Your PC, Your Way

Make your own desktop Wallpaper

2010-04-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

.: Crash Desktop

We all want our Desktop to be Unique. ¿But how can we make our Wallpaper unique? If we download it from the Web it just will be like any other. So here comes the way to make the background you've got from the web look like no other.

This walkthrough will tell you how to make yourself a "Crash Wallpaper", a background that will remind us that our computers are not perfect (they're far from that). It'll also make our PC look like a Hollywood movie hacking machine, with a desktop filled with windows and most of them displaying error windows (like Nedry's computer in Jurassic park ;-) ).

Everything we'll need for this is our copy of Windows and the programs preinstalled (aka Paint).

Ok, so now everything is ready to go, let's get it started!

Let's start with our desktop. As you can see mine is filled with Icons (and I thought I just had it cleaned up) and the Task Bar. AS anyone can see I already have a image as background, you can choose to use one or not to follow the tutorial, you can keep it or leave it.

Now we'll open some windows to fill our desktop and generate some beautiful errors to make it look like we're doing some crazy stuff on it. Here are some examples:

Simbolo del sistema: terminal windows are always great to make crash wallpapers, they look like we're doing expert tasks. Open command prompt by clicking on the start button and clicking on "Run...", in the next window type "cmd" and hit enter. Now you can type some commands into the terminal.
For example, write "cd C:\Windows" and then "dir", the list of files in the Windows will appear (they're quite a lot) and then you can write some kind of authoring (something like "made by ..."), when you type that into the window a error will come back saying that made is not a valid command, but it's Ok.
Calculator: now you'll ask yourself, ¿Calculator gives back errors? Yes, open it and type "5/0", hit Enter. You'll get the test from the image: "Cannot divide by zero".
Notepad: yes, you can use Notepad to make some interesting things. Open it and write something into it (you can also write "made by..." here, or you can open some other kind of file like an exe or a image resulting into many crazy simbols, changing it a little bit), when ready do NOT save, Open Task Manager by hitting "Ctrl+Alt+Del", select the tab"Applications" or "Tasks" and choose Notepad (probably called "Untitled1" or something like that) on the list. And click on "End Task", if nothing happens click it repeatedly until a Notepad window comes up asking if you want to save or not, ignore it, contnue clicking on the End Task button till a program not responding message comes up saying that Notepad is nt doing as asked. Position the windows you get as you want, but do not click on any button of the notepad or End task window because the effect wil vanish.
Google Sidebar: I don't have google search installed on this pc but if you have, press Ctrl twice, a search message will come up.
Open some more windows to fill the gaps. Try to keep the error messages on top, that creates the sensation that all windows beneath are errors too, that'll make our effect a bit strong. Try too keep the Close, Maximize and Minimize buttons of our Windows visible, it'll make the senstaion of more windows and it will drive people crazy that tend to keep order on their systems.
Avoid using applications that refresh. For example, a stopped clock would look weird, or a Facebook that never updates.
Some last but not least thing. NO windows shall cover an icon that cannot be moved, that'll ruin our Wallpaper. Nobody displays icons on top of a calculator.

Once you have all the windows arrange them as you like. Try not to arrange them to tidy, resize them and make it look as if you're crazy. If you've already got a wallpaper you may don't want to cover some parts of it, don't make it to obvious though... arrange them them Your Way and when they're ready leave them as wanted.

Now your desktop will look something like that:

Now we want to set that as a Background, once your windows are in the correct way avoid touching them.

Now we'll head for the less artistic part. If you have a close look you'll see that if we freeze the screen now Desktop icons and Taskbar will appear too, that will make really weird effects, so let's get rid of them for a minute.

Make sure no window is on top of an icon. Right click on one of the fex empty spaces of our desktop. And choose Arrange Icons by > Disable Show Desktop Ions (as in the image below). It may make your PC load for a little while.

Now we've got rid of the Icons we can see the background, and what's way more important, they won't appear on our final product.

Anyway, there might be very clean people that always keep the same icons on the screen, but hate it when for some reason they disarrange (who hasn't already suffered spending days uncomfortable with your PC because it just isn't right!) and they never find their perfect place again. If you are one of this people you can leave the icons on screen to fast get them to their original positions.

Now our desktop is empty (but for the windows that are still there).Now it's the Taskbar's turn to make place for pure catastrophe.

Send the TaskBar on holiday by right clicking on a empty space on it (nothing easy because it'll be really full by now, if you don't get to click anywhere you can also right click the Start Menu button) and choose properties.

On the following window choose "TaskBar" and activate "Auto.Hide the taskbar". Now click Ok and the taskbar will disappear after a few seconds.

Ok, what now is left on screen is our future Wallpaper, and it should look a little like this:

TIP: If you take a close look you will see that maybe some of your windows will have got on top of others, like in this image the Character Map.

If your screen lokks like this one you're on the right way. If there are still icons or the Taskbar somethings going wrong (the taskbar doesn't hide if there are info bubbles).

Now we come to the important moment, hit Control (CTRL) y and the PrintScreen key (PrtScr). don't close the Windows (just in case something went wrong). Open "Paint" (Start > All Program > Accesoires > Paint) and hit CTRL + V ( Edit > Paste) and your new Wallpaper should appear (if it doesn't close paint and repeat this step).

