September 29, 2008

Top 21 Firefox 3 Compatible Themes

If you were using a customized theme on your Firefox 2 and have just upgraded over to Firefox 3, you might not want to settle with the default Firefox theme your peers have on their desktop. Firefox 3 may be new, but theme designers already have their muscles all flexed up. Here’s 21 Firefox 3 compatible themes to make your browser a little bit different from the rest.

Office 2007 Black

office
Download [ Office 2007 Black]

iPox

ipox
Download [ iPox ]

Flook

flook
Download [ Flook ]

Vista Aero

vista aero
download [ Vista Aero ]

MacOSX Theme

macosx
Download [ MacOSX theme ]

Kampelton

kampelton
download [ kampelton ]

iFox Graphite

ifox
Download [ iFox Graphite ]

Gradient iCool

icool
Download [ Gradient iCool ]

Camifox

camifox
Download [ camifox ]

Firefox 2 Theme

FF2
Download [ Firefox 2 theme ]

Aero Fox

aero fox
Download [ Aero Fox ]

Aero Fox Silver

aero fox silver
Download [ Aero Fox Silver ]

BlackX 2

blackx 2
Download [ BlackX 2 ]

SKY

SKY
Download [ SKY ]

NASA Night Launch

NASA
Download [ Nasa Night Launch ]

MyFireFox

myfirefox
Download [ My FireFox ]

Qute 3.3

qute
Download [ Qute 3.3 ]

Blue Ice 2.1

blue ice
Download [ Blue Ice ]

Pitch Dark

black
Download [ Pitch Dark ]

Silvermel

silvermel
Download [ Silvermel ]

Noia 2.0 (Extreme)

Download [Noia 2.0 Extreme]

Download Social Music, Video & More…for FREE

Orbit Downloader, leader of download manager revolution, is devoted to new generation web (web2.0) downloading, such as video/music/streaming media from Myspace, YouTube, Imeem, Pandora, Rapidshare, support RTMP. And to make general downloading easier and faster.

Current version : 2.7.6 No adware! No spyware!

Why use Orbit Downloader?


  • Download Rich Media: Streaming Media, RTMP, Social Music & Video

    Orbit Downloader supports HTTP/FTP/HTTPS/RTSP/MMS/RTMP protocols and provides a total solution to download rich media. So Orbit Downloader can be used as YouTube downloader to download YouTube more simply and easily. Additionally, you can download music and video from social music/video websites like YouTube.

  • Great Speed: Up to The Fastest Download Manager

    Orbit Downloader is based on p2p and multi-source downloading technology. More Efficient mirrors selection algorithm and faster download sources which allows you to download files up to 500% faster than before. Maximum possible download speed, up to the fastest download manager!

  • Super Light: Micro-sized and Resource-friendly

    Orbit Downloader is written with efficiency in mind, it typically uses less than 3MB of memory and 3% of cpu when downloading. Additionally, the installation package is less than 2MB.

  • Support RapidShare

    Orbit Downloader supports most of the file-sharing service websites, including megaupload, badongo, sendspace, sexuploader, yourfilehost, uploading, filefront, 4shared, turboupload, depositfiles, filefactory, and more.

  • Easy to Use

    Orbit Downloader has a simple and clear user interface. It is easy to use and configure for both newbies and professionals.

  • Free and Safe

    100% free and no registration required. No adware!!! No spyware!!!

September 27, 2008

How to hide files in JPEG pictures

Here we're going to show you a new way to hide files that is very counter-intuitive and therefore pretty safe! Using a simple trick in Windows, you can actually hide a file inside of the JPG picture file!

You can actually hide any type of file inside of an image file, including txt, exe, mp3, avi, or whatever else. Not only that, you can actually store many files inside of single JPG file, not just one! This can come in very handy if you need to hide files and don’t want to bother with encryption and all that other technical stuff.

Hide File in Picture 

In order to accomplish this task, you will need to have either WinZip or WinRAR installed on your computer. You can download either of these two off the Internet and use them without having to pay anything. Here are the steps for creating your hidden stash:
  • Create a folder on your hard drive, i.e. C:\Test and put in all of the files that you want to hide into that folder. Also, place the image that you will be using to hide the files in.
hide file in jpg
  • Now select all of the files that you want to hide, right-click on them, and choose the option to add them to a compressed ZIP or RAR file. Only select the files you want to hide, not the picture. Name it whatever you want, i,e. “Hidden.rar”.
add to archive
  • Now you should have a folder that looks something like this with files, a JPG image, and a compressed archive:
hidden rar
  • Now here’s the fun part! Click on Start, and then click on Run. Type in “CMD” without the quotes and press Enter. You should now see the command prompt window open. Type in “CD \” to get to the root directory. Then type CD and the directory name that you created, i.e. “CD Test“.
cd test
  • Now type in the following line: “copy /b DSC06578.JPG + Hidden.rar DSC06578.jpg” and press Enter. Do not use the quotes. You should get a response like below:
hide files in jpg

Just make sure that you check the file extension on the compressed file, whether it is .ZIP or .RAR as you have to type out the entire file name with extension in the command. I have heard that some people say that they have had problems doing this with a .ZIP extension, so if that doesn’t work, make sure to compress to a .RAR file.

