Category Archives: Windows

Multi-protocol IM Clients Done Right

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There are a lot of options out there for the instant messaging crowd. There are probably three multi-protocol clients available for every one single-protocol (standalone) client. There are two related multi-protocol clients, that work pretty much across the board on the three major flavors of operating systems, that I think are flat out better than anything else out there.

If I’m installing an IM client on a Windows or Linux box I’m going with Pidgin. Pidgin is released under GPLv2, and has implemented (at present count) 16 IM protocols, ranging from the standard ones — MSN, Yahoo!, AIM, and Jabber — to the no-so-standard — Gadu-Gadu, MySpaceIM, and Groupwise to name a few. While this does require the GTK libraries to be installed on Windows, they have seamlessly integrated this into the installer, so there is no pain involved. There are lots of plugins available, including my favorite — Psychic Mode.

Adium is a cousin of Pidgin. Adium is built on the libraries behind Pidgin, and is only for Mac OS X. Where Pidgin doesn’t quite seem to carry the look and feel of Windows, Adium is 100% Mac in its look and feel. Adium also integrates perfectly with Growl. The protocol support is a little bit less with Adium compared to Pidgin, but I’ll never use the obscure ones it doesn’t support. It does, however, pickup support for the .Mac protocol.

You may say, “What about Trillian? What about iChat?” What about them? With Trillian, you have to buy the pro version to get the Jabber protocol. With iChat you only have .Mac, Jabber, AIM, and Bonjour protocols; no MSN or Yahoo! support. I’ve tried using Trillian and iChat, but I always end up back with Pidgin and Adium.

iChat does have one major advantage over Adium at this point: voice and video chat. While Adium (and Pidgin) is currently working on this issue, you have to go to iChat to take advantage of that functionality.

Windows Screenshots

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Windows comes with two ways to capture screenshots baked into the software. If you hit PrintScreen it will capture the entire screen to the clipboard. If you hit Alt-PrintScreen it will capture the active application/window to the clipboard.

I very rarely use the full screen capture because I’m usually taking a shot of one specific application. This process is very easy to understand, and simple to use. It’s at this point where my frustration begins.

With the baked-in functionality Windows places the screenshots in the clipboard. You’ve captured it, but now you have to do something with it, which is completely un-intuitive. In OS X when you take a screenshot it dumps the image not to the clipboard, but saves it as a PNG to your desktop. It even makes a camera clicking sound so you know it took the picture.

What I generally do on Windows is open Paint.net and paste the capture into a new image. I will frequently get screenshots pasted into Word documents. Neither way is convenient for the one capturing the image, and the Word method is not convenient for the viewer.

Since it doesn’t happen baked-in, are there any installable products that are capable of duplicating the simplicity of the OS X screenshot process on Windows? Or does everyone just suffer with the standard functionality?

Windows Screencasting on the Cheap

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I’m the tech/operations person for a branch of our organization that has staff in 3 locations. I work out of the “main office,” and do a poor job of making it out to the other two locations on a regular basis. Partially because of the location spread, and partially because I think it’d be fun, I’m going to start producing some demo/instructional screencasts. I know, this is completely unique take on screencasting that no one else is doing. Maybe I should patent it. (please note the thick sarcasm) I’m tied to Windows at work, so I looked first at Camtasia. Being cheap I balked at the price tag. That started me looking for free alternatives.

I read something a couple of weeks ago about a “free” Windows-based screencasting setup. For the capture George suggested using CamStudio. I’ve played around with it a little, and I’ve been very impressed with the simplicity and general quality of the capture. CamStudio’s captures are fairly large, so George took a suggestion from Free Vlog and used Windows Movie Maker to achieve better compression — and convert the AVI file to WMV.

What other options are out there? I’ve read about Wink, but haven’t tried it yet. What do you use for Windows-based screencasting?

Free Windows Software

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I’m always on the lookout for quality, free software. Over at nedwolf.com they have four lists of Windows freeware: general freeware, portable freeware, web developer tools, and online apps.

These lists are very extensive, and nicely organized so you can easily find the software you need. They have everything from CD and DVD rippers to portable secure file deletion to favicon and button creators. It’s been a while since I’ve visited, and there is a whole lot of new stuff there. I’ve got some new software to play with.

Launchy in 3…2…1…

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I’m pretty sure people can already guess that I’m a fan of ways to avoid using the mouse. A long while ago I was on the lookout for a Windows-based keystroke application launcher, in the same vein as QuickSilver for MacOSX. I had started out with Colibri, but found myself not quite satisfied with it. That’s not to say that it’s a bad product, I think it is a good product. It just didn’t seem ideal to me.

