Gibbs considers a reader suggestion regarding DPC problems, and looks for the perfect clock utility for his iPaq running Microsoft’s Pocket PC and finds it and a backup program as well.
Last week I concluded by threatening to tell you what I found out about my errant deferred procedure call problem, but I’m still working on it.
An interesting suggestion for why DPCs on my Windows XP box have been inexplicably using up to 40% of the processor came from reader Dave Pampreen (Auburn Hills, Mich.): A friend of his killed the performance of his family’s PC by installing a 2.5MB image — which Windows converted into a 15MB BMP file — on the machine as a desktop background.
Dave said he’s seen the same problem with a 2.8MB image of his company’s logo used as a desktop background: “In the past couple months we have seen pauses in Microsoft apps of up to 10 minutes. We’re still getting data back on this one, but I’ve heard a couple people say they have seen [high DPCs], and all of them have that same company logo.”
Interesting idea. As unlikely as this might seem, overloading the Windows window management system with a huge image or one that is damaged in some way could have all sorts of performance consequences.
Unfortunately I just checked my desktop background and it is one of the standard Windows choices and only 1.8MB in size. I think that makes it unlikely that Dave’s theory is the cause of my particular problem. So, while I continue to futz around with various diagnostic options, we’ll take a look at some Pocket PC software I’ve been playing with.
I use a Compaq iPaq as my portable diary — it is a little on the old side and can’t be updated to the latest version of PPC (I’m limited to Version 4.20.1081), but it works just fine. I see this as a sort of a personal test: Normally I would reflexively replace it with something newer and shinier, but why? I wish I could overcome my gadget lust and extend this philosophy to the rest of my toys, er, equipment. That said, I know that the lure of the new will eventually win and the iPaq will become history.
Anyway, what I was looking for was a clock program for the iPaq that would give me multiple timers and hopefully a decent clock display. I’d looked at no end of programs that did either but not both, and all of them were visually ugly and most were poorly designed. Then I stumbled across Spb Time.
This software, from Spb Software House, is a real gem. It provides not only a great looking analog clock but also a digital clock with a calendar, a world time zone map, a single timer with lap timing, a set of eight countdown timers, and a further set of eight more count-up timers also with lap timing. Spb Time also supports skins, the clock displays have a full-screen mode, and it was designed to be managed with finger taps. This is just what I envisioned! For a mere $14.95 Spb Time is a steal.
Also from Spb comes a neat backup utility for PPC called, not surprisingly, Spb Backup. This tool can back up your PPC’s content as an executable file to any local storage on your PPC device.
By configuring Microsoft ActiveSync to synchronize files in whatever subdirectory you selected for backup, you can ensure that you’ll never lose everything on your PPC. Backups are stored as executables so simply running the program on your PPC starts the backup. Backups and restores can also be full or selective. Another nice utility for a very reasonable $19.95.
