Launcher applications increase productivity and help us to streamline our Windows interface. After all, if you launch your most frequently used programs from a behind the scenes launcher instead of shortcuts, our desktop becomes a more uncluttered place.

There are a host of launcher apps out there. Launchy is one of the more popular ones you might have heard about. Then we have covered a bunch at Top 7 Unknown Free Launcher Applications For Windows. Is there room for one more?

You bet, because when it comes to software, it’s more the merrier.

This one’s called Key Launch. Key Launch is a little freeware that lets us ditch the shortcuts, the start menu and the run box. The working of Key Launch is simplicity itself. Type in a few characters that stand for your program and Key Launch opens it.

How to Launch Applications From the Command Line

• Key Launch installs as a System Tray icon. Key Launcher automatically indexes all the programs under the Start Menu (including folders like Recent Documents). To activate it, you need to hit Ctrl+Space. At first, you will see a blank interface like the one below. Type in a few words and Key Launch lists all programs that correspond to it. You can click on any to open it.



• Well, that’s not very customized. To add files, folders and programs that you want to quickly access, you have to set up a few things by hand initially using Aliases. Aliases are nothing but a short identifier that stands for any file, folder, program or web page you want to open using Key Launch. All the mechanism is in the Key Launch Preferences box.



Like ‘muo’ is defined as an alias for MakeUseOf.com or ‘ww’ for WordWeb, setting up aliases is easy with a click on the + button and choosing characters that can stand for a favorite webpage or a program. While defining the alias, do test it out once by clicking on the Test button.

• With aliases defined, bringing up the relevant application now requires you to hit Ctrl+Space and Enter as the aliased shortcut is usually the first one that’s on the list. The other minor but great thing is that the Key Launch also ‘learns’ which programs you operate frequently. So after a few launches, it automatically pushes that specific program on top of the list. For example, I could push ‘n’ for opening Notepad after opening it 3-4 times.
• There are some special prefixes like mailto: followed by the email address that will open your default mail client with the address in the ‘To’ field. Or callto: followed by the contact name that will open up the VoIP application like Skype (but I found that this part didn’t work so smoothly with me).
• Though Launch Keys indexes certain folders, you can set it up to include some of your own choices through the Folders to Index button in Preferences.



• As a launcher, Launch Keys takes over from the default ‘launcher’ that Windows gives us – the Run box. Use Launch Keys to run a command by pressing Ctrl+Enter.



• Launch Keys can also act as your de facto calculator. Type in your math in the field box and hit enter.

That covers the basic capabilities of this little application. To further it, one can use DNM scripts but that’s a bit beyond the average user. But what’s not is that you can take the whole installed folder and transfer it to your pen drive and use it as a portable app. That’s a help.

Key Launch and application launchers of its ilk help us be more productive. After a few uses, using the aliases becomes almost a subconscious habit. After a while aliases become more real than the shortcut icons themselves.

Which is your launcher app of choice?

Key Launch (v2.0) is a 1.3MB download and is supported on Windows XP/Vista.

Image Credit: Lukasz Strachanowski

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• Vista Switcher – Replace Windows’ Alt-Tab With Something Cooler (9)

Do you want to add a window switcher that will knock your socks off? Well despite it’s name, Vista Switcher makes your Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 machine switch screens, real slick-like.

The 270KB 32 bit download page is located here and wow, there is also a 64 bit download for you serious 64 bitters out there.

After downloading and running Vista Switcher, you will have a new icon in your system tray. It resembles an X in a box. The icon looks like the image to the left:

If you either hit that icon or you just push the control and tab keys together, it will launch its interface that allows you to not only select the screen you want to go to but it shows you an awesome preview of that screen.  There are hot keys that we will get to a little further in if you want to leave your default alt tab functionality.

Check out the program’s interface below:

You can still see your desktop through the transparent window and it does not go away if you release the keys. You can mouse over each item and it will show you a preview. Click on it to switch to that active window.

The application smoothly switches between screens and has a bunch of options which we explore below.

