My computer class uses Macs and thus I’ve become accustomed to their productivity features, like program switch, the dock, spotlight app-launch and my favorite, exposé.
switching windows with alt+tab
You can only do one of these things in windows naturally (without using any programs) and that is simply program switching. To do it windows, although it may not look as good, is pretty easy. All you need do is be out of focus, in other words, not in a text field, and then hit alt+tab. A fancy-ish thing comes up with all of the current windows listed with thumbnails.
The other features are harder to come by but you can still get them if you want them.
spotlight-like-app-launch
launch programs with launchy
It’s very convenient to hit apple+spacebar, if only in windows it did something. To solve this program, I recommend Launchy! It can open files, open explorer windows, open programs and even open google. It’s a very useful tiny-app. It uses about 3.5mb of ram to run on Vista and it might vary but it is certainly something to have. It even has the same shortcut pattern as spotlight, alt+space.
the-like-dock
You can’t depend on your taskbar for everything. You need more space for Apps or something. There is a solution. May I introduce Rocket Dock!
Simple dock features
Rocket Dock is a skinnable dock that can be up on any side of the screen and it can auto-hide, adjust transparency, dim, glow, grow, fish-eye and it also can force programs to minimize to it rather to the normal task-bar. It’s very customizable and it’s free too. Rocket Dock takes about 2mb of memory to run on Vista but of course it varies. Never the less, for something so useful but so tiny, it’s an excellent productivity booster.