and/vs I guess to call this some kind of versus match is a bit of overkill. The overall goal of these two excellent applications is quite similar but I’ve come to find that they are very different in their presentation. MemMaid has been a staple application for me over the past couple of years – starting a while back with my iPaq 2210 and continuing on through all the devices I’ve owned since. SKTools is a relatively new addition to my arsenal of applications, and while I have to admit it doesn’t get nearly the attention on my devices as MemMaid, I can’t honestly say its due to a failure in the application. This "review" is a follow-up to conversation held a while back with some of us here at JAMM and some readers. This will be written by stepping through MemMaid and touching on the similar options available in SKTools – hopefully giving good comparison between the two. Hopefully once the dust settles, you’ll be able to make an informed decision about which one might be best for you. Please note: This is NOT an in depth review of every possible feature, every customization, etc. These two tools are so powerful and accomplish so many things that I think you would need many, many pages to cover everything in depth. Also, don’t look for this to be a training class in the inner workings of Windows Mobile. I still don’t get paid for this… Disclosure: Dinarsoft provided a review copy of MemMaid 2.0. I paid for SKKV SKTools myself. SKKV did offer a review copy but I got the program for very, very cheap on a pocketland.net sale so I figured I would buy it and contribute to the cause. Also of note is that I owned and paid for the prior version of MemMaid, so technically I bought both apps… just separated by a span of many moons. Hit the link… it’s about to get good! What do they do? SKTools and MemMaid are both key applications in rectifying what I can only call memory mis-management in Windows Mobile. Since the days long gone by of Pocket PC 2002 and earlier there’s been a feeling that Windows Mobile (WM) has horrible memory management skills, and as end users our only option is to rely on third party tools to clean up the mess. This isn’t absolutely true – for the most part WM is capable of handling most every memory management issue with built in utilities and automatic processes, up to and including the good old fashioned soft reset. However (for lack of a better word) its a pain in the arse to perform this cleanup manually. You could soft reset everyday and reclaim some ram that way, you could go into the memory app panel and stop running programs, and you could go into PIE and have it clean up its own cache, but why should you have to spend 5 minutes a day messing around with that when you can run simply run a program and have it all done automatically? Installation Normally I wouldn?t even touch on install since this is a relatively simple process. I do have 1 issue that I want to cover. SKTools – the only way to download the software is via a ZIP file, not matter if its from their site, Pocketland or Handango you always get a zip file. As most of you know ZIP files are not able to be downloaded via PIE without a hack to do it. Unfortunately even with the hack I?ve never gotten a good clean download to my device. Cleaning up Overall both applications really excel at cleaning up your mobile mess. The difference here is IMHO purely aesthetic with a few exceptions. It’s important to note that both products also support a scheduled cleaning option. Be sure to give those a look as the options are a little different between the regular cleaner and the scheduled cleaner. Here’s a side by side of running the cleaner portion of the apps (cleaned amounts are small as I’m running them both on the same device and I upgraded the ROM the same day of the writing): Realistically, I could through each one of these item by item and compare what they do and don’t clean. BORING. I’m not going to. They each do a fair job cleaning up after PIE, including the cache as well as history, bad registry keys and the like. Overall I find they both take care of the basics very well and have fairly similar clean up numbers on each run. Memmaid wins in this area for a couple reasons.

• It’s A LOT simpler to figure out what I do and don’t want to cleaned on a particular run with MemMaid. Granted SKTools is much better at showing me exactly what I’m cleaning – excellent for the true power users – but I’d rather click a checkbox and let it roll. (Personal Preference)
• Memmaid is pre-configured to allow for the cleanup of Netfront and Opera browsers, as well as allowing for the user to configure two custom folders to automatically clean. I haven’t yet figured out how/if I can configure this on SKTools, but given the popularity of these two 3rd party browsers I think its important to have them included as well.
• MemMaid does one other thing I like (not just in this area) – it protects me from myself. New to version 2.0 is the Advanced/Protected modes. Protected is just that. It prevents me from doing something stupid by shutting of parts of the program that could potentially damage the stability of the OS. Advanced lets me do it all. SKTools when it runs shows a bunch of detailed info, but unfortunately I have no idea how dangerous some of these things are to just delete – frankly I’m not Werner (yet)!

