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MPower Version 1.1 by MindBeat.com |
MPower Home Page Not Available |
"MPower" will take your RAM and remove the resident bits of closed programs, defraging it so that there is lots of room for the programs you are currently running!!! |
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MPower by MindBeat.com "MPower" is a memory utility which optimizes your ram by removing bits of info still stuck in your memory from closed programs. It has other nice features too which I found very appealing. Now I honestly believe that just about everyone who has ran Windows of ANY KIND knows just what kind of a memory hog it is, not to mention all of the programs that you might be running with it. Some of these programs just don't close properly which tends to leave bits of information resident in your valuable memory. They aren't doing anything, they're just there!! Of course, since this space is not available for other programs, they can suffer while running in your operatiing system. "MPower" by Mindbeat.com will remove those bits of programs from your memory and defragment it, allowing full use of your memory for the programs you ARE running. Not only does it do this, but there are many other functions that this little bit of utility contains. Downloading........ Size zipped: 1.2 megs Size Installed: 1.14 megs plus Win/Sys files The download was suppose to start automatically, but didn't. There are three links to choose from if the automatic one doesn't work. The first link I picked didn't work either and the next one took about 30 seconds before initiating the download. Once started, it was trouble free and fast. Installation.......... MPower is a zipped program, so you'll need one of the many free zip utilities that are available. Once you have the files in the directory of your choice, it's a matter of finding the setup.exe file and clicking on it. The installation takes less than a minute. Of course, though the program doesn't require you to reboot, I always suggest rebooting when ever you install anything on your computer Help Files.......... The help files show the basic operation of the utility with a couple of simple screens. The main screen shows the operating area and describes what everything is for. From this there are sub screens that will explain the details for the options screen, popup menu, and so on. Since there isn't a great deal to learn about this program as far as settings go, there isn't an ennormous help file system either. Here's a sample showing the tray popup menu and the title bar information which I'll get to in a bit :
Interface........... The interface is made up of a small screen with tabs at the top for "Ram and CPU, Options and About". The window shows your total memory in a line bar and reflects the amount being used by shadowing the inside of the bar in percentage of use. Below this is a slide bar which allows you to set the total ram used plus a large button which allows you to optimize your ram. The process of optimization is show as a percentage in the line bar below the slide bar (Whew!! That was a mouth full. Here's a pic of the window itself):
Below all of this, there is a readout which reflects the total detected speed of your processor along with another line bar showing the "CPU load", in a percentage measurement. This is changing constantly as you use your machine. The options tab shows the settings that you can make for the program. It also contains a great "Disk Benchmark" utility. Here's a pic of the options tab:
The benchmark button opens a window allowing you to set the standards that the program will use to test your drives. On the left is the "Block Size" settings going as high as 65536. There are settings for "test file size" and "benchmark test", plus an area to select your drive, a button to start, and a readout in digital format for your speed. There is also a large area that shows a log of the results. Here's a pic of a benchmark test I did on one of my hard drives:
Features........... My system runs a PIII at 500 MHz with 64 megs of ram and it runs really well. I've never (to this point) had a problem with it. I know I could use more ram, but that's another story! After the installation of MPower, I set the program to open at windows startup and rebooted my machine. After reboot, there was a small icon on my taskbar. Right clicking on this produced a nice menu (see above) with many options such as shortcuts to the Control Panel, My Computer, and Drives. There are also connections to Open MPower, Options for the program, and Power Manager which allows quick access to shutdown or reboot the machine. All very nice!! MPower lets you double click on this little icon in the taskbar for instantaneous defragmentation of your memory. The icon shows itself as "exploded" while working and goes back to it's proper shape when finished. The slider bar gives you the option to set exactly how much memory to free up. An interesting option that is available is to show the free memory and CPU usage in the title bar on top of the active window. This is interesting as I can now follow the usage while working with multiple programs. The icon itself on the taskbar can also be set to show the CPU load. There's an example of that in the help file pic above. Does It Work?......... Yes, it sure does! There have been many times where I would have multiple programs opened and closing them would cause the open programs to drag, not to mention that the hard drive would constantly be accessed by windows for the swap file. Sure, I know, that's not unusual, but THAT MUCH!!!! Anyway, after installing Mpower and allowing it to do it's thing, the hard drive is suddenly very quiet, and there's no hesitation at all on the programs that are still open. I have definitely noticed an improvement in my program speed as well as the response time from switching to different programs running at the same time. Problems......... No, none for me! I don't think I can give any suggestions either. It's a great little program that does exactly what it's suppose to do, with enough added goodies to keep it on my computer. Closing......... It is obvious that a memory utility like Mpower is necessary in the Windows enviroment. I'll be open to any suggestions as to other freeware memory cleanup utilities that anyone knows about. If you know one, drop me a line with a link and I'll check it out. For now, I'm going to be sticking with this one as it's clean, small, and useful enough to keep.
Enjoy Buzzy J
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