TopDesk: Expose for XP
Windows XP users can now have one more feature Macs have had for a long time - Expose! Otaku Software’s TopDesk lets you use hot keys, mouse hotspots or floating desktop buttons to view and sort all of your open application windows, easily navigating to the one you are searching for. TopDesk sells for $10 USD but may very well be worth it with support for multiple monitors and customization for everything. Take a look at the videos here, they are quite impressive. You can add TopDesk as one of the steps to turning your PC into a Mac.
I used this product for a while and it was very cool, but I found that it slowed my machine down consdierably. So I stopped using it.
Lifehacker just did this post about SmallWindows, another expose-like program thats stil in beta. I tried it out and it works nicely but its a bit buggy.
This has be standard since Mac OSX 10.3 and runs well on quite old macs, g3’s with no slow down. I used to have a g3 ibook running OSX 10.3.9 and the windows would expose as quickly as they would on a modern g4. Just another example of why Mac’s are better, in my opinion. I’m using a Win XP box at the moment and I can’t believe how slowly itunes and limewire run on a 1Ghz pc, expecially when they are flawless on my old ibook.
I am eager to try these features.
Good post. tx.
Sanketh,
http://teletunes.blogspot.com
Thanks for the tip Paul, I will definitely put this to good use until I get around to buying a Mac!
I’d rather not pay money for it ;)
I’ve been trying this for a couple of weeks, and it just doesn’t run fast enough. Anything “3-dimensional” (the “flip view”) looks very cool the first few times you see it, but it just isn’t fast enough for me to keep using. I’ve also tried it on my work workstation, a dual Xeon 3.0Ghz, 2GB RAM, etc. in the “fastest” mode, but it is still too sluggish. I’ve also encountered problems where the entire screen goes black and I can only see text “hover over” descriptions. Too slow, too buggy, but an interesting product with potential.
The only reason i think its slugish is probably because it might be using the Graphics card. i’ve got my P4 running at 4.0 Ghz with HT. got 2gb ram with a 7800GTX 512mb XXX edition graphics. the 3D flip is perfectly fine and smooth for me.
Check out the Admiral at http://www.mexircus.com it has an Exposé clone as part of its features.
just got this program last night, I think its very felxible in terms of different config options for cpu/memory settings. As a power user of my pc, with two monitors and a lot going on at once, I couldnt imagine not working without it. It does take up about 90-100mb of ram though, so if you’re running games etc. your gonna wanna make sure you disable it before you play. I paid about 14$ bucks for the license.