Talk:JkDefrag

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article was nominated for deletion on Sept. 16, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents 1 NPOV 2 Notability 3 Superscript soup 4 Notability

[edit] NPOV

The article was tagged for "cleanup". See WP:NPOV. I can't see how it could be re-written to make it more neutral than it is already. Passive tense, perhaps? Any suggestions? --41.242.137.229 20:51, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello,

I tagged it a couple of days ago after coming across the it via an other editors contributions page. I looked over the AfD and saw that Rita said the article should have been tagged. I looked over the article and saw that it read like and advertisement and need NPOV improvements and tagged it as such. After a discussion with Rita, she stepped up to the plate and really did a great job rewriting it in a NPOV way.

Kudos to her.

Jeremy (Jerem43 22:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC))

[edit] Notability

I am curious to see what the deleted article had to say. JkDefrag is notable in many ways, especially since it is the first GPL-licensed free defragmentation utility for Windows, competing with the mighty Diskeeper, PerfectDisk, O&O Defrag, and the like. RitaSkeeter 18:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

See the notability guideline on how Wikipedia defines notability. This criteria is necessary because articles that do not conform to the notability guideline could not pass verifiability and could not be checked for neutrality. You can ask the old article to be restored at WP:DELREV, but don't bet on it unless you can demonstrate notability. -- intgr [talk] 18:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I have temporarily restored the deleted article at User:Spryde/JkDefrag so you can review it. When you are done, please tag with {{db-userreq}}. -- Satori Son 20:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why this article is non-notable, in spite of the lack of press coverage. Many press articles covering commercial defrag utilities are dated 2003-2005, but JkDefrag is a more recent product, achieving prominence only in 2007. A google search results in 711,000 results, and the program is mentioned in prominent software sites:

• Snapfiles
• Majorgeeks
• Softpedia
• Download.com

This must account for something RitaSkeeter 09:44, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me put it this way: how could the article ever pass the verifiability policy if no publications have substantially covered it? The notability guideline doesn't exist for the purpose of pissing off contributors, but to guarantee a minimal level of sources and editors for articles. Having its download up on important sites does not help that one bit. Note that I'm just trying to explain how Wikipedia works; I have nothing against JkDefrag and I have no intention to nominate the for deletion or anything. -- intgr [talk] 20:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

If it takes the PC Magazines a year to write another article on Defrag programs, does that mean that the article must be deleted until such time as the program is reviewed? Why then is Contig notable? I can find only one review of Contig, and that's a blog post. I'm curious, that's all. Also, who gets to delete the {{Notability}} tag? Only admins, or anyone? How long before the sword of damocles falls again? RitaSkeeter 23:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Nobody says that contig is notable, see WP:ININ. No, the article does not satisfy the notability guideline until it has (1) significant coverage in (2) multiple (3) independent (4) reliable sources. Anyone can remove the notice, but they shouldn't as long as the problems are un-addressed -- this would just annoy people. -- intgr [talk] 00:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why the opening sentence "JkDefrag is a disk defragmenting utility for Windows, and is the first open source defragmenting project of its kind" does not establish the notability of the product.

Is it possible to get someone at WikiPedia to give a ruling to say "this article is notable" as a permanent policy, or can someone else come along a week later and delete it again? RitaSkeeter 23:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The quoted sentence does not make it any easier for the article to satisfy core Wikipedia policies, which, as explained above, is the reason behind the notability guideline. And no, decisions on Wikipedia are made based on consensus, and consensus can change. -- intgr [talk] 00:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The online newsletter, Windows Secrets (circulation 270,000+), endorsed jkDefrag (see Issue 122, 9/13/2007) as a worthy defrag tool and provided a download link. How's that for notability? --Housemost

[edit] Superscript soup

Now that there are a ton of references, including printed articles and online reviews in computer magazines, hopefully the smug AfD set can cause trouble somewhere else. We need to reorganise the article to make it more readable and more "encyclopedic", whatever that means. Donn Edwards 07:40, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

• Significant coverage in "Defragmentation freeware outpaces native tools in Windows" in WinComputing April 2007

JkDefrag 3.7 (named for its creator, J.C. Kessels of Holland) uses Windows' own native MoveFile APIs (the same subroutines used by DEFRAG itself) to do its work, so using the program entails little risk of data corruption.