Freeing up the RAM Such a simple concept. Realistically Windows Mobile can and does handle memory management. Programs move in and out of memory depending on what state they are in, what your level of interaction with them is, etc. But every once in a while, you may find that your memory levels are bit low. Hitting the program menu shortcut for freeing up the RAM on your device can quickly give you some extra program space. Typically this done by a couple different things like mimicking a low memory state on the device (letting WM manage things) and send hibernate messages to running apps. One key thing I like more about MemMaid … MB vs KB. Less math. Databases Alright. So … admittedly I don’t know a darned thing about this. Here’s what I know. Databases hold data. Not necessarily in a base (all your base belong to me) but the kind with tables and rows. I also understand that at certain times, some of you (and again I have not idea why) might get the inkling to go in and play around with your PIM databases, like mail, notifications and things of this nature. You folks are NUTS. Truth be told, there are times when you’re going to need to access this information and perform maintenance. Just a reality of using any computer system that sometimes applications as they are uninstalled don’t clean up well after themselves, sometimes you’ll end up with duplicate contacts, duplicate notifications, etc etc. Of note in this area is that although both applications look very different in their approach, overall the functionality is again quite similar. Both programs include the ability to edit file types (.asx, .wmv, etc) and Dinarsoft tells me that they are also able to "re-create activesync" should the notifications get messed up in your poking around – and the software is smart enough to handle the differences between WM5 and WM6 so that it recreates the right things. That hopefully means something to someone reading this … I just smiled and said "sounds cool". Registry If you’ve never modified the registry on your mobile, you’re not doing it right. End of story. A couple screen shots below will pretty much sum this section up. I’ve got one favorite I want to mention, and that is the tap/hold function in MemMaid that shows you the current location you are in the registry, SKTools similarly shows this information in the info pane below the paths. Overall, I’ve done a bunch of edits with both applications and found functionality do be great on both, no issues to report, nothing overly special to say… but then again I’m not beating up my registry everyday! Tweakin! This is one of my favorite parts. Tweaks. Tweaks are what separate those of us who know we are about to do something stupid … and those of us smart enough to know better. Since I first started using PPCs I’ve fiddled. Never in such a way as to put me in the same realm as a Werner or the folks at xda-developers but I’ve been there waiting for someone else to do the heavy lifting and point me in the right direction (think store manager). Neither MemMaid or SKTools disappoint in this department! MemMaid offers a nicer layout (sorry – recurring theme I know) but SKTools definitely shines in this area. Neither program is going to get into the same realm as say Tweaks2k2 but I think SKTools comes pretty close. Look for MemMaid to perform the basics (and essentials) like IE, Opera and file system cache sizes, cache locations, and a DLL optimization "wizard" that lets you know what you can safely relocate and what you shouldn’t. SKTools does all of this and A LOT more including disabling messaging bubbles, setting system font sizes, calendar options and others. MemMaid SKTools Junk in the trunk Sometimes you’ve got good junk in your trunk, and sometimes you’ve got a little too much bad junk in your trunk. Every time you install something, there’s a good chance it thinks it needs to add some stuff to your today screen and most seem to think their program needs to run the second your device starts up. Personally, with as little memory as my device has on boot, I’d really prefer that they didn’t do that. But, since they don’t ask I don’t mind not asking them if I can turn stuff off or kick it off my today screen. Of note in this section is that both programs will allow you to re-order items, stop them or delete them (depending on the item) MemMaid is the only one that lets you disable them. More importantly – unlike the Today screen settings found in Windows Mobile, these applications give a lot more information including things like the plugin type, what program installed it, and the associated .dll file for the plugin! MemMaid SKTools Where’s Mah Filez? This go around MemMaid has made some really good improvements, so I’m going to focus on those because well they’re cool. Originally MemMaid featured a Storage Usage tab that provided you really good insight into where you were using up all your storage (note: TreeSize Pro is my favorite Windows app that looks like this). Additionally the storage tab now provides a file finder that can handle wildcards and size options, a cab installer (WM2003 people say YAY!), storage card tools and my personal favorite a listing of installed applications. Big deal you say … a listing of installed applications. Woo-dee-doo. Well this is much more than a listing, and a lot more like an un-installer on growth enhancing medications. MemMaid now keeps track of installed applications, along with what registry changes those applications made, how big the associated files are, and what files got installed where – and it lets you uninstall as well. For example: Also of note is that the cab installer will prevent the cab file from being deleted, which is really nice if you’re like me and keep your cabs on the SD Card for re-install/easy access later. So, how’s that for knowing where you filez at? Ok fine. Here’s some more screens from MemMaid and SKTools showing you what they’ve got to offer. Before everyone beats me up .. yes I know SKTools tracks the install information as well. See below: MemMaid SKTools What’s your speed? Processor usage. The bain of our existence. Never enough memory, never a fast enough processor. A couple nice things to note here. The processor usage info is constantly updated in both applications, and both apps give you the option to compact the process – basically clean up memory utilization of a specific process. Very handy if you think someone is sneaking cookies from the cookie jar! MemMaid SKTools What Else? Naturally both programs don’t include all the same stuff. Throughout this "review" we’ve looked at things from a starting point of MemMaid and worked our way through the applications. Naturally there’s a couple things we’ve not seen along the way that are of interest in SKTools. I’m not going to re-hash the extras like the cab installer that MemMaid has compared to SKTools as we’ve already seen those. So here they are: Benchmark, Registry Optimizer, Find Emtpy Folders (and remove ‘em), Sim contacts, Sim SMS, Aliases (create/manage quick launch) and the biggest of them all Backup… which I’m only going to mention. I’ll hit this a little harder later in a backup tools review. Don’t Be Square Admittedly not everyone uses a square screen and I wanted to make sure that we covered one other aspect you aren’t going to see in any of the other screen shots – and that is real estate. You lose a lot when you move over to a square screen and so sometimes compromises have to be made. Check out some of the shots below for a slightly different view compared to the ones above. * Also note VGA is supported if you have one of those rarely seen devices! MemMaid SKTools Wrapping it all up Alright… frankly I’m tired. How about you? At the very beginning I made mention that I’d been using MemMaid for a long time on my devices. To be honest – that is not going change. I love MemMaid and its not going anywhere. But, I think if we’ve shown anything throughout this entire process its that MemMaid and SKTools are very similar applications and for me the decision boils down to one thing – feel. MemMaid feels better. This is hard to explain but I liken it to the difference between Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Very similar operating systems, both excellent in their own right… but XP just felt a lot better. Maybe it’s the graphics, maybe its the layout… I don’t know. I think it’s the same with these two excellent applications. So who wins? Nobody… and everybody. Both of these programs will do everything you need when it comes to on device memory management and because of that you really can’t go wrong either way. Each program also includes some extras so take a look at those as they may be the selling point for you…for me, both programs are staying.

Related posts:

1. Review – MemMaid 1.72
2. New MemMaid (1.72) Public Beta
3. New SKTools Version 3.1.1 – Adds Registry Explorer
4. SKTools 4.4.7 Released!
5. MemMaid 1.72 Release & DinarSoft GiveAway Offer!