I finally got around to upgrading the default iPhone calendar app to Agenda Calendar. I liked the interface and layout views and that it was able to pull/sync from the default Reminders app that comes with the iPhone. I tweaked a few of the settings and what isn’t clearly evident from the app page is that there are quite a few alternative themes included if you don’t quite like the black/white look. It took me no-time at all to get up and going with the UI and at just a $0.99 price point, it is hard to go wrong.
I seriously considered both the Fantastical and the Calvetica Calendar apps before settling on Agenda. Fantastical really, really looked good I totally get the to-do view appointment layout. However according to the reviews this version didn’t sync with the iOS Reminders so that was a bit of a drawback. Calvetica is very nice looking and I love the bars-on-calendar visual for appointments but the price point was a bit steeper than I was willing to bite into.
Gmail - free - (Apple Store) - just got bumped to version 2.0 this week. This is a very refreshing update as it now supports multiple Gmail accounts in the same app. That was something I was wishing for. I like the UI and after using it less than a week find that it has become one of the most-used apps on my iPhone. Love it. Now I only wish it had a “unified” Inbox view option so you can see all your incoming messages in one place rather than having to tap a few times to switch between your different accounts. More reviews below:
About the same time, we also have a nice YouTube -free - (Apple Store) app update as well. I didn’t have any complaints about the first version but I see they have made some changes to the category pick and a few other things that might appeal to some. No biggie either way to me. I enjoy using it pretty well. iMore.com has a quick review and AddictiveTips blog goes into a more detailed review as well. Don’t forget Vimeo for iPhone also has a new update (Vimeo - free - Apple Store) that works nicely.
I still haven’t read an iPhone 5 manual at all and I’m sure there are a lot of navigational and usage things that I’m missing out on. So until that time comes, I’m collecting and reading a lot of tips and trick posts from iPhone focus sites such as over at iMore.com.
Likewise, I’m liking the new iTunes 11 release but as ArsTechnica points out, it’s a bit of a handful to take it all in: iTunes 11 review: Simple is as simple does - Ars Technica
Finally, there are bunch of quality iPhone wallpapers out there if you know where to find them. Because of the standard square icon size of the apps, depending on the number of apps you have you might not get as much of a chance to see the background as much as you wish…unless perhaps on your lock-screen. Accordingly I think subtle goes a longer way than bold and detailed images. Here are some to pick though if you desire.
iPhone 5 Wallpaper Pack - FiftyFootShadows.net. John Carey is an amazing writer and photographer and his blog is a must-follow read for me. His iPhone wallpaper pack is hands-down the very best (IMHO) of graphical goodness for refined and sophisticated images for iPhone. I selected one from this collection on the same day I brought home my iPhone (and though tempted at times) still haven’t found anything to make me want to change it.
iPhone 5 Wallpapers - Tumblr. This Tumblr blog is filled with iPhone 5 specific wallpapers. It’s a great place to check in daily at for some great high-quality wallpapers.
iPhone 5 Wallpapers HD - Retina ready, stunning wallpapers. This is a great site as it not only has more than a ton of HD iPhone 5 ready wallpapers, but it also has some gadgets to make your own customized wallpapers in a few themes. Nicely categorized for easy navigation and searching. If you notice, each image has two smaller icons underneath, hover over the padlock and you will see a sample of what the image would look like on the “lock” screen. hover over the four-grouped-icons and you will see a sample of the background covered with app icons. This is a super-nice touch assessing the visual appeal of the wallpaper on an actual phone.
The Shelf iPhone Wallpapers - Barlelme.at - The standard iOS icon size and grid layout makes “shelf” wallpapers very appealing for some users. It’s not my thing but these are well done it it is yours.
iPhone 5 Internals Wallpaper - iFixit - These are simply brilliant and geeky! Wallpapers are in a perfect to-scale internal view of the iPhone components under the glass and a just-smaller-than-scale version to include a few more of the techy-bits if you want to see them.
Great iPhone 5 Wallpapers - MacStories.net - Nice collection of links to other wallpaper sites for iPhone.
Aperture Logos Modern Style (iPhone) - Damien Erambert - If you are a Portal fan, then you definitely need to consider these. Super fun for the “don’t eat the cake” fans!
Enable the secret ‘GodMode’ in Windows 7 –ithinkdifferent. Spotted in Tweakfest! Enable God Mode in Windows 7 - TechBlog. This pretty cool for admins and heavy system tweakers. I’ve been using the free utility Windows Access Panel for quick-jumps to commonly-used Windows 7 elements, but this looks mongo-cool. I set my view to “small icons” after checking out the different views and it is grouped by type (to some degree). Still, there’s a lot to sort out. While Vista and Win7 share many of the same feature and setting locations, I’m still learning them after all these years with Vista. Anything that helps round them up into a more browse-able format is a plus in my book. Update: See Ed Bott’s take on the tweak and what is really going on. That "God mode" Explorer trick does less than you think . I still think its a useful way to find control items as I haven’t mastered the type-search-n-find method quite yet…
Folder Sharing between Windows 7 and VM – Windows Virtual PC blog – sharing folders isn’t as intuitive under Virtual PC now as it was under Virtual PC 2007. This post lists two tricks you can easily follow to set up a simple folder sharing connection between your VM and Windows 7 host system.
Elevation PowerToys for Windows - blog. There is some really, really cool and powerful stuff in this new-to-me blog. Elevation PowerToys allow focused rights elevations for specific scenarios and contexts that just don’t quite work smoothly using normal techniques. For some coolness applications see these links:
Win7 Library Tool – freeware - Zorn Software. Windows Libraries are like smart folders. They contain references to other folders and display the content as if it existed in the library folder. But it’s really not there, it’s still in the original location. However, you can’t add network locations to a library folder. This tool makes it possible. Spotted via Lifehacker post.
Customize Windows 7 Screensavers with the Help from System Screensavers Tweaker - freeware - Windows 7 hacker. Maybe you don’t need a third-party screen saver but you are finding the options for the Windows screen savers a bit lacking. This free utility allows you to fine-tune the existing Microsoft screen savers for Windows 7 a lot more than the native options allow. More bubbly anyone?
