Despite this, I have heard about Launchpad. Launchpad is a Mac OSX feature which makes launching applications easier and (of course) more stylish. I know it’s pretty darn easy to launch applications on my iPad, and I’ve been searching for something similar for my Windows machine.

If you’re also looking to tweak your Windows’ look and feel and make it somewhat more Mac-ish, you’re going to love WinLaunch.

Getting Started With WinLaunch

WinLaunch is an application launcher for Windows XP, Vista and 7, which aims to look like Apple’s Launchpad. To start, download WinLaunch, open the zip file and extract the suitable folder for your operating system (x86 or x64). When you’re done, launch WinLaunch.exe.

As you will see, nothing much happens. The first time you run it, you’ll get a “heads up” window telling you about known issues with WinLaunch, which is still in beta. After that, there’s nothing. To start WinLaunch for the first time, hit Shift+Tab.

The screen will blur and this message will appear. WinLaunch doesn’t crawl your system for your applications; you need to add those manually. Hit ‘F’ and start dragging in applications.

As basics go, this is pretty much it. You can drag as many applications as you want, and when the screen is full, WinLaunch will create more pages. You can flip through these pages by left clicking your mouse and sliding it on the screen, much like you would with a touch screen.

Now let’s see how what else you can do with WinLaunch.

Creating Folders And Renaming

WinLaunch allows you to create folders in a way that’s very similar to what you get on Apple’s machines. After dragging in your applications, click on an app with your mouse and drag it over another application. This will create a folder, which you can continue to add to.

If you want to rename the folder (“New Folder” is not very informative), or if you want to rename an app, click on the plus sign on the bottom left corner, and then click the “Rename” button at the bottom of the screen, and then click on the icon you want to rename.

This way, you can easily rename folders to more descriptive titles, and also change any name if you don’t like the one its been given by WinLaunch.

You can open a folder by clicking on it, and then launch any application in the folder by clicking on the icon.

Playing With The Settings

WinLaunch is rather configurable, and you tweak many things to suit your needs and desires. To access the settings, click on the “Settings” button at the bottom of the screen.

In the settings, you can enable and disable hotkeys and HotCorners. With these you can decide how WinLaunch will be activated. What you set here will be the only way to activate the program, so remember these settings. I found the a hot corner worked very well for me, and you can use it to both enable and disable the app. If you choose the “Show desktop when activated” option, WinLaunch will not be maximized; otherwise, it will be launched on the entire screen.

Among other things, you can also change the icons’ size and text size, and all the colors. It’s a bit hard to understand which color is which at first, but playing around with it makes everything clearer. There are some ready-made themes to choose from, and you can even upload photos for the launcher’s background if you wish.

There are more things you can tweak, such as adjusting WinLaunch for multiple monitors (choosing which one it will appear on). Playing with the colors is the best part, though, and as you can see from the above screenshots, you can create lots of different styles and backgrounds. It can look like this:

And even like this (or better, if you actually have talent).

The options are pretty much endless. One downside of WinLaunch is that it’s a bit heavy on the RAM. On my computer, it was using up to 50MB of RAM, just when lying in the background. That’s a bit steep, but the developer does intend to fix this issue. Other than that, WinLaunch runs very smoothly, especially considering it’s still in beta, and toggling it on and off to launch applications quickly becomes a second nature. So if you’re on the hunt for better ways to launch your Windows apps, give it a try!

Know of more Launchpad emulators, or other original ways to launch apps in Windows 7? Share in the comments!

Fingertips is not like other application launchers in the sense that there is no real GUI, no slide-outs or menus, and we’re not replacing the visual Windows Start button. This software puts a new spin on keyboard hotkeys and achieves it in the most simple way. You just type in what application you want to launch and hit the Enter key.

Now, as a Windows user we’ve got an awful lot of real estate at our disposal – the Windows desktop, the Windows Start menu, the Quick Launch toolbar, and so on. If you’re anything like me, you need more than that. You need an instant, easy way to get to the program you’re looking for without minimizing windows and hunting for specific icons. That is where Fingertips comes in.

