The Master List of New Windows 7 Shortcuts

Windows 7 adds loads of great shortcuts for switching between apps, moving windows around your screen, moving them to another monitor altogether, and much more. Here's a quick-reference master list of the best new Windows 7 shortcuts.

We're nuts for keyboard shortcuts here at Lifehacker, and Windows 7 brings a handful of great new ones to add to your muscle memory. It's also got a few handy mouse-based shortcuts you'd do well to add to your repertoire. So let's get shortcuttin'.

Window Management Shortcuts

One of the best changes in Windows 7 is the ability to "snap" windows to the side of the screen, maximize them by dragging to the top of the screen, or even move them to another monitor with a shortcut key. Check out the video for a demonstration of how some of the keys work.

The full list of keyboard shortcuts includes:

• Win+Home: Clear all but the active window.
• Win+Space: All windows become transparent so you can see through to the desktop.
• Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window.
• Shift+Win+Up arrow: Maximize the active window vertically.
• Win+Down arrow: Minimize the window/Restore the window if it's maximized.
• Win+Left/Right arrows: Dock the window to each side of the monitor.
• Shift+Win+Left/Right arrows: Move the window to the monitor on the left or right.

You can also interact with windows by dragging them with the mouse:

• Drag window to the top: Maximize
• Drag window left/right: Dock the window to fill half of the screen.
• Shake window back/forth: Minimize everything but the current window.
• Double-Click Top Window Border (edge): Maximize window vertically.

Taskbar Shortcuts

In Windows 7, using the Windows key along with the numbers 1-9 will let you interact with the applications pinned to the taskbar in those positions – for example, the Windows key + 4 combination would launch Outlook in this example, or Win+Alt+4 can be used to get quick access to the Outlook Jump List from the keyboard.

You can use any of these shortcut combinations to launch the applications in their respective position on the taskbar, or more:

• Win+number (1-9): Starts the application pinned to the taskbar in that position, or switches to that program.
• Shift+Win+number (1-9): Starts a new instance of the application pinned to the taskbar in that position.
• Ctrl+Win+number (1-9): Cycles through open windows for the application pinned to the taskbar is that position.
• Alt+Win+number (1-9): Opens the Jump List for the application pinned to the taskbar.
• Win+T: Focus and scroll through items on the taskbar.
• Win+B: Focuses the System Tray icons

In addition, you can interact with the taskbar using your mouse and a modifier key:

• Shift+Click on a taskbar button: Open a program or quickly open another instance of a program.
• Ctrl+Shift+Click on a taskbar button: Open a program as an administrator.
• Shift+Right-click on a taskbar button: Show the window menu for the program (like XP does).
• Shift+Right-click on a grouped taskbar button: Show the window menu for the group.
• Ctrl+Click on a grouped taskbar button: Cycle through the windows of the group.

More Useful Hotkeys You Should Know

The new hotkey goodness didn't stop with the taskbar and moving windows around—one of the best new hotkeys in Windows 7 is the fact that you cancreate a new folder with a hotkey. Just open up any Windows Explorer window, hit the Ctrl+Shift+N shortcut key sequence, and you'll be rewarded with a shiny "New Folder" ready for you to rename.

Here's a few more interesting hotkeys for you:

• Ctrl+Shift+N: Creates a new folder in Windows Explorer.
• Alt+Up: Goes up a folder level in Windows Explorer.
• Alt+P: Toggles the preview pane in Windows Explorer.
• Shift+Right-Click on a file: Adds Copy as Path, which copies the path of a file to the clipboard.
• Shift+Right-Click on a file: Adds extra hidden items to the Send To menu.
• Shift+Right-Click on a folder: Adds Command Prompt Here, which lets you easily open a command prompt in that folder.
• Win+P: Adjust presentation settings for your display.
• Win+(+/-): Zoom in/out.
• Win+G: Cycle between the Windows Gadgets on your screen.

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Windows 7 definitely makes it a lot easier to interact with your PC from your keyboard—so what are your favorite shortcuts, and how do they save you time? Share your experience in the comments.