How To Sync Your iTunes Library With Your Music Folders – Make Use Of blog clearly sorts out a new iTunes 9 feature of allowing iTunes to manage all your music folders. Its easier than it looks and this guide makes it pretty clear with great screen shots.
The (Near) Final Word on Multi-Monitor Taskbars for Windows 7 - Ultramon vs. DisplayFusion – Scott Hanselman’s Computer Zen – Scott does a real-world comparison by a hard-core mulit-monitor user. I’m running the mentioned 3.0.8 Ultramon beta on my dual-monitor desktop system at home and finding it very smooth and compatible with Windows 7. Since I already own a license for it, it’s a no-brainer for me. However if I did want a freeware solution, DisplayFusion has much going for it. As Scott shows, however, neither is perfect.
The Windows 7 ISO Image Edition Switcher is a set of small binary patches (and a tool to apply these patches) that will convert an official Windows 7 ISO disc image into an official Windows 7 ISO disc image of another edition. The resulting ISO images are bit-for-bit identical with those posted on MSDN or TechNet, and their SHA-1 hashes should match the official hashes posted by Microsoft.
The ei.cfg Removal Utility is a simple tool that will remove the ei.cfg from any Windows 7 ISO disc image, thereby converting the image into a "universal disc" that will prompt the user to select an edition during setup. This tool works by toggling the deletion bit in the UDF file table, eliminating the need for unpacking and rebuilding the ISO, which means that this is extremely fast (the process of patching the ISO to remove ei.cfg takes only a fraction of a second), and the process is easily reversible (running the utility on a disc image patched by this utility will restore the disc image to its original state).
Please note that these won’t allow your Windows Home Premium key to suddenly activate a Windows Ultimate install that you converted your install disk to offer… Right key for right product version is still required….
Notepad2 Modifications - Kai Liu (developer of the W7 ISO disk image utility above, also offers a modded version of notepad2. Not only that, he also has a tool that allows you to swap out the Microsoft Notepad with notepad2 automagically. It can be done manually but is a royal pain. This tool offers to make that process a lot easier.
Similar to previous external beta service pack rollouts, Microsoft has enabled – via updates you already installed – a beta ‘candidacy check’ within its Windows Update software. Just like Windows Vista, a registry key and value pair need to be added prior to being authorized to download the new software.
Lots of coolness here. Just be careful how you apply the power!
…posted while waiting for my 500 Gig HDD to be zero’ed out before setting up the partitions.
One of the things I’ve been working hard at doing is staying more in touch with my little brother. Well, he’s not physically little, but he is a few years younger than me so I guess that fits for something.
He and I are both quite busy during the work-week, and due to the distance, it’s not always easy to just pick up the phone for a telephone-based conversation.
However I’m finding great joy and shared accountability in feeding our relationship with more time and conversations.
To that end, we have of late become great texting buddies, sending multiple messages during the day to each other. This seems to work well as they are more unobtrusive and allow us both to keep focused on work tasks but do present a nice quick keep-alive “ping”.
Little Bro has a nice shiny and l33t iPhone. He can do some power-texting with it.
Me? Up until recently I’ve been having to keep up with my Samsung SGH-A727 multimedia phone. It’s a fantastic phone, slim, looks incredible, and sports some long battery life. No moving parts means nothing will break without effort. However, texting on the numeric keyboard is a pain in the *ss. Seriously. It’s embarrassing.
So I needed to find one with a QWERTY type keyboard. I didn’t want an iPhone and since I didn’t want to ding the budget with a data-plan upgrade (unlimited family texting is fine for now), my choices with AT&T were a bit limited.
So I hit the Net and began researching. I had narrowed it down to the following models.
The Solstice seemed nice enough but it just didn’t inspire me much for some reason.
I really liked the Impression with the physical slide-out keyboard. However reading the user’s guide I learned that it didn’t have voice-dialing, a feature I used heavily on my old Nokia flip-phone, my current Blackberry, and is painfully missing on my A727 phone. However, the Impression’s QWERTY “real” keyboard might still win out. They Mythic was a fresh model release, looked really beautiful, but didn’t have a “real” keyboard, only the virtual touch-screen one. It did have the voice-dialing feature that the A877 did not.
So more research was in order. Luckily Google is my dearest friend (next to Lavie…).
The “print” reviews seemed quite positive about the phone, while the video reviews were a bit harsher, particularly regarding feedback and touch-screen in general. I weighted those with some thought they were using the iPhone touch screen as a gold-standard of sorts.
I also pre-downloaded and read (yes, read) the Mythic User’s Guide booklet to make sure I understood and could benefit from the features.
In the end it would come down to a visit and some Valca “hands-on” time at one of the local AT&T storefronts.
I quickly learned just how small and awkward the Impression’s physical keyboard felt while texting in my hands. On the other hand I could compose a novel with very few mis-registers on the Mythic’s touch-screen. It does provide “haptic feedback", which means it vibrates to confirm each key press. Nice touch. So the keyboard feel sold me, coupled with the voice dialing feature. When the store manager learned that I planned to just order it from the AT&T on-line store due the great discount offered, they said they wouldn’t just match, but would beat it (something they wouldn't do when I picked up my A727. And they did. Quite nicely. I’m not sure that was a late night “Black Friday” thing or maybe sales were slow. Regardless I walked out with a new phone, the Samsung Mythic.
Thoughts
If you want a real, technical review of the device, go back up and hit the links provided above. After a week’s usage I’d say they are all generally fair and accurate.
One other thing I heard mentioned in some of the video reviews of the device was that it was described as a “chick” phone (chick as in “girl”). Moving from the tech-cool A727 style, I was a bit concerned. As we all know, a guy can’t be seen with a “chick” cell phone right?
Well, I’ve had it in heavy use for a week now and have more than a few thoughts. I still don’t regret the decision. For a text-only needing, non-data-plan using dude, it works very well.
