Transform Windows XP / Vista into Windows 7 =)

Have you ever wanted to have Windows 7 features for Windows XP / Vista?

Features such as: aero snap, aero peek, aero shake, Windows 7 boot screen, Windows 7 login screen, Windows 7 sounds, Windows 7 cursors, Windows 7 taskbar, Windows 7 wallpaper, Windows 7 sidebar, Windows 7 progress dialogue box, Windows 7 shutdown / log off / restart dialogue box, Windows 7 about windows box, Windows 7 system properties dialogue box, Windows 7 volume control window PLUS loads more mods!

Well here is a post which can help you do just that !

You can pick what features you have. I personally only use a few.

To learn how, follow this XP tutorial / Vista tutorial by VG. I take no personal credit for this tutorial and did not see the need to do my own as the latter is just that good =)


IMPORTANT NOTES:

You can install Tuneup Utilities to easily apply the login and boot screens; then once applied you can uninstall Tuneup Utilities and the screens will stay ... however best test that they work / you want to keep them before uninstalling Tuneup Utilities ;)


ISSUES / FIXES:

1) QT Addressbar does not work well with the Windows 7 themes due to activation of the x-mouse features ... read below to understand and even fix this issue.

There is a bug in which the QT Addressbar does not work correctly when installed along side the Theme(s) ... i.e. When you select the first option and then scroll over the drop down menu for the directories, the mouse pointer 'focuses' the window and brings it to the front (i.e. activating it).

TO FIX this install Microsoft PowerTool Tweak UI and under the mouse settings; X-Mouse ... untick 'Activate follows mouse (X-Mouse). Click 'Apply' and the setting should be instant; if not simply restart =)

This then allows you to have the proper functionality of the QT Addressbar.

You can always use the ALT + TAB feature to change focus to a window of choice =)

Virgin customers: How can you still access blocked sites such as thepiratebay (TBP)?

Disclaimer: I do not endorse the use of the web site thepiratebay due to it's nature of allowing illegal content to be shared across the internet. Therefore the information I provide you in today's post is of "use at your own risk and suffer the consequences if you get caught".

Can't access thepiratebay or other web site?

Now the easy way around the annoying page you get from Virgin Media, is to go to the web site through what is known as a 'PROXY SERVER'.

"Sorry, the web page you have requested is not available through Virgin Media.

Virgin Media has received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement.

If you are a Virgin Media home broadband customer, for more information on why certain web pages are blocked, please click here.

If you are a Virgin Media Business customer, or are trying to view this page through your company's internet connection, please click here."

Q) What is a proxy server?

a) "A server that sits between a client application, such as a Web browser, and a real server. It intercepts all requests to the real server to see if it can fulfil the requests itself. If not, it forwards the request to the real server, Source: Webopedia.com".


How to access the blocked content:

Step 1) Locate a Proxy Server

One freeware proxy I know of in the UK is http://www.daveproxy.co.uk, however there are many out there which can be accessed by doing a simply Google search.


Step 2) Enter the URL you wish to go to (and set security settings)

Enter the piratebay URL (or which ever site you are trying to access which is blocked) into the textbox provided on the main page.

Make sure to change the options for security reasons:

1. Untick Allow Cookies
2. Untick Remove Objects (so the entire page loads)
3. Untick Encode Page
4. Tick Remove Scripts

 Step 3) Browse with hearts content ...

Cannot send emails using Thunderbird (with a Yahoo email address) FIX !

Well, if like me you are using Thunderbird and Yahoo mail; you may well be having some issues sending emails out and getting the following two email errors:

1) An error occurred while sending mail. The mail server responded: Transaction failed: Cannot send message due to possible abuse; please visit http://postmaster.yahoo.com/abuse_smtp.html for more information. Please check the message and try again.

Followed by another error message ...

2) Sending of message failed. The message could not be sent because the connection to the SMTP server smtp.mail.yahoo.com was lost in the middle of the transaction. Try again or contact your administrator.

Cause: Unknown ! Something to do with Yahoo mail servers / Thunderbird itself? There is a lot of controversy around on the web about who is to actually blame for this.

Temporary fixes: until this is solved by either Thunderbird or Yahoo:

Go with which ever solution you feel most comfortable with.


1) The first change you can do is within Thunderbird go to Preferences > Advanced > General > and click on 'Config Editor'.

2) Find/Search for the setting "msgcompose.background_color". Set the value by double clicking on the value box from #FFFFF (white) ... to ... #FFFFFE (tiny bit darker than white).

Now I found that this worked; however if you still find yourself having problems there is one more setting you can change to send the mail successfully:

3) You can send the composed email as a Rich Text (HTML only) or a Plain Text only email. During the composition of a message (or forwarding of a message), select the 'Options > Format ... ' and then select either Plain or Rich Text. Try sending as HTML first to see if it sends. If not then you will need to send it as a plain text only email.

