Adding the recycle bin to the taskbar

It is always helpful if you have a shortcut to your Recycle Bin. It could be a little sad when you have to muster an effort and search where your Recycle Bin is, so much so if you are busy with a lot of stuff at the same time.

We first need to create a shortcut and type “explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder” as the location. (See screen shots for reference).

Click on Next, type in the name of the Shortcut (in this case, Recycle Bin) and then click on Finish.
We should now have this shortcut on our Desktop.

But of course, we can do better than this. Let us make it nice by changing its appearance.

To do this, right-click on the icon and then choose Properties. And then on the Shortcut tab, click on Change Icon and then click on OK.

We can now choose the icon; but then again we can make it look even better. Type in “%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll” in the location field.

Now we should have more options of better looking icons for the shortcut that we have created.

I personally picked one for my PC and take a look at its new appearance:

Now, the final step is to pin this into the Taskbar. Just right-click on the icon, choose Pin to Taskbar.

This is how it looks and now it is a huge help for me.

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Microsoft has Launched Showcase Website for Mobile

 

So the US mobile edition of Showcase site has recently been launched by Microsoft. This site has temporarly named mobile! According to a research, there are over 16M visitors accessing microsoft.com through mobiles each year, which has inevitable revealed the tendency that more and more users a looking beyond the desktop. And if you are in US, you can text to keyword VIDEO to  47201. Standard texting rates may apply.

A recent report from Nielson indicates that the general industry mobile video audience grew 51.2% from the previous year, surpassing 20M users for the first time.  With such a healthy increase in videos viewed through mobile devices, this new entry point for Showcase allows users consuming video content from Microsoft on their mobile device, and provides an easy-to-use yet high-quality mobile video experience, extending our abundant video offering to a broader audience. It is for sure that this mobile site is going to lead a new tendency of sharing and streaming video via the net, for it has fulfilled the demands of many MS fans. The creativity of users is endless and also fantastic.

The latest features from Showcase Mobile are concluded as below:

• Share video content with others via social bookmarking (Email, Facebook, Twitter) as well as SMS
• Search, discover and play 5000+ videos on a variety of mobile devices such as Windows Phone, Android and Blackberry
• Search and engage with custom video channels
• View video through Low/High streaming and/or Download
• Find other Microsoft mobile-optimized sites in one click…and much more.

Moreover, according to the tests, all new videos submitted to the (US) Showcase catalog will be encoded for mobile streaming, simultaneously making each video discoverable on the mobile site, as well as the existing PC-optimized site. And in additional to video streaming, Microsoft Showcase is also running a pilot for mobile display advertising.  

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Adding the recycle bin to the taskbar

It is always helpful if you have a shortcut to your Recycle Bin. It could be a little sad when you have to muster an effort and search where your Recycle Bin is, so much so if you are busy with a lot of stuff at the same time.

We first need to create a shortcut and type “explorer.exe shell:RecycleBinFolder” as the location. (See screen shots for reference)

Click on Next, type in the name of the Shortcut (in this case, Recycle Bin) and then click on Finish.
We should now have this shortcut on our Desktop.

But of course, we can do better than this. Let us make it nice by changing its appearance.

To do this, right-click on the icon and then choose Properties. And then on the Shortcut tab, click on Change Icon and then click on OK.

We can now choose the icon; but then again we can make it look even better. Type in “%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll” in the location field.

Now we should have more options of better looking icons for the shortcut that we have created.

I personally picked one for my PC and take a look at its new appearance:

Now, the final step is to pin this into the Taskbar. Just right-click on the icon, choose Pin to Taskbar.

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6 Hottest Tips for Windows 7

Have you ever thought of what your Windows 7 can do for you besides the common features which other operating systems can offer? In normal situations, you just use it as you usual do. Actually, there are many tips and tricks which you can use to personalize your PC. The following tips tell you how to make your PC more interesting, how to get it around more smoothly and how to keep your privacy and so on.

