What is running?

Lots of things are going on right now. We had a beautiful baby boy, Edvin, 4 months ago. We are relocating from Sweden to San Francisco where I will work for the big O - Oracle - as a Senior Product Manager.

What else? Well, there isn't room for much else right now. For What's Running, there is new stuff in the pipeline, unfortunately it will take a few more months to bake.

What's Running 2.2 Released

What's Running 2.2 was released a few days ago. You can download it from download.com.

New features:

• New processes and ip-connections (just started) get a green flash and ending processes and ip-connections get a red flash.
• The sorting behaviour has now changed so that the sorting stays sorted when new items turn up.
• Comparison of snapshots - create a snapshot and compare with snapshot already saved on file.
• Now the default process view is an hierarchical view based on the parent relationship.
• The process icon is displayed in the list for easier recognition of processes.
• Now you can move your installed What's Running catalogue to anywhere and runit from there, useful if you want to run it from USB etc.

...and of course there are numerous bug fixes and small usability improvements...

Let me know what you think about it!

I'm also amazed at the fact that that 68.000 downloads of What's Running has been made only from download.com sofar.

The release has been long in the making, I haven't had much time to work on it lately, mainly due to the fact that my day job company (Hotsip) was bought by a giant company, Oracle... Many late nights and a 9 hour time difference to HQ makes work life tougher. The new suburbian office makes for longer days as well. Suburbia is not fun.

..and on a personal note, me and my wife are about to become parents real soon now (actually a few days ago according to the schedule). But as you all know, releases are often a bit late!

Reminder to self - no more feature complete statements... announcing What's Running 2.2 Release Candidate 1

I stated boldly in my previous post that the BETA 2 was feature complete. Too early it seems. I ended up adding one more feature.
Whenever a new process or IP-socket is created it flashes in green, and whenever it is removed, it flashes in red. This is to help you see changes that might be too rapid to see if they aren't highlighted. In addition I changed the sorting behaviour - a long standing gripe for some of you - to always stay sorted when data changes and new processes appear. I also squashed a few small UI bugs...

So without further ado; please help yourself to What's Running 2.2 Release Candidate 1.
Download it here: http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/downloadbeta.aspx

I do hope to release the final 2.2 within a week or so if nothing major hits the radar with RC1.

What's Running 2.2 BETA 2

I am happy to announce BETA 2 of What's Running 2.2.

Download it here: http://www.whatsrunning.net/whatsrunning/downloadbeta.aspx

This release marks the feature complete milestone, the finished version of 2.2 should be quite close to release.

The major new things in 2.2:

• hiearchical process list - makes it easier to understand how processes relate
• icons are shown in the process list to more easily
  
  find the process you are looking for
• installation can be made to a portable device like a USB memory device and What's Running can run from the device
• snapshots can now be differenced - you can create a difference against an old saved snapshot to see what's new on your computer.

To all of you who do download it, please send me email with your comments - positive and negative!

Finally, for people who have been wondering where the next WR release is. Yes, development has been slow lately due to the holidays and the seasonable rush that accompanies the holidays. And, I do have a day job that sometimes soaks up too much time - atleast when it comes to What's Running (I do have a very good day job, so I shall not complain!). Nevertheless, dont despair! WR 2.2 should be downloadable in the near future!

What's Running 2.2 BETA

Just a quick note to let you know that there is a BETA version of What's Running 2.2 available for download. This is an incremental upgrade adding the major feature of having icons in the processlist and the ability to show the process hierarchy. It will make it a bit easier to quickly get an understanding of how processes relate.

Beside that, a number of bugs have been fixed...

Here are the release notes:

New in 2.2 BETA 1
=================
FEATURE Now the default process view is an hierarchical view based on the parent relationship
FEATURE The process icon is displayed in the list for easier recognition of processes
FEATURE Now you can move your installed What's Running catalogue to anywhere and run
it from there, useful if you want to run it from USB etc.

