|
When I installed Internet Explorer 4.0, one of the features that I liked the most was the capability to put speedbuttons on the taskbar. I used them all the time, especially at work, where I always needed to have four or five applications open at one time.
What I didn't like was the overhead that the Active Desktop part of IE40 put on my already strained processor at work and the fact that the speedbuttons took up taskbar space that could have been used to display running applications. And, even though my vision is 20/20 (really!), sometimes those tiny icons just weren't too easy to decipher when I was clicking happily away.
I tried using the Microsoft Office toolbar, but I don't like floating toolbars on my screen and I don't like having another side of the screen used as a trigger to pop up another bar like the taskbar. I kept popping it up by accident and it just annoyed me.
And so, Pop Launch was born! (Ta-dah!) It takes up only 1 pixel of screen space in the upper left corner of the screen. It has normal (32x32) sized icons so they're easy to decipher. It pops up only when you move the mouse pointer to the top left corner of the screen. The program iteself is about 350k and it's definately NOT a resource hog. It even has 3 separately configurable toolbars, so you can organize your utilities on one, applications on another, and games on another (or whatever. You get the idea).
Here's a screen shot of Pop Launch displayed with the menu activated...
With Pop Launch, you can run any program with a single mouse click. Moving the pointer to the top left corner displays the Pop Launch toolbar and a single click runs your program and re-hides Pop Launch.
Pop Launch has no installation program. You simple copy PopLaunch.exe to the directory of your choice and you're ready to go. No stray DLL's cluttering up your hard drive! A "PopLaunch.ini" file is created in the Windows directory, but there are no other files used. There's even documentation. Wow! Sound simple? It is!
I know what you're saying... "This is amazing! It will solve ALL my problems! It must cost a fortune... and it would be worth it!" Isn't that what you're saying? No? Oh. Well, anyway... Pop Launch is completely free! It's true! $0.00. Zilch. Nada. Use it. Enjoy it. Pass it along. Drop me an email to say "Wow! Pop Launch is the greatest!"
Oh. One thing. You've got to have some version of Windows to run it (Anything but 3.1 or earlier). My apologies to any Macintosh or Commodore Amiga users reading this. I didn't mean to get your hopes up.