Right out of the box, Fingertips comes at you preloaded with every application already in your Windows Start menu. With that being said, the Start menu is now practically obsolete. It’ll also add in your Favorites from Internet Explorer. As you can see in the following screenshot, I’ve got hundreds of items ready for access right after my installation.

In the next tab over (Hotkeys), I really recommend you bind a hotkey combination to launching the Fingertip command window. Not doing so would mean putting yourself through that extra work and those extra motions before getting to where we really want to be.

As that screenshot shows, I have the command window showing after the Ctrl+` hotkey combination is executed.

For the sake of our example, let’s say I wanted to launch Control Center 3 (software that comes along with particular Brother scanners and printers). It takes two steps:

1. Hit Ctrl+`
2. Begin typing in the application’s name.
3. Hit Enter.

You don’t even have to type out the entire name before Fingertips begins to suggest for you. Just a few letters will do.

That takes you no more than three seconds and then boom, there it is.

Now isn’t that a lot easier than retreating to your desktop and minimizing everything you’re working on? It’s easier than scrolling through a huge list of Windows Start menu items, too.

This software really shines when it comes to adding your own entries to the list. I originally picked up this software because I needed a simple way to launch my portable Dropbox applications. It works wonders.

To enter a new entry, go into Setup and check beneath the list on the Commands tab. Click “New“. Set your abbreviation, which is your text-based “hotkey” to launch that application or action. From there, enter what needs be. Fingertips can work with more than just applications alone, it can bring you straight to certain websites and perform actions in Outlook and Windows overall. You can check here for more on that.

I made my own hotkey for MakeUseOf and it sure beats bringing up a new browser, waiting around for it to load, and then typing in the URL.

In such a small and simple package, Fingertips can completely transform the way you launch your most frequently used applications and perform other actions.

If Fingertips isn’t quite what you were looking for, take a peek at some of the other application launchers we’ve covered. More of a mouse person, instead of keyboard? Take a look at MouseExtender.

Today I’m going to explain to those who’ve never tried it why this is such an awesome launcher; if you’re one of the millions of people who are already using it, feel free to skip ahead and check out the five beautiful themes I’ll be showcasing below.

Why Go Launcher Is Awesome

Go Launcher EX is super customizable. Customization is something most launchers like to tout, but let me show you three of my favorite features – namely, swipes, dock swipes, and transition animations.

Swiping & Gestures

As you can see, the launcher has “glide up” and “glide down” actions. When I swipe up anywhere on the launcher, the app drawer opens. When I swipe down, Google’s Gesture Search launches. But that’s just one use of swiping; the other use is swiping on the dock icons:

When you long-tap one of the dock icons, you can set a Gesture action for the icon. This action is executed whenever you swipe up on the icon. So for me, tapping the Messaging icon launches the Messaging up, but swiping up on it launches the Gmail app. Two apps, a single icon. This feature is the single best feature of Go Launcher EX (for me, at least), and it’s something I haven’t seen any other launcher do.

Last but not least in this brief overview are the transition animations. Go Launcher EX offers ten different animations for swiping between home screens:

My favorite one (as you may guess from the screenshot) is the Cube one, where it feels like you’re rotating a cube whenever you flip between screens.

Hopefully, if you’ve never used Go Launcher EX before, I’ve managed to pique your interest. It’s a free app, and you should just go to the Go Launcher EX Market page and install it right now. Once you do that (or if you already have it installed), read on for some beautiful themes I found on the Market.

Applying A Theme

To apply a theme, tap the Menu button while in Go Launcher EX, and then tap the Themes button (third icon on the top row below):

You will find yourself within Go Launcher’s Theme Market, where you can either install new themes or apply ones you’ve already downloaded (I will be including Market links to each of the themes below). So now, let’s see how you can add a bit of pizzazz to your Android experience with these beauties:

Color Dot Theme

The Color Dot Theme offers a selection of hand-drawn, squiggly-looking icons, encircled by colorful dots. It also comes with a wallpaper featuring colored dots:

And here’s what the main menu looks like:

And the some of the available icons:

For a free theme, it includes a pretty impressive array of icons for popular apps such as Twitter, Facebook, and of course, Angry Birds.