The application is standalone; it can be run in any directory and requires no installation, so it can even be run from a removable drive as part of a portable software toolkit. Any mountable read-write file system in Windows can be defragmented with it.

Some of the program's more sophisticated features are the sorts of things you usually only see in defragmentation software you pay for. It allows you to move seldom-used files to the end of the disk, or force all files to move to the front of the disk (i.e., as a prelude to resizing a partition). The utility also moves all directory structures to the front of the disk, creates a free-space buffer at the front 1% of the disk, and frees up space in the MFT reserved zone whenever possible.

However, it does not perform any more advanced file placement than that, possibly because Windows itself (XP and Vista) has internal management for those functions. (It's been suggested to the freeware's author that JkDefrag be instructed to not move files that have been tagged by the prefetch optimizer, and he plans to eventually include this feature whenever possible.)

The program is both free and open-source; it's been made available under the GNU General Public License in both 32- and 64-bit implementations. Along with the Visual C++ source code, the author has also provided a DLL library that allows the program to be implemented from other applications. Note: To make the program's options a little easier to deal with, cohort Emiel Wieldraaijer has written a GUI command interface for JkDefrag called JkDefragGUI.

• and in "Must-have Windows utilities for 20 essential tasks" in ComputerWorld and Network World Asia July 2007:

Disk defragmentation

Windows' native Defrag application, based on the long-running Diskeeper defragmentation program, has never been very good, although it's been incrementally improved over time. After Microsoft started including a native file-defragmentation API in Windows (starting with Windows 2000), many individual programmers stepped up to create defrag tools of their own.

A number of freeware defrag programs offer similar functionality. Of those, the best I've found so far is the open-source JkDefrag from Jeroen Kessels. It can be run in a graphical mode, from the command line or even as a screen saver. While I'm not a fan of file-placement options -- it's not always clear what kind of performance benefit they provide -- JkDefrag has a slew of them, including the ability to move the least used and least accessed files to the end of the disk. One flaw: JkDefrag doesn't preserve any files specified in the Windows prefetch layout folder, so prefetching will break if you use JkDefrag consistently. (This isn't fatal; it just might have an unanticipated performance impact.)

• Mentioned in "Boxed Utility Blowout" in Computer Power User magazine September 2007 pg 66-68

• Mentioned in Freeware/Open Source for Windows Weekly Summary by Todd Ogasawara on O'Reilly Windows Devcentre July 2007

• Nominated "Repair Tool of the Week" in TechNibble August 2007 Donn Edwards 16:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• Mentioned in PC Tune-up Newsletter by Mark Edwards, September 13, 2007, Issue 122

Free stand-alone disk defragmentation tool

Defragmenting your hard drives is important, because doing so increases system speed and reduces drive wear by eliminating unnecessary disk read operations.

File are stored on your disk in sectors. The more compact your files are, the faster your disk subsystem can find the information and read it. So, naturally, the optimal storage pattern for any file is to have all of its sectors right next to each other.

That's where disk defragmentation tools come into play. Defrag tools rearrange your files so that they're stored contiguously. Windows comes with a built-in disk deframentation tool, but it's not the fastest one available, nor is it very flexible. In fact, you must run the tool as Administrator, which presents a problem for many users.

John Mason wrote to us about this problem and asked if we know of any disk defragmentation tools that are self-contained, can run from a flash drive, and don't require Administrator-level access in order to run.

John, I do know of such a tool. JkDefrag is a free, lightweight tool that that comes in three varieties. The first variety runs as a typical Windows desktop application, the second is a command-line version, and the third is a screensaver that defrags the drive when your screensaver kicks in.

Another cool feature of JkDefrag is that it defrags floppies and USB-based media, such as flash drives. If you're interested, you can also download the complete source code for use in Microsoft Visual C++.