A new piece of software has arrived to make your computing life that little bit easier. It helps you to load those essential programs, head to your favourite websites and start an instant messaging conversation instantly. The program in question is called Zum and it is set to thrive on the fact that it is very simple to use and best of all, completely free.
Once you have installed Zum, which is a straightforward process, you will be impressed with how clean and unmuddled its interface is, even if you may be surprised at how it does not really attempt to copy or emulate other programs. All the tools you require are integrated into a single bar, which you can customise with the shortcuts that you want to use most regularly. These shortcuts can be divided up into a number of sensible categories, including Bookmarks, Communication, Games, Office and many more. This will let you put your websites in one section, your documents in another and your media tools in yet another, so that you always know where to look for the programs and files which you need from day to day. This will help you reduce the amount of clutter on your desktop and will also cut down on the time it takes to find and load the assets you need.
Zum has a simple set of options which most beginners will be able to grasp, but it is not overly limited, allowing more advanced users to point shortcuts directly to executable files, rather than dedicated programs. Each shortcut is listed alphabetically within its specific category. It would have been nice to have seen an option to arrange the shortcuts in a different manner, but for the time being, this arrangement is logical enough to only marginally detract from the program's performance.
When adding a new program to Zum, it will allow you to automatically find those services which have been installed to the Program Files folder on your PC. This might make it a little more difficult to find apps which do not natively install themselves to this directory, if you are not sure of your skills.
The look of Zum can be modified with different skins for different apps and the initial download comes with plenty of different options, many of which are attractive. This is, ultimately, an aesthetic choice that does not affect the operation of the software, but people who like to add a personal touch to their PCs, will definitely see this as a positive. You can create your own skins from images in common file formats such as jpeg and BMP and there is a preview option, which lets you get an idea of what a skin will look like before you apply it to Zum.
Zum sits unobtrusively wherever you wish on your desktop and when it is not in use its opacity will be dropped, so that it blends in almost seamlessly, which is great if you like to keep things neat and tidy.
The addition of hotkey controls for Zum's shortcut menus would have been a welcome addition and it is not quite the perfect shortcut app, but it is easy on the eye, customisable and, ultimately, a useful bit of kit.