GingerSeth

GingerSeth is another free theme, which goes for a cleaner look and a generous splash of bold, bright colors. The default wallpaper splits the screen into top and bottom areas, making it ideal for a setup like this:

Meaning, widgets at the top, apps at the bottom. The default wallpaper is branded with a logo, but the developer has thoughtfully included a non-branded version as well, as you can see above. The dock icons each have their own mini-shadow, making for a cartoonish look. Here are some of the other icons included in the theme:

Now that we’ve looked at two free themes, let’s take a look at two paid ones. Both are very cheap, coming in at under a buck each, and both are clean (perhaps even too clean – you be the judge).

Light Theme

Light Theme, ironically, comes with a very dark default wallpaper:

That’s because the icons it includes are very bright and have a noticeable glow. Check some of them out:

Because of the glow, the icons seem particularly tiny (since the glow takes a part of the space allocated to the icon, obviously). This is particularly noticeable on the YouTube icon (second icon on the second line above). Still, it does have a certain allure, and is a very clean, crisp theme.

White Theme

The White GO Launcher EX Theme comes from the same developer, and it shows:

Gone are the tiny icons. to be replaced by clear, simplistic, all-white icons. I also like the default wallpaper much better. And now, the built-in icons:

Lovely, aren’t they? I’m not quite sure what that Mac icon is doing there (first one on the second line), but other than that, they are all wonderfully legible and clear. I think for many users, this one is going to be a keeper.

Last but not least, we’re going to end off with another free theme:

Imperial

Imperial takes things in a different direction, and includes a uniquely curved launcher dock:

This is something I haven’t seen in other themes. I also like the fact the doc icons are abstract, and are not explicitly linked to any specific application. Sadly, it comes with a rather limited selection of icons:

But hey, it’s a free theme, and its basic look (and dock) is certainly eye-catching and unique. I wish there were more themes with curved docks.

Your Turn

Are you married to another launcher? Or did I miss a gorgeous theme? Let me know in the comments!

Let’s look at a few of the best ways to quickly find and launch those apps you want, starting from the very basic one, and moving on to more advanced ways.

Put The App On Your Home Screen

I know, duh, right? But you know what? This is something iPhone users simply can’t do (or actually, with the iPhone, everything is on the home screen all the time). Being an Android user, you get to choose what you want to put on the home screen, and what you want to tuck away into the app drawer. It’s very easy to go overboard with this method – I find it best to have under ten icons or so.

So that’s the built-in way, and it’s very simple. But what about some other, cooler ways?

Swipe In From The Side Of The Screen

What you see above is what happens when I swipe my finger “inwards” from the right side of the screen. A grid of icons pops up – some are for applications, others are for widgets. This grid is courtesy of SwipePad, an awesome quick-launch tool. My phone lacks a dedicated camera button, so I set the top-right square to launch Vignette, my camera app of choice.

The basic version of SwipePad is free, and you can buy add-ons for it that increase its capabilities (making it possible to place widgets on the grid, for example).

Tilt Your Phone & Wave Your Hand

If you’re into Harry Potter or magic in general, you might like Prox. Prox doesn’t work on all devices, only those that have a dedicated proximity sensor. It lets you tilt your phone at a certain angle (away from you, towards you, off to one side, etc.) and then wave your hand over it to launch an application.

It’s not a good way to launch dozens of different applications, but if you have one or two favorite apps (say, Gmail), you could easily launch them with Prox. It does have quite a bit of pizzazz, and looks like magic when it works.

