By default, Windows Vista doesn’t allow you to install custom color and window decoration themes, unless they’ve been specifically reviewed by Microsoft. The reason is because Windows checks the themes with a cryptographic key, so you have to patch windows to allow custom-created themes to install. With a set of Uxtheme Patches, and a willingness [...]
By now most people have likely already upgraded to Windows Vista Service Pack 1, but one of the smaller feature upgrades might have passed most people by: You can now configure automatic defragmenting for All drives, as well as defragment all of your drives at the same time.
Set Automatic Defrag Options
Launch Disk Defragmenter by typing [...]
One of the few things about Vista that just drives me crazy is the problems with Windows Explorer. I prefer to use “Details” mode for certain folders, but it seems like Vista constantly decides that the folder should show a different set of columns than what I had previously chosen.
The problem is that Vista “Auto-Detects” [...]
How often do you open and save files on your computer? I’m sure that even the most casual users will do it several times throughout the day. Whether it be adding an attachment to an email, uploading a photo to a website, or simply saving a document you’ve been working on… opening and saving files [...]
Safari always had an interesting and convenient way of searching for text: it dims the background and highlights text-matches throughout the page. It’s too bad Firefox couldn’t that. It’s now possible to easily add that functionality to everybody’s favorite open-source browser thanks to a recent mozillaZine post.
The install process is pretty simple if you use [...]
We all know how annoying UAC can get, especially when you’ve just installed Windows Vista and you have a dozen of programs and security apps ready to install. A small program called TweakUAC gets rid of this annoyance by putting UAC into “quiet mode.” What it actually does is without turning off UAC, it doesn’t [...]
For those of us looking to customize the Windows Vista UI experience, there’s nothing more annoying than seeing the default logon screen every time you start up your computer, or when you lock your workstation. Thankfully the nice folks at Stardock have created a free utility to replace the logon screen with any wallpaper you [...]
As anyone who’s reinstalled Windows XP knows, there have been a lot, and I mean a lot, of updates issued for the operating system, and waiting for them to install (/restart/install/restart) can be laborious, to say the least. Luckily, one helpful soul has done the good work of compiling all the patches made to Windows [...]
Have you ever tried to unzip a file to the Program Files directory in Vista? You’ll get all sorts of permission denied errors, and generally be unsuccessful. So how do we open up the zipfile as an administrator? For that matter, how do you open any file as administrator?
There’s a simple registry tweak that will [...]
Wired’s How-To Wiki takes a look at the most common suggestions for speeding up your Mac OS X desktop and picks out a few that really can help scale back memory use—and also highlights the perennial suggestions that don’t do a thing and waste your time.
For example: Cleaning up an icon-laden desktop = small but [...]
Running Linux on video game consoles is old hat. Not only can you cram various Linux distros onto an original Xbox or a Sony PS3, but they can even play Doom. You know, and other video games too.
But the Nintendo Wii has been a bit tougher to crack than hacker-friendly hardware like the PS3, [...]
If you’re like me, you take one or more of your DVD movies, TV shows, podcasts and other content with you on your iPod or iPhone when traveling. Heck, I even take stuff for long car trips across town, or to watch when I’m sitting in the waiting room at the doc’s office.
Most of the [...]
Are you one of the few who boarded the HD-DVD Titanic ship headed to the bottom of ocean to join BetaMax? Fret no longer, friend, simply convert those and pretend like you never invested in the wrong technology!
First, get an HD DVD ripper—DVD Fab HD Decrypter is free—and rip them. Now it gets messy.
EVOdemux will [...]
I’ve always wondered why Windows doesn’t allow you to set an arbitrary size for the filesystem cache. What if you have a slow hard drive in your laptop, but loads of available system memory? Shouldn’t you be able to maximize that memory in order to speed up hard drive access?
I’ve found a slightly documented tweak [...]
PSP developer extraordinaire Dark Alex is at it again, pushing the boundaries of firmware hacking to whole new places. His latest creation, Time Machine, is perhaps his greatest feat yet. This gem of a hack allows one to run previous firmwares on the PSP by use of the Pandora Battery.
Why is this cool? The biggest [...]
 | benplumb on HowTo: Patch Vista For Custom … |
 | Mythologist on Samurai-Sword Maker May Cool N… |
 | MIX on Sony Planning To Launch PS3 Vi… |
 | ian on Custom-Printed Toilet Pap… |
| clayton on Custom-Printed Toilet Pap… |