On the general tab you can first off switch your default program language. If your language is not available you can click the Find more translations to do just that. You have the check boxes for Auto starting Vista Switcher, to show or not to show the icon in the system tray, do you want to replace the alt tab action with Vista Switcher and (or) replace the right mouse button plus the wheel to Vista Switcher, and you can set hot keys if you do not want to use the combinations they provide.

This screen above is all about looks, you can change themes, fade out animations, task numbers, items allowed to be shown and preview style.

Next up we have the behavior window that allows you to modify the position of the window if you hate for it to be shown dead center. You can have Vista Switcher disable when you release the mouse and you can also have it show only tasks that are active or not with the last check box.

The exclusion list allows you to exclude specific windows from the switcher. You will see what is actually running on your machine from here.

I love this application and I have installed it on my Windows XP desktop as well as my Vista laptop. Are you using an alt tab replacement? If so we would love to hear about it in the comments!

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We have covered our fair share of launchers here on MakeUseOf, each having its own strong point. Blaze is yet another innovative addition to the application launcher universe, however it has a lot going for it with its some of its killer features. Let’s have a look.

First off, it does all the usual application launcher chores like indexing, launching your applications and letting you jump to a file or location. I didn’t find anything special in here except for the fact that it handles typos better. Application launchers generally give way when you accidentally type in a character that is not a part of the application name, Blaze handles this scenario better than others. Let’s face it we all make typos and having a program smart enough to still guess the correct application really helps.

That is not all, Blaze is even smarter. Blaze sneakily watches what you are doing on the computer and tries to come up with a way to automate repetitive tasks. The next time you are doing something over and over again just keep an eye on the system tray. The Blaze icon in the system tray turns yellow when it has some suggestion to automate repetitive tasks. You can then quickly view what suggestion Blaze has to offer by tapping the Caps Lock key twice.

Blaze can monitor and automate anything from entering text to mouse clicks to renaming files to creating folders. In short, if your previous few actions have something in common, Blaze will most likely come up with a suggestion to do it for you.

Here is a look of the suggestion window:

If Blaze comes up with a suggestion which is not what you were looking for exactly, you can tweak the suggestion to your liking before giving Blaze a go ahead to perform it. You can click on the arrows to cycle through the various suggestions that Blaze has to offer, you can increase or decrease the number of repetitions that should be performed, you can control the speed with which the automation is performed allowing you a chance to jump in if something is not right.

Blaze also lets you create new automations from scratch or modify the suggested automation to your liking. You can do so by clicking on ‘Create a new Automation’ or ‘Modify this Automation’ buttons. You will be shown the Automation editor, in here you can modify the automations, add, subtract and modify actions to your liking.

Blaze doesn’t currently support skins so you would to have to be content with the default orange look. It supports plug ins and there are some handy plug ins installed by default, like the one that lets you perform calculations or one which indexes the ID3 tags to let you search music better.

I tried but couldn’t find any more plug ins than the ones those are already installed. If you are into development you can use IronPython to write some of your own!

Overall Blaze is an application launcher with some amazing features that make it worth checking out. You can also refer to the Blaze Quick Guide for advanced automation examples.

What do you think of Blaze? Let us know in the comments.

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Sadly there is no portable version of the application. It would have been an excellent tool to keep on your USB drive had there been a portable version available.

The commands or actions are categorized into sections displayed towards the left. There are as many as 70 actions that you can perform with Commands in Demand. We have to say though, that some of them are easier and quicker if done the conventional way!

Some of the salient features of the application are:

Tools to deal with non responsive applications. You can kill non responsive applications at the click of a button, it even lets you create a shortcut to do so, like we showed you some time back. You can restart Windows Explorer with a single click or fire the Task Manager to take things in your hand!

A real time clipboard editor that lets you edit the contents of the clipboard. It automatically reads the text on your clipboard and then you can edit it as you would do in notepad. You can also drag and drop additional text to add to the text already on your clipboard. Print from here, save to a file or paste anywhere and the updated text will be pasted at the destination.

