[vox-tech] [OT] MS Windows nice

[Peter Jay Salzman]

On Mon 22 Jan 07, 11:03 AM, Harold Lee <harold at hotelling.net> said:
> Peter Jay Salzman wrote:
> >1. Is there a cron for Windows?  I would like to run something like:
> >
> >      cd /path/to/application
> >      ant create.reference.data
> >
> >   before coming into work.
> >
> >  
> Look up the command "at". I think if you run "at help" on the command 
> line, it'll help you out.
> 
> >2. Is there a nice for Windows?
> >
> >      I don't think the ref data is built any faster when it has full
> >      control of my system.  I really would like to read digg.com while
> >      the data is being built.  Is there a way to nice a process in 
> >      Windows?
> >
> >  
> MS discourages people from playing around with process priorities 
> because, in my experience, it is easy for processes to get CPU starved 
> or to hog the CPU - not a lot of subtlety in the scheduler, I think. 
> Better to just run it when you're not around.
> 
> My guess is that you're killing the disk, writing tons of data as fast 
> as you can pull it over a gigabit ethernet - if that's the case, and you 
> need to be able to use the computer meanwhile, you could always add a 
> sleep() call (or Java equivalent) to wait a little while after each 
> write to disk. Also look at how much data you're gathering before each 
> write - maybe it'll help Windows if you build a larger buffer of binary 
> data and do fewer, larger writes... just a thought.
> 
> -Harold

Actually, that might be a really good idea.  The reference data generator
isn't my code -- it's actually very very old.  My current project is to
update the financial models, so my job wasn't to "get" the data; it's what
to do with it once it's "gotten".   :-)

I like your ideas.  I'll take a look at it tomorrow.

Thanks!
Pete

-- 
How VBA rounds a number depends on the number's internal representation.
You cannot always predict how it will round when the rounding digit is 5.
If you want a rounding function that rounds according to predictable rules,
you should write your own.
              -- MSDN, on Microsoft VBA's "stochastic" rounding function

Peter Jay Salzman, email: p at dirac.org web: http://www.dirac.org/p    
PGP Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E  70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D