Doodle A Part Of Its Name

Meet Gesture Search. This is an application by Google, but it doesn’t come built-in with Android (that’s too bad, really). Gesture Search lets you simply draw out a part of the name for an application, a setting, or a contact person. You can control what it indexes:

As you can see, I use Gesture Search only for settings and apps – but that’s really a matter of personal choice. It works amazingly well. There is also a special motion, called Double Flip, that lets you activate the app. Here’s a quick video showing how the motion is done.

Gesture Search works best when you know the name of the app you’re trying to run, and can’t be bothered scrolling through lengthy menus. So for my absolute top apps, I use either home screen shortcuts or SwipePad. For those I run somewhat less frequently, Gesture Search does the trick beautifully.

Use Smart Folders

The folder you see above contains those apps I’ve installed in the last week, and it’s automatically updated. That’s thanks to an amazing app called Auto App Organizer. As I install every app on my phone, Auto App Organizer intercepts the installation (much like an anti-virus would) and then categorizes the app into one of several automatic categories:

The auto-categorization is surprisingly accurate, and saves loads of time. One feature I really like is the Unused tab. This shows apps you didn’t use for a while (30 days for me, but that’s configurable). This way you can easily spot those apps that just idly sit forgotten on your phone, taking up precious space.

For each of these categories, you can create a shortcut on your home screen. So, for example, I can access all of my games with just one single tap:

I can also control the volume a game will be launched at, using the slider above the games. One of the handiest apps on my device, without a doubt.

Do It Your Own Way

This is the part where you get to tell me what your favorite way of finding and running apps on your device is. How do you do it? Did I miss an important app or way?

However, all those have slowly faded, and a new, promising solution has appeared which already offers an effective way to launch your applications in Linux.

About GNOME Pie

GNOME Pie is the latest piece of software that lets you launch any of your applications, favorite locations, and more using a hotkey combination and your mouse. When configured correctly, it seems to be very effective for users, but also visually appealing. So you have been warned: work comes before play.

Installation

The program can be easily installed via Ubuntu thanks to its system of personal repositories, while users of other Linux distributions will have to compile it themselves (if you’re willing to do that, then you probably don’t need my help with that). So, in Ubuntu, you can run the following commands to add the repository, update your package lists, and install the new package:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:simonschneegans/testing
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-pie

Usage

Once that completes, you need to launch GNOME Pie via your terminal by entering gnome-pie. The application will, for now, run from the terminal, so if you close the terminal, you close GNOME Pie, but we will fix this shortly. Once it is opened, you can get the feel for it by playing around with it for a while. The default hotkeys are: View Bookmarks: Ctrl+Alt+B, Multimedia: Ctrl+Alt+M, Sessions: Ctrl+Alt+Q, Applications: Ctrl+Alt+A, Main Menu: Ctrl+Alt+A, Space and Windows: Ctrl+Alt+W. To exit, you can either hit Esc or simply right-click.

Settings

Once you’ve had a little fun (or just want to go to the settings first), you can do that by clicking on the very nice looking system indicator (aka tray icon) and clicking on settings. In the General tab, you can choose things like whether you want it to startup on login, whether it should show an indicator, “turbo mode”, the overall size of the entire pie, and which theme you’d like to use. Ubuntu users will probably use the Unity theme as that is Ubuntu’s shell. GNOME 3 users will probably want to use Adwaita to keep everything uniform.

In the Pies tab, you can change any number of aspects for each pie. You can add new pies, add new slices, delete some as well, and change the hotkey combination to launch each pie. The exact configuration is up to you, so there isn’t much else I can say here. Configure as you please!

More Love

Now that you’ve configured everything to your liking, you can play around some more. Launching applications is very intuitive. After pressing the hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+Space), you’ll be presented with the different categories, where you can then click on one and get a different set of items on your pie, according to the category that you have chosen.

Conclusion

That’s it! GNOME Pie is easy to install, configure, and use, and its visual appeal is also very much appreciated. Now you can launch all your applications and folders quickly and in style. In time we’ll see whether GNOME Pie is just another fad like Synapse, or whether this little app is going to stick around for quite some time. Personally, I like it and hope that it gets to stay around.

