RocketDock
One of the most copied functions from the
world of Mac OS X has to be the rather natty-looking dock at the bottom of the
screen. For those of you who don’t know what a dock is, it’s the animated
shortcut launcher that usually sits on the desktop and allows you cycle over it
and through the various programs, files and folders on the system. When you
find the one you’re after, you click it and the dock will launch the program.
It’s very simple, but it looks fantastic.
Create
that cool Mac dock with RocketDock
Animated loveliness aside, having a dock
can help improve efficiency and organize your desktop better by removing the
unnecessary clutter of shortcut links and icons. The dock will then keep them
in a single, neat, place ready for you to launch when needed. It’s the clean
interface and easy access that makes this next selection in our list the best
dock for productivity and accessibility.
RocketDock, by Punk Labs developers
PolyVector and Skunkie, is by far one of the finest docks you’ll ever come
across. It may not be as extensive as others, but in spite of its graphical
pleasantries and animated actions, it’s one of the quickest and less resource
consuming products around.
The
many skins for RocketDock make for a more pleasing look
The features of RocketDock are many, as are
its customization options. For example, you can minimize active windows to the
dock, even if they’re running a video and to retain an active preview of the
window’s contents while it’s placed in the dock and when you move it along the
dock. Multiple monitors are supported, with the dock being capable of launching
programs to one monitor or the other depending on the settings you provide.
Icons can be zoomed into and set to auto hide or pop up on a mouse over. It’s
portable and RocketDock’s skin options are compatible with other dock programs,
such as MobyDock, ObjectDock, RK Launcher and Y’z Dock.
It’s the use friendliness of RocketDock
that endears it so much. The configuration menus are easy to understand and
use, each giving the user a decent enough explanation of what it does and how
it will affect the dock once applied. The installation is smooth, no nasty
hidden extras were involved and within a minute of two you’ll be dragging and
dropping those rogue icons onto RocketDock like you’ve been using it all your
life.
RocketDock may not have the financial
backing that Stardock’s products have, but it looks and feels just as polished.
There’s a huge community of individuals behind it who have tweaked, added and
customized RocketDock with new themes, so even if the initial 20 so skins
aren’t enough, you can soon hunt around and find something to suit your tastes.
For a free program, RocketDock is great at uncluttering your desktop and
keeping it free from the rubbish that usually accumulates. It may not be quite
as good at creating a productive environment as the others in this list, but if
used in conjunction with one or all of the other products, then RocketDock
comes into its own. To get hold of a copy of RocketDock, nip on over to goo.gl/RwFQr
and download the latest version for Windows XP and upwards.
Dexpot
Dexpot
can extend your virtual desktops to the tune of 20, which is quite a lot
Linux users have had it pretty good for a
number of years, in terms of desktop organization and efficiency. They have at
their disposal the built-in ability virtual desktops, so they can have their
web browsing in one virtual desktop, coding in another, games in another,
office or word processing in another, the list goes on.
Windows users don’t have this capability,
(not built-in anyway), and it’s a real shame, because virtual desktops is a
fantastic way of creating a more efficient workspace and desktop environment.
Thankfully, though, Windows users have a number of third-party programs to help
them achieve the same goals as their Linux counterparts, one of the best around
being Dexpot.
Dexpot, now on version 1.6, is an
extraordinarily powerful and flexible virtual desktop application. You can set
up to 20 virtual desktops, with a different wallpaper on each desktop, along
with different start-up programs that will launch automatically when that
particular desktop is selected. You can include animations and even a rotating
desktop cube, which can be activated via a customized selection of hotkeys.
There’s support for multiple monitors, with each monitor having a different
resolution if necessary, and you can opt to include or exclude any monitor from
desktop switching, plus you can assign entry and exit sounds to each desktop as
you flip through them.
Windows
users finally have the Compiz cube!
The list of options and configurations goes
on and on, but at the same time it doesn’t blind you with obscure names or
countless sub-options. In fact, it’s really well laid out, and the Settings
menu, opened from a right-click on the Dexpot icon in the Start bar, reads well
enough to be understood by most computer users.
Dexpot is free for private use, which is where
most of us will be using it, but if you want to use it in a commercial
environment, then you’ll have to pay $33, but you get a discount if you
purchase larger package licenses.
Overall, Dexpot is a handy desktop
organizational program. It’s easy to become too engrossed in its inner
workings, but once you’ve it set up to help you be more productive, then
there’s no denying its usefulness. Pay a visit to goo.gl/NThT4 and click
on the ‘Download’ section to get hold of the latest version.
