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Dave's Quick Search Deskbar

If you consider yourself a power user, get it.

"Dave's Quick Search Deskbar is a tiny textbox that Dave Bau designed for search hounds with weary mouse-fingers. Unlike the Google Toolbar, this little deskbar lets you launch searches without starting a web browser first, directly from your Windows Explorer Taskbar."

I tried it out a year ago, but didn't take the time to learn enough about it. It probably wasn't as flexible then as well. There is a bit of learning to get up to speed (not much, but a little). Now I find myself using it to launch applications and other stuff that I used to have to do all kinds of mouse-clicking to do. Some examples of aliases that I've configured:

  • dev - opens Visual Studio .NET with the /nosplash option
  • cmd - opens Windows command line
  • am - searches amazon.ca for specified text
  • sj - brings up my local weather
  • kill - runs pskill.exe on the specified program name
  • fire - runs Mozilla Firebird
  • /. - opens http://www.slashdot.org
  • aliases - Opens my localaliases file in TextPad for quick editing
  • x - opens TextPad
  • calc - opens Windows Calculator

    Oh, and the [WindowsKey][S] key combo jumps you to the search bar.

    If you have any cool aliases, please share them in the comments below or email or message me. I'm working on a couple of custom searches now - including Canada Post package tracking.

    [Listening to: Mark Knopfler - I'm the Fool (from Golden Heart)]
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