Recently in tech Category

I downloaded and installed Launchy last night, after having become disillusioned with the Windows Quick Launch bar over the weekend. For some reason all the shortcuts disappeared from the Quick Launch bar after a reboot, and I had to re-add them all.

At this point I thought of Launchy, which is frequently touted on Lifehacker as being the greatest way to launch applications, find files, etc that any Windows (and Linux) user could hope for. Somehow I had managed to avoid trying it out, but I decided now might be a good time to give it a shot.

Launchy is just a small executable the gets plopped into you Start Up folder, and keeps a catalog of the shortcuts in you Start menu, Quick Launch bar, and any other locations you choose. It runs in the background until you need it, at which point it is summoned by hitting Alt-Space. Start typing "itu" for example and it will suggest iTunes. Hit enter and it launches the program. Much nicer than moving the mouse up to the Quick Launch bar and hunting for the right button, or hunting through the Start menu.

Posted on Digg earlier:

Guess which one is the most awesome:

That's right. Old school.

I've decided to make a list of all the free software I like to install whenever I am presented with a new computer.  I primarily use Windows, so most of the software on this list is for Windows.  Some, like Firefox and Pidgin, run on multiple platforms however.

• Firefox:
  Best web browser.  Ever.
• Pidgin:
  An open source instant messaging client that can do AIM, Yahoo, GoogleTalk, MSN, Jabber, etc etc.
• FreeCommander:
  A sweet replacement for Windows Explorer with dual-panels, hotkeys, filtering, folder comparison, and a ton of other cool features.
• CCleaner:
  "Crap Cleaner."  Great for cleaning out temp folders, temporary internet files, and miscellaneous junk files from the hard drive.  Also removes unused registry entries.
• Ad-Aware Free and Spybot Search & Destroy:
  Free adware and spyware removal tools.
• AVG Anti-virus:
  Very nice free AV software with frequently updated virus definitions
• Notepad++:
  A light-weight text editor with lots of features that make it ideal for editing code; syntax highlighting for a ton of languages, macros, bookmarking, advanced searching, etc.
• 7-Zip and/or SecureZIP:
  Free compression utilities that can create and open a large number of archive types.
• Revo Uninstaller:
  A more powerful and thorough alternative to Windows' Add / Remove Programs tool.  Any time that I've been unable to remove an app with Add / Remove Programs, Revo has been able to get rid of it for me.  It also removes folders and registry entries after uninstalling the software, which one cannot always rely on the built-in uninstaller to do.
• VLC Media Player:
  Plays most any type of video or audio file you can imagine, plus DVDs from multiple regions.  I use it primarily for viewing video files and DVDs.
• foobar2000:
  This is my music player of choice.  It plays any type of audio file one could want.  The only drawback is the lack of any reliable iPod support.
• CDex:
  A nice free CD ripping tool that encode to multiple formats.

That's all for now.  There are probably some that I've left out, but this is a good selection of the software that I like to have on all my boxes.

Later I will post a list of my essential Firefox extensions.

Finally got OS X printer sharing to work with my PC. I was able to set up the printer in XP with no errors, but nothing ever happened when I tried to print. Tonight I found this hint on Mac OS X Hints. Apparently, when setting up the printer in Windows, one needs to use a PostScript driver instead of the driver for the actual printer.

We have a Lexmark 5200 Series All-In-One printer, connected to a PowerMac G4 running Panther, and I set it up as a network printer in Windows using the Apple Color LaserWriter 12/600 driver.

Amazing what one can find when one takes a few seconds to Google for an answer.

Upon reading the interview mentioned in my last post, I found a link to a very cool web site, Folklore.org. As the description on the home page says, "Anecdotes about the development of Apple's original Macintosh computer, and the people who created it." These are the stories published in Revolution in the Valley, and you can read them here for free.