If you are like me you have shortcuts all over
the place. I like to make two folders directly off my START
menu … one called Quick Access and one called Hotkeys. In
Quick Access I put shortcuts to all the programs or files that
I need to frequently access. In the Hotkeys folder I put the
shortcuts that I have associated keyboard hotkeys to. For
example, I have a windows calculator shortcut that I have
assigned the hot key combination CTRL ALT C. No matter what I
am doing in any application all I have to do is key CTRL+ALT+C
and my calculator pops up. Using shortcuts is one of the best
things about windows. The only problem is that by default
Windows will assign a ugly default icon. Of course you can
assign any icon to any shortcut you wish but the ones included
with windows give you few and uninspired choices.
Microangelo 5.0
by Impact Software
lets you design, edit, animate, and organize icons and cursors.
You can create an icon from scratch. You can start off with
some other programs icon and then edit it so that it appears
exactly the way you want. You can even create animated icons.
Microangelo allows you to work with any
kind of icon file, cursor, or icon archive, and comes with a
suite of five tools and interfaces … Explorer …
Librarian ... On Display … Studio… and Animator. Explorer provides a windows explorer type view to browse your
icons and with Librarian you can archive and mange them.
On Display lets you mange windows system level icons and quite a
few windows settings. You can even use On Display to display
desktop icons and cursors all the way to True Color.
Using Microangelo to create or edit Icons with
the Studio feature is surprisingly easy. During install, the program will
associate itself with icon files.
To edit one all you need do is double click it
and the .ico file will be loaded into Studio which provides an
easy to use interface. If you have worked with Paint
Box or some other graphic program then working with this will
feel very familiar. After creating a new icon you can use Animator
to animate it.
Microangelo is available as Shareware. You
can download and demo the program for 30 days after which it
is $59.95 to register.
This week I have put together a special
download for my readers. I have bundled Microangelo with the best
collections of icons I have found to date ... and I have been
looking for 8 years! This free collection contains over
10,000 icons and is appropriately called Best Icons! You be
the judge.
Rode
