Sysinternals PsTools is a command line tool to remotely manage Windows computers.

I’m now the proud owner of a MacBook Pro and a new iPod (since Apple is practically giving them away when you buy a computer if you’re in education – on the downside, I’m just betting that solid-state iPods are on the horizon, but I sure couldn’t beat that price.)

On the software front, I still refuse to move away from Firefox, no matter how many people say they prefer Safari (or Camino). But I am running NetNewsWire and MarsEdit.

No worries about me completely dropping Windows, though. I’m working on installing it on some leftover hard-drive space. :) There is finally a new TopStyle beta in the works, after all, and there’s no way I’m not getting my .02 in on that.

In Windows, you can copy the text of many OS or program error messages using the standard Windows copy keyboard shortcut; Ctrl+C.

The nice thing about this is that it copies all the text from the dialog in plain text, so it’s easy to paste into an email or forum when asking for tech support. Much cleaner than mucking about with screenshots and saves the person helping you from having to type (or more likely mistype) any critical information from the error while trying to reproduce or troubleshoot the problem.

Using Outlook 2003 as an example, there are parameters for creating new emails, appointments, etc. Outlook MVP Diane Poremsky has a great summary of Outlooks parameters.

The ones I’m using are:

• /c ipm.appointment creates an appointment
• /c ipm.note creates an e-mail message
• /c ipm.note /m {email address/alias} creates a pre-addressed e-mail message

There are also commands for other Outlook objects, but I rarely, if ever use those other ones.

So here’s the actual tip – Create a folder to put your parameterized shortcuts in and configure Launchy to index it. If you add the folder under the Start Menu, Launchy will automatically pick it up on its next reindexing. But you can add customer folders, too:

1. Open Launchy
2. Right-click anywhere on the Launchy window
3. Select Directories
4. Add the new directory
5. Right-click on the Launchy window and choose Rebuild Index – It’s possible that Launchy will automatically reindex as soon as you add the new directory, but it doesn’t hurt anything to force the reindex.

Any suggestions for other apps I should be using this trick with?

Since I’ve been dabbling in Mac-land, I’ve been using the must-have Quicksilver as an app launcher. It does tons of other amazing stuff, but I haven’t gotten far enough into it yet.

QS is keyboard driven. Enter the keyboard shortcut to launch the interface, then type in a few letters to find the app you want, then hit enter. It’s much easier than digging around in the Applications folder in the Finder and it’s even easier to use that Windows’ Start menu.

When I found myself trying to launch QS on Windows to start an app, I knew I had a problem.

Fortunately for me, there are a lot of Mac users out there who are always looking for a QS equivalent on Windows. Though there isn’t one, there are several apps that get mentioned as replacements to at least launch apps. The one I settled on was the SourceForge project, Launchy. From the website:

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.

Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

You can index pretty much any directory, it doesn’t have to be just your Start menu (though that’s all I’m using it for right now).

I definitely give it two thumbs up and think it’s worth any power user’s time to give it a try. It’s a little odd at first, but once you get used to using it, using another computer that doesn’t have it will be very irritating. To me, that’s a pretty good judge of how good a utility is.