Picks Up $13m in New Round
Aug 012013
 

Cloud-based enterprise analytics startup Tidemark has snagged $13 million in a new round taking its total financing to $48 million.

Tenaya Capital led the latest funding round.

Existing investors Greylock Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Redpoint Ventures ponied up more cash.

Redwood City, California based Tidemark said it’s seeing good growth and listed Chiquita, Brown University, Hostess Brands and Cerner as new customers.

Tidemark boasts its “disruptive” cloud-based analytics approach enables customers to go live within 90 days compared to the 9-12 months months it takes for legacy analytics providers like IBM Cognos, Oracle Hyperion and SAP.

Although large enterprises continue to invest heavily in business analytics, IT researcher Gartner estimates that 70%-80% of all enterprise analytics projects fail.

Tidemark co-founder and CEO Christian Gheorghe was previously Chief Technology Officer at SAP.

One More Reason to Visit Starbucks

 Free, General  Comments Off on One More Reason to Visit Starbucks
Aug 012013
 

In a world of mostly disappointing retail coffee shops, I’ve always found Starbucks to be a reliable haven, consistently maintaining good standards.

Plus, the coffee chain’s restrooms are a big relief on cold days. 😉

But I have one more reason to visit Starbucks now – their free WiFi is gonna get 10-times faster thanks to the coffee chain’s partnership with Google.

Starbucks CoffeeA Starbucks Store in NYC

Starbucks stores will start offering the faster WiFi this month and complete the upgrade in its  7,000 U.S. stores in 18 months.

WiFi is a big draw at Starbucks. Continue reading »

Pitiful – Only 11% of India is Online

 General  Comments Off on Pitiful – Only 11% of India is Online
May 292013
 

For all the sound and noise about India’s prowess as a software giant, a depressingly small number of Indians are online.

A recent presentation by Internet analysts Mary Meeker and Liang Wu of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins shows that a mere 137 million people in India are Internet users.

Low Internet Users in India

This works out to a distressingly low population penetration of just 11%.

Even if the numbers are a bit off the mark, Internet penetration in India is still abysmal.

Two main reasons account for the low Internet penetration:

1. Economic growth in India has not lifted all boats. Only a small sliver of the urban residents have benefited from the liberalization measures set in motion in the 1990s. The vast majority of Indians, particularly in the rural hinterland, continue to wage a bitter struggle for survival. People desperate for food, clothing and shelter are not going to be hungry to go online.

2. Successive Indian governments over the last 10 years have made little effort to bridge the digital divide. The best way to boost Internet penetration in the rural areas and for the urban poor is by way of subsidizing Internet access and low-cost computers.

Unless India makes broadband Internet access a national priority, the vast majority of Indians will continue to be left far behind in the digital economy that today covers most aspects of life.

China Far Ahead

Compared to India, China has made significant strides in providing Internet access to a wider swath of its people.

An estimated 564 million (representing a population penetration of 42%) enjoy Internet access in China.

It’s no coincidence that greater Internet access in China has also been accompanied by Chinese cyber-warfare tactics and intrusion across the world to steal intellectual property of other nations.

Today China leads the world in online attacks.

Time is Now

India cannot afford to tarry any longer.

Broadening Internet access to its vast multitudes must become an urgent national priority.

Should Small Businesses Blog?

 General  Comments Off on Should Small Businesses Blog?
Jul 062012
 

My answer is an unequivocal Yes, small businesses should actively blog.

More than the large or medium-sized firms, I believe small businesses must maintain an active blog.

A neat, frequently updated blog more than pays itself off for all the time you spend on it.

Why Small Businesses Must Blog

* Cheap Communication – A blog is a cheaper, more cost effective way of communicating with customers and partners, be they current or potential, of the key events in your company. These could be a promotion, upcoming launch of a new product or upgrade, a workshop, free training or any of the countless other activities a small business engages in. To put out a press release or hire a public relations firm not only costs a lot more money and time but is also less direct and more impersonal.

* Feedback – Blogs are an excellent way for you to get feedback from existing and potential customers on both current products/services, upgrades and new offerings. Folks who might not care to write you a note may not hesitate to write a quick sentence or two in the comment section of your blog.

* Frequent Indexing by Search Engines – Any changes you make to your web site might take a long time for the search engines like Google or Bing to take note of, but blogs are indexed frequently. A well maintained blog should usually get indexed by the search engines on the same day that you write a post.

Tips to Maintain a Blog

* Write Short Posts – It’s not the number of words you write that matters but what you write that counts. No matter what you may have heard, size does not matter with most things in life.

* Integrate Blog into Your Web Site – Do not maintain a blog on a separate web site. You must integrate the blog into your main web site and provide convenient links to the other parts of your web site.

* Frequency of Blogging – Write a post at least every other day.

* Involve Staff – Make two or three members of your staff part of your blogging initiative. Assign topics to them but reserve the right to edit and hit the “Publish” button for yourself.Far too often, a small business owner enthusiastically starts a blog but the contending demands on his time forces him to relegate the blog as the last item on his agenda. Ultimately, the blog is not updated frequently and just withers away on the vine of inactivity.

* Blogging Options – There are multiple options when it comes to blogging. The major blogging software platforms are WordPress, TypePad, Tumblr and Blogger.com. WordPress is more widely used and has thousands of free plugins (addons) that you can use to add more features to your blog. So my recommendation is to stick to WordPress. Many hosting companies offer easy WordPress installations. Even if they don’t, downloading and installing WordPress is fairly straightforward and easy to accomplish. Continue reading »

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