Please note: We are in the process of a major updating of the content on DonationCoder.com as of January 2018, and this page will be updated soon.
Our Favorite Websites
This page lists some of our long-time favorite websites -- sites we couldn't live without and sites that have been true friends to DonationCoder.com.
Have a Suggestion?
If you have a suggestion for a site that you think we should add to this list, let us know.
Editorial Integrity
DonationCoder does not accept paid promotions. We have a strict policy of not accepting gifts of any kind in exchange for placing content in our blogs or newsletters, or on our forum. The content and recommendations you see on our site reflect our genuine personal interests and nothing more.
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.
Our Favorite Websites
This page collects short descriptions of some of our favorite websites. It's our way of saying thanks to the sites we have come to love.
This page has not been updated for awhile but will be getting some new content soon! Please check out the rest of our fantastic website which is far more updated than this page!
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Our Favorite Websites: Gizmo's Freeware / Tech Support AlertNo site does as good a job of helping you choose a freeware tool for a specific task than Gizmo's Freeware (otherwise known by us old-timers as Tech Support Alert). The site is simply unrivaled in terms of recommendations for freeware, and if you ever find yourself asking what the best free windows utility is for a given task, it's *the* site to visit. In each well-organized category, top alternatives are reviewed, rated, and ranked, and then discussed by all -- and reviews are frequently revisited and updated, which is a rarity. In addition, Gizmo Richards himself has also long been a friend to freeware authors, helping to shine the light on new freeware tools, and a friend to us from the early days, helping to tell people about DonationCoder and our software -- and I am extremely honored to have had some of my tools recommended on the site. I can't think of a better site to receive the first entry in our list of our Favorite Websites. Direct Link: http://www.techsupportalert.com To see other posts on the DonationCoder forum that mention the TechSupportAlert website, click: here. |
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