What are Coding Snacks?
Coding Snacks represent the best of DonationCoder.
On a special section of our forum, anyone can post an idea for a small custom utility/program.
Coders who hang out on our forum keep an eye out for interesting requests and when they see one that catches their interest, they code it and release it to the public for free.
People who find the tools useful are encouraged to donate directly to the coders to show their appreciation.
Forum Links:
Latest Forum Posts
It was driving me madIt was driving me mad. My laptop would sporadically run at 100% CPU utilization and lock up. It defied all attempts at analysis as the PC was seized and I couldn't do anything. Only a hard reboot was possible, but on rebooting the problem was gone.
Eventually I solved it with a superb little utility called Process Tamer, written by "Mouser" over at Donation Coder. Process Tamer is a monitor that watches the CPU utilization of all running processes. Once the usage of a single process gets above a certain level (by default 70%) Process Tamer reduces the usage by lowering the process priority.
It's a simple idea and Process Tamer implements it immaculately. With Process Tamer installed, the next time the problem occurred on my laptop it didn't totally lock up but rather just ran very slowly. This allowed me to do a quick diagnosis. The problem turned out to be simple but non-obvious. Two programs, Diskeeper and X1, had been accidentally scheduled to start at the same time and were getting into an embrace of death. It was unexpected, as these two normally peacefully co-exist. Simply re-scheduling the programs to start at different times solved the problem.
I couldn't have solved the problem as easily without Process Tamer. However Process Tamer has much broader application than just this kind of problem.
It's a great tool for preventing any one program from hogging your processor. Every user has experienced the situation where their PC has been slowed down to the point of being unusable, by a background program such as a desktop search program, that starts and takes all the resources. Process Tamer will stop that from ever happening again.
I was so impressed with Process Tamer that I've permanently installed it on my laptop. It takes only around 6MB of memory space and its own CPU usage is so low I could barely measure it.
Process Tamer is available for free from the Donation Coder site. They use a novel licensing system: you have to register to get a free license key which allows you to download any number of programs on the site. This key lasts six months after which you must return to the site to download another free license key. After a year you are given a permanent license. Alternatively, you can make a once-up donation of any size and get a permanent key straight away. It's a clever and ethical way to encourage users to recognize the work done by freeware authors and I support it fully. I donated generously and I hope you do too.
What are Coding Snacks?
Coding snacks are small custom utilities written by coders who hang out on DonationCoder in response to requests posted on our forum.
You are viewing a specific blog item. Click here to return to the main blog page.
Fundraiser Day 3 - Part 2 - New Software Release: sWeatherTo celebrate the fundraiser, DC member skwire has released a new application: sWeather. But before I describe sWeather, I need to say a little bit more about Skwire. Over the last year he has released an absolutely astounding number of brand new freeware programs over the last year - almost all in response to requests from everyday people who have stopped by and posted on the DonationCoder.com Coding Snacks Request board. He's almost threatening to break the record for releases by DC member Skrommel. It's great fun to watch Skwire create new tools based on user requests. Ok back to the new app, sWeather. It's a tray-based weather tool. There are a few of these kinds of tools around, some good, some bad. sWeather is nice because it looks great while being pretty minimalist, and does all of the important things well. There are tray icons for weather condition and temperature, and it's easy to switch quickly between locations and perform update checks. Overall a very sweet tool.
Important Note: During the fundraiser we ask people to make new donations into the site. And these donations help cover site hosting costs and other expenses. But we also have a system we created (called DonationCredits) in order to let people direct their donations to specific members on the site who they would like to show support to. The best thing you could do with your donation is actually to send your donation credits out to specific people on the site like Skwire, whose work you want to support - as a way of letting them know that their work is appreciated. So don't just donate, spread the love a little by sending your donation out to people on the site like skwire. Actually skwire has his own direct paypal donation button on his website, and that would also be a great way to let him know he is appreciated. |
||