1. Add a video link to the Start menu. We all know that we can find Pictures and Music folders in the "Start"menu, but we cannot find Video folders here. Now if you want to add a link to your Video folders in the "Start" menu, here is the method. First, right-click the "Start" menu and choose "Properties". Second, go to the "Start" menu tab and click "Customize". Third, look for the Videos section, select "Display as a link", and then click "OK". That's it!

2. Surf the Internet from the Start menu. Have you ever tried to surf the Internet from the "Start" menu. Yes, we seldom do it by starting from the "Start"menu. However, maybe someday we need to surf the Internet from here. You can make it by several clicks. First, type "GPEDIT.MSC" in the "Start" menu search box and press "Start". Second go to "User Configuration", then "Administrative Templates" and find "Start Menu and Taskbar". Third, double-click "Add Search Internet link to Start", then select "Enabled" and click "OK". Since then, you can surf the Internet from the "Start" menu.

3. Free your computer from clutter. It is known to all, if you run many programs at one time, you PC will become extremely cluttered. If you are using one of the programs, you usually minimize the other windows one by one manually, right? Does it bother you? If you do, now you can change the situation. First, Click and hold the title bar of the window you want retain on the desktop. Second, shake the title bar back and forth quickly until all of the other windows are minimized to the taskbar. Last, let go. If you want to make them return, shake the title bar again.

4. Use the hidden wallpapers. According to the information you offer when you first install it, Windows 7 could set wallpapers and themes for you. However, there are many types of wallpapers and themes hidden in your system. If you do not know, you can never find them and use them. Here is the way to figure them out and use them. Firstly, click the "Start" button, in the search box type: C:\Windwos\Globalization\ MCT, then press "Enter". If your Windows 7 is installed in other drive,you just type the corresponding letters where you can find your Windows 7. Second, Windows Explorer will launch and show you a list of subfolders under C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT: MCT-AU, MCT-CA, MCT-GB, MCT-US, and MCT-ZA. Each of these subfolders has wallpapers for a specific country. After you decide to use the one you like, you just go to its theme folder, double-click the theme.

5.    Turn off the Explorer searches. It happens to all of us. We want to keep our privacy. However, we are often betrayed by ourselves. Many people don’t want other people to know what they are doing or what kind of information they are searching for. But sometimes we have to share our computer with other people. So it is easy to reveal the Explorer searches. After you see the tips below, you could never worry about that. First, type "GPEDIT.MSC" in the "Start"menu search box and press "Enter". Second, go to "User Configuration", enter "Administrative Templates", find "Windows Components" and select "Windows Explorer". Third, double-click "Turn off display of recent search entries in the Windows Explorer search box", and then select "Enabled. The last step is clicking "OK". Then we could see the recent searches feature will be turned off.

6.    Select multiple files by using check boxes. We often select multiple files by using the keyboard and the mouse. However, if we have been customized to using the mouse to do everything for us, we could be tired of having to use the keyboard. On windows 7, you can use the mouse to select multiple files. Click "Organize" in Windows Explorer, select "Folder and search options". Next, click the "View" tab. Then at the bottom of "Advanced Settings"，choose "Use check boxes to select items" and click "OK". Now whenever your mouse hovers over a file in Windows Explorer you can choose the file via a check box.

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Using the Windows 7 desktop gadgets

Windows 7 has mini-programs called gadgets, which provides information in a quick look. Information and tools are readily accessible and to simply illustrate this is just like keeping your eye on world headlines and not stop what you are currently doing.

To easily access and start playing with Desktop Gadgets, just right-click on your desktop and you will easily find Gadgets.

Then this should lead you to this very elegant-looking page, our Desktop Gadgets. The default list should include Calendar, Clock, CPU Meter, Currency, Feed Headlines, Picture Puzzle, Slide Show, Weather and Windows Media Center.

