Show Me Your Start Menu...

[Andy Sjostrom]

... and I'll tell you who you are! When I booted up my computer this morning to get started, I had to stop for a second to reflect upon my Start menu. I use Windows 2003 Server on my laptop. Windows 2003 and Windows XP implement very similar features with regards to the Start menu, and one of these features is the recently used applications. I am not sure what algorithm it uses when determining what application to put there, since I can start, say Windows Media Player, once and it won't show among the recently used applications until I have used it more. How much more, I don't know. Be that as it may... You can see my Start menu below and draw your on conclusions... Check out both the Start menu and the Quick Launch toolbar below. Now you show me what you've got!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/start.JPG" />

[Chris Forsberg]

Ouch, I can see that you had to install VB6 after all, and I'm truly sorry, man. My Quick Launch toolbar is almost identical, but what is the first one?

[lonesniper]

Here is my Start menu and Quick Launch Bar.
http://www.lonesniper.com/blog-files/startbar.jpg

The Minesweeper and Spider are not mine!!! My girlfriend has been using my computer lately and they are hers. :-)

Also I run PowerDVD once yesterday, the first time in about 4 months. And just installed and tried Theme Generator once. So wonder how they are decided to be favourite applications already.

Colin

[OSUKid7]

Here's mine :)

http://osukid7.no-ip.com/Screenshots/startmenu.jpg

[darrylb]

Here is mine...

http://www.bsystems.co.nz/start.JPG

[Chris Forsberg]

And mine:
http://www.businessanyplace.net/chris/startmenu.gif

[paris]

there u go

http://www.parisp.com/misc/start.JPG

[KAMware]

I like the "Classic" menu better than the new "Knows what I want to run" menu. :D
http://www.kamware.com/images/taskbar.jpg

[xoiph]

Fun stuff:
http://www.dandilion.org/start.jpg

[rlobrecht]

Here's mine.

http://66.1.123.239/rick/start_menu.jpg

[Arne Hess]

Here we go :-)

http://www.ppcw.net/downloads/forum/ppct_startmenu.gif

[TopDog]

http://www.pdanorway.com/images/blog/work.JPG

I only use w2k at work, so my start menu doesn't tell much, maybe my Quick Launch says more!?

I'm MIS for a small sales-office in a major software-company, so Enterprise Administrator, VNC and Dreamveawer are important tools.

I'm also training to be tech presales, we use VMware for demo/test purposes as you see.

I use AvantBrowser at the office, and if I take my laptop home with me I use Opera Web brower (because of different proxy-settings etc.)

Yeah, and I use Codewallet Pro with my MS SmartPhone, great tool that I couldn't live without.

The calculator is always handy (I have to calculate our local currency into Euro all the time... damn, why can't Norway join the Union :-()

And of course there is Outlook, my calendar always changes and emails just keep on popping in.

[lb1015]

http://hertz.vultron.com/startmenu.gif

intresting that notepad is the most common application we use

[jake080]

curse my stupid website, the ftp stuff is not been reloaded yet by the admin, so i cant give you my screenshot! unless theres another way...

~JAke

[jake080]

Yay, i got it!!!


ftp://bloop:[email protected]/menu.JPG

~Jake

[PlayAgain?]

When I booted up my computer this morning to get started, I had to stop for a second to reflect upon my Start menu.

Sorry man, no offence, but this really made me laugh!

I'm imagining someone who stops to reflect on car keys, shirt sleeves, digital watches, socks, cupboard handles, zippers on sports bags, shoe lace, pixels, toffee, coffee, printer cartridges with built in heads, Fax machines, space bars, the ampersand ( & ), smileys, the wonky 'E' in the Dell logo......

Maybe it's just my cynical British sense of humour. :lol:

[Yomes]

Mine, also with notepad in it :D

http://www.foro.mipcdebolsillo.com/imagenes/offtopic/menu_inicio.jpg[/img]

[quidproquo]

Mine.... they all start looking the same after a while....with just a few differences. No wonder Bill Gate$ is so rich...... his product pervades the entire world! (of course we already knew that) :wink:

http://www.carveronline.net/start.jpg

[Steven Cedrone]

Why not...

http://home.comcast.net/~cedrones/start.JPG

Steve

[Andy Sjostrom]

Sorry man, no offence, but this really made me laugh!

I'm imagining someone who stops to reflect on car keys, shirt sleeves, digital watches, socks, cupboard handles, zippers on sports bags, shoe lace, pixels, toffee, coffee, printer cartridges with built in heads, Fax machines, space bars, the ampersand ( & ), smileys, the wonky 'E' in the Dell logo......

