Vista Glazz and Vista Themes

This tutorial will teach you how to install a Windows Vista Theme, complete with full transparency (the Full Transparency only works with Windows Aero enabled PC’s)

Windows Vista spoke of alot of features but when it arrived many of the features were nowhere to be found which left the hacking/modding community alot of work to do.

Anyway I wanted to highlight to utilites which can really enhance the appearance of Windows Aero (with very little performance degradation).  The first tool you’ll need is Vista Glazz by Code Gazer which you can download below:

Vista Glazz Official Code Gazer website

Vista Glazz is a really neat utility which automatically replaces the Windows Vista .dll files required to change your Windows Vista Theme.

So First download Vista Glazz install it and run it you should get a screen like below:

It’s pretty straight forward to use, simply click the Computer Icon to change the .dll files and then click on the Color Palette Icon to change the Visual Style, this allows for transparency even in maximized windows (pretty cool).

If everything worked properly you should notice that when your Windows when maximized will maintain their transparency.

Now for maximum effect you need to download a new theme, I recommend the Windows 7 Theme by Vishal Gupta:

Download Windows Seven Theme Here

Follow the isntructions on that website, one problem I had was in the c:/Windows/Resources/Themes/ folder you must have the directory structure right.

e.g.

a .theme file directly in the Themes directory

then a folder with the same name as the .theme

with the shellstyle folders and other things in it.

TIP:  Look at the default Aero folder for guidance otherwise you might not see any difference

The above problems are where most people run into problems so if you have any questions or it’s not working leave a comment below and I will try and help.

Another theme I recommend is the MaxClear theme which can be downloaded here:

Max Clear Theme Windows Vista

Thanks for reading!

Tags: Computer
Posted in Recommendations, Tutorials | 3 Comments »

When I was learning how to program I programmed a couple of games you can check out here, they aren’t all that complete, but some are completely playable.  Let me know what you think.

Ball Wars - The ever Famous Pong Remake

Area 15 - A spoof on Area 51

Space Dogfighters - Fly around with a robot controlled Space Craft and shoot lasers at each other!

Tags: Computer, Games
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Yes it’s different

Along with Windows Vista comes a couple of interesting “quirks”, one of them is the Filesharing is a little bit different than XP. A couple of notes about Filesharing in Vista:

• You cannot share the Program Files folder (don’t know why) if Anyone knows of a work around let me know!
• In order to share you need to add guest to your permissions list (see tutorial below)

Alright so assume you have a folder named Bob in your C:/ directory, navigate to C:/ and right click on the Bob Folder:



Select properties, then click on the Sharing tab:



Click the Share button, now comes the different part. From the Dropdown menu select Guest and click on ‘Add’.



Close

For some reason by default when you share a folder you share it with yourself (woohoo i’ve shared my own computer files with myself!) When you add a guest it works the same as XP

So now if you are on another Computer on the same network you can either click on Start > Network and find the computer that is sharing the computers or click on Start > Run (Windows Key + R) and type in two backslashes plus the Computer Name, so if your computer was named MrSmee (not case sensitive) you’d type in \\mrsmee and press ok.



Tip

To find your computer name, right click on ‘My Computer’ Select Properties Look for Computer Name.

I hope that helps, let me know if you have any questions in the comments

Tags: Computer
Posted in Tutorials | No Comments »

Are you a Web Developer?  I think this list of Firefox extensions will come in very handy I use these tools on a daily basis when programming.

FireFTP - Free fast FTP, what more do you need (maybe secure SSH in which case use WinSCP) You can also use FireFTP almost as a Desktop Application by reading the instructions below:

How do I make a link from the desktop to FireFTP?

http://fireftp.mozdev.org/help.html

MeasureIt - This AddOn is essential if you are a CSS Developer it allows you to measure how bit areas are on your browser window in Pixels, now you can have pixel perfect lining in your websites.

IETab - This tool lets you see what your Website will look like in Internet Explorer without closing down Firefox, it uses the Internet Explorer built into your computer so usually it will use the latest version of IE, if your interested in Cross Browser capability this is essential.

Yet Another Window Resizer - Resize your browser window to the main Window sizes 1024×768, 800×600, etc.. to see what your website will look like to someone with that Window size.