The How-To Geek is quickly wearing out the keyboard on his new Windows 7 laptop. His geeky articles can be found daily here on Lifehacker, How-To Geek, and Twitter.

Send an email to How-To Geek, the author of this post, at lowell@lifehacker.com.

http://www.briansolis.com -good explaining on twitter

The Science of Retweets on Twitter

Nice website if  you want to get your hands dirty with "social media".

Source: Young Go Getter

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with “Viral Marketing Scientist” Dan Zarrella on special projects related to Twitter. His focus on social science and psychology as it relates to new media and online interaction and behavior is in line with my philosophy and approach to understanding and documenting socialized media.

Zarrella recently debuted TweetPsych, a sophisticated system that uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. He alsoadapted the service to analyze a site URL and the content on that page to create a list of the 50 Twitter users who’s profiles are psychologically aligned with the site you provided. It’s a fascinating service for those actively seeking to expand their contextual networks.

One of the most actively discussed aspects of Twitter is the art and science of retweets.  Retweets, in my opinion, are one of the most sincere forms of recognition and validation, empowering users to pay it forward through the recognition of noteworthy content. According to Dan, retweets also serve as the foundation for assessing the qualities of viral content, “You don’t spread ideas just because they are “good;” you spread them because of some other trigger or set of triggers has been pulled in your brain. We can now compare millions of viral ideas to uncover the building blocks of contagiousness.”

Aside from my very simple advice to leave room in your tweets for people to add RT and their username, “120 is the new 140” and to also tweet something worth retweeting, Zarrella studied the science of retweets over a period of nine months to discern the attributes and characteristics of tweets that spawned memes and those that didn’t. His sampling group was not insignificant either. He analyzed roughly five million tweets and 40 million retweets to discover the art and science of getting retweeted.

He published the results in a 22-page report, which you can download here.

Zarrella’s initial finding estimated that 1.44% of all tweets are ReTweets. From there, he recognized other important common traits for successfully getting retweeted.

Links are the Currency of Twitter

According to Zarrella, links were three times more prevalent in RTs over normal tweets, 19% to 57%.

The study also found that the URL shortener used also had an effect on the potential resonance of tweets. For example, bit.ly, ow.ly, and is.gd, were much likelier to get retweeted than older, longer services, such as TinyURL.

Choosing Words Carefully

Pandering or soliciting for retweets might seem tacky, but asking politely for a retweet actually works according to the research.

The top 20 retweetable words and phrases include:

1. You
2. Twitter
3. Please
4. Retweet
5. Post
6. Blog
7. Social
8. Free
9. Media (note, most likely tied to social media, which demonstrates the interest in related tweets and links)
10. Help
11. Please Retweet (personally i’ve found that adding “please share” or “pls share” to the tweet helps as well)
12. Great
13. Social Media
14. 10 (The blogosphere and Twitterverse share significant interest in anything with a “top 10″ list
15. Follow
16. How to
17. Top
18. Blog post
19. Check out (a call to action indeed inspires action and traffic)
20. New blog post

Chatter isn’t Worth Sharing

As I’ve shared numerous times, literally answering Twitter’s question of “What are you doing” engenders uninteresting tweets. The research found that verbs ending in “ing”were among the least retweetable words. Although, I’ve personally found in my research that “reading,” “reviewing,” and “looking” trigger significant activity. People generally want to know what has your attention at the moment and if they can look at something through your eyes, it helps spark retweets and clickthroughs.

The least retweetable words:

1. Game
2. Going
3. Haha
4. lol
5. But
6. Watching
7. Work
8. Home
9. Night
10. Bed
11. Well
12. Sleep
13. Gonna
14. Hey
15. Tomorrow
16. Tired
17. Some
18. Back
19. Bored
20. Listening

Don’t take intelligence for granted

While many suspect that simple language is preferred, retweets contained an average of 1.62 syllables per word with normal tweets boasting an average of 1.58 syllables per word. It may seem insignificant,  but per a Flesch-Kincaid test, comprehending RTs required 6.47 years of education, while normal tweets require just 6.04.

