My Windows Machine Got a Facelift.
Posted by nathan on 21 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Tech Stuff., my life.
So here’s a screenshot of my Windows XP machine’s new look. Do you like it?
Before this facelift, my desktop had literally 50 icons on it. (Unfortunately, I forgot to take a ‘before’ screenshot!) Last Wednesday, my mom sat down on my computer, and she had problems finding the browser button.
‘Enough.’ I thought, and I got rid of the annoying Windows taskbar, deleted all the desktop icons and installed RocketDock, which is the dock you see at the bottom of this new screenshot. On the dock I have all my most-used shortcuts: My Computer, My Documents, Network Drives | Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE7, Thunderbird | InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop | Notpad++, Excel, PowerPoint, Word | Roll Call, MediaFace, Juicer2(PTK) | FileZilla and some settings, Recyle bin and the clock!
I have fallen in love with the dock since I purchased a mac for my business several months ago. The dock is just so nice…everything I need, right there!
Now, before you’re all like, ‘What? You’re still on a 4:3 screen instead of a 16:9 screen?,’ please realize I have two side-by-side 4:3 screens, so I’m really running at a 16:6, which is considerably more ‘wide’ than your precious 16:9 screen. If I had two 16:9 screens, I would be at 16:4.5, which is a bit too wide for me…
So I’ll be keeping my 4:3 screens, at least for a while.
And to reinforce, I do suggest you implement a dock on your Windows XP or Vista machine. It’s well-worth it, and I think you’ll be happy you did.
4 Comments »
on 21 Jan 2008 at 9:27 am 1.
marvin said …
Nice desktop….
For me, I am slowly migrating from Windows to Ubuntu….
(btw, haven’t finished fixing my site…)
on 21 Jan 2008 at 11:05 am 2.
Todd Helmkamp said …
You got me hooked on it, too! Now I’m running RocketDock at work and at home!
on 21 Jan 2008 at 12:40 pm 3.
Adam said …
How’s the dock different/better than the Quick Launch?
on 21 Jan 2008 at 1:07 pm 4.
nathan said …
The dock is similar in function to the quick launch, except the quick launch does one thing: Launch applications.
The dock not only launches applications, but you can minimize open applications to the dock.
So, instead of taking up 1/2 your Windows task bar to have 20 quick launch buttons–which then reduces the amount of usable task bar space available, it combines them into one.
One of the cool things (via an addon ‘docklet’) also, is a ’stack’, which allows you to add a folder of icons to the dock. When you click the folder, the stack expands upward to show the stack. (Say, you can put Word, Excel, PowerPoint, on one stack, so it takes up one space on the dock but can easily open multiple programs.)