Working outside of your office or home can be a nice change if pace and can free you from distractions of your coworkers and home work. Unfortunately, if you don’t prepare, working from the cafe or restaurant can be a frustrating, unproductive experience. The good news is that you don’t need to spend a fortune to create a great mobile office. A few free services, accessories you are likely to have and a few tips and you’ll be working like a mobile pro.

How do we know about these tips and tools for getting work done at the coffee shop or mobile office? Our team is extremely mobile and I’ve spent the last 5 months camped out at the same coffee shop at least three days a week. In short, I live in coffee shops, which means I know how to get things done in a mobile office and turn distractions into incentives.

10 Tips To Getting Things Done While Working at a Coffee Shop

A Good Notebook – The first thing you need to get work done on the go is a notebook that is designed for mobile work. If you can choose your own notebook then you are at an advantage, but if work provides you with a notebook we recommend making friends with your IT guy so that you aren’t stuck with a desktop replacement that has poor battery life, a crappy keyboard and a weighs a ton.

If you can choose, look for something like the ThinkPad X1, one of the ThinkPad Edge notebooks, a new Dell Latitude E5420 or on the Mac side of things a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air. You don’t need one of these notebooks, but the battery life and nice keyboards will make your mobile office time much more productive.

Good Headphones – Unless you like hearing the same music on repeat every 45 minutes and being interrupted by loud talkers and teens, get a good pair of headphones. We use a pair of Nox Scout in ear headphones which don’t block out all the noise, but you might prefer some noise cancelling headphones that go over your ears. These headphones are often more comfortable for long stretches and help give off a, “I’m working, don’t bother me!” vibe. If you can find a pair that includes a microphone you can be prepared for an unplanned conference call.

Google Docs – If you are working on a shared document, Google Docs is one of our favorite tools. Rather than try to figure out which email has the most recent version or calling four other workers to find out who is working on the document you can use Google Docs to always have the most recent version at your fingertips. You can even work on the document at the same time, which is perfect for working from a mobile office.

Find the Right Place – It may take a few visits, but it is worth looking for the right place. We have found independent coffee shops are usually more welcoming. Look for places with free WiFi, no time limits and seats near power outlets. Another thing we like about the independent coffee shops is the lack of WiFi login landing pages and systems which in our experience go down more often and interfere with our favorite screen sharing apps.

Cloud Storage – If you don’t have a Dropbox or SugarSync account, get one now. These tools will automatically sync files and folders to the cloud so that you have access to your files wherever you are. No more calling the office to ask someone to email you an important file you forgot to put on your thumbdrive.

Via hamron on Flickr

Find the Right Seat - This one will be a bit of personal preference, but we like finding a table near the action. By avoiding a corner, we are putting ourselves on display which makes us more aware of what we are doing — and less likely to goof off. Ideally this will be a two person table near a power outlet if you plan to stay for more than a few hours. Be warned, if you are too close to the door or the action you’ll become a prime target for chit chat from other regulars.

iPad + Screen Sharing App – Working on the go can be freeing, but you also may give up your great dual monitor setup. But, if you are on a local WiFi network or your own hotspot you can use an app like MaxiVista or Air Display to turn your iPad into a second monitor which is great for keeping team communication tools, TweetDeck, music or a reference page at hand while you work. These apps are even more useful if you are using an ultraportable with a small screen. You can get MaxiVista or Air Display for $9.99 in the App Store. MaxiVista is Windows only, while Air Display works on Mac and Windows.

Verizon 4G LTE MiFi

MiFi or Hotspot Smartphone App – Most of the time you can get connected on the coffee shop’s WiFi, but sometimes that fails or you want to work from a picnic table at the park. While writing this post the Panera WiFi wouldn’t allow us to connect and unlike at the local coffee shop we love, we couldn’t ask the staff to reset a router for us so we turned to the built in hotspot app on the Droid X2 to connect. This also allowed us to use the MaxiVista app, which won’t work on WiFi setups like Panera. You can add a hotspot package to your smartphone for around $20 a month or pick up a MiFi device from major carriers for reasonable rates.

Remote Connectivity – If you aren’t working from your main office computer while on the go, you need to have a VPN or LogMeIn installed. This will allow you to remotely connect to your main computer to retrieve files or to use applications and software tools you don’t have access to on your notebook. In most cases your IT department can get you setup for a VPN or can approve use of LogMeIn or a similar tool.

