Showing newest posts with label Desktop Enhancements. Show older posts
Showing newest posts with label Desktop Enhancements. Show older posts
Some applications silently add new items into the context menu and it will end up with mess. To clear them or organize your context menu, Context Menu Editor may meet your need in this case. It allows you to add/remove application's shortcuts as well as website addresses.
You might see some tools to close all unnecessary applications in order to focus only on a program to increase the response rate. You can also apply the same tactic to audio system using SoundOff where you can turn off all system sounds while you are listening to music or watching videos.
Editor's comment: Do you want to shutdown your PC just with a double-click on an icon on desktop, try the tricky tips in this post.
Do you find it boring and time consuming to click start menu to able to shutdown, restart or hibernate computer? You can easily avoid start menu and perform similar routine using quick shortcut icons on Windows desktop. For this you need to create shortcut icons for shutdown, restart and hibernate. No need for manual trouble, you can do it automatically using PowerLink utility.
Editor's comment: There are many times the desktop icon layout is not what you want. it might be someone had changed it, or you reinstall the windows. this posts tell you how to resolve the issue.
The desktop is perhaps the most used and relied-upon location, we use it for temporarily storing documents, images, and so on, keeping track of things, fill it with soon-to-be-needed or frequently accessed data. Organization freaks like myself take advantage of the desktop by keeping icons in carefully mapped places. For example, I prefer to keep application shortcuts aligned with the left border of my desktop, while documents and images go alongside the right end. Most frequently accessed apps are hanging close to the top.
Windows 7 brought with it more reliability to the Notes widget, which allows you to take notes right on your desktop. Almost every user at some point needs to make a note of something, and if you’re not using any tool, chances are that you’ll soon get tired of having to open notepad all the time, saving the note, selecting output location, etc. While the notes widget makes it easier, you are still limited not only by space, but also by having to visit the desktop every time you need to take a note.
An opensource, free tool with the name of Notetray does the trick. This application is not only most convenient to use, but also portable. Simply run the exe file once, and it will add its pencil-shaped icon to your system tray.
This may not be the most beautiful desktop wallpaper out there but it surely is innovative and different. All it has is an empty bookshelf and a computer desk inside a room – you can creatively fill it up with icons of your frequently used programs, folder shortcuts, control panel icons, etc.
If you are one of those wanna be pianists that just can’t afford proper equipment yet, check out Virtual Piano. It is a free utility for Windows and Mac that turns your keyboard into a Piano. You can then play the piano through your mouse or your keyboard keys. Each key on the Piano is mapped to a button on your keyboard and the complete mapping is displayed once you click on the ? button or the Piano Notes button.
The utility also displays keys for popular songs from bands like Linkin Park and Guns and Roses so you can try playing those on your own. You can scroll through the selection of these songs by clicking on the respective up or down arrow. If you are a mouse person, you can de-activate the keyboard functionality. There are also several loop functions and pre-recorded pieces of music to give you a good background beat. Just press the space bar key to turn off the music at any time.
Sometimes you need to make a screen cast on your desktop. The first thing you should always do is to clean the mess of icons on your desktop which is the painful result of installing multiple applications. However, you don’t want to remove all of those icons at once since some of them are still useful.
HideDesktopIcons is such a complete solution in this case. Instead of sending a batch of icons to Recycle Bin, it simply hides them, and you can unhide them easily just with a single click. It will place an innocent icon on your taskbar, and once you click it, it will hide/unhide all icons on your desktop silently without any dialog or confirmation.
Previewing the content of a minimized tab in the taskbar is a useful feature in Windows 7. Unfortunately, it only displays the preview in a small popup box so that you cannot see clearly some parts of the content. To increase the size of this preview box, no need to install any third party utility since you can do it through a couple of simple steps.
Desktop gadgets appeared in Windows Vista, and they are still available in Windows 7 because of their benefits and convenience. By installing useful gadgets, you can get information, files and do many tasks quickly with ease.
