Re: [NTLK] How to start clean

On Tuesday, March 13, 2007 at 8:04 am Dan wrote:

> Hi, Sonny is correct. If you use
> a flash card to backup it will back
> up everything on the internal store

I also have some hints about backups and your Mail V problems. I know
exactly what you're going through.

Don't go blindly erasing your external card after you have brain wiped your
Newton and restored your internal data. First, check to make sure all of
your data and extras has been moved to the internal or some other store.
One of my first newbie mistakes was to not (completely) realize data could
be in either location, even if I'm careful about where I'm storing.
Currently, I've set most apps default store to internal with Mail V and
Newt's Cape to save to the external store.

You can check the location of your data by going to Extras, changing to the
storage folder and tapping each soup icon. Your Newton will tell how many
items are stored internally and how many items are stored on the external
store(s). Also use the Extras app and Show All Icons on the internal and/or
external stores individually. This will help you see what you will lose, if
you completely erase that external store.

You must keep in mind that a card backup only backs up those items stored
internally, it does NOT backup any data (nor apps, ebooks, extensions,
etc.) on the card itself. Why? ... because the data is already there. Only
a successful Full Backup to a computer will backup all stores and therefore
all data.

> I am not sure about MailV stealing memory,

I did confirmed Mail V as the culprit back in January. I'm pretty sure it
is isolated to POP3 users only. See my posts about Mail V Ate My Newton. At
that time, I performed some simple mail checking tests. Every time Mail V
checks and downloads mail from my two POP accounts, Mail V eats 5K worth of
storage space, over and above the total size of all messages downloaded.
When all messages are deleted from the In/Out box, that 5K is not returned.

> but if I recall correctly there is a temporary
> "cache" soup that may account for the "stealing"
> of memory. I suggest you go into storage and
> see if you can find a soup for MailV that is
> taking up a lot of space and delete it
> Most other Internet packages use
> a cache. Nethopper, Lunasuite,
> Newtscape etc use them and they can
> get to be large at times

Yes, as you mentioned, some applications (i.e. Newt's Cape) do use cache
and temporary soups, which do show up in the Extras/Storage folder. Mail V,
however, must use an invisible soup because I have not been able to find
it. I May have look into a soup editor later, to try and see what's going
on. But until then, I have to erase the entire card to get back the missing
storage space.

Getting back to the idea of a complete brain wipe and erase, I thought I
might mention how I'm dealing with this same problem you might be having...

First, I keep all my important data on the internal store so that when I
need to do a card backup, all my notes, names, dates and other data
(bookmarks, profiles, sigs) can be backed up quickly. .

Next, I have two large capacity flash cards (main: 28MB, backup: 16MB). The
main flash storage is where I store my extra "Must Have" extensions and
apps. Like: MacinTalk, Spell Checker and Thesaurus, Mail V & Newt's Cape
extensions, etc. That totals about 6MB of the 28MB leaving the remaining
22MB for email and web browsing temporary space.

After about a month, I do a card backup to the 16MB flash card. I also move
all my "Must Have" apps and extensions off the main 28MB card, on to the
backup 16MB card.

I then thoroughly check the 28MB card to make sure I haven't left anything
behind. (see other notes about Extras and Stores above)

If necessary, (sometimes I do & sometimes I don't) I will now brain wipe my
Newton and then erase the 28MB card.

I will restore the backup to the internal store, move my "Must Have" apps
back to the 28MB card from the 16MB backup card.

Lather, rinse, repeat every 30 days.

Eventually, like me, you will want to setup Mail V to use the external
store. When you do, you will have to brain wipe your Newton and erase your
storage cards pretty regularly.

Additionally, my Newton sometimes forgets that I've set my 28MB card as the
default store. Either that or I keep accidently changing it.

I usually discover this by chance, when Mail V starts to slow down and is
not able to download larger messages, because of timing out. A quick check
of my Memory Info usually confirms my suspicions when I find only 57K
available on my internal store...doh! Checking In/Out Preferences shows
that "Always store new items internally." is still unchecked but Mail V is
dumping all new messages to my internal store because the Card Preference
got reset. All the while Mail V is eating 5K of internal space every time
it checks my mail .

After doing this several times, I've come to know how to prepare for a
total brain-wipe of the Newton and the erasing of the external storage card
without losing data that I want to keep.

Ron

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