Free Defrag Program

Accurately measure application start times with AppTimer

Optimizing your PC's performance can be a tricky and complex business, but the best place to start is by benchmarking its current speed, ideally with real-life tests such as the time it takes to launch some of your larger applications.

Once that's done then it's easy to measure how your system changes over time. Whether you've installed a new security suite which seems to have slowed you down, or a new defrag tool looks like it's ramped up your speeds, then you won't have to guess what's happening; just run your tests again and you'll see precisely what's going on.

Of course it's important that your benchmark is accurate, and that means hand-timing is out. It's a much better idea to use an automated tool, like the free  PassMark AppTimer , which can launch an application, then measure how long it takes to appear and poll for user input. Before closing the program and repeating the procedure, just as many times as you like, for improved accuracy.

To set the program up you must first specify the application you'd like to launch, and the log file where any data will be stored. AppTimer will use this to fire up your app, and start the clock. Next, enter a word which appears in the program window's caption bar. Normally the name of the application is enough: "Notepad", "Word", "Skype", say.

And then tell AppTimer at what point you'd like it to stop the test clock. Typically you'd check "Input Idle", "Window Name" and "Visible", which means AppTimer will wait until a window has been created with a caption containing your specified word, it's now visible, and waiting for user input. (But if that doesn't work, clear "Input Idle" and try again.)

Once the time has been recorded and logged, then AppTimer will try to close the application for you. Check Alt+F4 to have the program simulate that keypress, for instance, or try the other two options as an alternative.

Finally, enter the number of times you'd like to repeat the launch test in the Executions box (we'd opt for at least three, and ideally fiveto be sure you're getting representative timings). And then specify the gap between each test in the Delay box, in milliseconds. By default this is only 1000 (1 second), but if it's a bulky app, like Outlook, then you may want to extend this, giving the program time to close down properly: we'd use 10000 as a minimum.

And that's it -- you're finished. Now close down any other programs you have running, click Run App, and watch as AppTimer launches, closes and relaunches your test application, just as many times as you've specified. Once it's finished, open the log file to see the launch times. And if you repeat the test next week/ month/ year, or after installing an app, or running some speedup tool, you'll be able to compare these times with the original set and look for any changes.

Smart Defrag - Free and fast Defrag Tool from IObit | TechWork.dk

If you, like me don’t think that the built-in defrag in Windows 7 or Windows Vista is top of the class you might want to check this one out.

Installation of Smart Defrag:

The download of the product is fast and easy and the package is only about 4 MB. The installation is pretty straight forward but be aware that the installation try to sneak in a toolbar and some extra tools that you might not need. If you don’t want them you can simply skip them, but default setting will install them. I hate when installation programs try to sneek in toolbars and other stuff, but on the other hand the tool is freeware so I guess it is fair, as long as you have the possibility to deselect the options.

Operating Systems Supported Microsoft® Windows® 7 (32-bit and 64-bit) Starter/ Home Basic/Home Premium/Professional/Ultimate Microsoft® Windows® Vista (32-bit and 64-bit) Starter/Home Basic/Home Premium/Business /Ultimate Microsoft® Windows® XP (32-bit and 64-bit) with SP2/SP3 or Home/Professional/Media Center Microsoft® Windows® 2000 How does Smart Defrag works:

The use of the program is pretty simple. You see a list of your installed hard drives in the top and when you select a drive, you can either start by running an Analyze first or jump right to Defrag. The defrag has 3 modes: Defrag Only , Defrag and Fast optimize and Defrag and Fully Optimize . Where Defrag is doing a classic defrag of the hard drive the optimize function use the files that are used the most to the part of the disk that are faster to access. While the program is running you can put it in the system tray if you prefer.

Keep in mind that there are no need for defragging a SSD drive, because the seek time is very little and it doesn’t matter where the data is on a SSD disk, the speed is all the same. In fact you reduces its life span without giving you any benefits.