So I stumbled across a central location for some of Microsoft’s PowerToys for Windows XP. I had already tried out of couple of them, like SyncToy and the Slide Show Wizard, but there were a couple of others that caught my eye. Right away I started downloading… ClearType Tuner, Alt-Tab replacement, Tweak UI, Image Resizer, Virtual Desktop Manager, and Taskbar Magnifier.

ClearType - isn’t a big change and you will probably forget you enabled it a day later but in the long run I feel it will help ease eyestrain. (my opinion: install)

HTML Slide Show Wizard - wizard helps you create an HTML slide show of your digital pictures, ready to place on your Web site. (my opinion: use jalbum or picasa)

Alt-Tab replacement - adds a preview of the page your switching to in the Alt-Tab box. Now its not Vista-like but you will enjoy the page preview specially if you open multiple windows of the same app. (my opinion: use TaskSwitchXP)

Tweak UI - gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more. I went through all the options and it offers quit a bit, but I didn’t really change anything. I guess its good I know where to go now to easily change some settings. (my opinion: install)

Image Resizer - enables you to resize one or many image files with a right-click. About a month ago I went searching for a quick batch image resizer, I came up with Image Converter One. After finding this I will only use the Image Converter One from my portable apps when on the go. (my opinion: install)

Virtual Desktop Manager - allows you to manage up to four desktops from the Windows taskbar. Have you ever wanted more space on your desktop? Well instead of buying a bigger monitor you should try out a virtual desktop. All virtual desktop managers are pretty much the same, it just depends on how simple or flashy you want it. (simple: Microsoft Virtual Desktop Manager; medium: yod’m 3D; flashy; shock 4way)

Taskbar Magnifier - magnifies part of the screen from the taskbar. (my opinion: I would never need it)

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I was asked by a concerned parent "How can I keep my kids from looking at stuff they shouldn’t?" Well "stuff they shouldn’t" is relative to each parent. Also being in my twenties with no kids I’ve never really thought about it. So I’m off to the races, that’s right I go straight to Google! LOL - from here I am flooded with a ton of information, there are a lot of products out there for just this situation but the more I look the more they cost. I’m here to tell you I’m cheap, I would probably stand over my kids shoulder than pay $50 for some software to do it for me. But your in luck, I found some good solutions the inexpensive way (or free ;-))

There are plenty of different products out there some are an entire suite that monitor everything and some are on an individual basis. Again these may not be the best security features out there, but they are free and they can help get the job done.

Windows Live Oncare - Family Safety
With Family Safety, you can control the people your children communicate with, the websites they can view, and the search results they are shown. Contact list settings can help you make instant messaging safer in Windows Live Messenger and e-mail safer in Hotmail. Also you can block all sites except kid-friendly sites and those you specify or, you can allow all sites except specific categories and sites you block. You can also get activity reports to keep tabs on the sites your children visit.

Glubble
Glubble is a free parental control suite Firefox addon. It aims to help extend the appeal and adoption of Firefox to families of elementary school age children. The Glubble add-on for Firefox enables families to provide a protected, fun and educational web surfing experience for kids by enabling their family circle to link up via Firefox to decide what they can see online.

ProCon Latte
ProCon, another Firefox addon, is a content filter for the browser. It can filter any kind of material (pornography, gambling, hacking, cracking, etc…), it can also block all traffic, making sure that only desired websites (set in the Whitelist) can be accessed, and includes a profanity filter. ProCon also has password protection in order to keep others from changing the settings.

IMSafer
IMSafer lets you know when your children may be in dangerous situations online, and shows you how they represent themselves in their online profiles. IMSafer Basic is free and available to any parent who wants it. Basic will support up to one monitored IM account, IMSafer Plus allows for monitoring of an unlimited number of IM accounts and support for MySpace and Meebo. IMSafer automatically detects and starts monitoring any account it finds. You don’t have to do anything. IMSafer currently supports Microsoft (all versions), AOL (both AIM and ICQ), Yahoo! (all versions), MySpace and Meebo.

Now for those who want to take a more techy advanced roll in their children’s online safety. I found how to control the time a user can log in and there is also a program called Keylogger that records every keystroke a user makes.

Time Restriction
go to Start - > Run -> type CMD
now to select the user type net user (you will need to know the password of the account to set this up)

ok, you can see the user you want a time restriction on now so here is what we type
net user [account name] [Password] /times:DAYRANGE,TIME;

DAYRANGE codes: M,T,W,Th,F,Sa,Su
Time: use 24hr time

EXAMPLE: net user Paul janurary123 /time:Su-Sa,3-16;M-F,17-21;
to reset use /time:all

Keylogger
KeyLogger silently records all keystrokes typed including emails, word documents, excel documents, windows password, chat room activity, voice recording, instant messages, web addresses, and web searching.

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Piclens is a plugin for you internet browser that transforms it into a fullscreen, interactive slideshow like experience. It is available for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. You can view and navigate images from Google, flickr, Yahoo and many more. You can also browse and watch Youtube videos from the “3D Wall”. You can immediately jump to the corresponding webpage by a click of a button. Piclens is free from adware and spyware so no worries there. On the subject of free, Piclens is absolutely FREE and can be found at piclens.com or here.

On a personal note I love using Piclens now to search for new wallpaper for my computer. It is really one of the fastest ways to find images on the internet. You have several sites you can search from, and there are many sites that have Piclens enabled (like facebook). Overall it is a cool interactive away to find images quick.

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If you notice a headache or your eyes hurt after being on the computer after a while, you should check your monitors screen refresh rate. You probably can’t notice it but you monitor flickers as it refreshes. Most people’s eyes aren’t sensitive enough to notice it, but it happens and the lower the rate it refreshes the more it irritates your eyes.  Which can cause them to hurt and give you headaches.

To check your monitors refresh rate go to Control Panel -> Display -> Settings Tab-> then click Advanced. Now go to the Monitor Tab and there is a section for Monitor Settings. Make sure the Hide modes that this monitor cannot display is checked! Then choose the highest refresh rate from the drop down menu.

Filed under: Tips and Tricks, eyestrain, headache, monitor, refresh rate | Post a comment