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Issue 194 January 2009
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Transform your desktop and discover… Interface tweaks that’ll save you time Where to find and use system sounds How to give icons a consistent theme
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With Joe Cassels’ help you can stamp your mark on Windows and gain a more intuitive operating system
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omputers are often accused of uniformity and bringing conformity to our working lives. However, it’s easy to bring some individuality to your desktop and make your PC reflect your imagination. You can start with simple stuff, like changing the desktop image and using different themes. By putting your own image on the desktop and selecting a complementary colour scheme, you can greatly improve the look and feel of your PC. If you feel a little more adventurous, you can even create your own desktop theme. Customisation doesn’t stop with the desktop though. You’ll probably find that the icons on your desktop and Start Menu don’t fit in with the new look. No problem – you can swap these for icons that you design yourself. This is easier than
it sounds. You could simply come up with some drawings in Paint, but it’s also possible to convert photographs and other images into icons if you wish. We’ll show how easy that can be with the right software. If changing individual icons seems like a bit of a chore then we’ll show you some software that swaps complete icon sets for you.
Alter the look and feel Going to the next level we demonstrate some customisation programs that can completely make over the look and feel of the Windows. These make customising a matter of selecting the look you want, but you do have to pay for the privilege. However, there’s a lot you can achieve without spending a penny, and we’ll show how to change the sound scheme and customise a variety of popular programs. Finally, we’ll show some further areas of Windows that you can personalise, such as your account picture or the mouse pointer.
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Quick and easy changes It doesn’t take much to stamp your mark on Windows… A change of wallpaper can transform any room and this is also true of your PC. The concept of wallpaper on a desktop is a bit of an odd one, but the term has been in common usage for some time. The background image is probably the first thing anyone will take in about your computer, unless you’ve got a flashy modified case, so it’s worth giving it a little thought. Microsoft has provided a number of stunning images for your background, many of which are rarely used; simply choosing one of these will make your PC stand out from the crowd. You can look at all the options available in the Appearance and Personalization screen, which you can get to in Control Panel. However, try right-clicking anywhere on your desktop and choosing Personalization for a nifty shortcut to the dialog.
Wallpaper preview Choose Desktop Background. Here you can select each
of the thumbnail images to see it previewed on your desktop. Once you’ve settled on the picture that you want, click OK to set it as your background. You may feel that choosing from a list of ready-made backgrounds doesn’t
Match the colour of your windows to the predominant colour in your desktop image to create a pleasing theme
fit in with your idea of customisation. If this is the case, why not substitute one of your own photos or pieces of artwork? Click the button marked Browse and hunt for
STEP-BY-STEP Change desktop themes
Quick change Right-click the desktop and choose Personalize. Click Theme and select a theme from the drop-down list to quickly apply an existing or previously saved theme.
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Modify a theme Back in Personalization, choose Window Colour and Appearance to change the Aero colour scheme or select a classic scheme and then modify its fonts and colours.
Advanced changes Click Advanced to change colours and fonts for each item in the scheme. Select the item you want to modify and then specify the colour or font required. Click OK twice to confirm your changes.
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AERO TWEAKS Aero’s glass looks lovely, but you can still change its tint and opacity 1
Choose a colour
There are eight preset colours to choose from. Select one to immediately see it reflected in the window you’re using.
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Enable transparency
Glass is only really impressive if you can see through it. Check this box to make your window edges transparent.
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Use this slider to adjust the strength and vibrancy of the colour that you’ve selected for the Aero glass.
Colour mixer
Click the arrow button to reveal these sliders that enable you to make changes to the selected colour. Adjust the hue here.
Classic look
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Colour intensity
Saturation and brightness
Click this link to move to the Classic Appearance dialog. This will disable Aero, but it opens up a variety of other display options.
These two sliders provide you with the chance to change the depth and brightness of the colour.
the image that you want to use. Once you’ve found it, click Open and this is added to the list of backgrounds. Click OK to add it to the desktop.
Choose positioning Not all images are desktop shaped. You can still use them for the background, but you need to decide how to fill the desktop. Use the options marked “How should the picture be positioned?” to select whether to repeat the image all over the desktop, to surround it by a coloured border, or to stretch the image to fit the desktop. Some pictures stretch well, while others look decidedly
Wallpaper Tiling images for wallpaper works best with smaller pictures
odd and distorted. It’s worth trying out each option to see which looks best. Tiles normally work well for small pictures and often look very strange if a larger picture is used. You
can select the colour for the border by clicking Change Background colour. Select the colour that you want to use, either from the presets or the full spectrum provided.
