Computers and Software

How to make a Windows 7 Theme Pack

Many will call me trivial, but my initial disappointment with Windows 7 occurred when I discovered that it uses Themes rather than a single desktop wallpaper.  I had just discovered lots of fab new wallpaper via Vladstudio and InterfaceLIFT and was excited to give my favorites each a turn at presenting themselves on my desktop but could not do so because I didn’t understand the Theme Pack workings.  I allowed this annoyance to slip past me for approximately a month until a friend introduced me to The Windows Club, a site loaded with insider info on Windows 7, a site that I will now visit frequently to keep myself in the know.  I don’t like being clueless, and I still have much to learn about Windows 7.  In fact, I can’t even answer the Poll Daddy Poll on The Windows Club site because it does not give the option, “Yes, I have upgraded to Windows 7, but I am still kinda clueless.”

Anyways. . . . A quick search of The Windows Club yielded, voilá, a tutorial for creating one’s own Theme Pack.  Excited as I was with this information, I decided it was only fair to share my success here for the benefit of any out there who may be searching for a solution to the Theme Pack mystery.  Because I found the tutorial slightly confusing (duh, maybe it was just me) I’m going to provide the link to the tutorial here as well as my own interpretation of the instructions.  Using one or the other or a combination of the two, I am confident that you also will be able to create your own .themepack files to use and share.  For those of you out there who are scratching your head and wondering what a Theme Pack is I provide the following definition gleaned from The Windows Club.  A Theme Pack consists of four items: 1) Wallpaper with or without slideshows; 2) Window color; 3) Sounds; and 4) A screensaver (or not).  Don’t ask me how it works, ‘cause I’ve no clue!

How to create a Windows 7 Theme Pack: (my overly simplified version for those who need it)

1. Create a folder in the Pictures Library.  Give it the name that you would like to call your Theme Pack.
2. Add the wallpaper(s) that you would like to be a part of your Theme Pack to the new folder.
3. Right click on the Desktop and choose Personalize:  Desktop > Personalize
4. First, apply the default Windows 7 Theme.  Then select (click on) Desktop Background (located bottom left).
5. At top right of new screen, choose Browse to select the folder which includes your desired wallpapers (make sure all are selected or checked).
6. In the same screen choose from bottom the Picture Position, Timing to Change the pictures, and whether or not you want them to shuffle.  Now choose Save Changes.
7. Next select and edit one at a time the other choices at the bottom of the screen:  Window Color, Sounds, and Screen Saver. (If so desired.)
8. When you are done, click on Save Theme, give the theme a name (easiest if you name it the same as the folder), and voilá, you have your own Theme Pack.
9. If you want to share your Theme Pack with a friend, highlight the theme (left click on it) and then right click on it and choose Save Theme for Sharing. Your friend can easily install this Theme Pack by just double clicking on it.

And that’s it folks.  Pretty easy, huh!  If you wish to follow the directions from The Windows Club, click here.

Free Desktop and Mobile Phone Wallpaper

And so, as my Blog Catalog rating sinks lower and lower, I have to examine myself and my bloggy and ask what I ever did to Blog Catalog.  I’m not a creative genius and my writing style certainly does not rival Stephen King or C. S. Lewis, but for crying out loud, I try to present fun, witty, informative posts in a relatively intelligent manner.  My posts are not advertisements, but rather collections of information about free stuff that I believe my readers might find interesting or reviews of products that have either impressed or depressed me so that others might make more informed choices.  Maybe Blog Catalog thinks my bloggy is too commercial, assumes I am receiving payment for my mixture of encouraging and disparaging commentary.  Let me assure B.C. that if I were receiving payment for any of my ranting and rambling, I would not give a crapola about Blog Catalog’s opinion but would be rolling around in my windfall. 

