Occasional Thoughts

Congratulations Microsoft for finally introducing some features KDE users already enjoy.

Just saw some Windows 7 screenshots on Heise Online that once again reveals some Microsoft "innovations" that KDE users already enjoy.

OK, the first screenshot shows something really new. It associates an entry on the taskbar with documents recently opened with that application. Could be a nice feature. However in general I think the list of recent documents is more useful. Why shall I first start an application to see it in the taskbar and then open a document related to that? But OK... let's give Microsoft one point for that.

Yet another App of the Whatever posting with another application for Microsoft Windows. Somehow the great standard features of a KDE desktop are not worth mentioning as long as you are using KDE. But as soon as I have to live without them on Microsoft Windows I am always very happy to find a program that brings just a little piece of KDE back to Windows.

This time it's about window shading.

Once again I cover an application for Microsoft Windows in this App of the Whatever post. Not that anybody starts to think that I became a big Windows fan - no, I'm not. It's just that I am missing a lot of features under Windows I got used to on my KDE/Linux box. Ever since I have to use Windows I was missing one little thing very badly. To use the mouse wheel on an application you have to click on it first to give it the focus. Even worse is that you first have to click in the left pane of the explorer to scroll the folder tree and once again in the right pane to scroll the files view.

In this issue of App of the Whatever I'd like to present something for the other OS, called Windows (not related to X-Window or any Window Manager). Some might already have heard of it. No, don't try this, just because I mentioned it here. It's not worth it. But you know, some fellows are forced to use it just because some application vendors only support this system and some employers require their employess to use these apps. Well, it's not really a free world. Well to make it shorter... this Windows system is far from beeing as good as KDE. Even simple stuff, like the run dialog is hardly usable here. Mainly because all applications are spread over the whole hard disks and not organized in bin directories (it's really that way - I am not kidding!). So hardly any application is matched through the PATH variable.

One of the applications I can't live without is Synergy. At home and in the office I have a standard computer and a notebook and I am working on both almost all the time at the same time. However I don't want to turn my head all the time. So the laptop is located as close as possible to the monitor of the desktop system - no place left for two keyboards and two mice, while the Laptop keyboard and touchpad are not very convenient. And I don't want to change the keyboard and mouse, just when I do a little tiny task on the other machine. So I need a way to share these devices.