App 10: Launchy

When using Ubuntu, I'm often asked "What's that?" when using certain applications. The one I'm asked most often about is Gnome-Do. I've talked about Gnome-Do and it's awesomeness in Linux. Now its time to talk about it's Windows alternative; Launchy. While the two applications aren't based off each other, you will notice many similarities between them.

Just like Gnome-Do, Launchy is "designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.
How? 
Just by pressing the designated hotkey (alt+spacebar) you get a dialog box to type in whatever you need. Need to launch an application? Just start typing! Launchy will even auto-complete, or suggest what it thinks your typing to make things easier.

Additionally, Launchy is very customizable, allowing not only to change the location of where it shows up, or it's hotkeys, but with plugins, and multiple skins. Plugins will allow you to launch a specific website just by typing in it's URL in Launchy, or even search Google without opening up your web-browser first.


Launchy, in the end, aims to make life more intuitive for the user, with less mouse-movements and clicking. Additionally, because it's an open source application, anyone can develop for it, making their own plugins or skins! 

App(s) 2: Gnome-Do and Docky (Linux)

On my laptop, I find having to run though several menus a bit tiring.
However, thanks to Gnome-Do, I don't have to mess around with menus anymore!

Gnome-Do does... everything! It's a launcher for your applications.

All you do is press Super+Space and you'll be presented with the main interface of Gnome-Do.  From there you type something. Gnome-Do will search your computer (thats your installed applications as well as files and folders) for what you are looking for.

For example, you typed the name of an application and press enter, and it will launch that application. However, if it was a file you searched for, you can open that file.

Gnome-Do doesn't end there however. A bunch of plugins allow you to do much more. Wanna search google? With Gnome-Do you can search Google, Youtube, even Torrents without having to open up your browser first.

But wait.
Gnome-Do also includes a dock, called Docky. You can use this by going to Gnome-Do's appearance preferences menu and changing the theme to Docky.

Docky will show your open applications as well as frequently used applications, and pressting the Gnome-Do shortcut will allow you to make searches.

Docky is also available available without Gnome-Do.

Running it without Gnome-Do allows you to have multiple docks (for example, I have one on the bottom of my screen to show running applications, and one on the left of my screen with shortcuts to my folders.)
Docky also has additional plugins that aren't included in Gnome-Do.

You can find Gnome-Do here and the separate Docky application here. Both are ONLY available for Linux.