We all have seen how the native Windows Startup becomes so painfully in-adequate when you start installing a lot of programs. It will be nice to have customizable startup options so you get to the frequently accessed programs easily & quickly. We have seen some excellent application launchers like Launchy, Enso, etc. Still those are fin when you know what you want to open. But, you might even forget the programs you have installed for a particular task.

8start is a portable startup program that is highly customizable. Keith has included this cool startup program in his Hall of Fame, Best of Everything post and I totally agree.

Let’s look at the features it offers:

• A customizable keyboard shortcut to bring it up with a keystroke or you can access it by mouse or from the system tray
• Organize your shortcuts into groups & categories
• Create & configure buttons for all your favorite applications
• Create buttons for shortcuts, url favorites, files, folders and application links
• Buttons are customizable to different sizes and you can add them to Groups.
• Then you can organize groups into Categories such as ‘General’, ‘Development’, ‘Media’, etc.
• Custom skin support (transparent png)
• You can choose to display drive space for any drive of your choice
• Tree-Notes feature – full featured note taking option (I haven’t played much with this yet)

The initial setup may not be very intuitive or easy with drag & drop support or anything. But, once you have set it up the way you want it, it will be an indispensable one for a power user.

If you have been tired of your cluttered desktop icons crowding your beatiful wallpaper, you’ll appreciate this tool once you have everything setup. Again, a casual user might find this hard to use but for a power user it’ll be quite easy to figure it out.

I have been loving Enso Launcher but there are times I have to hit the Start Menu to dig out a program I can’t remember and 8start is going to help me greatly with it.

[image credits: 8start.com]

I am a big fan of open source software and we have seen an explosion of quality software in this area. I cringe when someone says that they just bought a Norton AntiVirus or any of the other bloatware out there.

People simply don’t know of these excellent options available for free and we need to get the word out there. What if you have actually convinced someone to try some of these free open-source alternatives. Now, you have to get them to forget the famous names like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, etc and remember unearthly names like Gimp, InkScape, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc.

Even if you got them to remember a couple, it’ll be an up-hill battle. I am sure you have been there atleast once. No, you will not find that excellent browser I told you about if you Googled for Foxfire, it is Firefox. You catch the drift?

That’s where WinLibre comes in.
WinLibre is a project where they take some of the gems in the open source software after a rigorous selection and bundle them together as one download. The installer shows the options availabel and you can choose the software you want to install and get the free open source software goodness. This also makes it easy when you are getting your ‘Uncle’ to try this free alternative instead of shelling out $50 for that off-the shelf spyware detector.

If you ask someone about what is a free software, they confuse actual free 7 open source software with freeware. Check this explanation from WinLibre if you are not sure of the distinction. I myself might be guilty of it while trying to promote free software for your computer.

WinLibre is available in 2 modes

1. A complete autonomous setup – 151 MB download
2. A mini setup with online install

WinLibre categorizes free software into 4 categories – Home, Office, Internet & Multimedia. Here are the software I found available in the installation menu:

Office

• OpenOffice, PDFCreator

Internet

• Firefox, Thunderbird, Nvu, FileZilla, Gaim

Create

• Audacity, Inkscape, Blender, Gimp

Multimedia

• VLC, Zinf, WinLame, CDex

Tools

• NetTime, TightVNC, 7-Zip, ClamWin, Notepad2

Is this for you?

I know this isn’t the most comprehensive bundle of the best open source software but it does cover the essential ones. I think this is for you if you are recommending this to someone and setting these up in their computer. This is also for you if you use these applications and often find yourself re-installing your OS. This is for you if you haven’t head of these programs but interested in saving some money on software. I have run out of reasons why this is for you but again, you catch the drift? :wink:

[via Daniel of gHacks]

I am a big fan of bookmarklets and I love shopping online. I just came across a web service that brings the best of those two worlds together.

First, lets talk about online shopping and how you can save some dough by using some cool web services. Traditionally, we might see an item in a store shelf and if you are a deal nut like me, you’d probably go back to check on the prices now and then to see if the prices dropped. In the online shopping world, you would do this by bookmarking a product page and re-visiting it from time to time (could be several times a day depending on how obsessed you are) to see if there’s been a price drop to sang it at the ‘right’ price’.

