I realized recently that I was never looking at my Outlook application when I wanted to start a new email to someone, and I had no quick-and-easy way to launch a new email message. So after a quick search Google search, I found this site with instructions on how to do many things in Outlook from the command line. And it was super easy to whip up a quick batch script that could do exactly what I wanted, then put it in my ‘bin’ directory where I keep all my other Launchy scripts (as described in this post).

Now to pop up a new Outlook email message, it’s as easy as typing “Alt-Space newmail”.

Finding new uses for Launchy is wonderful.

Okay, so Ubuntu rocks!

I’ve moonlighted with Linux in the past (Slackware, Suse, & Fedora), but I’ve always ended falling back to the old crotchety standby, Windows. I kept Slackware running on my extra PC for web development for a long time, but eventually I had to scrap it for parts. But now that I’ve got Ubuntu (7.0.4 Feisty Fawn) running on my new laptop, I don’t know that I’ll ever go back.

Sure, there are things that it won’t work for. My current work project pretty much requires a Windows platform to run on, so I’ll have to keep a Windows partition. Actually, I’m planning on setting up a triple boot with XP and Vista (why not?).

So I am still looking for something that will work as well as Launchy on my Ubuntu install. I’ve tried Gnome Deskbar-applet with no success yet; I’ve also tried Katapult, but it won’t pick up the hotkeys (Alt+Space should launch it). I think I may have problems with my hotkeys all around on the laptop with Ubuntu, because my Gmail hotkeys won’t work either. So that is the main thing I have to research right now.

But I’ll tell you the coolest thing about this crossover so far: BERYL. It’s awesome. Turns your desktop manager into a 3D cube with dragable windows. Adds sweet effects to lots of stuff, and makes working in the Ubuntu OS a very smooth and excellent experience.

I work with someone from OCI who has noted that there are a finite number of keystrokes within his fingers, so every one needs to count. This leads us geeky developer-types to take advantage of shortcuts within our IDEs and frequently-used programs. I have found an application that extends this mindset seamlessly into the Windows OS. It has made my use of Windows extremely fast. In fact, while pair programming or demonstrating something, more than one other programmer has seen me use this tool and asked something along the lines of “What was that thing you just used to open [some program] so quickly?”.

So I’ll tell you.

Launchy is probably the most useful free Windows productivity application I’ve ever downloaded. I use it all the time, sometimes hundreds of times a day. From the Launchy website:

For my first example, compare the following methods of opening Firefox, assuming your hands are where they should be… on the keyboard:

Bookmarks

Even better, Launchy indexes all my bookmarks so I can just type “Alt+Space, danlog, Enter” to bring up my weblog. Launchy keeps track of your most recently used applications and tries to guess which one you mean when you type “danlog“.

Media

You can also tell Launchy which directories it needs to index, and what types of files to index. So you can put all your MP3’s in your music directory at your fingertips. Want to listen to Beercan by Beck, just type “Atl+Space, beercan, Enter“, and it pops up in your default MP3 player.

Navigation

Also use Launchy to navigate to the most-used locations in your file directory. I have a folder that Launchy keeps indexed where a bunch of shortcuts exists (Windows .lnk files). So if I want to go to my Eclipse workspace, there is a workspace.lnk within that folder, so I can just type “Alt+Space, work, Enter” to bring the folder up.

Scripts

Some of the most useful things I’ve done with Launchy include custom batch programming. There are some Ant tasks for projects I’m working on that I tend to run all the time, so I have written some very simple batch scripts and placed them into Launchy’s index. Now I can just type “Alt+Space, report, Enter” to open up a command window, navigate to my project folder, and run “ant report” from the command line.

Anything!

You can put any folder into Launchy’s index and have it look and attempt to execute any file type. It will open data or media files with the default program if one is specified. I’ve even put my Windows “recent” link within the index so I can bring up all my recent files with a few keystrokes.

If you are concerned about how many keystrokes you have left in your fingers, I urge you to check out Launchy.

Links

• Download Launchy
• LifeHacker Download of the Day
• Tweaking Launchy