Windows 7 Desktop Gadgets

In Windows Vista, there was a new feature called Windows Sidebar. This contained Gadgets, small information tools enabling you to organise information that you want to access quickly without cluttering your work place. It was both innovative and entertaining.

The sidebar features on the right-hand side of your desktop. You can populate it with gadgets available in the Gadget List window.

Problems with Vista’s Sidebar and Gadgets

While it was a fun thing to add Vista’s Sidebar and Gadgets to your desktop, its main disadvantage was that it took up valuable real estate. This is not to say you couldn’t uninstall it.

You can temporarily remove the Sidebar from your Desktop. This illustration shows you how.

What are the Gadgets?

Desktop Gadgets are practical mini applications, offering information at a glance and providing easy access to frequently used tools. Gadgets keep you in touch with the world.

For example, you can add a gadget that displays the weather. Once connected to the Internet the weather gadget’s information is updated regularly. The Feed Headlines gadget displays the latest news headlines. There are many gadgets available.

These are the Windows 7 Desktop Gadgets. Most of the Gadgets are the same as they were in Vista but there are two new ones.

Installing Windows 7 Gadgets

There is a similar set of Gadgets available in Windows 7. Gone are Notes and Contacts from Vista’s set being replaced by UBD Radio (an Internet connection) and Windows Media. These two gadgets can be a bit of fun.

However, with Vista’s Sidebar relegated to the dustbin of history, Windows 7’s Desktop Gadgets are now more flexible, you can place them anywhere around your screen.

Personally, I find the most useful gadgets to be the Clock, the Weather and the Calendar.

Now, let set about finding some gadgets.

1. Right click on a blank area of the desktop.
2. In the pop-up menu, select Gadgets.
   
3. This opens the Gadget window.
4. Select the gadget you want.
5. To install the gadget, right click on it and in the pop-up menu, select Install.
6. Your newly selected gadget appears on your desktop.
7. While the Gadget window remains open, you can add more gadgets.
8. When you have finished, click the Close button.

After loading your gadgets your Desktop will look something like this.

Removing Unwanted Gadgets

If you need to remove a gadget here’s how you go about it:

1. Move your mouse pointer onto the gadget to be removed.
2. On the right of the gadget a small toolbar appears. It contains three buttons. The top button, the X button, closes gadget.
3. Click the X button.

Customizing Gadgets

When you add the Weather gadget, by default, it is set to New York. This is fine if you live there.

To changet to your locality, follow these steps:

1. Move your mouse pointer onto the Weather gadget.
2. A small toolbar appears on the right.
3. In the toolbar, select the spanner button.
4. This opens the Options window. Here you can make some adjustments:

• Search for your location
• Set the Temperature

We’ll start with the location.

1. In the “Select current location” box, type in your town and country.
2. In the “Show temperature in” section, choose Fahrenheit or Celsius.
3. When finished, click the Ok button.
4. Your Weather gadget set to your location apears on the Desktop.

Re-sizing the Weather Gadget

Now when you load the Weather gadget, it’s pretty small. Here you’ll learn how to re-size it. Not only is is bigger and easier to read but it contains more information.

1. Move your mouse pointer onto the Weather gadget.
2. A small toolbar appears on the right.
3. In the toolbar, select the Arrow button.
4. This re-sizes the gadget showing greater detail.
   

   Winding Up

Now there are numerous things you can do with these gadgets but to finish off by tinkering with the clock settings.You can make these changes by accessing the toolbar and using the spanner button.

Here you can change the clock’s face, change the clock’s name, change the time zone and add a second hand to the clock. The illistration below shows you where these changes can be made.

Drinking gives you the same benefits yoga does

Research confirms that drinking gives you the same benefits yoga does !!!


Savasana
Position of total relaxation.

Balasana
Position that brings the sensation of peace and calm.

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana
This position calms the brain and heals tired legs.

Marjayasana
Position stimulates the midirift area and the spinal comumn.

Halasana
Excelent for back pain and imsomnia.

Dolphin
Excelent for the shoulder area, thorax, legs, and arms.

Salambhasana
Great excersice to stimulate the lumbar area, legs, and arms.

Ananda Balasana
This position is great for masaging the hip area.

Malasana
This position, for ankles and back muscles.

So, should we start /continue drinking ............. ?????

How to create an Invisible Folder in Windows Xp?

It's a simple nice trick. With this you can create an invisible folder that you can put on your desktop or within another folder. You can't see it but if you know where it is you can double-click it and view its contents. I don't know who created it, just thanks whoever you are. So here it is:

1. Right click where ever you want the invisible folder to be, go to new, then click on folder. 2. Turn number lock on, select the name, and hold Alt and press 0160, then release Alt. This should make a character that looks like a space, but it isn't. 3. Now right click the folder you just made and go to properties. Then go to the Customize tab. Then press the Change Icon button. Scroll through the icons until you find one that has no image (a blank space in the icons, any one will do). 4. Hit OK and you have an invisible folder! Now you can put anything you want in there... _____________________________________________________________________________________

If you can't find it, just select the entire folder/desktop and there will be a little blue rectangle below the invisible icon (the folder). NOTE: If you put it on your desktop it might show the folder for a second or two upon startup. For this reason I recommend putting it inside another folder. ( Some people know this, and some people don't / Good to hide your files)

How to Download Books from Google

I don’t know if Google would like this, but it is, definitely, not a hack. This is just teaching you how to copy the files that Google temporarily saved in your computer before showing it to you through internet browser.

Just follow the steps bellow;

1. Open your Internet Explorer (Not Firefox). Make sure that you are the admin of your computer. Then, go to the page in books.google.com that you want to download.

