DTaskManager Review

Manage your computer

Clearly an improvement over the default Task Manager, DTaskManager offers quite a few features and tools.

"Enhanced Task Manager" features:

1. Better CPU usage history information (bigger window with more data)
2. More information about individual processes, page file, and more
3. Ports, networking, and other information for under-the-hood info

Very cool tricks:

• Various ways to close a frozen program.  This is similar to Unix in its capability to send increasingly high priority close messages to errant programs.  Start with "End Process" similar to just clicking the "X" at the top corner.  Then continue to Quit, Kill, and Kill Process Override.  Works like a charm and never had a problem with it in the 2+ years I've been using it.
  
• Trim RAM usage.  Some programs are RAM hogs and as your computer starts to use more and more, this can help keep the programs hungry for system resources at bay.  Its not a full solution but it certainly helps
• Suspend individual programs - great for putting a program that takes up a lot of system resources on "pause" ... this is great when encoding audio or video.  Pause the process without hurting it or corrupting the output.

Might be great:

• A process "freeze" function.  I don't know if this is different from Suspend.  I can't find anything on the website about it.
• Automatically lowers the process priority management.  Supposedly this will make programs cooperate better.  For example, the program MP3 Quality Modifier has a separate "encoder" program that it automatically set at a lower priority.  Unfortunately I have no way to verify that this really works apart from my system SEEMS to run better when its on.  However I don't really know.  Note: to maintain this every time the program starts, you must make sure it saves settings (Save on Exit under View menu).

Wishlist:

• Does NOT remember the priority given to specific processes.  So if I set my encoder program to a low process priority, when the system restarts, it will not automatically set its priority low again.

Download:

• Portablefreeware's listing
• Official home page

Version: 1.51
Size:  0.15 megs
RAM Usage:  6.3 megs
License: Freeware (author takes donations)
Score: 9 out of 10 - Hard to beat since I don't have even a 2nd place Task Manager program.
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Yes - I use it regularly

Hash Review

First, clearing up one confusion: Hash is both the name of the software and what it does: creates hashes.

Hash (the file output) - what are hashes?

Hashes (a.k.a. "digests") behave like a file fingerprint that help identify a file as authentic. This has many uses, such as when trying to determine that a file downloaded online is the one you're looking for and hasn't been corrupted. They are versatile, appearing as groups of numbers and letters that can be posted anywhere ("E55DA1922211").

Different file hashes have different advantages on a scale: security versus speed:

1. CRC32 - fastest
2. MD5 - seems to be the most popular
3. SHA1 - most accurate and longest
   

SHA1 might be thought to be taking ALL a person's fingerprints to verify with absolute certainty that the file is what its supposed to be. This is important if getting the right file is mission-critical. CRC32 meanwhile are usually used by internal programs such as DoubleKiller (also in the Kitchen Sink), to help discover files that are not just similar in name or size, but are identical. Torrents, meanwhile, automatically use the SHA1 protocol to verify downloaded data.

More on hashes from Wikipedia.

Hash (the software) - features

Provides a long list of file data about a given file or files by default -- all three hash types, as well as file version, size, and date. Can un-check boxes to gather less data.

Pros:

• Drag-and-drop friendly.
  
• Does multiple, even 100s of files automatically (if you do "Browse" hold CTRL or SHIFT to select multiple files)
  
• Progress bar to let you know how far along the process is and a "stop" button to cease progress.
• Absolutely tiny! Low footprint, low ram usage.
  

Cons

• No automatic file verification. To do this, I recommend creating a "torrent" using uTorrent or a similar program. Just ignore "tracker" information, since it won't be for sharing.
  

Download:

• Download
• PortableFreeware.com entry
  

Version: 1.04
Size: 28k megs
RAM Usage: 1.6 megs
License: Freeware (takes donations)
Score: 8 out of 10 - The best portable hash program I've yet found, but has no automatic checker. Who wants to read those long strings of text?
In Kitchen Sink Collection: Yes