There have been several web services, Firefox extensions, etc to help you automate this process. They will notify you when a price of an item that you are interested in drops. Without you lifting a finger.

PricePinx does the same for you. It can keep an eye on the product you are interested in and sends you an alert by email when there has been a price drop. I like how they have implemented this. They have built a bookmarklet that you can drag to your browser toolbar. When you are looking at a product page, just highlight the price and hit the bookmarklet to start watching that product. That’s it!

You don’t even have to be registered to use this service. But, if you take moment to do so, you can manage all your alerts from one place. On hitting the !pinx bookmarklet, you will be taken to a page where you can enter your login information or just provide an email address where you would like to get an alert. Isn’t the simplicity of using this so cool?

It is supported in a lot of the online shoppings places such as Amazon, NewEgg, Overstock, Buy.com, BestBuy, etc. You just have to make sure you pinx! it from the product detail page and not somewhere else like the order page, etc.

I like a service when it makes my life online easier without making me jump through hoops to get there. This one definitely fits the bill or rather for saving the bill.

!pinx bookmarklet

Check out my other Top Browser Bookmarklets that I love and use, if you into that sorta things.

I have started to use screencasts for showing someone how to do something in a computer remotely than trying to guide them over the phone without looking their screen. As you know, it can get really frustrating. Here are a few free solutions I have tried so far:

FreeScreenCast.com

FreeScreenCast.com (beta) offers a free screencast recorder software which requires you to have Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 & Windows Media Encoder installed. The recorder itself is plain with no bells and whistles but very easy to use by even technically challenged folks who want to do something like this.

Once you have recorded your screencast, you could upload the screencast to the FreeScreencast.com website and share it with the world. The best part about this is that you don’t have to share it with everyone but just export the screencast as a flv file and keep it with you or share it privately. You could also embed your screencast in your website or blog. You can even tag screencasts for easy discovery as well as sort them by number of views.

A good one if you aren’t looking for a feature-rich tool but just a simple one that does it’s job well. It does capture both microphone audio as well as system audio.

Windows utility | Requires Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 & Windows Media Encoder | Free

Screencast-o-Matic

If you are on someone else’s computer or don’t want to install yet another software to your computer to do screencasts, this is the solution for you. All you need a java enabled browser (it will detect and let you know if what you have is good.. so you don’t have to wonder why nothing comes up when you click a button) and you are good to go.

Once you have recorded you could share this screencast right from the web or get a embed code to post it in your blog/website. It comes with 3 size options (800px, 500px, 400px). You could also attach notes with the screenshot for reference. Also, you could export the screencast to a .mov file format in full size or a size of your choice with the notes (optional).

This is a great choice for someone who does it rarely and don’t want to have a dedicated software installed for this purpose.

Web based Java App | Free | 15 min

uTIPu

Also a free Windows-based screencast recorder utility that lets you record screencasts and upload it to a website and share with others. It has a quite a few options to set in the utility. One thing I liked about it is teh ability to add voice-over track recording after the screencast is done. You can record 20 minute session at once with the screen resolution reduced prior to starting the session. Just like the others you could get a embed code to have your screencasts hosted at uTIPu and just link to it from your blog/website with the embed code.

Have a good screencast? You could win a iPod Touch by entering your screencast! Check out their site for details.

Windows utility | Free | 20 mins

If you are looking for a full featured screencast tool, check out Camtasia Studio whose older version was made free a while back. I would love to hear what you use for recording screencasts and would love to check out any better alternatives that you might know of.

For more technology tips, consider subscribing to K’s Shankrila.com feed!

Issuu is a cool web service which gives the power for a publisher with a PDF document to extend his reach to more readers. Issuu lets you upload a pdf document and convert that into a nice flip book that is readable via the web. Your reader don’t have to download your document or have to make sure they have a pdf reader like Adobe Reader or the fast & free Foxit Reader installed in their computer to read your document.

Issuu gives you the ability to convert your PDF into an online publication in just a few simple steps for free. It doesn’t stop there. You could embed this online publication in your own website, or on your Issuu profile or just view it with their standalone viewer.

Upload your documents

Once you have created your free account, you can upload your document and name it, tag it, choose a language and your target audience (the world or a specific continent). As one file is being uploaded, you can just press the upload button again to start uploading your other files instead of waiting around for the first upload to complete. You could also tag and provide a search friendly description to your document so others can find it easily.

View your documents

The viewer is very nice & slick and is a joy to use. It shows you the thumbnail of pages you are looking at, at the bottom of the viewer in a Mac OS-X like dock with cool animation effect when you scroll over the thumbnail. Besides the dock, the viewer provides nice arrows on both sides to flip between pages seamlessly and you can have to try it to really appreciate the ease with which you can read through documents. It also gives you the power to zoom into parts of pages if the font size isn’t readable for you. It also has a full screen option to make reading easier with no other distraction.

Share your documents

You could easily share your uploaded documents with your friends by using the ‘Share’ button and sending it to the email addresses you want. You could even add notes to the document and move the notes around to a particular area of interest and when your friend opens the document they would see the note just as you left it. A great way to show someone what you are specifically talking about in a multi-page document. I can see many uses for this particular feature.

Social Networking

Issuu goes beyond being a web application and has all the tools to become a social network around documents. You could create a profile and create and manage your own library of documents. From the People tab, you could browse around and see & meet other users and check out their documents as well. In fact, you can invite your own friends from your email address book to form a community & share documents between yourselves.

Now that you know all about Issuu, is this something you find useful? I would love to hear how you perceive a service such as this.

For more technology updates, consider subscribing to ShanKri-la feed.

I have recently taken up to listening to podcasts while working. I know I am very late to the game but with a less than 15 minute commute to work, I haven’t had the urge/need to download podcasts to my iPod and listen to them. But, recently with my day job getting hectic and finding little time at home to keep up with the tech news, I am resorting to listening to podcasts, while working, on variety of topics to keep myself informed.

I tried a few different podcast players and now have settled to using a very cool one from the makers of Newzie and it’s called Ziepod.

ZiePod is a very cool podcast receiver and is free to use and it’s paid counterpart ZiePod+ has few more features like support for video.

Let’s take a look at a few cool features of ZiePod

• The browser based interface itself is very pleasing to the eye and easy to use and get used to.
• It offers 4 different visual modes
• Easy subscription options and individual preference settings for each feed
• Abililty to export and import OPML feed lists.
• Set to check for new podcasts automatically and download as well
• Browse for interesting podcasts in a variety of categories in a Podcast Directory right from within the player
• Check out the most recent played podcasts as well as latest audio & videos available with easy-to-read timestamps.
• Popup notifier to notify you of new content
• iPod support to manage playlists
• Bloglines support
• A quick delete button – Sweeper to clear unnecessary clutter in one click
• Usage reporting
• Customizable keyboard shortcuts

Their RSS desktop aggregrator, Newzie is also a cool rss reader and I was using it happily until I went back to Google Reader. You can see a lot of the cool features and the unique styling in Newzie, in ZiePod as well.If you are into video logs, ZiePod+ might be an attractive option even if it costs a few dollars.

As I mentioned, even though I am a new podcast listener I took to ZiePod immediately as I have used NewZie before and I liked its interface a lot. My only gripe is that it is based on the IE rendering engine but not a deal breaker for me. Especially with ZiePod+ providing a tabbed interface. And it is Windows only.

What podcast player do you use and prefer? How does it compare to Ziepod? I would love to learn and try other alternatives out there.

Download Free ZiePod

I asked a couple of months earlier if PuTTY can get any Snazzier? I am going to have to take that back and admit that it just did. And more.

PuTTY is one of the most loved tool for anyone connecting to a Linux or Unix server from Windows. It helps to easily save connection information and its properties in an easy to use interface. But, it has stayed with that basic functionality for years.

Earlier, we looked at how PuTTY Tray enhanced its usability a little by being able to minimize it to the system tray as well as give it a nice icon to identify. The only gripe I had with it was the lack of a tabbed interface in an otherwise awesome tool.

PuTTY Connection Manager

PuTTY Connection Manager is here to solve that. It is a free PuTTY client add-on for Windows and it aims to help manage multiple PuTTY instances. As the name implies, it is just a utility that swallows PuTTY instance to provide a tabbed interface plus some more features.

It comes with a lot of nice features and I will list some of them here:

• A tabbed interface and dockable windows
• Lot of customization options – fullscreen, minimize to tray, add/remove toolbar, etc.
• Automatic login feature – haven’t tried this yet but sounds nice
• Quick connect toolbar makes launching a new session very easy
• You can opt to install it or use a standalone executable with no configuration
• Launching the standalone executable the first time asks for PuTTY executable location
• Let’s you export/import connections in XML format
• Encrypted configuration option lets you store connection information securely
• And it is freeware!

I have to mention that this utility needs the Microsoft .NET 2.0 installed in your computer. I am looking forward to promised features in teh future such as connection groups, favorite connection and servers, options to organize tabs & remembering tab positions, printing options, etc.

PuTTYcm has really filled the gap for me in looking for a tabbed interface and the productivity such an interface brings with it. Hope you enjoy it too.

PuTTYcm

Download PuTTYcm (standalone beta v0.6.0.4822 ~1.63MB)

Update Feb 3, 2012: Download PuTTYcm Alternate Link

(Image credit: PuTTYcm)

You have probably heard of a dozen or so BitTorrent clients to download files. There are also plenty of places to find torrent files as well.

BitLet.org aims to fill a niche where you might be in a situation while travelling or when you are ay someone else’s place without your BitTorrent client. BitLet.org lets you specify the URL of a torrent metafile and download the file of your choice right from the browser without a client.

Quick BitLet Facts

• BitLet is a web bittorrent client that lets you download files
• You just give it the URL of the torrent meta file and select the directory you want to download it to
• BitLet works via a Java applet and it shows you the download progress in a popup window
• BitLet offers a code generator for publishers wishing to provide a link to download a file with BitLet
• It lets you generate and upload your own torrent meta file
• It directly uploads to mininova but is configurable to upload to other servers.
• They also offer a bookmarklet to make a ‘download by Bitlet’ appear by a .torrent file link in many torrent sites.
• As a new feature, Bitlet lets you listen to music you are streaming using BitTorrent.
• The player opens in a applet similar to the download window and currently supports MP3 & OGG file formats with support for more types coming soon.

Overall, BitLet is a great alternative for situations where one might not have access to a full blown BitTorrent client or where the use of such software is restricted. It is also a great way for a publisher to give file download access to a casual downloader who might not have knowledge of such software.

<!–noadsense–>

I reviewed Enso Launcher last week here. After a week of using it, I am totally impressed by its simplicity yet how easy it is to get used to.

If you haven’t read my last post, Enso Launcher is for Windows what QuickSilver is to Mac but different in its construction and in the way you can teach it to learn your own bookmarks, shortcuts and applications. (you can see the Enso Launcher command cheatsheet here)

Humanized is the company that brings Enso line of products and another one worth mentioning is Enso Words. As the name implies, Enso Words is a Universal Spellchecker and brings English dictionary to your fingertips.

Enso Spell Checker

Enso Words is free to use and works the same way as Enso Launcher. You hold the Caps Lock (or the key you define in preferences) and type ‘spe(llcheck)’, after selecting the text you want to do spell checking for, and then release the key. Enso Words brings up a overlay screen where it highlights words that are misspelt or those that aren’t in Enso’s dictionary.

You can correct the highlighted words and Enso would auto-complete just after typing a few letters. Very helpful if you are not sure of the correct spelling. Or you can just press the mouse button on the misspelt word and Enso shows you alternate spelling. If the spelt word is like a name you use often and you know is right, there is an option ‘Learn this word’ so next time around Enso would know it. When you are finished with your corrections, you can type ‘done’ to finish. Very nifty.

Enso Dictionary

Enso Dictionary puts the English language at your fingertips. With the ‘define’ command, you can select any word or type any word to get its meaning in an overlay screen. You could also browse through previous meanings you looked up in this screen. Enso also offers ‘thesaurus’ command to look up similar words.

