Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Google, Microsoft, Freeware
Program launcher overload
by Jason Clarke Nov 30th 2006
Remember when Windows 95 came out, and we were all introduced to the Start Menu? It was Microsoft's new way of allowing users to launch programs, and it kicked all kinds of butt over the old Windows 3.1 shell. They had done a bunch of user testing, and found that the Start Menu interface allowed users to launch their programs measurably faster than with previous interfaces. Unfortunately, it just didn't take long to reach the point where too many entries in the Start Menu make it so slow and cumbersome to navigate that it becomes relatively useless as a program launcher. Of course to combat this problem Microsoft introduced arguably one of its worst Windows feature from a usability perspective, Personalized Menus. These are the menus that hide items that haven't been recently chosen from view. The problem here is that people are inherently visual creatures, and we learn the locations of the options and software we want to choose. When their locations change based on what is or isn't hidden, it slows us down and makes things more complicated.
Until Windows Vista comes out, this (along with desktop shortcuts) is the current state of the art with respect to program launching technology from Microsoft. I'm not the only one who finds these options lacking, since there are a million and one application launchers available for Windows. I know, I've got at least 4 of them installed.
Let's see what's on here:
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
