Peak Performance

Some lightweight mountain gear to help your silicon box attain new heights.

Nearly nine kilometres up in the sky, higher than most airplanes fly, there a rocky little stretch of terra firma, about the size of a room. It takes the nimble-footed about two months to get to it. But you can’t spend more than a couple of hours here because it’s a mite chilly with an icy 150 kmph wind in your face. The place is called Sagarmatha in Nepal and Chomolungma in Tibet. The world knows it better as Mt. Everest.

To get to Mt. Everest you need months of training to be in peak physical form. And Lady Luck beside you. But to get your PC in peak form, you just need software. And no Lady Luck. So here’s some lightweight mountain gear to help your silicon box reach new heights.

Fresh Diagnose
Like a compass, this free utility give you your bearings. It scans, analyses and benchmarks your PC to furnish a comprehensive list of hardware and software details. This includes info about the motherboard, video system, PCI/AGP buses, input and output peripherals (mouse, keyboard, printer, etc.), and the network. The program also tests the performance of your CPU, hard drive, CD/DVD ROM etc. and let’s you compare it with other PCs. No bundled ads, no spyware.
OS: Windows XP, 2000, ME, NT, 9x
www.freshdevices.com


FreeRAM XP Pro
As you use Windows, surf the Net, open and close apps, your PC's RAM starts dwindling. This freeware flushes and defrags RAM, thereby freeing memory and optimising system response time, speed, stability, and efficiency. It is ideal for uncouth, badly-written chipku programs that cling to your PC's RAM even after you have exited them. Quite customisable, it offers real-time memory monitoring and optimisation, system metric and performance monitoring, memory reporting and diagnostic logging, memory compression, process memory usage reporting, RAM-cuts (RAM-freeing Windows shortcuts), and customisable hotkey support among a host of other features.
OS: Windows XP, 2000, ME, NT, 9x
www.yourwaresolutions.com


Super Utilities Professional
True pro league maal with a whopping 27 system maintenance tools to help your PC scale the performance crest. It features four sections: System Cleaner to remove spyware, clean your disk and Registry and perform routine maintenance tasks. Privacy Protector to hide or lock folders, clean system tracks, password-protect apps, secure file deletes, hide IE Favorites and Start menu items. System Maintenance for Task Manager-like functions, valuable system information, and IE customization. And Special Tools to schedule shutdown times, locate and back up drivers, identify space-hogging folders, and modify context menu options. And then there’s the startup organizer, BHO cleaner, password manager, uninstaller, defragger, optimizer… Need we say more? Yes; SU is free to try, but costs $50 to keep.
OS: Windows XP, 2000, ME, NT, 98, 9x
www.superlogix.net


MyRegistryCleaner
Everyone knows a saaf, suthri Registry makes a PC boot faster, run quicker and stay more stable. And that is why umpteen Registry cleansers are born unto this universe. However, most of these over-eager scrubbers use their own limited intellect to swipe clean whatever they feel like. MyRegistryCleaner instead shows you the invalid, orphaned registry entries and lets you decide the items to kill. Once you've made your choice, MRC takes a backup and then destroys, or attempts to correct the damaged objects, as the case may be. And in case you prefer the automatic route, that’s possible too. The proggie is free to try but requires 40 US to possess.
OS: Windows XP, 2000, ME, NT, 9x
www.myregistrycleaner.com

Okay Himalayputrs, now go climb www.free-soft.ro/everest/everest.html and see if you like the view.