That stupid 'nice' hack

Holmes

Holmes

Humble God
I used a program that changed the 'nice' of the finder and dock, giving them higer priority. Now internet explorer can barely scroll, and when I move around the windows of a few programs like iTunes, they don't cling to the mouse the way they used to. Does anyone know how to set this to default?
 
Option 1:(If you know what you're doing) Kindly ask the people in the UNIX forum on this site to tell you what the ORIGINAL priority settings are for the programs you messed up and reset them using the very same program that did the damage, assuming it will let you specify any settings at all.


Option 2: Backup your user directory and REINSTALL Mac OS X and LEARN from this experience.

Whem mucking around in the command line and playing with settings as root user, stop and reflect for a moment what impact this will have your life (assuming you have VALUABLE information on your computer, like a thesis, or a cure for cancer). Then think a second time about the horendous effects this could have. Then think a 3rd time about how easy and pain-free Apple has made your life by blessing you with an operating system that you really needn't mess around with.

Apple has some of the smartest people in the industry working for them. They know what settings your computer should have right out of the box. It's not a good idea to change settings unless you REALLY know what you're doing, and I humbly speak from experience.

If you're looking for more speed, replace your older processor with a faster one like I did, or buy a new computer.
 
You can't blame him that much. The app he mentioned is a GUI which floats around the net which increases the priority for FInder and Dock! When I red what the app does, I laughed my ass off! They "sell" it as the ultimate performance tweak for OS X! The user doesn't even know what he is really doing when he uses this app. Such stuff should be banned.

If speeding up the finder would be that easy, Apple would have done it this way.

I haven't tested the app since my logic told me that when the finder and the dock have the highest priority, what about other apps? I am satisfied that I was right with my "logic"... ;)
 
Originally posted by Holmes
I used a program that changed the 'nice' of the finder and dock, giving them higer priority. Now internet explorer can barely scroll, and when I move around the windows of a few programs like iTunes, they don't cling to the mouse the way they used to. Does anyone know how to set this to default?
Click to expand...

Logging out and back in should fix things (unless the GUI app adds a startup
or login item). I believe renice works on running processes, not application binaries. If logging out doesn't fix it, check your startup items in the Login preference pane
 
Yeah, I think I was high or something when I did that hack. I had done it before actually using the command line on my other computer without any weird side effects. Anyway, restarting did work. I think I started the thread before I realized how easy it was to fix.

Also, AOL instant messenger was open at the time when I was writing. The icon bounces in the dock everytime I recieve a message. Its really annoying and takes WAY to much of the CPU to do it. So I think that changed my perception of the performance of my puter. I'm wondering why Apple put in that feature. I hate it with a passion.

Anyway, thanks for your input.
 
Holmes,
Try Dock Detox, avaliable from version tracker (or an alternative aim application).

(I agree, that is the most annoing thing EVER.)
 
Fire (www.epicware.com) all the way. It supports other protocols too, so you only need the one Messenger client, and you can set the notifications to be different for each of your buddies (play sounds, flash windows, flash dock icon, bounce dock icon etc). And the newest version is fantastic.
 
The "renice" command does only affect running processes, and all niceness settings should revert to default upon logout.
Niceness values run from -20 to +20. The lower the niceness of a process, the higher its priority.
A little simple common sense is very helpful here. If you give one particular process a very high priority (low niceness value), this comes at the expense of all other processes.
 
along the same lines of thinking that brought that horrible app/script to the everyday user, you could write the author and ask him to modify it so that instead of just speeding up the finder, have it speed up every app running on the machine! Wow, just think how fast your computer will be if you set all priorities to maximum!

;-)
 
I posted this link on a different topic, but it applies here too:

Renicer

This shareware is different, because it gives the frontmost process more priority (as opposed to just the Finder or Dock). I've been using it for about a week now (I set it to run at Start-Up) and experienced nothing but better performance, especially when running Virtual PC. No problems at all.

Best of all, when you quit the app it resets all nice-ness to it's original value so if you don't like the added performance, you can just turn it off!
 
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