Making Windows actually usable
So the other day at work I was getting really pissed off with using my mouse for no real reason and decided that if I can navigate around *nix and do everything without a mouse, then I should be able to in Windows, even if I had to go through a whole lot of trouble to do so.
You see, whenever you type something in Start--> Run, it looks for executable files in your PATH, such as .exe files or shortcuts to said files. So your best bet would be to add these shortcuts to your path. But most of these things are system folders, plus you will also want an easy way of seeing all of the shortcuts that you've added. So what you can do is add a folder, something like C:\bin or C:\Windows\bin work nicely. Then add that folder to your path. The quickest way is through the command line (You can also do it by right clicking on 'My Computer' --> Properties -> Environment Variables). Type 'set' and you will see all of your environmental variables. Now type 'set PATH=C:\bin;%PATH%' (or whatever you called your bin directory). What that does is append your new folder on the front of the path. If you want something more dynamic, you can create a BIN enviromental variable by 'set BIN=C:\bin' and then you can 'set PATH=%BIN%;%PATH%'. Don't forget the ; between the elements of the path. With the second example you can also add more folders to the BIN, although you probably wouldn't need to. Now all you have to do is put shortcuts to files in that folder and call them whatever you would like to type to run them. For instance you can leave the whole name like 'winamp', or if you're really lazy like me, and by lazy I mean efficient, you can make firefox shortcut and rename it 'f'. Enjoy.
You see, whenever you type something in Start--> Run, it looks for executable files in your PATH, such as .exe files or shortcuts to said files. So your best bet would be to add these shortcuts to your path. But most of these things are system folders, plus you will also want an easy way of seeing all of the shortcuts that you've added. So what you can do is add a folder, something like C:\bin or C:\Windows\bin work nicely. Then add that folder to your path. The quickest way is through the command line (You can also do it by right clicking on 'My Computer' --> Properties -> Environment Variables). Type 'set' and you will see all of your environmental variables. Now type 'set PATH=C:\bin;%PATH%' (or whatever you called your bin directory). What that does is append your new folder on the front of the path. If you want something more dynamic, you can create a BIN enviromental variable by 'set BIN=C:\bin' and then you can 'set PATH=%BIN%;%PATH%'. Don't forget the ; between the elements of the path. With the second example you can also add more folders to the BIN, although you probably wouldn't need to. Now all you have to do is put shortcuts to files in that folder and call them whatever you would like to type to run them. For instance you can leave the whole name like 'winamp', or if you're really lazy like me, and by lazy I mean efficient, you can make firefox shortcut and rename it 'f'. Enjoy.