Messages

1

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: CPU monitor that plays sound according to activity

« on: October 08, 2007, 10:49 AM »

[I'm the TaskMonifier author]

Wow!  I just happened to be reading the DonationCoder blog and saw a link to my own software.  It's nice to know that someone has found it useful!

I'll be quite honest here and now: I wrote the software to handle a bunch of long-running experiments at the start of the year but since then I haven't needed it.  I haven't updated the software since and I know there's some flakiness with the network/disk usage detection.  However, if anyone finds the software generally useful but lacking in some areas, please please email [email protected] and I'll try to fix/implement whatever's missing.  Despite my initial intentions, I've resisted making this open source because there's already too much open-source software lying abandoned in sourceforge -- it really only works for apps with a strong user community and until now I didn't think anyone had even found TaskMonifier!

Regarding the comments above:

It works with multi-core systems.

-Ralf Maximus (October 07, 2007, 10:47 AM)

Cool.  I don't have one so that's nice to know.

- TM does not load into the tray;

-Ralf Maximus (October 07, 2007, 10:47 AM)

It might be easy to add (and change the icon based on state) but equally well there are plenty of programs that will minimise any application to the task tray. 

- TM does not play a humming/throbbing/farting noise in tune to CPU load;

-Ralf Maximus (October 07, 2007, 10:47 AM)

Interesting idea, not quite sure how you'd implement it and what the use case would be.  Would it get quieter when the CPU was busy (letting you know it was working away) or when the usage was lower (letting you know it was less loaded).  Not sure about this.

- TM is not aware of specific apps, as it monitors total CPU busyness;

-Ralf Maximus (October 07, 2007, 10:47 AM)

I believe that this is technically possible but it would complicate the UI considerably. 

- TM is not optimized for performance, but who cares if the PC is loaded down anyway?

-Ralf Maximus (October 07, 2007, 10:47 AM)

Agreed.  I'm not sure if the slowness is down to TaskMonifier itself or just the startup costs involved with C#/.Net applications

Thanks for your feedback!  If there's any more, please email [email protected] or reply to this thread which I'll monitor.

  Jamie

2

General Software Discussion / Re: Desktop icon virtual grouping

« on: March 05, 2007, 05:52 PM »

Is there anyone who knows of any software that will let me group icons on the desktop without using folders?

-jake78 (February 28, 2007, 04:00 AM)

Nope, but I've been looking on/off for the past 18 months.  At one stage I started putting something together in C# but didn't have the motivation or skills to really integrate it with the desktop.  My idea was this just to help organise the desktop in particular sections which is something I manually do anyway: apps on the left, frequent folders or the right, pending folders towards the bottom, etc.

• Group icons onto "trays" or "slides"
• Name the trays: apps, work, phd, pending, african holiday etc
• Allow trays to be minimised to the side of the screen, collapsed down to a single icon, auto-hide or remain on the desktop
• Apply colour coding to the tray (alpha-blended) and/or tray items
• Retain full explorer context menu integration etc
• Possibly allow icons to be rounded up into irregular shaped "trays" --- like drawing a lasso around them

I'm always reminded of Blinds, a utility for RISC OS computers that did a similar job (about 15 years ago).

3

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: TaskMonifier -- an easy way to monitor application tasks

« on: February 28, 2007, 08:59 AM »

Welcome to the site, Jamie.

Looks very nice and it's freeware too! I'm v interested to see its SMS sending function in action, which should be of use to me. 

Just FYI, I got a 404 Not Found error when trying to download the file (I'm a Firefox user, not able to enjoy the IE user only download link) 

-Wordzilla (February 28, 2007, 08:43 AM)

Duh!  Fixed now.  Thanks for the welcome.

4

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / TaskMonifier -- an easy way to monitor application tasks

« on: February 28, 2007, 08:33 AM »

I've just released TaskMonifier -- a simple (FREE!) application that will monitor the processor, network or disk usage and notify you when this drops below a specified level.   

http://taskmonifier.ideasasylum.com/



It is ideal for detecting when a huge download has finished, when your hard disk image has been created or when those photos have been imported.  I wrote this utility as part of my PhD to inform me when my calculations had finished.  Once the level drops below the threshold, TaskMonifier will perform your selected action (play a sound, hibernate/shutdown, send an email or even an SMS to a mobile phone).

Let me know if you've found it useful too.