Process manager Peek-a-Boo 1.4 adds Special Technology

There are several utilities that allow you to see all the processes currently open on your Mac. For example, one that I have used for quite some time is AppWatcher. These utilities are especially useful for tracking background applications (such as of the type "appe") that do not appear in the Applications menu. If you think one of these processes/applications is causing a problem, you can "kill" the process via these utilities.

Another super utility in this category is Clarkwood Software's Peek-a-Boo. Recently upgraded to version 1.4, it not only lists each open process but tells you what % of the CPU's time each process is using. This can alert you to applications that are "sucking up" a lot of CPU time even when they are not the active (front) application. Such processes can cause a general slowdown of your Mac.

New in version 1.4, Peek-a-Boo features "Special Technology." This new feature allows you to a assign a priority to a given process (Low, Medium or High), thereby forcing the CPU to give most of its processing time to the application(s) you designate as High while reducing the CPU time to those assigned a Low priority.

If you use Peek-a-Boo, you should also get Clearway's NULL. When launched, all it does it "absorb CPU cycles that are not being used by any other application." As explained more in its Read Me file, this results in Peek-a-Boo giving a more accurate picture of CPU usage by other applications. (Thanks, Monty Solomon and MWJ.)

[Sorry. I had mistakenly posted Peek-a-Boo 1.3 initially. This has now been corrected.]