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Windows Vista Aero - The What and How to guide

 July 4, 2008 • Comments Off

What is the Vista Aero Experience? Does your PC have what it takes to support it? How do you enable it?

PCWizKid has a detailed article here on the official blog.  It details through demystifying about using the Aero features in Windows Vista.

Free Up 10 GigaBytes or more of Disk Space in Windows

 June 27, 2008 • Comments Off

There are many areas in Windows Vista and XP that you can delete temporary files and decrease disk usage. Sure you can download free tools that clean up temp and orphan files, but do they really catch everything and guide you in decreasing unnecessary usage of disk space in windows?

If you want do do things right, you do them yourself sometimes.

In this PCWizKid tutorial we go through various ways of saving anywhere from a few hundred MegaBytes to GigaBytes of space. Watch the video tutorial for details.

Notes from video:
Places to Delete temp files from:
C:\windows\system32\dllcache\
C:\windows\Temp\
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Temp\

Areas to save disk space
- Turn off or decrease size of disk usage for system restore
If your not using the Windows System Restore feature, then why have it enabled?
If you are using it, perhaps you want to re-evaluate how much disk space its using up (which can be several GigaBytes) for saving checkpoints. If you only want to have 1 or 2 good saved checkpoints to restore from decrease the allocated space for system restore to a few hundred meg.

- Decrease the disk usage size of the recycle bin
The most common area on a users PC in which Windows allocates a chuck of space for itself is the recycle bin. If you rather have files be deleted instantly and not put in the recycle bin or you want to decrease the space it uses to hold deleted files, a simple adjustment of the properties for it will do the trick as specified in PCWizKid’s video tutorial.

- Empty or Decrease your Web Browsers disk usage for Cached files
Every web browser has a preferences or options area to adjust the temporary internet files and cache usage. In ths video tutorial we use Internet Explorer as an example on how to save space with an adjustment of the temporary internet files space it uses.

- Disable Hibernation in Windows.
If you dont know what Hibernation is , chances are you arent using it. You might want to disable it to save a few GigaBytes of space that function requires as shown in the video tutorial.
For Vista users you can opena command prompt and type powercfg -H off

-Run the Windows Clean Manager
Windows comes already with a built in cleaner that does simple basic tasks to free up disk space.
To access it click start -> Run -> type cleanmgr -> press OK, as shown in the video tutorial.

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Firefox 3 - Have you made the switch yet?

 June 22, 2008 • Comments Off

Its been several months now I have used Firefox 3 Beta on Ubuntu 8.04. On my windows PC I have Firefox 2.x.

With the latest version now being official I installed Firefox 3 in windows along side version 2.x just incase.

In other words, I choose the custom install option when installing Firefox 3 and installed it into a separate directory on my Windows PC so that it would not overwrite version 2.x . That way I could compare side by side the results , differences and speed. My main concern are the security vulnerabilities and the consumption of memory that Firefox has. Other than that everything else about Firefox is superior to other browsers I have tried in the past.

Below is a walkthrough reviewing my first experience with Firefox 3 Final release.

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Windows Vista Hack -Unlock the Administrator Account

 June 17, 2008 • 1 Comment

PCWizKid’s Tech Talk is proud to have been featured in the July 2008 issue of PC World Magazine. This article can be read in the “Here’s How” section (page 115) of the magazine.

Although on Microsoft TechNet you will find a few toys and tweaks, the alternative to increasing performance still remains upto you. Meaning hack your way into config settings and manually set things up the way you want in the registry.Windows Vista Memory

Here are is a sought after hack for Windows Vista many dont know about. Be sure to make a System Restore Checkpoint to backup your settings before doing any of these tweaks.

Unlock the Administrator account

Turning on the Administrator account is straight forward. First, open an elevated command prompt by typing cmd into the Search box on the Start menu, right-clicking the command prompt icon that appears at the top of the Start menu, then selecting Run as administrator.

Then enter this command and press Enter:

Net user administrator /active:yes

From now on, the Administrator account will appear as an option on the Welcome screen, along with any user accounts you may have set up. Use it like any other account. Be aware that it won’t have a password yet, so it’s a good idea to set a password for it.

If you want to disable the account and hide it, enter this command at an elevated command prompt and press Enter:

Net user administrator /active:no

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Windows XP TIP - Rename the Recycle Bin

 June 9, 2008 • Comments Off

Try to rename the recycle bin in windows. You cant!

But wait, a simple registry tweak, and your all set to rename it to what ever you want!

Watch the tutorial which takes you through the steps.

Notes from video:
- Navigate in the registry to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/CLSID/ folder.
- Look for the folder within the brackets that is called {645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E} then expand it.
- Double-click Shellfolder.
- Change the binary value data from default 40 01 00 20 to 70 01 00 20

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Top 2008 Freeware Applications for Windows

 June 4, 2008 • Comments Off


7-day Free Trial of Napster!

PCWizKid’s Tech Talk has put together a complete mix of Freeware Applications and Utilities that are top notch for the price. These are rated high overall and have the most downloads in its class.

Oh ya did I mention its free!

Read full article here on PCWizKid’s Official blog

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Windows Tip - Change the default installation folder

 June 2, 2008 • Comments Off

Whenever you install something in Windows it defaults to C:\Program Files , you can change it in the registry so that it defaults to another drive or folder instead.

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Ubuntu Customization - Changing the Login theme

 June 1, 2008 • Comments Off

Customize easily your Ubuntu Login screen with different cool themes. The website to get the GDM Themes from is:
www.gnome-look.org then click on the GDM Themes link on the left to get a list of themes you can download.

This quick video tutorial shows you how to download and install a new theme

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Windows XP Trick - Create a Hidden Folder

 May 26, 2008 • Comments Off

This tutorial shows you how to create a hidden folder in Windows XP. Do you have have something to hide from view?

Note you need to use the Number Pad on the keyboard and not the regular numbers under the special characters. Also, this has been tested to work on Windows XP only.

Notes from video:
Hold down the ALT key and using the Number Pad (not the numbers where the special characters are) press 0160 for a blank folder name.
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TOP iPhone Apps You Should Have Installed

 May 23, 2008 • Comments Off

http://pcwizkid.blogspot.com/2008/05/top-iphone-apps-you-should-have.htmlIf you havent hacked your iPhone yet, or are wondering is this all iPhone has to offer? Well today is your lucky day. Here is an essential set of iPhone applications you should have installed by now!

First you need to unlock or jailbreak your iPhone. you might want to read my previous article.

If you already have an unlocked iPhone and have the installer.app, take a look at my article here on what the latest set of apps you can install.

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