We all know how much I rave about Launchbar. Well, there is a Windows equivalent, called AppRocket. Well, a sort of equivalent. It has a similar idea of learning and remembering shortcuts that run commands. But, it currently has some shortcomings.

• It requires the Dot Net Framework to be installed.
• It is useful for launching apps. However it is not that great at finding running instances of existing apps. So for example, if you launch FireBird by pressing alt-space and then keying in Fire, Firebird will launch. That's dandy. However, switch to another app and then try getting back to Firebird using the same method. You end up with another instance of Firebird. Bah!
  
  Generally speaking Windows Apps don't seem to return you to the currently running app if you launch it again. Exceptions to this are Photoshop and VSlick (which has the +new command line switch if you want to launch a new instance).
• It does not show a list of running apps as you can do in Launchbar.

However, it is still only Public Beta Two. So it could still be early days.