Recent Posts

37676

Best Website Change Monitoring Tool / Re: compared with Check and Get

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 06:11 PM »

i updated the section of the review on alternatives to more prominently mention check&get.

37677

Mouser's Zone / if you submitted a bug and i didn't credit you in help file, let me know

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 05:58 PM »

if you tell me about a bug to fix and somehow i forget to give you credit in the help file when i fix it, please email me so i can correct it.

37678

General Review Discussion / Re: What categories should we review next?

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 05:51 PM »

offline explorer is very powerful;
the other top program i know about for this is Teleport Pro.

37679

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 05:31 PM »

hahahaah - the cosmetics came back! ok, i must have pushed my luck with the spacing; i'll fix in next update, thx.

37680

Find And Run Robot / Re: FindAndRunRobot.exe with tray icon?

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 05:30 PM »

thanks again, will be fixed in next release.

i really love these bug reports, can't tell you guys how much they help me 
going to have to add some new smilies to express my appreciation 

37681

Best Website Change Monitoring Tool / Re: compared with Check and Get

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 05:27 PM »

great to thave some discussion here about the alternatives!

i'm afraid people will get the impression when reading the reviews that i'm doing an advert for a particular program.  it's true that in the reviews i'm doing now i'm picking programs i really feel strongly about, which accounts for some of the hyberbole, but i really do want people to know about the alternatives and go check them out and see for themselves what they like best.

Check&Get def. seems like the closest competitor to WSW (http://activeurls.com/en/)
I also found the UI a bit cluttered and distracting.  you can see some of the guidelines that i look for when considering user interfaces: https://www.donation...iews/uithoughts.html.

as ric was pointing out before, it would be useful for people if we would discuss (before the award when possible) specific features that are important and how the dif. programs stack up.

one thing that c&g seems to have that WSW doesn't is the ability to store some extra snapshots of past states of the webpage, for comparison later; could be useful in some special cases.

i don't think c&g can compare to wsw in terms of being able to specify match&ignore patterns which is critical to making such a tool work..

btw,
if/when we have a situation where a considerable # of people disagree with a review and like another program better, i would be willing to approach the author of the other program and convey this and ask them if they want to provide a discount to members, as a kind of counter-offer to you guys.

or actually, anyone who reads these forums is very welcome to contact other authors of competing products and tell them that they are very welcome to come here and post about their program and why they think we might have underestimated it's value, and tell them that they are very welcome to offer a discount to our members.  might be a really fun idea to have the competitor programs post in here - the more variety of opinions the better here in the forums.  maybe i will formulate an official email to send to companies of programs i've evaluated for a review expressing this.

37682

Find And Run Robot / Re: FindAndRunRobot.exe with tray icon?

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 02:51 PM »

good idea mario, i will add this to the help file in the next relase.

37683

ProcessTamer / Re: Discrepancy between GUI and tray

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 02:20 PM »

btw you can see the effects of the slider by watching the different between Instand and Average CPU readings.  the more to the left, the more AVG will rapidly track Instant.

draggin a window around the screen quickly will increase cpu usage temporarily and help to demonstrate differences.

37684

ProcessTamer / Re: Discrepancy between GUI and tray

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 02:18 PM »

ah ok, the tool tip in the tray seems to report the wrong programs sometimes; i am going to work on fixing the tooltip today.

thanks longrun.

looks like that log feature is helping out already

37685

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

« Last post by mouser on April 02, 2005, 11:20 AM »

agreed 100%.
i was surprised at how many tools do not have good support for this.


THIS THREAD IS NOW CLOSED AND LOCKED,
because the review is finished and the award was given out.

37686

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser on April 01, 2005, 07:08 PM »

in case you have this problem again with another program and want to explain to the author what it is:

i use borland c++ builder for that big gui configuration tool.
Borland C++ Builder produces big bloated exe's (which is why i don't use it for the main tray tool), but it's nice for making gui stuff.

anyway, borland c++ builder and delphi share the same visual components.  And for forms, there is a property called "Scaled" and "PrintScale".  Setting these to "NONE" fixes the problem with objects on the form being relocated badly.  I remember i spent some days trying to fix this problem many years ago, and it just ocurred to me that it could be responsible for what you encountered.

37687

ProcessTamer / Re: Some test?

« Last post by mouser on April 01, 2005, 06:44 PM »

i have a new download for you to try vampiric, v2b8.
i'm experimenting with something that i remember having a similar effect.
if it works and i can fix it ill let you know what to tell other developers when you spot this program in their app.
check member section.

37688

ProcessTamer / Re: Some test?

« Last post by mouser on April 01, 2005, 06:22 PM »

i tried out process explorer - great free too, like other sysinternals tools.

however, this CPU Time is highly mysterious to me.
it doesnt make any sense to me really..

it told me after 4 hours that ProcessTamer had used 7 seconds of CPU Time, which is a bit different from your 3+ minute listing

however it sure looks like its underestimating the use of other programs too.. so i dont know what to make of it...
couldn't find any info in help either.

one thing is also strange, you have a 1.92 in your CPU usage column for ProcessTamerTray; it should not be above 0 unless you are interacting with it, ie clicking on its menu,etc.  for me its always 0 (not shown) until i interact with it.

37689

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser on April 01, 2005, 03:56 PM »

ok i will try to reproduce the text position bug and search for cause.

Do you have any idea what causes this behavior, or any clues to how other programs have fixed it?

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ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser on April 01, 2005, 01:10 PM »

thanks for the pictures vampiric, they help alot.
i've uploaded a new version, link in Members Only section,  it hoepfully fixes this problem.

The new download also fixes a more severe problem that longrun found, which was that Process Tamer was leaking a windows resource handle each time it changed the system tray icon.

All PT2 testers should install this new version to avoid the memory leak; sorry.

I have to say it is really wonderful having the help of you guys - I wish i could give you all a big hug

37691

ProcessTamer / Re: Some test?

« Last post by mouser on April 01, 2005, 12:59 PM »

i will check out process explorer; i have been using TaskInfo, another similar tool,
and i've never seen ProcessTamerTray register over 0%, and it shouldn't, unless perhaps you were creating a ton of new processes every second, which would be pretty bizzare.

37692

ProcessTamer / Re: Some test?

« Last post by mouser on April 01, 2005, 10:00 AM »

it's a good question re: cpu usage.
i've worked hard to make process tamer use as little resources as possible.
i know that it uses so little as to not show up on normal task managers %cpu usage, but didn't think of checking on accumulated cpu usage over time, which would be a more sensitive analysis.

what program did you use to calculate cpu usage over time?

i could add an option regulating the process time update rate, which could cut the usage in half at the cost of taking a little longer to detect bad processes, for those who are ultra concerned about cpu use.

another thing to point out, you can toggle process tamer on and off, from right click menu or from double-click if you so configure. when process tamer is toggled off, it skips all of its normal checks for process activity, and should use virtually 0 cpu cycles.

37693

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser 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.

37694

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser 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.

37695

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser 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.

37696

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser 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.

37697

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer won't work

« Last post by mouser 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.

37698

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser 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.

37699

ProcessTamer / Process Tamer 2 preview available to Members

« Last post by mouser 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.

37700

ProcessTamer / Re: Process Tamer won't work

« Last post by mouser 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