CelTrust Blog

Enso: Navigation Made Easy

One of my big pet peeves with Computers are those little annoying pop-up boxes (notify boxes) that come up whenever you are trying to do something. One day I was editing a word document, and I had 2 monitors running. Well, when I finished editing my document I went to go run Spell Check. It was just my lucky day, all of a sudden everything froze (or so I thought). I was clicking all around, frantically freaking out, and getting ready to well… Throw my computer out the window. I just conveniently looked over to my other monitor, and there was the entire reason… “Spell check Complete: 0 errors found.” Yeah, that’s right.. Word didn’t freeze at all.

Lucky for me

I found some software which totally understands how annoying these little flaws can be! It’s called Enso, made by Humanized. From Enso’s website:

“Having to change programs to perform simple tasks—for example, making a quick calculation, or looking up a definition—breaks your concentration, takes you away from the task at hand, and wastes your valuable time. Enso lets you do common computing tasks easier and faster than ever before. You get a huge productivity boost and a simpler digital life. And now that Enso is free, it won’t cost you a penny.”

Basically, Enso breaks down into 4 main categories:

1.) Enso Launcher: Everything’s at your finger tips

I’m a linux guy… One of those nerdy server admins who think everything would be better if it were all command line. That’s why I prefer naim for my aim client, and terminal for fixing errors over a gui. Mouse is just inefficient - you always have to pick up your hand away from the keyboard, and over to this big bulky item and then move it to get what you need. Enso solves this problem by making everything accessible by a command key!

2.) Internet Bookmarks

We all have our favorite sites, we put them in our bookmarks on our favorite internet navigator, like Mozilla firefox (Which if you don’t have by now, you should really get.) With Enso, you aren’t restricted to just having bookmarks for your internet options, you can bookmark literally everything. You can teach Enso how to open programs, files, and URLs.

3.) Window Selection

Alt-tab is great, but once you get into the swing of using Enso, you are going to find yourself wanting to use the command key a whole lot more (I promise). Enso lets you feed your addiction with the GO command. Just type GO and a few letters inside the name of the window you want to navigate across. This one is really handy for me, because I often have 15-20 concurrent windows open on my computer.

4.) Start Menu vs. Enso

Getting anywhere with the start menu forces you to do 1 of 2 things: use your mouse, or go through 20 different keys. This is insane when it’s easier just to hit the command key and type out what you want. That’s where Enso comes in, you can hit the command key and type the “OPEN” command followed by the program you wish to open. Windows even tried to implement this with the Start Menu search in Vista. (Enso still wins)

Conclusion

I’ve been using Enso for about 2 weeks now, and I really like it. I find myself using it more and more everyday. It’s free, and still active in development. The developers are working on new extensions for release in the near future. You can also access the 6 free betas they have up for offer + the 2 released components (Launcher, and spelling stuff — define, spell check library). Check it out at www.humanized.com

Tags: Do It Yourself, enso, navigation, Reviews, Tips, windos xp