Ultimate Windows 10 tweeker, Vimium add-on to Firefox & SuperNotes
Finding tools that will increace your effectiveness which do not disrupt your workflow are always useful.
Ultimate Windows 10 tweeker (UWT)
UWT is a free programme that allows you to tweek some windows 10 settings without having to use RegEdit and potentially stuffing that up. They are also easily reversable, so if you don’t like the outcome you can always go back to what you had.
There is a video on some of the features here:
Dark Themes. I’m starting to get used ot them, I’ve got my VS Code editor set to dark theme and find it useful. So in UWT there is a setting for creating a dark theme that is added to a couple of the programmes, File Explorer is one of them:
There are also some simple things like take oneDrive off sidebar menu in File Explorer. Something I find annoying. Like Office with oneDrive as the top save item in Excel & Word, annoying.
I was excited about CMD (admin) prompt on context menu (right click to get pop-up, but that only works if you are on the desktop. I Thought it would work in all directories, but it doesn’t, which is a shame, but you can add a few items to your context menyu for desktop that are handy. Like being able to go to system folder instead of hunting on toolbar to find it.
Overall, worth a play, some things may be handy
Vimium add-on to Firefox
This is an interesting browser add on, it allows you to navigate the browser with shorcut keys rather than a mouse, based on the text editor VIM in Linux system (a bit like the old dos coomand line in wondows in my experience). It is an add-on for chrome & firefox, I’m not sure what other browsers it works on.
There are 2 flavours , Vimium ff & Vimium C. I’d loaded the Vimium C then changed to the Vimium ff. The Vimium ff icon grays out if it wont work on a page, whereas the vimium C doesn’t. Since the ff version was the more popular, I thought I’d practice with that one first.
The one powerful Get Out Of Jail Free key is the “?” which pops up with the list of key commands, that is handy.
There are some features that you can tailor, like which search engines you want to use:
This is handy for me as one of the PC’s I use , the Surface 3, I only use the keyboard, not a mouse, so instead of trackpad I can use the keyboard shortuts for things. I’m also keen on keyboard shortcuts, as that’s what I started with and still find it the quickest way to get around a computer.
Limiting Vimium on websites
SPECIAL NOTE: Vimium. To disable the keys on specific sites where you may be typing, like your web blog, click on VIMIUM ICON and it pops up with a pattern showing current website, in KEYS box leave blank and click SAVE CHANGES button, this will disable Vimium on that site. You can just disable specific keys for the site.
Super Notes
I have some ideas that I want to explore. I’m working on 2 computers and am doing some coding and learning. I need to be able to be able to access the information on either PC. For coding I’m using GitHub more, and that is handy, even though you have to do the whole git push /pull etc.
Its in the accessing of notes and adding to them that I am having issues at the moment. I use Google Keep for personal shopping and that is handy across devices, I have the app on my android phone, the add-in on my firefox browser so am linked between PC and phone. But it somehow doesn’t work for my work ideas.
As its mainly between PC’s there is OneNote, but I find it cumbersome, too many bits , tabs and what you can do within those pages.
I also watch a few how to You Tubes on coding, and email them to myself, so I have that video for later, that is OK to a point, but if I don’t use it in the next couple of days I end up marking the emails as “read” and rarely go back to them, so this is another handy place to put those links for later.
I just want something simple to pass ideas across and also possibly some code snippets, so I thought I’d try the free tier of SuperNotes.
End comment
The Ultimate Windows 10 tweeker is something you’d use once then clean off your computer once you have the settings you want. It is an easier tool to use rather than messing with the Computer Registry.
Vimium looks interesting but it will come down to when I can use it effectively, it could end up being a very productive tool.
SuperNotes is just another Note taker acrosss devices, but it is simple to use and may be the tool I need to share work content. I really like Google Keep but that works for me as a personal tool, not a work tool.
