benrobb

The Best Tech Thing Since Sliced Bread

Two programs that have made my Windows-life easier.  One I’ve been using for awhile, one I found yesterday.  Both are programs that add on some (in my opinion) missing functionality in Windows.  Both are also very lightweight on system resources which is important to me.

Launchy: Never use your Start Menu again.  Ever.  A keystroke (mine is Alt+Space) will open a launcher.  Type in the first few letters of the application you want, and it’ll pop up.  Hit Enter to launch the application.

Launchy maintains a catalog of places where it will look for files/applications/anything that matches your keystrokes.  I added My Documents into my catalog along with a few extensions and now I can open a document in its native application just by typing the first few letters of the document name (a la Spotlight).  Beautiful.  It’s not a revolutionary idea, just a lightweight alternative that’s available for Windows Users.  It’s also skinnable, so you can get a few different looks from it.

AutoHotKey:The idea here is simple, the implementation is light-weight, and the end-product is powerful.  Pick any key combination, and execute a script that tells Windows what to do.  There’s a whole scripting language to support this with function calls, if/else logic, etc.  You can tell where your mouse should click, what buttons to type, etc.

A few examples.  Ctrl+Shift+P on my computer will now set my status for my chat client to “On the Phone.”  Ctrl+Shift+A will mark me as “Available” again, and Ctrl+Shift+L will set my status to “Away” and lock my computer.

Now I know that the non-techies in the audience are thinking that I’m wasting my time, but anyone who works on a computer for a living knows that you can use a keyboard about 10 times faster than you can use a mouse.  So the fact that I can perform so many of my common tasks without touching my mouse translates into increased productivity.  That’s cool tech beans.

Tags: software