Via Marcin Wichary on Flickr

Tip Well & Be Considerate – If you want to work undisturbed and remain welcome for long stretches, don’t just get a coffee and fill a chair for 6 hours. Make sure you tip the barista and order something to eat if you plan to work for more than a few hours. If you pick a regular spot and tip well you’ll stand out and earn friendship from the employees. This is also helpful if you need to use the restroom and don’t want to completely pack up your mobile office. In general, if you are using a coffee shop as your mobile office treat the employees and other patrons with the same, or greater, respect that you would at the office.

Did we miss a tip for a productive mobile workspace? Let us know your favorite ways to stay motivated and productive on the go in the comments below.

10 Tips To Getting Things Done While Working at a Coffee Shop is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

As a student, I take my laptop with me to class every day. That means unplugging the power cable and any USB devices that I have hooked up to it every day. When my laptop is gone and they don’t have anything to plug into, the cables tend to fall on the ground, and nothing is less fun than returning from class only to crawl underneath my desk to run the wires back up there.

Forgoing the sometimes expensive docking route, I’ve found a simple solution to this problem that works well and is completely free! All you have to do is make a little knot-loop in one of your cables and run the other ones through it. I’ve found that when bundled together, cables tend to fall behind the desk much less frequently. Now when I get home from class my cables are waiting there to greet me rather than hanging out on the floor!

Quick Tip: Use A Knot In Your Cables To Prevent Them From Falling Behind Your Desk is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Google has a habit of quickly iterating on their web services. Sometimes Google rolls these changes out to all users, but other times they let users who want certain features (that might not be ready for prime-time) opt-in to them.

These bonus-features are kept in a section that Google calls “Labs”. Google describes Gmail Labs as “a testing ground for experimental features that aren’t quite ready for primetime. They may change, break or disappear at any time.” So it’s sort of like the Nevada Test Site… except in your inbox… and with email instead of bombs.

We’ve cooked up a little guide to show you how to enable some of the most useful Gmail Lab features.

First we’ll show you how to find Gmail Labs, and what to do if something goes wrong (just in case):

Locating Google Labs

Finding Google Labs is easy. Just login to Gmail like you normally would and then click the green beaker at the top right of the page next:

Also before we begin, here’s what to do just in case enabling a Google Labs feature somehow renders you unable to access your inbox or certain parts of it. Simply access your email by using this special link which will disable all Labs Features: https://mail.google.com/mail/?labs=0

And now you’re prepared to turn on some of the Gmail Labs features and give them a try. Here’s our 5 favorite Google Labs, but they’re plenty more to check out!

Top 5 Google Labs Features:

1. Authentication icon for verified senders

This feature is very useful for anyone who uses Ebay or Paypal. If you use these two services, you’ve certainly seen your fair share of fake emails that purport to be from Ebay or Payapl, but are actually just trying to steal your info (these are called Phishing emails). Phishing emails are hard to identify because they can look nearly identical to the email that they are trying to impersonate. By enabling this feature, you’ll see a key icon next to any email in your inbox that is officially from Ebay or Paypal and thus be better protected against phishing scams.

2. Superstars

You might be familiar with Gmail’s “star” feature. It acts as a quick way to mark important emails and is useful for sorting them out or saving them for later. The Superstars feature expands this idea from a single star up to 12 icons that you can assign to any email. To toggle through them, simply click multiple times on the star icon. To decide which ones to use (I only use four, so I’ve disabled the rest to prevent myself from having to cycle through them all), click “Settings” at the top right of your inbox, and check out the “Superstars” section on the “General” tab. You can drag and drop which one’s you’d like to use and which you wouldn’t. You can even search for specific icons using the “has:” operator (ie: “has:star”). Learn the names of each icon (for searching) by rolling your mouse over it in the aforementioned Superstars section.

3. Undo Send

This one has surely saved me a number of time from making embarrassing mistakes (accidentally replying to all instead of just one person, etcetera). The Undo Send feature causes your email hang out with Gmail for about 5 seconds after you hit the send button. If you remembered something you forgot to include just as you hit the send button (as I always seem to do), you’ll find an “Undo” button at the top of your inbox for a few seconds which you can click to recall the email.

4. Multiple Inboxes

The Multiple Inbox feature allows you to split up your inbox into additional inboxes (up to 5). Each additional inbox can contain any emails you’d like. You can, for instance, have one for all of your starred emails, all emails from a particular important sender, or maybe all emails with attachments. To configure this, you simply need to enable the feature through Gmail Labs, then go to “Settings” (at the top right of your inbox), then find the “Multiple Inboxes” tab.  Messages go into each inbox based on search terms that you provide (such as, “has:attachment”). You’ll want to familiarize yourself with Gmail search operators in order to get the most out of this feature.

