“Pitaschio is a freeware which makes it convenient to use Microsoft Windows.”
Imperfect English aside (the programmer is Japanese), that’s a nice description of Pitaschio. It can do a bunch of things to improve XP; I’m using it because it lets me have mouse/keyboard (including the middle mouse button) shortcuts to:
- Make any window always on top
- Roll up/down any window
- Minimize any window to the system tray/notification area
It comes with some strange default settings, so you’ll want to clear most of those out, but (if you choose to set up in such a way) it’s totally uninvasive and just adds some features that Windows should have always had (especially always on top for any window.)
Also! It has mouse and keyboard cleaning tools which disable the respective devices while you’re cleaning them. It’s also got a statistics thing that seems to be keeping statistics on how far your mouse has travelled and percentages on keys and buttons you’ve pressed (apparently I wheel up instead of down 2/3rds of the time). And a Manage Windows thing that lists all currently open windows and lets you modify their position, size, etc. And there’s an extended file rename which lets you go to the previous and next files in Explorer with the arrow keys
Of course, these neat features are merely appetizers for the main course: when you mouse over the Pitaschio icon in the notification area, it tells you the moon’s current age (phase)! Amazing.
I’m really torn between hating this moon’s age calculator and thinking that it’s totally awesome.
The Japanese can come up with some really cute things, y’know?
I don’t think there’s a Hello Kitty version.