XP Tweak Time - 1

Teaching Windows XP to sing your tune.

There is an ancient legend about Windows 95 and Steve Ballmer, head honcho at Microsoft. It is said that before the OS was launched, he decided to beta-check it out on his mum. And it is alleged that she went through the drag-drop-click-shick routine with a hitch. However, when she had had enough and wanted to end the 95 session, Mama Ballmer just couldn't figure out how. So she asked her son. The peeved Steve told her to use the Start button. Quizzed his puzzled mother, "You go to the Start to stop this thing?"

Eleven path breaking, life-altering years and several upgraded avatars later, it's still the same story: We use Start to stop the OS. While we may not be able change that, here are some things in Windows XP which we can. Hope you recall my previous warnings about the consequences of tampering with your OS. And my life insurance policy from your firearms, fisticuffs and flamethowers. Same holds true this time too maibaap! So please backup (and pray) before proceeding.

See what lies beneath
XP like to conceal some system programs and components. To make it disclose everything, using Notepad find and open a text file called "sysoc.inf". You will find it nesting in "inf" folder of the Windows directory. Search for the word 'hide' and delete it. Then via Control Panel, go to Add or Remove Programs. Here, select Add/Remove Windows Components remove whatever Windows component you don't want. CAREFUL!

Dump the Temp load
IE 6 graciously deletes temporary Internet files. But only if you tell it to--and that's tad tedious. Wanna automate? Follow me. Launch IE. Choose Tools and then Internet Options. Next click on the Advanced tab. Scroll down to Security section. Here, check the box next to "Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed". That's it.

Let Zipped files lie
This is for those with older clunky PCs. All Zip files in XP are treated like folders. This can be agonising on slow PCs. You can force XP to ignore Zip files by typing 'regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll' at the command line (Start* Programs * Accessories * Command Prompt). And whenever you wish to reverse the process, just type 'regsvr32 zipfldr.dll' at the command line.

Lock your PC with a double-click
Right click on your desktop and create a new shortcut. In the location field enter 'rundll32.exe user32.dll,LockWorkStation'. Name the short whatever you want. Now whenever you want your comp locked, just double click to activate. Another shortcut: Windows key + L.

Use ClearType
Notebookwalas and myopics like me, heed this. XP can deploy ClearType, Microsoft's special anti-aliasing font display technology to help you see onscreen text more clearly. Right click on your desktop. Choose Properties * Appearance * Effects. Then select ClearType from the lower drop-down menu and enable the selection.

Lots aur gum bhi hai XP kae zamane mein… which we want to fix. So stick around for more XP tweaking and tuning next week.

Gimmicky Giz

Strange artifacts of the USB genre.

Human inventions can often be weird. Take Sir George Sitwell's special egg, for example. I know it's in "fowl" taste to talk about an invention like that in the shadow of the H5N1 genotype Z avian virus (a.k.a. bird flu). But nonetheless... The yolk of the infamous Sitwell egg was made of smoked meat. The white was made of compressed rice. And the shell was synthetic lime. The idea behind it was to provide a nutritious belly-full to travellers en route. Though much splattered across the media, needless to say, this peculiar invention did not hog any salivatory success. Yet, the Sitwell egg pales in comparison to the inventive creations of IT world of today. So this week let's look at a few unusual technological artifacts of the USB genre.


Heated Slippers
Getting cold feet in your Bata hawai chapal? Don these heated slippers, plug the attached cables into your laptop's USB port and start feeling real snug in your lower extremities. Of course, be prepared to lumber around everywhere lugging your laptop and tripping over the tangle of wires trailing you each time you open the door for someone. And going to the loo? Methinks, that's too loony an idea...
www.thanko.jp/usbslippers_dual/index.html


Flowerpot Speaker
No pansy here dude. But you'd have to be a mite potty to have these kinda external speakers rigged up with your PC. And definitely very florid. This fake flowerpot doubles as a set of integrated stereo speakers and 2W amplifier. A USB connection drives the amplifier. What say you to spending $28 on this synthetic flower power that measures 11.5 X 11.5 x 120mm?
www.thanko.jp/flower_speaker.html