This refers to the desktop background image. It’s often used interchangeably with “background” and “desktop”, although it describes the image or pattern.
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Change your icons The icons for programs and Windows features make a huge contribution to your PC’s look Once you’ve applied a new colour scheme and changed the background, the next most noticeable area of customising is your icons. There are a few alternative icons available for Windows items, and often for thirdparty programs as well. To alter a desktop shortcut icon, right-click it and choose Properties. Press the Change Icon button to see the list of available icons for that shortcut. If there aren’t enough icons in this list for you, click Browse. You can create your own icons using Paint to make bitmap images of 48 x 48 pixels wide. For different purposes, you may need to make icons of 32 x 32, 24 x 24 or 16 x 16 pixels. Vista supports icon files up to a resolution of 256 x 256. These can appear pretty big, but they’re really
Screen grab This is a picture that’s taken from your PC’s screen. Pressing [PrintScreen] on the keyboard copies the image to the clipboard, so that it can be pasted into any graphics program.
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designed for the anticipated improvements in monitor resolution.
Take a closer look You’ll need to zoom in so that you can work at one pixel at a time. Go to View > Zoom > Custom and select 800%. If you aren’t artistic then you may find it easier to modify existing icons. The easiest way to do this is to use a screen grab. Close all programs so you can see the desktop with the icon you want on it and press [PrintScreen]. Now open Paint and choose Edit > Paste. The full screen will form the image. Using the rectangular selection tool, drag around the icon you want and click Edit > Copy. Exit Paint to close the current image and then launch it again. Select Edit > Paste and you should have just the icon concerned, which you can then alter however you like. Save your Paint creation, choosing 24-bit bitmap as the file type. Now rename it with the file extension .ICO. Browse to the bitmap image that you saved earlier and right-click it. Choose Rename from the drop-down list. Click at the end of the filename to insert a cursor and type .ico to add this extension. Click anywhere else to complete the operation. You can now use the icon file to substitute for any other icon.
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You can download icon sets from a number of websites, including www.vistaicons.com if you’d rather not design your own
STEP-BY-STEP Create new
Image size Open Paint, choose Image >Attributes and select Pixels as the unit size. Set the Width and Height at 32 each for a medium icon, 48 for a larger icon or 256 for Vista’s largest icons. Click OK.
Folder icons Browse to the folder you’d like to customise. Right-click it and choose Properties. Press the Customise tab. Click Change Icon to customise the picture that represents this folder.
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Generate icons from an existing picture file You can create your own icons by resizing other images If you don’t want the hassle of messing around in Paint to create icons, you could opt for an icon image editor such as IcoFX. Browse to http://icofx.xhost. ro and download and install IcoFX. This is a specialised image editor that enables you to make icons with little difficulty.
Choose File > Import image and browse to a picture that you’d like to turn into an icon. When you open your image, you’re invited to provide its resolution and colour depth. If your picture is bigger than 256 x 256, you’ll need to enter its dimensions here or cancel, resize it in
your usual graphics program and import it again. Choose Icon > Create Icon from image. Now supply the resolution and colour depth of each of the icons that you want to generate from this picture. Click OK to generate these files. You can now edit and save each one individually.
Quickly convert your photos or other existing images into icons of varying sizes with IconFX
desktop icons with the help of Paint
Zoom and Create Choose View > Zoom > Large Size. Draw your icon, referring to your design on squared paper. Select File > Save As, give it a filename and choose 24-bit bitmap as the file type.
Browse for an icon Scroll through the icons and choose one of these if you don’t want to go to the hassle of making one yourself. Alternatively, browse to an icon you’ve previously saved.
Make it .ICO Browse to your image. Right-click it and choose Rename. Keep the filename the same, but add the extension .ICO, which enables Windows to identify it as an icon file.
Apply the icon Browse to your new icon file and click Open. You’ll now see the file on its own in an icon list. Select it and click OK. Press OK again and the folder will now have your icon.
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Third-party customising If you’re serious about making visual tweaks, try a dedicated program If you want to take things a little further, go to www. stardock.com. Here you’ll find a number of customising programs, designed to makeover different aspects of Windows. They cost £14 each, or you can get the full suite called Object Desktop for £34. Time-limited trials are available. WindowBlinds transforms program windows, changing title bars, scroll bars and buttons. IconPackager quickly changes the main system icons, providing many coordinated sets. This is a great way to get an overall look and feel to all your main system icons and you can see how to use it in the walkthrough.
