The internet offers a variety of task management web apps. These apps range from free to paid apps. Normally the free apps only offer a basic interface with task recording capabilities. But with “Wunderlist” you get a free task management solution that offers a lot more.

Introduction

Wunderlist is a free task management web app that lets you record your tasks and organize them. Like many other free task recording web apps, Wunderlist can be used to create to-do lists so you do not forget about the tasks that need completing. But in addition to the basic to-do list creation feature, the app lets you easily organize tasks, eliminate them, create lists of tasks, and search between tasks. And the best part is that you perform these functions via hotkeys. The hotkey support is what makes Wunderlist fast and stand out from the competition. Additionally the site provides desktop and smartphone clients that make it easier to add and read tasks from your Wunderlist task lists.

Usage

You start using Wunderlist by creating an account on the site. This requires you to only type in an email address and a password. If you prefer, you can sign in by connecting through your Facebook account.

With the account created you will be automatically signed in and task list will be displayed. This task list will actually reveal the hotkey shortcuts that can be used on the site.

New tasks can be entered using the space provided on top of the task list.

Tasks in the list can be organized simply by dragging them into their new positions. In case you want to create a new list and place tasks into it, start by first typing the “L” key. This is the keyboard shortcut for creating a new list. This new list will appear on the right pane where all the task lists are displayed. From here you can simply rename your newly created tasks list.

The right pane is also where the search bar is located. This search bar can be used to find tasks from your lists.

To prioritize tasks within a list you can click on the star icon next to them to highlight their importance. To indicate that a task has been completed you can click on the checkbox on their left. This will shift the tasks to the “Recently done” category located at the bottom of the list.

To the top right of the page you will find options to print out all your tasks, email them to somebody, or share the tasks with CloudApp that generates a public URL for your tasks.

Wunderlist also offers free desktop and smartphone clients for various platforms that you can use to easily record new tasks to your Wunderlist tasks lists and read tasks off them.

Conclusion

Along with support for hotkeys, lists, and printing, Wunderlist also offers clients for iOS devices, Android, Windows, and Mac. And all of that for free. A task management like this is simply excellent.

Check out Wunderlist by clicking here.

myTinyTodo supports as many to-do lists as you can think of, offers features such as hiding/showing completed tasks, and uses AJAX to give you drag and drop functionality. Best of all, it is free, open source, and will install on just about any web server, even shared hosting accounts.

System Requirements

To get started, you will need PHP 5.2.0 or greater, the PHP extensions php_mysql (for the MySQL version), php_pdo, and php_pdo_sqlite (for the SQLite version). If, for any reason, you do not have access to a MySQL server with your hosting account, use the SQLite version.

Features

Desktop app look and feel – myTinyTodo uses jQuery for many of its effects and features, and it should be compatible with the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Opera, and any other modern browser that supports javascript. This gives you the ability to add, remove, and even drag and drop items without refreshing the page.

Easy List Creation – To add a new list, all you have to do is click the plus button and give it a name. It will immediately appear.

Task Management – The “new task” bar at the top allows you to quickly type in tasks and press enter.  You can also click the pencil icon and enter a note, add tags, set the priority, and set a due date. All of these are optional. For example, if I have posts to write for MakeTechEasier, I know the due date, but still add the topics and check them off as I complete them.

Notes – If you paste URLs into the notes, they will become live links, and the show/hide feature allows you to quickly show all current notes.  Furthermore, the search function gives you the ability to search through both list items and their notes.

Export and Publish – You can export lists as CSV (comma separated values) or iCalendar files (supported by many calendar and to-do applications). You can also publish lists and then send the RSS feeds to collaborators or your other devices.

Mobility – Because it all works in your browser, you have the advantage of using it anywhere on any device.  It even includes a mobile interface.

Password protection – If you want your lists, tasks, and notes to be private, you can enable password protection so that only you can access it.

myTinyTodo is lightweight, easy to install, and an open source alternative to proprietary cloud-based task applications. It has just enough features to be effective, but it is not at all bloated. It is currently available in over 30 languages.

myTinyTodo

There is no lack of task management tools for Linux, but if you are looking for a simple and no-frill to-do list app, Pytask would be a good candidate.

