[psmith2.0]

After a few days, things seem to have shaken out. I do get about one random crash a day (or every two days). This is such old hardware, I can't fully be bummed (I'm happy it installs/supports it, period). The screen will just sometimes go black and it'll quit...no warning, no chance to save/force quit anything. It just goes black. Then the boot-up from it is about 14 hours and then I get the "this machine quit unexpectedly..." dialog. I go ahead and send the reports to Apple, for what it's worth.

I do see the spinning pinwheel thing a little more than before, but with a 2007-2008 era iMac (and 3GB RAM), what do you expect? If I had a 2014 Retina MacBook Pro with 16GB RAM, I'd have a little more right to piss and moan.

The talked-about boot-up time is definitely a thing. Takes FOREVER, it seems. That wasn't the case in Yosemite and before, so there's something in El Capitan that is adding to the front-end loading time.

I actually like releases like this. While I'm not getting the full benefits of "speed and performance improvements" as I would on a 2013-2015 SSD-based Mac, just the fact that I can even install El Capitan and use it (without much hassle at all) is something. I don't think that's something you'd just assume/take for granted on other platforms. Is there an HP or Dell from 2007-2008 that is running Windows 10 with any sort of stability/competency? Or is that just unheard of (same with my three-year-old iPhone 5 running iOS 9...is there a Samsung or LG smartphone from 2012 that, without a billion caveats, is running the latest Android? Does that sort of thing even exist outside Apple? Part of the reason I keep stuff around is...because I can. I would've upgraded this iMac a couple of years ago if Mavericks didn't support the model, you know? But as long as they're being so generous in their legacy hardware support, my spark for upgrading is pretty subdued.

I do realize this is probably as far as this iMac is going to go, OS X-wise. Can't imagine San Quentin or whatever next year supporting this thing (I got it in September 2008, but it was a refurb from the August 2007 releases). So yeah...technically it's an eight-year-old iMac. I'm taking the whole thing of "not upgrading" to a ridiculous level. But the practical, thrifty guy in me keeps saying "it's working...why go through the hassle and expense when you don't absolutely have to?" So, until this thing just blows up or collapses into an aluminum heap on my desk, I'll keep on keeping on.

I still can't believe they've not tightened up/unified the icons (Messages is blue in OS X, green in iOS...after making such a big thing about unifying the names a few years ago, it's just funny that the icons/symbols can be so different). I thought it would be the easiest (and most no-brainer) thing in the world to make the OS X Messages icon match the iOS one. Looking in my Dock, they've still got the tilt-back, highly detailed/illustrative stuff from years ago, combined with some of the reworked, simplified/flatter looks from Mavericks/Yosemite. It's actually a bit of a mess, both in a self-contained/OS X-only way, but also in how it ties to iOS.

Weird to think that a small dedicated design team hasn't been tasked with cleaning some of this up, especially with the overhaul iOS got two years ago (and with some of the dabbling they did in Mavericks). It's like they forgot to finish.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Is there an HP or Dell from 2007-2008 that is running Windows 10 with any sort of stability/competency?

Windows 10 will run fine on older computers. You'll want 4 Gigs of RAM or more, but other than that, its requirements really aren't that different from Vista's or 7's.

Originally Posted by pscates2.0 Or is that just unheard of (same with my three-year-old iPhone 5 running iOS 9...is there a Samsung or LG smartphone from 2012 that, without a billion caveats, is running the latest Android?

Yep — the state of smartphone OS compatibility, OTOH, is pathetic. It really is time manufacturers get sued for this, since there's literally billions out of devices out there now with outdated OSes, prone to known security holes, just waiting to get exploited.

Does that sort of thing even exist outside Apple?

It does — Microsoft is pretty good with support; you typically get 5 years of standard support, and 10 years of "extended" support, which means you get covered for security fixes for an entire decade.

[Wrao]

Is there a way to put the calculator back into the notifications bar? It's cool that spotlight can do calculations now but most of the time I'd rather use the calculator and I was quite fond of doing basic math that way

[PB PM]

Just hit the edit button at the bottom of the notification bar and re-add it, simple as that.

[Wrao]

Originally Posted by PB PM Just hit the edit button at the bottom of the notification bar and re-add it, simple as that.

You think I didn't try this? Come on man.

Anyway, the recent update fixed it.

[Wrao]

Has anyone else been finding spotlight to be significantly less useful as an application launcher since El Cap? It used to be one of, if not the, fastest way to quickly launch an app. Apple+Space+type the first couple of letters and hit return and you'd be there. Process took literally seconds and was also equally flexible at finding specific folders. By El Cap, however, (and it was somewhat like this in Yosemite) you have to wait for Spotlight to sort of catch up and typically when you bring up the spotlight window it is still stuck on the last area it was searching. It appears to speed up once you've used it but it's still all together slower and/or tends to make the wrong assumption about what I'm looking for. I just had it wait at least 6 seconds before a generic finder search would appear. So it's gone from a thoughtless gesture that was essentially automatic to something I have to pause and wait for.

[turtle]

Spotlight is a little more sluggish but it doing pretty good for the apps I use regularly. If I haven't used an app in a while it's like Spotlight forgets where it is and has to find it. That is a pain on my Mini which is a standard HDD, but it isn't a problem on my MBP that is SSD.

I use Spotlight for apps all the time and totally feel your pain. You are not alone. We should form a support group.

[PB PM]

Originally Posted by Wrao You think I didn't try this? Come on man. Anyway, the recent update fixed it.

I have learned to never assume anything when it comes to people and computers. I figured what I suggested might have happened to you, since both of my machines removed the calculator from the list when I upgraded and had to re-add it. Geese, you don't have to be an an ass about it.