Create a Flip3D Quicklaunch button

By DustinPosted on

Once you upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista, there are a few little quirks. First off, the QuickLaunch is gone, replaced with Jump Lists. But, if you use Flip3D in 7 using your mouse, you’ll notice that icon is now missing. Here is how to get your one click Flip3D shortcut back to your Taskbar.

1. Right click on your desktop, and click New > Shortcut.

2. For the location of the item, type “C:WindowsSystem32rundll32.exe DwmAPI #105” (without quotes).

3. You can leave the name as rundll32.exe, and click Finish.

4. You’ll now have a simple shortcut on your desktop that runs the Flip3D feature. But, we need to pretty it up a bit and put it on the taskbar.

5. Right click the shortcut, and click Properties. Then click on the Change Icon… button.

6. At the top, it says “Look for icons in this file”, change the location to “C:Windowsexplorer.exe”. You’ll notice a few icons show. You can actually choose your own (and there are many other icons available, check our other FAQ for more). We want to choose the stock Flip3D icon now.

7. Now that your icon looks better, we can put it on the taskbar. Right click the icon and select “Pin to Taskbar”. You’ll notice that your Jumplists now have the Flip3D icon there, and it works just as well as in Vista.

8. You can remove the shortcut from your Desktop, if you’d like.

Disable Thumbnails on Taskbar

By DustinPosted on

Windows 7 has a live preview thumbnail of your running programs when you hover over the icon on your taskbar. Some people love it, like I do, and others don’t care for it so much. Here is how to disable the thumbnails on your taskbar.

1. Open regedit (Start > type regedit and press enter).

2. Naviate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer

3. In the right pane, right click and select “New” and “DWORD (32-Bit)”. Give it the name TaskbarNoThumbnail.

4. Right click the new name and select “Modify”. Change the value to “1“.

5. Close regedit, reboot (or log off and back on). You will no longer have the taskbar thumbnails. To reverse it and get your thumbnails back, just delete the new key you created or change the value to “0“.

How to Disable Aero Shake

By DustinPosted on

Windows 7 has a new feature that lets you shake the active window and make all the other windows minimize instantly. I find it is a quite useful feature, but if you don’t like it, here is how to remove it.

1. First, type REGEDIT in the Search Box in the Start Menu, or at the RUN box. This may require you to elevate your privledges, depending on your UAC options

2. Next, navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindows

3. Create a new key called “Explorer” under the Windows key. You can just right click the Windows key in the left pane and select “New Key”.

4. Make sure that Explorer is highlighted in the left pane, and right click the right pane and make a new DWORD value (it can be either 32 or 64 bit) named “NoWindowMinimizingShortcuts”. Then right click the new key and select “Modify”. Change the value to to “1” to disable Aero Shake.

Regedit screenshot

5. Reboot your computer for the changes to take effect!

Increase Thumbnail Size on Taskbar

By DustinPosted on

The live thumbnail view when you hover over the icons on your taskbar is a very nifty feature, and is very handy. I use it very frequenty to get to the window and browser tab that I need right away. But, for those that want larger thumbnails than what Microsoft offers, here’s how.

1. Open regedit (Start > type regedit and press enter)

2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerTaskband

3. Create a new DWORD (32-bit) and name it MinThumbSizePx

4. Change the value to the size in pixels that you want your thumbnail to be (use the Decimal value). I used 400.

5. Restart the computer (or log off and log back in). Start a program, and hover over the icon on your taskbar. Larger thumbnail!

Unlock New Themes in Windows 7

By DustinPosted on

Windows 7 has a few default themes, one of which is for your specific country to show off the nice scenery. Microsoft has made the other countries themes available, but hidden. Here’s how to enable these themes, and view some of the great world scenery.

1. Go to the Control Panel. If you have the basic view, click on Appearance and Personalization. Then click Folder Options. If you have the advanced view, you can just click Folder Options.


