Torley Lives

I get a lot of questions asking about how I get so many things done. (I believe an apt word is "prolific".) Mind you, I'm never satisfied for long, but the least I can do is take a blogging break to share some of my favorite utilities. I'm running it off the top of my head and this isn't an all-comprehensive tally… nevermind that this is an awfully Windows-centric list (I'm a cross-platformer), and my definition of "utility" is pretty broad. But, I had to start somewhere:
 

1. Windows Live Writer
What I'm composing this post in right now. I've been through a bushel of blog editors, and most have had bug-holes which frustrated me, negating the efficiency and/or elegance of their proposed excellence. WLW does have its quirks, like not having toolbar equivalents for certain formatting options, and I really wish another release would come out soon. However, I've grown comfortable enough to use it for both play AND work, because you can publish across multiple blogs via a menu. Killer feature: WLW imports the CSS layout of your blog, so What You See Is pretty much What You Get. Also, saving locally is a heckuva lot faster than waiting a server to push an update. (I'm very sensitive to latency in the milliseconds!)
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2. Widefox
Most of the world seems to masochistically suffer under horizontal tabs and I'll never quite know why. Once I went vertical in Firefox, my productivity increased tremendously. Think about it: long lists are displayed from top-to-bottom, not left-to-right. I'm aware of the familiar arguments vs. vertical tabbing, but if your screen resolution is larger than 1024×768, on many fixed-width websites, you'll get blank space to the sides you should be using anyway. (It tends to be because long horizontal lines of text are hard to read… lots of eye-tracking. Think novels and newspaper columns.) Heck, I liked Widefox so much, I made my Windows Taskbar vertical too.
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 3. Taskbar Shuffle
Speaking of, ever wonder why you can't rearrange those taskbar tabs right out of the box? It sucks. I don't know if Vista let you do this (it better!), but regardless, give Taskbar Shuffle a spin. After installing it, click-and-drag these tabs as you would your web browser's, and oh! you can also close tabs with your middle mouse button (instead of right-clicking or having to find-and-close the window it's associated with).
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4. Sizer
Small, superior, stable. Sizer does one thing pretty well: lets you snap any window to a specified size with a right-click. Make your own presets too. Takes a lot of guesswork out when I'm reading or writing the Web, and in Second Life, helps me to get a better perspective of resolutions like the widescreen 1680×1050 which aren't found under the File menu. Bonus: when snapping, you can also have windows automatically move.
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5. ArtRage
Okay, it's a painting program. Focused on "natural media" (e.g., look close enough at the screen and you'll almost feel the brushstrokes rise out), it's a pleasure to use and has helped me make my point when expressing artistically. Ever wonder what I create Torley Textures with? ArtRage's one of the key cornerstones. The UI is unconventional but slick, the lack of copy-and-paste may tick you off, but before you know it, you'll be shelling out US$19.95 for the full dose after playing with the free edition. A veritable bargain. Think of it as Corel Painter's beloved niece, frugal in her ways and a rare child prodigy you want to kiss instead of kick. A role model for good software.
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6. Direct Folders
Another piece of programming I played with, then paid for. Well worth my US$9.95 after the 30-day trial. What's it do? Like the name bluntly states, shaves time when getting to the folders you want to find. For example, double-click on your desktop and a list of favorites you specify comes up. Since I work with many project folders, I can't beat around the bush — I need my folders open, here, now. Please. Did I also mention it lets you resize that dang Open/Save file dialog?
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7. Google Desktop
My setup's bare-bones and essential. I use the Sidebar so my Task Tracker (timer), Scratch Pad (for misc. notes), and To Do are always available. People without a sense of time go crazy, we all know that, and when great ideas come up, or a stack of micro-tasks needs to be queued, G-Desktop helps me sort it out. In the To Do, I use special tags like "[IW]" (inworld in Second Life) and "[BLOG]" to keep tabs on topic. You can easily reorder the list by dragging-and-dropping, and hiding completed tasks is a surefire way to feel accomplished while clearing past clutter.

8. Launchy
Scroo the Start menu's "All Programs"; damn all those folders you have to wade through; meet your new friend, Launchy. Just tap Alt-Space (default keystroke) and type in the first few letters of the program, file, etc. you want to launch. When you see it, hit Enter. Bang! Inspiration appears to have been drawn from Quicksilver on Mac, and with good reason — this is something so useful it should be built into operating systems the world over.

9. PhraseExpress
Since we're typing so much, wouldn't you like to save keystrokes? PE can turn a couple characters into an entire paragraph. As you can imagine, giving many answers to questions at work, I plow into PE incessantly. Ever wonder how I send postcards out of Second Life so quickly? PhraseExpress is the answer. Another gemful use: typing out styling markup like <strong> </strong> when there's no toolbar to quick-insert it for me.

10. PrintScreen
If you've been looking at my added articles for the SL Knowledge Base, you know I'm big on pictures. That's because in many contexts, there's no better way to kill instructional ambiguity than to be literal, visual, and hence, memorable. This free jewel breathes new life into your PrtScrn key: you can save in different formats, capture a rectangular selection, and even have captures pop open in an application of your choice. It does what it promises. That's good enough for me.
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BONUS! Like Spinal Tap, let's rock it to eleven!

11. Clipmarks: the WordPress widget
Alright, in all fairness, I haven't used this a lot yet. But it's a living example of software that does a straightforward, understandable thing that saves me a lot of time — surrounded by a warm human context. It's a fool's errand to find things you enjoy, but not be able to share them with others: this widget is my gateway between the Clipmarks community and my blog, helping me aggregate my info and my opinions on how I perceive the world. Cuts down on redundancy, raises the smiles. Big plus: Eric Skiff's such a nice guy, and his recent, agile improvements to the widget are akin to our shared enjoyment of good things coming in small pieces — many of them!
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If you wanna try it out, just let Eric know.
 

All in all, this is quality stuff that doesn't just take the cake, but gives you the icing too. If you've got needs like mine and a drive for doing, here's to hoping the above helps provide you with solutions.