RocketDock – Windows App Launcher

RocketDock ( http://www.punksoftware.com/rocketdock) is Windows Application Launcher similar to the Mac OS X’s launch bar.

I was longing for such App launcher for Windows and tried some yahoo widget previously but they were very disappointing. When I first found this free software and I was very excited and satisfied with its powerful features that I always wanted.

RocketDock in my Desktop

Actually there are several similar Dock App for Windows, but this is good enough for me not to try other Dock / Launcher softwares.

  • You can add and remove icons by just drag and drop.
  • You can change the icon image with the regular image files (jpeg, gif, png)
  • Multi language support
  • Full control setting of its behavior (Icon Enlargement, Menu hides…)

Take a look at this movie that they made for showcase of RocketDock.
http://one.revver.com/watch/160224/flv

You may need 3rd party ICON images to decorate your dock. Try Everaldo’s free Crystal Icon Series. They are great and comes in various sizes from 16X16 to 128X128. If the above site does not work, try CrystalXp.net. They host many icon image sets, and I believe that they are free for personal use. But I guess you need to contact the author for the commercial use.

Other similar Windows Docking products are ObjectDock and AquaDock.

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My Favorite Yahoo Widgets

Widget in Action I have been using Yahoo widget (http://widget.yahoo.com) for about a year now. At first, I found that many widgets are fun and eye-catching and placed them in my desktop. I liked Yahoo widgets.

But at certain point, I realized they consume too much memory that each widget took at least 4 or 5 MB of physical memory even if they weren’t doing anything important. So I decided to remove one by one. Most of them are not productive and taking up too much spaces anyway.

And there are only 3 widgets survived in my desktop as of now.

  • Simple Monitor :
    Shows CPU, Memory, Network bandwidth In/Out , IP Address, and Uptime information as a graph in a single rectangle area. Very neat. But beware, since it’s a monitoring widget, it consumes more system resources than other widgets.
  • WidescapeWeather:
    Shows five day forecasts, but you can minimize to view only today’s forecast.
  • Slickies:
    This is the best notepad that I have used. You can set it up so each note can be hidden to the 4 sides of the screen and appear only when you click on the note. That function is very useful so you don’t have to search for your notes again!

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