Size, heft, and physical styling are all high marks. I wish it were just a bit less rounded on the edges as I feel it might tend to slide out of my hands. The design also lends it to perform like a curling-stone on ice when placed on the passenger’s seat and I stop or corner too fast. It is more secure left in the cup-holder station. The front has the big screen with some black framing and chrome edging. The back side actually has a deep rich burgundy/dark-cherry color with some tech-abstract Spirograph-like black striping. It looks very professional and the color surprised (in a good way) from what I had expected from the web-images.
The camera/photo package is nice. Photo resolutions are great, it has a “real” flash built in, lots of photo-editing and filter effects, and will auto-resize pictures before text-message sending them. Handy.
The video playback is very smooth in my testing. I’ve no interest to use the AT&T streaming TV feature, but copying video files over and watching them on it is not too bad. Though for my use it is more of a novelty and show-off thing. I’m not the demographic that feature was designed for.
Call quality is nice. No complaints from my voice parties. I do prefer to use my Jawbone with it however.
The main screen has three different “desktops” which you can then put and rearrange “widgets” onto. Each can be wallpapered separately. This is where things break down a bit for me. I’ve got a different desktop image for each one I resized/cropped for my personal pleasure. However the widgets don’t always stay put where placed when they “activate” That ends up covering up much the nice wallpapers and kinda defeats the purpose. As a Windows guy I’m used to putting desktop icons in place and them staying locked there. This doesn’t happen on the Mythic.
(my personally crafted Mythic “beautiful things” wallpapers currently in service on my phone; P-51 Mustang, a retro Amy Adams, a retro Moon Radio. I’m sure a psychoanalysis of me based on these images would be fascinating…)
Now imagine having the widgets jump from their unobtrusively placed locations (bottom 1/3 area of pics above) to the center or top areas when “activated” and not return to the original place. Who wants to cover all that beauty up? But “hiding” the widgets on the otherwise handy sidebar feature also doesn’t always work as they will re-pop on the desktop in some cases, or require even worse digging in the menu system to launch. Bother.
Also the Menu screen has three pages (expandable to 4-5 total) with a wealth of additional application icons, settings buttons, etc. Many, many of them deal with applications for streaming media services, social media (Twitter’ish) apps, Yahoo stuff, things like that. Some can be removed. Most cannot and are locked in place. What results is a bunch of locked in iPhone like icons that I have to wade through to find the six or seven I really care to use.
As mentioned, while you can change the wallpapers, the “lock” screen provides a screensaver slideshow of locked images full of flowers, butterflies and other pretty things. While I don’t need “girlie” (as in Playboy) wallpapers, I also don’t find it too appealing to be locked into “girly” (as in Alvis and Lavie loving) images either. You can’t change the images shown. You can’t change the screensaver. Yep. It is a really pretty phone.
Luckily, I can set the “fade to black” timeout period to 8 sec or so. That takes care of that a bit. Though I wish they had at least offered this one as a default along with an “alternative” guy or neutral-image (abstracts only) screensaver. That might expand the appeal to more guys. Fortunately for Samsung I’m flexible and am one of those more emotionally sensitive tolerant types.
Another thing moving from the A727 to a “feature” phone like the Mythic is I am getting used to is the battery time. Like I said, going 3-4 days of call/texting use between recharges on the A727 was common. Now I can usually make it two days (tops) on the Mythic. I don’t think it’s a bad battery or unit, it’s that the screen is so much larger, and brighter and on more as I compose text messages. Typically it shows all battery bars for one day. Then drops one or two bars…looking like a 1/2 charge remains. Then I do a text or have a voice call and BAM the battery indicator is showing emptied. So for this month I’m letting it fully discharge a few times and then will be hooking it to the charger nightly.
I got a clear-plastic case for it while in use on my desk or weekend running in my jeans. For the daily work-week I found a nice Blackberry mag-latch vertical holster fit it perfectly (sans the clear-plastic weekender shell). I did allow myself to be sold on the clear-plastic screen protectors as well. They work well and don’t impact feel of the touch-screen whatsoever.
One last quibble. As a Windows guy, I’m used to the double-click the icon rhythm to launch an application. On the Mythic I’m still getting trained by the device if it is long-hold push to execute the application/widget, or if it is a double-tap, or a single-tap. Different things seem to require different actions. Please Samsung. Sick with a double-tap activation. This is driving me a bit batty. I need some consistency!
Voice-dialing is quite useful. Although I still have to find and push the widget button to get it activated first. Awkward while driving but an improvement over hunting through the contacts as I did before on the A727.
Overall texting is great now, and the device really does look smashing in both form and function. I just wish it was a bit more refined and, well, customizable.
Management with a Windows 7 x64 bit System
Silly me. I thought I could just download the PC/phone management link software and go.
I mean, the driver/software package was just released in late November.
Wrong…at least for x64 bit Windows 7. Tons of driver installation issues.
Fortunately, after a wasted-night’s worth of banging the drivers into the system, I gave up, and just plugged the sucker into the Win 7 system via the USB cable and amazingly Windows 7 picked it up as a mass-storage device (because of the SSD micro card in it).
This finding means that while I can’t manage any contact info or stuff like that, I can copy images, files, music, and videos back and forth easily with no fuss.
So instead of using the Samsung software I’ve been using the following freeware Windows tools to create wallpaper and convert video files for playback on it. Your results may vary.
As for picture files and wallpaper making, the “desktop” screen takes a 800x480 ration sizing. So in most cases I just use FastStone Image Viewer or Photoscape or even Hornil StylePix to resize and crop my preferred images for application as wallpapers.
Then I just transfer it all over USB onto the memory card on the phone. Done.
Of course, you could always just find some pre-made wallpapers (and other media items) already done for your Samsung Mythic:
Still to do: make a few United States Military Academy at West Point wallpapers with that stunning coat of arms. (more regarding the USMA’s coat of arms and motto here.) (And to clarify for the curious Google led visitor to this page, I did not attend and am not a graduate in any form or fashion of West Point. I did make a run at selection to the US Air Force Academy my senior year in high school, but bowed out during the process (story for another day.) Dad was an decorated US Army officer who served in the Vietnam “conflict”. And I still deeply hold to the many core values held by the various proud US military branches of service; and try to apply specific USMA-West Point leadership examples in my daily work and home-life: The West Point Way of Leadership by Larry Donnithorne.