My search continued until I came across Launchy. What I found was a very light weight, very quick keystroke application launcher that I’ve been using for over a year now. On my laptop with 1GB RAM it uses only 9MB. And when triggered, uses only 2% of the CPU to load the launcher, then returns to 0%.

As with any launcher it indexes your Start Menu programs folder, but it goes beyond that. You can choose to index as many folders as you’d like. For those folders you are indexing, you can choose what file types to index e.g. .lnk, .mp3, .exe, etc. There is also an extensive library of skins for further customizing Launchy.

The way I’ve chosen to customize my indexing was to create a special folder with links to my frequently used documents and Access databases. So rather than launching the desired application, then going through the process of locating the file I want to open, I initiate the launcher, start typing the name of the document and hit enter. Simple and clean, and saves me a bunch of time clicking through various menus and windows.

A feature that sets Launchy apart from other application launchers is that it’s portable. There is a setting on the Advanced Settings screen where you can mark it as an application on your USB drive. Love that capability.

Oh, I almost forgot the best part about Launchy. It’s released under the GPL.

Is This Make-or-Break Time For Linux?

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Frank Ohlhorst just asked if the penguin is listening. I haven’t thought much about Linux since I made my home computer switch to Mac about a year ago, but he poses some very good ideas.

The Mac guy, the PC guy and a penguin are all standing around having a conversation. The Mac guy, of course, would be pointing out the flaws of Vista, but there would be a twist, the Penguin would be asking, “Why do I have to buy a new computer to avoid all of those Vista problems?”

All fun aside, he gives a strong call to arms for the enterprise Linux distros:

Commercial Linux vendors need to pay attention. The year 2007 very likely will become the year of change on the desktop thanks to Vista and the next generation of the Mac OS, and if the commercial Linux vendors don’t seize the day, the future may very well become bleak for Linux on the desktop.

Vista is not the “minor” migration that going from Win2k to WinXP was. Vista is a major upgrade, albeit with minor benefits IMHO. I know my company is going to hold out until SP1 before taking a serious look at upgrading our systems. Who knows even if Vista will be the preferred OS among users.

For years people have been wondering if Apple can get out of the home and media markets, and into the “regular” business world. I think Apple is in position now to make that serious push, especially with OS 10.5 coming very soon.

Is Linux read to move out from the server and tech enthusiast markets, and into the Joe Average Home User and enterprise markets? That’s a murky question. I like Linux, but I fit into the tech enthusiast category (my favorite distro is Gentoo BTW). I know the kernel is ready, but are Gnome and KDE ready for the non-tech world?

Is there enough momentum left in the Linux machine to take advantage of this situation, or has the fruit-train stolen the proverbial thunder from the penguin?

via Linux Today

Four Windows Key Uses

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There are four keystrokes that involve the Windows key that I use on a daily basis at work. A variety of tasks are completed with them, and I’m sure these are not the only four out there.

  • Windows-D minimizes all of your open application windows, showing the desktop.
  • Windows-R will pull up the Run Application launcher window. This is the same result as if you use your mouse to do Start > Run.
  • Windows-E will pull up the Windows Explorer.
  • Windows-L will lock your computer. I believe this was a new feature in WinXP.

I haven’t played with Vista yet, so I don’t know if any of these work on that platform. However, I would expect them to.

Do you have any favorite Windows Key based shortcuts?

Do the Taskbar Shuffle

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One thing I’ve found annoying about the way Windows handles the display of open applications is the inflexibility in the Taskbar. With XP they gave the ability to group Taskbar items from the same application together, but still no way for me to organize the lineup how I really want it. My morning, login routine was designed around opening up applications in order so they’d appear in the Taskbar “correctly.” I got all out of whack when an application would crash, and then my “order” was not so much anymore. Then I found Taskbar Shuffle.

Taskbar Shuffle is an amazingly simple application, that takes up very little system resources. It’s currently using 4.7MB of RAM on my computer with 1GB total RAM. I can open up my applications in any order I want, and just click-and-drag the Taskbar items to put them in the order I want.

No hotkey, no extra steps, rearrange the programs on your Windows taskbar by simply… well, dragging and dropping them! Neat concept, huh?

This is a sweet utility for those of us that like things “just so.” The price for this wonderful software, FREE. But help a brother out and donate to the cause.

If you are a user of Google Desktop, he’s even created a variation of it as a Gadget.