And that’s it! The picture file will have been updated with the compressed archive inside! You can actually check the size of the picture and see that it has increased by the same amount as the size of the archive.

You can access your hidden file in two ways. Firstly, simply change the extension to .RAR and open the file using WinRAR. Secondly, you can just right-click on the JPG image and choose Open With and then scroll down to WinRAR. Either way, you’ll see your hidden files show up that you can then extract out.

winrar

That’s it! That is all it takes to hide files inside JPG picture files! It’s a great way simply because not many people know it’s possible and no one even thinks about a picture as having to the ability to “hide” files.

SHOUTcast on your PC

If you’re a radio fanatic or even just a fan, you’re going to love SHOUTcast! SHOUTcast allows you to listen to any radio station found on the Internet. If that sounds good to you, here’s how you can get it!

Getting Winamp

For starters, you’re going to need the Winamp Media Player. To get Winamp, head on over to www.winamp.com and click on the Free Download button. Then click Run (or Save if you’re using Firefox) and install it.

I recommend unchecking the boxes for the additional features you can get, such as the Winamp toolbar. I don't know about you, but the last thing I need is another toolbar!

Now, just sit back, relax and allow the program to install.

Once Winamp is installed, head over to www.shoutcast.com and choose a radio station you would like to listen to. For example, let’s try NPR (National Public Radio).

Of course, NPR transmits from many different places, so for now, let’s just stick with the non-localized version.

Next to the radio station, click on Tune In. If your computer starts playing the station, you’re good to go. On the other hand, if yours opens something else, here’s what you can do:

1.) Right click on Tune In.

2.) Choose Properties.

3.) Highlight the link’s address and copy it (Ctrl + C).

4.) Now, open Winamp and click on Add, Add URL.

5.) Press Ctrl + V to paste the link you copied from the SHOUTcast Web site.

6.) Click Open and you’re done.

You can also use SHOUTcast to pick up independent radio or stations from another part of the world. Isn’t technology amazing? Happy listening!

September 26, 2008

5 Tools to Make Windows XP Look Like Vista

Do you like Windows Vista only because of its newly revamped Graphical User Interface? It surely does have an attractive interface but many are still hesitant to upgrade. Some because of it’s massive system requirements, and some because of all the negative buzz around it. Whatever your reasons are, you still can get a Vista like look even on your Win XP system. Below are some of the better free tools that can help you to make your Windows XP look like Vista. Just make sure you got a bit of spare RAM on your system.


Make Windows XP look like Windows Vista


Vista Start Menu

Vista Start Menu turns XP’s Start menu into one like on Vista. Not only do you get a better look but also many new features that are normally not there. These include: resizable start menu, zoom in/out, program launcher, desktop search, power buttons, tabs, and more. Another noteworthy aspect, Vista Start Menu does not change your system settings, thus making it easy to install, as well as simple to remove.

VTP changes XP’s interface, including the Start menu, the Control Panel, system dialogs, icons, and more, to Vista style. Also includes a transparency function to mimic Vista’s Aero Glass functionality. It’s probably the most comprehensive package out of all, so be very careful with it. While I haven’t experienced any problems some folks reported difficulties in uninstalling it (see comments here). Here are some of the notable changes that will be made to your system.

  • Boot screen / Welcome Screen / Logon Screen.

  • New desktop, file and toolbar icons.

  • Progress Dialogs.

  • New System Tray icons.

  • New Sounds scheme.

  • New interface visual styles.

  • Windows Media Player Skins.

RocketDock

RocketDock is a portable, memory-friendly, smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher that sits on your screen. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. Some features that are worth looking at include: Minimize active windows to the dock, drag-n-drop interface, Dual-monitor support, Auto-hide and Popup on mouse over, and Running application indicators. Check it out in action in the video below

VistaMizer

VistaMizer modifies about 400 of your system files, and when you reboot your system after installation you won’t remember how your old desktop looked like. It’s highly customizable and changes lots of stuff. What’s really good about is that it will keep backup of all the changes (so that you can easily revert it) and won’t replace/overwrite anything that would risk destabilizing your system.

WindowBlinds

WindowsBlinds is not a program specifically designed to Vistalize your system. It’s more a tool for applying different visual theme on your entire current Windows environment: changing overall look and feel, title bars, push buttons, start bar, start menu and more. Similar to the above RocketDock, it claims to be memory-friendly, so it shouldn’t slow down your system. Once installed, you can either apply one of the default visual themes or download one from the WindowsBlinds gallery (over 1000 themes). WindowsBlinds comes both in a free and paid version. Although the free version lacks some of the additional features it still does the job.

