Hi Gang! As you recall, last week we talked about how to avoid system crashes. I went into detail about how your memory works, how the Windows swap file works, What Windows virtual memory is, and how important it is to keep your hard drive clean, and defragged. Today, I'd like to send you a link for a little program that will help you out in the event of a memory freeze. Even though I know you all are religiously following the frame work from last week. This program is added insurance. .
What it does: As you now all know, you have many programs running at the same time. Each program reserves a block of ram, whether it's actually active or not the block of ram is reserved, period. Generally what happens; you're just working away, having a good time, and then you do something. Normally that something will be in the flavor of trying to open a web site that is graphic intensive, such as a Java site. Boom, the site loads about half way, and you computer is all done. As I mentioned last week, your frantic button pushing, only adds to the problem by initiating several more commands. Poor crippled Windows can't even do what you wanted in the first place, let alone, a new list of things. The problem is simple: Windows is trying to write ram to it's swap file, and free up board ram. Generally though, once you have the freeze, it's all over: But there is something you probably don't know: Your Window's commands themselves are generally OK, and will still work. The only problem is, if you try to run a big program, you're REALLY screwed. With that said, "Ram Booster" is a program that once initiated, will compress all the ram, squeezing shut the blocks that are inactive. It, more or less, punches a hole into the Ram registers forcing Windows to send unused Ram to the swap file. The best way to describe it is; it acts like a defrag for your system ram. I don't run "Ram Booster" all the time. I have it on my task bar, it's just Click the start button, and click the Ram Booster Icon. It will force your ram to clear, and it works great. Just last week, a Java site made me lock up. I'm not really surprised as I had AOL, Front Page 2000, Popup Stopper, Zone Alarm, Ad Subtract, Clip Trakker, Photoshop, and Internet Explorer all running! And of course, like you, I hit about 10 more buttons before I got hold of myself. (What the hell, I'll admit it, we ALL do it, it's the human thing to do besides swearing at Bill Gates.) I clicked Start, Ram Booster, and optimize, and wow! All my commands all of a sudden came to life. Of course the Java site was gone, because I "X" ed it out as one of the first panic moves. LOL But, Ram Booster can be configured to run all the time, and at a predetermined time, to optimize automatically when ram is low. After such a close call, I recommend saving your work, and rebooting your computer. If you don't do that, one thing will be immediately evident. Everything will run very slowly at first. That's not because of Windows, but because of Ram Booster. Your computer will slowly recover, but now it has to reload, (so to speak) everything that was in it's ram before Ram Booster was started. In essence, it's making Windows decide what should be active and what shouldn't. The smaller your memory core, the more thinking Windows has to do. Remember, Ram Booster just squeezed it shut. It really works that well. The best part is; Ram Booster is totally free. It is no longer published, so I put the setup files on my server for you. So, if you'd like to give it a try, just I think you'll really like it. I couldn't live without it. If you have very large amounts of Ram, Ram Booster may hang. If it does, just cntrl/alt/del and close it. What it opened will stay opened. If you run it again, you'll see what I mean. I hope this helps you on your road. Your Road? Yes, Your Road To Computer Sanity Danny
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