Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

gestures posts

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Productivity, Freeware

Hot Corners adds OSX-style magic corners to Windows

I'm a big fan of applications that extend the power of my keyboard, but I like being able to to teach my mouse some new tricks as well.

Hot Corners is a application that allows you to assign a number of actions that occur when your mouse hovers over the corners of your desktop. Choose to show your desktop, lock your workstation, activate a screen saver, or launch any program on your computer.

In addition to assigning actions to the four corners of your screen, Hot Corners can add four mouse gesture actions. Hold the Windows key and tap X, and your pointer will move to the center of the screen. Mousing left, right, up, or down executes your pre-defined action.

A system tray icon provides quick access to disable your corners, gestures, or both.

Hot Corners is written in AutoIT3 and full source code is available for download from the author's site. It's freeware for Windows only, and is portable - just drop the program files directory onto your flash drive.

Update: Due to all the comments, I tested the download again. ClamWin reports it clean, as do VirusTotal and NoVirusThanks.Org. Those of you reporting positives, what AV are you running?

Filed under: OS Updates, Windows Mobile, Microsoft, Mobile Minute

Windows Mobile 7 may sport new input methods

Windows Mobile 7?Nathan Weinberg at InsideMicrosoft has either got a great big scoop on some of the features Microsoft plans to put into Windows Mobile 7, or way too much time on his hands. For the duration of this post, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he got his hands on a leaked Microsoft document from sometime this summer explaining the new features to be packed into Windows Mobile 7.

The biggest news is that Microsoft plans to react to the iPhone's multi-touch screen in a big way. Windows Mobile 7 will reportedly support multi-touch, gesture controls, and will even react to motion thanks to interaction with your Smartphone's camera. Of course, there's a good chance not every device running Windows Mobile 7 will actually have a camera or a multi-touch screen, but the goal is to eliminate the scroll bar and let users flick from screen to screen a la the iPhone. Overall, the OS will supposedly be more finger-friendly than Windows Mobile 6 and earlier devices which really depend on a stylus or hardware keypad.

Weinberg also reports Windows Mobile 7 will get a major graphics overhaul, looking a bit more like Windows Vista than the iPhone. And he's also got screenshots of an improved on-screen keyboard and media player. While all signs point to Windows Mobile 8 being way cooler than Windows Mobile 7, if Weinberg's source is accurate, then we still can't wait to get our hands on a device running the next version of Microsoft's mobile operating system.

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio