SUMo: Nifty Software Update Monitor
One of the most tedious tasks on Windows (and any other platform) is the tracking of updated programs. SUMo, the Software Update Monitor aims to solve this problem. After installing, it creates an (initial) list of installed programs on your system and then prompts the user if there are updated versions available.
While this does only work with software that has version information stored in the executable file, it works pretty well for most “mainstream” software and some exotic tools as well.
According to imgriff, the software is actually based on crowdsourcing: The more people use it, the better it gets at recognizing (new) software.
I just ran it and it showed me a whopping 29 updates for software I use more or less regularly. Not too bad.
(Via imgriff.com)
Surprise, surprise: Small but important improvement in Outlook 2007
After more than 10 years of using Microsoft Products, I must say that these guys in Redmond (still) don’t grok internationalisation as a whole. In every new software release, you will find strange things becuase of internationalisation — be it that Programs don’t work because of different file and folder-names or other stuff. One particular thing that always bothered me that they internationalised the wrong stuff.
E.g., Outlook in German always added a “AW:” in front of a subject when you replied to a mail. This might be nice if all people used a german Outlook. But E-Mail programs usually look for “RE:” because this is the “official” way of doing it. Consequently, you either removed these “AW:” by hand or your mails would chain up like “AW: RE: AW: RE: AW: …” if you had an intense E-Mail exchange.
Anway, we now use the glorious Office 2007 Suite at work and recently, I discovered a small but nice improvement they made regarding this problem. If you receive an E-Mail with an “AW:” in the subject and you reply to this mail, Outlook 2007 (EN) will silently and correctly replace that “AW:” with a “RE:”. Thank you Microsoft. This saves me a few minutes every day.
Desktop 2.0
I’m not really the Zen type in it’s original sense and history. However, cleanliness, vast space and elegance always caught my eye. The recent shift to a more powerfull Laptop at work inspired me to rethink how I work with the Windows Desktop: No fuss on it[1].
The screenshot below illustrates what my desktop currently looks like. The only item that is allowed to remain on the Desktop is the Recycle Bin[2] and all icons in the area right to the Taskbar are actually hidden.[3] (Click for bigger image):
I think I actually found a decent setup that allows me to save time while keeping my Computer as clean as possible:
I use Launchy to launch programs, run shortcuts from a “Shortcuts” folder that’s indexed with Launchy and to launch specific types of documents from specific locations (PDF’s, VM’s, CHM’s and more) with a few keystrokes. I need no stinkin’ mouse.[4]
I use the free and fabulous CCleaner to clean up my Computer from time to time: Remove stalled Shortcuts in the StartMenu, clean the various caches, clean Firefox, IE, Safari and a bunch of other programs from unnecessary stuff.
It is safe to say that these two programs are the biggest productivity boosters I found in all the years of meandering the Internet for great software. Really.
I can tell you: If you start working with such a clean desktop, you probably won’t get back to myriads of icons on it. I actually feel a strong urge to have my real desktops as clean as the virtual one as well.
Next Steps: External Monitor bliss
One of the biggest hassles so far has been the handling of the external monitor. Whenever you add a second monitor to Windows, the default behaviour of the corresponding Fn key is to mirror the desktop to the external monitor. If the resolutions differ, you always get your primary monitor adjusted to the secondary — which is mostly useless.
Fortunately, my graphics card driver offers a desktop contextual menu to switch the “Extended Desktop” on and off — with the small but disturbing “feature” that the secondary monitor will always be set to the minimum of 800×600 pixels resolution instead of the maximum of e.g. 1280×1024 you’d expect.
I think I might have found a solution with UltraMon that I’m currently testing. The software lets you define different Display Profiles and these can be — hooray — be launched via Launchy. I now have setup profiles for the most used external monitors (Home, Office, Beamers) and named them accordingly. With a few keystrokes, I fire up Launchy, enter the name of the Profile I want to use, hit enter and am done. The same holds true for the Wallpapers — I can now switch between the gorgeous designs from mandolux.com at will. Currently using Dirty Lemon though.
[1] This was actually inspired by a tip in Leo’s cure for digital packrats. Thanks, Leo.
[2] For the only reason that I can easily undelete stuff and run CCleaner to clean up w/o selecting any options.
[3] If I really need one of these icons, I click on the arrow to unhide them all. This greatly reduces the visual clutter that Windows-Programs tend to generate. The only unfortunate thing is that you have to manually set the “Always hidden” setting for each and every application that has such an icon.
[4] I really, really like Launchy. It’s clean, fast and you can configure it enough to selectively add different folders with different kinds of documents in it to launch directly.
