Spiderman’s Web

Nah, actually we’re just gonna show you how to speed up Windows Explorer. On a PC, especially in Vista, you might notice a slight HUGE lag when you open up Windows Explorer. You know it’s not your computer since you put in a bunch of memory, upgraded the hard drive, put in a new graphics card, etc. But Explorer is still freakin’ slow! Here are a couple of tricks to help ya out:

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The only thing more annoying than having to march with a huge base drum for two weeks straight has to be lookin’ at those user folders (Music, Videos, Documents, etc) when they are missing their icons. You know, they’re replaced with an ugly, regular folder icon (eww). When you look at all of your user folders, it looks pretty ugly with only one icon being beige while the rest have cool green folders with pictures in ‘em. Chances are, you probably erased the “desktop.ini” file in the folder (it’s hidden). You probably didn’t do it yourself, but I bet you have a program that did.  I’ve seen many ways which highlight different ways to fix this problem. I find this way the easiest. Here’s how it’s done:

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Originally made for IP Administrators to scare their “inferior” co-workers (or students), this little trick is great for making your Windows PC just a little bit more personal. You can create a custom message which will display right before you login. Lifehacker had an easier way to edit the “Local Group Policy”, but it really only applies to Windows XP Pro, Windows Vista Enterprise/Business, and Windows Server since this little tweak is aimed at companies. Though it requires some registry tweaking, we’re going to edit some pretty harmless strings and this will work on most, if not all, Windows machines! So here it goes:

1. Click Start > Run > Type in “REGEDIT” (no quotes). In Windows Vista, you can click the Start button (Windows Logo) and type in “REGEDIT” (no quotes) in the Search bar.
2. Once the Registry is open, navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\system
3. Find “legalnoticecaption”, right click it, press Modify.
4. In the “Value Data” field, type in something of your choice. This will be the title of your notification box. Press “OK” when finished.
5. Find “legalnoticetext”, right click it, press Modify.
6. In the “Value Data” field, type in something of your choice. This will be the body of your notification box. Press “OK” when finished.
7. Close out of the Windows Registry and Log Off (or Switch User) and enjoy your new greeting!

Pretty pointless to say nonetheless, but still kinda cool. If you want to add empty lines, you can try this. I wasn’t able to add any probably because I’m using Windows Vista Home Premium, but hey, why not?

The Hookup: Ask the Admin

As the chronicles of my computer continue, I think that I have finally found the problem to my video card. As some of you may know, ever since I got my computer back, the graphic card still fails. Now, it only fails when I am watching something on my computer (like a DVD or Youtube) and then it’ll just crash and give up. Well, as I was going through my BIOS, for some reason it wouldn’t boot up the new Ubuntu CD, I found an interesting little tidbit in their. Under one of the BIOS menus, there was a little section which was called “Video Memory.” Hmm…. that sounds related to my computer issues. I think that I might of had problems because it was set at 64 MB, the lowest setting. I turned it all the way up (which turns out to be Maxdvmt, no clue what that is). I figure that if it’s the highest it could go, then that should do it. The other option, 128 MB (3 in total: 64, 128, and Maxdvmt), could also work I suppose so their is a backup option if needed. So, do you think that this might have solved my problem?

I found this to be very strange when I came across this article because I was thinking about it as I was typing a report for my Biology class. The Ribbon at the top is a great replacement to the “Toolbars” in the previous versions of Microsoft Office, but it takes up a lot of space. As I was saying, all you need to do right-click the ribbon and choose “Minimize the Ribbon”. Pretty easy, right? On a side note, I would like to figure out how to change the color scheme like on the picture. The black looks pretty cool instead of the Microsoft blue. Maybe another day and another post.

The Hookup: The How-To Geek

I don’t remember any specific time when I needed to resize a window, but I do remember wanting to resize them several times! (Wait, what?) Anyway, Resizable Enable allows you to resize any Window on your desktop.That means you can resize a Window on every single program (except fullscreen games and when watching DVDs of course). It is a pretty handy little app (free, on the house) and I hope that it comes in handy. Not a necessary program, but fairly handy from time to time. Once you resize it, the contents in the window will automatically resize the contents in the window when necessary. It runs in your system tray and doesn’t take up that much memory. Although, I don’t think that you really need to run it 24/7 (or however long you keep your computer on). I myself don’t like having a cluttered system tray, so I’ll probably only run it when it is needed.

The Hookup: Resizable Enable

As my quest to create the perfect Mac look-a-like, on both Vista and Ubuntu, continues, I bring you the left-side buttons. A handy little app that will move your buttons without any of the hassle of code editing and the such. The small little App runs on your taskbar and does not change any of your System Registry files (so, experiment all you want). It’s freeware, like all of the Downloads of the Day and is a good but not necessary app for your PC. Oh, by the way, sorry XP users, this can only be used on the x32 and x64 Vista OS. Update: This can be used for Vista x32 and x64 and XP!

The Hookup: leftsider (don’t be scared by the Asian characters, parts of it are in English)

Finally, a fix for the flawed Vista and XP hibernate mode. CNET outlines how to do some easy fixes that can, ultimately, save you some power (or some money!). The one thing that I was disappointed about in Vista was that the hibernate and sleep modes never work. There are two reasons why I am not at all satisfied with Windows hibernate and sleep. First off, if you want to go into hibernate mode, it will turn everything off alright, but good luck getting it back on! Second off, sleep mode is horrible. Since it will only turn off your monitor, your notebook will become an indoor barbecue. Once again, Microsoft has proved that they can perfect everything that a consumer would wouldn’t like to see on there PC.

The Hookup:

CNET.com