Comments on: 5 Nifty Applications To Make Your Life Easier In Windows

By: Yogesh Malik

Yogesh Malik — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:18:18 +0000

xkill is good, i have been using xkill on UNIX platform for over a decade.

By: Tom M

Tom M — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:29:45 +0000

you can also drag&drop into the Run box (no need to open a command prompt if you don’t need it)

By: JacPat

JacPat — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:20:59 +0000

I’ve always been a big fan of Object dock.. now to try fences!

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:26:32 +0000

Thanks for a great list!

Windows xKill – Looks very useful, I’ve added it to my Startup.

Fences – I came aware of this a few weeks ago. It’s great!

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:54:28 +0000

Thanks for that.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:55:40 +0000

For those of you who use launchy, be aware you may experience a conflict like I did with fences. With fences enabled the normal alt + spacebar activation doesn’t work.

By: Damien Oh

Damien Oh — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:02:37 +0000

My apology. It is not my intention to deprive the developers of their donation income.

By: Mark O'Neill

Mark O'Neill — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:30:23 +0000

Hi there

It wasn’t Damien’s intention to deprive anyone of any income or exposure. He merely put the direct links there as convenience for the MakeUseOf readers to quickly find the direct links to the software. Nothing more.

However, we now recognise, thanks to your comments, that the developers deserve the Paypal income and the additional exposure for their website. Therefore we have changed the weblinks accordingly.

Many apologies for the inconvenience.

By: Martin Zugec

Martin Zugec — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:50:08 +0000

Heya,

drag&drop for cmd.exe works since Windows 2000. I use it every day…

Martin

By: ancameme

ancameme — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:11:59 +0000

Instead of Lacuna Launcher you could use different batch files for each set of applications/files you want to start at a specific time. It’s a lot easier to set up and it doesn’t require a separate program.

By: app103

app103 — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:56:54 +0000

Damien Oh,

First of all, I’d like to thank you for mentioning my application, Lacuna Launcher. I really appreciate it.

But I can’t help but be a little bit bothered by the fact that you have chosen to direct link to some of the application downloads in your article, and not the pages in which they can be found. This isn’t a very nice thing to do, for a few reasons:

1. Some freeware authors have Paypal donate buttons on their sites, and your readers will never see them, therefore never click them. This deprives some of the authors of their only income.

2. Some freeware authors have advertising on their sites, and additional page impressions or clicks generated from the traffic you send them means an income for them, and your direct linking to the files prevents that from happening. This is how some software can remain free, rather than the author resorting to making it payware. If you like things to stay free, you have to do your part to help the developers keep it that way.

3. A big blog like this one linking to a page on a small developer’s site can mean a big boost in Page Rank, making their software easier to find through search engines. This helps the people looking for the perfect tool to do the job they need, as well as the software developer that created it.

4. You are depriving your readers of the chance to browse around the developer’s site, and perhaps discovering more useful software they might be interested in. Or in the case of the applications that come from donationcoder.com, you are preventing them from discovering a wonderful software enthusiasts community that they really would enjoy, and can even request custom made freeware, made to their specifications.

5. In some cases, you may be making it more difficult for your readers to find the info necessary to submit bug reports and get support, not to mention application updates and upgrades.

So, could you please be a really nice guy to us poor freeware/donationware developers, and your readers, and fix the links to point to the pages and not the file downloads?

DropCommand: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Skrommel/index.html#DropCommand

It is currently incorrectly named on the page as RunToClose. Just select the one that matches the image used in the article for DropCommand. I have informed Skrommel of the mistake so he can correct the name on that page.

Lacuna Launcher: http://appsapps.info/lacunalauncher.php

Thanks.

By: Damien Rice O

Damien Rice O — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:59:36 +0000

How about giving some credit where credit is due? Why not link to author’s web sites instead of directly to the download files?

I’m sure the fine folks at/from DonationCoder would like the exposure and would appreciate the potential for donations from people who like the software.

By: Damien Oh

Damien Oh — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:48:35 +0000

I am not sure if they have removed it, but it is not working for me when I drag the file/folder to the command prompt in Vista.

By: Damien Oh

Damien Oh — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:38:19 +0000

Oops…I have make a mistake there. Thanks for informing. I will get it amended.

By: Damien Oh

Damien Oh — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:37:21 +0000

That is not really a problem, except that those unused applications are taking up your system resources and possibly desktop and taskbar space. For someone with a slightly older computer (like me), it helps.

By: Damien Oh

Damien Oh — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:35:49 +0000

Nope. But, being a tech blogger, sometime I do need to access Windows to test out some software. That is when these applications come in handy.

By: Transcontinental

Transcontinental — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:18:22 +0000

Thanks for sharing theses nifty little utilities, but concerning ‘Fence’, this one is brand new. Does that mean, Damien, that your past life with Windows goes back to a recent past?

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:50:16 +0000

Taskbar Shuffler!

By: Womble

Womble — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:07:59 +0000

Im not getting DropCommand. I can already drag files/folders to the console in XP, did they remove this feature in Vista or something?

By: Sean Vater

Sean Vater — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:24:23 +0000

Thanx for the ‘Fences’ link, pretty cool download….

By: ramaccount

ramaccount — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:11:44 +0000

“opening a lot of applications and then forget to close them after you have finished using them”

errr… is this really a problem?

By: Will Johnson

Will Johnson — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:38:00 +0000

“Fences is a free software developed by Stardock, the developer behind the popular RocketDock.”

Um… no they’re not. They are the developers behind ObjectDock, a very similar program.