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MetaProducts TrayIcon Pro 1.7.219
Darwin:
Agreed - I do need to upgrade. Would you please, please stress to my wife how important this is?! ;) I can dream... Actually, I am hoping that work will buy me a new notebook, effectively allowing me to do an end run around my financial mana er, wife 8)
About ObjectDock Plus - on my machine it uses between 800kb and 3 MB of RAM and negligible CPU depending on whether or not I have one dock or two open. The last time I installed it, I just used the default docks from which I removed the weather widgets (have never gotten them to work for Canadian ciites) and added a few shortcuts and it ran in this configuration at under 2 MB. Not bad when you consider that in this configuration it is duplicating my system tray, my taskbar and my start menu plus providing me with a bunch of other functionality, such as a calendar. In the case of the taskbar, it is actually triplicating it because the taskbar is on both the main dock and the tabbed docks by default (can't figure out why that is set up like that by default, but there it is). Anyway, to my way of thinking this is an acceptable resource "hit". Like vegas, though, I just don't have a use for it and I uninstalled it earlier today. I *think* I'd use it a lot if I wasn't so hooked on TrueLaunchBar - which I bought using a donationcoder discount AFTER I had purchased ObjectDock Plus.
Anyway, rather than buy a new computer, I just install ObjectDesktop every six months or so and play around with the GUI. That way I effectively get the geewhiz, neato effect of a new computer for nothing (well, for the $45 or so that ObjectDesktop and ObjectDock Plus cost me a year ago). I find that this effect wears off after about a week, at which point I uninstall everything and revert to Windows Classic (themes service disabled) and I am as happy as a bug in a rug! Your review of TrayIcon Pro just happened to come at the end of one such week, so I had everything installed this morning and was able to check into ObjectDock's resource usage.
WhiteLion:
Thanks Vegas...I needed that :Thmbsup:
What's your wife's cell phone #, Darwin? :P
J/K
Well since your outdated piece is used for work related activities also be sure to point out that your productivity would be greatly enhanced if you have a machine which can keep up with you...that your current glorified calculator often slows you down thus causing you to forget where you were ;)
I totally forgot to mention in my review about MetaProducts TrayIcon Pro 1.7.219 that it does have an option to show only the shortcuts' icons without having their names listed. The icons were very small in the shortcut list and that made it kinda tough to recognize 'em with a speedy glance. The size of the icons could be due to my screen resolution 1024x768pixels which I am using. I never thought of that until now. If MetaProducts could give the user a choice of which size the icons will displayed in TrayIcon Pro it would be a great move. Lowering it's memory usage & speeding up it's menu display time would be definite pluses. Also if the shortcuts' menu could have a user choice for it's background color...with the nearing release of Vista a glass background option would be really sweet ;)
I did check out the Beta of VistaStartMenu 2, yesterday. I think it is a super concept. I love how it's menu allows side scrolling. That is well needed and long over due need for many Windoze users. I can hardly wait to see a fully functional version of it also.
I also downloaded True Launch Bar and promptly lost it somewhere, LoL. So I downloaded it again just now and I have just installed it as I am writing this. WoW!
I see or should I say I don't see it anywhere in my Task Manager! Now this is the kind of puppy I really really do like :)
It has many options so it will take me a day or 2 of playing with it before I can let you know what I think. It looks super great so far. Thanks for telling us about it.
I am the same way has you when it comes to running StarDock's goodies. About once a year I install it all and play with it for a week or so and I act like a little kid playing with it all, then I just stop using it . I usually keep WindowBlinds going after that for a few months but not the rest of the stuff. I love themes though and I can't live without 'em. I remember when I first switched over to XP there was not very many programs made for it during the first year. Not many themes either, so I used WindowBlinds all of the time back then and I also ripped the Themes from my Win98 copy and they worked well in XP & still do. I think the 98Themes will work well with the way you have your calculator setup. ;)
My copy of ObjectDock is probably over 3 years old. It averaged from 3megs when idle to 11megs of memory while it's menu was being accessed that's really not bad at all but horrible when compared to your version. Your version or any new version would be nice to have.
The memory usage of todays ObjectDock just may beat out the top contender that I found for consumption, Y'Z Dock.
Darwin:
Just an update (couldn't find this thread last week!): VistaStartMenu 2 has been released as a functional beta and is quite stable. Check it out here
WhiteLion:
:Thmbsup:Thanks! I too came across it while I was checking out the latest goodies here http://shellcity.net/.
It is a really awesome concept.
I have an update to add myself. It also comes with a story.
Do any of you here happen to remember TechTv? Shows like Call For Help and The ScreenSavers were my daily diet in 2002. They offered good solid PC advice for both the casual and more advanced PC users. I found them to be invaluable when I was a newbie to PCing.
Back in 2002, The ScreenSavers offered all their viewers a shareware program for free. It was a Launcher and/or a file searching utility. I got it and it quickly became invaluable to me, although it's interface was rather plain, it is/was FAST!
Somehow, I eventually lost it, just lost it and I eventually forgot it's name. Yet I never got past missing having it. I have been looking for it off & on for a very long time.
During that course, I have tried many launchers and searching utilities with the hopes of re-finding it or at least a suitable replacement.
AppRocket http://www.candylabs. Came the closest on speed but it uses indexing which eventually makes it buggy & starts crashing when used with a super large database.
FARR was the best substitute that I eventually found and that is how I ended up here.
Shortly after my last post here I began re-missing that long lost launching app again. With a last ditched effort I once again tried to re-find it. That is not an easy feat when one can not remember a proggies name or who even made it.
After a few hours of searching this time I hit paydirt on GooGle :)
With a simple 2 word search: Screensavers search
I finally refound my long lost and favorite launcher! It's called KeyLaunch!
It's made by Xavier Flix & can be DLed from here http://software.xfx.net
I was so elated with finally having it back that I immediately bought it when I discovered that it is still being developed.
After I installed it, I noticed that it wasn't has fast as it used to be. Back in 2002 I think I had only a 2 gig HD. Now I have 3 hard drives onboard with the smallest being 80 gigs...lol.
With that in mind I came up with a few ideas to speed it up and to also improve it's users interface. I was so excited with refinding the app & with my ideas that I began a correspondence with it's developer, Xavier Flix.
He loved my ideas and also admitted to becoming very motivated upon hearing them.
He has now begun to work on developing KeyLaunch 3.0. It's going to have an interface comparable to AppRocket's with added options to set up more than 1 user customizable pre-defined search thus regaining the speed it once had on smaller hard drives.
He's going to send me the his first Beta as soon as he gets it more stabilized and I can hardly wait!
Stay tuned!
WL
Darwin:
KeyLaunch sounds interesting - I'll watch for the next version.
Thanks, Whitelion. Cool find.
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