The Novelty of Novelty

One of the most interesting aspects of viral content is its freshness, insinuating that the newness of the content was a significant factor in RTs. For example, Zarrella created a measure of novelty by counting how many times each word in his sample sets occurred.  In random tweets, each word was found an average of 89.19 times, while in the ReTweet sample each word was only found 16.37 other times.

It’s Not Just a Figure of Speech

The analysis of words indicated that nouns and third-person singular present words led to the proliferation of headline style tweets that triggered retweets. The pervasiveness of verbs and proper nouns were also factors. To observe this activity, Zarrella used Part of Speech (POS) tagging, an analysis technique in which an algorithm is used to label each word in a piece of content as a specific part-of-speech–noun, verb, adjective, etc.

The Power of Punctuation

The power of punctuation isn’t necessarily relegated to grammar or sentence structure. The use of punctuation could also represent the difference between a tweet and a retweet.  85.86% of normal tweets contained some form of punctuation  compared to 97.55% in retweets with colons leading the way.

Of the most common punctuation types found in retweets, colons, periods, exlamation points, commas, and hyphens led group with semicolons ranking last. In fact, Zarrella observed that the semicolon appears to be the “only unretweetable punctuation mark.” What’s interesting however, is that the question mark ranked second-to-last. I would have guessed that questions would have been more prominent in RTs, but after further thought, I would imagine the any tweet containing a question would trigger more answers than the RT of the original question.

There is no “I” in ReTweet or Tweet

LIWC measures the cognitive and emotional properties of people based on the words they use. Applying this lexicon to tweets and retweets, LIWC analysis shows that Tweets about work, religion, money and media/celebrities are significantly more retweetable than tweets with negative emotions, sensations,
swear words and self-reference.

The Attention Aperture: Time and Day Count for Everything

I have also studied the time/day significance applied to what I call the attention aperture (the state of attention and its ability to be captured). I believe that the results vary depending on the nature of the content, specific to whether or not the nature of the Tweet was professional or personal in nature.

Among the most usable findings from Zarrella’s study is the analysis of when individuals appear to be more susceptible to retweeting. According to the research, the window for retweets is at its widest between 2 p.m. to 11:59 p.m. (however, I’d like to know if time zone played a factor in RTs). Match the time to the most active days for retweeting, in this case Thursday and Friday, and surely, we have identified the attention aperture for RTs.

In my research, I found that educational, news-focused, or work-related tweets found its greatest traction between 3 a.m. and 9 a.m. Pacific time. I suspect that this range casts a wider net reaching professionals during work hours with the East Coast and Europe prompting RTs that bring it back to the attention of those on the West Coast as individuals prepare or arrive at work. As such, I asked Dan to create a new graphic that visualizes days and times in a way that might be easier to reference.

This study was as fascinating as it was informative.  But I needed a personal touch to close close the chapter and remind us that there are real people behind the data and the tweets that were analyzed. I asked Dan to share what he learned from his research, and he readily obliged, “My favorite takeaway from the data is that while having more followers definitely makes it easier to get more ReTweets, even if you don’t have tens of thousands, the data shows that if your content is contagious enough, it will spread just as far. I think this also has to do with the hyper-connected, seven degrees nature of the Twitter network.”

In the end, as publishers, it is our responsibility to ensure that our Tweets not only speak for themselves, but also represent our purpose, mission, and values.  While this data suggests that the mechanics for posting viral tweets is a matter of formula, I believe that affinity, respect, and stature also play prominent roles in the art and science of retweeting. Concurrently it is also our obligation to also retweet as a form of giving back to the community, recognizing those who actively contribute to a more meaning Twitterverse.

Connect with Brian Solis on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Posterous, or Facebook
—
Have you bought the book or the poster yet? (click below to purchase):

 

Google Voice Blog: Invite a friend to Google Voice

Invite a friend to Google Voice

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 | 10:59 AM

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Since the debut of Google Voice, our early users have shared lots of feedback that has led to some exciting new features, like the ability to receive SMS messages via email and the option to change your Google Voice number. But one of the most frequent requests we've received is for the ability to share Google Voice with friends and family.

