application launchers

Get Quicksilver Working In Snow Leopard

9:00AM Adam Pash | Quicksilver is easily one of our favourite tools ever, but since its future isn’t all that bright, die-hard users cross our fingers every time OS X updates. In Snow Leopard, Quicksilver stopped working for many users; here’s how to fix it. More »

Blaze Launches Applications And Automates Repetitive Tasks

11:30PM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows: Applications launchers are plentiful and since Windows Vista there has been a built-in launcher in the start menu. Blaze however rolls application launching into a package with task automation. As you work it suggests ways to automate your workflow. More »

Kupfer Launches Linux Files And Applications Quickly

11:05PM Kevin Purdy | Linux: If the graphical demands of previously mentioned Linux launchers GNOME-Do or AWN are too much for your needs, Kupfer might be a perfect fit. It works in a similar fashion, but uses only spare resources to do so. More »

ControlPad Turns Your Number Pad Into An Application Launcher

8:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows only: ControlPad is a lightweight application launcher that uses the number pad on your keyboard as a quick launcher for applications and system commands. More »

GNOME-Do Adds Docklets To App Launching Bar

9:00PM Kevin Purdy | Linux: If you’re using GNOME-Do and not using the up-to-date repository for the app launcher, you really should be. That’s where you’ll find goodies like the newest “Docklets”, helpful widgets that respond to both clicks and text commands. More »

7stacks Does OS X Stacks In Windows 7 Style

2:00AM The How-To Geek | Windows only: Application launcher 7stacks adds the Stacks functionality of Mac’s OS X to Windows 7, including Aero transparency effects that blend into your taskbar perfectly. More »

CSMenu Brings The Classic Start Menu Back To Windows 7

4:00AM The How-To Geek | Windows only: Application launcher CSMenu makes up for the lack of the classic start menu in Windows 7 by creating a menu that looks and works just like the ancient Windows 2000 menu did. More »

XWindows Dock Provides An OS X-Style Dock In Windows

5:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows only: If the application dock on your friend’s Mac fills you with envy, you might want to check out XWindows Dock, a full-featured OSX dock clone. XWindows Dock certainly isn’t the first dock bar for Windows we’ve featured—RocketDock and ObjectDock are two popular options covered in the past. Although much newer to the scene than the aforementioned options, XWindowsDock has an eye-pleasing array of features. The visual appearance is easily customisable with settings covering opacity and blue, spacing, icon size, and many more aspects. If you’re not interested in tweaking settings, the default is more than serviceable, and the application is skin-able to take advantage of other peoples’ design chops. You can minimise applications to the dock, save folders to it, and even preview images and video on it. One small oversight is the lack of support for dragging applications to the dock to create shortcuts. Application shortcuts are added by searching from the dock for the executable. Not a deal breaker for most people, but if you’re a frequent dock re-arranger you may miss the convenience. Also as you can see in the screenshot above, some of the default icons for applications come out a bit fuzzy—grabbing icons from the icon sets we shared last week would be a definite improvement.For more features and screenshots, check out the site below. XWindows Dock is freeware, Windows only. XWindows Dock [Download Squad] More »

GNOME Do Updates With New Clock, Lots Of Fixes

11:00PM Kevin Purdy | Fans of GNOME Do, the Quicksilver-like application launcher for Linux, will be glad to hear that a lot of kinks have been worked out in its 0.8.1 release, and a few new features added in. The big new thing is the analogue clock option, which looks pretty nice and turns into an array of world times you selected when clicked on. More importantly to most users, though, the smoothness and appearance of the smart and functional Docky theme has been overhauled, hopefully giving more users with varied graphics powers a better experience. There’s also a few “behavior” changes that I haven’t quite ferreted out yet; GNOME Do users, post your own finds in the comments, and I’ll update the post. GNOME Do is a free download for Linux systems only. Hit the link below for help on getting it into your distro. GNOME Do – Download [via Ars Technica] More »

KidsMenu Is A Kid-Friendly Interface For Windows

9:00AM Jason Fitzpatrick | Windows only: KidsMenu is a kid-friendly way to corral your kids towards pre-selected applications and keep them out of trouble when they are on your computer. Although KidsMenu can be run from within your Windows account to create a simple application launcher for your child, the real benefit of KidsMenu is when you use it as a full-on Windows shell replacement. Create a limited account for your child, and when you run KidsMenu for the first time in that account you can press ALT+CTRL+I to set KidsMenu as the default interface for Windows when logged into that account. From that point forward, instead of being presented with a overly complicated start menu and all the sub-menus they don’t need, your child will instead see something like the screenshot above—customised with your own background and programs of course. Note: the screenshot above is from the developer’s website. We download and test every item we write up here and this one is no exception, but I had no kid-friendly applications to populate the menus with beyond the basic Windows games, which made for a rather pathetic-looking screen shot. For other ways you can create a locked-down environment for kids on your computer—without having to log in and out of separate user accounts—makes sure to check out previously reviewed KidZui and KidRocket. KidsMenu is freeware, Windows only. KidsMenu More »