5. Multi Contact Suggestions

This feature is officially called “Don’t forget Bob”, so be sure to look for that when you are searching through the Gmail Labs list if you’d like to enable this feature. “Don’t forget Bob” automatically suggests additional recipients based on the groups you contact most often. This is particularly useful if you regularly use email to communicate with groups on various project, or frequently send a funny video to the same group of friends.

But Wait, There’s More!

These five that we’ve shared are only the tip of the Gmail Labs iceberg. At the time of writing, there are 56 Labs features that you might find useful. So go forth and check them out! You can also send feedback for each individual lab if you’d like to share some recommendation or issue by using the “Send Feedback” button next to the corresponding feature on the Labs page.

A Guide to Gmail Labs is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Windows 7 has a simple and useful file management feature called Libraries. With it a user can more easily find their files and manage them in the Windows Explorer interface.

The primary benefit of a Windows Library is keeping similar file types that may be stored in different locations all in one place. For example, let’s say I have pictures stored in the My Pictures folder (located at ‘C:UsersUserNamePictures’ by default). But I also have a network drive with some pictures and a piece of software that for some reason requires that I put pictures related to that program in a different folder. Our church’s worship presentation software has this requirement. To keep access to all three of these different locations easily accessible in one place, I can set up a Library that points to all three spots, but to the user look like they are all in one spot.

Another reason might be to keep access to my software installation files. On a notebook I may have a folder for Downloaded files that I find online, like some cool utility that I learned about while away from home. But at home I may have a network attached storage drive that has all my installation files in a folder there. I can set up a library that will point to both locations, so that when I am looking for a program that I want to reinstall or share with a friend (because it is a legally distributed application) it doesn’t matter where it is, I can just look in the Software Library folder.

Windows 7 comes with a few Libraries by default. They are for Documents, Music, Pictures and Videos. I have one for Downloads and My Shout files. My Shout are for the worship program our church uses.

Microsoft has a simple guide for working with these Libraries. The process of creating or adding a folder to a library is only a right-click away in Windows Explorer. (If you are having trouble watching this video in your browser you can download it to play back on your computer.

[video http://res1.windows.microsoft.com/resbox/en/Windows%207/Main/e/1/e176512e-b11f-4476-94f3-b5cfe689ba1e/e176512e-b11f-4476-94f3-b5cfe689ba1e.wmv]

Creating a New Library

The create a new library, open Windows Explorer (double-click the My Computer icon or hit WIN+E where WIN stands for the Windows Key) and find the folder. Then right-click the folder and choose Include in library”, and then Create new library”. Give it a name.

From now on it will show up in the Library list in the upper left hand section in Windows Explorer’s tree view.

If you decide you don’t want that folder in the Library, just right-click it in the view above and choose to remove it from the pop up menu. To delete a library highlight it and delete it as you would any other folder.

Adding a Folder to an Existing Library

The process of adding a folder to a library is the same as creating one. The only difference is in what you choose from the pop up menu. Instead of picking Create new library” choose the name of the already existing library you want to use.

After creating or adding a folder to a library, it will show up in that folder when the folder is highlighted as if that item is in that folder. The Library is not an actual folder but just a special kind of Windows shortcut.

How To Use Windows 7 Libraries to Manage Files and Folders is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

Last year’s release of Windows 7 and this year’s release of Office 2010 were nice upgrades. Windows 7 was a much better OS than its predecessors. And while Office 2010 has less to compel the average user to upgrade, there are a few cool tools in the new version.

Unfortunately, upgrading to Windows 7 and the new Office 2010 suite is costly, especially if you have multiple computers or can’t make due with the cheaper Student and Home Edition edition of Office 2010; which doesn’t include Outlook or Publisher.

What if I told you that you can get full versions of Windows 7 Ultimate and Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus for only $200?

That’s at least $300 less than at the cheapest online store. You’d probably say I was crazy or ask if my supplier was a guy with a trench coat selling bootleg copies out of the trunk of his Buick, but the amazing thing about this is it’s legal and Microsoft even encourages it. In fact they are my source.

The way to do it is to subscribe to Microsoft TechNet, which costs as little as $199 for the first year and $149 each year thereafter. TechNet is a service of Microsoft intended for technology professionals who would benefit from having access to all of Microsoft’s products for review, learning or support. When I signed up I was not even writing for Notebooks.com. All I did was tell them that I was in charge of the technology for my church, which I am. We don’t have anyone with the title of IT Director. I am the guy. And that was good enough for Microsoft.