FIXED UDP ports were wrong!! Had accidentally forgot the host to network conversion function!
FIXED When selecting a process and having horisontally scrolled to the right, the scrolling would reset.
FIXED When sorting on a column, the horisontal scrolling would reset
FIXED The last column was impossible to extend by dragging. Now it is possible.
FIXED Minimum column width increased.
FIXED It is now possible to double click a column "divider" to make the column expand to see all data
FIXED The "Total Physical Memory" value was incorrect for machines with more than 2GB memory.
FIXED The "Total Swap File Size" was showing "Commited Swap file size". Also didn't work correctly on machines 2GB+


Hope you find it useful!

/Christer

Corporate transparency

Being open about your product, telling the world what's good and what's bad about it isn't always easy. Usually, companies strive to only tell the world about the good sides and never tell the world what the products are unsuitable for or what is simply not so good.

Here is a refreshing story from the always entertaining and truth telling, Erik Sink of SourceGear who tells all about their source control tool Vault and some adventures in scalability
http://software.ericsink.com/articles/Crowd_Test.html.

Good on ya, Erik!

Babbling about experimental builds...

Since the release of What's Running 2.1.1, I haven't been completely idle. I do have fixed a few bugs, thanks to very helpful comments and suggestion from the kind users!

Trickling out bug fixes isn't always easy. Having a new version of your software should be an event! But as I have only done a few bug fixes, I have started publishing an experimental build which is an up-to-date build of my latest source code but which doesn't necessarily qualify as an alpha, beta or as a release.

You can find the latest experimental build of What's Running here!

What is new then you might ask? Here is the difference going from 2.1.1.483 to 2.1.1.485:

• Now you can move your installed What's Running catalogue to anywhere and run it from there, useful if you want to run it from USB etc.
• The installation program has a "Simple installation" which is suitable for a USB-drive which you go around with. It doesn't create icons, register dll:s and stuff.
• Bugfix: The last column was impossible to extend by dragging. Now it is possible.
• Bugfix:Minimum column width increased.
• Bugfix:It is now possible to double click a column "divider" to make the column expand to see all data
• Bugfix: The "Total Physical Memory" value was incorrect for machines with more than 2GB memory.
• Bugfix: The "Total Swap File Size" was showing "Commited Swap file size". Also didn't work correctly on machines 2GB+

Good news from Borland

As you may know, What's Running is mainly developed using Delphi 6, with some parts in a C++ dll. Having been a long time fan of Delphi, starting from Delphi 1 and Borland Pascal, I haven't really seen the need to upgrade from Delphi 6 to any of the newer versions.

I have for a long time also been doing development in Visual Studio .NET and it is very obvious that not only have Microsoft caught up in many respects, with the public information available about VS.NET 2005, Microsoft is ahead. Keeping in mind that for most people Microsoft is a safer choice, especially if you talk to a customer about your choices.

Borland needs to be ahead of Microsoft to succeed, and you as an individual developer need to believe that there is a future. I haven't really seen any good future for Delphi, but the latest roadmap from Borland makes me think the future is looking good. The roadmap might actually be what brings confidence back in the Delphi product line. Confidence for developers means confidence for customers.

Atleast, it does the trick for me. Dexter might be the next upgrade for me.

There is still no doubt in my mind that for a Win32 developer, there is no single development environment that makes you more productive than Delphi. I'd just love to see a 64-bit future for that - as indicated here.

Mailskinner.exe mystery solved.

It seems that the MailSkinner application is an application to add cute icons to your mails. It is available from here: http://www.mailskinner.com/. Thanks Orion for the tip!

Nevertheless, I've seen reports that it is difficult to remove and might hang your Outlook. So maybe you should avoid this application after all.

I've updated the entry in the process information database so that everyone searching for it finds the info.

MailSkinner.exe mystery

The other day I started to receive lots of queries about the process MailSkinner.exe on the www.whatsrunning.net website. The queries came from google and msn who picked up on the entry that is listed on the website.

What bothers me is that you simply can't find any information on this process anywhere if you do a simple search with Google or MSN search. And searching a few other process information databases gave no hits either.

So, my guess is as good as anyones! What is MailSkinner.exe? A new spyware, adware, malware or a perfectly legit software with the best intentions?

If you know anything about this program, please add a comment on the WhatsRunning.net website entry for MailSkinner.exe here!