Hmm. I’m digressing.
I’ve also got to clip a sound-sample of this awesome “Let A Stranger Drive You Home” Heineken Commercial . As much as I like the Biz Markie’s - Just A Friend “original” remake of the original Just a Friend by Freddie Scott, I have to say, I’d buy a single from iTunes just to hear the cabbie’s (Timm Cooney) entire rendition of Just a Friend. Timm not only sings the song, but owns it with soul!
.Still digressing I see…
Additional Resources for the Mythic Hacking Geeks
Here are some more links for tips, tricks and hacks of your Samsung Mythic.
Most of the info is both helpful and great reference. But some is hard-core programming-code feature hacking so “here be dragons” and proceed at risk of bricking your phone.
Hope someone considering or owning a Samsung Mythic finds this useful.
Oh..and what of my cherished cool-tech Samsung A727 phone?
Funnily enough, Alvis has ditched her AT&T Quickfire phone (with both a “real” and virtual QWERTY keyboard, swapped out SIM cards, and is now using it as her cool-chick phone.
Ironic.
And to make matters more embarrassing, she said she can text message her friends faster on the cursed numeric keypad than the QWERTY keyboards of the Quickfire.
Using, making, and sharing Windows 7 themes has gotten very simple.
Though I still grab specific images for my desktop wallpaper, I have to confess, the standard sets of Microsoft-provided themes for Windows 7 are very nice. I particularly like the scenic ones.
However it was a drag having the images rotating on my desktop a bit limited. By default the stock themes only contain five to seven wallpapers. If I wanted to rotate to additional ones I had to switch to a different theme set.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have, say, just one theme with all the landscape/scenic themes? But how?
Easy.
Get your Theme Material
First I had to get the source material by downloading or identifying all the themes with wallpapers I wanted to use.
Extract 5 Hidden Windows 7 International Themes (AU, CA, GB, US, ZA) – ITechnobuzz . Offers that there are some additional “hidden” themes in the “…MCT folder with Path = “C:\Windows\Globalization\MCT” consists of 5 Hidden International Themes of Australia , Canada, United Kingdom, United States and South Africa.”
[How To] Add More Wallpapers to Existing Themes in Windows 7 - Windows 7 hacker post informs us that “…the default theme configuration files that come with Windows 7 are all located in c:\windows\resources\themes folder. You can find 6 of them there after you first installed Windows 7. But all wallpaper files are not saved in the same folder. Instead, you can find them in c:\windows\web\wallpaper folder, in each organized subfolder.”
Personalization Gallery - Windows 7 themes, wallpapers, and gadgets - Microsoft Windows site has some wonderful commercial and scenic themes you can download. I took a lot of of my scenic ones from these beautiful locations. Download as many as you need, but I chose to “Save As” rather than download/install them.
my 7 themes . net – Additional collections of pre-packaged Windows 7 themes. I found just a few more here I downloaded as well.
Fill-Her-Up!
OK. Next I made a folder on my desktop so it would be easy to navigate to. I simply named it “Wallpapers”.
I also made a 2nd folder on my desktop called “Extracted Themes”.
Into the “Wallpapers” folder I just copied the accessible desktop wallpaper files from the c:\windows\web\wallpaper subfolders that I wanted.
Next I copied the various filename.theme files from the various locations where I had downloaded or located them (as noted above) into the “Extracted Themes” folder.
Now, we need to get into those theme packs to extract the wallpaper files.
Method One: If you already have 7-Zip handy, you can use it to de-compress the filename.theme files you have directly with no fuss.
Method Two: If you don’t have it or don’t want to, just rename the file extension for each of the themepacks to .cab
That turns them back into their true format as a Microsoft “Cabinet” file format. Then you can just use Windows 7’s own ability to open/extract them.
So once you have them all extracted, copy the appropriate wallpaper files you find within into the “Wallpapers” folder you made.
When you are all done, you should have quite a few desktop image files in the Wallpaper folder.
Move it and Set it
To tuck the “Wallpapers” folder away, I simply moved it to my user “Pictures” folder for safekeeping. You can put it anywhere that makes sense to you.
Then I right-clicked on the desktop and selected “Personalize”
I clicked on the “Desktop Background” item at the bottom of that window.
I clicked on the “Browse” button to go to my Pictures\Wallpaper folder location and selected it.
I then verified the images I wanted to include as well as tweaked the rotation time and set them to “shuffle”
I saved the settings.
My super-duper scenic rotating wallpaper image theme was now ready to go!
(Note, you could easily add any additional images to this folder as well; these could be your own personal photos, other images downloaded from the net, whatever. You don’t have to stick with just these theme wallpapers.)
Additional Diving
For more tips and background on Windows themes and the format that drives them, you might find these posts good reference material.
So I’m passing these links on to you so we can share the burden together.
Windows Base
Windows 7 Logon Background Changer - (freeware/Open Source) - Julien-Manici has released what has to be one of the most elegant Windows 7 system tweakers I’ve seen yet! It only does one thing, and that is to allow a user to change the Windows 7 logon background to any other image they have a image file of. It does all the conversion, cropping, and heavy lifting. It is “standalone” in operation but it does come with both an exe-based and MSI based setup installer for those who like those things. Not only does it allow you to switch the logon background graphic, but it provides a slick gallery previewer of the images in the folder you are pointing it to as well as a pre-view of what the login background will look like. Simply amazing and I think all Win7 users should consider getting it and putting it to work. I can’t believe that MS allowed this option and didn’t include a tool like this one. For more information on just how Windows 7 is pulling off this trick see these Rafael Rivera Windows 7 to officially support logon UI background customization - Within Windows and Tweak your Windows 7 Logon UI “button set” - Within Windows posts.
