Snowflakes theme for Windows 8
Author: Sergey Tkachenko
Free Animated Christmas trees and other Christmas widgets for your Desktop
Few days ago I discovered some really awesome Christmas widgets for your desktop. They include a Christmas tree collection, a fireplace and a huge assortment of cute glass snowballs.
In the screenshot above you can see some examples of Christmas trees. All these X-mas goodies are available for free and are clean, malware-free.
How to copy the command prompt output directly to the Windows clipboard
The classic way of copying data from the command prompt is the following:
- right click on the command prompt window title and choose Edit -> Mark command
- select the text inside the command prompt using the mouse
- to copy the selected text, right click on the command prompt window title and choose Edit->Copy command (or just press Enter on the keyboard).
If you have Quick Edit Mode enabled, then you can skip step 1 and directly drag to select and press Enter.
In Windows Vista, Microsoft has added a new way, which is quite handy and does not require so many clicks - the clip command. The clip command can accept the output of any console tools and send it to the Windows clipboard. Let's look how it can used with the following simple example.
Create a shortcut to open the Update history in Windows 8.1
The update history is a part of the Modern Control Panel which allows you to see the updates that were downloaded and applied to your current Windows 8.1 installation. If you have turned on automatic updates, Windows 8.1 will regularly download new patches and fixes from Microsoft servers.
If you would like to have quick access to the Update history, you can create a shortcut to open it directly with one click in Windows 8.1 and later. Just follow these simple instructions.
Daily Bing #33 theme for Windows 8
How to turn off a PC that has stopped responding or hanged
Sometimes your PC hangs completely and you are not able to even turn it off. Whatever may be the reason - some malfunctioning software, defective hardware problem, overheating or buggy device drivers, it can be pretty intimidating if your PC just hangs and you don't know how to recover. On desktop PC cases, there is the Reset button to restart but if you do not have the reset button (a very common situation for most modern mobile PCs, tablets and laptops), you may wonder how to get a PC that has stopped responding working again. What do you have to do in this case?
How to change the icon of default libraries in Windows 8.1
In Windows 8, one of new features was an option to change the icon of a library. For some reason, Microsoft has restricted this option only to custom libraries, which were created by the user. For built-in Libraries, the icon cannot be changed from the Windows interface on Windows 8, nor on Windows 7.
Today, we will look at how to change the icon of any library, including the predefined/system libraries. The method I will cover is applicable to Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1, but I will use Windows 8.1.
How to change the icon of a folder inside a Library
With Windows 7, Microsoft has introduced Libraries: a wonderful feature of the Explorer shell, which allows you to group multiple folders in a single view, even if they are located on different volumes. Searching through Libraries is also very fast, because Windows performs indexing of all locations which are included inside a Library.
If you use Libraries regularly, you might have noticed that when you open the Properties of a folder to change its icon, you are unable to do so because the Customize tab is missing from the folder's properties.
How to apply skins to Firefox Australis
Australis, the new interface of the Firefox browser, is the most radical change to its UI since the release of version 4. It is less customizable, and looks completely different compared to the current stable version. While some users like it, others are not impressed by its new look and want to disable Australis in Firefox and restore the classic appearance. However, there is good news for every Firefox user: now it is possible to customize the appearance of Firefox's Australis UI and apply cool skins to the browser.
Nature HD#30 theme for Windows 8
