BizzNtech » How To’s

How to Create a Run Command

Joel — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 10:16:26 +0000

Today I’m going to show you’ll how to create your own run command. Using this tutorial you can create any run command, for instance opening a program, a game, etc. I’m going to create a Run command to run Opera. It’s pretty easy, just follow the below instructions carefully:

Firstly go to Start> Run, type regedit and hit enter.

Now navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths

Right-Click on App Paths and select> New> Key

Title the new key the name of the application, in this case; Opera.exe

Right-Click the default string value and click Modify.

Change the value to the path of the executable you want to run. E.g. C:\Program Files\Opera 9\opera.exe

Now, in the white space below right click anywhere and select New> String Value.

Name it Path and enter the value as C:\Program Files\Opera 9\opera.exe

That’s it, the two keys should like above, now close the registry editor. Go to start> Run> type your run command and hit enter. In the above case its Opera.exe. Opera will launch within seconds.

You can do this for any application. All you need to do is enter the path of the application you want to open and also make sure that you remember the name of the key that you give as you have to enter it to launch it.

Backupmate- Backup Orkut Communities

Joel — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 09:33:10 +0000

Nowadays Orkut is gaining a lot of acceptance in India. Thanks to the new interface, applications and colorful custom themes that has made it possible. Well, if you’re a regular Orkut user then you might be having a community. Just imagine if it’s popular and it gets deleted accidently, how would you feel? Well, prevention is always better than cure. Creating a backup would be a great step to tackle this sort of problem. So how do you create a backup of a community? It’s pretty simple, there’s a program known as Orkut Community Backupmate which helps you to create a backup of a Orkut community. Here’s how you create a backup:

Firstly, click here, you’ll arrive at a new page where you’ll find get a box which has various fields to be filled.
Fill up the required details, i.e. your orkut ID, password, community ID
Once done, click on Create Backup

Can’t find community ID?
If you can’t find the community ID then go to the community and look into the address bar, you’ll see the community link, for instance http://www.orkut.com/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=45618, in this link 45618 is the community ID.

Orkut Community Backupmate

How to Open PSD Files without Using Photoshop

Joel — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 18:55:35 +0000

If you use Photoshop you’ll know PSD formats very well. One thing that you might have noticed about these formats is that they can’t be opened in ordinary image viewers like Windows picture viewer or Microsoft picture manager, etc. What if you don’t have Photoshop and you would like to open a PSD file? Well, there are a few alternatives which will help you to open PSD files. Here they are:

GIMP
GIMP is a versatile graphics manipulation package. You can give digital retouching to images, correct distortion, convert images formats, etc. You can use this program as a simple paint program and at the same time you can also use it as a professional tool for retouching images. It is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted.

Download GIMP

FastStone Image Viewer
FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more.

Download FastStone Image Viewer

Paint.NET
Paint.NET is an image and photo editing which features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. You can find a lot of tutorials, and plugins online. By default Paint.NET doesn’t support opening PSD files. You’ll need to download a Paint.NET plug in for loading and saving PSD files. The plugin doesn’t support each and every feature of a PSD file. First install paint.net, download the plugin from here and copy it to C:\Program Files\Paint.NET\FileTypes.

Download Paint.net, PSD plugin

Artweaver
Artweaver is a simple Freeware program for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver offers you all artistic effects which you need for your work. You can create sketches from photos and experiment with a wide range of brushes. The brush simulation is thereby so realistic as possible. It opens PSD files but layers aren’t supported in this format.

Download Artweaver

IrfanView
IrfanView is useful if you want to just open and view PSD files. It’s extremely user friendly and light on resources as well. It works perfectly on Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.
Download IrfanView

How to Get Vista Welcome Center in XP

Joel — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 10:27:50 +0000

Some of you don’t like Vista as its resource hogging and some even feel that its performance is really poor. So, such people usually stick to XP. But there are lots of people who like Vista user interface and eye candy features. They modify their XP desktop and other GUI to match with Vista. For this purpose they usually use transformation packs. You can find some transformation packs over here.