Ah, but I digress.  My purpose here today is to lead my readers to a couple of really cool sites for the procurement of FREE Wallpaper and Backgrounds, not of the paper kind of course, but the kind we use to dress up our computer desktops, our mobile phones, our blogs and our web pages.  Check ‘em out:

1. Vladstudio – One of my favorite sites to visit and spend time, Vladstudio

   features the artistic creations of graphic artist, Vlad Gerasimov, and offers a wide selection of FREE wallpaper designs in a variety of specialized sizes, including for mobile phones and multiple monitors.  Currently (February 2010) Vlad is featuring his Valentine creations, awww, and being of a romantic mood lately, I have added several of them to my collection.  As if the free wallpapers aren’t enough, Vladstudio also offers Wallpaper Clocks (which work with Chameleon Clock from Softshape, a nifty but pricey little clock program that replaces the Windows tray clock), Online Jigsaw Puzzles as well as Puzzles for the iPhone (you can get 12 for free), adorable free E-Cards (any wallpaper can be sent as an e-card and some even have animation), Free Adobe Photoshop Tutorials, Themes for Blogs (for registered users), and much more.  If you’ve got a minute or an hour or two, visit Vladstudio.  It will be time well spent. 

2. InterfaceLIFT – InterfaceLIFT boasts 2,060 FREE high-resolution widescreen wallpapers by multiple artists–beautiful photographs and artistic interpretations—in a variety of resolutions, including ones for mobile phones, dual monitors, HDTV and for the iPad.  InterfaceLIFT also offers a collection, 1,445 to be exact, of cute FREE desktop icons for your downloading pleasure.  The ads can get a bit overwhelming on this site, but if you are willing to dodge them, it’s worth the effort.

From Vladstudio

Free Windows Live Messenger Emoticons: The French do it best

This week, I’m on vacation, spending time resting and relaxing and whiling the time away with a few silly pursuits.  One of these silly, amusing pursuits is seeking out emoticons for Windows Live Messenger (WLM), my instant messaging client of choice.  Call me childish or overly emotive, but with the exception of the great functionality and features of WLM, the wide variety of available emoticons is my favorite part.  If you are gonna communicate you might as well be creative and have fun at it right?  

Ready or not, here they come.  My choices* of best websites that offer Windows Live Messenger emoticons, display pictures, and backgrounds, from first to last in the order of my preference:

 Drum roll please . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1. The French do WLM emoticons best.  Visit this French MSN site http://www.ilovemessenger.fr/toppacks.aspx  to see and download my favorite of favorites.  You’ll notice a bit of a language challenge if you don’t speak French, but if you’ve downloaded much from the Internet, you’ll be able to muddle your way through the process.  I especially like the Emoticones 3D and the Emoticones Love 3D, but there are at least 16 cute packs to choose from: aliens, animals, baby animals, super heroes, etc.   No signup or sign in required.
2. Another foreign language site (Dutch?) with fun Christmas Emoticons, background and display picture:  http://www.emoticons-livemessenger.com/pages/msnnlkerst/ No signup or sign in required.
3. Kiwee – Windows Live Messenger Emoticons.  You can get to Kiwee through my link or directly from WLM by choosing “more”.  Kiwee’s emoticons, winks, display pictures, and backgrounds download directly into WLM ready to use, and they have material to celebrate just about every holiday, event and emotion you can think of.  This site does require registration and sign in for downloads but I have yet to receive any spam as a result of my registration and you can choose your preferences.
4. MSN Ifadeleri:  No signup or sign in required.  Oodles of adorable emoticons.  The only drawback to the emoticons on this site is that, since they are able to be used for multiple applications, you must save each one individually to your computer and then use WLM’s “create emoticon” feature (Tools> Emoticons> Create) rather than download directly into WLM.
5. Blog Catalog MSN Emoticons:  A wide selection of regular, 3D, and animated emoticons in all shapes and sizes.  No signup or sign in required but these also must be saved and created as emoticons individually.  Blog Catalog site provides instructions when you click on the emoticon you wish to have.
6. Windows Live Freebies:  Emoticons, winks, backgrounds and music for WLM.  Some cute, some not so cute (in my opinion). 

