3 Windows XP Productivity TipsSun., Mar. 26, 2006 21:08:31
 I enjoy spending time doing things I I want to do. This doesn't include waiting. This especially doesn't include waiting for my computer to load complex graphical menus. Usually, the Windows XP start menu loads rather quickly, but I have far too many programs installed for that.
This is when I start thinking about productivity: how can I make my computing experience take less time? There are three major things that I do with my desktop real estate to accomplish this, and I felt it worthy to share them with you.
The first tip (1) is a standard housekeeping task–one that, sadly, I have to do almost every time I install a program or update iTunes. Clean up your quick-launch bar! Right-click on icons you don't need and select Delete. If you don't use a program on a regular basis, it doesn't need to be in your quick-launch bar. Choose your highest priority use programs and leave them, everything else that you use commonly can be pinned to the start menu (see 3).
Numer 2: I recently re-discovered a wonderful little feature in Windows XP–the address bar. This seems mediocre and a poor use of real estate at first, but when you realize the full power its value becomes much more clear.
To enable it, right click on some open area in your taskbar, hover over Toolbars, then select Address. For some reason my computer lists it twice, and only the second one works, so keep this in mind if you have a similar fluke. Now you'll have an address bar (yes!), but you also get a wasteful, redundent work just to the left of it "Address". Thank you Captain Obvious, I wasn't quite sure what that bar was for. Right click on the word "Address" and uncheck "Show Title".
Now, that's better. Let's get to the meat of things: the address bar can be used simply to launch a website address with your default browser (Firefox, please), or even better, your drives and folders. I keep all of my media (well, actually just music and movies) in my M:/ drive in the media folder, so when I need access to it, I just put my cursor in the address bar and type M:/media[enter]. Viola! Instant folder. That's boring stuff though; what I really want to to is launch programs other than Windows Explorer. Say I want to launch Word, all I have to do is type winword[enter]. Presto, Word launches. Until today, I had no idea the address bar functioned exactly like Start>Run (WindowsKey+R), a feature I use extensively. This was such an amazing discovery–well, you're looking at the result.
My third tip (3) is quite similar to the first. Clean up your start menu! First of all, I like choosing the programs that show up here, so I go to my start menu properties, click Customize and set the "Number of programs on Start menu" to 0. Now I'm set to use this space to pin whatever I need. The "pinned" section is where your default internet client and email client are located, but you can drag other programs here too. I use Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Word frequently on my desktop PC, so I have them listed here. On my laptop, I have a couple of mapping programs that I commonly use pinned to the start menu. The more programs you pin, the longer it will take your start menu to open (because it has to load the names and icons for each program). Choose your favorites, and don't worry about the rest.
I have two more little mini tips. First, I acknowledge my hypocrisy for wasting space and leaving firefox on my start menu twice (once in the quick-launch bar and again pinned). Finally, lock your taskbar (right click on an open (darker blue) area and select Lock the Taskbar). This will free up a couple more pixels of your valuable desktop real estate.
I'm sure by this time you want to get back to speeding up your desktop experience, and now that I've wasted all the time I would have gained speeding up my desktop writing this blog, I should get going too.
Commentsand I'm the nerd?
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