A list alphabetizer application that lets you create a list, sort it and then create a directory structure according to the list. You can even read in the contents of a folder as a list and then perform various operations on the list. The files and folders section also allows you to quickly launch common folders or open command prompt in a said folder.

An icon extractor that can extract icons from exe and dll files. Here are some icons that it found in Google Talk executable:

A memory and CPU usage Monitor with a memory cleaner. The memory cleaner would essentially free up memory by dumping to the virtual memory, so make sure you don’t use it when you are working in an application. It would be helpful if you are going to launch a memory intensive application and don’t need the other applications for some time as they will become less responsive till they are swapped back into the memory.

It also lets you search and compare results from two search engines side by side. Check the search engines (no Bing sadly) you want, type in your query and hit enter. It will open up the search results in your web browser.

You can also change Commands in Demand’s settings. You can adjust transparency and control behavior like loading on startup and minimizing when a button is clicked to perform an action.

Commands in Demand is a nice application that lets you run several windows comments and perform a number of tasks from within a single application. It is a mix of a tweaker, launcher and a whole bunch of other tools. Definitely worth checking out. I would really like to see a portable version of an application like this. What do you think about it? Let us know in the comments.

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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ControlPad allows you to execute custom run commands by entering specific numbers. Press the * key and then enter the numbers or what we will call a ‘code’ and the appropriate command will be executed.

ControlPad is available as a Windows installer package as well as a portable zip version that you can put on your USB drive to carry it along with you.

Once you have installed the program (or you have run the portable version) you will see ControlPad residing in the system tray waiting for your input. The way you use ControlPad is really simple: Press and hold the * key till you see an input panel like below

Now you can key in the numbers to run any command. ControlPad allows you to run commands and applications, open any document, open any web address, or send keystrokes to the application in focus to make repetitive tasks easier.

However before you can go about executing commands in a hurry you would have to tell ControlPad what you want to do when you key in a particular code. This is easily done from the same interface. Follow these steps :

• Press and hold *
• Enter the code you want to configure
• Then hit the ‘/’ (divide) key. You will now be able to enter the command you want to execute or browse to the application you want to launch at the specific code. You can also use the built in useful commands to control your media player, browser, volume etc.

Now whenever you enter this code, the appropriate command will be run. All the commands are stored in a “command file”. The command file is a simple text file, you can easily back it up or edit the commands to your liking.

You can customize ControlPad from within ControlPad Settings. You can customize the font, the look, transparency, sound, save/restore settings etc from within the settings dialog.

ControlPad also has a beeper function that allows you to set up reminders and alarms quickly.

• Use the ++X syntax to set up a alarm to sound off after X seconds.
• +XXXX would sound an alarm at XX:XX (in 24 hr format)

So using ++7 would sound off an alarm after 7 minutes and +1700 will sound an alarm at 5 pm.

You can also use the + key when entering codes to run multiple commands. As an example if 1 launches Firefox and 2 launches Winamp, then entering 1+2 will launch both Firefox and Winamp. As an indication you will see a green mark in the lower right corner of the interface whenever a command is available for the code (or combination of codes) that you have entered.

ControlPad does require that you know the code to run a particular command – however since you are the one creating the code that should not be much of a problem. It is a handy application and the ability to carry it along on a USB drive makes it even more useful. You can now easily launch applications using the same codes on different computers as long as the commands remain the same.

Let us know what you think about ControlPad in the comments.

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I had been using launchy as my preferred program launcher for quite some time, until I found FARR. FARR stands for “Find and Run Robot”, a program-launcher in simple english. However, it has some neat tricks and a truck-load of options up its sleeve. Let’s take a look.

You can install and download FARR from donationcoder. The program is absolutely free for use, however the developers want you to visit the site so they give away a free license key that you might want to enter by clicking on About from the system tray menu.

You can summon FARR via the Pause/Break key or with the Ctrl+Space combination. Start typing the first few characters of program/file you want to launch and it displays a list of top matches.

