Improve the user experience
7. RocketDock
By now, you should have a good collection of very handy tools to help improve your Vista experience. But how about making these tools a little easier to reach?
Windows Vista already has a very useful start menu search function, which is a monumental improvement over Windows XP's archaic start menu. But what about those applications you use day-in, day-out? They might show up on your recent applications list, but RocketDock, a freeware application, will place all your favourite shortcuts just one click away.
RocketDock creates a Mac-like dock on any chosen side of the screen, on which you can create shortcuts to your favourite programs. Think a quick-launch bar, only animated, more feature-packed, and with the opportunity of telling your Mac-toting friends that "my PC does that too".
RocketDock is fully customisable, has support for multiple displays, real-time window previews and even the ability to minimise direct to the dock. Small, simple, beautiful and easy to use - just how freeware applications should be.
Official RocketDock website: www.rocketdock.com
Noteworthy alternative: Stardock ObjectDock
8. Live Mesh
Well then, Windows Vista is starting to look pretty impressive now, right? But hold on, all your music and pictures are now catalogued nicely on your main PC, which is nice, but what if you want those exact same files on your other devices, too?
What you're after is a synchronisation tool, and there are quite a few available. One of the newer solutions is Microsoft's very own Live Mesh. It's currently only available as a tech preview. Nonetheless, even at this early stage, Live Mesh is proving to be one of those must-have freeware applications. I've been using the beta for just the past few months, and it's already one of the applications that I would hate to be without.
It'll allow you to synchronise your data between multiple devices and an online cloud with ease, providing up to 5GBs of storage for each user. Though only Windows-based PCs are supported at present, Mac and Windows Mobile support will be added in the near future.
It might be new, and a surprise addition to the list, but Live Mesh is serving a long-standing requirement. Keeping my desktop and laptop in sync has never been so easy, and we can expect Live Mesh to be integral to Microsoft's future plans.
Official Live Mesh website: www.mesh.com
Noteworthy alternative: Dropbox