Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop, and can hide your icons when they're not in use

Fences is a program that helps you organize your desktop and can hide your icons when they're not in use. A "Fence", a term coined by this program, is an icon group on your desktop. Fences is an add-on to your desktop, not a replacement.

Rope off your desktop

Fences allows you to create shaded areas on your desktop that you can place icons in. You can label them however you wish, and move/resize them anywhere on the desktop. Pre-included layouts help speed the process for new users.

See your wallpaper again! Quickly hide & show all your icons with an easy double-click

Double click blank space on your desktop, and all your icons will fade out. Double click again, and they’ll return. We think this feature is so useful and unique, that we’ve applied for a patent on it. And with the upcoming Fences FeaturePack / included in the community preview, you can even pick icons and individual Fences to exclude.

Check out the review video from CNET below.

http://cnettv.cnet.com/fences-1-0-windows/9742-1_53-50077864.html

Fences runs on all of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. On Vista and Win7, both 32bit and 64bit versions are supported.

Since Fences uses nearly no system resources, having the operating system is its only requirement. Installation is through Impulse (IE7 required).

It's FREE for personal use, so try it out today, and change how you use your desktop forever! Download Now (8.64MB) Tested spyware free!!

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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.

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.

Vista Transformation Pack 8.0.1

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.

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Vista-style Sidebar for Windows XP

Thoosje Sidebar:The Thoosje sidebar for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista has gadgets like media players, google search, yahoo search and lots of more search engines. It has also vista sidebar gadgets like weather and system uptime and lots of more useful gadgets. The sidebar uses 50% less RAM and is faster than the original Microsoft Sidebar with more extras and works on Microsoft Windows Vista and XP.

Organize your gadgets in Thoosje Vista Sidebar:

Thoosje Vista Sidebar works on Windows XP and Windows Vista. Gadgets are easy to use mini applications that give you information at a glance and provide easy access to frequently used tools. Thoosje Vista Sidebar helps you to organize your gadgets. As you use your computer to access information, perform tasks, and interact with software, you may at times feel like you're facing information overload. You have to open a web browser just to check the weather, open an application to view your calendar, and open a calculator program just to add up a few numbers. Now, with Windows Sidebar and its associated mini-applications called gadgets, the specific information you need is at your fingertips.

Gadgets:
Gadgets are mini applications with a variety of possible uses. They can connect to web services to deliver business data, weather information, news updates, traffic maps, even slide shows of photo albums. Gadgets can also integrate with other programs to provide streamlined interaction. For example, a gadget can give you a view of all your online instant messaging contacts, the day view from your calendar, or an easy way to control your media player. Gadgets can also have any number of dedicated purposes. They can be Search Gadgets, Clocks, sticky notes, and more.

All this is free so visit their website here, or download direct from here.

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Completely Uninstalling Windows Applications

When you uninstall a Windows application, the uninstaller doesn't remove all the files and registry entries created by the application. Sometimes the developers were too lazy or they thought those files might be needed if you reinstall the application. The end result is that your computer loads slower because your registry contains more entries and the hard drive stores unnecessary files.

Perfect Uninstaller is a better and easier way for you to completely uninstall any unneeded application that the standard Windows Add/Remove Program usually can't do.
This product has been a favorite simply because the design is unique with ease in use but powerful in efficiency. Find out more about this powerful tool here.

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How Spyware And The Weapons Against It Are Evolving

Spyware has reached epidemic proportions and is only getting worse. Recent statistics indicate that approximately 95% of the world’s PCs are infected with some form of spyware. Unfortunately, removal techniques that worked just a couple of months ago are no longer effective in many cases and new types of spyware being released are more advanced than most computer viruses.

A couple of years ago, the worst thing that could happen to you while surfing the Internet was to get bombarded by pop up ads. Lately though, I feel like all I do is clean spyware. I have spent countless hours removing spyware from computers belonging to friends and family, only to have it re-appear a few days later. I try to help as many people as I possibly can, but the spyware problem has reached epidemic proportions and is only getting worse. Find out here why the spyware problem has gotten so out of hand and more importantly, what you can do about it.

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How to Enable and Activate Administrator Account in Vista and then Unhide or Show in Welcome Screen

Windows Vista has built-in administrator account that is disabled and hidden by default, just like Windows XP how to show administrator account in XP. But unlike XP where any normal user account designated as Administrators group will have the same privileges as administrator account, in Windows Vista the administrator account is true super user account (equivalent to root in Unix/Linux). One advantage or benefit for using administrator account to login to Vista is admin is not subjected to UAC (User Access Control) restriction.

To activate the administrator account in Vista, follow these guide’s instructions:

1. Logon to Windows Vista with normal user account username and password (must belongs to Administrators group).

2. Click on Vista Start button, and type cmd in the Start Search box.

3. Right click on the Cmd returned on the search results pane above, then select Run as Administrator.

4. In the Command Prompt window, type the following text at the command line to set a password for administrator account. If you want to use a blank password for the Administrator account, skip this step.

net user administrator password

Replace password with the actual password string that you have chosen. Press Enter when done.Note that if your computer is a member of domain controller or has enabled complex password requirement in Local Security Policy, you will have to pick a really hard to remember password mixed with symbols.

5. Next type the following command and press Enter to activate and enable Administrator account:

net user administrator activate:yes.

6. The process should completed with the following message:

The command completed successfully

7. If not success message is returned, repeat the process again.

8. Logout from Vista by choosing Log Off or Switch User.

9. Click on Administrator icon and logon with the password you selected.

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