Actually FS tuning is pretty key to a really responsive system. The 4k block is used as most “end user” files are well over 4k and so the slight bloat is not even noticed. The other advantage to a 4k block is read write optimization and cache. The slow drive is very good at reading a larger contiguous block of data which can be shoved to RAM for program use. Various media files and larger “project” files (docx) get big advantages with this.
Move to a slightly more obscure idea though, something like scrivener, and a smaller block size would actually be an advantage. Small chunks of text may not total 4K (most of my chunks are less than 400 words until I start compiling) so I am losing tons o’ useable space if I have 200 scriv scenes. Take it a step further and virtual mem (typically raw actually or a loop back device that is access as raw) really needs the lowest block size possible. A web server that is highly loaded wants a small block size to allow for optimization of the drive caching and optimization of read (based on ability to flush buffer to client).
Which is my long winded way of saying normal folks have no idea what we are talking about and really shouldn’t care. Right?
At least we are still talking about something remotely related to your question. Normally we have already left “left field” and are well on our way to the ice cream stand by now.
I had a demo version of 1.53 and loved it and was waiting for 2.0 to come out to purchase. But I do have one question before I indulge. My spell check did not work with the earlier version and was wondering if that had been fixed for the new release. To give you some back round info I run snow leopard and it would mark misspelled words but would not give suggestions or fix them I would have to do that manually.
This sounds like you might be referring to a problem Snow Leopard has when using more than one language, and leaving the spell check engine on automatic. It will balk and not present most of the spelling engine functions when you right-click on a misspelled word. Does that sound about right? If you don’t need multiple languages, try turning off automatic in your spell checker settings (this is a system-wide thing) and setting it specifically to the language you write in.
I just checked and my spellcheck was set to automatic/by language. I had intermittent refusal to spell check; some character names in certain files would refuse to have the spellcheck context menu so I had to go searching for a file in which I could add them to the dictionary.
I’ll see if this made a difference, but being intermittent, it will be hard to say for sure.