If you have used Windows Vista you might have noticed the Welcome screen that pops up when Windows loads. In this welcome screen you can change and alter many settings. You can check your computer details, change desktop wallpaper, connect to internet, etc. Well, if you are interested in modifying, tweaking and making your XP like Vista then you might be also interested in getting the welcome center in XP. For this purpose you can try out a standalone application which helps you to get the same Welcome screen in XP that you see in Vista.

Installing Welcome Center in XP:

Download the RAR file which you can find at the end of this post.

Extract it to a specific location, you’ll get a folder containing the EXE file along with other required file/folders.

Run “Welcome Center.exe” and enjoy the Welcome Center.

Download Welcome Center for XP

[via-askVG]

How to change Facebook Layouts using Page Rage, Yontoo

Joel — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:24:31 +0000

I had previously written an article on getting the old Facebook layout back for those of you who didn’t like the new Facebook layout. But I know most of us like the new Facebook. Ain’t I right? Well, but looking at the same default layout you might get bored one day or the other. So, how about adding some new colors to it? We can do so by installing a backend app- Yontoo Layers. If you haven’t heard of Yontoo then it’s a browser add-on that creates virtual layers on your browser window. It enables users to add content over their Facebook page that appears to have been added directly to the page. This is something similar to Greasemonkey which is used in Firefox. At present Yontoo Layers are supported by only two browsers- Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Installing new Facebook layouts:

Firstly, install Yontoo layers from here.

Once done go to Page rage and browse through the available layouts to find the one you want to load onto your Facebook page.

Click the select button on the desired layout and enter your Facebook login details.

Voila! Once you login you’ll see your new layout.

How to Find Files and Folders Quickly

Joel — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:59:43 +0000

Ever tried using the default windows search function? I’m sure you’ve tried it and ended up finding the file after a long search which took a lot of time. Well, I don’t really like the default search function so I decided to check out for some lighter alternative and which can yield results faster. I came across a program known as Everything. Everything lets you search anything within few seconds unlike the default windows search feature.

This tiny program is user friendly and is really light on resources as well. The best part is that it’s just 293KB! It works perfectly on Windows NT/2000, XP, 2003 and Vista. To use it all you need to do is first download it from below and install it. Once done run the program and enter the item you want to search in the search bar. You’ll be provided with results almost instantly.

Download Everything

[via-downloadsquad]

How to Quickly Resize a Picture

Joel — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 18:52:18 +0000

I’m sure you might be having snaps taken from digi cams or pictures which are pretty huge in resolution which you would like to compress and upload over net or send them to your friend or maybe use as a profile picture in Facebook. Most of us usually use Microsoft Picture manager to resize images and pictures. I found a great app- adionSoft Fast Image Resizer which allows you to quickly resize images and pictures in high quality. The software has an extremely user friendly interface. The software is freely available and works perfectly on Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

Features
-Dual and Quadcore compatible
-Resize images to any size quickly and in high quality
-Create thumbnails for your website images
-Resize Algorithm quality and JPEG quality configurable
-Create resized files in new folder, or in the same folder as the source
-Use EXIF information to rotate your pictures to the correct orientation
-Copy EXIF info from source image
-Easy resizing by using windows explorer Send To menu
-Automatic cropping option
-Can read JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, TIFF and HD Photo (.wdp, .hdp) files
-Writes JPG files

Download adionSoft Fast Image Resizer

How to Get the old Facebook Layout

Joel — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:32:35 +0000

If you have been using Facebook for at least two to three months then you might have noticed the change in the layout that took place recently. I liked the new design, it’s much better than the previous one and has less clutter. Another reason that makes me say it’s better than the previous one is the quick loading time of profiles. But some of my friends just hate it. They say it’s a bit complicated and they find it difficult to use.

