Create Windows apps in 30 seconds

It's been many years since I read the Sams Teach yourself C++ in 24 hours book by by Jesse Liberty and Rogers Cadenhead, and those 24 hours used to seem like an ethernity!

Today's hack is not about writing awesome code in 30 seconds but rather about simplifying your life working on Windows PC with convenient utilities. During my leave my team at work migrated from Google Talk to Slack for instant messaging and group discussions. Slack is awesome and has a multitude of fans, yet they ignored writing a Windows 10 application (but developed old school desktop application, don't ask me why).

Alright, are you ready? All you need is Windows operating system and Chrome browser. Now please launch Chrome. Click on the Hamburger menu (3 dots) select "More tools" and "Add to desktop":

Chrome will ask you for a confirmation, be sure to select the option "Open as window":

All Done. Now I have added "apps" for Slack, Google News and Google Finance. You can also select to add these to your Taskbar and Windows menu.

Each of these apps run in their separate windows and create a separate process in Task Manager. Now I will have Slack app on my Desktop every time I boot the computer and not forget to launch it.

You can use the same tactics for your everyday tools, such as email, news, weather. They will be haunting your from your desktop so you won't forget to launch them. And if you really want to have them running by the time you log in create a job from your Task Scheduler.