The first difference you would notice (compared to other program launchers) is that the results are numbered. Pressing any number would launch that particular result. The next time you summon FARR, the previous results that you launched would appear automatically so that you can quickly launch them if you need. Let’s say you launched Firefox — next time you can simply press Ctrl+1 to launch Firefox (reminiscent of Win + # shortcuts in Windows 7).

FARR allows you to extend its functionality by means of plugins. There are some excellent plugins available on the FARR Plugins page. There are plugins for integrating Remember the Milk, Google Tasks, Everything search, Twitter and many more. You can find plugins for file information to screenshots to language translators.

There are plenty of options to keep the tweakers busy. You can customize the memory usage, hotkeys and skins. Specify how FARR gains focus, remains on top or not. You can specify your own font settings and play with transparency settings. On a more functional note, you can customize how FARR should treat missing files, duplicate links to the same file, control the history list, or exact match as the stopping condition and so on.

You can of course, customize the locations that are searched by FARR. However, if you really want to dig in deep, you can even control the order in which the results would appear. FARR uses a scoring system to determine which result would appear at the top. You can customize the scoring criteria to alter which results appear on the top.

So, if you would like to make PDF files rank higher than DOC files if they have the same name and are at the same location, you could add an entry for PDF files and assign it a higher score.

FARR also allows you to create aliases, which allows you to associate specific terms with a file or group of files. If you would like to launch Dreamweaver, Firefox and Vim for development, you can associate “development” with these three shortcuts and then typing in “development” and choosing the alias, all 3 apps will launch.

There are plenty of options and functionality offered by FARR to satisfy all. If you are a diligent tweaker, you have loads of options to play with and customize according to your taste. If you are an average user, use the default options and you are good to go. The large plugin list and an involved community provide the icing on the FARR Cake!

Do you use launcher applications? Which one is your favorite? Let us know

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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When opened up, it displays a broad window containing various information about your computer. You can easily add shortcuts to your favorite applications/places, get information about your system resources or include frequently used tools (such as a calculator or reminders). You can either use it as a replacement for the existing menu bar, or as an additional tool to help you do things faster.

The default configuration of USP includes a User Info pane, System Management pane, Applications pane and the Recent Documents pane. The System Management pane provides you with quick access to the Synaptic Package Manager and also the Control Center which contains all the system configuration options.

To add/configure items in the USP, you first have to right-click the mouse and then go to Preferences. The Preferences window contains many options that you can use to configure the USP to your liking.

The Main tab of the Preferences window contains most of the UI configurations for USP. This is also where you can add additional items/plugins to the main display window. USP supports the use of plugins to extend its functionality. The installation package comes with a set of third-party plugins that you can use immediately. These plugins include a calculator, a calendar, a reminder, Firefox bookmarks, system resources, and many other useful stuff.

The image below shows the list of available plugins for USP.

Other than the functionality, USP also allows you to theme it up and beautify it. It uses the same GTK theme as the Gnome system, which means you can check out gnome-look for your favorite theme and use it on your USP.

To install the theme, you have to first install it on your Ubuntu (via System->Preferences->Appearance on the main menu), then specify the name of the theme on the USP’s Preferences window.

Here are some of the screenshots of some of the GTK themes on USP (Note that you can apply the GTK theme to the USP without having to change your system theme).

Installation of Ubuntu-System-Panel

USP is not found in the Ubuntu repository. You will have to grab the code from the developer’s site and install it manually. Luckily, the installation procedure is not too difficult.

First of all, you have to install the subversion and use it to download the latest version of USP onto your computer. In your terminal, type line by line:

sudo apt-get install subversion
svn checkout http://ubuntu-system-panel.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ ubuntu-system-panel
cd ubuntu-system-panel
./usp_update install fresh

If you are running a 64 bit machine, run this extra command:

sudo cp /usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/usp/plugins/_keybind64.so _keybinder.so

That’s it. To place the USP onto your panel, first refresh your panel

killall gnome-panel

Right-click your mouse on the top panel and select Add to Panel. Scroll down the list to find Ubuntu System Panel. Select and add it to the panel.

