[sotd] October 31, 2003 [Fast Defrag - Software of the Month]
- From: "The Site of the Day" <sotd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: sotd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 09:46:34 -0400
Site of the Day for Friday, October 31, 2003
A Happy and Safe Halloween to All Revellers!
Fast Defrag Standard -- Software of the Month
This month's freeware for the Windows platform is the oddly misnamed but
nevertheless handy technical utility, Fast Defrag Standard.
When most computer users think "defrag", they simply turn to the system
defrag utility to spruce up their hard drives by tidying up the bits and
pieces of files scattered willy-nilly on the disc. It is not, however, only
the hard drive which becomes fragmented. During the course of a computer
session RAM may also become fragmented, resulting in a gradual system
slow-down as less memory is available to run programs.
Technically, applications are supposed to release the RAM they used when
the program is shut down. All too frequently, however, programmers,
especially those writing in "C", forget to add the necessary code to enable
this. Even applications written in "C++", which tend to be less problematic
in this respect, may contain errors in logic which prevent memory from
being released. The result is that what appears to be a more than adequate
RAM capability is used up and not released, resulting in a general system
slowdown.
These days the most obvious solution, with RAM prices at an all-time low,
is simply to buy more RAM. Some computer users, however, may have older
systems with lower ceilings on the amount of RAM which may be installed.
For those facing that dilemma and not willing to toss their faithful
computers just yet, this useful utility from AMS Software may ride to the
rescue.
Fast Defrag attempts to overcome this common problem by optimizing RAM
usage and making RAM once again available which had been in use by an
application which has been closed. The utility also provides CPU details
and is modest in its own resource usage. In addition, it offers a Task
Manager with the ability to "kill" running processes and a System Config
utility. The RAM System Manager can be set to run on start up and used to
automatically cleanup memory or simply started as the user senses a less
than optimal performance level.
While this utility may perform wonders for older computers and may be used
on Windows systems from 95 to XP, some may not find the dramatic
reclamation of RAM experienced by others.
Note: the webpage below is not sufficiently compliant with HTML standards
to be completely visible in some browsers. Gentle Members who rely on other
browsers for their journeys round the web may wish to use Internet Explorer
for this specific site.
Nip over to the site for more details and the 496 Kb download of Fast
Defrag Standard at:
http://www.amsn.ro/index.php?action=2
A.M. Holm
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