If you are still looking for useful gadget for your desktop, the list below may suggest you some, which used most by people. You can keep up with Twitter messages, Gmail, and Facebook as well as access Quick Launch and turn off the system with a simple click.
When it comes to telling which essential function people use most on Windows, many probably say “Copying and Pasting”. To be honest, I use it most but the default Clipboard doesn’t meet all my needs, and I believe some of you feel the same. To extend the Clipboard ability, third party utilities should be a good choice.
PasteCopy is an utility written in .Net which promises to extend Clipboard. Once launched, it lets you preview the content on Clipboard as well as do some text manipulations. You can convert RTF text to plain text and HTML to RTF text. Moreover, you can export the content on Clipboard and print it also.
When strip down unnecessary features of Vista to make a faster and neater Windows 7, Microsoft maybe remove some convenient things that would make users uncomfortable. For example, it doesn’t remember the locations of closed windows and when you go to a location, it will show the window in different place on the desktop.
ShellFolderFix is a neat utility that will fix this issue perfectly. It also offers you a handy way to close and minimize all windows just with a simple click. Moreover, you save the opening windows to its database (it calls it workspace) and reopen those windows with ease.
Surfing the web and an interesting idea just flows through your mind, don’t want to miss you so you grab a pen and write it down on a paper. But hey, is it a handy way? You can do this right on your desktop.
OrangeNote is a WPF based application, which offers you a convenient way to write and manage notes on your desktop. You can store as many notes as you want in its database. And you can assign a hot key to a note in order to get it back to clipboard quickly.
There are various ways to preview the minimized windows’ contain before switching to. Windows 7 offers users this convenient feature while prior Windows users have to apply some hacks or install a third party application in order to do this.
Unlike other applications which only show the contain of minimized windows in different style in 2D, Tehnif T3Desk allows you to view those previews in 3D. So surprised that this utility is just 1MB and completely free to download.
The computer generally is invented just for three major tasks: storing the data, processing the data, and searching the data. We now can store more data since the hard disks are bigger and faster continuously as well as we can process data more effectively because more applications for various purposes appear. About the searching task, it’s still a potential place for all of us to conquer.
Windows 7 comes with an advanced search feature, you can easily feel that it searches more exactly and faster. But it’s just faster and more exactly, to experience the fastest and the most exactly processing, third party utilities such as Everything, Puggle and Google Desktop may bring you.
You must be so familiar with searching for something on web, so do you sometimes need to do that task on your computer? In most cases, the default Windows file search engine works fine, but still looking for a better alternative, give Puggle a shot.
Written in pure Java, Puggle can run under any operating system these days in case JRE (Java Runtime Environment) is already installed. At the first run, it takes a little time to build the index of file and structure on your system and it will usually do this task whenever it grabs something new.
Aero Glass is the special appearance came to Windows Vista and now it is still the major appearance on Windows 7. The significant thing of this appearance is the full transparence. But you can only see the transparent title and the transparent borders of a window as usual.
There are some tweaks to make the whole windows of some specific programs fully transparent such as Calculator and Notepad. So how about Windows Media Player, a famous media player on Windows?
Windows is so well known as a great operating system for personal computers. One of the reasons to say this is that you can personalize your system without any effort. In Windows 7, you can even personalize the theme using your avatar and your favorite screensaver using a new web based service Experience Windows.
It is completely free and all tasks will be done online. Follow the friendly wizard, it guides you to fulfill a theme in just a few clicks such as choose a destination, upload your photo, generate the avatar…
I pretty love the thought of Evernote that we can take notes anywhere, anytime and use any device. However, if you just need to take notes about works on your Desktop, PNotes is a great note manager which can satisfy all you needs.
Once launched, it sits silently in the system tray. You then can take any note on Desktop. The note content is in rich text which means you can use colors, styles to format your note content in order to remember easier. Aside formatting the note content, you may dress the note with various skins for different purposes.
