Messages

37676

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« on: April 01, 2005, 02:51 AM »

this was actually a painful thing to fix - there are different techinques for enumerating processes and it turns out win2k does not work well with one of the techniques.  the process names were being truncated.

one thing that i think still needs improvement is the tooltip in the tray seems to be a little flakey.

37677

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« on: April 01, 2005, 01:25 AM »

new version available for download in members only;
should fix this bug - it was a win2k process enumeration problem.

other changes:
1) new log tab for viewing log file
2) sorting is case insensitive

note the same problem causing win2k enumeration issues was responsible for gui not knowing that tray was running, and also would prevent options changing from taking place until a restart, AND woud cause processes to list truncated.  these should be fixed now.

37678

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« on: March 31, 2005, 08:25 PM »

ok i was able to reproduce the problem (on a win2k machine, dont know yet if thats the cause); should have it fixed soon.

37679

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« on: March 31, 2005, 07:50 PM »

your 2nd person to say that the config file says the program is not running...  there def. seems to be a problem there.

37680

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer won't work

« on: March 31, 2005, 03:02 PM »

longrun, you're not a registered donating member of the site so you don't have access to the members only section with the link to the preview release, but we are happy to make exceptions here; i'm sending you the download link via a private message on the forum.

37681

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« on: March 31, 2005, 03:00 PM »

new features:

summary of taming now in tray tooltip.
instant responsiveness from clicking system tray.
configuration gui.
mini task manager tool with fast manual priority changing and app termination.
right click menu with more options, including ability to specify custom 3rd party tool for menu.
customize double-click action.
can disable balloon tips.
optional logging function.
glowing icon when processes are being tamed.
added startup-with-windows option.
about box shows process currently being tamed.
support for accurate cpu usage metrics on multiprocessor systems (untested)
restores performance counters on exit.

37682

ProcessTamer / Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« on: March 31, 2005, 02:21 PM »

The members only section has the current download for the v2 preview release, for those who are interested in trying it early.
Post comments in this section.

Preview releases are generally for members only - the official final releases will be available as freeware to public.

If you are not a member of this site and cannot afford to (or for whatever reason won't) donate, please contact me ([email protected]) and i will email you the url.

37683

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer won't work

« on: March 31, 2005, 01:48 PM »

yeah, i saw that bubble spelling error and it's correct in new beta.

let me upload my test app that eats all cpu cycles fo easier testing.  give me 1 few minutes.

what OS do you have longrun?  Process Tamer only works on WinXp/2k/NT, not 95,98,me

37684

ProcessTamer / Re: Some test?

« on: March 31, 2005, 10:50 AM »

in general, here is what you should expect from the program.
99% of the time it will be doing NOTHING.
it just sits in background taking up virtually no cpu resources and waiting.

it's only when you run some application that starts to consume your cpu that Process Tamer will kick in.
Some applications that might start to eat up all your cpu would be if you are converting a video file from one format to another, or perhaps zipping a large directory, etc.

normally when such apps use up all your cpu, it's hard to do other things, the windows on your desktop will feel very sluggish and it may even be hard to switch to other windows, because that one program is hogging your cpu.

here is where Process Tamer will kick in (informing you with a balloon tip in your system tray if you have winxp), by reducing the priority of this hogging application.  As long as you don't try to do other stuff on your computer, the other process will still operate at top speed, but because the priority is reduced, it means that if other applications, like moving around on your desktop or using other applications will get higher priority from the operating system and therefore be much more responsive.

37685

ProcessTamer / Re: Some test?

« on: March 31, 2005, 08:00 AM »

hehe, this is a good question.

actually i plan to make a little video showing the benefits, should be available with next version, along with a test app that eats up all of cpu usage it can, which is useful for testing.

37686

ProcessTamer / Re: New (3/31/05) preview pictures of new ProcessTamer GUI

« on: March 31, 2005, 05:04 AM »

it remembers which panel you last had open - i think that will take care of that issue,
though i suspect that the most useful thing will be leaving it on the process window most of the time.

37687

Living Room / Re: Website bugs

« on: March 30, 2005, 11:31 PM »

 
thanks dnm! I just fixed it.

37688

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« on: March 30, 2005, 08:19 AM »

not to beat a dead horse - but i wanted to return to one issue.

as a reviewer, i'm not going to try to review a category i have no experience with.  i'm only going to be giving awards in categories of apps that i really use, feel i have a good handle on what features are important, and feel like i have a real opinion on what makes a good tool for this category.

the one thing that keeps me awake at night, however, is the thought that i could give the award to an app and then discover the next day a better, cheaper, more deserving winner.

so, for me, the most useful help i could get would be in terms of searching for and finding other candidate winners for each category, and posting about them, if only just the name and url.

yes, feature lists and evaluations of programs would be great, but the most useful thing would simply be locating other apps that are candidates for the award.