You may be thinking this is shady and I’m suggesting  you violate some kind of license agreement, but apparently Microsoft is OK with the idea of individuals signing up for TechNet.

I was listening to a recent edition of Windows Weekly, a podcast focused on Microsoft products and other news and information of use to Windows users, with Leo LePorte and Paul Thurrott.

Thurrott, who is in regular contact with the people at MS, recommended that everyone listening sign up. When listeners and viewers complained he was telling them to be dishonest, he said Microsoft knows that people sign up for TechNet just to get the software and support for themselves and it is fine with them. I would trust Thurrott as he has inside info most of the time when it comes to MS and their products.

How to Sign up For TechNet:

Here is what you get if you do sign up. You get access to all of the Office products including the various versions of Office dating back to Office XP. You can also get individual copies of each Office product and access to copies of SharePoint, Visio, etc.

In the Operating System category, you get copies of Windows in all its versions from 7 back to Windows 3.1 and even MS DOS.

And for those who want to learn more about Microsoft’s products the TechNet Library is great. They have documents on all kinds of topics. In addition to that you get access to special forums reserved for TechNet users.

This is a yearly subscription. But when you do the math it can be a real savings. Just from my own example, I have five different computers, none of which came with Windows 7 or Office. So to get it on all of them, even if I paid for only an OEM version which is really just intended for manufacturers and system builders, I would have to pay around $500. That’s just for Windows. Now, add to that two copies of Office 2010 Home and Student (which covers up to 6 PCs), which can be found for around $120-$130 regularly and you’re looking at around $740.

Microsoft is in a three year cycle of upgrading their Windows and Office products. So, if you count the first year’s subscription fee of $200 plus two follow up years of $150, that is a total of $500. I have saved myself $240 and I have access to a much higher level versions of Windows and Office as well as the other great products and services included in TechNet.

To get each copy, you download an ISO of the Windows installation disk for your chosen version. You burn that file onto a disk, using either a special program or your disk burning utility’s image burning feature. In other words you cannot just burn it like you would other files. I use a simple and free tool called ImageBurn.

For Office 2010, you just get the installation file or an ISO image of the earlier version which you also burn to a disc. In the download library there are links you click to have a software key generated for you. You can use that key to install on all your PCs unless you have a large volume. Keep in mind, this is not intended for businesses who need large installations, but for individual users.

How to Buy Microsoft Office 2010 and Windows 7 for $199 Combined is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

You can do a lot of nifty little things with Google these days, rather than just searching. Just today, my brother asked me what the score of the Phillies game turned out to be the other night. A quick search for phillies score” showed exactly the info I needed right on the search page, I didn’t even have to click through to a site:

He also asked me what time today’s game would be playing which was easy to answer, as that relevant info was also provided. This content is dynamic as well. As there is currently a game going on at the time of writing, the same search will provide an inning by inning view of the progress of the game (not a very eventful game so far…):

Google calls these instant answers OneBox” results, and there are a lot of ways that you can shape your Google queries to get the info you want in OneBox results without having to click through various links.

Take music for example:

Let’s say you’ve been tapping your foot to the rhythm of Give a Little Bit by Supertramp all day after hearing it on the radio and you have a hankering to hear it again. You can simply type give a little bit by supertramp” into Google and voila! Google presents several options to listen to a full length version of that very song from several different services:

You can simply hit that big play button to start the track playing, or you can pick individually from the different services that the track is found on. For the most part, each service will let you listen to a full version of the song every so often, then they’ll bug you to pay for it, or subscribe to the service. Fortunately, because there are often several services listed, you can usually get your fill of the track before running out of free plays. I find this particularly great for listening to tracks that I don’t listen to often enough to flat out purchase, but do occasionally enjoy.

The service also works for artists, or even albums, rather than individuals songs:

A lot of folks know that they can pull up their favorite songs on YouTube, so what makes this method a better alternative? Well for one, quality. Some people could care less, but if you’ve got a hint of audiophile in you, you’ll be happy to know that the songs are generally of very good quality from the services that Google offers up. YouTube is generally hit or miss when it comes to quality. Another reason that this is a better alternative than YouTube is that it’s faster. Not only is it quicker to search or browse for the song that you want, but your computer doesn’t have to load a full flash video just to play the song (as it does on YouTube) instead, you are getting just the audio data from the service, meaning it’ll be faster to start and buffer less.

