Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

Must-have apps in the System tray?

<< < (13/41) > >>

Curt:
Original post deleted; I lost my temper and wrote. Sorry!  :-[

lanux128:
well, as the cliché goes, you can't have enough memory.. that's why i started this thread, to see whether people prefer more or less programs in their system tray. previously, i need to close some apps so that my sluggish system can breathe easier.. but since then, i have upgraded my memory & graphics card so that i can run all the programs that i need without worries.. :)

btw, i use this program called "Better Memory Meter" to quickly check the remaining balance of system RAM



Edited to include the website address.

Darwin:
This is a slippery slope - regardless of whether or not RAM optimizers are beneficial, *I* found that all they do is make me fixate on how much RAM I have free. I actually own licences for three shareware RAM optimizers (comments about fools and their money will be, politely, chuckled at) and have at least two other apps that feature RAM optimizer components, but I don't use any of them anymore. I *think*, but cannot prove, that these apps have little effect on the functioning of my system and just serve to make me obsess about the difference between 512MB free RAM and 100MB free RAM. I haven't actually observed much difference in performance no matter how much RAM I have free. Now, that said, I can imagine that if I didn't have a lot of RAM, a RAM optimizer might actually be very useful (certainly when I was running Win98SE with 128MB RAM I *thought* it made a big difference). With a gig of RAM there doesn't seem to me to be any benefit (my daily computer usage sees me running Xara Xtreme Pro, PhotoShop Pro, Office Professional 2003 - the only thing I don't run often is Publisher, Maxthon, ESRI ArcGis, etc.)...

Renegade:
Steve Miller's PureText is a very handy clipboard tool but its function can be replicated via Autohotkey, that's why no one mentioned it, i think.. :)

e.g. Skrommel's PlainPaste
[ Invalid Attachment ]
-lanux128 (April 16, 2007, 01:13 AM)
--- End quote ---

Darn... I really need to find some time to check out more of these things...

tranglos:
these apps have little effect on the functioning of my system and just serve to make me obsess about the difference between 512MB free RAM and 100MB free RAM.
-Darwin (April 16, 2007, 10:06 PM)
--- End quote ---

Someone - may have been Joel Spolsky in his blog - made a valid point that free RAM is wasted RAM. As long as there is unallocated physical memory in my system, I *want* my apps to use it if it makes them more responsive. Trimming an app's working set means it'll take that much longer to come back.

I do use this feature in Firefox though (config.trim_on_minimize), because over time it allocates ungodly amounts of memory and is reluctant to release any when tabs/windows are closed. But bringing Firefox back later takes 10-20 seconds, on a fairly fast system.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page