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Posts with tag HotKey

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

Looking for a portable hotkey app? Try QOpen!

QOpen

I'm not generally inclined to make use of program launchers. Instead, I prefer to use the tools that are built in to my Windows OS to save mouseclicks and keystrokes.

QOpen, however, is an interesting alternative for me. It's portable, insanely light on memory usage (about 2mb) and incredibly useful on my service bench.

By default, QOpen is invoked by pressing win + space. Once the window is displayed, entering your preferred abbreviation launches the specified application: NP for Notepad, for example. It also supports drag-and-drop creation of new hotkeys from shortcuts or programs, allows you to specify command line arguments and working path, and can launch applications maximized, minimized, or hidden.

When would this be useful? A lot of the systems I repair on the bench require the same applications, which I store either on a network share or on my USB flash drive. By launching QOpen first, I can execute obnoxiously long commands like "c:\windows\system32\oobe\msoobe /a" (to open the Activation Wizard) by typing something simple like "act" into QOpen.

Its size and low resource utilization is key. I still see the odd Windows XP machine with 128 or 256 megs of memory that needs tuning - some people just love their old beaters and don't want to upgrade or replace them. QOpen is a handy, light way to access apps like CCleaner, HijackThis, and Adaware from my file server and it doesn't bog down older machines like Launchy does.

Filed under: Windows, Freeware

Shell Enhancer's Got Your Hotkeys and a Whole Lot More


One of our beefs with Windows is that there are some pretty obvious customization options missing. Little things, but things we'd use if they were there. Fortunately, NuonSoft's Shell Enhancer packs a bunch of these features into a single 2.5MB installer.

What can it do? For starters, it allows you to "roll-up" windows (display only the title bar), make any window transparent, minimize applications to the system tray, lock them in position, and even force them remain on top.

It doesn't stop there, however. Also included is a wicked hotkey manager; we particularly like the prepacked "Google selected words." Highlight some text in any window, press ctrl + alt +g, and Internet Explorer will open with your results (you can easily rework it to use Firefox, of course). There's also a thumbnail-enhanced task switcher and a taskbar button mover (it's not click and drag, but it works).

Who doesn't want a little more functionality with a dash of eye candy for their Windows shell?

Filed under: Design, Developer, Utilities, Productivity, Apple, Shareware, Open Source

Display all of your OSX apps in a pretty collage

mac applications panelApple users love pretty things. And nothing is prettier than getting all arts and crafty and displaying your awesome collection of downloaded apps in a sweet collage. Best of all, no work is involved.

This Mac application called Todos opens all of your application icons in a panel. Choose the application you want to open, and hide the panel. That simple. No more cramming all of your applications on the dock. There is a nice hotkey feature to easily open and hide Todos as well.

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware, Open Source

Hotkeys - Today's Free File

We recently went through a phase of showing a number of different application launchers. I thought we were done with that, at least for awhile, until DownloadSquad reader Martin submitted this utility through our tip form. Dubbed simply (and accurately) Hotkeys, this utility is pretty fantastic.

Like most hotkey configuration utilities, Hotkeys allows the user to setup specific key combinations to launch applications, switch between open instances of a running application, control volume (via an add-on) and even remap your Caps Lock key to be a Windows key. But where Hotkeys shines is in how it is configured; setting up a new hotkey is a matter of displaying the on-screen keyboard, and dragging and dropping a shortcut to the key you would like to use to launch it. This in and of itself is pretty great, but they've taken this visual aspect a step further.

One of the reasons most people don't bother to learn hotkeys is that they simply can't remember them long enough to stick into their long-term memory. Hotkeys helps you out with this by simply showing the on-screen keyboard with icons representing each configured hotkey when the user holds down the Windows key for more than 3 seconds. In practice what this means is that when you know the key combination you need, Hotkeys stays out of your way and is very fast. But when you realize you can't remember the key combination, by the time you've decided you need to look for another way to launch the application, the on-screen keyboard has popped up showing you what you needed to know.

Did I mention that the visuals are very appealing? Hotkeys is a product of qliner software, who have decided to release Hotkeys as an open-source project.

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

View more Time Wasters

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