The appearance of the default Windows XP theme still looks modern for an operating system that is almost 7 years old. After several years of the same theme, it is time to freshen up the system, and make it look new again. Working through the various other themes that come with Windows, it does not take long to discover that you will need to look elsewhere for more modern looking themes.

XPise is a nice addition to any Windows XP install. It’s main features include:

• Patches for more than 150 system files without user interaction.
• Updates tonnes of old resources still existing in Windows XP, which have come from the Windows 95/98/2000 days.
• Gives Windows XP a fresh new look, with new animations, icons and images.
• Installs some cool extras, such as a boot screen, logon screen, screensaver and more.

After looking around my system, once I had installed XPise, I was amazed to see how many things had been changed. All the changes seemed to be for the better in the time I had it up and running. Everything was recognisable, but with a modern look and feel.

XPise also comes with TaskSwitchXP Pro 2.0, which is an alt-tab task switcher replacement. This is a great leap forward from the default alt-tab task switcher. As well as seeing the title of all the programs you have open, each program shows a large screen shot, making it easy to know what is what.

Upon install, XPise pops up a prompt offering to make you a system restore point. It is good that this is offered. I have tried many programs that do this kind of theme changing, only to find my system in a bit of an aesthetic mess after uninstalling it.

If you want even more theme choices, get your hands on XP All-In-One Styler. I had no success changing my login screen using this, but the themes that come with it are something else. You can use a combination of the various components to make your own personalised theme.

There are so many ways to change the appearance of XP. It is just one way to make the workday a little more interesting.

When a computer starts up and boots into Windows, there are a bundle of other programs that load up with it. Some of them are needed, but others are unnecessary and do little more than slow down a computer.

When I am told that a computer is running slow, the first thing I do is look in the locations that call these programs to load, and I cull the programs that are not necessary. There are numerous locations (registry, startup folders and win.ini) where these programs are called from, so the process can take quite a while.

Startup Manager is a free utility that shows you each of these locations in a single, easy to use interface. Just check out the screenshot of it. This is certainly a no nonsense program.

Startup Manager shows you what is going to be loaded at startup. All you need to do is untick the items that you no longer want to be part of your daily life.

The startup programs should probably be checked every 6 or so months to keep your computer running lean. The list can expand very quickly, often without the users knowledge. Using this utility can save a lot of time. It is one of those useful programs to keep on a USB disk, so that you can load it up quickly in the case a friend is in need.

Get your copy of Startup Manager for free from StartupManager.org.

For the last 10 years I have been using Winamp as my default music player. It is not as light weight as it once was, but it is still holds its place as being one of the best music players available. Not only is it intuitive, its plugin support and visualisations are unparallelled.

I needed to make some playlists for an upcoming party. I was using music from many different locations. I would eventually need to copy the files in the playlist to a single folder on a different computer, so they could be easily transported. It would have been a huge hassle to copy files individually from their current locations to the one location. I figured there was bound to be a plugin that would let me automate this process, so I proceeded to make the playlists.

It turns out that copying all the files from a playlist into a single folder is not as easy as I initially thought. Certain forums recommend using the Disk Writer plugin that comes standard with Winamp. The problem with this is that the files get converted to wav, and then with the right codecs, they get converted back to MP3. This is very time consuming and the quality of the track is likely to be reduced.

I eventually came across a plugin that does the job wonderfully. SendTo lets you choose a folder that the files will be copied to, and then proceeds copying the files no matter where they were originally located. This includes network drives. The copying process is as quick as a normal file transfer.

The final result is a folder with all the MP3 files that were in the selected playlist. It is now easy to transfer this folder to another computer.

There is nothing flashy about this plugin. It was designed specifically to do this task, and this task only. Saying that, it does it well. Get a copy of SendTo plugin for free from Winamp.com.

If you work in a large company, and you are tired of waiting for IT support, this article is for you.

I thought it would be worthwhile to make a very simple guide which you can use to do some of your own fault finding. Why not see if the problem is something you can fix yourself quickly.

This may save you a call to the help desk, or at the very least, assist the help desk staff to support you in a more efficient way.

This guide is aimed at people who turn on their computer in the morning and expect everything to work as it did the day before, and every other day before that. If the computer is not working as it normally does, this guide will hopefully get you up and running. I have tried to make this guide as non technical as possible.

Topics covered in this article include:

• Unable to log in
• Unable to access the Internet and Email
• Unable to print
• Mouse and/or keyboard not working
• Turning on your computer to find a blank screen
• Calling the Help desk

Each of the above topics will only take a minute or two to check. This is surely much quicker than spending 5 minutes to the help desk, and even longer if you need to wait for a technician to come out.

Read the rest of this entry »

Most spy-ware, trojans, viruses or spam ridden software will place entries into your registry, without your knowledge. Once the entry has been made, the program can run once the computer is restarted. If software is discovered after this, it is too late because the damage has already been done. A timely and difficult clean up job is required to restore your computer to full working order… if you are lucky.

Reg-runner is a program that runs in the task tray, that will help you protect your computer from these nasties, by popping up a small alert when a change is made to the registry, or when a program or process has started or ended. The majority of these alerts will be for programs you intended to install or run, but eventually the time will come when you are alerted to a program that is not wanted. 

Reg-runner has a number of tabs, showing the programs that are loaded at startup, running processes and registry changes. Each of these entries can be looked at more deeply. Right clicking on any of the startup items or processes will bring up a context menu. From this menu, Reg-runner can shoot you off to Google or Processlibrary.com for more information. Using these resources, you can find out if any program is malicious, or more simply, what any of your programs or processes do.

This program is small, weighing in just under 400k. For those who don’t like to use virus scanners or anti spy-ware programs because they slow down your computer, this would be a very sensible addition to the task tray.

Reg-runner is available for free from SourceForge. There is a standard version, and a black edition for those who like to live on the dark-side.