To uninstall, simply use the following command:

cd ubuntu-system-panel
./usp_update uninstall complete

What other ways do you use to improve the usability in your Ubuntu (Linux)? Any good alternative Gnome application launcher?

Image credit: pinguin_os

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New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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So here are the contents of the Mark Pack. Due to the nature of my job, the contents of the Mark Pack are always changing as I discover new stuff. But here’s what it contains right now. This is part one of the article, part two is tomorrow.

1. Mozilla Firefox

Obviously! (you didn’t think I was going to say Internet Exploder now did you?!) Although I have to say I have been flirting with the idea of going over to Google Chrome for a while now but I am put off by the things it lacks and especially its lack of privacy. Firefox has been rather unstable for me recently with constant crashes and this is not good in my line of work.   Thank God for its session saver feature otherwise I would keep losing all those porn sites I keep finding. Oops, did I really say that out loud? Damn, damn, damn…..

So to quote Darth Vader, “come with me to the Dark Side”. But right now, I am still doing my impersonation of Luke Skywalker on the Death Star in front of the Emperor resisting with all his might. At the moment, Firefox is still my browser of choice but it really needs to get the stability issues fixed if I am to resist Darth Google and his overtures (“the force is strong in this one”)

2. Pidgin Skype

I put these two together because I use them together as my daily online communication tools. I tried using Digsby for a while but it just didn’t click with me for some reason. So I went back to Pidgin. The only thing that annoys me about Pidgin is the very small message window that can’t be resized. It used to be much bigger but when they brought out an upgrade, they shrunk it down (no dirty jokes please!). I am hoping they will reverse that and soon. I don’t like typing in a microscopic window.

What I really love about Pidgin are all the plugins that are available for it. I’ve previously wrote about Bot Sentry which nuked all the IM spam instantly and there is also gSMS which sends you SMS’s whenever someone tries to contact you on Pidgin (although this one is apparently a bit unstable for some people).

Skype is just wonderful (despite all the spam that comes through it). I do a lot of my phoning from it, especially my international calls, saving myself a ton of money in the process. The video calls are just sweet and I surprised my grandparents on Christmas Day with a webcam call (even though they didn’t understand how it all worked!).

I also like the tweaks and upgrades that the Skype team have brought out recently – the improved audio and picture quality, the tighter interface (including the ability once again to separate the contact list from the chat window – which is a huge plus).

But the thing that makes Skype totally invaluable is the ability to assign a phone number to it (giving yourself a business phone number) and also being able to forward calls to a mobile phone.   So if you have to go out, you can forward all your Skype calls to your mobile phone and then take off to Starbucks for that double latte. Meanwhile, your Skype callers are none the wiser where you are.

3. Winamp

I’ve tried a LOT of audio and media players over the time. Windows Media Player, CrystalPlayer, VLC Player, you name it, I’ve tried it. But I have ALWAYS come back in the end to Winamp. It’s like an old lover that I can’t stay away from. I tell her I’m leaving her and she says “yeah right, you’ll be back you good-for-nothing S.O.B!” and she’s right. I’ll flirt with another media player but a couple of months later, I’m back at Winamp’s door, begging her to take me back.

What do I like about Winamp? Well you can minimise it to the top of the monitor as a thin bar (as you can see above). So you can surf and type and do whatever and still have your music playing. You don’t have a media player in the middle of the screen in the way of things. There are also LOTS of colours to choose from so if blue is not your thing then choose whatever colour floats your boat (although I think bright pink is going just a LITTLE too far!).

I also use Winamp as my default video player. The picture quality on Winamp is fantastic. Below is a screenshot of “Family Guy” on Winamp :

4. Launchy

We’ve covered Launchy many times before on MakeUseOf and if you haven’t got it installed yet on your computer, I strongly recommend you do so right now. It’s one of those things that you don’t realise its full worth until you actually have it installed and you start using it.