Disable the New Libraries Feature on Windows 7 - (tip) – Lifehacker – I don’t mind the “libraries” feature of Win7 but it does take a while to get used to. If you want to turn it off you can.
The other day I mentioned NetGrok which is a clever Java-based network traffic visualizer. I never was able to get it working on my Win 7 system, nor the Vista builds. I spend some more time with it on my XP Pro system and still couldn’t get it working. The Java kept erroring a nullPointer message. I did load it up in a fresh XP Pro Virtual PC build and after following the steps and using the latest Java release I did get it working. Not sure where the conflict is. One of the tricks I learned is that the groups.ini file that controls the grouping display doesn’t use standard IP notation. Nope instead you have to set the IP addresses in Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) notation. I hadn’t ran into this format before but it was easy to follow. Do a CIDR Notation - Google Search and you should be set. One more thing, when you do get it running you will then need to use the menu-bar option to set your network adapter it should use. Once I got it working it was very slick and cool. Only it locked up after just 10 minutes of running. Maybe it was a VPC thing… Still hoping…
NetGrok uses the Jpcap set. No changes with the version that is included in the setup package for it, but there is the link for the curious and watchful.
ZeroRemote v1.2.5 - (freeware) – Spotted and offered by TinyApps.Org Blog. Although I highly recommend and depend on the free version of ShowMyPC, I’m looking forward to playing with this one as well. If TinyApps recommends it, it must be good! Also related: Microsoft SharedView.
woanware has an amazing collection of system utilities and some forensic-related tools to boot. Particularly impressive is ChromeForensics which parses out the contents of the user-profile for Chrome and Chromium builds very, very nicely. I was having trouble getting it to work with my Google Portable Chrome build. Woany patiently spent some time with me troubleshooting and diagnosing. In the end it turned out to be a freaky corrupt (but working fine) user profile. I built a fresh portable Chromium build,downloaded the latest Chromium buildbot/snapshots, transferred my bookmarks over into it, and ChromeForensics worked perfectly. The “Thumbnail” tab view is really spectacular. Tip: when you browse to import the location point it to the \default folder. On my Vista\Win7 the Chrome folder location used is “C:\Users\Claus\AppData\Local\Chromium\User Data\Default” and for Chromium the folder location is “C:\Users\Claus\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default”. A few related freeware apps (not woanware) : ChromeAnalysis, and ChromeCacheView.
Silvermel :: Theme for Firefox. – I’m usually quite happy to stick with the standard/default Firefox theme. But I stumbled onto Silvermel and am overjoyed with it. IT doesn’t remarkably differ from the default theme but it is much more polished and refined. It looks smacking-delicious in NewsFox rendering. The horizontal icon/bookmark spacing seems a bit wider than the default, but the vertical spacing is tighter. I’m not sure if the font is different but it seems easier to read to me. Really classy theme.
NASA Night Launch :: Theme for Firefox and PitchDark for Fx :: Theme for Firefox. Here are two very dark, almost “special-ops” looking themes for Firefox. Nice for night-time viewing and/or when you need that edgy-techy dressed for success look for your fox. It’s no small wonder that NASA Night Launch remains at the top of the most weekly downloads list for the Themes, beating the next popular theme almost 2-to-1.
Meaty Tools
SpaceSniffer - (freeware) – Yep one more hard-drive file/folder size visualizers (of many such great Pocket Hard-Drive Utilities). I do like the text labels very nicely. It also supports several different views, can scan NTFS Alternative Data Streams, is portable (no install needed), and uses a XML file for saving settings…not the registry. Nice!
InstEd -- (freeware) – I’ve used Orca (Microsoft's MSI editor) before to muck around with MSI files, as well as Universal Extractor to open them. However InstEd comes highly recommended so I’m adding it to my toolkit.
ProcNetMonitor -- (freeware) – tool by Nagareshwar Talekar to help hunt down processes, to network connections, to ports. See also CurrPorts, Process Explorer, and VStat. ProcessNetMonitor combines several of these abilities into one package. Spotted at PenTestIT. Nagareshwar actually has a very large collection of PenTesting and password breaching tools at his SecurityXploded website. Check them out. Don’t forget about Nir Sofer’s Password Tools collection as well.
Paint.NET v3.5 Alpha, build 3533 -- (freeware) – New version recently released (Alpha so be warned). I’ve got it operationally deployed on my Win7 x64 system and it really is fast and smooth. Get it if you want to live on the bleeding edge. I didn’t fully appreciate the number of Paint.NET community built Paint.NET Plugins that are out there as well. Normally the base-set of included filters and features of Paint.NET are more than sufficient for my needs, but some effects are pretty cool and nothing like using a good plugin to get that perfect effect. The thumbnailer application ImageWalker has some cool image filters as well, though I find the older version to have a more robust filter/effect set. PhotoFiltre is another stunning tool for applying custom filters to images. The version “X” is not free, but version 6 is still freeware as are a few other tools as well on the page.
I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty full!
Pending one more post later tonight from the forensics front.
Lavie is scheduled for another round of outpatient procedures today so I’ve taken the day off to play supportive husband.
Expect intermittent blog posting today.
Offered in this post are a number of items that are inspiring visually.
First up, high-res desktop wallpaper guru Mando Gomez has presented a number of dual-monitor flag-themes over the years. These three have particularly inspired me and rotate on my desktops:
(in case it wasn’t clear…attribution to all images is due Mando Gomez)
I wasn’t sure about the last one with all this Somali pirate shenanigans going on. True piracy isn’t nearly as glamorous or entertaining as watching Johnny Depp carouse around. However, given that at least some folks in the Navy look to have a handle on individual situations, and it is just plain hard to find a good Jolly-Roger desktop image, I figured I’d pass it on.
It contains a summary of major scientific information that could be handy just in case you are swept unexpectedly through a time-space wormhole and pop up in say, the Middle-Ages.
Graham Rawle has a collection of fun visual wordplay known as Lost Consonants. Here’s the formula: take sentence and remove a single consonant from one key word, turning it into another. Then add an image that goes with the repurposed sentence and see what you have got. Kids and (most) adults pick it up pretty quickly and it is pretty clever.
