I’ve
been looking for utility software for my Pocket PC Phone edition.
Something that will help me manage my device’s memory. A
memory utility software that will do the cleaning of all the leftovers
and unwanted files in the memory.
I
finally found it through Mohd from PocketPCDubai who came to me
and asked me if I would like to try and write a review on DinarSoft
version 1.2 of their MemMaid utility software for Pocket PC 2002
/ 2003. So here is my experience on MemMaid Version 1.2 that
finally ended my search.
As
any other commercially available software, the installation was
effort less. Click on the downloaded file, and the application
is automatically installed. I‘ve chosen to install it on
the permanent storage of my device. A subfolder was created automatically
(fig 1) and the MemMaid.exe file was saved on it. MemMaid occupies
169 Kb of my permanent storage (fig 2)
(fig
1) (fig
2)
Tapping
on the MemMaid icon, the program takes you to the Quick Cleaner
Quick
Cleaner
You’ll
notice that the application has 6 option tabs and 6 icons. Each
tab will give you an access to a function or feature. We will go
through the different tabs as we go along. Picture above
is the Cleaner tab. You can either run quick cleaning or advance
cleaning. But before we go into the details of the Cleaner Tab,
identify the Tabs and the icons. From left to right, you
have the “Cleaner Tab”, “Notification Queue”, “Start
Up Program”, “Memory Tweaks”, “Storage
Usage” and “Running Processes”. And the Icons
at the bottom from left to right are, “Exit” button, “Power
Off”, “Reset”, “Device Info”, “Program
Option” and “About“ button.
On
the “Quick Cleaner” tab you have several choices that
you can select on how to go about on the cleaning. This feature
will let you clean all the leftover files, unwanted files and IE
/ Avantgo cache files. By tapping on the Scan button you can actually
check how much memory space each one of the listed items is eating
up on your device’s memory and how much in total you’re
going get back. These are the items you can clean.
Windows Temp Files
Avantgo Cache Files
IE Cache Files
IE Cookies
IE Address History
IE History (Files)
Dead Shortcuts
Dead Registry
Bad Uninstall (File)
MS Reader Bookmarks
Mail Attachments
Notify Queue Duplicates
Phone Log Files (Phone Edition only)
User Folder 1 & 2
Custom Extensions
These
are the scan report screen shots on my device.
Quick Advanced
As
I have mentioned earlier, you can select either Advance or Quick
Cleaning. Looking at the two screen shots above, you will notice
the difference between the two options. “Quick Cleaner” will
delete everything in the item selected and with “Advance
Cleaner” you will have the choice to pick what to delete
within the item selected. In my case I deleted all the three Notify
Queue Duplicates. Just words of caution though, before you tap
on the “Clean” button, make sure you have selected
the items that you really want cleaned. MemMaid is very efficient
cleaning maid; it will definitely clean what you told it to clean.
And as DinarSoft claimed, it will leave no trace when you select “Secure
File”. Though I can’t verify “Secure File”,
I take their word for it. One good example is this:
This
is what happens if you have Avantgo and you forgot to de-select
the “Avantgo Cache (Files) option. To get it back to normal
you have to re-synchronize Avantgo with refresh all option. Similarly,
if you have important mail attachments make sure you got them save
somewhere safe before you invoke “Mail Attachments” option.
Now
let’s go to the “Option” button on the
top right corner of the screen. Tap on it, and this screen will
appear:
Have
an option here to execute MemMaid at startup, including an option
for a silent mode where the program will run automatically, clean
up the memory and terminate without showing anything after every
soft reset. I thought it could have been better if the option has
been labeled “Auto Clean on Soft Reset”. The custom
file option lets you delete all the files with a particular file
extension that you have specified. If you don’t want to leave
any trace behind, select “Secure File Delete (wipe)”.
Running the Notification Queue process, gives you an easy way to list
and delete duplicate entries in your appointments and calendar. This is what
you’re going to see when you run the process.
It
will select the duplicate automatically and you can just tap on “Delete” to
remove the duplicate entries.
The
next tab is the “Start Up Programs” feature.
MemMaid gives you the freedom to choose what programs and how many
opens automatically on every startup on this feature.
Startup
Programs
Listed
on the main window pane are the programs that are already included
in the startup process. You can tap on the box to select to remove
or tap on the “Add” button to add more programs, the
easy way. Or you can go to \Windows\Start up using your “File
Explorer” and paste the links of all the programs you want
to open on every start up, the hard way.
Let’s
go now to “Memory Tweaks”
Memory Tweaks
What can MemMaid do for you in
this option?
It gives you the option to put
your IE / Avantgo Cache Folders on to the external memory
It gives you the option to set
the upper limit of your IE cache size or just leave it in the default
setting.
You can increase the Font Cache
Size to get more faster display, or reduce it to preserve memory.
And by using the memory slider,
you can adjust the amount of memory available for storage against
running programs. This is also available in the system setting
of you device.
If your device memory is small
like my MDA-I, which has only 32 Mb and you’re an avid user
of Avantgo, I think it is good practice to have your Avantgo Cache
Folder on you storage card to free a big chunk of memory for your
application to use. Similarly for your IE cache files. These two
occupies a lot of your device memory, the size of both on my device
is around 2Mb. Now I have 2Mb extra of memory for my device to
use and my device has become more responsive comparably than before
I recover the 2Mb of memory.
“Storage
Usage” This is a directory tree of your entire device
storage, folders and files and the amount of memory they occupy.
Almost similar to your File Explorer in appearance. And if you
tap on “Explore”, MemMaid will open and take you
to “File Explorer”. Nothing you can change here.
Just a status report on how your memories both external and internal
are used. This is the screen shot.
Storage Usage
We are almost at the end of the tour. The last feature
we’re going to discuss is the “Running Processes”
Running Processes
Similar to the Task Manager “Processes” tab
on your desktop pc. You can have pretty good idea of what programs
are running at a given time and how much resources they are using
in your device. You have the power to terminate a running program/process
by selecting it and tapping on the “Terminate” button.
But make sure not to mesh around with those unfamiliar program
names or you may end up with hang-up device. Well you can always
do a soft reset to bring it back to normal.
Finally on the task bar, you’ll find 6 icons
for easy access to exit the program, put the device into suspend
mode, soft resetting the device, displaying some of your device
information, program option and about button for quick registration
and about information.
Well there you are, now its the time to get some
feedback from you. Download the software and try it your self,
tell us what is your experience. Maybe you can discuss with us
in the forums the pros and cons after trying it.
