Freeing Up Additional Memory

Hello again from beautiful downtown Ephrata. Am keeping very busy these days with portraits, weddings, and, of course art shows. And speaking of the latter, I hope you can stop by the Sage 'n Sun Festival here in Ephrata this weekend as I will be there with some of my art and photographs. I will have my tent up on the courthouse lawn, so please come by for a visit.

As a photographer and artist, I use several graphic software programs like Photoshop, which like gaming software, uses a huge portion of my computers resources. So, I am very aware of my memory usage (no jokes here please). My computers have from 1.5 to 2 GB of memory each, and sometimes, even that doesn't seem like enough.

Sometimes, computer memory gets stuffed with data that doesn't go away when you close out the program. When that happens, your computer slows down noticeably and the only way out is to reboot your computer. That can be annoying to say the least. So, wouldn't it be nice if there were a memory manager program that can monitor memory usage and continually optimize your memory at all times.

Well there is one...and it is free. It is called FreeRam XP Pro. Here is a description of the product by the manufacturer:

"FreeRAM XP Pro includes automatic memory monitoring and optimization; advanced tray support; fast, threaded freeing with a stop option; multiple system-metric monitors; a simple and attractive GUI; memory reporting and diagnostic logging; and real-time memory information. FreeRAM XP Pro's AutoFree feature intelligently scales how much RAM is freed with your current system status, thus optimizing RAM without slowing down your computer. Additionally, FreeRAM XP Pro's unique Global Memory Compression technology frees memory instantly in a way that is completely unlike other memory managers. FreeRAM XP Pro has been designed to be easy to use yet highly customizable by computer novices and experts alike."

I installed it and it works quite well. I freed up quite a bit of additional memory when I pushed the optimization button for the first time. When running in the background, the program puts a small icon in the system tray that tells you how much memory is available to you at that moment.

Although it has only been running a short time in my computer, it has been doing a very good job. You might want to give it a try to see if it helps you. It can be downloaded at the ZD Net Web site.