Your Windows system tray and Mac OS X menubar have become prime real estate for highly functional micro-applications that provide easy access to information, settings, and tasks. Here are our top ten favorites for both Windows and Mac. More »
Blog Archives
Top 10 Micro-Apps for Windows and Mac OS X [Lifehacker Top 10]
Posted on April 9, 2011
Screenpresso Takes Screen Captures, Adds Annotations, and Shares Them [Downloads]
Posted on January 12, 2010
Windows only: Screen capture tool Screenpresso takes screenshots of part of your screen, a specific window, or the whole screen with a shortcut key, then lets you edit, add effects, and even share with email or Twitter.
Once you've installed the utility, you can immediately begin taking a region capture of your screen with the Print Screen key—it's the same functionality you're used to from any number of great screen capture tools, but Screenpresso will guess the region you are trying to capture based on the position of your mouse, allowing you to capture just the content area of an application with a single click. You can still click and drag to select a specific region, but it’s a useful feature that could save you some time.
Once you’ve taken your screenshot, it will be saved into the history window, where you can access all of the screenshots you’ve taken, and either choose to share them with email or Twitter, or open them up in the included editor application, which lets you add arrows, shadows, text, or crop and resize the images.
There’s loads of other options to choose from, and while it’s still not quite got the polish of the reader favorite (and non-free) SnagIt screen capture tool, it’s a very capable free alternative that’s definitely worth a look. Screenpresso is a free download for Windows, though readers should note anonymous usage statistics can’t be turned off in the free version.
Screenpresso [via Guiding Tech]
Scribbly Takes Notes and Emails Them to You [Downloads]
Posted on December 2, 2009
Windows/Mac/Linux (with Adobe AIR): Note-taking application Scribbly lives in your system tray and lets you quickly write notes or reminders to yourself, and then will email them to you with a single click.
Once you've installed the application, you can simply click the system tray icon to bring up the single note-taking window, type in whatever note you'd like to send to yourself, and then send it off with the click of a button—you'll need to set your email address in the settings, of course. The notes persist even after you minimize the application to the tray, so you can use it to take little notes throughout the day, and then email them to yourself before you go home.
The application is very simple, but where it could be really useful is when you combine it with Gmail’s plus-addressing feature—just add something like username+notes@gmail.com to your email address in the settings, and then setup a Gmail filter to automatically put those notes into a separate label for storage. It's a useful feature that makes it worth a look, at least. Scribbly is a free download for all platforms with Adobe AIR.
Scribbly [Adobe AIR Marketplace via Digital Inspiration]
GMinder Puts Google Calendar in Your System Tray [Downloads]
Posted on March 30, 2009
Windows only: System tray application GMinder gives you quick offline display of multiple Google Calendars—and even alerts you of upcoming appointments.
The application was created by reader Greg Todd, who wrote the application for his own use—but decided to release it for the rest of us to enjoy. Using the application is simple—just enter in your Google account information, click the Download button to get your list of calendars, and then select the ones you want to display. The only small issue is that Windows Vista users will need to select a different sound file in the options panel since the default one doesn’t exist on Vista—a small price to pay for an excellent application that bridges the gap between Google Calendar and your Windows desktop. Thanks, Greg!
GMinder is free and open source, available for Windows only. Google Desktop users can also check out the powerful Google Calendar gadget, and readers using Firefox should check out our own Better GCal extension.
Process Manager for Windows Updates, Adds Transparency and System Tray Minimizing [Downloads]
Posted on February 17, 2009
Windows only: Free task managing application Process Manager for Windows adds options to the global context menu for all applications—adding quick access to control running tasks.
We’ve mentioned this application before, but it has since updated with more features including minimizing applications to the system tray, setting windows always on top, and assigning per-window transparency. Readers using Windows XP will also get extra features—the ability to completely hide a single window, or hide all windows except the current one behind the PMW tray icon—making this low-resource, portable application worth a look for anybody interested in better control over running processes. Process Manager for Windows is free and open source, available for Windows only.