They were asking me, “How can I get the old Facebook back?” I had no reply at that time but then when I checked for a few articles over the net I came across two ways through which one can get the old Facebook layout back. Here they are:

1. Using Application:
> Add the Developer application from here.
> After adding that application, click the following link to get the old Facebook back.
http://apps.new.facebook.com/?fbnew_opt_out=1

2. Using Greasemonkey:
You can make use of the Greasemonkey script which can be found here. You need to have Firefox with Greasemonkey addon installed in order to apply this script. You can follow the guide for applying a script over here.
Opera users can try this too, for more instructions look over here.

How to Disable Firefox Addon Install Delay

Joel — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 19:14:40 +0000

If you use Firefox you might have noticed the waiting time involved while installing a new firefox addon. Well, it’s just a few seconds so shouldn’t be a problem. But if you don’t lke to wait then here’s a short and easy tip for removing the waiting time:

In the address bar, type about:config and hit enter, you’ll get a warning message just click on “I’ll be careful I promise” to continue.
Now, in the Filter box below the address bar, type security.dialog_enable_delay and press Enter
Choose this preference from below, and change its value to 0

Once done restart your browser for changes to take effect. Now you should be able to install addons without waiting even a sec.

How to Fix Slow Right Click Menu in XP and Vista

Joel — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 18:29:40 +0000

I recently observed a weird problem in the right click menu in XP, the moment I right click on my desktop it takes like lot of time to open the menu. I was trying to figure out what the problem was. After sometime I figured out that it was some item in the menu that was resulting in delay in displaying the menu.
I downloaded ShellExView and opened it and arranged all the items according to Type. I found a list of various items relating to type- Context menu, I tried disabling each of them to see which one was creating the problem. I finally realized that it was the ATI software which appeared in the menu that slowed down the menu. As soon I disabled the ATI software option in the menu the menu popped up really fast.
Ok, so here’s a detailed tutorial for you if you didn’t understand:
Firstly, download ShellExView and run it.

Now arrange the items by clicking on Type

Now find the items relating to Context menu and disable one and check the menu if it’s fast, if it isn’t enable back the item and try disabling another one.
To disable/ enable an item simply right click on it and select the option Disable Selected Items/ Enable Selected items.

Once you feel you have fixed the problem and the menu is appearing faster then simply close the program.

NOTE: The disabled item will not appear in right click menu, to display it again you need to repeat the above and select enable item.

Download ShellExView

How to Get Firefox 2 Address Bar in Firefox 3

Joel — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:10:07 +0000

I somehow don’t like the new address bar used in Firefox 3, I still prefer the old address bar in FF2. The new address bar saves my viewed browsing history without my knowledge! Well, I like the auto complete feature, it’s pretty cool. I tried disabling the “smart” option in the Option menu but there is no direct way to do it. So the indirect way to do is by going to about:config. Here’s how you do it:
1. In the address bar type about:config and hit enter. You will get a warning message, just untick “Show this warning next time” and click “I’ll be careful, I promise!” to proceed.
2. Now, Search for browser.url (using the Filter) and you will see these two preferences browser.urlbar.matchBehavior and browser.urlbar.maxRichResults.
3. Set both preferences value to -1 by double clicking on it.
4. Restart Firefox for changes to take effect. Once you have restarted you’ll find the old address bar back!

How to Fix Windows Vista Folder View Settings from Resetting

Joel — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:54:05 +0000

Some of you Vista users might have experienced an annoying problem in Vista. This problem has infected many pcs with XP as well. The folder view settings set by the user for a particular folder get reset from time to time. Windows remembers by default the folder view settings of 200 local folders and 200 network folders initially. Windows Vista remembers 5000 folders which are usually enough for most users. But users having more than 5000 folders experience this problem. Here’s an easy registry tweak which fixes this problem. Here’s how you do it:

1. Go to Start> Run. Type regedit and hit enter to open registry editor.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell
3. Now create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it BagMRU Size.
4. Double-click the entry and give it a value of 10000, double the default amount.

Once done, just browse to the folder where the folder settings were getting reset. Now, if the same thing repeats, you need to increase the value of 10000 which you had entered earlier to 15000 or more.

