Alan Henry

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Posted on 03-09-2010

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There's nothing more annoying than a coworker's noisy, unattended computer, and there's nothing more embarrassing than coming back to your computer to hear your cubicle neighbors complain that noise from your idle system has been disturbing them, whether it's music you left playing, e-mail alerts, or other system sounds. With System Silencer, you can make sure that your computer shuts up when it goes idle, and you can toggle a number of other features to take effect once your system realizes you're gone.

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System Silencer is a tiny app that runs quietly in the background and only performs action on your computer when it's been idle for a period of time that you specify. The utility can be especially useful for saving battery life on notebook computers, or just making sure that the music playing in your headphones doesn't bother everyone around you when you put your headphones down to go to the bathroom. The app is tiny and free, and Windows only.

Once you have it installed, System Silencer gives you several options you can toggle on or off when your system is idle, and you can even set individual idle times for each action. For example, if you'd like your computer to mute itself after it's been idle for 10 minutes, but you want to lock the workstation after the computer's been idle for 15 minutes, you can set those times independently.

System Silencer also allows you to run certain files after your computer has been idle for a period of time, like a screensaver or a search utility that needs an idle processor to index your system. You can even hide certain windows or kill certain processes when your system goes idle, and if you have a laptop, you can set the processes to take place when your computer is docked and has line power and/or when your computer is running on its battery.

Regardless of whether you want your system to lock or you just want the speakers to mute when you walk away, System Silencer gives you some options to control the way your computer behaves when you're not standing in front of it. The app does need to run in the background in order to know when your machine is idle, but it doesn't use much in the way of system resources while it's running, and the ability to turn off the monitor and mute the speakers after you get up and walk away is a benefit on its own, especially if you don't want to lock your workstation.

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