I used to be a big mouse person, using it for EVERYTHING, but Launchy has made me realise that I can get a lot more done with just using the keyboard. By bringing up the app, I can just type in the first few letters of an app and Launchy will then….well, launch it for me. No need for a mouse, no need for clicking, no need for lots of links and shortcuts on the desktop and shortcut menu.   Everything can be started and done with a few types of the keyboard.

5.  WinPatrol

I wrote about this previously on MakeUseOf and I think this is a valuable addition to any computer. WinPatrol basically monitors your computer for any covert and sneaky additions to your computer and then warns you about them.

When you install a program or upgrade a program, some of them try to hijack your system by taking over your system preferences. Big example – iTunes. Every time I upgrade that program, it tries to override Winamp and take control of all my MP3 files and video files. If I didn’t have WinPatrol, it would succeed and later I would have to tediously change all my file associations back to Winamp.

But thanks to WinPatrol, as soon as iTunes tries to do anything like this, I get a big warning sign flash up on my screen asking me if I approve of what iTunes is trying to do along with a YES and NO button.   By clicking NO, WinPatrol will immediately block iTunes from changing anything.

WinPatrol also allows me to easily control my startup menu options so my computer boots up faster.

This is a MUST-HAVE program for everyone. The pro version of the program gives you a few more features but the free version is more than enough I think.

6. FileZilla

If you have a website domain and you need to do regular file transfers from your computer to your domain (or vice versa) then FileZilla is the app to do it. No other FTP client comes near FileZilla in terms of ease of use and speed.

The FileZilla team also bring out regular new beta releases of the app so this is very much a constant work in progress.

That’s the end of Part One. Part Two of the Mark Pack will be tomorrow. In the meantime, why not tell me what is in your pack? What essential apps are on your computer? Are any of the apps on this page in your pack? If not, why not?  If not, what equivalents do you have instead and why?

Make sure and come back tomorrow to see what other apps made it into the Mark Pack!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Last week, I discovered that I had fallen behind on my launcher-reviewing quest because I overlooked Executor.  It looks, at first glance, like a Launchy clone, but after reviewing the available settings, options, and utilities, Executor is nothing of the sort.

As a brief summary before we get into the features, Executor is by far the most customizable windows program launcher I have yet seen. There are probably more advanced ones out there, but it also remains within the grasp of the average MakeUseOf reader (read: power-user who doesn’t necessarily want to write up custom scripts).

Now with all of the options, I’m going to run down my favorite features that I think are generally the most useful.

Quick Find

If you’ve never used a launcher before, this is the most basic and important function.  Most launchers automatically scan the areas where your program file names are usually stored.  For this reason, when you begin typing the name of a program into Executor, it will usually automatically figure out the program you want to launch.

As you can see above, I only had to type “pic” in order for Executor to guess my desired program, Picasa 3.  Executor is a little more tricky than most that I’ve seen because the first time you launch a program with it, it needs a little bit of help.

If it doesn’t automatically guess your query, hold down the ALT key and press the down arrow.  This will drop down a list of candidate programs from which you can choose.  As time goes on, Executor will learn what keystrokes mean what programs and eventually you won’t need to do this that much.

Usage Options

When you open up the “Settings” menu, you will see that it is vast and tabbed.  Let me break down some of the more useful options, so you don’t have to hunt through the whole thing.

First, under “General,” there is a Program Settings box.  Here you will find “Start on Windows Startup” (always good for a launcher), hotkey controls (Win+Z is default and doesn’t conflict with other launchers you may be trying out), and the option to use the Win+R hotkey that is usually bound to the Run command.  This last one is useful because you can actually use Executor as a Run box (it will even recognize common commands).  There is a final box on the “General” tab that controls how your search box will act as a window and among other windows.

The next two tabs control the way your input works as well as the way the drop-down list is organized.  Between these tabs you can change the priority that programs, user history, and items in your file system take.  While these options let you get very specific about how everything reads out, I’d stick with the defaults and wait to see if anything needs to be changed.

