If you use Tab Mix Plus add-on for Firefox and enabled the option to allow scrolling to select tabs, you’ll love this similar Alt-Tab replacement using AutoHotKey script.

Let’s say you have 5 windows showing up in your taskbar and the second one is currently active, place your mouse pointer anywhere on the taskbar and scroll up and down to switch to next (third) and previous (first) windows respectively while this script is running. While scrolling down as you reach the last window, the very first window in the taskbar comes to front as expected. Similarly when the first window is activated while scrolling up, you jump to very last window when you continue.

The following screencast (800×600, 15 sec, 600 KB) demonstrates this (opens in a new tab/window):

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Find And Run Robot (FARR) is a program and command launcher that uses an adaptive "live search" function to rapidly find programs and documents on your computer as you type. It is a fantastic piece of freeware that you can not afford to miss.

FARR also lets you quickly run web searches, send email, manipulate files, control on-screen windows, and much more. Build and share custom commands or install plugins to add tons of new features, like live search features for your clipboard history and your internet bookmarks; a popup a calculator with history tape and persistant variables; and many more..

You can bring up FARR text input window via a hot key like Alt+Space and as you start typing, it lists the installed programs that match the string. To launch the desired program, simply navigate to it using your arrow keys and hit enter or double click on it or type the number infront of it.

Below are 10 practical uses of FARR that will increase your productivity:

1. Launch any shortcut on the desktop or installed application simply by typing out its name. FARR shows and filters results as you type. So for launching Firefox, you may need to type only ‘f i’. When you see it in the list, hit the corresponding number. Note that FARR doesn’t by default launch via the number. You have to press Alt+number. You can however change the setting so pressing the number launches the desired item. FARR scores over Launchy in this aspect since it doesn’t need 10 minutes or so to index a newly installed application.

   

2. Search internet faster.

   The power of FARR comes in the form of user definable aliases.

   • Set up an alias so you can bring up FARR, type g keyword, press return and you’ll be taken to Google Search results page for your keyword in your default browser.

     

   • Go to the first result (I am feeling lucky) of Google search results fast. Type ! keyword and hit enter.

     

   • Set up an alias for Google Image search. gi keyword

     

   • Set up an alias for Google Suggest. gs keyword

     

   • Set up an alias for YouTube video search. yt keyword

     

   • Search in Wikipedia by typing wp keyword.

     

   • Search for meanings of words from an array of several dictionary and thesaurus sites by define keyword.

     

3. Go to any URL fast. Bring up FARR irrespective of whether your browser is open/active application or not, type in the site name like neowin.net and hit return to go there. No need to even append ‘www.’

   

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KeyConfig is a handy Firefox add-on that power users will just love. One of the features I liked in Opera is the integrated keyboard shortcuts (a lot of them) that are packaged by default. The first thing I do after a fresh Opera install is to configure the following keyboard shortcuts:

• z - Go Back
• x - Go Forward
• a - Go to previous tab
• s - Go to next tab
• c - Close tab

Below is a step-by-step tutorial on how we can set the above quickkeys in Firefox:

1. Install KeyConfig Firefox add-on from here. At this time, it is in experimental section. So you will need to create a free account at Firefox add-ons site to download.
2. Install functions for keyconfig from here
3. Restart Firefox. Note that there are no options for this add-on
4. Go to Tools -> Keyconfig (or press Ctrl+Shift+F12)
5. Click on ‘Add a new key’

   

6. Type in ‘Go Back’ for the name and BrowserBack(); in the text field. Press OK.

   

7. Now select the new entry you just created, click inside the text box below, type in your hotkey, ‘z’ in this case and hit Apply.

   
   So you should have the entry like so:

   

8. Clicking on any other pre-existing entry in the list will show up ‘Add a new key’ button. Now create other keyboard shortcuts similarly. Below are the codes you need:

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There are software programs like Launchy using which you can launch applications by typing the first few letters of the program name and hitting the return key. Once you start using these, you’ll realize that we can save the space that start menu takes up. So we started looking for a small program that will hide the start menu button yet makes menu itself available upon pressing the windows key. A free program called Start Killer by Tordex does the job.

Here’s how we hide the start menu and yet easily launch any desired program:

1. Set up FARR
2. Run Start Killer

Find And Run Robot

Find And Run Robot or FARR in its short form is a free program by DonationCoder that will display a small floating text box in which you type the name of the program you want to launch and press a number on your keyboard or use your arrow keys to move up/down and press the return key. We find it better compared to other similar solutions like Launchy because:

• We can press a number from the results list to launch a program
• It makes available a newly installed program much faster
• It has more advanced features

To get started with FARR,

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Did you know that it’s possible to embed an image besides plain text as a comment in a Microsoft Excel cell? Here’s how:

1. Right click on the cell and select Insert Comment
2. Then right click anywhere on the bounding box of the comment and select Format Comment…
3. Go to Colors and Lines tab
4. From the Color dropdown under Fill section, select Fill Effects…
5. Go to Picture tab
6. Click Select Picture… button, browse to and select the picture that you want to insert in the comment. You might want to tick Lock picture aspect ratio before clicking on OK. This (theoretically) ensures that when you resize the comment bounding box, the picture gets sized proprotionately. However, we noticed that this option really didn’t have its intended effect and whether or not it was checked, the end size of the image when the comment box is resized is always the same
7. Press OK once more

There you have it. Play the video below to see this in action.

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