To install Pytask in Ubuntu:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nisshh/pytask-releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pytask

Once installed, go to Accessories -> Pytask.

Pytask is really easy to use. Click on the “+” button on the top left corner to add a new task. There is no popup window or whatsoever. You just click on the respective field and enter your task details.

When you have completed your task, you can just check the Completed box or just click the “-” button to delete the task.

Search Filter

Pytask comes with a very handy task search function which make it very suitable for project management. Let say that there are plenty of to-do for your current project. To search any of the task, you can use the filter to narrow down the search result. You can use any of the task field (Name, Priority, Due date, project, completed) and whether the search terms should be included/excluded in the field.

You can also add several search conditions to further narrow down the search results. There is no restriction to the number of search condition you can use, but you will usually locate the task you want by the third condition. The search result will appear as you type and there is no lag at all.

Pytask indicator

Pytask also comes with an indicator applet that can show/hide the Pytask GUI.

Wrapping up

Pytask is lacking features like reminders, strike through for completed tasks, and many other stuff, but it is never mind to be a full-featured tool. For a simple task management tool, it has definitely done its job well. And yes, it is lightweight and run blazingly fast. Do give it a try and let us know if it is your piece of cake.

Pytask

There are tons of task management apps available for free but Process Hacker seems to be the most feature rich and popular among PC users. The best part of the application is that it’s portable and thus can be used from a removable drive on multiple computers without installation.

Why use another Task Management Program ?

Process hacker provides some unique features which are not present in the default Windows task manager. Some of the important features are listed below:

• View a hierarchical tree view of running processes – not present in Windows task manager.
• Restart a particular process, without ending it and running it manually from command prompt or from “New Task”
• More control on the affinity and priority of a process.
• View process heaps, DEP status and other environment variables.
• Use different methods to terminate running processes.
• Bypass different forms of process protection.

There are more features too, if you are a power user and want more control on how the running processes are handled, how much memory is allocated to each program and other parameters. Process Hacker is the way to go.

Usage

Once you have downloaded the package, extract it and open the X86 or X64 folder – this depends on the ID of your operating system. Then double-click the ProcessHacker.exe file to launch the Process Hacker task management window. Here is how it looks like:

Managing Running Processes

All the running process are listed in the process tab in a tree view – thus listing all the sub processes in hierarchical manner. Right clicking a process gives you some useful options -

• Changing the process priority – high, normal, low, real-time, above normal, below normal and idle.
• Terminate the active process or the whole process tree
• Bring the application window to front, minimize, maximize or restore it.
• Changing the affinity controls – determining which CPU threads are allowed to execute the process.
• Create a process dump file
• Run the process for a separate user, determine the I/O priority or completely detach it from the debugger

The best part is the “Properties” window which shows a graphical view of the process performance. You can know the memory consumption and CPU performance for a particular process, along with the Input Output threads the process is currently handling. This feature is not available in default Windows task manager.

Another advantage of using Process Hacker is that you can know which applications will immediately close if you terminate a system process. This is because all the applications or programs using that process will be listed in the tree view.

The Services Tab

The services tab shows a list of Windows services installed on your computer. Most of these services are either drivers or important updates installed from Microsoft Update.

There are some useful pieces of information available next to each service.  Here are some common examples:

• You can know the exact installation path of a running service by right clicking a service -> properties -> Binary path
• Know whether the service auto starts with Windows or not – from the “Start Type”
• Know for which user account the service is triggered.
• Know whether the service is a driver, a shared process or a registered Microsoft service.
• Which DLL files are associated with the concerned service.
• Which permissions are granted to the running service – switch to the “Security” tab and check the “System Permissions” section.

All these details are not shown in Windows task manager, if you are really interested in knowing the inner details of running Windows services – Process Hacker will not disappoint you.

The Network Tab

One of the most impressive features of Process Hacker is the ability to know detailed information about incoming and outgoing network connections. You get to know about the network protocol associated with a particular process, which local address or remote address the process is using, what is the current state and the remote port of the running process.