Air Darts
Stagnating cubicle warriors, if you find killing flies too messy a pursuit for your idle hours, this gizmo is for you. It's a USB device that shoots compressed-air darts with the help of a mouse. You may learn the finer intricacies of short-range flight trajectories and ballistics in the bargain as well. No precision coordinates required. Missile ready to deployment? Take aim. Fire!
www.marksandspencer.com


Self Destruction Button
Yikes! Unfortunately, the product page of this harakiri-sound-alike device is in Japanese. So we can't glean much about it, but it's not as gruesome as it appears. It doesn't splatter the walls with blood plasma. No gory glory. It only stifles (i.e. blocks) access to unwanted apps on your PC. Oddly contrived device for such a simple op. Odder name.
http://livedoorshop.depart.livedoor.com/item_detail?id=346274


Thumb Drive
It can't get worse. Imagine a thumb--yes, a very realistic human thumb lookalike--sticking out of the side of your laptop. People will think you're wacko for raiding a prosthetics lab for souvenirs. Well, this thumb happens to be $128 MB flash thumb drive and costs $30.
www.ebay.com

Born Free

Some brilliant business tools that come gratis.


Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil mein hai
Dekhna hai zor kitna bazu-e-qatil mein ha…
I must be really dull. It has taken me 42 winters of living in free India and a movie called Rang De Basanti to get a grip on the meaning of these words by Ramprasad Bismil. Freedom, the most valuable thing in my life may have come to me free, but unfortunately the best software doesn't. So my eternal quest of unearthing outstanding free programs that lurk across the Internet continues. Here are some of finest business tools I have discovered.


OpenOffice
An application suite comprising a word processor, database manager, spreadsheet proggie, presentation manager, mathematical equation solver, drawing programme and mail merge. It has the jigar and the dum to taken on the might of Big Daddy MS Office. It’s available in 27 languages (including Hindi, Tamil and Bengali). It’s as stable as a 10-legged table. And it’s legal. Despite being free. Because it’s an open-source product and project. And ya, Google is also backing its development too. By default OpenOffice saves files in the open-standard OASIS OpenDocument XML format (for compatibility with other apps), but you can open and save documents in MS Office, PDF, HTML etc. formats as well. Unlike Office, this suite was not assembled by knitting separate programmes together. It was designed as a complete package from ground up. Hence, it provides neater integration.
Requires: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP, Java Runtime Environment 1.4
File size: 76.34MB
www.openoffice.org

AceMoney Lite
AceMoney Lite is free account-management app meant for home and small-business finances. It let’s you track your spending habits, create and manage budgets, track stocks and investments, use online banking, track bill payments, do your financial math in multiple currencies, download the latest exchange rates from the Internet, plan loans and debts and do some e-business as well. It has 100 pre-defined transaction categories, supports password protection, 150 currencies, and more than 20 languages. AceMoney Lite can also generate custom reports, bar graphs and pie charts, and has a simple loan calculator.
Requirements: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP
File size: 1.38MB
www.mechcad.net/products/acemoney/index_lite.shtml


Ultra Hal Text-to-Speech Reader
Reading long documents onscreen is a difficult task. You always tend to skip words/lines/paras. Ever tried using a text-to-speech tool to read the text aloud for you? It can be amazingly fast and quite faultless (if you can concentrate on listening). And Zabaware’s Ultra Hal is reliable tool for this task. Apart from TXT and RTF files, you can use it for reading out e-books, Clipboard content, Windows dialogs and instant messages. It can be a wonderful aid for the visually impaired. Ultra Hal verbalises in 20 voices. You can tweak pronunciation to a degree and tune reading speed as well as voice pitch. The app utilises Microsoft text-to-speech engines. It let’s you save the output as a WAV file. MP3 mangta? You’ll need separate converter for that. Haan, don’t try your maatra bhasha in it (unless you want to have fun with gora log kae accents!)
Requires: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server
File size: 11.52MB
www.zabaware.com/download.asp

Like most of us, all this stuff was born free. So enjoy it. Yet, pause awhile to articulate with me this rendition of Sarfaroshi from Rang De Basanti:
Hai liye hathiyaar dushman taak mein baitha udhar,
Aur hum taiyyaar hain seena liye apna idhar.
Khoon se khelenge Holi agar vatan muskhil mein hai,
Sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamaare dil mein hai...