John Espiritu

Microsoft Research’s WorldWide Telescope[^]

Check this out. [^]

Windows 7 wallpapers, courtesy of Hongkiat. [^]

Download minimalist wallpaper here.[^]

Windows 7 is great… But knowing it has bugs was so disappointing. My taskbar disappeared for no reason. This happened for the 2nd time.

So far, this was the only bug I found in Windows 7. Anyways, Windows 7 is far better than Vista.

Too many startup applications slows down the loading time of your PC. Removing some of them may speed up your computer.

First, click start, then select Run. For an easier way, press the Windows Key and the ‘R’ Key at the same time [Windows Key + R]. Second, type ‘msconfig’ on the Run dialog window.

Then on the System Configuration dialog window, select the Startup tab. Uncheck all those unnecessary and unimportant programs that start automatically while Windows starts.

Finally, Click Apply then OK. You have the choice not to restart your PC.

Don’t know what to uncheck? Here are some software you can remove from startup:

1. Messenger/Chat Applications (Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype, etc.)

2. Sidebar (If you don’t really need it, uncheck it and to speed up your PC on startup, especially for slow pc users or Vista users).

3. Updates (google, adobe, and other updates from third party software).

[Tested on Windows XP]

On your Windows XP computer, run command prompt. Set it to fullscreen by pressing ALT+ENTER. Press the combination again to return to window mode.

Download this useful lightweight tool[^] for maintaining your Windows PC.

Fences[^] is a free software that organizes your Desktop icons. When installed, double clicking anywhere on your desktop hides or shows the desktop icons. You can also organize your icons in groups as shown above.

[Also works in Windows XP and Vista, but slightly different in procedures]

By default, Windows shows a list of your recently used applications in the start menu. Luckily, we can tune it up a bit so it will only show the applications we “pinned”, thus making our start menu more organized.

Procedures:

1. Right-click the start menu then select Properties.

2. On the ‘Taskbar and Start Menu Properties’, select the ‘Start Menu’ tab. Under that, click the ‘Customize..’ button.

3. On the ‘Customize Start Menu’ dialog window, change the value of the ‘Numbers of recent programs to display’ to ZERO. (0). Then click OK.

4. Back to the ‘Task and Start Menu Properties’ window, click OK.

And there you have it, your Start Menu is now organized.

Pinning your favorite and frequently used applications on the Start Menu:

1. Select the program from the Start Menu, or from any location.

2. Right-click the file, then select ‘Pin to Start Menu’.