4 Steps to Change Startup and Shutdown Sounds on your Computer

You boot up and shut down your computer quite frequently. And every time you have to listen the same built-in sounds files - again and again. The same annoying audio files, which other millions of people listen on the daily basis. Do you know that you can stop that forever. Here is the solution, now you use any of your favorite voice or music or dialogue as your computer shutdown and start up.

The hack to be implemented in 4 simple steps.

Step 1

Choose the track which you want to play at start-up and shutdown jingles. There are following limitations to the chosen file:

* It should be in .WAV format.
* The size of file should not be too big. Try to choose or make the file of no mote than 1 Mb, otherwise your startup process will take a bit longer.

If the file you want to make your start-up or shutdown is not in .WAV format, you can easily convert it using any audio converter, available on the market.

Step 2

Rename the chosen files as “Windows XP Startup.WAV” and “Windows XP Shutdown.WAV” respectively.

Step 3

Go to the directory “C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA” and locate there files with the same names “Windows XP Startup.WAV” and “Windows XP Shutdown.WAV”. Move these files to some other locations for backup purposes, in case you will need to revert back these sounds some time in the future.

Step 4

Move the new files you prepared to the directory, where the Operating system retrieves the sounds from: “C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA”. On next reboot, you will get your favorite sound clips activated.

Hidden Features of Notepad

Notepad is a brain child of Bill Gates of Microsoft

 and is the cornerstone of Windows Architecture.

Developed by the Gate himself,

it took him fifteen years to write a new GUI...

From Uncyclopedia

Notepad is plain simple tool, which can be easily replaced by a wide range of free text utilities. But it has its own advantages:

* It is a commodity - it is installed by default in any computer and any Windows Operating System.
* It is portable, small, fast, and does not use much of computer resources.
* It is so simple, that sometimes it is the only tool you need to open small text files.

To my surprise, even Notepad has its hidden secrets. Today, we’ll discuss two of them.

Making Notes With Notepad

This is real cool for people who use notepad to write down any info on a day to day basis.
* Create a blank text file with .LOG (in caps) as the first line of the file, followed by a carriage return (Enter) and save this file.
* Double-click the file to open it and notice that Notepad appends the current date and time to the end of the file and places the cursor on the line after.
* Type your notes and then save and close the file.
Each time you open the file, Notepad repeats the process, appending the time and date to the end of the file and placing the cursor below it!

Creating Hidden Text Files

This is an interesting trick to hide the files with no third-party software in three easy steps.
* Launch Windows command prompt from Start Menu -> Run -> Type cmd and press Enter.
* Using DOS commands navigate to the desired folder.
* Now type in notepad VisibleFile.txt:HiddenFile.txt and hit Enter, you can change VisibleFile.txt and HiddenFile.txt to names of your choice (notice the sign “:” between both file-names). You will be prompted to Create a New file click Yes as shown below.

Note, that this little "trick" requires NTFS partition. It’s a feature in NTFS that was designed primarily for compatibility with other operating systems, such as Apple’s HFS.

Setting Custom Wallpapers for your Folders

You probably aware that there is quite easy to change the Windows background from the default wallpaper to any other texture images, located inside the system folders of your Operating system, or random image you might like (your kids, for example).

But what happens when you open the folders through Windows Explorer you see the yellow folders and only a white background. Do you know that you can change the folder wallpaper as well? And it could be an individual change, so each of your folders might show up with different backgrounds. This post will present you on how you can set wallpapers for your windows folders backgrounds. It works with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000 and 2003.

1. Pick up the "Image" you like to use, and resize it to 815 x 685 - this is to avoid Tiling of the result.
2. Create a temporary folder for experimenting where you will have to create a new file desktop.ini

3. Open new window in your default Notepad text editor, or any other text editor you are regularly using. Even with extremely small Notepad capabilities, for this task, the software will be sufficient.

4. Paste the following code into it: [note: you should replace your image location in the red] [{BE0981 40-A513-11D0-A3 A4-00C04FD706EC}]
IconArea_Image ="C:’[image-location].jpg"
IconArea_Text= 0x00000000

5. Remove the spaces in the first line, change the image path to your desired picture in second line, and change the text color to choose your liking.

These are the commonly used colors for your text: Black - 0x00000000, Pink - 0x00FF99FF, Purple - 0x00FF99FF, Red - 0x00FF0000, White - 0x00FFFFFF. You might need to find more colors codes in Google.

6. Save this notepad file as desktop.ini, in the new folder you created, with file type property as "All Files". You can change also the file property to hidden, if you prefer it out of your way.

7. Register your ini file by "WinKey + Run" type the following "attrib +s "c:’location of your folder" (or Start-Run), where the exact location of the folder should be present. Press OK to finalize your changes.

8. Now Open the folder and see if the changes appear in the folder.

9. To change the wallpaper for your other folders, copy the desktop.ini file and do the necessary changes.

If this procedure is too complicated, or you do not waste your time on following instructions, you can use the software that will do it for you. The software name is Windowpaper XP.

Developers website: http://www.sodabush.com/windowpaper/index.php

Customize icons on your PC

This article will hardly be able to help improving your computer performance, but it might help you to find an easy way around your data stored and programs installed on your PC. I am talking about possibility to alter look of your icons, automatically assigned by your operating system. This one of the options we rarely think as customizable, but it is.

Making new icons

Let’s first make a new icon, solely with the standard tools, build in the Operating System, in 10 easy steps:

1. Start >> All Programs >> Accessories
2. Click Paint
3. In toolbar select Image
4. Click Attributes
5. Type 32 in both Height and Width and sure that Pixels are selected under Units, and click OK.
6. Now make your design.
7. If you want to add picture, store on your PC, you can do that as well: Edit >> Paste from >> Chose square picture with 32 x 32 pixels.
8. File >> Save As. Choose name and extension ICO from the drop down listing: name.ico.
10. Save your creation.

Most of the readers would definitely choose the more advanced graphic editor available instead of Paint (which I never use myself). The actions list will be the same, but the process of the picture cropping, editing, and resizing will be much easier.

You might even use one of the many available free online icons creation tools. For example, Real World Graphics Online Icon Maker (http://www.rw-designer.com/online_icon_maker.php) or Sherv Icon Maker (http://www.sherv.net/icon-maker/)

Storing new icons

More likely, you stored your icon at the default location, which is My Documents, My Pictures, or Desktop. It might be accidently deleted or misplaced. It is recommended to move it in the save location together with you system files.

1. Go to the system folder System32 and make a new folder with name My Icons, or any other easy recognizable name you like. Note that the folder might be hidden, if the Hide system files option is activated in the Folder Properties. You need uncheck it, if you want to access the folder.

2. Copy your new icon there, and use the folder for any new custom icons you might be willing to create in the future.

Changing icons

This operation is easy and straightforward.

1. Just right click on any program or folder icon, find Properties (usually the last line in the menu) and open the Properties Window.

2. Locate change icon button to execute the option. It might be in different tabs depending on what you are working with. For example, for folders, this button is under Customize tab, and for shortcuts on the desktop - it is under Shortcut tab.

3. Select browse and follow the path to your new icon file. Choose it and set it up for replacement.

10 hot tips for Outlook Users

Let me present to your attention a brief, but useful guide for Microsoft Outlook users. No, it is not boring official tutorial, it is just a collection of the nice tips and tricks on how to improve effectiveness of your Outlook use. Brochure is prepared by e-contact.ca, distributed by Websquash, and embedded in the blog through Scribd free document sharing services.

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