AddToRun is a useful portable application for Windows that lets you create aliases to open your favorite programs which you can then type on Windows Run command and launch your favorite programs quickly.

Download and extract the AddTorun files somewhere on your hard disk and right click on AddToRun File and choose “Run as Administrator” if you are on Windows Vista or Windows 7, for Windows XP, just double click on it to run. Now select a program or a document using the select button and type an alias and hit Add button.

This’ll create an alias that you can use to open the specified program, document or file from run command(Win+R Keyboard shortcut). The aliases can be easily removed, just select the same program or file again and hit Remove to remove its alias.

With this handy tool, you can convert your Windows Run dialog into powerful application launcher.

Download AddToRun

You might be aware of Google’s site: operator that lets you restrict the search results to a specific website. Search Site is a Firefox add-on based on Google Search’s site: operator, that lets you search the opened website for selected text on a webpage.

Select some text on a webpage and right click on it and select “Search Site For Selection”.

It also adds a button next to Search button in Firefox’s search box so that you can type a query into Firefox search box and click on the Search site button to restrict searches to currently opened website.

One thing i wished it should have supported is opening search results in a new tab while searching using selected text.

It is an experimental add-on and to install it, you’ll need to tick the check box asking you to install experimental add-on. [via gHacks]

Here’s a helpful video showing what’s new in Windows 7 Release Candidate, which was released yesterday. This video explains all of the new interface, menu and design tweaks made in Windows 7 RC since the launch of Windows 7 Beta.

While Microsoft earlier said that Windows 7 RC will be available from May 5, though it is still May 4 in US, Microsoft has made available Windows 7 RC for public download.

To download Windows 7 RC, follow these steps:

1. Head over to Windows 7 page, scroll down the page a bit, and select language and version i.e. 32 bit or 64 bit you wish to download. Hit Go

2. If you are not logged into your Live account, it’ll ask you to do the same.

3. Once you are logged in, you are taken to a form to fill out some basic information, it is already filled if you downloaded Windows 7 Beta using the same Live account.

4. And, the moment you submit the form, your Windows 7 RC key should be ready with a big Download button asking you to start the download.

There is no need to rush this time, as Microsoft is not going to limit number of downloads and Windows 7 RC will be available till July this year.

If you’ve been thinking of cutting down the time you waste on addictive websites like YouTube, Facebook, then MinutesPlease is the answer.

This nifty and simple website lets you impose time limit for any website you want to open. After the set time limit, the open website window or tab will automatically close saving you from distracting away your precious time.

There are a lot of options to use this website,

1. You can directly type in URL into your browser’s address bar, e.g. say you need to open example.com for 5 minutes, then type in

5.minutesplease.com/example.com

or minutesplease.com/5m/example.com

or minutesplease.com/example.com (10 minutes limit)

2. Use the web form at MinutesPlease

3. Drag their bookmarklet onto your browser’s bookmarks bar and click on it when you need to set 10 minutes timer for opened website.

If you set time limit greater than a minute, then MinutesPlease will alert you with a pop up when 1 minute is left, but for it to work, you need to allow pop-ups from MinutesPlease.

Ever wished to export the tabular data in a PDF file to an Excel Worksheet, then look no further because PDF To Excel Online will convert any table within a PDF file to excel worksheet.

Just upload your file to PDF To Excel and provide your e-mail address. It’ll find out every table in your PDF file and create a separate worksheet for each table within Excel file.

All your formatting, colors, fonts are retained in the XLS file. The converted files are however sent to the e-mail address you specified while uploading PDF file.[via]

Though Windows 7 Release Candidate will be valid for 13 months, it’ll be more useful for first 10 months as from March 1, 2010, it’ll start having bihourly shutdowns alerting the user to buy Windows 7, as stated on this Microsoft’s partner page.

While it’ll work well up to June 1, 2010 but after March 1, 2010, it’ll shutdown after 2 hours alerting the user to upgrade. Similarly, Windows 7 Beta will start having bihourly shutdowns from July 1, 2010.

Windows 7 RC will be out tomorrow and we’ll let you know when it is available, so keep watching this space.

Switcher is a tiny freeware utility for Windows, that lets you switch between open windows in three amazingly intuitive ways. If you’ve used Mac OSX then you must be aware of the Expose feature that is Apple’s version of Windows Aero to switch windows but instead of cascading open windows, it tiles up windows on the screen.

Switcher lets you achieve exactly the same functionality as Expose in Windows, just run it and hit Win+` on your keyboard to see the tiled view for switching windows.

You can switch between the tiles using Win+` and then press Enter or simply click on one of the tiles to switch to that window.

Besides, tiled view, it supports Dock and Grid views also. Simply right click on its tray icon and open the settings panel.

In Dock mode, equal sized icons of the open windows dock at the top of the screen while selected icon is displayed in a zoom mode.

Another is Grid mode, in which the open windows are aligned to a grid letting you select a window from open windows easily.

Switcher lets you easily customize its behavior to what you like including keyboard shortcuts, colors used, animation delays etc.

It is available both as a installable and stand alone version. I preferred stand alone version as it relieves you from the heck of installer options.

Maximum PC has listed down 5 applications for taking more control over windows including previously mentioned Taskbar Shuffle, it’s a good resource to check out.

Download Switcher

Windows 7 Release Candidate build 7100 has been made available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers and will be available to general public from May 5. One good reason for testing out the release candidate of Windows 7 is that it will be valid for 13 months that makes it valid up to June 1, 2010.

The reason for such a long testing period for Windows 7 might be that Microsoft wants users to be hooked onto the new operating system, that’ll make more users buy the retail version of Windows 7 once it is available.

Moreover, unlike restricted availability of Windows 7 beta which was then removed due to overwhelming response, this time Microsoft will not be restricting number of downloads. [source]

Looking for a quick way to shorten that long URL in address bar, then try Foxy URL. It is a tiny and simple Firefox add-on that’ll place a button on your Firefox toolbar, clicking on which will get you the short URL instantly and which you can then copy to clipboard.

And if you are looking for way to retrieve original URL from shortened URL, try Long URL Please.