Maybe it's just my cynical British sense of humour. :lol:

No offence taken. But think about it... If you meet someone the first time, what can you make out of:

car keys: Ferrari keys vs rusty old Opel keys
shirt sleeves: stained vs clean with cuff links
digital watches: 15 yrs old clunky Casio vs SPOT
socks: matching dark blue vs too big white tube socks
etc

Don't run too fast! You might miss a thing or two of the very things that make out.. life. 8)

[sparkyewu]

I dont like much in my start menu. I think the start menu should be nice and clean. :) Unlike my room.

:devilboy:

http://www.forgottenvoid.com/start2.jpg

[NeilE]

http://www.badcasserole.com/startmenu.jpg

This is my home start menu. Oooooh, aaaaah. I almost never use it. 99% of what I do at home is the four buttons in my quicklaunch bar: Windows Media Player for music, Outlook Express for newsgroups and mail, Money for bank statements, and IE for OWA mail at work. Also, note the address bar in the task bar. Very very handy.

My work start menu is nearly the same, except I have a folder at the top of the start menu called "Common" that has Office apps, our bug database, etc. in it.

[MacBirdie]

And here goes mine:
http://macbirdie.net/start.png

[WillyG]

Here's mine :wink:

http://www.dinside.no/km_bilde/1/90771.jpg

[Kati Compton]

Here's mine... I like the more "classic" style. I don't like the OS deciding for me what programs I want to use. ;)

To organize things a bit, I make folders of shortcuts on the "main" program menu. I even have access to my drives and commonly-used folders, as frequently those icons are covered up by windows...

I have 2 quick launch bars... One has Mozilla, SSH2 client, Trillian. The other has Word, XEmacs, and PowerPoint...

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/kati/StartMenu.png

[surur]

Just to add mine to the list.

http://www.surur.dsl.pipex.com/start.jpg

Who would have thought humble notepad would be so popular !

Surur

[Dave Beauvais]

I use a feature in TweakUI for WinXP that allows me to pick and choose which apps can be stuck on the Start menu. Because I launch my commonly-used apps using keyboard shortcuts, I removed those from the list of "allowed apps" so they don't clutter my Start menu. This way, the Start menu displays my less-frequently-used apps, instead, which is far more useful to me. I would estimate that with the exception of Web browsing and games -- where I pretty much have to use the mouse -- 98% of the work I do on the PC is with the keyboard. Alas, I'm not at my machine right now, so I can't get a screenshot.

WillyG: I think there's a support group for people like you. :lol: ;)

--Dave

[dacs29]

Here's mine... (nice and simple)

http://mail.rochester.edu/~dc004m/start.JPG

David

[Venturello]

The calculator is always handy (I have to calculate our local currency into Euro all the time... damn, why can't Norway join the Union :-()

Check out http://www.belgraver.demon.nl/currconv2. Free, excellent and it has a tray app for easy, fast conversions. Not that there are a gazillion programs to do the same.... but I happen to like this one...

Here's mine...

http://venturello.com/files/Faststart1.gif
Cut image in two sections as not to make everyone scroll sideways...
http://venturello.com/files/Faststart2.gif



Note: I don't show start menu because I just cleared it - there where many progs I havent used in a while in there. I guess because I use my two menu's all the time rather than the start menu....

Netcaptor is for me the best IE plugin out there. Out of that, I love opera. This is my laptop, hence the low res. Lots of SQL, dev work as you can see.... atm just wasting time with www :roll:

Using menu's like these is something I see most people overlook and which I find very powerful to open stuff fast.

[acronym]

http://homepage.mac.com/acronym/dock.jpg

>edit
you all sure got funny looking docks

[dean_shan]

What's with that. The dock goes on the left ;).

[TopDog]

Check out http://www.belgraver.demon.nl/currconv2. Free, excellent and it has a tray app for easy, fast conversions. Not that there are a gazillion programs to do the same.... but I happen to like this one...
The link doesn't work... could you give me it again?

[Venturello]

Site is down. Try:

http://www.geocities.com/currconv2/download.html

[TopDog]

Site is down. Try:

http://www.geocities.com/currconv2/download.html
Thanks, it looks a little to heavy though... I just need to convert my currency to Euro, like the Today-plugin EuroToday (http://www.louterrailloune.com/eurotoday.html). I've been thinking about making it myself, even installed Visual Studio 6.0, but I haven't used it since university 3,5 years ago so I everything... need to read up my VB-book I think ;-)

Anyway, I thought I might throug in my start-menu at home also:
http://www.pdanorway.com/images/blog/start-menu.jpg

Yes, it's Mandrake Linux. I'm trying to learn some basic UNIX, and what better way than forcing myself to use Linux at home!?
:microwave:

[Venturello]

Its not heavy at all, that app, it is quite a fast application to load. Simple tho. But as I said, YMMV and there are tons of options.