Windows users, are you jelly yet? (For those who don’t know, “jelly” is slang among American youth for “jealous”.)

What are your opinions of GNOME Pie? Out of all the application launchers, which was your favorite? Why? Let us know in the comments!

When Multibar first launches after its installation, it will proceed to index your files and folders. This step is necessary if you want to use the instant search feature. Unfortunately, Multibar presently can only index your C drive.

Multibar opens at the touch of a button and that button is your [Windows] key. When you click this hotkey, your cursor will instantly jump to the instant search field (red arrow in screenshot below). In the window below you will see a selection of quick launch commands. Type in a program or folder you want to open or click your [Tab] key to move to the other items in the instant search window.

When you hover over an application icon in your Multibar, it will show the recently used files, provided you didn’t disable this Windows feature. Hovering over a folder will show its content.

You can manually open the Multibar with your mouse by clicking the little pull-down label on the side or top of your screen. It is also shown directly below.

When the dock is open, click the tools icon in the top left corner to access Multibar’s settings.

If you don’t like the fact that the Multibar opens when you hit the [Windows] key, you can disable this hotkey. Further hotkeys can be accessed and modified via the respective tab.

Through the settings you can customize the look and feel of your Multibar. Decide where on your screen it is located, how it behaves, change the size of the icons and the background, and set which icons are shown.

Presently, you have the choice between 11 different skins for your Multibar, which are available via the Themes tab.

Multibar comes with a small selection of added tools: games, a friend meter, and a weather forecast tool. More addons (some premium) can be found on the Ticno homepage. The smart folders feature advertised on the installation screen appears to be missing in the current build.

The only default addon worth mentioning here is the weather forecast tool. It determines your present location based on your IP address and will show a five day forecast when you hover over the icon in your Multibar. The games and friendmeter addons didn’t work for me and I recommend to disable them via the addons tab in the settings.

Taken together, Multibar is a very sleek, unobtrusive, and intuitive to use application dock for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

MakeUseOf has previously written about docks, please check out these articles:

• How To Create A Dock In Windows Vista
• Docks – The 6 Best Friends of your Windows Taskbar
• 4 Applications to Give Windows XP Mac Functionality

How do you organize and access your shortcuts to files, folders, and applications? Do you love your chaotic desktop or have you found other ways to handle them? Please share your strategy with us!

For these purposes, Espier Launcher (or Espier Launcher 2.1 if you’re running Android 2.1) is perfect. It emulates the iOS Springboard almost perfectly, and is really a must-have launcher for anyone with an Android device who wishes, even if temporarily, to pass it as an iPhone.

General Looks & Folders

After installation, this is what your screen will look like:

The app comes complete with this default wallpaper, which you can change as you would always change a wallpaper on your device. As you can see, my browser icon has turned into Safari, and all my other apps have arranged themselves in an iOS-ish way. With Espier Launcher, you bid goodbye to the regular app drawer, and have to make do with having your apps scattered on the device’s desktop. You can, however, arrange them in true iOS folders and decide which apps reside in the dock.

Long-tap an icon to make them all jiggle (exactly like iOS!) and then place one app on top of the other to create a folder. You have to be rather precise or the folder will not formulate.

You can then change the name of the folder (as long as everything is jiggling). Espier Launcher is very true to the original, and opening and browsing folders looks exactly like the real thing, split screen and everything.

Another thing you’re going to lose with Espier are homescreen widgets. You can place shortcut icons of various types, such as contacts, bookmarks etc., but not widgets. But that’s OK – you wanted an iPhone anyway!

App Switcher Tray

What you won’t lose is the App Switcher tray. It’s even a little bit better than the original. To access it, you need to swipe up with one finger. You can then see all your recently used apps. Long-tap any of them to make them jiggle, and then tap the red icon to remove any of them from the tray.

Swiping left will show you more recent apps, while swiping right will reveal a power-control widget. From here you can easily control things like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, brightness and so on. It’s very much like the regular power-control widget in Android.

