This Weeks Freeware Updates

dave — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 18:12:28 +0000

AIM 6.9.1.2 Beta - Next generation release of AOL instant messenger

Miro 1.2.6 - Free and open source internet tv platform

K-Meleon 1.5.0 - Extremely fast,customisable lightweight web browser for the Win 32 (Windows) platform.

Process Explorer 11.21 - Shows you information about which handles and DLL processes have opened or loaded

uTorrent 1.8 - Efficient and feature rich Bittorrent client for Windows

FileZilla 3.1.1.1 - Powerful FTP client

Songbird 0.7 RC2 - Desktop web player,digital jukebox and web browser rolled into one package

MySQL 5.0.67 - Multithreaded,multi-user SQL data management system.

SyncBack 3.2.19 - World class software in the field of backup and synchronization software.

GPU-Z 0.2.7 - Lightweight utility designed to give you all the information about your video card and GPU

CuteFTP 8.3.1 - Utility for transferring files between your computer and a remote FTP server anywhere on the internet

7-Zip 4.59 Beta - Open source file archiver,predominately for Windows

KeePass 1.12 - Free/open source password manager

Skype 4.0.0.161 Beta - Software for calling people on their computers or phones

multi-huh,what?

punjrashtra — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:45:50 +0000

A few days back i had my Introduction to Computer Class (ITC), multiprocessing, multiprogramming. (Multi ki...). Yawn. The teacher seemed to teach us. We pretended to be understanding. Most of us nodding our head, rest of us, messaging. There's nothing better that messaging you see. Of course, my case is different. Anyways, I thought I'd explain a bit of all those multi-beep-stuff here. Yeah, I'll be putting stuff that is/was/are/were OHT(s) for many. Over Head Transmission. ;-)

Here's a bit about multi...arh. You guys can read. By the way, am feeling lil lazy to get up and check my register which multi-things we were taught first. Ah!i wonder how many of us remember that.

Before I begin my Big Bang Theory lecture, I guess you guys should know what a task, process and thread is.

Task: Its a set of program instructions that are sent to the memory for execution.
Process: Its an instance of a program that is being executed by a processor. A program is basically a set of instructions. When these instructions are executed, it is called a process.
Thread: To make the Processing faster, each process is divided into two or more parts. These parts are called 'threads'.

Hmm. Maybe now it'll be more easier to understand multitasking, multiprocessing, multiprogramming and multithreading.

Multitasking

In multitasking, two or more TASKS share a SINGLE processing unit (CPU). At a particular instance of time, only ONE task is executed by CPU.

Multiprocessiing

In multiprocessing, there are two or more CPUs. This is the basic difference between multitasking and multiprocessing. In multitasking, there are more than two tasks that share the same processing unit, but in multiprocessing, tasks are sent to different CPUs depending upon which processor is done processing and is waiting for the next task. Its a software based support.

Multiprogramming

Its basically running more than one program on a single cpu. There's nothing much to know about it really, at our level at least. It is like, we are listening to music on Windows Media Player and doing someother work on, say, MS Word. Now, you are running more than one program on your computer. This is known as multiprogramming.

Multithreading

Multithreading efficiently handles multiple threads. Now, you might think that multiprocessing and multithreading are same. But, there's one key difference. Multithreading is hardware based support and multiprocessing is software based support.

Ah!its 2 A.M. in the morning and am typing this. Wah! Yeah, got nothing better to do. Anyway, if you like whats written here, please comment.