Starting today, we're beginning to give out invitations to Google Voice users. If you currently use Google Voice, over the next few weeks, you'll see an "Invite a friend" link appear on the left-hand side of your inbox.

We'll be rolling out these invitations gradually, so don't worry if you don't see your invitations immediately. We're initially giving out three invites to each account, but we're planning to provide more invitations in the future.

If you don't have an account yet, you can request a Google Voice invitation atgoogle.com/voiceinvite.

Google Voice Blog: Invite a friend to Google Voice

Intel brought its mainstream desktop CPU lineup into the Nehalem era today with the launch of the Core i7 860 and 870, and the Core i5 750.

Intel launches all-new PC architecture with Core i5/i7 CPU

Intel finally brings its Nehalem architecture to its mainstream desktop PC line with today's Core i5/i7 and P55 chipset launch. In contrast to most previous launches, the chipset is actually a big deal this time around, marking as it does Intel's most radical overhaul of basic PC system architecture since the introduction of AGP.

Image by HolgerE via Flickr

Intel brought its mainstream desktop CPU lineup into the Nehalem era today with the launch of the Core i7 860 and 870, and the Core i5 750. Also launched today is the P55 chipset, which implements a new system architecture that represents a significant break with Intel's past. In this short article, we'll take a brief look at each, in turn.

In previous articles we've covered Nehalem's microarchitectural improvements to the Core 2 Duo lineage, so we won't recap that here. What is worth repeating, though, is that Nehalem is Intel's first x86 design to feature an on-die memory controller. This significantly changes the system topology, but in a direction that AMD already went way back in 2003.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Processor Number Base Clock Speed (GHz) Max Turbo Frequency (GHz) Cores/Threads Cache 1K Unit Price SMT TDP

Core i7-870 2.93 3.6 4/8 8MB $562 Y 95W

Core i7-860 2.80 3.46 4/8 8MB $284 Y 95W

Core i5-750 2.66 3.2 4/4 8MB $196 N 95W

The Core i5/i7 parts that were launched today are quad-core, with the i7 having two-way SMT for a total of eight threads per socket. The table above gives a general breakdown of the relevant features of the three new parts.

\


The floor plan above shows the main blocks in Nehalem, and if you've followed previous Nehalem launches (most notably Bloomfield) then you may be able to spot what's missing: there is no QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) interface. Instead, in a significant twist that differentiates Intel's new PC system architecture from even AMD's offerings, there is now a PCIe interface that enables the GPU to attach directly to the processor socket. This latter move was made in anticipation of two things: 1) the GPU will migrate right into the processor socket at a later point when Intel releases a CPU with an on-die GPU integrated into it, and 2) for a discrete GPU, Intel hopes you'll use Larrabee.
To understand what all of this means, let's look at a few diagram
The P55's new system architecture


Below is a diagram of a standard Core 2 Duo system, and it represents the general layout of an Intel system up until Nehalem or an AMD system up until the Opteron
A typical pre-Nehalem Intel system.

In the diagram above, the core logic chipset consists of two primary chips:



Memory controller hub (MCH): The memory controller hub, also called a "northbridge," links the CPU and GPU with main memory.

I/O controller hub (ICH): The I/O controller hub, also called the "southbridge," links the MCH to peripherals and mass storage. The ICH typically hosts the USB and other expansion ports, mass storage interfaces, network interfaces, and the like.

As the GPU gained in size and importance, the standard PC system essentially took on a kind of hacked-together non-uniform memory architecture (NUMA) topology, with two main pools of DRAM (main memory and graphics memory) attached to the two main processors (the CPU and the GPU). As the amount of graphics memory increased to the point where the GPU became a second system on a daughtercard, this topology began to get more and more unbalanced and inefficient in its use of memory and bandwidth.

In 2003, AMD made the obvious improvement by moving the memory controller hub up to the CPU socket, so that main memory could attach directly to the CPU the way that GDDR had been directly attached to the GPU for some time. You can see the results below, and, give or take an I/O bridge chip or so, this is basically how AMD single-socket systems have looked since the memory controller went on-die.


