Today is the day the Titanic sunk in 1912.
There has to be a leadership lesson in that.
Never proclaim anything as “unsinkable”?
INTERESTING: Today is Titanic Day
Thursday, April 12, 2007
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Posted by reinkefj
TECH SOFTWARE: Process Tamer is available for free
Thursday, April 12, 2007http://techsupportalert.com/issues/al_current.htm
Gizmo
Ian Richards
***Begin Quote***
6.1 A Free Utility That Stops Programs From Hogging Your PC
It 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.
For the same reason it can also help speed up your Windows Startup. Make sure though, that you enable Process Tamer to start automatically with Windows. By default it does not, but it’s easily changed from within the program’s options.
Yet another use for Process Tamer is intra-server load balancing. It’s near ideal for this task.
If you actually want a program to able to use all available resources, such as a digital editing program, you can set the program to be excluded from Process Tamer’s watchful eye.
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.
Donationware, Windows 2K, XP, 2.23MB
http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/proctamer/index.html
***End Quote***
Hmmm, may be useful to put in place.
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Posted by reinkefj
INTERESTING: Brad Benson commercial slamming Rosie O’Donnell
Thursday, April 12, 2007Did anyone hear the commercial this morning razzing Rosie for her 911 rant?
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Posted by reinkefj
RANT: Nice to see the Duke players “get off”
Thursday, April 12, 2007Now who’s going to repay their parents for the reported ~1M$ each paid for legal defense.
I’d assume the taxpayers of North Carolina have the deepest pockets.
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Posted by reinkefj
MONEY: A YAHOO ANSWER I want to consolidate my debt?
Thursday, April 12, 2007I want to consolidate my debt?
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I have great credit, but a little to much debt. I would like to consolidate my debt without hurting my credit to bad. I would like to be able to pay less than what I am paying now. Paying for many years does not bother me, some of us can only make it with payments on everything (that’s me, the world is to hard and expensive today). Does anyone know a good place to go with?
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Well, if I were you, I’d look around for a Credit Union. Almost all credit unions, at least the four that I have used extensively, had: (1) great rates; (2) an education program; (3) debt counseling — the non-rip off kind; (4) were honest with you; and (5) usually have your best interests at heart. In recent years, the membership requirements have been loosened. It’s now as exclusive as rainfall. The last one I joined, I had to deposit 25$ in my account as a “membership fee”. It paid interest, and I still don’t understand, but you have to “join”. Look around. I’m sure you can find one you can join. If all else fails, I can “adopt” you. :-)
You also have to change your thinking a little. Credit card debt is a “disaster”. You’re a slave to those payments. The interest rate is only part of the “cost”. Don’t be late or you’re socked with fees. They play games with when they “get their mail” and other dirty tricks. Finally, it affects your thinking and your future choices. You think it’s ok and you get in the habit. Next you know it’s juggundo godzilla size debt. And, you have to keep working at your current job because you “need to make your payments”. That precludes switching careers, taking time off, or just not having to remember to make a payment.
Disclaimer! I’m not “suzy orman”, don’t work on Wall Street anymore, and have not stayed in a Holiday Inn Express. But, I do blog about money from time to time. And, I’ve made a lot of mistakes with my own money. So I’ll claim “black ‘n’ blue” credentials from the University of Hard Knocks!
Hope this helps.
fjohn
*** in addition, an after thought ***
I probably could have stressed “thinking” first and “credit union” second. Consolidation, without improved thinking, will just lead to more debt. I probably should have referred to Dave Ramsey, who is the king of “i’m debt free”. That’s the other extreme.
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Posted by reinkefj
Reinke Faces Life 