Both posts take some time to highlight the amazing (really is this Microsoft coming up with these?) choices in wallpapering options under Windows 7.
Many are quite “trippy” and I have to confess I’m liking the change from the traditional wallpapers offered by Microsoft.
Vista’s standard default wallpaper collections were a large move forward, but these Windows 7 options are amazing; not just for the diverse artwork in itself, but also for the deviation from the button-down collar attitude.
Just a few “public service” announcements…for the interested.
It’s a Dell Thing
All of our enterprise notebooks are Dell Latitude models.
When it comes to notebooks at work, I’m pretty agnostic. We cycle through our notebook leases about every three years. Unfortunately, our IT department doesn’t get first and frequent dibs on the latest models. While I always would like to have the latest processors and maxed memory, having a stable and dependable system is much more valuable to me. Besides, we are all pretty good about putting in the tweaks needed to keep any system running at top-form. (Although it still does smart just a bit when we hand off a brand new system to a user and that system is spiffier than ours.)
Turns out a number of Dell notebooks (including our Latitude line) have some faulty NVIDIA on-board graphic processors. Dell has released BIOS updates for many (but not all) of its impacted line including the D630 we field. Seems that what the BIOS update does is cycle the internal cooling fan on more often to keep things cool. Our notebooks are covered under a pretty sturdy support plan so I doubt we will have any issues replacing those that fail, but it will be something to add to the deployment guide.
This also got me thinking. Depending on how many Dell Latitudes are still in the supply pipe-line, it is conceivable that we might be getting some of these new E-series notebooks when our turn at the equipment-renewal trough comes up. While I bet we get standard-issue black/gray cases, wouldn’t it be neat to get one in a more Texan-like “Regatta Blue” or “Regal Red”?
After playing with the D620 and D630’s dual-core processors for a while, my D610 model is looking a bit shabby. Fortunately, all of our new systems deploying are dual-core jobs with 2GB RAM (on XP Pro), so they are quite snappy.
It’s a Buzz Thing
I’ve (almost) never sought out a beverage solely based on caffeine content. Generally for daily consumption, I stick to non-caffeinated drinks. In the morning I have my double-size cup of tea-bag or loose-leaf brewed tea (black/green). If I do eat out (rarely now) I might indulge in a large (un-sweet) iced tea. I rarely hit the coffee beans now. Still enjoy it, but it’s too high maintenance. And I spurn the energy drinks like the plague.
I’m not overtly caffeine sensitive, but a Grande Frappuccino (with chocolate) is a sure-fire way to get my heart palpitating. Only thing I’ve drunk that seems to do that.
So it is with pleasure that I found this handy chart on Caffeine Content.
That Grande brewed Starbucks I used to pick up? 320mg!
Curiously, the Frappuccino only comes in at 115 mg. Must be Lavie’s presence as she is always with me when I get them.
Meanwhile, my morning tea is likely in the 100 mg range.
I do know that while I was on the coffee thing, if I skipped my regular cup I had a caffeine headache a few hours later, but on my morning tea, I don’t notice if I miss it.
It’s a Freeware Thing
Quite a few new and improved software finds to share today.
Process Monitor - (updated to version 1.37) – This Microsoft Sysinternals program for monitoring file/registry/process-thread activity for systems just got updated to fix some filtering usage and other bugs.
Process Explorer - (updated to version 11.21) – Another Microsoft Sysinternals program that got a bug fix.
Nir Sofer has been hard at work in his laboratory updating awesome utilities and releasing a new one.
ShellBagsView - (freeware) – Weird name but cool app. This tool scans a Windows system and provides a list of when folders were opened and associated information. Could be handy when you are doing “research” on a system looking for activity-related clues.
ServiWin - (freeware) – Use this tool to view, audit, and modify the installed drivers and services on a Windows system. Again, I like tools like this as I can quickly audit and log system parameters for troubleshooting and documentary purposes..
SysExporter - (freeware) – Many times while troubleshooting a system I am presented with a text-box or window that has a very detailed (and ginormous) error-code message. Instead of attempting to write it all down, I fire up this application and then can often copy/paste it into Notepad or other text editor for safe-keeping and searching. A screen-shot works, but this is much better in particular cases.
SmartSniff - (freeware) – Packet-capture tool that is quick and easy to get up and running. For guerilla-style tactics, this one is very dependable. This version update now provides locate/remote MAC address information, IPNetInfo integration, and can be configured to show IP Country of origin.
WirelessNetView - (freeware) – Find and monitor the wireless networks that surround yourself. New update includes the ability to report MAC address, RSSI, channel frequency and number. Can also report the company name of the MAC address based on hardware.
JavaRa - (freeware) – Just a reminder plug to not forget about this Java uninstaller/updater tool. Very small, fast and handy. I keep forgetting about it.
Newsfox - (FIrefox Add-on) – The RSS reader for Firefox now has release version 1.0.3 out.
Totally Free Burner - (freeware) – Yes, there are a ton of good and free CD/DVD burning apps out there. Just do a Google search of this blog and you will no doubt find the many I have recommended over the years. This is yet another one. With a pretty simple interface and all the major burning needs covered, this might be one to pass on to friends and family members who are looking for something a bit more advanced, but not requiring the hand-holding sessions required by many commercial or advanced freeware burning tools. A good review can be found via freewaregenius.com.
It’s a Desktop Thing
Mandolux has a great multi-monitor desktop wallpaper for all you geeks who think hard-drive mechanicals are sexy.
I've been fussing about apparent chronic eye-strain in my left eye and finally got to the family ophthalmologist for a checkup. The whole process took about an hour to complete.
Turns out it has been almost three years since my last vision checkup. I had to look up that post on my Blackberry to verify the date during the office checkup. Wow.
Good news was that my eyes are 100% healthy outside of the ocular performance.
I was told that the Rx I had been issued by a last-minute optometrist during my last visit was a bit too strong. So he dialed back the strength in one eye a bit and boosted in in my left eye a tad, also tweaking the astigmatism adjustment in it a bit as well.
