Start Programs With The Keyboard

Find And Run Robot - Keyboard Program Launcher

How many times have you gotten hold of a program and said that's it, that's the one for me, I will never use anything else? Then somewhere down the road you get wind of a new program that does the same thing, sometimes more, and does it better.

That's what happened to me when I read a short blurb on Find and Run Robot (FARR) in a PC magazine review. People who know me call me 'keyboard' because I use the keyboard for just about everything. Most certainly I use it for starting programs. I would rather hit a couple of keys rather than click click scroll click click with the mouse to get a program launched.

I started out using Tray Command Line, then SlickRun, followed by Launchy, all good programs in their own right, and I have written before on some of those.

Then along came FARR (Find and Run Robot) into my key tapping world. I had a couple concerns with Vista, so fired off my opinion on their forum, while debating whether to continue or not. To my surprise I got a reply from Mouser the programs creator, in less than a couple of minutes suggesting what I should do. With a response that fast I wasn't long deciding this program deserves some serious consideration, and after several exchanges back and forth, my concerns were taken care of 100%.

After testing FARR in many ways on both Vista and XP, I have to use that overworked word - awesome. First let me say it starts programs faster than any program I have ever used so far, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint which usually take awhile to load. Programs load close to instant.

Installation is a breeze. It only puts items in its own folder, leaving the rest of the computer untouched including the registry. In fact you can unzip the exe yourself and put the contents in a folder and run it if you want to. (Handy for running off a thumb drive.) Using the install though gives you an uninstall like any other program should you ever want to remove it.

In less than a minute it is ready to go. Just hit the 'Break' key and a menu bar pops up for you to type in the name of the program you want to start. As soon as you start typing a drop down list of possibilities shows. Pressing Enter starts the first program on the list. Or if your selection is down the list a ways, pressing the number beside it on the number keypad will start that one instantly. Using this method is very fast.

Here's the good part. Once you have used all your favourite programs a time or two, as soon as you hit the Break key, they are already on the list from before and pressing the number beside it starts the program. If you are after a program that is not on the list, start typing its name and a new list pops into place.

We're not done yet, there's more. For example if you type (img bus) without the brackets of course, your browser opens, again almost instantly and there are dozens of pictures of buses on Google images. Just put in your own topic that you are searching. (define 'your word') finds the word in the dictionary and so on. Type in 'search plus your topic' and it goes directly to Google in your browser with all the items listed. In all these cases if you don't like the first one on the list as your search engine, the drop down list shows seven more that you can choose from by just hitting the number on the number pad. There are numerous things you can do, just type in agroups in the FARR menu bar and it will give you the drop down list below showing all the possibilities. And do I have to say it again, the results are near instant.

If you are a Firefox user, and you should be, there is a small plugin you can download that makes FARR scan your bookmarks and go to the particular web page in an instant. Very handy if you are like me with over 2000 bookmarks.

The program comes from Donationcoder.com, a different idea in our world of programs. Is it free - yes, but they would like a donation if you like the program and think it worthy. This is how they do it. When you first download the program, you also need to download a licence code, which activates it for six months. After six months you can get another for free. After that they would appreciate a donation of whatever you think its worth, but then you can get a non-expiring licence code that is good for that program indefinitely. So you can get the program for free, but if at any time you decide it is worth a donation, after doing so you get a licence key that unlocks all their programs for the rest of your time. Check out their site, there is a lot of value there.

If you have put some of your progams in a special folder of your own, it is very easy to add that folder to the search using the configuration icon. In fact not only is the progam very easy to use, it is easy to adjust should you need to and everything is explained very well in the help file.

So if you are also a keyboard person and want to start your programs the fastest way possible, this is the one to have. A description like this doesn't do it justice, you have to try it. The more I use it, the more things I find it will do. Not only is the program fast, so is the support and you can't beat a combination like that.

July 2008 Update

This program is being constantly updated, sometimes daily, with improvements and added features. If you are already using FARR check often to see if there is a new version, or use the automatic update feature available.

 (July 2008)