ColorZilla - This extension allows you to get the HEX color code of any element in any website, very useful for CSS

SearchStatus - This extension shows you the PageRank and Alexa rank, good for SEO

If you can think of any other good ones to post please let me know in the comments, i’m always up for new ideas!

Tags: Computer
Posted in Recommendations, Software, Tutorials | 6 Comments »

Awesome Free Software to improve your productivity

I decided to create a list of software that I use on a regular basis, I hope you find this list useful, If you know of any other free software that is very helpful, please leave a Comment.

Originially Posted in JordanGarn.com

Firefox - Are you not using Firefox? What!?  Anyway Firefox is currently setting the web standard being 3-4 technologies ahead of Internet Explorer, thousands of plugins for ultimate customization, faster browsing. A better Internet.

Evernote - Evernote is an awesome program which allows you to remember everything! Take notes with text or handwriting, use the Firefox Extension web clipper to clip parts or entire web pages so that you remember it.  Excellent Tool.  Originally on Mac but also ported to Windows.

Gimp - The Free Alternative to Photoshop, I used to not be much a fan of it until v2.0 rolled around, now it has some really nice features plus it can be skinned (with hacks). Good Alternative if you don’t want to fork out at least $200 for Photoshop.

Pidgin - Do you know alot of different people with alot of different IM accounts?  Do you have multiple Software installed to talk to all of those people?  Well have it all in one with Pidgin, features multiple client support.  MSN, Google, ICQ, etc.. with hundreds of plugins available.

ANTIVIRUS PROGRAMS

AVG, ClamWin, or Avast - For Antivirus I use one of three free programs AVG, ClamWin, or Avast.  Each have their own Advantages/Disadvantages which i’ll explain.  Avast is probably the most thorough (offers the best protection) however that protection can slow down your computer quite a bit.  AVG is kind of in between offering medium protection while not slowing down your Computer too much.   ClamWin on the other end of the spectrum offers the least protection but barely affects your systems speed.  I’ve also noticed that one Antivirus is better at catching certain viruses than others (seemingly random) So I switch Antivirus Software frequently for maximum protection, the one I use the most is probably AVG.

Free Download Manager - Free Download Manager revolutionizes the way you download files, Offers features such as saving partial downloads, faster download speeds, status monitoring, warning of malicious downloads, and more… My favorite Download Manager.

RocketDock - Do you like Mac OS’s Dock? Well now you can have it in Windows too, with an awesome program called RocketDock, I noticed very little Performance degradation, meaning Rocket Dock runs fast with lot’s of settings to tweak.

JCreator - If you are a Java Programmer, JCreator is my favorite IDE, fast and reliable, without all the fancy stuff which most the time slows me down.

Putty - Do you need to access a Linux Computer in some faraway land?  Over a secure connection?  Then Putty is my suggestion for SSH clients.  Don’t know of any others actually lol.

WinSCP - If you need a Graphical SSH, Secure FTP Client, WinSCP is my program of choice

VideoSpin - A very easy to use Video Editor, Free and professional like quality.

WinAmp/Foobar/Songbird - These are my three favorite Song Playing Programs, Winamp is good because it’s lightweight and has all the features you need.  Foobar is extremely lightweight and very, very customizable (not recommended for Beginners) Songbird is kind of like Itunes but not as resource intensive and works in Linux, Windows, and Mac.

Taboo - Save all of your Firefox Tabs in one place, very useful .. for me anyway.  Requires Firefox

WinRar - Fastest winzip like product I know about, similar to WinZip but with more functionality (comparable to 7Zip)

Foxit - Let’s face it 80 MB just to view a PDF file is ridiculous, Adobe Reader is way too big.  Foxit reader is less than 2 megs in size and does what a PDF Reader needs to do, namely read a PDF.

And that’s it! if you know of any other good Software please leave a comment below.

Posted on JordanGarn.com

Tags: Computer, Free Software, photoshop, PSDesignZone, Software, Twitter
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Wouldn’t trade it for anything

For those of you who don’t know, I was just gone for a very long time. About two years to be exact. Where was I? I was on a Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or (also known as The Mormon Church), in the Country of South Africa. It was an amazing experience

For those of you unfamiliar with The Church, I would encourage you to find out more about it at the Churches website here at Mormon.org - Learn about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or view a friend of mines website Mormon Basics, Now I know there is a huge amount of people broadcasting alot of negative things about the church, (that we aren’t Christians, that we practice polygamy etc..) in fact one of the 12 Apostles Elder M. Russel Ballard, gave us a challenge to use the Internet to help explain to people who are unfamiliar with the Mormons to understand who we really are. View the Post Here

When I thought about this I realized that on the internet, there are literally hundreds of websites telling Flat out lies about the Mormon Church, if you would like to learn more about the Mormon Church please speak with a member of the church who will give you the most accurate description, otherwise you are only going to probably receive lies and exagerations.