2. Click the View tab, scroll down and uncheck “Hide protected operating system files (Recommended).

3. Click OK.

4. Browse to the path C:WindowsGlobalizationMCT. You will have 5 folders in there. You can open each one and browse to the “Theme” directory, and double click the theme file in there to install and switch the themes (once it is installed, it will be available in Themes, you don’t have to go to the directory each time).

Available themes: Australia (AU), Canada (CA), Great Britain (GB), United States (US), South Africa (ZA).

What are the minimum specs for Windows 7

By DustinPosted on

The minimum system requirements are direct from Microsoft. Remember, though, that these are the minimum requirements to install and use Windows 7.

The minimum system requirements are direct from Microsoft. Remember, though, that these are the minimum requirements to install and use Windows 7. It will no doubt be sluggish and you probably shouldn’t install it on something this lite. Although, it has been reported that installations on netbooks have gone remarkibly well with enough performance for daily use.

– 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor or higher
– 1 GB of system memory or more
– 16 GB of available disk space
– Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128 MB memory (to enable the Aero theme)
– DVD-R/W Drive
Please note these specifications could change. And, some product features of Windows 7, such as the ability to watch and record live TV or navigation through the use of “touch,” may require advanced or additional hardware.

Microsoft Kodu: Game Programming for Kids

By DustinPosted on

My son enjoys playing video games, but like myself at his age, he isn’t content is just playing them. He want’s to program his own. My argument for owning a TI/99A and Commodore 64 back in the day instead of an Atari and NES (although, I had both, along with a few others) is that if you didn’t like a game, you could try your hand at making a better one. I didn’t do too bad, and I really wish I would have stayed in programming, but stopped just after high school after learning the basics of C.

Microsoft has had their Kodu programming system out for a while, and I have looked at it briefly. How To Geek has a nice writeup on how to get started in this simple to use game programming (very little code, if any, is needed) and design software. If you have kids that want to design games, this is a great place to start.

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S. Korea Pushing Gigabit Internet By 2012

By DustinPosted on

Who cares really that South Korea is going to have most of their internet customers on gigabit connections, the world is going to end in 2012, anyway… I care. I live in the US where internet speeds crawl compared to the rest of the world. 56k dialup is still a recent memory. Even our fiber optic connections are under 50Mb, and that is rare to find fiber unless you live in a MAJOR city. The MAX I can get is 7Mb DSL. No cable internet, no fiber. Previously, ironically in a much smaller town, I was able to get 10Mb. That’s not that fast compared to many other countries. The US is putting money into bailing out private business but has no plans on updating their communications infrastructure, which in turn would bring in more skilled jobs. Sorry to get political here, but with a lot of major technology companies in the US (Cisco, Microsoft, Intel), and the founding place of the Internet to begin with, we sure are lacking in the technology department lately.

It is not aiming at 100, 200 or even 500 megabits per second (Mbps). Instead it has devised a national plan for 1,000Mbps connections to be commonplace by 2012.

Inside Story On Kinect

By DustinPosted on

Wired has the inside story on how Kinect came to be, from Project Natal until today, just weeks away from being available. Kinect looks like a great accessory, even with the high price tag. You know it takes a lot of technology to get all this accomplished!

The problem wasn’t vision. It was the task’s sheer impossibility. Finding cameras that could map a living-room in 3D was easy. Getting one reliably to decode the flailing limbs and shouts of 40 million Xbox users was a whole other dream. To pull this off, the hardware would require software “brain” capable of interpreting what the team calculated was a crushing 1023 spatial and aural variables at any given moment. And it would have to do this on the fly, with no perceptible on-screen lag.

First x64 Rootkit in Wild

By DustinPosted on

The TDL3 rootkit was labeled “the most advanced rootkit ever seen in the wild” several months ago. That in itself was bad news. Now, the rootkit has been found in the wild with an x64 variant. Make sure to keep your anti-virus updated, and don’t go to sites that normally drop these kind of attacks.

The dropper is being dropped by usual crack and porn websites, but we soon expect to see it dropped by exploit kits too, as happened to current TDL3 infections.