Applications (software) running atop of an Operating System (Windows) is what makes a PC useful. An OS with no apps is pretty useless. When you have lots of apps, things get interesting. The potential for good things (productivity) increases, but so does the complexity.
I have a TON of apps on my PC's. I'm jumping in and out of, toggle to and fro countless apps all day long. The efficiency with which I can navigate all that chaos is paramount in my world.
Windows users fall into one of three categories:
- Those who use the Start Menu - People in this category are mouse people. They point and click around the desktop and endure constant and painful context switching. I've noticed a surprising number of these individuals don't understand the difference between a single and double click. Similarly, they tend to not know the difference between a left and right click. My mom, mother in-law and granddad fall into this category. I'm happy to report that my dad has graduated from the group recently.
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- Those who use the Start Menu - I used to be one of these people. Actually, I guess you could say I still am. I have a huge QuickLaunch toolbar which is a mashup of Shortcuts to everything in the Control Panel, Administrator Tools, and the Start Menu items I care about. This approach is approaching productivity Zen, but it alone is not enough for me. When my hand happens to be on the mouse, I use these. When it's not, I use commands.
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- Those who use commands - I purposefully left this generic. I know people that are Start -> Run -> magic command -> Enter people. I'm a commands person, but the Run dialog is too constrictive and limiting. There are other command utilities available for those of us who like to keep their hands on the keyboard.
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Introducing SlickRun - Bayden Systems
SlickRun is basically the Run dialog on steroids. It floats atop all windows on your desktop waiting for you to give it a command.
When you click it, it transforms into a magic textbox waiting for your command. SlickRun gives you Windows Explorer shell capabilities (auto completion of file system paths). It's PATH aware - anything you can run from the Run dialog (winword, mstsc, excel, calc, cmd, etc.) will execute from SlickRun.
Of course you can also setup as many "magic words" as you'd like. For instance, 'whidbey' launch Visual Studio 2005 on my machine. I have that magic word pointed to 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe'.
Another cool feature of SlickRun is it's wired up with Google. I can send a search term to google with the 'google' [term] command and my default browser will be launched with the results of my search displayed.
Finally, because SlickRun itself is an app, but I can easily get to it without my mouse. It's accessibly with the handy Alt-Tab key combo, but you can also configure it to come alive with a key combo of your choice.
Checkout SlickRun - I think you'll like it. There are other apps out there with this functionality - such as AppRocket, but SlickRun does everything I need and is free.
Warning - for you .NET zealots out there (like me)... this not a .NET app. You will be required to install the Delphi runtime. On top of that, it's not what I'd call a pretty app. The Delphi-ed-ness and the not-pretty-ness will give you a strange feeling at first, but ignore it. This is a top quality, highly useful app.
Enjoy...