I had to pick out my new frames by myself this time. After about twenty minutes of looking through the selections at the local mom-and-pop optical store we love and use in town I went with the very first set of frames I picked up; Adidas's "Inspired full rim model a787" in brown.
They look quite sporty yet refined. I went with the full-rim this time as these are very sturdy and rugged feeling, but the modern style compliments my personality and lifestyle pretty well.
Lavie and Alvis loved them.
There is a bit a curvature to the lenses in a wrap-around style and optically it is taking my eyes a bit of time to adjust, but now-where near the issues I encountered with my last sets. These frames also have a polarized sunglass clip that I got allowing me to cut-down on the price of getting a 2nd pair of Rx sunglasses.
My left-eye still feels a bit strained but considering it's been working overtime for the past three to six months, and I still have to adjust to these new optics, I can see much better now right out of the box.
Visual Linkfest
Welcome to A Moment of Luxury - Lavie and I have started watching this new PBS series. The host, William Stubbs, turns out to be a local Houston boy and has a very pleasing presentation of his style. Yes, it is about interior decorating primarily but it is very classy and enjoyable. He reminds us of a mix of Lavie's dad and her uncle.
Flickr: Lost America's Photostream - there are some wicked-awesome visual treats in this flickr collection. Great colors and lighting at night for abandoned Americana materials and locations.
I found this King Kong NY wallpaper over at Social Wallpapering that has become my favorite Vista widescreen notebook wallpaper of the moment. It's a graphic from the King Kong movie and the colors and patterns work great for me for the sparse icons I have on it. Still looking for something for the dual monitor desktop.... I also like this wallpaper Heritage Flight 2 especially for the colors of the P-51 Mustang. However the colors of the buildings in the background are too vivid so I will have to do some color work to mute them out a bit first.
BLDGBLOG - bonus: this mini-post links to a public-domain book Secret Chambers and Hiding-Places by Allan Fea which provides some creepy and fun stories on hidden rooms. Oldie but goodie!
Arch Daily - Really neat new architectural blog that has loads of stunning modern designs. Lots of great supporting images with the posts. Every day a new post comes up it is a joy. I want to be an architect in another life. One of my college buddies played on the UH football squad and was in the College of Architecture program. He was always working on these models. Quite the contrast the big stocky football player and his delicate construction-board design models..Sample post: The Barn House / Buro II. I love it!
Kong - freeware - For some reason this post has a Kong undercurrent. Kong is a freeware online/offline overhead shooter game with spectacular play and visuals. Really fun. I spotted this one over in a review at freewaregenius.com. Seems to play well on our laptop/desktop systems.
Her post only contained two desktop wallpaper sites. But then the community jumped in with a wealth of follow-up sites, Claus included.
So, since the tips are so awesome, I've combined them (and a few others) all here for you.
Many, many of these sites are ones that I haven't ever heard of, yet have some stunning images.
But first....let's talk about how to manage those piles of desktop wallpapers you are about to waste hours downloading.
Display Fusion and UltraMon - Windows Wallpaper Management
Although by default Windows Vista and XP do have a pretty good foundation for handling desktop wallpapers, and can even (with a bit of work) stretch them across multiple monitors, there are two programs I recommend and use that assist me with the process.
Display Fusion is a freeware/$ offering from Binary Fortress Software. I use this on my dual-screen laptop/monitor configuration at work as it is free. You can set different wallpapers on each monitor (not easily accomplished with XP/Vista's built-in tools) even if they run at different screen sizes/resolutions. You can span a single wallpaper across multiple monitors, and resize (scale) it to flow naturally (wicked cool). Set your desktop image(s) to change periodically ($-version). Align the wallpaper on the displays in a number of ways. Hotkey support (limited in the free version). Display Fusion is able to search and download images directly from Flickr. Latest version (2/7/08) is v2.0.1. Lots of new features have been added since I last updated it months ago! Comes in both "install" and "no-install" versions. Nice touch. Does require .NET 2 or higher to run.
Highly recommended!
UltraMon - ($) - is the software I bought right after my cherished brother surprised me with dual-flat-screen monitors one day. I use this product at home and it was money well-spent. A full-featured trial version is available. UltraMon assists you with setting up multiple monitors in a way that is similar to Microsoft's drag-n-arrange method. Once you have the monitor orientation down, the fun begins. Additional icons are added to windows allow you to one-click shift them between displays, as well as to span them across all the monitors at once. UltraMon puts a task-bar on each monitor. You can then set the option to mirror the same taskbar at the bottom of all the displays, or use "Smart Taskbar" which will only display the applications running on that display in it's own taskbar. This is how my system is configured. You can set special shortcut handling. You can set one desktop image to span all your displays, or set a different one for each. It also supports gradients for background colors if you don't use an image (or the image you use is smaller than the screen resolution size). UltraMon also allows you to run the same screen saver on all displays, or a different one for each display! Cool! While not useful in the home, UltraMon supports "mirroring" of displays. It also supports hotkeys, icon location preservation and a custom display applet.
Free Applications, custom program icons, scripts, and screen-savers are also available to enhance UltraMon.
Highly recommended!
The Main Wallpaper List
OK, here you go, kiddos!
By no-means complete. Listed in alphabetical order.
Note: I use Firefox as my web-browser (with the NoScript extension). I didn't encounter any pop-ups or problems with any of these sites. However, depending on your chosen browser, you may encounter things differently. Also, some sites require Java, Flash or pop-ups to be enable to see and/or download wallpapers. Just thought I would point that out.
3Data - Digital wallpapers captured in high-detail photography and digital manipulation.
555design - Like Grunge? Like Urban Decay? Like smarty comments on your walls? Like unexpected views? This might be the site you want to use for your walls. Despite the themes, the walls are mostly bright and captivating. Use the scroll-bar at the bottom to view the thumbnails. Click to select. Right-click to save.
adni18 - OK, the navigation page sucks, but once you start clicking the subject links, be amazed at the abstract and amazing wallpapers here. Really good conceptual art. Lots with an XP/Vista logo theme, if that's your thing.
