Warwick Valley PC Users Group

An article written by Greg Shultz of TechRepublic:

If you’re familiar with Windows XP’s My Pictures Slideshow screen saver to display photos of loved ones, here’s a twist that you might find interesting — you can use a photo for the texture in the 3D Flying Objects screen saver. Here’s how:

1. Locate the photo you want to use in this screen saver, load it into a graphics program, and save it as a BMP file. (BMP is the only file type the 3D Flying Objects screen saver will allow you to select.)
2. Right-click on the desktop, select Properties, select the Screen Saver tab, and select 3D Flying Objects from the Screen Saver drop-down list.
3. Click the Settings button and select Textured Flag from the Style drop-down list.
4. Click the Texture button and use the Choose Texture File dialog box to locate and select your photo.
5. Crank up Resolution and Size sliders to the Max setting and click OK to close the 3D Flying Objects Setting dialog box.
6. Click the Preview button to test your new screen saver, then click OK to enable it.

Note: This tip applies to Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional.

If you’ve dabbled with Windows Vista, you have probably noticed that the drive icons in Computer accompany a visual representation of the drive’s capacity. This bar chart-type gauge shows the amount free and used space on the disk, allowing you to see at a glance the amount of space that you have available on your drive. In Windows XP, you have to select the drive and hover your mouse pointer over the icon to get that information in a text-based format. While this procedure really isn’t that much of a hassle, you can now have Vista-like drive icons in Windows XP with Vista Drive Icon from SourceForge.net (http://drvicon.sourceforge.net/).

Vista Drive Icon is a free utility that will transform the drive icons in Windows XP’s My Computer into drive icons that resemble those in Vista’s Computer. Once installed, Vista Drive Icon will display a blue, glass-like bar underneath the drive icon. If the drive is close to getting full, the color changes to red.

I have a great download for you today called PC Wizard! This program is made for taking a deeper look into the performance of your computer system. With PC Wizard, you can look at all of your hardware and find out how well it's performing, compared to what it should be doing. And the best part is how easy it is to use. Let's take a look!

Right after you install the program, it will scan your system and let you know what all types of hardware you have. You can then look at each of those devices individually and see the technical information about how they run.

After having some fun with that, go ahead and click on the Benchmarks button, located in the bottom left hand corner. That will allow you to do a performance test on all of your hardware and see how it compares. PC Wizard is also great for finding hardware on your system that may be lacking or needs to be replaced.

And those two features are just half of the information this great program will provide for you. Feel free to surf around. There surely is a lot to discover!

PC Wizard is absolutely free and you can download it for yourself right here (http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php). Enjoy!

You don't even have to say it. I know what you're thinking. And yes, I am well aware that the Winamp team just released a new update at the end of December 2007. But that hasn't stopped them from tweaking the program even more to make the best music player possible for you! So, if you're an avid Winamp user, you'll be happy to know that Winamp 5.52 is now available for download. It was released on January 18, 2008 and if you haven't gotten it yet, you'll definitely want to very soon. Let's check it out!

With the last version (5.51) being released less than a month ago, I know it's a little hard to believe there was actually anything to change, but the Winamp team has done it again! So, what's new? Well, for starters, it now comes with album art options for various media players (including MP3 players and iPods), there is now an expanded podcast directory and a new visualizer plug-in called Milkdrop 2. A few things have also been improved, including the portable device sync feature and smart views for all of your playlists. Cool, huh?!

Also, if you use the Pro version of Winamp, you can now rip CDs to the MP3, AAC and WMA formats, as well as, burn CDs to your heart's content. And along with all of that, you still get to enjoy all the new features that came along with the previous version, including the newly redesigned interface, the Media Monitor and the Smart Search feature. Everything is now all together in one easy to use package! To download Winamp 5.52, all you have to do is click here (http://www.winamp.com/player), hit the Download Winamp - Free button and you'll be all set. Enjoy it!

From ComputerWorld magazine: A N.C. Web testing firm found that Safari for Windows is indeed faster than rival browsers from Mozilla and Microsoft. Click on link to read more about it:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9043978&taxonomyId=16&source=NLT_NET&nlid=27