Recent Posts

37701

ProcessTamer / Re: Some test?

« Last post by mouser 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.

37702

ProcessTamer / Re: Some test?

« Last post by mouser 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.

37703

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

« Last post by mouser 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.

37704

Living Room / Re: Website bugs

« Last post by mouser on March 30, 2005, 11:31 PM »

 
thanks dnm! I just fixed it.

37705

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« Last post by mouser 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.

37706

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« Last post by mouser 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.

37707

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« Last post by mouser 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.

37708

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

« Last post by mouser 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.

37709

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

« Last post by mouser 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..

37710

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

« Last post by mouser 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.

37711

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« Last post by mouser on March 29, 2005, 12:07 PM »

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

37712

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« Last post by mouser 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?

37713

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

« Last post by mouser 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.

37714

ProcessTamer / Re: Preview picture of new ProcessTamer GUI

« Last post by mouser 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.

37715

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« Last post by mouser 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?

37716

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« Last post by mouser 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.

37717

Living Room / Re: Links page coming

« Last post by mouser 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.

37718

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

« Last post by mouser on March 29, 2005, 04:45 AM »

Here's a preview of the new ProcessTamer Configuration GUI in action.
It's a separate program from the main resident tray tool so it takes up no resources during normal operation.

It's main purpose is obviously to help you configure ProcessTamer and create rules, but it will also let you view and change priorities on the fly quicker than through task manager, etc..

You can see that the new gui has 2 tabs, one is configuration of options and explicit override rules,
and the other acts as a kind of quick-access task manager where you can manually change priorities or kill processes.

note that this gui for configuring is a completely separate exe that is invoked when needed, so that the main program running in the tray remains super small and efficient.

37719

Official DonationCoder.com Reviews / Re: Reviews content suggestion

« Last post by mouser on March 29, 2005, 04:19 AM »

ric,
check the new posts in the new Advanced Software Reconnaissance Team section and the Other Software section,
i think we've got a good solution worked out that addresses some of these issues and also insure that the awards get broader vetting prior to the final review.

37720

General Review Discussion / Re: About this section

« Last post by mouser on March 29, 2005, 04:16 AM »

this is excellent - i can see that opening up the discussion of awards prior to awarding is going to have been a great idea.
things always get better when they are opened up for contributions from others.

what do you guys think of the following idea.
in a few days i will try to make a schedule of the next 5-10 upcoming reviews, so we know what order they will be done in.

then perhaps start a thread for the next 2.
for example, if the next 2 reviews were clipboard helper and ftp program, then i would start 2 threads here, one for each.
on these threads people can post 1) their views about which is best and why, 2) features they think are important, 3) just urls to such programs even if they haven't tested them, 4) comments on other posts.
in this way, we will have a thread building up prior to the actual review where we can debate the merits and features that should be considered.

then on the day of the review, i will move the thread to the official SoftwareReviews section, where it will become the official starting thread for that award category.  this would be really nice because it would mean when you click to visit the "forum section" associated with an award, on the award page, you would immediately go to this thread where dif. people give dif opinions.

i think it would be, in addition to helping the review/award be better chosen, be a great thing for people to be able to read after the review, to see some of the thinking and debate behind the review.

37721

General Review Discussion / About this section

« Last post by mouser on March 29, 2005, 03:06 AM »

This section of the forum is for discussing and helping to nominate and test candidate programs for upcoming awards.
In all cases i would like to be able to recommend a freeware/OpenSource alternative if one does not win.

I will try to work out a schedule of awards so we have some idea of the deadlines for comments.

Skipping next week, here is are some categories i'd like to schedule, begining  April 9:

Best backup tools.. imho this really needs to be divided into two sections (maybe 2 reviews one after the other), with
Best backup tool for complete system backup, aka drive imaging (my current award choice is True Image).
Best incremental backup tool for quick incremental versioned backup of personal documents (my current award choice is Retrospect, but i'm open to being swayed to another product).

Best Text Editor (current top candidate = UltraEdit), likely to be contentious award

Best File Explorer (current top candidate = Directory Opus | Powerdesk), sure to be a contentious award

Best email client (current top candidate = thebat), likely to be somewhat contentious

Best free+commercial antiviruses (current top candidate = needs more though), likely to be somewhat contentious
(this award needs a separate winner for free, since recurring charges of the commercial ones make it imp. to be able to present a free winner)