37689

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« on: March 30, 2005, 07:06 AM »

i've updated the ASRT post about this week's review, and added a disclaimer to it regarding this week's upcoming review; please read.

the only other thing i wanted to emphasize is that the discussions leading up to the review will serve a valuable purpose in offering alternative opinions about the category and award.  i think of these discussions like the conversation you might have with a friend about which tool is best - they don't have to be formal things, but if you can back up your opinions with some facts, it helps make the conversation useful.

and i think these discussions will prove very useful to people after they read the main review, so they can see how other people agreed or disagreed.  when the review is posted i will move the discussion about that week's award to the official review section for the award so that it can be easily viewed by readers.

37690

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« on: March 30, 2005, 06:45 AM »

having a definitive list of "objective" predefined features would be nice, however i think some caveats might be in order.

a large part of choosing a "best" app, and reviewing an app in general, is going to be a subjective thing, based on ones own biases about how a program should look and feel, and what features are more or less important.

because of this, we are never going to agree completely on what features are (most) important, and what apps have made the right decisions about implementing these features.

for these reasons and the reasons i gave earlier, i think the most coherent overarching policy should be that the final review/award will represent the conclusion and opinion of the reviewer, as informed by the opinions and feature-lists that have been collectively gathered by all of us here.

having a single list of agreed upon features would be nice, but i don't think it's absolutely critical to the process, and building this list might well be viewed as one of the things that the discussions can help to flesh out, rather than being a prerquisite to the discussion.

so i'm suggesting that ric has a good point about the usefulness of having some feature list, but i do think we should treat the feature list as an evolving thing that can come out of more informal discussions.  i don't think its necesary for us to have a predefined list ahead of time, nor agree on a predefined list, but i do think that any time you can formulate some features you think are useful for evaluating a particular category it would be helpful.

so basically im suggesting this as the procedure
1) it will be up to the reviewer to make a single coherent evaluation and review and choice of best app, which we expect will be somewhat subjective.
2) as much as is possible, the review should try to ennunciate important features for this class of program, and describe where this winning program stacks up on this list of features.
3) the ASRT discussion will serve the following purposes:
 a) help to find candidate programs for the award.
 b) help to flesh out what features are important.
 c) offer dissenting or concenting opinions about the winner, both before and after its selection.

so my position is that all 3 of the camps that ric outlined are useful, and i suggest that we start with an informal process whereby all such camps are welcome to make suggestions.  it will be useful to me (and future reviewers) to have comments from any of these perspectives.

perhaps in an ideal world we would have a long list of well thought-out features pre-prepared for a given category, but that might be asking too much from the contributors to the discussion and the person who would be responsible for making this list.

so i suggest we start out a bit less formally, and maybe one or two people might find that they are good at forming such a list of features as we have our discussions, summarizing them as people chime in about what is important to them.

or another way to think of it is, it will be the responsibility of the reviewer to ultimately sift through the discussion and come up with a coherent summary of important features and impressions, and decide where different apps stack up.  after all, the reviewer should expect to personally try all of the apps that could conceivably win, and make his/her own conclusions - not just take the view of people in the forum.  the forum will serve an invaluable role in helping to find candidate winners for a category, and to express the views of others, and point out important features.

37691

Mouser's Zone / Re: Would online browsable help files for the apps be useful?

« on: March 29, 2005, 02:50 PM »

i've added it for find&run robot and i will add the online help for the other programs as i update them; another advantage is it gives you a way to see the program history changelog.

37692

Mouser's Zone / Re: Any new ideas for small utilities?

« on: March 29, 2005, 01:28 PM »

ah i see, these put stuff on the desktop background, rather than dock.

well.. i can try to whip up a demo pretty quickly next week if no one finds anything by then..

37693

Best Website Change Monitoring Tool / Pre-review discussion of Best Website Change Monitor

« on: March 29, 2005, 12:14 PM »

This saturday's award will be for best Website Change Monitoring tool.
There are several of these such programs available, and some free ones as well.

here's a good page of some:
shareware -> http://www.snapfiles...isctools/swmoni.html
freeware -> http://www.snapfiles...isctools/fwmoni.html
(now you know why SnapFiles is on our links page as one of the best software search sites)


ok so, keeping with the plans for ASRT, what would be nice is some replies in the next week on the following kinds of subjects:
1) if you found a program that falls into this category that looks especially good, post a link to it
2) post features you think are important for this category
3) post information about how you think a particular app stacks up against others, and how it stacks up using the features suggested by you or others
what features are lacking, which are good, etc.