A typical AMD single-socket system

You can see from the diagram that, with the memory controller moved onto the processor die, the northbridge has become a kind of "graphics hub"—it hosts the discrete GPU via some PCIe graphics lanes, and it typically has an integrated graphics processor (IGP) along with the requisite display ports. The ICH is still there, doing pretty much the same job it always did.


Today's P55 launch jumps from the first diagram above to the diagram below in a single move.


Intel's P55 platform

Intel's P55 can be seen as an evolution of the AMD topology shown previously, with the graphics hub and memory hub functionality all moved right onto the processor die. Because the northbridge is completely gone, the southbridge/ICH has been rechristened the "platform controller hub," and it's now the only chip in the core logic "chipset" (aside from the BIOS, which is also typically included in the chipset count).

The PCH is connected to the processor socket by the relatively low-bandwidth (2GB/s) DMI bus that used to connect the MCH to the ICH. Disk I/O, network traffic, and other types of I/O will have to share this link. This shouldn't be a problem for single-socket systems, though.
So with the advent of the P55, Intel's core logic has gone from a two-chip to a one-chip implementation, pushing ahead of the comparable AMD platform. In theory, this very tight, direct coupling of the GPU + GDDR and CPU + DRAM systems should make for a performance boost vs. both earlier topologies.

It's "in theory," because Tech Report's Core i5/i7 benches show some surprising results that indicate that all isn't right with the new platform under Windows 7, and that (contrary to the stated conclusion) gamers are better off with the older Core 2 Duo systems.

Image via Wikipedia

Take a look at the last benchmark on this page, which shows that the minute you boost the image quality settings to begin stressing the GPU instead of the CPU, Nehalem loses its advantage and actually underperforms the older systems. This effect holds in both the i5 and the i7, so it can't be an issue with SMT. Something is screwy with Windows 7, the drivers, or something on Intel's end, but our money is on Windows 7. This is actually the most interesting benchmark result I've seen today, and I'm hoping that Scott and others will follow up on it and different combinations of OSes and games to isolate the issue.
Conclusions

The launch of Core i5/i7 and the P55 represent a major step forward for Intel's desktop line, and they bring Nehalem's performance dominance of AMD's offerings onto the mainstream desktop. Intel is now well-positioned against both NVIDIA and AMD/ATI, since the former will soon be squeezed out of the high-volume Intel IGP market entirely (when the GPU goes on-die) and the latter is increasingly forced back into the bargain niche that it had so successfully escaped with the launch of the K8.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Intel Core i7-870 and Core i7-750 benchmarks unleashed (ubergizmo.com)
• Intel releases first Nehalem chip for mainstream PCs (macworld.com)
• Intel rumored to be launching new Core i5, i7 processors September 8th (engadget.com)
• New Intel Core i5, i7 Lynnfield CPUs Now For Sale (everyjoe.com)

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 is now available for download in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.

Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 is now available for download in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors.

By Emil Protalinski
Last updated September 8, 2009 9:24 PM CT

Image by Nicolas Steinmetz via Flickr

The Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 has been made available for download from the Microsoft Download Center (32-bit: 9.8MB, 64-bit: 9.8MB). This release supports the deployment of the Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2003 operating systems. MDT 2010 has been in planning and development for a little over a year and changes over 70 percent of the code since MDT 2008.

Image via CrunchBase

Michael Niehaus, a Systems Design Engineer in the Solution Accelerators team at Microsoft, did a great series of blog posts on most of the new features in MDT 2010. Also make sure to check out the two documents included with the release: "What's New in MDT 2010 Guide" and "Release Notes."



