Daily Digest
A Closer Look at Windows 7’s Aero
Peek Feature [Windows 7 Screencast]
Yesterday you saw a fuzzy video demonstration of
Aero Peek, one of the new features coming in Windows
7. Peek supercharges Windows’ taskbar thumbnail pre-
views, and lets you view, close, and switch between mul-
tiple windows by just hovering over the taskbar thumb-
nail, as well as pin programs to the taskbar perma-
nently. Here’s a firsthand screencast of what this looks
like in action on your desktop. Notice that when an
application has more than one window open (window,
not tab), hovering over the app window group in the
taskbar displays a preview of those multiple windows.
Correction: IE tabs display as multiple thumbnails, but
Chrome and Firefox tabs do not. Hit the up arrow next
to any of the large taskbar icons to ”Pin this program
to Taskbar,” or leave it there indefinitely. The Inter-
net Explorer menu even displays your browsing history
right inside of it, and the Explorer menu your ”Fre-
quent” folder list. Hit the play button to see what this
looks like. The PDC release of the Windows 7 Preview
doesn’t have Peek enabled by defaultmdash;and after
unlocking it, it’s still not the full feature set that yes-
terday’s video showed off. However, even the Preview
release’s crippled version is still way more useful than
Vista’s preview-only taskbar thumbnails, and certainly
goes a lot longer ways towards windows management
from the taskbar than Mac OS X Leopard offers from
the Dock. Thanks, Asian Angel!
Kids Encounter Fewer Ads Online [In
Brief ]
Minors experience significantly fewer ads online than
the elderly in a measure of web page ”clutter,” accord-
ing to a recent report from Nielsen Online. Web surfers
under 17 saw the least screen real estate given over to
advertising, while those over 65 saw the most. And the
more ”niche” a site’s appeal, the more clutter gener-
ally. Of course, dedicated adbusters can use software
like BFilter or reconfigure your router to block ads for
the whole family. At what point does the ad volume or
tone overwhelm the value of the content or service for
you?
1
Multiple Find and Replace Updates
Text [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: Multiple Find and Replace does
pretty much what it says mdash; find and replace text
strings across multiple documents. It doesn’t have the
binary- and archive-searching power of Windows Grep
or the command line elegance of Find and Replace Text
for accomplishing tasks, but it is tiny and dead simple.
I experience some problems selecting a large range of
files, and you’ll probably want to click Show Advanced
Options button and select Back up changed files for
your first few forays. Multiple Find and Replace is a
free download for Windows only. Multiple Find and
Replace 1.00 [NonTube Software via Life Rocks 2.0]
Remember The Milk for iPhone and
iPod touch Now Available [Featured
IPhone Download]
iPhone/iPod touch only: Popular to-do list man-
ager Remember The Milk has officially hit the iTunes
App Store as a native application for your iPhone or
iPod touch. Just like the web site, the application is
lightning fast and simple to use but packs in some im-
pressive features, including bi-directional sync, offline
task editing, and even location awareness for sorting
nearby tasks. The catch: In order to use RTM for
iPhone, you’ll need to have signed up for a 25/year pro
account. Remember The Milk is a free download from
the iTunes App Store. Remember The Milk [iTunes
App Store via RTM Blog]
Windows 3.x Nostalgia Thread
[Windows]
Windows 3.0 was first released in May of 1990, and
now, 18 years later, Microsoft has officially discontinued
Windows 3.x. Granted, none of you were likely using
Windows 3.x regularly anyway, but the iconic operating
system is still in use all over the place, from cash regis-
ters to in-flight entertainment systems from the likes of
Virgin. Rather than talk about the long, slow decline
of Windows 3.x into senility and death, we’re more in-
terested in its glory days. Let’s hear your Windows 3.x
stories in the comments. [via]
New ”Aero Shake” Clears the Windows
7 Desktop [Windows 7 Screencast]
Not only does Windows 7’s upgraded Aero interface
power up your taskbar, but it includes new gestures for
managing your workspace mdash; like shaking a single
window to clear away background windows. Check it
out in the screencast above. When you want to focus on
the task at hand on a desktop cluttered with windows,
just grab the window bar of the app you want to work
in and shake it back and forth to clear away the rest.
Another shake will restore the background apps to their
former state. You can also drag and drop a window to
the edge of the screen to maximize it, and click on its
top bar again to restore its previous size. Hit the play
button above to see the shake-shake-shake and the drag
and drop maximization in action. Unless you’re a big
fan of mouse gestures, you probably won’t use this new
feature a whole lotmdash;unless, of course, you wind
up running Windows 7 on a touchscreen device. [via
Gizmodo]
By not permitting results with appended prefixes
like Re: and Fwd:, you can quickly find the beginnings
of an email thread in Gmail. Simply type -subject:Re:
-subject:Fwd: to only reveal conversation starters, and
optionally add from:[email address] (where [email ad-
dress] is an actual email address) to find an email from
a particular sender. Too lazy to type all that out? Go
to Settings gt; Labs, enable Quick Links, and scroll
down to click the Save Changes button. Now search on
-subject:Re: -subject:Fwd: and click Add Quick Link
in the Quick Link pane on the left. Give your search
link a better name (I went with the highly technical-
sounding ”Thread Intro Search”) and click OK. Now
with one click, search results with only initial messages
will appear, and you can further refine results by adding
terms and qualifiers to the string already in the search
box. Gmail tip: searching by the first post in a conver-
sation [Rakesh Agrawal’s Blog via Google Blogoscoped]
DIY Keyboard Thumbtacks [DIY]

DIY web site Instructables posts a detailed step-

Firefox 3.1 Adds Tab Preview Panel by-step guide for repurposing the keys from an old key-
[Firefox] board as thumbtacks. All you’ll need to pull it off is the
Earlier today we took an early look at Firefox’s Pri- keyboard, round-topped push pins, a drill, and some
vate Browsing mode, available in the latest test builds hot glue. It’s quick, easy, and decidedly cool if you’ve
from Mozilla, but a new tab preview panel feature snuck got a nostalgic kick for retro computing. Keyboard
past our radar. Instead of displaying a list of each of Thumbtacks [Instructables]
your opened tabs by title when you click the tab list
drop down to the right of the tab bar, you’ll be given a
snazzy tab preview panel displaying thumbnails of each
tabs. From there, you can search the titles for as-you-
type filtering of results, click on any thumbnail, and tab
through the results. [via Mozilla Links]

The Three-Axis Bubble Level [Stuff We

Like]
The Brando Three-Axis Bubble Level cube fits into
your camera’s shoe mount andmdash;as the name sug-
gestsmdash;checks the angle of your shot against three
bubble levels. It’s small, simple, and only costs 11, so if
you’ve been looking to add a little balance to your pho-
tos, the Three-Axis Bubble Level might be just what
you’re looking for. Then again, as one commenter at
Gizmodo pointed out: At 11 its 11 more expensive than
cropping. Cube Hot Shoe 3-Axis Bubble Level [via Giz-
modo]

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