What's Running 2.1.1 released

Well, it's actually been a couple of weeks since it was released. I have been working quite a bit on the www.whatsrunning.net website since the release to add more smart features for the process database.

Also, I have finally gotten all the infrastructure in place to send out emails when a new update is live. The first email update was sent today and surprisingly, only 20% of the registered emailaddresses were invalid! Nevertheless, rooting out the bad apples is tiresome work...

While I usually only write about What's Running on this blog, I simply can't resist the temptation to share a link to my colleague Per's excellent café guide for all the cafés around the small island of Kungsholmen in the middle of Stockholm.

Enjoy it here: http://www.kroons.se/cafe/

What's Running 2.1 Released

Well, finally it is done! What's Running 2.1 released today on the 28th of July, which accidentally also happens to be my birthday! So, two things to celebrate at once!

As always, 2.1 was much later than I first expected, but I believe it will be a successful release. Lots of small and nifty features added (and many bugs crushed!).

Here is a screenshot:

Go check it out at http://www.whatsrunning.net/ while it is hot!

Just one last feature...

I admit it, I fell for the inevitable "just one last feature" before release. Most software developers fail to set a feature set and stick to that, heck - most software companies with quite rigorous processes, schedules and plans - fail to do that. There is always that one last feature that someone, be it an internal "champion" or an external customer, claims is a "make or break" feature. Having the financial muscles to say no or to stick to the feature plan is a difficult choice - and most people are too afraid to say no to a feature request. Especially if there is a customer that is requesting the feature. You don't want to be "hanged" for saying no to a customer request.

In my case I am the one doing everything from the coding to saying yes or no to the customer. And I said yes! I'll do it! And put it into 2.1... So, what I've done is starting to code again to enhance What's Running with yet another feature. Which of course means that 2.1 is delayed again... I'll try to put out a new beta Real Soon Now though...

Celebrating 20000 downloads.

Cheers everyone!

I'm just celebrating 20000 downloads at Download.com. When should I celebrate the next time? 50000 downloads? 100000 downloads?

2.1...

The elusive 2.1! My last blog entry was on April the 5th, more than 2 months ago. Since then I've been pretty busy not having very much time to work on What's Running.

Nevertheless, I've had a great time going for two vacations with my wife; one was an extended weekend to New York in the end of April and another one in the end of May spending 10 days in Jordan. Absolutely fantastic vacations both of them. I've learned a lot about middle east and meeting lots of friendly and lovely people.

I haven't been completely lazy with WR 2.1 though, I do have sent out 4 beta releases and I'm working on a release candidate which should be out real soon now. In the mean time, go fetch the beta release here http://www.whatsrunning.net/DLBeta.htm.

Also, I'm finally sprucing up the website with some more functionality.

So when is the 2.1 release going to happen? Real soon now! :-)

Moving towards 2.1

I have enjoyed seeing the number of people registering their email-address to receive information about updates - it is now close to 500 registered email-addresses. (The first mail will reveal how many of those who are fake :-) )

Having something to write about to all those people is of course necessary, so I've been busy creating a 2.1 version of What's Running which is soon to be released. It is mostly a bug-fix release but some features and enhancements have made me decide on the extra .1 to the version number.

One such feature: Go to the IP-view, select an established TCP-session, right-click "Lookup WHOIS info" and a browser window opens up with the remote end's WHOIS information. Extremly useful when you want to know exactly who is behind the remote IP that your applications are connecting to. The service of presenting the IP is from the website www.dnsstuff.com, who offers a stunning array of information about IP-addresses and DNS:es.

More info about the 2.1 release will follow soon!

Cosmic rays again...

Per, my distinguished colleague at work, reminded me of my almost two year old entry about cosmic rays.

As it turns out, cosmic rays vary in intensity depending on a number of factors as described in an interesting article in Nature.

Also, maybe you should get a geiger counter of your own?

Leveling out...

The first exitement is now over. Even though What's Running is still popular and running at a rate of approximately 200 downloads a day from download.com, the traffic from being a "new item" on several download sites are now mostly gone.

A lower interest is not necessarily a bad thing. The results so far are beyond my expectations. I've amassed a number of e-mail addresses of people interested in information about updates and I've received a fair bit of encouraging comments at various download sites for WR.

