Article re: Geek cofounder of Mozilla Firefox project

Very interesting, informative and quite lengthy article here at Spectrum.ieee.org about Blake Ross; the self-taught coder and geek who confounded of the Mozilla Firefox project (as a teenager!)

Note: The font used in the article is quite tiny; so you might want to copy the entire article to a word or notepad document and choose a larger font size for easier reading.

P.S. Blake Ross also maintains an interesting blog here at http://www.blakeross.com

Good Luck!

 

Actually, font size is a user setup, if your using IE6. Try pressing <Cntrl> and moving the scroll wheel.

 

Hey, COMPUABLE, you lurker, you. Haven't seen your detailled replies lately.
Can you PM me with a contact address so I can ask you about SmartClose probs, I've been having.
Have emailled the originators twice, but no answwer from them. Thanks, Bazza

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>> Hey, COMPUABLE, you lurker, you. Haven't seen your detailed replies lately. Can you PM me with a contact address so I can ask you about SmartClose probs, I've been having. Have emailed the originators twice, but no answer from them. Thanks, Bazza <<

LOL - Hi Bazza… It’s good to see you again too!

I haven't been posting any "detailed replies" here recently - or anywhere on the web, for that matter - because I've been very busy with a huge project at work that takes up just about all of my spare time.

As for the problems that you're having with SmartClose; I no longer use (or recommend that people use) this program because the author appears to have either abandoned the program; and/or is apparently too lazy or busy to reply to users' support questions.

I'm not sure if it was one of the more recent Windows Update which caused problems for SmartClose or what; but several people have reported that the program worked well for them for quite a while. But then suddenly, out-of-nowhere they found that the program was constantly freezing up completely, during the part of the process where it tried closing programs.

I hadn't actually used this program for quite a while; but when I tried it again, the same exact "screen freeze" problem occurred immediately and then reoccurred several times after that. No error message or anything - just a totally frozen screen which required a reboot to get the computer working again.

For several days afterwards; I tried to reach the site to contact the author about it however the Bm-productions website was always down. I also tried e-mailing the author (using the email address that I'd saved when I had originally downloaded the program) several times with no success.

Note: I just now tried to reach the site; (after seeing your post) and the Bm-productions website still appears to be down. Sorry that I couldn't be more help to you, Bazza!

Good Luck!

 

Thanks COMPUABLE for your reply.
Hope your big job gets finished soon, and you can get back to your "in depth" replies.

As for SmartClose, I love that program, but not lately.

Sometimes when I try to open it, it just brings up the first screen<enter>, and then nothing. Not really freezing up , just not doing nutting.

I shut down a few of my running programs / processes, like WinPatrol, and Zone Alarm, and some others and then it will occasionally / usually work.

I just keep shutting down stuff manually until it works.
Kind of defeats the purpose, though.

Anything else you can recommend? Bazza

 

>> Sometimes when I try to open it, it just brings up the first screen <enter>, and then nothing. Not really freezing up, just not doing nutting. I shut down a few of my running programs / processes, like WinPatrol, and Zone Alarm, and some others and then it will occasionally / usually work. I just keep shutting down stuff manually until it works. Kind of defeats the purpose, though. Anything else you can recommend? Bazza <<

Off hand, about the only thing I can think of is that you could always try entirely uninstalling SmartClose, running CCleaner (using the Issues section) and then reinstalling it with a fresh installation exe. Even though the BKProductions website is down; you can still obtain a fresh installation .exe file at many freeware sites; (including here at MajorGeeks!)

Just to let you know; I already tried this "reinstall fix" and the problem still persisted, (at least it did not work on my machine) - but who knows, it may be worth a try! Without the input of the actual program author I have no way of determining precisely why the program suddenly has problems, unfortunately.

The reason that I said earlier that I suspect it may have been a "clash" with some newer Windows Update; is because I have an older "testing" PC machine down in the basement that I use to solely and strictly test programs which suddenly fail for no reason. And this PC has no installed Windows Updates at all - just SP2. The program continues to work just fine on that machine and has shown not a single incidence of any of these problems of late.

I know of at least two other users whose problems with SmartClose started out just as you have described. Eventually, the program began "freezing up" and they stopped using it (and consequently finally uninstalled it); because frequent system freeze-ups or crashes can eventually cause a lot of "hidden" damage and eventually the dreaded OS reformat and reinstall routine...

Since the author is apparently AWOL; the absolute safest thing I can recommend is to do the same: stop using it (and/or uninstall it); at least until the author comes out of hiding and addresses the problem. Regardless of how "handy" or useful this program may have been in the past IMO the risk involved is simply not worth it. As you stated earlier; since you evidently have to keep "shutting down stuff manually until it works" this kind of defeats the purpose of the program.

Good Luck!

 

SmartClose problems

Thanks COMPUABLE, I've done the un-install, CCleaner (and others), download again, and re-install to no avail, more than once.
I've also tested it on a PC with SP2 only, no updates, and it works fine.

The reason I like SmartClose is that it cuts down my running processes from 57 to 27 after I log off the net and have manually closed ZoneAlarm and Avast (as you have to).

I'll still keep trying to use it, for that reason.

I'll also have to pay more attention to the initial loading of processes, compared to those remaining after SmartClose closes all those that it deems I don't need.

I've been too lazy to do this in the past, but now it looks like I've gotta do it. Bazza

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Re: SmartClose

My apologies for updating on an old post, because SmartClose is a very useful program on closing down unneccesary processes.

If you read the earlier posts you will note that SmartClose ceased to work for no apparent reason.:cry

I think it was probably a Windows Update that broke it, but NOW it is working fine again.major

When I run it on my XP Pro, it reduces the number of processes from 70+ down to around 30 after I have logged off the Net and wish to close down Firewall, Anti-Virus, other malware protection, etc.

It is well worth a try, and I am really happy that it is working again, for me. :major Bazza

PS: COMPUABLE, where are you?