WindowBlinds 5.0

September 22, 2008

How to create an “Admin Control Panel” in your Blogger template

Written by Amanda Fazani from Blogger Buster on September 22, 2008

Hiding the Blogger nav-bar is one of the most popular customizations for Blogger blogs. The advantage of this is that your blog design does not immediately appear to be powered by Blogger, and it is very useful for designs where the appearance of the nav-bar distracts from the overall design of the blog.The only downside of removing the nav-bar is that the admin links for “New post”, “Customize” and “Log Out” are no longer visible. When the nav-bar is visible, blog administrators can create a new post or customize their layout with just one click; when the nav-bar is hidden, many more clicks are required to access the dashboard panel again.

In this post, I’ll explain how you can easily add a “Admin Control Panel” widget which enables one click access to the main sections of your dashboard if you have hidden the Blogger nav-bar from your layout.

First things first!

There are two things we need to do before adding the control panel to our Blogger template:

Make a back-up of the existing template

  1. Find our unique Blog ID number

Let’s go through both of these in order.

Make a back-up of your Blogger template

As we are adding code directly to the Blogger template for this customization, it is omportant to make a back-up of the existing (working) template code.

Then if we do make any major errors, we can easily restore the original working template to our blog.

To make a back-up of your Blogger template, go to Layout, Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard, and look for the “Download full template” link near the top of the page.

Clicking on this link will prompt you to save your existing template as an XML file to your computer hard drive. You can change the name of the file and choose the location to ensure it is easy to find if you need to use this later.

Locate your unique Blog ID number

To create the admin control panel, we need to use your unique Blog ID number, as this will form part of the URL required for admin links.

To find your Blog ID number, log into Blogger and ensure you have accessed the dashboard you intend to work with.

While you are logged in, access any page of your Blogger dashboard and take a look at the address bar in your browser:


Locating your Blog ID number

Locating your Blog ID number

Within the URL you will notice a string like this:blogID=XXXXXXXXXX Where XXXXXXXXXX is the unique identifier for your blog.

You need to make a note of the BlogID number for the blog you wish to work with so we can add this in the links for your admin control panel.

Adding the control panel to your template

The Admin Control Panel will only be visible when the owner/author of the blog is logged into their relevant Blogger account. It is invisible to blog readers, similar to the “edit post” and “edit widget” links which are only visible while you are logged in and viewing your own blog.

To add the control panel to your Blogger template, go to Layout>Edit HTML and do not check the “Expand widget templates” box.

Then search for the following line of code (or similar):

<b:section class='sidebar' id='sidebar' preferred='yes'>

Immediately before this line, paste the following lines of code:

<span class='item-control blog-admin'>

<h2>Admin Control Panel</h2>>

<h2>Admin Control Panel</h2>

<a href='http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=BlogIdNumber‘>New Post</a>

|

<a href=’http://draft.blogger.com/blog-options-basic.g?blogID=BlogIdNumber’>Settings</a>

|

<a href=’http://www.blogger.com/rearrange?blogID=BlogIdNumber‘>Change Layout</a>

|

<a href=’http://www.blogger.com/html?blogID=BlogIdNumber‘>Edit HTML</a>

|

<a href=’http://www.blogger.com/moderate-comment.g?blogID=BlogIdNumber‘>Moderate Comments</a>

|

<a href=’http://www.blogger.com/logout.g’>Sign Out</a>

</span>


Replace all instances of BlogIdNumber with your unique BlogID.

Once you have done this, preview your template. You should not see any of the code for the Admin Control Panel appear in your template during the preview! If all is well, you can then proceed to save your template.

Now take a look at your blog. While you are logged in to Blogger, you should notice your control panel appear above the widgets in your sidebar.

If you log out of Blogger and look at your blog, you will not see the control panel appear (this is also how your readers will see your blog).

How this works

The code for the control panel is wrapped in span tags with the class of “item-control blog-admin”. These CSS classes are not included in your Blogger template code, but are instead added in when your blog pages are generated by Blogger’s external scripts.

These classes also apply for your post and widget editing icons (the familiar pencil and wrench icons) which are invisible to readers of your blog.

The links will still be visible if a reader views the source code of your blog. However, these links are only accessible by the administrators of the blog. If anyone else attempts to access these pages, they will be asked to log in to their own Blogger account and would be unable to make any changes to your own blog.

How to hide the Blogger nav-bar

If you do not already hide the Blogger nav-bar in your template, you can achieve this in just a few simple steps:

Go to Layout>Edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard.