Best clipboard helper
Best Macro tool (macro express)
Best dictionary
Best weather tool
Best launch helper
Best duplicate file finder
Best archive tool
Best disk catalogger (whereisit)
Best search and replace tool
Best small graphics viewer (irfanview)
Best screenshot tool
Best icon tool
Best webcam tool
Best font explorer/tool
Best color helper tool
Best demo maker
Best diagramming tool
Best big graphics tool (photoshop)
Best photoshop plugins
Best dynamic dns tools
Best bookmark tool
Best browser addons
Best ftp client
Best password manager
Best irc program
Best newsgroup programs (newsbin, newsrover)
Best peer-to-peer clients
Best remote administration program
Best site spiders (teleport pro or offline explorer)
Best proxy manager
Best poster/bookley/envelope printer
Best label printer
Best printing helpers (fineprint)
Best PDF tools
Best Scanner tool
Best cd/dvd burning tool (nero)
Best cooking program
best route planning
Best screensaver
Best small game
Best translator tool
Best bibliography tool
Best calculator
Best equation plotter
Best financial software
Best personal database tool
Best presentation tool
Best time tracker
Best file encryption tool
Best screen toys
Best benchmarking tools
Best spyware removal
Best context-menu addons
Best defrragmentation program
best dialogbox replacement helper
best file/registry trackers (ashampoo uninstaller)
best partition management tool
best startup organizer
best undeleter
best virtual desktop tool
best windows setting tweaker
best virtual machine software (vmware)
best alarm/reminder tool
best webllog analysis program
best html editor
best photo gallery maker
best audio player
best file splitter/joiner
best graphic file converter
best icon tool
best mp3 tag tool
best music broadcaster
best voicemail program




In addition we might have some days where we just highlight some unique small programs that don't fit neatly into a single category; nominations for those would be welcome too.

37722

General Software Discussion / Re: Advanced Software Reconnaissance Team

« Last post by mouser on March 29, 2005, 02:40 AM »

i've made a new board in the Members Only section entitled Advanced Software Reconnaissance Team
where we can talk about upcoming awards in an "official" capacity.
having these discussions in a separate section will allow me to restrict access to it if we decide to do that at some point.

37723

General Software Discussion / Re: Advanced Software Reconnaissance Team

« Last post by mouser on March 29, 2005, 02:33 AM »

the more i think about this the more it seems like a good idea..

i think the way to begin is for me to post a schedule of the categories planned for the next 5-10 reviews/awards.

and perhaps also the winners i have in mind.  that will give us time for people to nominate winners and look for alternatives that might be missed.

it doesnt even nescearily have to be a strict schedule, i can just post categories and people can nominate candidate winners and we can go in whatever order we want.

depending on how things worked out, the "Advanced Software Reconnaissance Team" could either be a loose collection of whoever in the forum decideds they want to post some info about a category on a given week, or it could turn into a semi-official team of people who might lend their views and dissenting opinions along with awards - sort of like when a game magazine has 5 dif reviewers comment on a game and rate it.

i still want to keep the idea of presenting awards for best-in-class, rather than simply saying, here is a good program, but it could be useful to have some "dissenting opinions" at the end of a particularly subjective choice...

before i post a list of upcoming awards, there is one thing i need to figure out, and that is to what extent should i care about such a list spoiling the surprise of new reviews.  is that ridiculous to even think about.  a voice in my head is telling me it is silly to even consider such a thing, but from talking to people sometimes they seem to look foward to the week's review where they get to discover what's been chosen.  having advanced debates about the winner for the week would lost that surprise.  on the other hand if we keep our discussions to a particular board on the forum, then only those who go in there would find out, and we could always limit it to those with permission, and anyway a small percentage of viewers to the site would go in there anyway.. so i'm probably being ridiculous..

37724

Official DonationCoder.com Reviews / Re: Reviews content suggestion

« Last post by mouser on March 28, 2005, 06:52 PM »

you are the 2nd person to suggest this to me, and i think youv've made a great case for this.
i cannot disagree with that you are suggesting at all.

and i really like your statement

I'm not one to look at comparison charts with other products; that's usually an advertsing gimmick because most such charts only include the desirable features of the product that is pre-determined to win against the others. I immediately mistrust them. But if you would just list the things you looked at or considered, and how the product ranks against those features (not against other products),

not so much because i think it wouldnt be useful to compare features against others, but just because i don't think such comparison tables could be created without huge amounts of work.

i will try to do this. i will try to list some objective criteria that i consider when i review a program and give it an award and where i think it falls.  for me, some of picking a best program is a subjective total experience, including the feel of the gui, and so it may be hard for us to lay out objective points about everything, but i think your point is extremely valid and should be adhered to whenever possible.

this might also be something that could benefit from others suggestions.
ie if we set up a sort of advanced team prior to each weeks review, maybe one of the things they could do is suggest waht kinds of features are important.  then if we had a list of such imp. features it would be easier to touch on them during a review.

really good idea ric, just have to figure out a way to keep these reviews doable in the required time frame.

37725

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

« Last post by mouser on March 28, 2005, 06:28 PM »

ric,

the new wave of drive imaging software is good at making a complete clone of your hd, while windows is still running - it backs up your registry and all open files.

True Image is my current favorite for this - it does a remarkable job and its very fast.
i recommend buying an external usb drive and using such a program, instead of tapes.