For you to place your chosen gadget(s), just right-click on the item and click on Add or simply drag the specific gadget to your desired location in the desktop.

Once on your desktop, you may right-click on the gadget and choose from a variety of options like closing it or changing the size, putting it on “Always on top” of other applications, changing its Opacity and of course move it wherever you desire it to be.

Closing a gadget is super easy. Simply click on the Close (X) button in the top right corner of the gadget when you over it.

Some desktop gadgets can be enlarged so you can see information better. You will be seeing an extra button like this (shown below with arrow pointing outward) which you can click.

To revert back to the previous/smaller gadget, you will have to click that same button but this time the arrow is pointing inward.

To free your desktop from gadgets all at once, all that you have to perform is right-click on your desktop, go to View and uncheck the option for “Show Desktop Gadgets”.

To revert and show the gadgets again, follow the same process but check the option “Show Desktop Gadgets” this time.

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Kinect Hacked To Work With Windows 7

Microsoft’s latest little toy, Kinect for the Xbox has only been out a couple of days, but already, someones had a go at hacking it to work with Windows 7. Of course! What else you want to do with the newest game console on the market?

Well actually there was an incentive behind this, just under a week ago a New York based DIY Vendor Adafruit set a challenge. Dubbed the Open Kinect challenge, there was a $2000 reward up for whoever could hack the Kinect as desired. Adafruit detailed that the group or individual who managed to create a new open source driver for the accessory would be granted the prize money.

And sure enough, as soon as there is money on the line, the hackers got straight to work. Of course Microsoft weren’t too impressed and a spokesperson said

“Microsoft does not condone the modification of its products,”With Kinect, Microsoft built in numerous hardware and software safeguards designed to reduce the chances of product tampering. Microsoft will continue to make advances in these types of safeguards and work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant.”

So in record time, we have Kinect hacked and a driver appears to have been developed for Windows 7. The video below showcases the first work from a hacker on the NUI Group forum. You can see Windows 7 is tracking the movement of the Kinect, basic, but it’s a start.

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Print screen the fast way with the snipping tool.

One push on the PrintScreen key will take a whole “photo” of your monitor screen (in my case of 2monitors). You can now open MS Paint and press CTRL+V and you have a picture of your screen.

If you push on ALT+PrintScreen, you’ll have a Print Screen of your top window that you can now paste into any other program.

This Print Screen Works fine, if you don’t mind editing the pictures. But if you like to do it a little faster and more advanced there is an extra option in Microsoft Windows 7 which is called the Snipping Tool.

The Snipping Tool really is a Print Screen on steroids. To open it you’ll need to go to Start menu, open All Programs, then Accessories, and select Snipping Tool.

Some of the Snipping Tools options are:

• Rectangular Snip
• Window Snip

Also, you can use Free Form Snip like this.

The files can be saved as JPEG, PNG, Gif and HTML but you can also edit the pictures with a pen or marker and they can be immediately sent via email.

The best thing to do is just play around with it and you’ll see what a useful Windows 7 gadget this is.

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Creating and minimizing your startup programs

When you are always using the same programs it can be helpful to load them automatically as soon as you start up your system.

I'll show you first how to let them load automatically.

The program I always want to have running is the software SpeedFan. SpeedFan is a program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in your computer. The software is installed as usual and it is running as always.

This is very simple, just follow the next steps.

• Go to Start menu
• Go to All Programs
• Open the program folder
• Click and hold the exe. File and drag it to your startup program folder

Now it will load automatically when you are starting up Windows 7

The only problem now is that you'll see an open program each time you startup you system and to me that's pretty annoying.

Just follow the next Tips to get it out of the way.

• Go to Start menu
• Go to All Programs
• Open the Startup folder
• Right-click on the program that you’d like to minimize
• And select Properties
• Here you'll see a Run option; select Minimized and click OK and you're done

Now you don't see SpeedFan when you start up your system but it is running.

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