Category: Everything else

Little productivity boosters – Texter, Mouse, Launchy and the like..(Predominantly Windows)


‘Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things, I am tempted to think, there are no little things at all.’

A few such things that came to my mind when considering laptop productivity are the following –

1) My Mckal mouse: For 3 years, I lived off an IBM mouse as I did not want to waste cash on buying a new one. Yes, the IBM mouse gave dozens of problems especially after the 1st 6 months but no, I did not feel spending cash on something as stupid as a mouse was worth it.. And boy – was that a mistake. The mouse has saved many many hours of time which could have been lost fiddling on a touch pad/ correcting the issues caused by a bad one. Here’s a pic of the mouse available for only 20 bucks @ Challenger @ Funan.

2) Texter: Texter is a brilliant little tool created by Lifehacker that saves tons of time especially for those who have emails streaming in by the 100s. This is a text replacement tool. A simple example is –

Most emails require a greeting like ‘Hope you are doing well.’ or ‘Thank you for your email! :)’

Texter enables you to configure keystrokes for these sentences. In my set up, I’ve got hyd for hope you are.., tyf for Thank you.., brg for Best Regards, Rohan etc..

3) Launchy: Another time-saver. Launchy helps open up any application. After a simple download and installation, launchy can be opened up with alt-enter and typing ‘word’ and pressing enter would open up microsoft word instead of going through the process of going to the start bar and searching etc.

Launchy can also open up favorited/book mark websites on your browser and can also be configured to open music files among others.

4) Ninite: Ninite brings them all together. Going through the ninite list itself would give you a list of some great free software.

4) X1 – For those who use outlook as their email client, there’s no better way to search and find email as fast as you type.

Other small windows utility that tend to add a lot of value in the background are –
Wizmouse
Taskbar Shuffle
Quickmonth calender

**For more advanced users, OneNote is a wonderful addition to your toolkit. And when combined with Dropbox, makes for a killer combination.

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There’s a LOT more when it comes to productivity boosters but I thought I’d start with a basic list first. I love looking out for new additions myself. A very good list is Lifehacker’s 46 apps we are thankful for.

Happy productivity boosting! And if you do have any interesting software/apps to recommend, please do leave it in the comments..

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And–which is more–you’ll be a Man, my son!

Aaron Ramsey – I hope this makes you stronger..

Football is a contact sport – as much as there is talk about better referees, maybe more protection – taking out that contact aspect would reduce the adrenaline to that of a sport like golf..

And often times, when we are watching sport, horrific incidents take place – those that transcend whether you like or hate a player, whether you are a fan of the club or not..

Yesterday, Aaron Ramsey’s leg was broken as a result of a dreadful tackle by Ryan Shawcross and he may be out for a year..

A lot can be said about Shawcross but it was plain from the moment after the tackle that he was devastated.. it’s not an easy ride for him as well. I just hope there is no football fan who will be coining up a song to taunt Arsenal.. there are some incidents that rise well and above the game itself.. and this is one of them..

As for Ramsey, I do hope he comes back much stronger.. and I’m sure he will!

Just on a different note, that’s the 3rd horrific tackle on an Arsenal player in the last 4-5 years.. what is it about the football club that makes it so susceptible to injury?