Vista Start Menu: ViStart

Wasn't Vista's start menu so much better. Especially the search functions which enables you to better find your programs rather than going through the whole start menu?

Well, part of the Vista Transformation Pack 7 and developed Lee Matthew Chantrey and Windows X, the ViStart program would definitely be part of your customization toolkit.

Heres a screenshot of the start menu after ViStart is run.


You may also want to try the Vista Transformation Pack found at Windows X

Let's Go Open Source: Eclipse IDE

All Programmers have heard of dreamweaver I'm sure. However, for budget programmers like me, I prefer to go the open source way. The tools I use for designing web pages, from Graphics to the coding are all open source software.

In the first Let's G.O.S. feature in this site, the software here which has been an integral part of my programming toolkit: the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

The Eclipse SDK (Software Development Kit) is the core of the IDEs. It features a framework which allows for IDEs to run. It is an open source and software independent framework. As such, you can run eclipse in most operating systems.

The Eclipse SDK comes with the Java IDE. However, it aims to be more than a Java IDE. It aims to be part of the entire software development cycle.

Eclipse has a large community of users, constantly extending the covered application areas. It is focused on building an extensible development platform, runtimes and application frameworks for building, deploying and managing software across the entire software lifecycle.

However, since my work is web-oriented, my IDE of choice is the PHP-IDE. Here is a screenshot of the Eclipse IDE:



There are various plugins and gems which can be found at the Eclipse Foundation website at http://www.eclipse.org

On top of that. If you're a Flex developer, Adobe's Flex is also able to integrate into the Eclipse environment..

Downloads: Launchy 1.25

Launchy has just updated to version 1.25.

For the uninitiated, Launchy is a Windows only, open source keyboard launcher. Its similar to Quicksilver for Mac or Windows Vista's new built-in search engine and is powerful in its own right.

When you want to launch a program, just press Launchy's default shortcut, Alt-Spacebar and type in your program's name. Normally, after a few letters, Launchy would have guessed the program you want to open correctly. Just press Enter to launch your program.

Launchy can also be used to launch web searches and also has a built in calculator. The program is skinable and expandable through plugins.

This nifty application would be taken for granted easily. It is not until when you use another computer without launchy that you realized how useful and in a certain extent, dependent on it you've become.

Anyway, here's a screensshot

Get it at http://www.launchy.net/

Security Tip: DropMyRights

Many would know by now with the release of Microsoft Windows Vista, there are added layers of security. One of which, is the User Account Control (UAC) that runs programs with the most minimal privileges to prevent malicious code and viruses from easily gaining administrative powers as you would have to explicitly give permission to them...

However, there is a tool which enables you to emulate that in Windows XP. That tool is aptly named DropMyRights.

The program works by making a shortcut to for example internet Explorer through the DropMyRights Software. It acts like a gateway to your program, running the program, in this case Internet Explorer, with the least amount of privileges, maximising its security.

The difference after using the software might not be noticeable at first. However, when you visit sites which directly uses ActiveX controls or Explorer DLLs, you will find that they won't work anymore unless you give them permission to. It may thwart unknown malicious code exploits. However, there are no guarantees.

After installation of DropMyRights, create a new shortcut to launch Internet Explorer, setting the path like: C:\Installation-path\DropMyRights.exe "c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe"... change the paths to your own program installation paths.

DropMyRights is a free Microsoft tool. You can get it at Microsoft's MSDN website at: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972827.aspx