Spotlight Search

True to an iOS clone, Espier Launcher comes with a true-to-form Spotlight Search. It’s accessed the same way as in iOS – by swiping all the way to the right until you reach it. It searches your apps, contacts, media and so on, and the search is live, so simply start typing to get results. You also get some suggestions, which seem to be aimed at web searches.

Settings & Further Options

There are several things you can control in Espier. One being the sensor, which I have yet to mention. If the sensor is turned on, you can tilt the phone to move jiggling icons between screens. This is not a very helpful feature in my opinion, but if you want to try it, tap and hold an icon until everything jiggles, and while you’re still holding the icon, tilt the device right and left. The icon you’re holding will be moved between screens.

You can also turn off the auto-arrange icon, and access a handy launcher switcher to switch to a different launcher.

Espier ran smoothly on my Acer Liquid E with Android 2.2. This is not a very powerful device, so I believe it should run well on almost any device. If you run into problems, you can access the app’s preferences and turn off Animations Effects. If this still doesn’t help, try turning off the Spotlight Search.

Bottom Line

Espier Launcher does an incredible job copying the iOS look and feel. If you’re a fan of Android but secretly (or not so secretly) adore the iOS look, be sure to give it a try. The illusion disappears as soon as you actually tap something, of course, but hey, looks are only skin deep anyway, right?

If Espier Launcher is a bit over the top for you, check out these other 6 cool iPhone themes for your Android phone.

What do you think of this mixing of both worlds? Should people just learn to choose or is it OK to enjoy some of each world? And what do you think of Espier Launcher? Share your opinions in the comments!

Well, today we’ll be taking a look at 6 of these meticulously crafted launcher iPhone themes for Android that can give your phone a refreshing dose of iOS rounded icons, docks and wallpapers.

While you can find a number of paid themes that can bring you even more customization options, the ones on this list are free and will get you started in making your phone look like a close brother of the iPhone. They all require you to have at least one third-party launcher/homescreen replacement app though, but most of them are free and very well-rated. One such launcher is ADW Launcher, for which we’ve already shown you where to get an iPhone theme for. For additional themes that you can use with other popular launchers such as Go Launcher Ex and even LauncherPro, read on!

Classic iPhone Themes

iPhone Go Launcher EX Theme [Android 2.0+]

For those of you who use and love Go Launcher EX, this theme brings you the default look from iOS, including classic rounded icons, dock and 3 wallpapers, but I couldn’t find the two other wallpapers that were presented on the Market product page (if you know, let me know in the comments!)

You can also choose a different app drawer background though the default one looks pretty slick.

QR Code:

If you’re using a different launcher, such as ADW or LauncherPro, worry not. There’s a similar theme for all three launchers that contains the classic icons, and a few more dock and wallpaper options.

iPhone VO Theme Lite [Android 2.1+]

For users with ADW Launcher 1.3.0+, Launcher Pro 0.86 or even Go Launcher 2.35+, this theme will provide a nice-looking launcher with classic icons, backgrounds and sounds as well.

If you like the icons from iOS, but don’t mind a few changes, this theme should be for you. You’ll see that the icons’ backgrounds are more colorful than on the original platform, and even the wallpaper is different.

What’s cool about this theme is that it comes with an actual drawer app shortcut, so you can browse through the theme’s backgrounds, sounds, etc, in contrast to other themes where you have to browse through the launcher’s preferences.

QR Code:

For more backgrounds, icon sets, and sounds, check out the full version.

iPhone-Inspired Themes

iPhone VD Theme Lite [Android 2.1+]

For the iPhone-inspired themes, we’ll be taking a look at this theme that wraps all icons in black, rounded containers.

This theme is available for LauncherPro, ADW Launcher and Go Launcher EX users, and as a drawer app, so you can browse through the theme’s offerings natively, without going through the launcher’s preferences.

As you can see, the ad only shows up when you open the app drawer. If you want more backgrounds, icon sets, and no ads, check out the full version here.

