Quicksilver for Windows UPDATE: Launchy

Over the last couple of months, my infatuation has been in trying to reduce my Windows workday of all the needless RSI inducing Microsoft navigation and user interface. There are few things that I hate more than having to yet for my stupid programs folder to load up and then have to search like a madman to find a program I use once every few months. Quicklsilver for the Mac OS X make finding files, applications as easy as writing a sentence. Hit [CTRL]-[SPACE] and then type in few letters to find the file or application which we will call a noun. And then based on your noun, you can choose a series of actions: verbs. And then based on the verb other actions can take place as well. My favourite power move is to highlight a few desktop items then invoke the [current selection] from there you can choose to move it to another folder without ever having to open up a finder window.

So how does Launchy compare to Quicksilver? Not very well, but is a great start for Windows. It does the application launching and file searching pretty well. The biggest limitation is the fact that most of the really cool features of Quicksilver are based on using even cooler Mac Os X features and core elements. Something that is seriously lacking in Windows (XP and Vista take your pick). It seems that if you ever want to do anything a little different, you need to create a Visual Basic Script or a full blown .exe application. Which obviously makes it nearly impossible for most power users in a corporate environment to do anything at all.

So far Launchy looks like it will be really useful if the development community really kicks in and gets some more plugins out the door to interact with the OS and other opensource apps like Pidgin, FileZilla, Snarl and of course FireFox.

MS Office 2007 Discounted 91% for Students

I remember driving through the English countryside with my wife's grandfather Fred as we passed a great big horse cart filled with horse manure and next to it there wasa shovel and a stack of potato sacks. A sign next to it read: 1 bag = £1. That's all. I commented on how cheap that was. Fred just said very coldly

It might be only be a pound but you're still paying for SHIT!

All this to say, the latest flavour of Office really has not changed that much. Even if you do get all the extra apps like infopath, groove, accounting express, publisher, onenote and access, most people still think that Excel is good enough fro a database and that Powerpoint is the ultimate in desktop publishing. If your a student and you HAVE to use a Windows machine and you really need these apps, then it's a great buy. Most of you will be more than happy with your MacBooks and iWork'08. If you pretty smart you'll buy Bento/Filemaker and Quark. If you were like me, you'll be running Apache on Leopard and PHP5 with a MySQL database.

How do I get my Hotmail access on my BlackBerry?

I get asked this question all the time from freinds and colleagues who have paid for the Windows Live Messenger service on their Blackberry and then are surprised they can't get their Hotmail without opening the WAP browser. Apart from the fact that Hotmail and MSN Messenger are two separate services that are linked together by the email address. I am often asked if someone can send me a MSN later or if I will on the Hotmail after lunch. This has always been my biggest issue with Hotmail and I've been a user since day one.

The problem is that Hotmail is a "web only" mail service and does not include the POP3 or IMAP protocol services needed to access your email from a BlackBerry or a desktop client like Outlook and Outlook Express.

Only Hotmail Plus users have access to POP3 mail at a cost of $19.95/year. Hotmail Plus

Paying users also get:
All the benefits of Windows Live Hotmail, plus more:
10 GB of storage
No account expiration
No ads from other companies, just tips and product info from Microsoft
File attachments up to 20 MB—send more photos, more documents, or almost anything you want

This doesn't look like much, but a standard Free GMail or Yahoo account gives you more for free.

Once a Hotmail plus service is acquired, the user can go here to get the details needed to set up their email on the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS).


And then finally head over to the Bell BIS page to set up their email:

There are pages for other providers, simply go to the Blackberry.com site and search for "YOUR CARRIER" and BIS. Information on this should also be included in the documentation your carrier puts in the BlackBerry box when you but the device.

The other workaround is to open a free GMail account and have all of your Hotmail forwarded to the GMail address, that way the user still gets email from their hotmail contacts but is able to reply and send new mail without haveing to pay anything else. This option can be a little confusing to set up.