For me, when I tried the define command it takes me to Answers.com for a meaning and I couldn’t get the overlay as shown in their demo. If you find out how to get that, please let me know in the comments below.

Count Words & Characters

I use ScribeFire as my brain dump to just quickly create notes for blog topics and write the things on my mind as a draft. I love this because it’s always there in my browser thoughout the day and I don’t have run a separate application. With Enso Words, I can do some cool things like ‘character count’ and ‘word count’. I have typed 412 words so far and I never had this kind of information at my fingertips before.Download Enso Words

Download Enso Launcher

My 2 Cents

I usually try to see the positive in everything and talk more the pros than cons. But, Enso has become an important tool in my productivity arsenal and I think that reflects the way I talk about it in this post. Don’t be put off by the thought of typing all these commands. Enso autocompletes every one of them after you type a few letters and it gets completely natural.

One thing that would make Enso 200% perfect for me is if it highlighted commonly misspelt words like ‘hear – here’, ‘there -their’ and such. It’s not that I don’t know the difference to use in a context but it is so easy to type the wrong one when you are concentrating on the writing something useful bit. May be I have to work on my proof reading.

Thanks for tuning in and see you next week! Have a great weekend everyone.

If you are into improving your productivity while you are at your computer, you can use an shortcut enhancer such as Enso Launcher. You have probably heard of or using Launchy at the moment to launch programs or shortcuts efficiently. Let’s look at a new offering in this area and how it surpasses everything else you have seen in efficienc.

What is Enso Launcher?

Humanized is a software created to make the complications in using a computer in this age a little bit less. While working on something like writing an article, we are distracted by having to launch other appilcations in between for eg. to do a calculation, or get meaning for a word or do a web search. It breaks our concentration and makes it harder to perform the task at hand harder.

At your fingertips

Enso Launcher aims at making this task easier than ever so it doesn’t take precious seconds to open notepad or your calculator but instead take less than a second. Enso Launcher’s open command literally places applications, files and startup folders, etc in your fingertips. Enso uses the ‘Caps Lock’ key to create a overlay command bar to type in your commands.

You can open not only applications but even the My Computer, My Document folder, Control Panels applications, etc. You can even minimize and maximize windows with simple commands.

Teach Enso Your Favorites

You can teach Enso Launcher all your favorites with the ‘learn as open’ command. To teach Enso to open your confidential documents folder, just select the ‘Confidential’ folder, press Caps-Lock key and type ‘learn as open confidential’. Next time you want to get to that folder, you can just type ‘open confi..’ and it will find that. You can even create bookmarks to your favorite websites by typing the url in a notepad and selecting the url and type ‘learn as open techiebuzz’ to save it. The possibilities of the learn as open command is endless.

You can delete your favorites from Enso with the ‘unlearn’ command.

Find that window!

When you are working through the day it is quite easy to end up with a lot windows from different applications as well as numerous tabs in Firefox open. It can tedious to find the right window you want to switch to. With Enso’s ‘go’ command, switching to the right window and even to the correct Firefox tab is made really easy. If you use Alt+tab shortcut to switch windows, it could take a dozen keystrokes if you had that many windows open to get to the correct window. With Enso Launcher, you could get to it quickly with the ‘go’ command.

My thoughts

Enso is not here to replace your Start menu in Windows. You will still need your Start Menu to discover apps or folders you have. However, once you start using something and know it’s in your computer, Enso comes in to kick your productivity into high gear!

It is kind of weird to start using the CapsLock key for something else out of the blue. But, once I started using it started coming to me normally. Of course, if that isn’t your cup of tea, you can configure a different key.

If your are thinking ‘this is just a QuickSilver clone’, the similarities end with the search and locate feature. Enso is a command system and is modal in nature which takes some getting used to but touted to be more productive. (holidng the CapsLock key down while you type commands).

I think Enso Launcher is going to become irreplaceable for me. I thought Launchy was great but Enso Launcher just swept me off my feet. Did I mention it has been made FREE now?