shahine.com/omar/

One of my pet peeves with Bootcamp, Apple’s software for letting you run Windows on a Mac, is that the default keymapping for Apple keyboards swaps the Alt and Windows keys.

This totally messed with my shortcuts.

I tried using one of my favorite scripting tools, AutoHotKey, to remap the keys but this ended up being flakey. I also didn’t like the idea of relying on a running application to do the swapping.

I ran into a program called SharpKeys that remaps the keys at the OS level. It’s a remarkable little program. You can configure how you want your keys remmaped and then it writes those changes to the registry. This ensures that all users of the computer have remapped keys and that the remapped keys work on non-user space like the Logon prompt.

To remap Alt to Windows you need to:

1. Get SharpKeys (download)
2. Create a mapping for Left Alt –> Left Windows
3. Create a mapping for Left Windows –> Left Alt
4. Logoff

Enjoy!

For a long time I’ve searched the web looking for a great application launcher for Windows. Mac users have QuickSilver, the holy grail of application launchers. In fact I’ve never used QuickSilver, I always read about its awesomeness.

First there was SlickRun and I used it for many years. In fact I loved SlickRun (and still do). However, it’s not a general purpose launcher and will not index your hard drive for applications, folders and whatnot. It will let you define some great keywords though.

Then there was Launchy. A great launcher but it lacked the ability to create Keywords like SlickRun. The UX was slick though.

I’ve tried SkyLight (from the makers of AppRocket), a beautiful application, but dog slow. I mean painfully slow (it would take a few seconds before it would allow me to type a command. SkyLight is a WPF app and to be honest, I’ve found that all the WPF apps I’ve tried have similar performance problems (Witty and bTT).

Executor

At long last, Executor added support to index any folder you specify on your computer, allowing me to replace both Launchy and SlickRun. I tried Executor last year but the inability to customize it with your own search paths was limiting since I store little utilities in my roaming portable apps folder.

Executor has a lot of functionality. It took me a while to set up the UX and behavior the way I wanted. Here is a screen shot of what you’d see if you typed “ad” into Executor:

As you can see, I use the large 2 line icon view, which is helpful if you use Executor to index your Documents folder for Folders and you have more than 1 with the same name:

And of course you can use it as a general file system browser… much better than Start –> Run.

With Vista we all get a nice solution to the Start Menu Mess, as Jeff Atwood describes in his post Typing Trumps Pointing. While this is a great solution for my parents, I personally need the power of defining custom keywords and search paths (like my Portable Apps directory).

Executor has a lot of features, so I’d recommend you check out this page which lists some of the cool things you can do.

I’ve written in the past about how badly behaved applications pollute user space with clutter.

Well it seems that a number of apps are never going to “do the right thing” so I’ve devised an effective solution.

I make the folder/files hidden.

This has the effect of reducing the annoyance, and making me feel better .

I’ve done this for a number of folders, some annoying and some useful that I just don’t need access to (but still like in my Documents folder since FolderShare syncs it to all my computers)

How do I know that a product is getting the proper amount of care and feeding?

When they fix and implement the little touches that make a difference.

I've been using IE 8 for a few weeks now and noticed that something that has always bothered stopped bothering me.

What is this feature?

The search box in the upper right corner now updates based on the searches that you do in Google, Live Search etc.

Let's day I fire up the web browser and hit control-E (the shortcut to take you to the search box).

I then type "Ryovac AAA" and get some results. However, I now want to refine my results by clarifying the search a bit.

So in the search page I type "Ryovac AAA Hybrid" and hit search. Now I open a new tab and want to issue that same search so I can browse a different page. Uh oh, the IE search box says "Ryovac AAA".

Well in IE 8 it says "Ryovac AAA Hybrid".

Thanks IE Team!

This feature is actually more useful when you are searching some error message you are getting on your PC and you are constantly refining the search over time and have like 5 different tabs open as you continue your research.

To me this feature is just like the one where IE finally started matching text in menus the way it's supposed to. This feature has saved me countless frustrating minutes.

Since the day I installed Vista on my laptop I have had nothing but unexplained problems with docking and connecting to a projector. Additionally, my Media Center with an Intel Graphics card would also have problems when it would reboot or login and my plasma was off.

I experienced:

• Random changes in resolution from my setting to 1024 x 768 or 800 x 600
• Changes in resolution when my laptop would awake from sleep
• Changes in resolution when docking my laptop

If you go and read about Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) you will learn that you aren't supposed to have any of these problems.

On my old Thinkpad T60 these problems eventually went away when I installed the Lenovo custom ATI driver. However, now I have a Thinkpad X61T which has an Intel GMA graphics chip, similar to the one in my Media Center.

The problems on my Media Center went away when I upgraded to a nVidia card.

However, my laptop is still foobard.

If you read about TMM you will find such promises as:

Transient Multimon Manager (TMM) is a Microsoft Windows Vista operating system feature targeted at improving the user experience of connecting and disconnecting displays, particularly for the mobile user. Currently, although the Microsoft Windows operating system notifies the user of most hardware devices when it arrives, it does not do this consistently for displays. Windows is not aware of the arrival or removal of a display on a desktop system, and the user must manually set up and configure the display through the Windows display control panel or an IHV display UI. On a mobile system, the experience often involves cryptic function keys, a variety of user interface, and possibly reboots. It is particularly inconvenient with a transient display, a display that comes and goes, which is also unfortunately the most common scenario for mobile users.

Windows Vista is committed to addressing this problem through the Transient Multimon Manager (TMM), which enables the automatic detection and setup of displays as they are attached and removed. Furthermore, TMM persists the user's settings on a per-display basis when possible, so that users can move between multiple displays at ease. The goal is to enable users to work with displays in the same stress-free, Plug and Play fashion as with most other peripheral devices today, and alleviate the frustrations of using multiple monitors.

Umm, am I missing something? I am constantly frustrated about this and as far as I can tell, even with Vista SP1, this is still an area that is rife with bugs.

Is it the driver's fault? Generally Intel does excellent work... but I'm starting to wonder... when will connecting a laptop to a display be truly seamless?

There is really no excuse for my laptop not getting this 100% right after it gets to know my monitor (they are on a first name basis) and the 5 or so projectors I use every week.

Anyway, to disable TMM you need to:

1. Press the Windows Key and type "Task Scheduler"
2. Navigate to Microsoft\Windows\MobilePC
3. Right Click on TMM
4. Select Disable

now reboot.

One nice side effect of this is that your laptop will wake from sleep a few seconds faster.

As of yet I can't figure out what feature I am missing, as everything "just works".