T 'n' T: Five Desktop Favorites Odds 'n' Ends for Minimizing, Printing, Jotting Notes, and More Gregg Keizer
Mon 5/6/02 -- It's spring-cleaning time at Tips 'n' Tricks HQ this week, so instead of a formal theme or topic, you get five picks from the Windows power-user grab bag. Think of it as tipster ramblings if you like, but these desktop conveniences -- from a one-click mute button to blitz-fast printing -- are gems.
Silence the "Shortcut to." Every time you create a shortcut in Windows, it slaps the prefix "Shortcut to" before the application or filename. I hate that. But now I've found a way to stop Windows from putting it in there in the first place.
Right-click any icon on the desktop and choose Create Shortcut. Right-click the new shortcut, choose Rename, and delete the "Shortcut to" prefix. Delete the shortcut. Repeat this procedure four more times. After the fifth lesson, Windows finally realizes that you don't want "Shortcut to," and won't stick it on any new shortcuts.
Mega minimizing. Want to reclaim your taskbar? Download Iconic Tray, a puny (45K) utility that shoves minimized applications off the taskbar and puts them into the system tray (the right-hand taskbar annex next to the clock). Not only does this free up taskbar space for those apps you really rely on, but it speeds up the Alt-Tab task switching that most of us use to flip between programs.
Once Iconic Tray's installed and active, a right-click on the Minimize button of any program sends it to the system tray, not the taskbar; a click on its system-tray icon revives it. I love this thing! It's shareware, so after a 14-day grace period you'll need to pay the $15 registration fee.
Desktop wipe job. Work a while, and your virtual desktop gets as cluttered as the real thing. Fortunately, Windows XP's Desktop Cleanup Wizard sniffs out long-unused shortcuts and shoves them out of the way.
To tidy up, right-click anywhere on the desktop and pick Arrange Icons By, then Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard from the pop-up menu. Click the Next button to get going. The wizard shows all your desktop shortcuts, placing check marks next to those it thinks you can do without. Review the list, uncheck any you want to keep, then click Next and, in the following screen, Finish. The Wizard doesn't delete any shortcuts, but puts them in a desktop folder named -- hey, what a coincidence -- Unused Desktop Shortcuts. You can reclaim items by opening the folder and dragging them back onto the desktop.
Really quick reprints. Printing documents more than once? If you're using Windows 2000 or XP, you can enable a setting that keeps documents in the printer spool, making for fast reprints. (They don't need to spool to the hard disk first.) From the Start menu, open the Control Panel and click Printers and Faxes. Right-click your printer and select Properties, then the Advanced tab. Check the "Keep printed documents" box and click OK.
Now you need a way to call up reprints, so find your printer in Control Panel/Printers and Faxes again, then drag its icon to the desktop or QuickLaunch section of the taskbar. To reprint, click this icon, right-click the document, and pick Reprint. (To clean out the printer spool -- which can chew up disk space -- highlight documents you won't need to print again, right-click, and choose Cancel.)
Sticky fingers. Windows' desktop needs a sticky-note feature that puts digital siblings of Post-It Notes on your screen as down-and-dirty reminders. There are scads of shareware and freeware utilities that plug this gap, and Microsoft Office owners who use Outlook (not Outlook Express) can lean on its Notes feature for the job.
But my favorite stickies come from the people who invented Post-Its in the first place: 3M. Get the free Post-It Software Notes Lite (a 2MB download with most of the features of the $20 commercial or $25 network versions) from the 3M site. You won't be sorry.