Now what if you wanted to figure out a simple fact… let’s say, Einstein’s date of birth? Personally, my modus operandi would be to jump over to Einstein’s Wikipedia page and find the information myself. But why do that when Google could do that work for me, and corroborate with other websites to verify that the information is correct? If I simply search Google for einstein’s date of birth”, I’ll get a OneBox result which cross-references several websites (10, for this particular query):

You can even get local info just by adding near [zipcode]”. Check out the OneBox results for a movie and pizza with a little location thrown into the mix:

Not bad for a little dinner and movie date, am I right?

There are many more things that Google’s OneBox results can do, just try these searches:

• weather local time in hawaii”
• time zones – weather in 12345”
• stocks – aapl”, msft”

Taking advantage of the time saving awesomeness that OneBox results have to offer really comes down to shaping your queries in a way that Google understands exactly what you want. Hopefully, given the various examples provided above, you’ll start to get the hang of the sort of language that Google is looking for when returning OneBox results. Oh and before I forget… most OneBox results work for Google mobile as well. So fire up your favorite mobile and give it a try:

How to: Use Google’s OneBox Results to Get Info Quickly is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

The iPhone may be known for its incredible stability, but even it occasionally suffers from a frozen or non-responsive app every once and a while. Luckily, there is a simple way to force quit these applications. Think of it as a ctrl+alt+delete or option+shift+command+escape for your iPhone or iPod Touch.

There are actually two different ways to do this, depending upon the version of the iPhone or iPod Touch OS that you are running. I’d tell you how to go into settings and check which version are are running, but it is actually much more simple just to try one, and if it doesn’t work, then you need to use the other. If you really need a way to tell, try swiping your home screen (the one with all of the icons) all the way to the left. If you find the Spotlight search page to the left of your first page of icons, then you want option number one here. If you don’t find that search page, then you want option number two:

1. For devices running 3.0 or later Press and hold the hold button (on the top of your device) until the Slide to power off” slider comes up. Then, hold the home button (the one on the front of your device which takes you back to the apps screen) for about 6 seconds, or until you see the currently running application close. Congrats, you’ve performed a force quit.
2. For devices running software before 3.0 Just press and hold the home button for about 6 seconds, or until the see the currently running application close. Voila, no more frozen app.

It’s rare but every once and a while you may also need to force the device to shut down if it is completely unresponsive. This is also very simple. Just press the hold and home buttons at the same time and keep them held until your device turns off (this will take about 10-15 seconds).

How to Force Quit Applications on the iPhone/iPod Touch is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

Here is a quick tip that I discovered today while I was doing some iPhone camera testing. Email is one of the best methods for sending photos to friends or quickly getting just a few images from your iPhone. Unfortunately for some reason, the obvious way of emailing photos has a limit of 5 photos per email, and they are downsized from their full quality of 1536×2048 (on the iPhone 3GS) to 800×600. This represents a large decrease in quality. For some reason, Apple likes to put strange and seemingly arbitrary limitations on a lot of functions of the iPhone — the reason for which is another discussion for another time….

Here is th obvious way to email photos (and the way that results in a limit of 5 per message and lower quality):

1. Launch the Photo app
2. Click the icon at the bottom left
3. Select up to 5 photos
4. Press the share button and select Email
5. This will launch the Email app and insert the low quality photos into the body of the message

If you want to remove the 5 photo limit and email at the highest quality, you’ll want to take a slightly different approach.

1. Launch the Photos app
2. Click the bottom left icon and select up to 16 photos (see note below)
3. Instead of clicking Share and Email, click the Copy button

   

4. Launch the Email app and begin a new message
5. Tap in the body of the email and you’ll see a small Paste” button pop up Click it, and voila!

Now you have all of your photos in the body of the email (and in high quality.) You may notice that only 5 photos are fully displayed in the body of the text, while the rest are represented as icons… have no fear, they’ll show up fine on the other end. Here is a zoomed in version of the same image which has been emailed using both methods (click to enlarge for comparison.)

Note: Presumably you’ll be able to mail as many photos as the iPhone can handle in it’s clipboard, which may be or may not be dependent on the RAM. I’ve only been able to get a maximum of 16 photos to email at a single time on the 3GS, this number may be less on the 3G and older models which has less RAM.

How To: Email the Highest Quality Photos from Your iPhone, and More Than Five at a Time is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

There are a lot of people who would like to give Mac a try, but for those that identify themselves as PC gamers” going to Mac really isn’t an option because the majority of popular games these days are made for Windows and don’t have any Mac ports. Luckily, through the magic of software, it is possible to play some of the most popular PC games on your Mac.

