There are all kinds of Notepad replacements out there, and it makes perfect sense why. Notepad is one of those apps that people use because it starts fast, is lightweight, and for most purposes it does what you need it to. And then there are other solutions out there like Notepad++, Notepad2, and many others. For some people even those can be overkill though.

We have written about several other system-wide mouse gesture applications, but I know there are quite a few of you who haven't found one that can rival the functionality of StrokeIt.

Tabs are undoubtedly a hot thing these days with more and more applications moving to some sort of tab-like interface. Web browsers are probably the first thing you think of, but other apps like Microsoft Office even have a tab-like interface with the Ribbon. Why not go a little further? With WindowTabs you can extend the tab interface to pretty much any app.

In Windows 7 Microsoft has significantly changed the way the Taskbar works, and it's starting to make me wonder if a lot of the items sitting in the System Tray might work their way out onto the Taskbar. What do I mean? A good example is this Gmail Notifier that gHacks found.

Last year we ran through a couple performance-friendly desktop search applications for those of you that don't want a program constantly indexing your machine, and today we have another nice alternative. It's a free Windows app called Everything that, unlike the others mentioned in the article I referenced, index your drive automatically over time.

I've got a lot of friends I talk with that are already running Windows 7 RC1 as their primary operating system, and they are very impressed with it. Many of them are rather diehard Firefox or Google Chrome fans, but all of them admit that Internet Explorer 8 handles nicely in the operating system. All of them even gave me the same reason... awesome integration with the new Taskbar.

When you're working around your computer sometimes it can be useful to pin a window to the top. Basically that will ensure that it will stay on top no matter what other window you currently have focused.

"Switching operating systems is just like moving to a new city. If you've moved, you know there's some fun and excitement to exploring new places but there's some discomfort because it is unfamiliar and it might take you longer to get to where you need to go or you might get lost on occasion.