SimplyGold

I updated to iTunes 7 this morning to find that the user interface got even better than before. Take a look:

The website's going to be down shortly as I upgrade my blogging software.

There are several perfectly legitimate reasons for why you might want to copy files from your iPod. It could be for backup. Or it could be that you want to be able to listen to music at work even if you forget your iPod at home. Unfortunately, iTunes doesn't let you copy the files from your iPod to your local computer (which is, in my opinion, perfectly ridiculous -- you don't know how many times I ranted at an otherwise good application for exactly this reason).

Enter YamiPod Yamipod is a free iPod manager for Mac OS X or Linux or Windows. It doesn't even require an installation (on Windows, at least); it runs straight out of the box.

For Pluto.

:-(

Life-saving keyboard shortcuts that will make your life better now that you know them. Windows-only. If you're a Mac user, go away. 1. ALT + SPACE + N = Minimizes the currently active window. 2. WINDOWS + M = Minimizes all windows. Or, you can also use WINDOWS + D to minimize/restore all windows. 3. ALT + PRINT SCREEN = Screenshot of the current window. ( <— Woohoo! ) 4. CTRL + TAB = Switches between windows in the current application. 5. CTRL + F6 = Same as above, except that the above sequence acts like an ALT+TAB for the application whereas this one just goes to the next active window. 6. WINDOWS + E = Opens Windows Explorer. 7. WINDOWS + L = Locks the computer. 8. WINDOWS + BREAK = Opens System Properties. 9. WINDOWS + CTRL + F = Opens computer search. 10. WINDOWS + R = Opens run.

There are also the well-known ( one hopes ) CTRL+C (copy), CTRL+V (paste), CTRL + X (CUT), CTRL+W (close active window), ALT+F4(close active application) that I couldn't possibly live without.

Read more at Keyboard Shortcuts for Windows

From Deviantart.

1. Throb by pixelcatalyst

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2. Falling Rains 2 by preppy

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3. Liquid Flower WP by gavinwm

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4. Dreamcatcher by viperv6

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5. Nemesis Ovaela by syragon

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6. Dysphoria by zilla774

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7. Ghostic Widowmaker by zygrael

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8. Sylon by viperv6

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9. Sweet Sugar by sypheck

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10. Transfer Section 47 by niteangel

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Bonus: convergingDivides by riftfusion

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Bonus 2: Parallel Dimensions by jedeye459

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Wordpress Templated is, as you might have guessed from the screenshot, a little utility written to make your life better by making theme-creation easier.

For example, if you are anything like me, you can never remember the doctype specification for — wait for it — any doctype. Well, now you don't have to: simply type in "{Doctype type="Xhtml 1.0 Strict"}", click a button, and sit back and watch as you get the doctype url back. On second thought, don't sit back, because you'll surely get frustrated at having to come right back to an upright position. ;-)

Go play with Wordpress Templated

Let me know what you think

I'm working on a side project that makes creating Wordpress themes easier and therefore makes me happier. It's almost ready, but while I procrastinate on putting the finishing touches on the application, let's talk about seeing your command prompt in a completely different light font. Lucida Console is an okay font, but the thing is there are better fonts out there. Turns out that it's really easy to change the default font of the command prompt; though you might get a bad case of jitters at touching the registry. ;-)

1. Open up the registery

Go to Start > Run and type in regedit. This opens up the registery editor. Before doing any changes, we'll be sane and backup our registery. Go to File > Export and give your registery backup an appropriate name. Hopefully, we won't have to use it.

2. Navigate to the Appropriate Entry

Once you're done backuping the registery, navigate to:

HKLM
Software
Microsoft
WindowsNT
CurrentVersion
Console
TrueTypeFont

Where HKLM = "HKEYLOCALMACHINE."

3. Create a new REG_SZ Key

Right-click on the right pane and select New > String Value. Give the new key the name: "00" (or "000" if you already have a "00," and so on...). Microsoft says:

The name needs to be incrimented with "0" for each additional font.

4. Enter the font name

Right-click on your newly-created key and select "Modify". Type in the name of the font you want in the "Value data" box. So for example, if you want the Consolas font, type in "Consolas" (without the quotation marks, of course).

Read the aforementioned Microsoft article on what criteria your fonts should satisfy.

Restart your computer.

5. Set Your Font as the Default Font

Hopefully, you were able to boot up without a problem. Go to the command prompt. Right-click on the title bar and select "Defaults". Go to the "Font" tab. Select your new font in the "Font" section and set the size appropriately. :D

Extra: Set Font For the Current Window Only

Right-click on the title bar and select "Properties" instead of "Defaults". Set the font to whatever and click OK. You'll be asked whether you want to set it for the current window only or save it for all future windows with the same title.

Whenever I do a squeaky-clean install of Windows XP (which seems to be at least once a month grr), there are always applications/additions/extensions/what have you that I add right away. I was recently contemplating yet another reinstall and, in making the list, thought it might be a good idea to put them down here so I don't have to go chasing after these links when I need them in case people don't know about (some of) them.

10. Alt-Tab Replacement

A Power-Toy from Microsoft, it shows you a thumbnail preview of the running applications when you press ALT+TAB (normally, you just get a small icon). This is especially useful if you're one of those people who have twenty applications running at the same time. ;-)

9. ColorPic

Probably useful only for Graphics Designers and Web Designers. It allows you to pick colors from anywhere on the screen. It gives you the color values in RGB, HSV, and hexadecimal (used for web); it even tells you what web-safe color is nearest to the color that you picked (all though I typically don't use this option all that much). Here's a link.

8. iTunes

I doubt I'm going to have to do any explaining, so I won't. ;-)

7. FileZilla or SmartFTP

FTP Clients. I used both of them, and both are good, fast, and realiable, but I have a slight preference for FileZilla over Smart FTP Client. Also, FileZilla is free whereas Smart FTP Client is a shareware. Which one you use ultimately depends on your personal tastes. Link to FileZilla. Link to Smart FTP Client.

6. ClamWin and WindowsDefender

Both are free virus-scanner for Windows; the latter is from Microsoft and still in beta. Link to ClamWin. Link to Windows Defender. While you're at it, grab Spybot – Search & Destroy too.

5. Cropper

Screenshot utility. Before Cropper, making a screenshot meant going through the tedious task of hitting Print Screen (which grabs the whole screen), and cropping it in Photoshop (which doesn't exactly have the fastest startup time). Trust me, Cropper is way better.

4. Firefox or Flock (or both)

There isn't much to say about Firefox other than it rocks (most of the time). However, I've grown very fond of Flock, despite the fact that I rarely ever use its features (built-in photo management and blog-posting among others). It definitely has a better default UI/theme than Firefox.

3. Process Explorer

This is possibly (probably?) of interest only to more technically-inclined people, but all the same, Process Explorer from Sysinternals is an indespensible tool when it comes to digging up information about all the processes running on your computer, and oh so much better than Windows Task Manager.

2. WindowsBlinds or StyleXP

The default themes you get with Windows are ugly. (Fortunately, Microsoft seems to be going in the right direction with Vista.) WindowsBlinds and StyleXP allow you to install themes and turn your atrocious environment into something you just might like looking at every morning.

(StudioTwentyEight's Tiger 2 Visual Style is quite excellent for all Mac-look enthusiasts out there.)

1. ClearType Tuner

Power-Toy from Microsoft. I found this little gem six months ago, installed it, turned it on, and never looked back.