The applet for the today screen you linked looks quite good, thanks for sharing. Wish I had seen it a year ago :)

If you want to develop for pocketpc I wouldnt recommend using EVB. Instead if you can get visual studio 2003, using the compact framework is the best way to develop pocketpc applications IMHO - the easiest and fastest to learn. Still good old C/C++ is the best for some applications, but for me the return on effort of these is everyday lessening.

Best wishes,

Jua

[TopDog]

Its not heavy at all, that app, it is quite a fast application to load. Simple tho. But as I said, YMMV and there are tons of options.
Didn't mean it like that, I meant that it had a lot of choices and options... I want it as simle as possible, or else I'll just keep coming back to Calculator ;-)

If you want to develop for pocketpc I wouldnt recommend using EVB.
Nah, I was thinking about a win32 application for my Desktop, but I know what you are talking about, I worked in a Pocket PC software company for over three years (not as a developer though).

[RaGe-]

I don't really have a start menu per se; here's what I've got.

http://www.outrigged.com/misc/startmenu.png

[zipgenius]

Here is mine:

http://www.zipgenius.it/images/mystart.png

As you can see, I turned the MRU list off because I want a fully customized Start menu.

My ZipGenius is almost on top 8)

[Buddha]

Here's my little corner of the screen: Clean, tweaked and uncluttered. :wink:
I have no shortcuts in my tasktbar but instead I have 3 other shortcut bars that cover the other 3 sides of my screen (they only appear when i move the mouse to the side or top of the screen) I find this much better to start my applications and as a result almost never press the startbutton except to logoff or reboot.


http://home.iae.nl/users/ronnies/startbar.gif http://home.iae.nl/users/ronnies/lain.gif

[revolution.cx]

I'm stumped...what does everyone use notepad for?

[dean_shan]

I'm stumped...what does everyone use notepad for?

I use it to take notes. Kinda like a stickypad. I have a shortcut to a notepad on my quicklaunch. You can also do a quick html page.

[OSUKid7]

I'm stumped...what does everyone use notepad for?

a lot actually...copy and pasting things in order to loose the formatting (for HTML, etc.), to write quick notes, etc. Mostly for coding though...although I don't use it that much ;)

[smileyguy]

http://home.earthlink.net/~smileyguy/ss/start.menu.jpg
Start Menu
http://home.earthlink.net/~smileyguy/ss/quick.launch.jpg
Quick Launch

[OSUKid7]

http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=175246#175246

never understood the WMP9 theme....it's a media player, not windows...lol

[Vasant56]

Here is my start menu:


I don't use a quick launch as I have an object bar.

http://invis.free.anonymizer.com/http://www.geocities.com/vasant56/menu.bmp

You know what.. Here is a link to my entire desktop.. Its hella cool.

http://invis.free.anonymizer.com/http://www.geocities.com/vasant56/desktop.JPG

[pschultz]

Where do you find/download some of the more different styles? I like the XP format, but I want a different style and a different color.

[ultach]

What's a Start Menu. All I have at home
is 5 computers running either Linux or Mac OS X.
I own a Dual G4 Mac and use an HP 2215 with it via
iSync and MarkSpace's MissingSync.



Sean


:D

[TopDog]

Where do you find/download some of the more different styles?
First you need an application that lets you use styles, StyleXP is a good one: http://www.tgtsoft.com/

[darrylb]

I'm stumped...what does everyone use notepad for?

I use editplus ('http://www.editplus.com') which is a notepad replacement. I use it for reading any text based file and web programming (PHP, ASP, etc) - it does syntax highlighting which is why I like it....

[acronym]

Where do you find/download some of the more different styles? I like the XP format, but I want a different style and a different color.

check out www.wincustomize.com

[jake080]

i like notepad for quick notes, to do a quick word find, logging things, and a few other nifty, whacky things.
------
I also use style xp for the tomtom os skin. I use the blueos versoin of tomtomos. There are a few orange versions also.
ahh, skinning windows is fun, i like to see peoples reactions. ,-- also fun to remove shotrcuts and use keyboard s-cuts instead.
keyboarders rock dude!


~Jake