NOTE: If you’re using XP then the maximum limit of value that you can set is 8000.

How to Convert Video_TS Folder into One Video File

Joel — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:48:52 +0000

I usually download movies from the net and view them in my pc or in my home theatre. The movie files that I download are usually in .avi formats. Well, such files are great as far as pc is concerned as you’ll have the whole movie in just one .avi file. Moreover, it’s easy to store and consumes less space too. But unfortunately my home theatre doesn’t play .avi files. I have to convert the file in to Video_TS and Audio_TS and then burn in the form of a DVD for viewing in my home theatre. But if you are a lucky guy who has a home theatre which plays Divx files then you don’t need to go through all this conversion mess as it will play the .avi file without any problem.

If you have a particular movie in a DVD then it will usually be in two folders, i.e., Video_TS and Audio_TS. You might like to convert these folders into a single file to play it in your pc and to store it even more easily instead of copying both the folders in to your pc. There’s a software known as AutoGK which makes our job easy. Just follow the below steps to convert the folders in to a single .avi file using AutoGK:

1. To start with click on the Browse icon in the Input File row and select the IFO file of the Video_TS folder that points to the full movie. It usually contains the same digit as the largest amount of VOB files in the folder.

2. If you selected the right IFO file, AutoGK will display the playtime of the selected movie. If the DVD has more than one main track then you need to repeat the step and merge the files later on.

3. Check/ Uncheck the available languages and subtitles.

4. Now, select the output file and size for the video that will be created. The output file size can be selected by picking a predefined size that ranges from 1/4 CD (175 MB) to 3 CDs (2100 MB). Several additional options are available for DVDr sizes. The user can also select a custom size if he likes but most should find a suitable one among the predefined sizes.

5. The output file is simply a link to the .avi file that will be created.

6. You can also configure several optional parameters in the advanced settings. This ranges from selecting an output width to a selection of the video codec and output format.

7. Lastly, add the process as a job to the job queue and click on the Start button to encode all jobs in the queue. You can also add additional jobs and let them run overnight. Once the conversion process is done, you’ll get a single .avi file.

Download AutoGK

How to Turn Off Laptop or Notebook LCD Screen Manually

Joel — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:49:47 +0000

Most of you’ll having laptops try to increase its battery backup to the best extent possible. Well, if you don’t, I at least do. If I leave my laptop on and go out, I always make sure that the LCD is turned off. This will help to increase the battery backup and also helps to keep the laptop much cooler. I turn off my Acer laptops LCD using the shortcut key FN + F6.

Some of you might not have that option or maybe the keys ain’t working. Well, if you plan to repair your laptop keyboard then it will cost you at least $100. But as usual softwares come to our rescue. Here’s a small tool, only 85KB is size which helps you to switch off your LCD display. It doesn’t require any installation. All you need to do is just run executable file “Turn Off LCD.exe” whenever you want to turn off your LCD screen. To turn on the screen, simply hit any key on your keyboard or move your mouse.

Download:
TurnOffLCD v101 (link 1)
TurnOffLCD v101 (link 2)

How to Use Greasemonkey in Opera

Joel — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:36:35 +0000

I’m sure most of you are aware of Greasemonkey, well if you don’t then it’s a Firefox extension that allows Firefox users to install scripts that make quick changes to web pages. Using this extension you can add new functionality to web pages and web sites like adding an HTML signature in Google, bypassing image verification in Orkut, changing an orkut theme or a Gmail theme, etc.
If you’re an Opera user then there’s a good news for you. Opera supports Greasemonkey scripts! These user scripts work exactly how they work in Firefox. You can simply import them into Opera unlike in Firefox you where you need to install the Greasemonkey addon. Here’s an easy tutorial which will guide you to do so:

1. Download the Greasemonkey script you want to use.
2. Now, rename the script so that it ends with “.user.js”

3. Open Opera and go to Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Content and click the JavaScript Options button.

4. In User JavaScript files field, choose the location of your scripts folder and click OK.
5. Restart Opera for the changes to take effect.