Utility Extravaganza!
Recently, I’ve launched into a Utility-using trip! Partly from my exposure to LifeHacker, Digg and a few friends, I’ve been able to see and use some amazing applications that are shockingly handy on my Windows XP-based system.Launchy — launchy.netTo start, if you haven’t tried Launchy, you may not have read my previous 400 posts praising its awesome-ness. This application allows you to launch programs by simply typing in the first few characters of program’s name and hitting enter. Plus, you can skin the application with some Peter Wooley pizazz (look for Black Glass and Top Tab in the skins menu). Launchy is open source, and free as can be.RocketDock — punksoftware.com/rocketdockRocketDock is, for all intensive purposes, the Mac OS X Dock for Windows. I was just about to write this one off, but Tyler took a chance on it and it really paid off. The most popular skin for this dock is an OS X theme, so it shows what Windows are trying to do. If you’re unfamiliar with the OS X dock, it is a beautiful version of the Windows Task Bar and Quick Launch spun together with the Recycle Bin and a place for your Minimized windows to reside. It consumes very little memory, very little CPU and has excellent customization features from skins to icons to clocks. Give it a couple of days and see if it grows on you as much as it has me. RocketDock is freeware and not open source.Samurize — samurize.comSamurize is yet another powerful tool. Technically, it is “an advanced system monitoring and desktop enhancement engine for Windows.” What they’re trying to say is that it’s a tool that allows you to view your computer’s uptime, your current bandwidth limit, your hard drive’s remaining space, another computer’s uptime, or a ton of other facts about your computer that you may not even know you can see! In addition, it allows you to design just how you want to show off all that fun information. Using bar graphs, text, icons or other goodies, you can make your desktop look the way you want it to. That does mean that you’ll need to do some work to get it going, but if you’re into the techy side of things, this app will rock your desktop. Samurize is freeware and not open source (as far as I can tell).MacSound — landvermesser.tripod.comNext in line is MacSound, a simply tool that allows you to control your Windows system’s volume similarly to how you might control Mac OS X’s. Upon installation and launching, a volume icon appears in your system tray, and using Alt+Up/Down, you can change the volume setting of your PC. A little Mac-inspired box also appears on-screen, and fades out when you’re done. All told, it takes a simply idea and executes it, what more could you ask for? MacSound is freeware and not open source.TaskBar Shuffle 2.0 — http://www.freewebs.com/nerdcave/It has always bothered me that you cannot, by default, re-arrange the open items in your Windows Task Bar. Apparently, it bothered someone else, and they made an application to allow you to! TaskBar Shuffle is a simple app that lets you drag and drop your task bar items into the order you enjoy. When managing a huge number of items or if you’re just nuts about organization, this can come in very handy. TaskBar Shuffle is freeware and not open source.TweakUI — microsoft.comTweakUI is part of the Windows XP PowerToys that Microsoft made available some time ago. It’s purpose is to allow the Power User some extra power over their Windows XP User Interface. It allows you to control a host of things from what system icons can be on your desktop (yes, you can get rid of the Recycle Bin!) to auto-login to what drives auto-play their content. To me, this options should just come with XP, but short of actually coming with XP, they’re handy. TweakUI (and the other XP PowerToys) are freely available and very much not open source.So, those are just a few of the apps that are making my life a little easier, and a lot more fun. And I haven’t even got into Portable Apps! I’m going to have to write a post about Portable Apps. Hopefully you can poke around with this list while I get around to my next post.