MDT 2010, the next version of a Solution Accelerator for operating system and application deployment, includes deployment Workbench and script architecture improvements, flexible driver management, optimized transaction process, access to distribution shares from any location, as well as documentation enhancements. Well over 10,000 testers around the world have put MDT 2010 through its paces across two betas and a Release Candidate build. The RC arrived in August 2009, when Microsoft still expected to have MDT 2010 ready soon after Windows 7 was released. It looks like the software giant managed to get it out early, which is great news for IT professionals.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Microsoft offers free Windows 7 RTM trial (infoworld.com)
• Microsoft: Windows 7 not affected by latest flaw (news.cnet.com)
• Microsoft: Windows 7 not affected by latest flaw (news.cnet.com)

Entropy

mmmm hmmm… -hk

Entropy as Time's Arrow

One of the ideas involved in the concept of entropy is that nature tends from order to disorder in isolated systems. This tells us that the right hand box of molecules happened before the left. Using Newton's laws to describe the motion of the molecules would not tell you which came first.

Entropy and disorder

Index
Entropy concepts

HyperPhysics***** Thermodynamics
R Nave

Go Back

Entropy

Oldie But GOODIE, App list post from DOWLOADLOAD squad.

 

40+ awesome free Windows apps you can download in 2 seconds

by Lee Mathews Jun 7th 2009

Depending on your internet connection you might be able to download a lot more (or a lot less) than 1Mb in two seconds - but calling this a post about apps under a meg just isn't quite as much fun!
No, you don't really need to pay too much attention to an application's hard drive footprint any more. After all, when you can buy a 1.5Tb drive for less than $150US, what difference does a few megs here or there make?
On the other hand, it's amazing to see what some developers are able to accomplish with a very small amount of code.
There are a ton of great, free applications that have been created in less than 1Mb - I didn't fully realize just how many until I started putting this list together. This is by no means a complete list, so if your favorite got overlooked make sure to share it in the comments!

Desktop/Shell Enhancements
Launchy (408Kb) - Hotkeys FTW! Launchy does more than hotkeys, of course, but even if you add a bucketload of plugins it's still under 1Mb.
Open++ (114Kb) - Helps you tweak your context menu six ways from Sunday. Pair it with another app like NirCmd for a nice one-two punch.
ViGlance (198Kb) - Want Windows 7's iconized taskbar in XP or Vista? ViGlance pulls it off in just under 200Kb. It also swaps the start button for the orb (on XP, of course) and does program grouping and pop-up window lists.
VirtuaWin (385Kb) - Most Linux distributions enable multiple virtual desktops by default. Windows doesn't support them out of the box - so you'll need an app like VirtuaWin. It's a good way to keep your workspace organized.
XNeat (797Kb) - No need to bother with separate apps to shuffle your taskbar icons, roll up windows, or add transparency. XNeat does it all in a single, tiny package. Also allows you to hide windows, minimize to tray, create keyboard shortcuts, and a whole lot more.
Encryption
DiskCryptor (740Kb) - One thing TrueCrypt can do that OmZiff can't is encrypt volumes. DiskCryptor can do it, too, and it's well under the 1Mb mark
LockNote (320Kb) - If the only thing you really want to encrypt are some private thoughts and notes, Steganos' GPL LockNote is a good choice.

OmZiff (408Kb) - Protecting sensitive data with encryption is never a bad idea. While OmZiff doesn't have the massive featureset of TrueCrypt, it's one-tenth the size and provides all the essential functions and includes a file shredder and password generator.
File Tools
7-Zip (919Kb) - Sure, 7-zip's main application window is ugly, but who uses it? All the archiving and extracting power you need is just a right-click away.
Everything (334Kb) - A great desktop search tool, Everything indexes your drive contents quicky and supports find-as-you-type. There's a portable version available as well, and it's even smaller.
FastCopy (194Kb) - Both FastCopy and TeraCopy are great, free apps that make copying and moving large amounts of data easier. For me, FastCopy wins because it's free for commercial use, Open Source, and about one quarter the size of TeraCopy.