2. Now, go to “C:\Documents and Settings\%your admin name%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\” of your computer. Delete all of the content of that folder.

3. In your Internet Explorer, refresh the page and browse-thru the pages of the books that you want to download.

4. Refresh the “Temporary Internet Files” folder. Copy all PNG files to another folder. You can distinguish PNG Files through its icon.

These files that you have just copied are, actually, the pages of the books that you have just browsed.

How to Repair a Damaged Hard Drive Using CHKDSK

This article applies to Windows XP/2000

Introduction:

Over time, your hard drive could develop errors for a variety of reasons. The most common reasons are:

Improper Shutdowns
Power Outages
Power Surges
Age of Drive

In this article I will explain a method that can repair a damaged hard drive. It is also possible to be able to tell if the hard drive is nearing its end by using this method.

Warning: Depending on the extent of the damage to your hard drive, this test can cause the hard drive to actually fail. So, prior to running this test, be sure to backup all data.

Start Repair Method:

Insert your Windows XP/2000 installation CD and restart your computer to launch the CD. If you receive a prompt asking what boot method you would like to use. Select the option that allows you to boot from the installation CD.

The next prompt will ask what you would like to do? Select the letter “R” to enter the Windows Recovery Console.

When asked what partition you would like to boot to, select the partition that has your Windows operating system installed on it. You may be asked for an administrator password at this point. If you use one, then enter it now. If not, simply press enter to continue.

A command prompt should now appear. Type in the following command and then press enter on your keyboard: chkdsk /p

Your system will begin testing for errors on your drive. If you receive a message that states; “One or more errors detected on the volume”, then it is possible to use CHKDSK to repair these errors. If no errors were found, CHKDSK will not be able to repair your drive.

If one or more errors were found, type in the following command at the command prompt and then press enter on your keyboard: chkdsk /r

Once you press enter, the CHKDSK utility will begin checking every sector on your hard drive for errors and automatically repair them. This test could take some time depending on the size of your hard drive.

Once your system stops scanning and returns you to the command prompt, type the following command again, then press enter: chkdsk /p

If after the scan completes and it has found no errors, this means that you have successfully repaired your drive. If errors are again reported, this means that the CHKDSK utility was unable to repair these errors and it could also indicate that the drive is on its last leg.

Exit the Recovery Console and remove your Windows XP/2000 installation CD. Be sure to (if you haven’t already) backup all data on your drive.

Volume Icon in Taskbar

t's really handy to have access to the Volume Control panel in the event you quickly need to move the volume slider up or down. In its default state, XP ships with almost a clean slate for both the desktop and taskbar. So, if you'd like to place the volume control icon in the taskbar, you're going to need to make a little adjustment.

To place the volume control icon in the taskbar, follow these steps:

Single-click the Start menu.
Single-click Control Panel.
Single-click Sound, Speech, and Audio Devices.
Single-click Sounds and Audio Devices to launch the Sound and Audio Devices properties.
On the Volume tab, locate the text labeled "Device Volume" and place a check mark next to the text labeled "Place volume icon in the taskbar."
Single-click Apply.

You should now have the volume icon in the taskbar. Now all you need to do is double-click this icon to bring up your Volume Control panel.

The Windows XP File Systems

When installing Windows XP from scratch, it prompts you to select from two different file systems: FAT32 and NTFS. As expected, it gives no real reason why you should select one or the other, and defaults to NTFS.

FAT32
If you're installing on a dual-boot system where you would have a FAT32 partition (default type for Windows 98 and SE for partitions over 2GB), you may run into problems depending on your situation. The FAT32 file system was created when the size of hard drives exceeded 2GB. The previous file system for DOS and Windows 95 was FAT16, which offered at most 2GB of allocation on your hard drive. This of course is useless for today's hard drives when you can't find anything under 10GB anymore. Where FAT16 allowed a 2GB maximum, FAT32 only allows a 32GB maximum. If your hard drive is over 32GB, you'll have to split it into separate partitions, or use NTFS.

NTFS
NTFS was introduced with Windows NT. Among the reasons why it was introduced, it allowed partitions greater than what's even offered today, and boasts better performance and security. Focusing on security, it's possible that while an NTFS hard drive is secure when running Windows XP, there's no easy way to get back into the hard drive if you boot from an emergency floppy that only sees a FAT16 or FAT32 partition, such as what you'd get from a 98 or ME emergency floppy. The security in NTFS actually prevents you from circumventing its own file system from a boot floppy. This means that if for some reason your hard drive becomes unusable and you need to move data off of it, the task won't be as easy as it was when using Windows 95, 98, and ME. The solution that the user has in this situation is to boot from the Windows XP CD and run a repair on the hard drive. This should fix any problems the user had with the system and bring it back to a bootable state. The other issue is in dual-boot situations. Running under NTFS, you can see FAT16 and FAT32 partitions, but if you boot back into Windows ME, you can't see the NTFS partition. This is a problem if you downloaded something to your XP partition and you want to move it to your ME partition while running under ME. Also, if you upgraded ME to XP and you convert your file system from FAT32 to NTFS, you cannot go back to Windows ME since ME can't run under NTFS. However, only NTFS allows you to set permissions on individual folders so that you can control who sees what.

Converting from FAT32 to NTFS at a later time
If you want, under Windows XP you can convert your FAT32 partition to NTFS using the following command from your Command Prompt:

convert c: /fs:ntfs

Conclusion
With all this information, find what suits your needs and go with it. If you're the kind of person that backs up regularly, go with NTFS. Same if you want to use a partition over 32GB without partitioning. If you want to play it safe, or if you want the ability to transfer files from one partition to another under a dual-boot situation, stick with FAT32. If you want to read more about these file systems, Microsoft has an excellent article on their web site.