So what's next?
I'm currently following two paths that I hope will converge. Firstly, I want to enhance the functionality at whatsrunning.net to get a basic implementation of an application database.
Secondly, I'm fixing bugs and adding some nifty features to an update.

What to call the next version is one of the difficult choices. It wasn't very long ago I published a 2.0. Should the next version be 2.01? In my view that would imply that I have only fixed the most critical bugs. But I am actually adding some important features so maybe I should call it 2.1? or 2.5? or maybe even 3.0.

Time will tell!

Goal of next week

The download stats are coming in. Last week, after only three days, What's Running nearly made it into the top 25 in its category. This week, What's Running has a "popular" marker that might boost the download stats even further.

I'm actually quite humbled, I wasn't expecting that kind of interest.

Meanwhile, I'm working on an update which fixes minor things and adds a few new features. More about these features soon!

The first week

The first week of whatsrunning.net has been very interesting. Seeing hordes of people download your software is really encouraging. Watching the patterns of traffic on the webserver is also interesting.
Upload strategy
My strategy for uploading has been to start with Download.com. Being a "new" application on Download.com guarantees hits and downloads. From download.com, lots of other download sites (my current count after a week is roughly 15) fetch information and put it on their own sites. Mostly these sites are in a local language. Many hits on day 3 was from a Bulgarian site and the last two days the Italians have been storming in.

Of course, having lots of people downloading your software doesnt mean
a) That they are using it
or
b) That they think it's good.

Finding out what the users think about WR is next on my agenda...

What's Running 2.0 finally out...

Finally!

What's Running 2.0 is out. Months later than I thought, less features (and other features) than I thought at the beginning but overall I'm really satisfied.

Getting it done... is the hard part, deciding what needs to be fixed and what does not. And what good is a finished app if you dont have a website? So enter http://www.whatsrunning.net/, a site totally dedicated to What's Running.

I'll tell you more about plans and so on later on.

Impressive Open Source Projects

There are so many open source projects out there that you may be excused for gasping when reading the subject line.
Quite a few projects though make your eyes pop as they stand out in the crowd. There seem to be two kinds of projects; One where there are exceptional individuals championing the project (Linux, Boost) and another where projects originated as company internal and/or commercial projects or that companies are planning to make money out of them.

That's why many projects (all of those listed below) have full-time employees from various companies dedicated to the projects - i.e. there is a company making money out of it in the end (or hoping to make money :-)).

Impressive, beside being very useful products, is also that their software engineering practices are often way above their equivalents in the commercial world. I.e. they use careful release planning; track bugs meticulously and use regression test suites.

Here is my top six (in no particular order) of impressive projects:

Boost - very good C++ class libraries - make you wonder why you bother yourself sometimes :-)
Subversion - a version control system aiming to replace CVS
Linux kernel - no I do not use it - it is still impressive!
Mozilla - Mozilla browser - heaps of Netscape time and money spent here!
Eclipse - Eclipse IDE - heaps of IBM time and money spent here!
GNU Compiler Collection - The premier open source C++ (and other languages) compiler

Eureka!

This article discusses a revolutionary new way of processing waste and other materials and breaking them into oil, water and minerals. Nothing short of amazing!

I found the article in Bruce Eckels weblog

Cosmic rays

A common joke among programmers is that "a cosmic ray" changed a bit in memory and caused a bug. Often this is used as the humorous last resort excuse. Even though the probability of this is extremely low, this does actually happen in real life. Memory chips can alter it's state due to cosmic rays. And this is why computers whose operation is critical under all conditions use Error Correcting Memory which can detect and correct so called soft errors in the memory.

The impact of cosmic rays on memory chips have basically been known for decades. The consequence has usually been thought of as incorrect behaviour. However, a recent Princeton study shows that these soft errors, which can be induced by heat, represent a security threat even to Virtual Machines such as the Java VM and the .NET VM. The researchers are particularly concerned with the security of so called smart cards which are small and increasingly used to verify the identity of users.

Some more links:
IBM Research on the impact of cosmic rays on memory chips
Corsairs Whitepaper on ECC Memory