Fling (230Kb) - Those cheap hard drives make an excellent place to back up and archive your files. Fling not only handles drive-to-drive sync, but it also plays well with FTP servers and USB flash drives. It's one of my favorite discoveries this year.
QDir (439Kb) - If you can get used to the multi-pane crazines, QDir is an awesome tool for manually managing your files and folders.
Space Sniffer (863Kb) - CCleaner does a great job of removing crap from your system, but sometimes you need to dig a little deeper. Space Sniffer helps you locate unwanted space hogs graphically.
Suction (180Kb) - One great way to keep mess to a minimum on your system is to consolidate similar directories - that's exactly what Suction does. It's portable, too!
WinCD Emu (783Kb) - Daemon Tools and Virtual CloneDrive are more well-known programs for mounting ISO images as virtual optical drives in Windows, but WinCD Emu provides almost the same functionality in a smaller package. It handles ISO, IMG, CUE, BIN, and RAW files.
Internet and Networking

Ammyy Admin (548Kb) - While it lacks TeamViewer's speed and bonus features, Ammyy still provides firewall-friendly remote control. There are no ports to open, and if trust is an issue you can run your own Ammyy router (85Kb) instead of using theirs.
GMail Notifier Plus (985Kb) - With kicked-up support for Windows 7's jumplists, this is a useful, sexy helper app for anyone with a GMail account.
Hamachi (989Kb) - Even though it's about 50% bigger than it used to be, Hamachi is still pretty dang small - and very useful. Its zero-config VPN makes remote access to your systems a breeze.

HydraIRC (949Kb) - The installer pushes HydraIRC over 1MB, but the portable version squeaks in under the wire. Features a tabbed interface, skin support, DCC chat and transfers, channel monitoring, and loads more.
iFTP (838Kb) - I love the second line from the developer's site: " I originally wrote i.Ftp to be the first freeware graphical client for BeOS, but someone beat me to it by a few days and well nobody notices who comes 2nd." That might be true, but he still put together a very capable FTP client with SFTP support.
NewsSifter (262Kb) - An intelligent RSS feed reader that analyzes new items based on content and sorts them into categories that you create.
Putty (444Kb) - Classic SSH/terminal client. 'Nuf said.
uTorrent (270Kb) - I've been using uTorrent as long as I've been downloading torrent files. It's got all the features I need in a client (and more) and it's well under the 1Mb mark even if you add the WebUI zip file. Sure, there are other options, but uTorrent takes it easy on my system resources and just gets the job done.

Wakoopa (309Kb) - A fun (and informative) social app, Wakoopa tracks your application usage and lets you see what programs other users are running. It's a great way to discover apps you may not have tried before.
Multimedia
Evil Player (537Kb) - A lightweight, minimal audio player, Evil Player support all the major formats and streams Icecast and Shoutcast (which can be recorded as well).
Fotografix (370Kb) - This little gem has generated quite a bit of buzz since I first wrote it up. It's an excellent lightweight Photoshop alternative, with features like layers, masks, filters, scripts, and editable type. If the developer's site is down, grab the file from Rapidspread.

Greenshot (160Kb) - An open source screen capture tool, Greenshot supports full screen, window, and selection captures, saving to multiple image formats, and annotations. Both a portable version and installer (404Kb) are available.
iDump (197Kb) - Need a free, portable app to backup the contents of an iPod? iDump is a good tool for the job, and it downloads in a flash - even on dial-up.
NCH Express Burn (390Kb) - ImgBurn is my default Windows burning application, but Express Burn sports a lot of the same features and packs them into a much smaller package.
VideoCacheView (65Kb) - It's hard to pick a single NirSoft app to list, because so many of Nir's utilities are under 1Mb and they're all handy. This one scours your browsers' cache files for FLVs and SWFs and allows you to save them for offline viewing.
Office and Productivity
ArsClip (986Kb) - A better clipboard manager with tons of configuration options and features. It's packaged as a zip and totally portable.

