I’m certainly a fan of Windows and the Office suit in general, but during the beta testing of Windows 7 I reinstalled the OS 3 times, twice for the beta and once for the release candidate. When Windows 7 came out, I installed it on our two laptops and desktop, plus on a couple of family member’s computers. The process went pretty smoothly and the only real annoyance was backing up and restoring Outlook emails, contacts, filters, and account settings. With the advent of Gears, allowing offline access to Gmail, I ditched Outlook. [Incidentally, Outlook 2010 is pretty slick. With the integration of Windows Live, I may end up giving outlook another try.]

One of the annoyances I found with using an online solution like Gmail is that none of the system links to the default mail program work. Word 2007 – 2010 allows one to save and email a doc, but it can’t pull up a browser and open Gmail for me. Likewise for shell links like right-clicking a file and selecting the “send to” option.

Enter Affixa.

This free program links Gmail with the operating system. It’s pretty easy to set up, too. It’s not perfectly integrated, but it will put an email in your drafts with the file attached. I’m not complaining, it’s way better than no link at all. It will also dump large attachments that Gmail refuses into a drop.io account and place a link to them in the email. I wish it could integrate with Dropbox, though.

Here’s a screenshot of the control panel. The program normally runs in the background via a system tray icon.

Most (Wintel PC) keyboards have a context menu button next to or close to the space bar. It will have a graphic on it that looks like this one. It’s called the menu button, context button, or application button, depending on who you ask. Essentially, it’s a right click. When I make a typo, I just hit backspace or left arrow and then the context key. The pop-up context menu will appear with the spelling options up top. The down arrow key selects the one you want, the enter key selects. If you don’t get the right suggestions, the escape key cancels the pop-up. It takes using it a few times to get used to the action and make it a habit, but it’s well worth it once you start using it a bunch.