Apps
Contact
Seminars
RSS FeedDecember 28th, 2010
Launchy, Keylink and other slick things
Windows 7 includes a much smoother program launch start bar, compared to its predecessors. Just click the Win key on the keyboard and start typing, and the program or the document that you are thinking of shows up. Very slick.
Very slick, but obviously not slick enough, when I still continue to use Launchy – the keystroke launcher program, and when many of my friends continue to use SlickRun and Keylink. (This post isn’t about comparing these launchers, it is just to show their value compared to solutions inbuilt in OS. My informal comparison of these 3 has been added as a comment.) Launchers used to be absolutely critical with the previous versions of Windows, and although 7 has a great start bar, there are some ways in which custom launchers still hold the edge. Since launching a program or a document is an activity that you do hundreds of times a day, even a half a second of saving in that is sufficient to consider a specialized program. So, what are Launchy’s advantages compared to Windows 7 inbuilt launcher?
Primarily, it is the speed. Launchy is just the launch bar, minus the start menu. So, it shows up faster. Also, it looks for only the programs (although you can add other things to its search catalog), so the search speed is faster.
Then, there is the issue of command line arguments. In many launchers, you can start typing “Firefox” or “Google” and then type the search phrase, and that will launch the browser, and search for the given phrase. This would save you more than half a second compared to a native solution, but this is also a slightly lesser used scenario, since most of us have a browser open most of the time.
Then there is this small matter: Launchy’s box comes up in the center of the screen. Windows Start menu’s start box is at the bottom left corner at the bottom of a large (and distracting) search menu. As the screens are becoming larger, this is a slightly larger issue. When we want to launch a program, the launch process should be as small an interruption as possible.
[One slight modification I make to Launchy right after installing it: I change the hot key to Ctrl Alt Space, instead of Alt Space, since I frequently use Alt Space C to close programs.]
August 16th, 2010
Two Windows 7 Tips and Tricks
Have been using Windows 7 for about a year now, and following two features I find very handy:
- Win-P: This handy short cut opens the display menu – you can choose whether to display on computer only, on projector only, both etc.
Win-M and Show Desktop mouse click area: To the right of the notifications area (to the right of the clock), there is a empty rectangular area. If you click on this area, it minimizes all the windows, and essentially works the same as Win-M. This used to be the “Show Desktop” icon usually found in the Quick Launch area of the Windows XP.
And of course, Win-L is the lock. You can customize the power settings so that closing the lid of the laptop doesn’t do anything, and clicking on the power button hibernates. Comes in handy when moving between offices and meetings, as I do quite a bit.
January 27th, 2010
7 (Windows 7, that is)
No idea what I did on Sunday night, but after only 8 years, my computer had a virus! Terrible, but long overdue one might say. After spending the Monday at work yesterday part working and part spending the time on taking backups, I ran down to the Staples last night and got a copy of Windows 7. Half an hour later I was up and running, and half amused half angry that I had actually not needed to take any backup at all! Windows 7 installation actually preserved ALL my files as well as Windows folder (which it simply renamed to a non working Windows.000 name). Well, better safe than sorry, so maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that I had taken the backup anyway.
OK, about 7, what should I say? Firstly, I must confess that I know little about it, but from what I have seen so far, I really like it. The search feature works amazingly fast, and includes Outlook and windows folders. That is nice, real nice. Windows search in XP used to work same way, but it was a separately installed component, not an inbuilt feature. The Windows Explorer in Windows 7 has a bunch of niceties to it, including the Library concept. (I skipped over Vista, so all comparisons are to XP.) The Alt Tab menu also works slightly differently, and in my opinion slightly better.
Beyond 7, and and as a note on the entire IT industry, one can argue that a few more things have moved to the cloud, and I can confirm that it actually took me lesser time to reinstall everything than when I upgraded my laptop about 18 months back. That is clearly the direction that is interesting (at least for me), and the fact that MOST of my files and folders are either in my work repository or in my personal repository is a pretty darn good thing.