I want to like Windows Vista. I really do! Not that I’m a Microsoft fanboy. In fact, I pride myself in the fact that after using personal computers since 1980 and email almost daily for about 20 years, this Monday when our IT staff migrates my corporate email account to Exchange, I will be using a Microsoft email client for the first time. The real reason I want to like the latest Windows release is that I’ve grown attached to too many small but extremely useful software programs that I can’t bear the thought of using a computer without them.

I’m not talking about big office-type applications, I’m talking about little programs like StrokeIt, SideSlide, Launchy, Total Commander, Sandboxie, CLCL and my favorite text editor or two. I understand that as you’re reading this you might find it hard to believe that these programs can be essential but the fact is, giving them up would be a big productivity hit for me and I won’t want to use a PC without them.

A few months back I did a fresh install of Microsoft Vista Ultimate on my primary home PC. I did experience some of the annoyances that made many hate this new Windows OS, but I’ve learned, mostly from searching the Web and reading PC Magazine, tricks to fix those annoyances and to a degree, I managed to make Vista not get in the way. However, for the past two weeks I kept getting random BSOD’s with a bad_pool_caller error and finally yesterday, Vista won’t boot. Using System Restore was no help. I kept going back from one point to an earlier one without success and when I finally restored to the earliest available point from 4 days earlier, the PC won’t start!

This really pisses me off especially considering the following:

• I have very few Windows applications installed as 90% of the software I use is portable. No Registry entries, no files in the Windows or System directories.
• I use a virtual machine to test software. Installing and uninstalling software on my PC is not something I do frequently.
• Windows Update, as well as a 3rd party firewall and AV software are installed and regularly updated.
• I am an IT professional. I know what I’m doing.

So on this Independence Day I sat watching the Yankees-Red Sox game and reinstalled Vista on my PC. Sad that I can’t get myself independence from Windows!

I like to use software outliners because they help me think through new projects and get me started laying out things in detail. I try to use outlining in Microsoft Word but it just doesn’t do it for me. Excel works better as an outliner for me but I’m still left hoping that one day, I’ll come across an outliner that is as good as Ecco Pro was or I remember it being.

If you are in the hunt for an outliner, here’s something you can try to see if it works to your liking. With the following procedure you can use Notepad++, a portable freeware text editor as an outliner.

Notepad++ is a fantastic text editor with syntax highlighting, auto completion, file and ftp management, macros and code folding. It is the code folding feature when used with language set to Python that makes Notepad++ usable as a text outliner. (Indenting and un-indenting lines in Python start and end code blocks.)

To use Notepad++ as an outliner, start typing your hierarchical outline text using at least one space to indent lines, see screenshot. Then set Language to Python to activate code folding.

Don’t forget that Notepad++ is portable. Simply download the zipped version and extract to a location of your choice.

If you have a favorite text outliner, leave me a comment.

My preference is to use one that automatically synchronizes items with my mobile device. This way I can view and organize my list while commuting to work on the train and prepare for my day.

Corporate email systems do a good job of To Do List management and synchronization with mobile devices. For Gmail users, there are label tricks and add-on scripts to use Gmail as a To Do List manager and Gmail can be accessed from your desktop as well as your mobile device.

But what if you need more out of your To Do List manager? What if you need something that is more robust but not as complex as Microsoft Project or other project management software? Fortunately, good options are available and free.

ToDoList is a Windows desktop application that gives you full control over your task management. You have all the basic options associated with a To Do item plus plain or rich text notes, item dependencies, linking items, resource assignment, time tracking, cost tracking, file attachments, custom fields such as Status and Version, multiple import and export options, view filtering, reporting and more….

Sounds complex? It really isn’t thanks to the wonderful user interface that uses multiple panes to display each To Do item’s properties. Everything is right there on the screen without the need to dig into menus and buttons to find the properties you need to set.

People who use Excel or other spreadsheets to maintain project plans are better served using ToDoList. ToDoList is easier to update and manage and it is easy to create reports or export projects to a variety of formats including text, CSV, HTML and more to share with others.

As a bonus, if you miss having a Text Outliner, I remember, quite fondly, years of using Ecco Pro as a Thought Manager / Mind Mapping software, ToDoList can do the trick:

1. Create a New Tasklist
2. Click View / Select Columns… and uncheck everything. (Make sure to click Affects active tasklist only)
3. Click View / Maximize Tasklists

ToDoList is a portable freeware application. You can take it and your lists on a USB drive.

Scrapbook allows you to save complete or parts of a web page to your local drive in managed collections. Your saved collections are available from a Scrapbook menu or a Sidebar panel within Firefox. You can easily organize your clippings in nested folders and even edit and annotate your saved items. You can also add individual Notes pages to your collection and search for anything within the collection.

Your collection is safe and viewable when offline even if the source is no longer available on the web.

I use Scrapbook to store useful  information, copies of online orders, interesting recipes, tips and tricks.