Anime Wallpapers.com - Yes, I know, most folks leave the anime to the kiddies. However there is some stunning artwork done by both the character designers and the fans. Worth taking a look at least once.
The Apple Collection - Don't let the "Apple" fool you. Lots of nice wallpapers and tons of subjects for the Mac and Windows crowds alike. However it does help if you like Mac's. Some NSFW desktops. Browse carefully. Well categorized.
Blatte's Pages - Simply stunning fractal backgrounds and images. A number of dual-monitor fractal desktop wallpapers are also available. Highly recommended. Updated to post list 03-01-08 as suggested by faithful reader Jim Thomspon.
Caedes Desktop Backgrounds - Photography, Abstract, 3D wallpapers submitted by the artist community. Really unusually beautiful and original works.
Caedes - Rework gallery - images modified by other artists. Beautiful x2!
Cognitive Distortion - Almost always shows up on someone's wallpaper site list. Stop by and see why.
Customize.org - Themes, Skins, Wallpapers and Icons for Windows.
Desktopia - Lots and lots of free desktop wallpapers.
Desktopography - Natural Desktop Aesthetics. (Flash based site.) Fusion of nature and technology. Beautiful works that I frequently rotate on my dual-screens at work. Nothing to offend here for the work-crowds.
deviantART - Multi Display Gallery. Sometimes there are lots and sometime slim pickings. Click on the time-range links to display a wider range. Good thing is there is a wide range of multi-display wallpapers here. I often re-crop to fit my dual-monitors.
Digital Image Cafe - Might take a bit of work to resize for full-screen coverage as your wallpaper but some really beautiful photography exists here. I would be remiss not to include it.
dmb - Dual Monitor Backgrounds - Not a large number of items, but those here are very high-quality images. Simply one of the best places to get your first sets of dual-monitor desktops.
Endeffect - Very unusual wallpapers. Though not truly monochromatic, they do have that feel to them. Unexpected designs and images. Take a look. Lots of different monitor resolutions are supported. Reminds me of digitized Rorschach images for some reason.
eWallpapers - High resolution & widescreen wallpapers. Very wide-range of subjects.
Fifty Foot Shadows: - Images from nature and people having fun. Really peaceful images.
Flickr: The Designer Wallpaper Pool - Flickr collection of wallpapers that runs the range from photography to digital art. Wide collection of subject. Prepare to browse.
Flickr: The Wallpapers (1024x768 minimum) Pool - Passed on by Dwight Silverman back some time ago. This link is to all images that are at least a certain screen resolution. If you are looking for "slice-of-life" images, here is your place.
mandolux - Simple the pinnacle of High Quality walls. Really the first place to go when looking for a range of beautiful dual/multi-monitor wallpapers for your desktop. His is the best!
Mike Swanson's Blog : Wallpaper Images - Mike is a photographer who has graciously posted many of his best shots optimized for wallpapers to the web. Nature rules!
my best desktops - If you like color in your wallpapers, this is the site to visit. A rainbow of colors. Use the Tag Cloud to browse the works.
经典桌面资源站 - MY DESK CITY - Chinese site. Amazing collection of walls. Be prepared to browse a lot as the categorization leaves a bit to be desired. Worth the visit though! Simply stunning collection. I visit here often.
National Geographic Wallpapers - NG's photographers capture the best of the best when it comes to nature, travel and world cultures. NG has heavily redesigned their wallpaper website and it is more user-friendly than ever. Definitely a keeper. Like all those NG magazines sill in the garage!
PixelDécor! - Looking for retro-walls? Here is your site. Mostly patterns and blocks. Hasn't been updated for quite a while, but still there is lots of great things to enjoy here.
Renato Valdés Olmos - Not many, but stunning vector-based multi-monitor wallpapers.
Social Wallpapering - Clever new wallpaper site. Very social. Join in to rank, classify and share high-res wallpapers. Includes offerings for both standard, widescreen, and dual-monitor walls.
ToeTag's deviantART Gallery - ToeTag has become one of my two favorite DeviantArtists for dual-monitor wallpapers. Stunning multi-monitor shots of farmlands and nature (and a few P-51 Mustangs for good measure!). What's not to like?
Vista Wallpaper - German site with digitized desktop artworks. Abstract and futuristic.
Vladstudio Wallpaper Gallery - An eclectic collection of free desktop wallpapers, widescreen, dual monitors, iPhone wallpapers, backgrounds for mobile phones, wallpaper clock. More images and material at VladStudio
WallpaperStock - Stunning collection of high-quality wallpapers, vectors, models, themes. One of my top, top, top websites for finding wallpapers. Not too many dual-monitor options, however
Wallpapers Zone - French wallpaper site. Humongous categories and selections. Some NSFW so be careful!
Wallpapr – Cool wallpapers search widget for Flickr Groups. Very Web 2.0 interface. Simply amazing!
Yumeiroyakata - Pastel graphics, textures, and images. Best for tiling effect background wallpapers.
VectorMagic | Precision Bitmap to Vector Conversion Online - Stanford University project which is amazing. Upload an image, set some parameters using a brilliantly designed wizard, let it run (may take a while depending on image size and options selected, output amazingly well done vectorise versions of your image! download and/or share the results. Click this link to see what happens when I uploaded and vectorise an old 1952 Humble Oil roadmap of Houston. Cool!
WallPaperMaker - Sexy Wallpapers Built By Yourself. Not really my thing, but I'm sure there are some folks who will love the site. Clever attempt.
Enjoy! and special thanks to all the Net Citizens who shared their favorites. This list couldn't have been built without them! Ashley, OldManDeath, Syahid A., Navaljayhawk, Transcontinental, Lappy, Nate, bluegecko, leland, Kate, Andrew, Fab, and scottgrabs.
Now I've got to go and reorganize my Wallpapers bookmark folder to accommodate all these additions! Yikes!
-screen one. It did have the voice-dialing feature that the A877 did not.