There are, of course, many sites on the Internet that offer emoticons.  Just make sure you have firewall and anti-virus programs installed and that you check out the websites and the download content carefully.  I tend to stay away from sites that bring up lots of popup windows and try to get you to install various toolbars and/or change your home page.  Have fun!

*with credit given to my pod mate who helped me locate these sites

Bookmark Hell

OK, I admit it.  I’ve sunk to a new low.  I’m in Bookmark Hell.  I didn’t even know there was a such thing as Bookmark Hell until tonight, but let me tell you folks, there is!

I love my bookmarks, cherish them even.  Without them I would be lost endlessly flipping through the pages of the Internet unable to find my way.  What’s the malfunction then?  OCD and me.  That’s the malfunction.  Tonight I went on an Internet cleaning spree, did the change the password and update the records thing, etc.  Then, I got the brilliantly horrible idea of reorganizing my Bookmarks–especially risky at midnight when one has to work early the next day.

If you are like me, and God help you if you are, you have bookmarks all over the place.  I have IE bookmarks, Firefox bookmarks, and bookmarks in two of several Google toolbar accounts.  Gah!  The neat freak in me (and yes, Philip, there is one) has been quietly and secretly going mad over the fact that these various bookmark locations are not in sync with one another and that the folders/labels do not more accurately reflect their contents.  Happily surfing along, at different times I have added bookmarks to one or several or all of these locations but never (well, ok, not in over a year) have I taken the time to try to marry and organize them.  Tonight I tried and I’m sorry I did.

The results:  I think I might have the full set in my IE favorites but they aren’t as portable as Google bookmarks unless I want to carry a USB flash drive.  Firefox is being a beast and I’m not entirely sure what it imported because it made duplicates for each of the four bookmark locations rather than melding them.  Google account #1 will not completely dump its contents nor will it take on the entire set of bookmarks.  Google account #2 is the one I’m counting on.  So far so good, but Google why do you make it so confusticating to edit your bookmarks and add folders.  I want to just be able to drag the contents around like I can in Internet Exploder, but no, I have to go to the bookmark page and mess with changing labels for each one.  And, by the way, why can’t I create a label without adding a bookmark.

This is all too much for my tired head.  Tomorrow is another day.  To be continued……….  Maybe.

I think I’m in love with the SiteWizard

Okay, okay, it’s probably more of a lust for his knowledge than a love for his person, nonetheless, I have very strong feelings for the man (I think it’s just one man, the one listed in the copyright notice at the bottom of the pages.  I dunno, the contact button says contact “us”.  Hmmmm.) and his website(s)–TheSiteWizard.com, TheFreeCountry.com, and HowtoHaven.com. I found his sites several years ago while searching for help with creating my previous (now defunct) very rough attempt at a website, and have never been able to let go even during my darkest days when I had no website.  I knew I would someday need him again, and he would be there for me.

And so, Mr. SiteWizard, I would like to thank you for the hours, months and years you have invested into building your websites so that you could impart your wealth of knowledge to me (I’m sure it was written just for me.) and I could in turn build a website of my own.  I have followed your instructions carefully and unquestioningly  (Yes, yes, I read all the disclaimers on your site) and you have never let me down.  I’m only sorry to admit that I let you down–I was not savvy enough to use the various free PHP or Perl search engine scripts you recommended in order to build a search engine of my own on my site.  I tried, but I was not equal to the challenge. Still, although crystal-miller.net is not nearly complete and will probably be a work in progress for years, I think you would be proud of me.

I cannot begin to list here everything Mr. SiteWizard and his websites have taught me (I’ll go into that a bit more on my website when I get the time).  Let me just say that I would not even have a domain name or a web host were it not for his tutorials.  He has walked me step by step through the entire  process, gotten me where I am today, from A-Z, and I am most grateful.  And, best of all, he did it for FREE.

One thing to note:  Mr. SiteWizard provides all of his insight, information, tutorials, scripts, etc. for free, but he does accept donations and his stuff is definitely worth it.  I, for one, am going to start feeling guilty if I don’t donate soon as much as I have benefitted and continue to benefit from all three sites.