The “Visual/skin” tab lets you change the appearance of Executor. I suggest choosing the “Alpha” setting and choosing the preloaded “alpha_fancy” skin.  You can choose it by clicking browse, as it should already be pointed at your skin repository.

The last tab is the indexing tab. This one is already pointing at where most of your files should be located, but if you have anything that doesn’t show up in the control panel or start-menu, you can manually pick an index location. To make a new location, click “Add” and double click the new line that pops up.

I went ahead and made a new entry that points at the Program Files folder. The “$D$” simply means “on the drive that Executor is stored on” to the path. I store stand-alone executables there, so it’s a good addition.

Advanced Keywords

Executor has many more features, but the last one I want to discuss is the keywords menu.  Here you can make all the custom keywords you want. You can see all the pre-loaded keywords in the “Keywords” supertab under Settings. There are a lot of neat little actions like “view text from the keyboard” and “empty recycle bin” already there.

The simplest command you can create is for a search engine query. I made a little command to search Ask.com, since it wasn’t one of the ones already on there. Check out this screencap below:

I made the keyword “Ask.” I made the command the same as the regular search query URL, but replaced the keyword with “$U$,” which indicates a blank space for your new query.  It’s really that simple!

This is a very new application to me, so if you discover any little hidden gems, add them below in the comments. I’ll do the same!

If you’re aware of any other good freeware program launcher for Windows please share it below.

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Setting up a keyboard shortcut for any application in your start menu is fast and simple. Steps below explain how to create program shortcuts in Windows:

• Navigate the start menu to the application you want to shortcut. In this example, we will create a shortcut for the Calculator (one that I use all the time).



• Right-click on the application, and click on Properties.



• In the Properties window, you’ll see a field titled Shortcut key. Go to that field and type the letter C (or any other key you wish to use to launch the Calculator).
• Click OK

Now, whenever you want to quickly launch Calculator, just hit Ctrl-Alt-C (or whatever key you chose). I use application launch shortcut keys all the time for Calculator and Notepad. You can use it for those programs you constantly use and are sick of navigating through the Start menu to launch.

Do you use application launch shortcut keys? What other Windows shortcut keys do you find useful?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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So here it is, my recommendation of the 8 most useful plugins for Gnome-Do:

1. Locate files

I am definitely not the type who likes to dig several levels down the filesystem to locate a particular file. That is where the ‘Locate file‘ plugin is useful. Load up Gnome-Do (by pressing “Win + Space” key), type the first few characters of the filename and it will fetch the required files for you, no matter how secluded it is.

2. Twitter

Send your tweets from the Gnome-Do without having to open your Twitter client. A good and quick way to update your twitter without having too much distraction.

3. Rhythmbox

If you are like me, who enjoys playing music in the background while working, then this plugin is particularly useful. You can control your Rhythmbox to start playing your favorite track, pause, mute, unmute, volume up/down, change to next/previous track or to display current track info, all within the small Gnome-Do box.

4. Gnome Terminal

Gnome Terminal is useful because it eliminates the need for you to launch the Terminal. Being someone who love the command line interface more than the GUI, I simply love this plugin that allows me to type and run in the command line from Gnome-Do. (I used to have a Terminal shortcut icon on my dock so that I can launch the Terminal quickly. Ever since, I installed this plugin, I have removed the shortcut icon from my dock as I have no longer any use of it)

5. Apturl

Rather than typing ’sudo apt-get install package-name’ everytime you wanted to install a package, now you just need to type the package name and Gnome-do will do the installation for you. The only caveat: this works only if you know the full name of the package and spell it correctly.

6. Opensearch

Opensearch allows you to search from your desktop using a variety of search engines. From Google, Yahoo, eBay, CreativeCommon, Answer.com, Amazon.com to Wikipedia, depending on what you want to find, you can easily get the information you want from Gnome-Do. I particularly like to use CreativeCommon to find photos for my blog.

