Symbian in Motion

Y-Tasks by Dr Jukka

by Zach at 9:54 am | July 05th, 2007 | Category: Application Reviews, Freeware, Utilities

Jukka strikes again - and this time with a brand new offering that in my opinion, blows other task utilities out of the water. I think that Jukka probably had a tough time naming this app because to call it a “Task Manager” doesn’t really encompass all of its capabilities. Available to the public this Saturday July 7th on his new site www.DrJukka.com, Y-Tasks is actually a suite of utilities and diagnostic tools that are sure to please even the most advanced S60 user. In this review I’ll go through each of the seven components that make up the Y-Tasks suite and show you why this new freeware app is a must-have.

The Y-Tasks home screen shown above gives you access to each of the components within the app and each component performs entirely unique functions. The design of the app is also quite conducive to future additions so I’m excited to see what new components are added in the coming months and beyond.

  • Filetypes

The Filetypes component allows you to view all recorded filetypes on our device and change file associations. How is that useful? Well just one example is MP3s. By default MP3 files will open in the integrated music player but now you can easily change the mapping so that they will open in a third-party player like MyStrands Social Player instead.

  • Apps & Tasks

This is the actual task manager component in the app. Apps & Tasks will allow to to view installed apps and running tasks and display info about each item. Beyond that you can also easily bring running tasks to the forefront and even close or kill them as you wish.

  • Processes

The Processes component allows you to browse through all of the processes and threads running on your device. You can view detailed info on each list item including IDs and capabilities, and you can also kill items from the main Options menu.

  • Crash Monitor

Here’s where Y-Tasks gets even more unique. The Crash monitor can be set to run in the background even while Y-Tasks is closed and allows you to keep a detailed record of every crash and closure that takes place on your device. This is a very useful tool, especially if you are experiencing problems with any apps on your device.

With regard to the ability to run certain components of Y-Tasks in the background, in the first screenshot at the top of this post (The Y-Tasks home screen) you can see that two icons are ‘illuminated’ in green. This indicates that they are currently running in the background and will continue to run even after Y-Tasks is exited.

  • Memory status

Memory status gives you a real-time view of the memory state of each drive on your device, as well as RAM. There is also a unique option to “Reserve memory”. This will reserve a block of RAM (any size you wish) and prevent it from being occupied by any app.

  • Trace

The Trace component is a great tool that gives you a graphical monitor of your RAM and c: drive memory status. Just like the Crash monitor, Trace can be set to run in the background even after closing Y-Tasks and will keep a continuously updated graphical consumption chart. This is a great tool for analyzing the performance effects of individual apps and really does come in handy!

  • Fonts

The last component in the initial Y-Tasks offering is a viewer that allows you to sample each and every font on your device. To use it you can add text manually or from a file/clipboard. Then you can access all of your existing fonts and apply them from the Options menu.

It’s really no surprise that Jukka has come out with such a great utility for his task management offering. I really enjoy how detailed many of the functions are - and yet you don’t have to be a programmer to operate and make use of them. As I said, I can’t wait to see what new components will be added to future versions of Y-Tasks but I’m also quite happy with the app in its current state. I highly recommend that you head over to Jukka’s site and check out this great app for yourself.

subscribe to comments made about this post

Viewing 66 Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus

Mexico