KompoZer strikes again

Obviously humiliated and disgruntled that I figured a way around its javascript and flash upload obstacles, last night KompoZer began to threaten me again.  I was typing along when all of a sudden came the warning sign, the hourglass appeared next to the mouse pointer letting me know that a lockup, shutdown or document ruining crash of some kind was imminent.  Grrrrrrrr.  I growled at it, saved my document, and continued, determined to finish my additions to the page. KompoZer must have been angry that I beat it — I managed to get the page completed and uploaded despite the hourglass – because it readied itself to play its next card.  After uploading, I shut KompoZer down for a few moments and then reopened it, giving it a chance to compose itself (no pun intended).  This time when I opened the document I had been working on KompoZer informed me that an error had occurred and the page was no longer editable.  What?  But I beat it at its own game again.  Without panicking, I did a “save as” saving it as the original document and voilá the page was now editable.  KompoZer, I await your next challenge.  Bring it on.  Let me see what you’ve got! 

On a brighter note, the widgets and gadgets section of my site is getting close to completion (for now anyway).  Check it out and see what you find that you just can’t live without.  It’s all free, of course.  I’ve become addicted to the cute and useful little guys.

It’s the little things in life

It’s the little things in life that thrill me.  Tonight I had a breakthrough, a light bulb turned on in my brain, the solution all of a sudden became perfectly clear.  Why had I missed it before now?  I have been struggling, bumping my head against the ceiling and running into walls, trying unsuccessfully to upload my Google ads and other cool little widgets and gadgets to my website.  I mean what is the point of having a website and a vision when you are unable to make it workable and attractive, right?  Such a bummer and a downer this has been for me.  I rarely succumb to a challenge, but this one had me beat.  Until tonight, I had almost caved, said all is lost, and hung my head in disgust and shame.  Enter the epiphany at approximately 10:45 p.m. in the form of a quick second glance at a little option on the KompoZer File Menu called “Export to Text” and yippee, I’m off and running again.

KompoZer is a great program and not only that but it’s free.  Because it has been such a beneficial tool for me–I cannot produce a web page from scratch without my handy dandy WYSIWYG editor–I have felt guilty criticizing its shortcomings publicly. The lockups and the unexpected shutdowns I can manage, but I cannot abide the way it garbles code, especially javascript, when it publishes and causes it not to do what it is supposed to do.  Over the past several days, I have spent countless hours fighting this issue and finally tonight have found a solution so I thought I would share it in case anyone else is struggling with this problem.

If you want to enter code other than basic HTML into KompoZer, DO NOT use KompoZer’s Publish function.  After saving the file, click on <File> and then choose <Export to Text>.  Save the file as the original name, including the .html ending.  Then, upload the file using an FTP client such as Filezilla.  You will go from frustration to glee within seconds!

Boy am I going to be tired tomorrow at work!

Crashin’ and burnin’

Ugh! I have come to a standstill, a state of creative stagnation. Last night I slept and slept — went to bed at 11 pm and didn’t wake up until 10 a.m. A far cry from my wired habits of the past few days, and I woke up with a monster sinus headache and a sore throat. Could it be that Bubbles’ cage is needing cleaned or am I just worn out from my manic creative spree?

Currently, I am trying to overcome some javascript issues presented by KompoZer which are preventing me from uploading my Google ads and my free Feedjit widgets. At present, I have to upload the page and then go in and edit it on the server to add these gadgets. This is very tedious and irritating given the number of times my pages have all changed during the past few days.  If anyone out there has experienced this glitch and can offer a solution, I would be happy to hear it.  Of course, I suppose if I would just work with code from scratch I could overcome all of this, but I am just not that talented, “yet”.

More coffee with French vanilla creamer and a piece of pizza and back to the drawing board I go.  I should clean myself up, I’m filthy, and go out to get some rabbit litter and groceries, but I probably will obsess on this project and not leave the house until tomorrow when I have to return to work — ugh!  Yes, I have to work on Labor Day while the rest of you are out picnicking.