What do Mormons Believe in?

To start i’d just like to say some of the main things the Church believes in, our belief is central to Jesus Christ, we are very much Christians, We believe in the Bible as the word of God, and also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God. (If you want to know what the Book of Mormon is go here Book of Mormon Introduction) Basically the Book of Mormon is a record of God written by people who lived in the American Continent and teaches us complementing the Bible all we need to know about God and what we need to do to return to him, find happiness in this Life and Happiness in the Life to come. We also believe that prophets teach us what God wants us to know, as it says in Amos 3:7 “Surely the Lord will do nothing but he reveals his Secret unto his Servants the Prophets” KJV. God teaches us through his prophets, unfortunately today there are many claiming to be prophets but the Bible also warns us that there will be many False Prophets, Why are their so many Prophets? And how can we know which ones are really called of God? Those are important Questions, ones that I hope to answer in this Post

Why are there so Many Prophets in the World?

Just about every church claims to have a Prophet, we know that Prophets are Gods Mouthpiece my question to you is would God say something different to two different people, of course not! He would say the same instruction and guidance to everyone. When Jesus Christ was killed, his Apostles acted as his Mouthpiece on Earth to give them guidance, however one by one history shows us that each of them were killed, they were killed while they were spread out preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now I like business so I am going to use a Businees example, imagine a Business you work for, if the owner of your business was killed and also all of the managers, what would happen to the Business? It would collapse! The same thing happened to The Old Church of Jesus Christ, the Church that Jesus Christ himself setup was destroyed! Why? Because it’s leaders were killed by wicked people. Now good people still existed but they weren’t called to be leaders and this caused Arguments and eventually the Original Single Church of Jesus Christ was split into Hundreds of Thousands of Churches! That exist today, according to statistics for 2007 there are about 320,000 Christian U.S. churches recorded! would God want all of this confusion? I don’t think so.

How do we know a Prophet is called of God?

How do you know someone is really called by God to be his mouthpiece, the answer is actually very simple, we are told in the Bible that we can ask God questions through prayer, you can ask God if what someone is teaching is true and he will answer you through the power of the Holy Spirit. The Man we believe who is called to be a Prophet who Restored the Church of Jesus Christ to the Earth is the Prophet Joseph Smith, if you want to learn more about him please go to Mormon.org and Click on Truth Restored, then you can watch the Video called Restoration DVD, which talks about how Joseph Smith was called by God to restore the Church of Jesus Christ to the world, you can then Pray and Ask God if that was true or not. You can also invite the Missionaries to come visit. Or Attend Church at a Church Building near you Go to maps.lds.org To find a church building near you.

What is a Mission

For two years, I sacrificed everything I used to know, Friends, Family, School, Work, Computers, everything. I went and taught the people in South Africa about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. many many people in South Africa are joining the Church every week through the Waters of Baptism, in fact The Mormon Church is the fastest growing Church in the U.S. This is in large part due to the Missionary effort where we sacrifice two years of our life working 10 hour days all day everyday teaching people about Jesus Christ. Why do we do it? Because we know it’s true and we know it is the single greatest thing that can happen in a persons life. Serving a Mission is a tough experience but it’s well worth it, I learned very much. I know i’m not perfect but I do know that the Church of Jesus Christ’s only purpose is to help us as imperfect human beings to become perfect by following the example of the Savior Jesus Christ. I invite you to also find that out for yourself.

If you have any questions please feel free to comment below, you can also contact the Missionaries on Mormon.org

Useful Links

Mormon.org - Learn what the Church is all about, you can also talk with the Missionaries

Maps.Lds.org - Find a Church that is close to you

Mormon Basics - Learn the Basics of the Mormon Beliefs, easy to understand

Photos of me in South Africa, on a Mission

Jordan Garns’ South Africa Mission Photos

Thanks for Reading, please leave your thoughts below

Tags: Computer, School
Posted in Life | 1 Comment »