The details get updated in real-time and whenever the state of a process changes – a highlight is automatically reflected, an example is shown below

This is very useful when you want to know which programs are transferring data to the internet through your computer’s network connection.

There are other useful features as well, this includes searching for a process by name, viewing the pagefile history, showing all the hidden processes or filtering file handles and shared DLL’s. This program is definitely not for novice users, geeks will find it extremely useful.

What’s your favorite task management utility for Windows? Please share your ideas in the comments section.

In the past, there has not been an easy way for noobs like us to understand what is behind the scene. With File Inspect, this suddenly become a breeze (and you can easily become an expert and boast to your friends).

File Inspect Library is an educational site that provides detailed information of all (if not, most) the processes/files running in your Windows machine. You simply type in the process/file name and it will bring you its description, functionality and whether it is safe to delete/disable them. Cool, isn’t it?

Let’s delve into it further.

When you go to the site – http://fileinspect.com, you will find a search bar, a list of the most popular files and a list of the most dangerous files on the home page.

Type in the process/file name in the search bar to start searching. As you type, it will fetch the results on the fly and displays them in a dropdown list.

The search result is categorize into different status: safe, unsafe and dangerous. A safe file is denoted by a green icon, unsafe with yellow icon and dangerous with a red icon. In some occasions, you will find that there are several entries of the same file name marked with different colors (see screenshot below). The reason being that some viruses/worms disguise themselves as the filename of some important processes and create havoc in your computer.

Click on the search result to get more information.

On the information page, you will find a great deal of information, including what is the process’s functionality, where it is located, is it safe to remove, (if yes) how to remove etc.

At this moment, File Inspect is still in beta version as the developer is testing out the algorithm and making sure the file description is up-to-date. In the final version, there will also be some extra widgets that you can use to show where have all the bad files spread to.

Is File Inspect everything I need to protect my computer?

In actual fact, NO! Unlike any other antivirus or firewall software, File Inspect Library does not safe guard the safety of your computer. It is only meant to be used as an informational hub for you to get educated on the various files/processes running behind the scene. You still have to play your part to install a good antivirus and Firewall software and perform regular system scan.

If you haven’t or aren’t too sure how to check for running processes on your system, press Ctrl + Alt + Del and a utility named Task Manager will popup. The Processes tab of Task Manager should give you a list of all the processes running on your system and this is where you’ll see multiple svchost.exe processes, along with the rest of the processes running on your system.

The svchost processes have, until now, been a mystery to me. I mean, I don’t remember starting them, I definitely don’t use them but there they are using precious memory on my machine and making me feel helpless. The helplessness got to me and I had to do something about it, or at least find out what purpose svchost.exe plays in the grand order of things.

I did some research and came across a Microsoft article which says that

Svchost.exe is a generic host process name for services that run from dynamic-link libraries (DLLs).

This gibberish basically means that svchost.exe is a utility used to load System services which require DLL files. I know that is oversimplifying things, but that should be enough for most people.

Since I was more curious and wanted to see the services that each svchost instance was responsible, I googled for tools which would give me this info and came across Svchost viewer.

Svchost viewer is a simple and useful utility that analyzes your system for all running instances of svchost.exe and tell you the services each instance is responsible for.

It’ll also tell you the amount of memory each instance of svchost is consuming and the number of threads that it has open.

When you first start Svchost Viewer, it’ll take a couple of seconds to analyze your system and will then display all the running instances of the svchost.exe process, followed by their process ID in a tree like structure.

Click on any one individual process you’ll be able to see more data about the process, like the number of services it is responsible for, number of active threads it has and the amount of memory that is being consumed by the process. Expand the tree and you will be able to see more information about the individual services along with a handy description of the process.

The best thing about Svchost viewer is that it doesn’t even require an install. It comes as a self contained executable and can be run from a USB flash drive if required. Very handy when you want to use it for troubleshooting on a friend’s computer.

Svchost viewer is an excellent utility to have around and probe a little deeper into the inner workings of the operating system. It might even be helpful when you are looking to save some previous RAM and want to see the services that are taking up the most of it and can be killed safely.