Daily Mac App: App Tamer

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; line-height: 24px;"></span><br /> <div style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 12px; font: normal normal normal 13px/19px Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 640px; padding-bottom: 0.6em; padding-left: 0.6em; padding-right: 0.6em; padding-top: 0.6em;"> <div mce_style="text-align: center;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: center;"> <a href="http://www.stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/" mce_href="http://www.stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/" style="color: #ff4b33; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; line-height: 1.5;"><img alt="App Tamer application manager" class="aligncenter" height="232" mce_src="http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/9476/apptamer.jpg" src="http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/9476/apptamer.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 0px; clear: both; color: #444444; display: block; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; height: 386px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 8px; max-width: 640px; width: 456px;" width="274" /></a></div> <div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"> Last week we covered BatterySqueezer, an app designed to throttle browser processes when backgrounded. Today we'll take a look at App Tamer, a similar non-Mac App Store app that takes things further.</div> <div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"> App Tamer goes beyond throttling and will actually put applications into suspended animation. It also will tackle any program that you wish, not just limited to browsers. By default it will pause resource-heavy apps such as Photoshop and Chrome when not in use, saving all but a tiny percentage of their CPU usage.</div> <div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"> Configuration options include the ability to put a shadow mask over paused programs, helping to identify them as suspended. You also can define the period of activity before App Tamer does its thing. App Tamer will wake the paused app with user-configurable time periods, which by default is every 5 minutes. This helps prevent the app from crashing out.</div> <div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"> When you switch back to a paused application, App Tamer resuscitates the program with almost instant results -- there didn't seem much in the way of perceivable lag in my testing on a 2011 MacBook Pro. Everything then runs normally until you click away, putting the app back into suspended animation.</div> <div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"> In my rather unscientific testing, App Tamer more or less killed all CPU demands of paused applications. This led to much more free resources without the need to kill the apps when not in use. Your milage, as they say, will vary -- but a free trial is available, so you can see whether it's going to do what you need without commitment.</div> <div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;"> So, if you're looking for something that goes beyond just browser throttling -- App Tamer will set you back $15 and should help you reclaim CPU-cycles, reduce heat and increase your multi-tasking battery life.</div> </div> </div>

Daily Mac App: App Tamer

Last week we covered BatterySqueezer, an app designed to throttle browser processes when backgrounded. Today we'll take a look at ...

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