CintaNotes (365Kb) - drop it on your Flash drive, and CintaNotes provides an excellent way to collect snippets, links, and any other text data. It supports tagging and search-as-you-type.
Converber (253Kb) - Its unit-conversion super powers are tought to beat. You might not use Converber often, but it's small enough to keep around just in case.
KA TypeIn (920Kb) - A fantastic little app that lets you easily create and reuse text snippets. You can get advanced with it as well since it supports variables. Also does autocompletion.
List² (32kb) - You certainly don't need Excel to create very basic spreadsheet-style lists. This app is more than capable, and it takes up about as much space on your drive as the first page of Excel's help file.
TinyPDF (586Kb) - Just north of half a meg, and able to create good quality PDFs from any application via file > print. No longer freeware, but you can grab the last free installer from Freeware Files.
TinySpell (590kb) - Not all our favorite apps include a spellchecker. TinySpell fills the gaps and boasts a 110,00 word dictionary.
WinWorkBar (593Kb) - A productivity-boosting calendar and todo list / GTD application rolled into a sidebar (that can be set to autohide).
Utilities and Maintenance

CCleaner (979Kb) - One of the best file and registry cleanup tools around, and the portable version still still weighs in under 1Mb.
FileHippo Update Checker (154Kb) - FileHippo is a great place to download popular free applications. It's not cluttered with deceptive ads and the site is well-organized. The Updater is a smart way to keep your installers up-to-date.
HijackThis (793Kb) - A must-have for malware cleanup. I don't recommend HJT to casual users, but if you're a DIY-er with a good idea what should and shouldn't be in your registry, it belongs in your toolkit.
Magical Jellybean Keyfinder (367Kb) - Before you reformat your system it's a good idea to back up the product keys for your installed programs. Jellybean is a free, Open Source app that quickly digs up your keys and saves them to a TXT or CSV file.
NirCmd (86Kb) - I tried, but deep down I knew I couldn't get through this list without a second NirSoft app. NirCmd packs a ton of command-line Kung Fu in a single download.

Process Lasso (544Kb) - Gives you better control over the processes running on your system. If you're typically using loads of applications at once, Process Lasso can help keep your system running smoothly. Tweak things manually, or let ProBalance do the work for you.
UltraDefrag (374Kb) - A good defrag tool helps keep your hard drive running like clockwork. Under half a meg and open source, UltraDefrag even comes in 64-bit flavors and there's a micro build (as if 374Kb wasn't small enough already).
Unlocker (252Kb) - I hate trying to delete a file only to have Windows notify me that I can't because the file is in use. Unlocker provides a simple remedy to that problem.

40+ awesome free Windows apps you can download in 2 seconds

AMERICA'S ARMY 3 :: EVERY DETAIL COUNTS

AMERICA'S ARMY 3 :: EVERY DETAIL COUNTS

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Google Custom Search: A search box for Blogger

 

A search box for Blogger

Friday, May 29, 2009 | 10:36 AM

Posted by: Nicholas Weininger, Software Engineer
Custom Search enables anyone to create a tuned search experience that's contextually relevant. For example:

• Individuals can create a personalized search experience around their bookmarks, blogs, and public web sites
• Web site owners can provide Site Search
• Publishers can provide search across multiple publications
• Communities can collaborate to create topical search engines across thousands of web pages

For bloggers, blogging platforms typically provide in-built search tools that allow searching across published blog posts, or across tags and categories. With Custom Search, you can go one step further: you can define a search experience that evolves over time, and includes not just your blog posts, but links extracted from those posts, as well as links from your blog's link lists and blog lists - in short, all items of interest related to your blog.
If you author a blog on Blogger, we've built a search gadget for you that does this - the AJAX Custom Search gadget creates a Linked Custom Search engine that automatically updates to allow your readers to search your blog's entire neighbo(u)rhood. It is a uniquely flavo(u)red search experience that gets richer over time. Search results appear inline, so your users don't have to leave your blog. The results inherit the look and feel of the blog, as shown in the screenshot below.
On Blogger, you can add the gadget with a couple of clicks:

1. Edit your blog's layout (Page Elements tab)
2. Click on "Add a Gadget" and configure the new "Search Box" gadget.

You can configure tabs that will allow your blog's readers to restrict their search to specific link lists or blog lists; you decide which ones you want to configure.
If you are using this gadget, we'd love to hear your feedback in our discussion group.
The AJAX Search and the Custom Search APIs have also been combined to create the Custom Search element that we recently announced at Google I/O.

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Google Custom Search: A search box for Blogger

read this sooner than later.. maybe?

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