  1. Just before this tag, add the following lines of code:

    #navbar-iframe {

    height:0px;

    visibility:hidden;

    display:none

    }


  2. Then save your template

These few lines of CSS code hide the Blogger nav-bar from the design. The code is still present in the source code, and all functions generated by the nav-bar will still work.

Firefox Cool, Fun Icon Packs

Check out some of these cool icon packs for your Firefox browser!!


Beautiful new icons for the very cool Firefox.

Install imageInstall blue icon (Windows|Linux)

Install yellow icon (Windows|Linux)

Click on the install link above to install. All newly opened windows will use the icon pack when it has installed. To uninstall, click here .


Remember 2005 with the Firefox 2005 icons!

Install imageInstall for Windows/Linux

Click on the install link above to install. All newly opened windows will use the icon pack when it has installed. To uninstall, click here .


A beautiful Anime Firefox icon.

Install imageInstall for Windows/Linux



Click on the install link above to install. All newly opened windows will use the icon pack when it has installed. To uninstall, click here .


Beautiful icons with foxes. There are two versions.

Install imageInstall Firefox Lustre Gold Icons (Windows and Linux)

Install Firefox Lustre Green Icons (Windows and Linux)
Click on the install link above to install. All newly opened windows will use the icon pack when it has installed. To uninstall, click here .


Mozilla Firefox Shortcut Keys

This is a listing of Mozilla Firefox shortcut keys.

** Use this trick at your own risk.

ShortcutDescription
F5Refresh current page.
F11 Display the
current website in full screen mode. Pressing F11 again will
exit this mode.
Ctrl + D Add current page to favorite
Ctrl + I Display
favorites
Ctrl + J Display
the download window.
Ctrl + N Open New browser window.
Ctrl + P Print current page / frame.
Ctrl + T Opens a
new tab.
Ctrl + F4 Closes
the currently selected tab.
Alt + Left Arrow Back a page.
Backspace Back a page.
Alt + Right Arrow Forward a page.
Esc Stop page or download from loading.
Ctrl + (- or +) Increase
or decrease the font size, pressing '-' will decrease
and '+' will increase.
Ctrl + Enter Quickly complete an
address. For example, type computerhope in the address bar and
press CTRL + ENTER to get http://www.computerhope.com.
Shift + Enter Complete
a .net instead of a .com address.
Ctrl + Shift + Enter Complete
a .org address.
Ctrl + Shift + T Undo the
close of a window.
Ctrl + Tab Moves
through each of the open tabs.
Spacebar Moves
down a page at a time.
Shift
+ Spacebar
Moves
up a page at a time.
Alt + Down arrow Display
all previous text entered in a text box and/or available
options on drop down
menu.

September 18, 2008

FREE - Brushed Metal Photoshop Style

brushed-metal-logo.png

Get this Photoshop style and apply to any layer to get the brushed metal effect instantly.

PS: To use this style, download the .asl file, then open styles window in Photoshop, click on the drop down menu and select ‘load styles…’ and browse to the .asl file.

Photoshop Carbon Fiber background

I have been wondering for some time now how to create a good looking carbon fiber background or wallpaper. I started playing around with some color combinations to get the carbon fiber to look right. So lets get started.

What you need to have: Adobe Photoshop

PS: ⌘ key for Mac users / CTRL key for Windows users

Prepare the texture pattern

1. In Photoshop, create a new document. Set the size at 20×20 pixel.


2. Zoom in (z) few step so that you can work on it easily. Choose Rectangular Marquee from the toolbar (m).

3. Make the selection of 5×10 pixel

4. Set foreground and background colour as different tone of gray:


Foreground: #171717
Background: #3a3a3a

5. Select Gradient Tool (g), then choose ‘Foreground to Background’

6. Fill the selection with the colours chosen by dragging across the selection area.

7. Make another selection of 10×5 pixel, fill with the gradient of:

Foreground:#282828
Background: #0d0d0d

8. Select all (⌘A / CTRL-A), copy selection (⌘C / CTRL-C), paste selection (⌘V / CTRL-V), then use Move Tool (v) to arrange the new layer into position:

9. Paste the selection into new layer again and arrange until it looks like this:

10. Combine all the layers: Menu > Layer > Flatten Image

11. Define a new pattern: Menu > Edit > Define Pattern…

Making the actual wallpaper

12. Create a new document by pressing ⌘N / CTRL-N. Set the size of your screen resolution. Eg: 1600×1200

13. Fill with the texture pattern: Menu > Edit > Fill… ; Use ‘Pattern’ and choose the last pattern that you just created from the Content section.

14. Apply effect: Menu > Filter > Render > Lighting Effects…

15. Adjust levels (⌘L / CTRL-L): Menu > Image > Adjustments > Levels…

Save!

16. To preserve the detail quality of the wallpaper, save it as PNG or BMP.