DesktopX Alternatively, there’s DesktopX, which replaces the Windows shell without altering it. All changes occur on top of Windows, making it stable. Install the program and click Load Desktop. This opens the main DesktopX dialog, showing the installed themes and objects. Choose the Desktop Playground theme and double-click it. This demonstrates just how different DesktopX can make your PC. To undo it, right-click over the desktop and choose DesktopX > Unload DesktopX. You can edit this theme or try another. If you want more themes, but don’t have the time to make them yourself then go to www.wincustomize. com. Select the DesktopX library and you’ll gain access to a range of themes created by other customising enthusiasts. You could use
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one of these as a starting point for your own creation. Windows XP users can take advantage of a similar application called Style XP that’s available from www. tgtsoft.com/download. php?show=StyleXP, priced at £14. It comes in Male and Female editions, which differ in the choice of themes available. Choose a theme and click Apply Theme. You can also pick a colour scheme and background image to go with the theme. The sister program, StyleBuilder, enables you to design your own skins. You get the starting point of several styles and schemes, which you can then alter. The main control window makes it possible to select items from the Windows scheme to change. You can alter log-on screen styles as well as making over the different windows. As an example, select the Panther theme and choose Visual Styles. Move to the Colour Schemes section and choose one you like. When you’re happy, click “Apply style to current theme” to save your changes.
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SIMPLE TWEAKS Alter the 1
Visual styles
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Style details
This tab provides access to each of the skins currently loaded in WindowBlinds. You can further modify each skin once it’s chosen.
Here you can see basic information about this visual style, including its author, full name and any useful notes.
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Xxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxx xxx Add xxxxxx visualxxxxxx styles
Click here to add styles created by other users to increase the number of skins that you have available.
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Filter by category
If you’ve got a lot of styles available then you can use this option to narrow down the displayed results.
Getting more skins You not limited to the few skins that come with WindowBlinds
Skin This term is used to describe the look and feel of an application. Changing the skin transforms the graphical interface but keeps the function of the underlying program the same.
There are plenty of skins available online that have been designed by users of WindowBlinds. They share their work for free on Stardock’s sister site: www.wincustomize.com. You’ll also find icon sets for IconPackager and other customising resources. If you want to install a new visual style, browse to www.wincustomize.com and select WindowBlinds.
Find a skin and download it. Back in WindowBlinds choose Add Skin and browse to the file that you’ve downloaded. You can tweak the skin in WindowBlinds, but if you want to create your own skins for WindowBlinds you’ll need to get SkinStudio from Stardock, which costs £15, or £23 when bundled with WindowBlinds.
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STEP-BY-STEP Edit icons with IconPackager desktop with WindowBlinds
Available packages in IconPackager The initial IconPackager window shows the available packages; you can download and install more from www. wincustomize.com. Select a package and click Preview.
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Skin preview
This window shows the skin as it would make your desktop appear. You won’t transform your look and feel until you apply it.
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Style options
Select one of the styles displayed in this list to see it previewed in the main window. Click “Apply my changes” to use the skin.
Local Flavor This is the Local Flavor Vista package – look through all the included icons. If you’re happy with this package, click the Icon Packages tab and click “Apply Icon Package”.
Icons and cursors There’s a whole host of skins for WindowBlinds available for download at www.wincustomize.com
Click the Icons and Cursors button to see what your main icons look like. Flick through the tabs to check them. You can alter any icon or cursor by highlighting it and clicking Change.
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STEP-BY-STEP Modify the sound scheme from within Windows
Use the free sound editor Audacity (http://audacity. sourceforge.net) to record and tweak your sound files
Apply a new sound scheme
Windows sounds From Personalization, click Sounds to modify the existing sound scheme, save a new one or apply one that you’ve saved. Click the Sounds tab to list sounds played with Windows events.
You’ve altered Windows’ looks – now change the way it sounds So far we’ve concentrated on how to change the way things in Windows appear, but an important part of the way the interface feels comes from the sounds that accompany Windows events. You can record your own, save the recordings as WAV files and replace the existing sounds. There’s an extensive collection of existing sounds in the C:\WINDOWS\Media folder for you to try. Failing that, there are plenty of WAV archives online, which include a range of sound effects from the scary to the comic. Try http:// frogstar.com/wav/index. asp, http://newmail. monsterserve.com or www.geocities.com/ franacropan/Wavarchive. html to name but three. Many of these sites contain sounds recorded from films and TV. Bear in mind that using these sounds may well breach copyright.
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Once you’ve gathered a bunch of sounds, you can edit your sound scheme to swap the default windows sounds with your new ones. It’s a good idea to save your scheme as you create it, particularly if it’s complex and hard to recreate.