IMPORTANT:
[ edited - i've edited this post and removed my current expected winner  until we decide whether announcing the candidate winner selected by reviewer should be public ]

DISCLAIMER:
i know this category quite well and prior to our collective decision here to get group participation in the reviews, i made a preliminary choice of the winner of this category and contacted the author about offering a discount to our members, under the same conditions as our other discounts (ie absolutely no commission or payment to this site, all discount goes to users).  this decision is not final, but i thought it was worth mentioning.  however, your views and opinions and feature lists would still be incredibly helpful in writing a comprehensive review, and there is always the issue of awarding a freeware alternative, etc.  and the discussion about best program will, as we discussed earlier, be a useful record for others to read along with the award.

37694

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« on: March 29, 2005, 12:07 PM »

well let's just start with this weeks upcoming award.
i will post in separate thread.

37695

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« on: March 29, 2005, 11:31 AM »

i'm a little reluctant to put choosing a winner to a vote.
i can certainly see the merits in it, however i see a few problems.  first, we i don't think i'm yet comfortable with having the decision be decided by the board - when we get more people and i get to know people's views a little more, that may change.  right now i feel like there is some value in having a consistent flavor to the decisions.  it's very subjective some of the time deciding on these best-of awards.  i realize that, and i realize that my choices are not going to be other people's choices.  but at least when you read a review at this site you will know about my biases and tendencies; it also might be difficult for me (or any reviewer) to talk about a winning program that he/she didn't believe should be the winner(!).  if you read the guidelines i put up on the review page about UI design you may find that some people disagree with some of these, and i'm keen to have the reviews continue to reflect this consistent set of guidelines, even if majority opinion here might not always agree.

so at the moment what i would prefer to do is have me continue to make the final decision about a winner, but rather than the way i've been doing it, which is to evaluate all these apps can come to a decision in private, let me put it out there before hand, let people make their case about why they prefer another app, etc.  and let this all be part of the official record that anyone reading the review can see, just by one click on the "forum" button at the bottom of the review.  we can change it to "discuss this review and read dissenting opinions".

in this way, reviews would still have my biases and final judgement, and a consistent "feel" but it will be easy for people to read how other people might disagree or (agree).

i'm not against also having a vote in that thread where we could get a collective sense of what the board thinks is the best program, which could go against the reviewers final choice.

does that make sense?

37696

Mouser's Zone / Re: Any new ideas for small utilities?

« on: March 29, 2005, 11:19 AM »

this should not be too hard to do if there isnt already an app for this.

windows already has a system in place whereby you can "dock" a bar on the side of your screen, and all other apps will obey it, so that if you click "maximize" they will stop at the boundry of this dock.

i use one mysefl for a launcher, it is a bar that docks to side of the screen and the destop is reduced in size so that nothing every intrudes on top of it.  it is extremely reliable and ive never seen it fail.

SO,
it seems to me that one way to solve your problem, other than samuraize modifying their code to act like a dock, would be to design a "transparent" docking bar type thing, whose only job was to be a transparent thing that docked to the side of your screen and reserved the space.

kind of a fun idea - and i *believe* that it sould not be hard to make it so you can "click-through" this transparent bar - thats the only thing i'm not 100% sure of.  obviously if you cant, then there are problems with this idea, but i believe i've seen skinned shaped windows that do this so i don't think it would be a problem.

keep looking for a tool to do this - if you still can't find one in a week or so remind me again, could be something that might be whipped up in a couple of days.

37697

ProcessTamer / Re: Preview picture of new ProcessTamer GUI

« on: March 29, 2005, 10:50 AM »

thanks ozzy! that's a great idea -
i will look into how to make it multilingual, i know some of the tools for doing it but i've never done it.
this seems like a good project to start with.

37698

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« on: March 29, 2005, 10:33 AM »

can anyone comment on the issue of keeping the review a surprise? is that a totally silly thing?
i think it's probably one of those vain/paranoid impulses where i think hmm i don't really want to reveal this secret best program that i have discovered until the final review when it will be made public..

am i the only one who kind of feels conflicted about revealing these "best" programs, like you've fought long and hard to find the best app for the job, and you kind of want to share it, but you also kind of want it to be a big deal when you share it lol sounds stupid when i put it down in writing..

bottom line question is this:
is there any reason that this ASRT section where award candidates will be discussed weeks ahead of time, should be restricted to only certain people?  or should it be open for commenting and viewing by everyone?  is there anything lost by having the winner of the award known to everyone on the forum before the review? does it ruin the surprise?

37699

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« on: March 29, 2005, 10:27 AM »

well, at the very least it will give the official reviewer (at this point its me but we could start rotating) some feedback about the choice of winner BEFORE the review is published, which can only be a good thing.  That way if program "x" is going to be awarded best of some category, the members here will have a week or so to say why they think that is not the right choice.  even if it doesn't change which program is chosen as the winner, it will help sharpen the review and also build a discussion that people can read on the forum after the review is posted.

37700

Living Room / Re: Links page coming

« on: March 29, 2005, 08:23 AM »

i've been adding sections as i think of them - if anyone has any suggestions of categories or links, please let me know.