Aardvark allows the user to select and manipulate items on a web page.  You can delete and move elements and colorize their backgrounds. Aardvark is very useful if you want to cleanup a page before you print it.

The changes are gone from the page when you refresh it or press “Q”.

You can also use Aardvark to study the various elements on a web page displaying their type and class ID as well as their associated html source.

I use Aardvark to clean up pages and to isolate information I need before I save them with Scrapbook.  This makes for a much cleaner and more pointed Scrapbook.

Remember how easy it was to manage applications in DOS?  Every software application was located in its own directory (folder).  Want to move an app to another folder or a drive?  No problem, just do it.  The only additional thing you had to do is update the batch file that called it or your DOS menu program. You could even put your favorite apps on a floppy for portability and use them on any PC.

With the introduction of Microsoft Windows in the fall of 1985, all that changed.  For software applications there was now Windows and System directories, DLL Hell, and later the Windows Registry.  “Progress” did not stop there.  There are now more software components and stacks like JVM and the .NET Framework installed on your Windows PC that are relied upon when running software applications. It’s even more complicated because there are multiple versions of these stacks that need to exist on the PC to support the various software applications.

This makes managing software application a much tougher task.  Moving applications to another folder or drive now requires uninstall followed by reinstall followed by cross your fingers and hope it works.   If you’re lucky enough and the software still works, chances are your settings are gone.

Setting up a new PC requires, once again, installation and configuration of your favorite software.  And forgetting about licensing issues for a moment, if you use multiple PCs you need to install and configure your favorite software on each of them.

Well, there is a better way.

By now most people are familiar with the term Portable Applications.  Portable applications and especially GPL and freeware ones bring back the ease of managing applications.  Once again you can put your favorite software on a floppy or a new range of portable devices to use in any PC.

Whenever possible, I try to use freeware portable applications over non-portable and commercial ones.  Even if I lose some functionality by going with a freeware portable app, it is still a huge productivity boost for me since I don’t have to maintain apps and their configurations on multiple machines.

Commercial software applications don’t want to be portable mainly because the vendors want a license for every installation.  I’m not arguing this basic need and I think it is totally reasonable and fair.  But guess what, this limits the usefulness of the software. 

Some will argue that if portable apps are more useful than non-portable ones then Web-based applications are even more useful than portable applications.  To an extent, I do agree. For example, Eudora and Thunderbird are fantastic freeware pop3 mail clients.  At some point in the past I used them for my personal email. I even used a portable version of Thunderbird.  But before long I realized that webmail is even more convenient. It’s always the same from any PC and requires no installation, local storage or file maintenance.  These reasons are enough for me to overlook webmail feature limitations and security risks.  Of course you can have the best of both worlds and use a pop3 client and webmail at the same time.

Bottom line is that for each application, I have to take into account features I need, security, usability and convenience. This determines whether the chosen app is web-based, portable or standard.  For me, most apps fall into the portable freeware ones.

For dual screens, you’ll need two video cards in your PC or a video card with dual output support. Dual-head video cards from Matrox are what I’ve been using for years but other graphics cards vendors have them too.

You can have more than two monitors attached to your desktop. I read that Bill Gates has three screens attached to his desktop. Also checkout the picture of Al Gore’s 3 monitors on lifehacker.com.

Multiple monitors are not a unique feature of Windows OS. Mac and Linux distros support multiple monitors too. You can even run dual screen on many laptops. If your laptop does not support dual monitors, look for solutions from companies like Matrox.

To make your multi-monitor desktop even more useful, download and install Oscar’s Multi-monitor Taskbar. This is a great Freeware desktop enhancer that supports 2-3 monitors and adds functionality for manipulating open windows, adding taskbars to the additional monitors and even throws in a handy Windows Clipboard history manager.

Who can benefit from 2 or more monitors?

• Developers: They are the top candidates for using a dual screen setup on a PC or Mac. When you’re running time consuming tasks like compiling and building software, FTP-ing and downloading files, you can monitor the progress on one screen while being productive doing something else on the other screen. When you’re using your favorite text editor or IDE, you can have your email client or your document editor, a help file. PDF document or a web browser in the other screen.
• Administrators: How often do you run time consuming scripts for files or users maintenance? You can monitor the script on one screen while doing something else on the other. Of course you can let the script run in the background but having it visible on a second screen is far more useful and efficient. When you don’t have multiple PCs, a dual screen setup can be productivity booster. Use the dual screen to have more desktop space for displaying monitoring software screens.
• Helpdesk and Support Personnel: Have your ticketing system open on one screen and use the other screen for researching using knowledge bases or a web browser.
• Directors and Managers: One screen should always be dedicated to your email client. Use the other for everything else.
• Everyone else: I think you can see the benefits and get the point.

Read More:

• For Windows XP users, read Microsoft’s Expand your workspace with multiple monitors