QR Code:

iPhone Black Go Launcher Theme [Android 2.0+]

I used to consider black a bit boring, but the previous and the current black themes have certainly proved me wrong. Like the previous theme, this one offers a set of cool and elegant icons, backgrounds, and more.

I know, the multi-color Apple logo on the wallpaper might be a little too much for Android purists, but I can’t help but think it’s absolutely gorgeous. Here’s a glimpse of the logo-free app drawer.

QR Code:

iPhone 3.0 Go Launcher Theme [Android 2.0+]

This theme brings forth slightly more vector-ish icons and cleaner but familiar overall looks. What’s neat is that the Market product page even has app and widget recommendations for the ultimate iPhone-ish look.

As you’ll see, this theme is iPhone-inspired, with even the wallpaper closely resembling the default raindrop background.

QR Code:

iPhone Epic Go Launcher Theme [Android 2.0+]

I’ve saved my favorite one for last, the iPhone Epic theme. It’s extremely colorful and has way-rounder icons (reminds me a bit of Puppy Linux’s original icon set).

If you need a refreshing splash of color, I’d definitely recommend this theme.

QR Code:

That rounds off our list of iPhone-inspired themes for Android. Care to share additional themes to this collection? Let us know about your favorite themes in the comments below!

AppDialer is a Cydia tweak that allows you to literally dial an application or iPhone function and have it quickly open. You simply use Activator to store a gesture to launch AppDialer, enter in the numbers or pattern you stored for the application and the application will open up quickly and easily. I did not really think I needed a tweak such as this on my phone, but now that I have it I could not imagine going without.

Installation

AppDialer is available for free on Cydia. It is under the default repos so there is no need to go seeking out any funky repo for the app. Simply open up Cydia and search for “AppDialer” and click on the link for AppDialer in the search results. On the top of the screen you will see an install button, click that and let Cydia do its thing.

When the application finishes downloading, Cydia will force you to respring your device to allow the changes to take effect.

Set Up

Setting up AppDialer take a few steps. First, go to the settings option on your iPhone, scroll down to the section right below “Store” and click on AppDialer to adjust the settings for the app.

The next step is to click on “Activation Methods” to set what kind of gesture you would like to use to activate AppDialer. I chose to shake the device to get it going, but there are lots of available options to make it start whichever is the most comfortable for you.

Next you will have to choose whether you want to use numbers or a pattern to make each application open.

After you choose how you want to input your commands, you need to actually set up a command in the application. To do this click Dial Setting on the first setting page. Click the “Add Item” button to input a new command.

A keyboard or pattern input screen will pop up, and you need to enter whatever you want for this particular app and click call. Your newly entered command will appear below the “Add Item” button. Click on it to tell the application what program to open when you choose this command.

Next choose “Activator Event” at the bottom of the screen and scroll through the list to choose whatever you want this new command to do. You can make it open an application, or launch a basic iPhone function, whatever you prefer.

Now try it out. Shake your device or do whatever activator control you used, enter the code or make the pattern and your application should open the same as if you clicked the icon on the springboard.

Conclusion

This is one of those awesome Cydia tweaks that you just do not think you need until you try it. This is one that I will be keeping on my phone for the long haul, and I highly recommend that you check it out if you are a user with a lot of apps on your phone.

Have you tried AppDialer? How did you like it? Let us know in the comments.

Over the years, system administrators have come up with various tricks to accomplish this task. Tim wrote about a few useful ways that people use Windows Task Scheduler to launch various jobs, and Varun covered a series of useful USB apps that can come in handy. In this article, I’m going to cover a few USB auto-launch techniques that administrators have used. You might have been told that it’s impossible to auto-launch applications on your USB card on your Windows 7 computer. I’m here to show you that it is not true.

How You Used to Auto-Launch USB Apps

For years, at least since Windows 2000, but probably even earlier, system administrators have used the autorun.inf technique to autostart applications on a USB memory stick just like the autorun feature worked on computer CDs.