Run a device check If you run into problems recording and playing back your sounds, ensure that you’re using the right devices. Select Start > Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Sound > Manage Audio Devices. Ensure that your soundcard is the preferred recording and playback device. You can also run into problems if you have a muted device or incorrect volume settings. Right-click the Volume icon in the System tray and choose Open Volume Mixer. Make sure that the devices you’re using aren’t muted and the volume is correct.
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Change a sound Select a Windows events with a sound icon next to it. Press Play to listen to it. Click Browse and locate one of the sounds you recorded earlier when you’ve found it, click OK.
Your sound scheme Replace as many of Windows’ sounds as you like to personalise your computer. If you don’t like your own sounds, there are plenty of ready-made ones online.
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Customise your programs
STEP-BY-STEP Add a theme to Firefox for a better-looking browser
Give your favourite applications a makeover for an exciting new look Most programs have a pretty uniform look, with a menu bar just below the window title bar, some working panes below this and a status bar at the bottom of the window. This is useful when finding your way around a new application, but it’s not so helpful if you’re after a personalised look for your PC. Thankfully some programs have customising power built in that you can take full advantage of. For example, you can change the look and feel of Windows Media Player by changing its skin. In Media Player 11, you’ll first have to display the menu bar. Click the Layout button and then check “Show Classic Menus” to do so. Now choose View > Skin Chooser. You can choose a skin from the list provided and click Apply Skin. To return Media Player to its former look, press the Return to Full Mode button within the skin. Your
choice is pretty limited to start with, but you can add to the list by clicking More Skins and downloading some skins from the Windows Media site. There are plenty available there.
A fresh look to Firefox It’s pretty straightforward to change the theme in Firefox for a fresh look to the browser. See the walkthrough for details. Thunderbird also accepts themes. Choose Tools > Add-ons > Themes > Get Themes to download and install some more. Windows Live Messenger has plenty of scope for customisation, too. From the Tools Menu, select Backgrounds. There are a number of background images and dynamic backgrounds to choose from here. Alternatively, click Browse and choose one of your own images to set as the background.
Find a theme In Firefox, choose Tools > Add-ons > Get Add-ons > Browse all Add-ons. Select Themes and opt to browse for themes in the bottom right of the page.
Download a theme Select a theme you like to examine it more closely. You should see more images and some user ratings. Click Add to Firefox > Install Now. Once it’s downloaded, restart Firefox.
Use the theme Windows Media Player can install a range of skins such as this promotional Batman one
When Firefox restarts, the new theme will be applied. To return to your previous one, choose Tools > Add-ons > Themes and select the theme that you want to switch to.
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STEP-BY-STEP Change the logon screensaver
Modify other areas of Windows to complete your personalisation
Install Logon Screen Saver Change When you’re logged off, Windows replaces the logon screen with a screensaver if your PC’s idle. Download Logon Screen Saver Changer (www.logon-screen-saver.com). Switch the side of the desktop on which the Sidebar appears, or even move it to a different monitor
There are several areas in Windows where a minor tweak can make a big difference to the overall effect. For example, choose Start > Control Panel > User Accounts and Family Safety > Change your account picture. Click Change Picture to confirm. Try to use a square picture where possible so that its proportions look right when applied as your user picture.
Mouse pointers There are several mouse pointers schemes to choose from. Right-click the desktop and choose Personalize > Mouse Pointers. You can modify individual pointers by selecting one in the current scheme and clicking Browse. You can replace this with any static cursor file with the extension .CUR or an animated cursor file with the extension .ANI. If you’ve made changes to the scheme, make sure you save the scheme using a different
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name so that you can easily restore it from the Schemes drop-down list. Mouse pointers are distributed online in sets of .CUR or .ANI files grouped together in zip archives. Download the file, unzip it and then replace the pointers that you want to with the new files. A good place to start looking is http://cursors.funutilities. com. You can also make your own cursor files by creating suitably small bitmap images and saving them with the .CUR extension in the same way as icon .ICO files. You can change where the Sidebar appears and what it displays. Right-click the Sidebar > Properties. To turn it off clear the box marked Start Sidebar when Windows starts. Under Arrangement you can make the Sidebar always on top or put it on the right or left of the desktop. If you have a multiple monitor setup, use the drop-down list to move the Sidebar to the second display. ■
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Interactive services Unzip the program and launch it. Select the Interactive services tab on the toolbar and opt to display the message that’s waiting. Click OK.
Change screensaver You’ll see the Screensaver dialog, like the one in Display Properties. Select the logon screensaver, click OK and opt to Return Now. Next time you log off this screensaver will be used.