Author Archives: Brian

Windows XP Alt-Tab replacement (powertoys)

Here is another app I install almost immediately on a new XP install – it’s an Alt-Tab replacement from Microsoft. Normally you see icons representing your running applications, but with this installed, when you Alt-Tab, it shows the icon plus it shows you a small “screenshot” of the running app. Very cool and very handy.

Alt-Tab replacement homepage

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Mouse gestures on Windows with Strokeit

For those of you that are hooked on mouse gestures in your browser (Firefox and Opera), here is something you’ll want to check out….Strokeit (yeah, yeah, the jokes are too easy with this one). It’s a freeware Windows application that gives you the ability to use mouse gestures in ALL of your Windows applications. So, for example, that gesture you use to close a tab in your browser can now also be used in any other app to close a tab or even the app itself.

Strokeit is completely customizable (in fact, amazingly so), and I have setup Strokeit to allow me to use gestures in every application I use frequently – my IDE, my text editor, MS Word, Excel, a DOS console, etc. In fact, I even disabled gestures in Firefox and now use Strokeit for my browser gestures (and I set it up so that on the rare occasion I have to use IE, gestures work in it too). You can import and export your gesture config file so it makes it easy for me to setup both my work and home computers with the same gestures. I now find myself trying to use mouse gestures on EVERY computer I am on (which is a bit odd when I am on someone else’s computer and try a mouse gesture).

Strokeit homepage

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