The autorun.inf file could be as complicated or as simple as you liked. The simplest form was as follows:

[autorun]
icon=mypic.ico
open=start-zim.bat
action=Click “OK” to start your apps!

All you would need is the icon image and the batch job available, and the moment you inserted your USB stick into a computer running an OS like Windows XP, you would see the following options automatically pop up.

Just click OK and you’re good to go. You can launch a batch job that starts all of the apps that you want, and you essentially have a customized way to open up all of your apps in an automated way that saves a lot of time.

This was somewhat limiting, because you had that pop-up prompt. I’ve heard that there were ways to get around the pop-up that involved a little bit of tweaking/hacking, but in doing so you introduce the ability to hack any computer with some virus simply by inserting a USB stick. Microsoft caught on to this in Windows 7 and completely disabled the USB functionality of autorun.inf in that operating system. Future updates of Windows XP also disabled that feature. So what’s a system admin to do?

Launching Apps Automatically From Your USB Stick

Well, where there’s a will there’s a way. And yes, there is a way to launch a program just by inserting your USB stick into a Windows 7 PC.

The first thing you’re going to want to do is install AutoIT, which Guy covered a while back. AutoIT is a very cool scripting language that lets you compile those scripts into exec programs that you can distribute to any PC. The download includes an editor as well as the converter software.

The great thing about AutoIT scripts is that there are lots of brilliant people out there creating scripts for a long list of tasks. The following script is what you use to detect whether a USB stick has been inserted into a port.

$DBT_DEVICEARRIVAL = "0x00008000"

 $WM_DEVICECHANGE = 0x0219

 GUICreate("")

 GUIRegisterMsg($WM_DEVICECHANGE , "MyFunc")

 Func MyFunc($hWndGUI, $MsgID, $WParam, $LParam)

 If $WParam == $DBT_DEVICEARRIVAL Then

MsgBox(4096, "Info", "My Drive has been Inserted, Backup My Files!")

 EndIf

 EndFunc

 While 1

 $GuiMsg = GUIGetMsg()

 WEnd

That script will recognize a “device change”, and for a USB stick it will launch a message box, as shown here.

Now, think about that. If this script will recognize a USB stick in order to launch a message, then it can be slightly modified to launch a program instead. So, in order to do this, I took the script above and replaced the MsgBox command with the following line:

Run ("F:\System\Apps\ZimWiki\Zim Desktop Wiki\start-zim.cmd")

What this does is senses when I’ve plugged in my USB stick, and then automatically launches the Zim Wiki app I have on my USB stick that I use to organize and monitor my writing work.

Now we have a way to auto-launch a program just by inserting the USB stick. However, let’s take it a step further and launch a whole collection of apps by launching a batch job on your USB card called startapps.bat that launches all the programs you want for that particular stick.

START "" F:\System\Apps\ZimWiki\Zim_Desktop_Wiki\start-zim.cmd

START "" C:\Users\Owner\MUO_STORY_IDEAS\MUO_STORY_IDEAS.txt

START "" FIREFOX.EXE http://www.makeuseof.com/wp-admin

What’s the point of this? The point is that now you can have a unique “startapps.bat” script for various USB sticks. One might be for your school work, in which case you’d open your class webpage, a word processor and maybe a spreadsheet for the class. Another might be for your work as a help desk tech, where it would auto-launch PC support utilities and your favorite tech website (MUO of course).

The only catch is this – the EXE file you create with the AutoIT script has to be running on every PC that you want the auto-launch to occur on. This satisfies the Windows 7 security demands. Just open the AutoIT script above, and compile and build the script to create your EXE file. Put that EXE in the Startup folder of the computers you use most often.

If the script is running, you’ll see the following Icon in the task bar.

This setup is great because there’s no prompt at all – just insert your USB stick and all of your required apps will just launch automatically.

Give the script a try and see if you can get this setup working with your own USB stick. Do you like this approach? Any tips for how to improve it? Share your insight in the comments section below.

ramasamy chidambaram