7. Flickr

Quickly upload your photos to Flickr without accessing your Flickr account in the browser. You can choose to upload one photo or a bunch of photos from a particular folder. It works quietly in the background and does not provide any distraction.

Tomboy Notes

Do you feel disoriented without your Tomboy notes? Well, I do. I use Tomboy notes to keep reference to articles that I have read online. That’s why I find this plugin particularly useful. It provides you with a quick and neat way to create a new note or to dig up material from your existing Tomboy notes. It is very handy when you have all the information at your fingertips.

(To install plugins, load up Gnome-Do by pressing ‘Win + Space’ keys. Click on the arrow at the top right hand corner and select ‘Preferences’. Go to the ‘Plugins’ tab and check the plugins you want.)

What are your favorite Gnome-Do plugins?

(By) Damien Oh is a technology geek who loves to tweak and hack various operating systems to make life easier. Check out his blog at MakeTechEasier.com where he shares all the tips, tricks and tutorials.

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Posts have previously been written on Make Use Of on application launchers such as: Enso Launcher and Launchy, but I will talk about some other application launchers that may assist you in achieving the goal of ultimate ease!

Here are a few of them (in no particular order):

(1) DE Launcher

DE Launcher is somewhat of a cheap version of RocketDock. It features a taskbar that is aligned on the top of your screen with the same intent as the Mac taskbar. It features built-in optional features such as: Calculator, Command Line, Key State, Clock, Uptime, and Username/IP.

You are, as well, given the option to drag applications to the taskbar to have quick access to applications. You can drag folders, yet you are unable to see them, unless they have an icon previously set for them.

(2) M2 Launcher

M2 Launcher is a type of scheduled application launcher. The small 444kb application allows the user to schedule a time for an application or batch file to be run with other timing features.

(Note: The website is rated as a “Red” or “Dangerous” site by McAfee, yet that is due to their linking to an unsafe website, not the freeware on their website, so it is safe.)

(3) Useful Launcher

Useful Launcher is more of a useful system tool then an application launcher. It features the option to minimize all visible windows, kill applications quickly, make a window transparent, make the taskbar transparent, take screenshots, small “WinLogoKey” shortcuts simulator, start a Windows screensaver, quickly launch common Windows applications, find system information, or shutdown the system.

As you may already be able to tell, this application is extremely useful. Unfortunately, the host website has discontinued this application, yet it is still available through Softpedia.

(4) RK Launcher

RK Launcher is another imitation of the famous “Mac Dock.” It is also similar to RocketDock, except there are still a few problems with it.

When I attempted to minimize a program, it either duplicated the application to the dock and kept it open or didn’t work at all. Applications were still able to be launched, yet that problem existed.

Another huge error in RK Launcher was that it was non-existent in some applications. i.e. I went back to Firefox and RK Launcher seemed to have been unavailable.

(5) FSL Launcher

FSL Launcher is a neat, small application that seems to be extremely effective. Simply drag your applications into the corresponding group in the application and then exit the application.

Whenever you need to access one of the applications simply hold your cursor on the top left-hand side of the screen and FSL Launcher will pop up on the screen.

(6) 8start Launcher

8start Launcher – 8start Launcher is similar to FSL Launcher. It is a small window that allows for the user to add shortcuts to it in different sections to allow for quick access to programs and commonly used applications.

You are even allowed to add links to websites in the launcher.

One cool feature of 8start Launcher is the option to change skins. You may select one of the downloaded ones or get more on their website.

During installation, if the application is going to be used on the go, you can select to add it to your USB drive with the “Portable” option.

(7) Colibri

Colibri is similar to Enso Launcher. It allows the user to click on the icon for Colibri in the taskbar and type in a search term. Colibri then searches for what you are typing for on demand in an accurate manner.

What do you use as an Application Launcher? Tell us in the comments.

(By) Will is a computer nerd and geek that is raising money for developing a better internet and runs his blog at Advanced Tech Solutions.

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