NOTE: If you are finding you have to send all your emails as 'Plain Text Only'; you can set Thunderbird up to send all emails (including those that you forward) as plain text.

To set this in Thunderbird open 'Tools > Options > Composition > General > Send Options > Set the drop down menu to 'Convert the message to plain text'. Click 'OK' on both windows and then restart Thunderbird to make sure the changes take effect straight away.

Any problems please comment. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Also ... a lot of people I found whilst researching this switched to a GMAIL account.

Resources used:

Yahoo Answers

and ...

MozillaZine Forums

How to remove (hide) system reserved drive in my computer ...

Few days ago I was helping out a friend install Windows 7. He had the system reserve partition that Windows 7 creates appear in his 'My Computer'. He asked me how to remove it (get rid of it). I said to him it wasn't a good idea to get rid of it as it was there to help boot up Windows 7 just in case of failure. I decided to research it and it turned out you can simply hide it. To hide the system reserve drive from appearing in 'My Computer' do the following:

1) Open Control Panel

2) Open Administrative Tools found in the System and Security Category

3) Open Computer Management

4) Click on Disk Management

5) Right click on the system reserve disk drive and select 'Change Drive letter and Paths ...'

6) Select the drive letter and click on remove

7) Click OK

8) Check that it has been 'hidden' (removed) from My Computer

9) Recommend you do a restart and save a restore point

Optomise your wireless network today ! (Channel Optimsation + other useful tips)

Recently switched ISP's and found that the new Virgin Super Hub (though really not that super if you ask me) didn't have such a high speed as expected with the wireless network connection. I researched into optimisation of wireless networks and came across a useful way to make the best out of the routers settings.

Each Wireless network runs on certain radio frequency channels; just like radio stations. In the UK the usual channels for a wireless network are 1, 6 and 11. Just like radio stations, one channel on a wireless network maybe clearer than another.

So how do you know which channel to select in order to get the best out of your wireless network?

1) Well, the first thing to do is to research existing networks in range to establish which channels are more free, therefore less likely to have interference through overlapping.

Download and install a tool called 'inSSIDer' to a computer which connects to your wireless network; this can be a MAC, PC or a laptop.

2) Once installed run the program. You will see something load up similar to below:

You will need to wait about a minute to a few minutes before you see networks in range appear.

3) For quicker results you can use the filter options. Non-ticked items will appear in the results. Ticking items will show only those results selected. In the above screen shot the user has only selected to search channels 1 and 6.

4) After about 5-10 minutes you should see a good list of networks. Each network will be on a certain channel. Look through the results and which ever channel has the least (if any at all) results is probably the best channel to be on.

5) Once you know which channel you might benefit more from using, use your routers manual to change (if required) to that specific wireless channel.

Other tips to improve wireless signal:

See Microsoft web page How to improve your wireless network and boost it's signal.

HOWEVER ! I do not agree that you need a repeater. Consider this only if you find your signal strength to be ultra low and you cannot get a greater speed than what your internet connection speed is (i.e. view your network adapters status window - Where is this?).

Caps, Scroll and Num lock status notifier for windows !

Have you ever needed to know whether or not your caps lock, scroll lock or num lock keys are enabled but cannot tell due to having no LED's on your keyboard?

Then you certainly need to check out and possibly install Keyboard Indicator. I have also used Keyboard LED but found that I didn't like that you weren't alerted when your caps / num / scroll lock were turned off so found this one instead which I think is the better option.

This is the best freeware (open source) version I could find. Why? Simply because you have so much customisation; i.e. you can tell it when to appear, what for and for how long to show on your desktop! Let alone set "opacity" (how transparent it is on your desktop).

This is compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7 and modern versions of windows.

To install:

1. Find the latest version (scroll to the bottom of the page link above)
   
   
2. Download the zip file to your [drive letter] \ Program Files (Program Files x86 if on 64 bit Windows)
   
   
3. Unzip the application using 7zip (or other zip application)
   
   
4. This creates a folder called '[drive letter] \ Program Files \ KeyboardIndicator_1.5.0.0' (the version number maybe different to this one as the application may have been updated since this post)
   
   
5. Go into this folder and run the application by clicking on 'KeyboardIndicator.exe'. Set all appropriate settings which should be self explanatory.
   
   I recommend setting the colours as follows: On the 'General' tab set the 'Back' colour as a dark blue and 'Fore' colour as yellow. I set the opacity to 60% as well. On the view tab the interval setting I set as 1500 (1.5 seconds before it disappears). I highly recommend ticking the box 'start with windows' on the general tab.
    
6. OPTIONAL: I also recommend placing a desktop shorcut if you wish to have easy access to the program (right click on this file, select 'Send to ... > Desktop (create shortcut).

Done. Enjoy with hearts content.