Enter Crossover Games for Mac by Codeweavers. Based on a free program called Wine, which allows Windows applications to be executed on Unix operating systems like Mac or Linux, Crossover Games for Mac is a $40 application which will let you play the following PC games right on your Intel-based Mac (click on the image of each game to see Codeweavers’ compatibility report on the game):

(there is also a Mac specific version of this game)

Steam game images are from the Steam Store website.

…and the list goes on.

Granted, you’ll still need a computer powerful enough to run the games of your choice, and you’ll want to check the compatibility report for the game(s) you’d like to play before you drop your coin on this software, but Crossover Games provides a solution for people who like PC games but want to go with a Mac computer. If you’d like to see Crossover Games in action take a look at this video guide and demo on YouTube (not produced by Notebook.com).

Stuck with Windows Because of PC Games? Make the Switch to Mac and Bring Your Games with You is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.

One of my favorite things on the computer is finding incredibly simple but genius programs that save time or make my life easier in some way. Even better is when these programs are free. Enter Launchy, the ultimate example of this sort of program.

Launchy is a dead simple and completely free ‘widget’, if you will, for launching applications. I’ve been using Launchy for many months now, and it has pretty much completely replaced the start menu for me, and it saves me time each and every time that I use the computer. It’s there when you need it, and gone when you don’t.

Back in Windows XP, I always wondered why on earth I had to manually search through the long and cluttered start menu. Isn’t that something that the computer should do for me? Though things got better with the Start menu search box in Windows Vista and Windows 7, Launchy is smarter, faster, open-source, and cross-platform (for Windows and Linux).

Ok so how exactly does Launchy work? Well with one press of the customizable keystroke (alt+space by default) a little box pops up on your screen from anywhere in the system (ie: the box will pop-up over any program that you are currently using, meaning you can use Launchy from anywhere). Type just a few letters of the program you’d like to lauch and Launchy will likely find the right one. When you see the icon of the program that you want, just press enter and Launchy will open the application.

Sometimes you don’t remember the exact name of the program that you want to launch. Luckily, Launchy is smart. Type a few letters of what you think the name of the program is, and Launchy does a good job of finding the right one.

In the picture above, I didn’t even spell the name correctly, but Launchy knew what I was going for.

Sometimes there can be multiple matches for applications with similar names. Launchy handles this with ease as well. If your initial query doesn’t return the right program, just wait a few seconds and Launchy will drop down a list of other matches. From there you can use the arrow keys or mouse to select the right one, and Launchy will even remember which one you picked so that next time you search with that query, it’ll go straight to the one that you selected last time.

There is one caveat I’ve noticed about Launchy. I can’t use it to launch the Windows Control Panel. This may be an issue with Launchy, but I suspect that Windows won’t allow third-party programs to launch the Control Panel, so you must do it through the regular old Start menu. But for everything else, Launchy works great.

If you are an advanced user, Launchy offers some additional time saving tricks from the Launchy site:

• Search Google
  • Type in google, then tab, then your search query and press enter
• Check the Weather
  • Type in Weather, then tab, then your zip code or city,state and press enter
• Search other sites
  • Other sites you can search include wikipedia, msn, yahoo, amazon, netflix, imdb, and more.
• Browse your computer
  • Type in c:, then tab, then a folder or file, hit tab, and continue
• The Launchy Calculator
  • Did you know that Launchy has a built in calculator? Type in some algebra and see what happens!
• Index your Bookmarks & Folders
  • Directory: C:Documents and SettingsuserFavorites
  • File Type: .url
• Index your Music
  • Directory: My Documents
  • File Types: .mp3 .aac .ogg
• Index your Pictures
  • Directory: My Documents
  • File Types: .jpg .gif .bmp
• Index your Documents
  • Directory: My Documents
  • File Types: .doc .pdf .xls .ppt
• Index custom Commands
  • Directory: Your Custom Folder
  • File Types: .exe .bat .lnk

I’d really suggest installing Launchy and trying it out for a few weeks. Before you know it, you’ll be a program launching master, using Launchy every time that you want to open a program; it’s just that darn fast and convenient.

For the latest version of Launchy, go to this page. If you are on Windows click the green Download Now button at the top of the page for the latest version. If you are on Linux… I’ll assume you know what you are doing!

Save Time by Launching Programs with Launchy — a Fast, Free, Program Launcher is a post by Ben from Notebooks.com.