My friend Jeff Blankenburg asked the question, “What’s In your quick launch bar?”.  I have been planning on making a post similar to this for a while.  Recently, I have reinstalled windows on all 4 of my primary machines (work PC, laptop, and 2 home PCs), and I have been trying to keep the settings the same across each of them so that I feel “at home”.  Part of this is using Live Mesh to synchronize my folders, but it also includes keeping the desktop and installed programs very similar. I thought I would share with everyone how I configure my desktop.

Desktop

My desktop background is always solid black.  I don’t like having a picture in the background distracting me, I like the simplicity, and black is very Remote Desktop friendly.

I tend to place items that I am currently working on on the desktop, but I remove them when I am done.  For instance, if I download software or grab an image, I place it on the desktop first. However,there are 4 icons that always remain. These are:

• User Files: I store everything in here and keep most of it in sync with Live Mesh
• Computer
• Recycle Bin
• Visual Studio 2008

I could easily add more icons, however I prefer to just hit the “Windows Key” and type in the name of the program I want to open.  I guess I just prefer simplicity and neatness above all.

Sidebar

As with my desktop, I don’t like a lot of clutter in my sidebar.  I want to keep it down to useful and non-redundant gadgets.  So, I am not going to have a calendar or clock in the sidebar, since those show up in my taskbar.  And I am not going to have something like a calculator in there which I rarely use. The gadgets I currently have are:

• Multi Meter
• Weather Bug: Everyone loves to talk about the weather.
• Stock Ticker: I don’t know why I bother to constantly keep myself depressed, but I do follow the stock market.
• Remote Desktop: I need to remote desktop into machine frequently.  With this gadget I just type in the machines name.  I don’t have to open a program first.

On my laptop I also have the Wireless Network Meter gadget installed, but I rarely have it displayed.

Quick Launch

I keep a maximum of 10 items in my quick launch bar. This isn’t so much to save space, but because of the “Windows Key” + [Number] shortcuts.  Having these remain the same from machine to machine means that I always know what my shortcut keys are to some of my most used programs.  For instance, I know that “Windows Key” + 2 is always my Visual Studio Command Prompt, etc  The 10 items I use are:

1. Show desktop
2. Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt: I need a command prompt all the time, and the Visual Studio one automatically sets up all of the shortcuts needed for development.
3. Internet Explorer 8: This is my primary browser.
4. EditPlus: My alternative to notepad.
5. Visual Studio: My favorite piece of software.
6. Live Writer: I use this to author all of my blog posts.
7. Zune: My primary media player.
8. Paint.Net: I still edit a lot of images.  While I use Live Photo Gallery for viewing image and SnagIt for capturing images, I prefer Paint.Net for raw image editing.
9. VPN Client: I need this to connect to my work network.
10. SQL Server Management Studio: I deal a lot with databases.  I like to have a separate version of Management Studio open for each database I connect to.  This helps prevent me accidently making changes to the wrong database.

Startup Programs

• Sync Center
• Oovoo: I love this program for performing high quality video with my friends and family.
• Power Options: On a laptop, I find myself changing options a lot.  Power Options also offers a context menu shortcut to “Windows Mobility Center” which has the ever important “Presentation Mode” that I use at every speaking engagement.
• Live Messenger: This is my primary IM client.  I also like how it alerts me when I get a new hotmail message since that is my primary email account.
• Live Mesh: This is how I keep files on all of my machines in sync!
• Networking
• Windows Sidebar Control
• SnagIt: I need to capture screenshots all the time: sometimes for blogging, sometimes for work.
• Volume Control

These programs very just a bit depending on if it is on my laptop or not.  I don’t keep up Power Options or Sync Center on a desktop machine.

I also routinely start up Windows Live Mail as it has quickly become my default email/contacts/calendar program.  I have fallen in love with Live Photo Gallery too for working with my family pictures.

So what does your desktop or quick launch bar look like?  Anything worth sharing?

I have a new 8 min 57 sec training webcast up over ADO.Net Entity Framework.  This is a primer video to help get you started using the technology.  It covers what Entity Framework is, how to get started using it, how to query the database, how to add items to a database, and highlights of couple of “features”.

The video is available through JupiterMedia and can be viewed at http://www.internet.com/video/. Just look for the “Developer Video” titled “ADO.Net Entity Framework”.

Direct links are:
http://www.internet.com/player/index.php?bcpid=1534611832&bclid=1433966034&bctid=4551661001
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1431564240/bclid1433966034/bctid4551661001