Chack everything is right on the picture and save (it sounds stupid, but save somewhere you can find it later)and close Paint. If you like how your image came out you can close the errors.

Your desktop must now seem extremely empty. Don't worry, but let's finish what we were doing. Restore the icons the same way you removed them and disable the taskbar autohide.

So now we have our desktop as it was, clcik on a empty space and choose "Properties" go to the "Desktop" tab and click on "Browse" and choose the image apply, and after 10 minutes your desktop will be ready!

Now every boot up will display the chaos we've created!

The result:

(Look at the Notepad what happens if you leave icons where they shouldn't)

Enjoy your desktop!

eMule² : your eMule even faster!

2009-11-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

.: eMule

We've by now seen how we make our eMule work in a basic way. But now we'll have a look at tips and tricks that will make our eMule faster and more reliable, it will also be safer and more comfortable. Let's have a look at some of them:

.: Sorting our downloads in the adecuate folders.

Everyone that has been using eMule for mor than two weeks knows the problem. Your download folder is a horrible mess. Your music is sharing a folder with the Videos, the games and so on. Thois makes your Shared folder a inmense piece of junk.

If you try to solve the problem you will make it even worse, your iTunes will be messed with double entries for the same song, you will have all your files taking a lot of space apart if you copy them or you won't any longer share with the community. Stop, it's quite easy to solve this little problem by using the feature called categories.

First go to the Traffic tab, here you will see another tab where it says "All"

Right click on the tab. In the menu that pops-up choose "Add category" a window like this will show up:

Fill in the name you want for the category (for example: Music).Now comes the trick of the whole thing. In the field that says Incoming folder you just have to choose the correct folder (for the example I will choose "My Music") and now set the file types (this time we'll write ".mp3|.wma|.m4a")

We'll get something like this at the end:

What's the point of doing that? It's easy, now every time you download a piece of music it will automatically be placed on your My Music folder when it's finished. Here you are the extensions for movies and games if you want them:

Video: .avi|.mpg|.mkv|.mov
Software/Games: .rar|.zip|.exe|.7z|.iso

Think that .zip and .rar archives are able to contain any type of data. That means that if you download a archive containing the 12 songs of a disc it will land in your games folder.

Now eMule will be a bit more organized with your files and you won't have to sort them.

.: Anti fraud and anti piracy protection.

Yes, eMule's network is filled with people that upload SPAM or try to track your IP's to prevent ypu from using it. They normally don't track your IP and visit you at home, but they usually ruin you the download you are on. In order to prevent both of this you should install a IPfilter into your system.

First of all open the preferences and choose security. You'll see something like that:

Your eMule is preset to not activate the IPFilter, choose "Filter servers", once activated type into the textbox:

http://emulepawcio.sourceforge.net/ipfilter.zip

Now click on load. It'll load for some time but at the end you'll be protected against a lot of threats on the Network.

TIP: Sometimes there is a conflict beetwen the IPFilter and the server list so eMule will seem to be hung up. If this happens move the window behind the logo until you're able to see the OK button. Click on it and eMule will work normally.

.: Ports.

This problem is as common as sand on the beach.And it will cause our eMule to speed down nearly to a half of the speed it could normally reach.

To see if this is wrong you'll have different ways.

1. If you minimize eMule to the tray with that cool fourth button we'll see the Donkey is blind (if the donkey is grey you're not connected to anything and if it looks normal yo won't need this), well it's wearing something that looks like Paris Hilton's sunglasses.
2. If the two arrows on the bottomright corner of the main window are both orange..

To give you an idea, the ports are the way eMule communicates with the outside, if they don't work well it will be harder for it to connect and you will get a fake ID or LowID. To get this changed you'll need to configure the router.

.: Telefonica router.

[ This is a guide for a router given by Telefonica, I don't know how common it is outside Spain. But all the routers work mostly the same so you should be able to do it on your own]

If you've got one of the new routers given out by Telefonica the Comtrend Zyxel, wich is white and has green LED's this is the ideal guide for you, we'll start setting up your PC and then the router itself.

.: The computer

Your router will redirect the ports to a certain IP, so you'll have to make your PC get a static IP or this won't work after restarting your PC or network connection .

Click on the connection icon on the taskbar that represents the connection that leads to your router, if you just have one it's the right one (normally). You'll see a window like this:

If you use Windows Vista you'll have some difficulties to reach this window. Open up the network center and then you'll see a button saying something like "Netwrok connection administration" this will bring up the window "Network connections", from here you can continue like on Windows XP. It'll take you a minute to find it but it's not impossible finding it.

When you got the window click on the tab called "Support" and write down the Gateway, it'll probably be something like this (if not the same) : 192.168.1.1 , this data is really important, so don't forget it.

Now switch back to general. Click on "Properties" this will make the following window pop up.

On the list that appears on the center of the window click on TCP/IP Protocol (if there is more than one, select the V4) and hit properties. Now a window will show up where you can see five boxes (you won't be able to write in any of them). Now click on: "Use the following IP address". In this moment the five boxes get active and you'll be able to write into them:

IP Address: Think of a number you like and that is between 2 and 255. When you're ready write into this box 192.168.1.X, X is the number you've chosen. (if your gateway address, the one we copied before, is different than 192.168.1.Y you'll have to replace the first three numbers of your IP address to those).
Subnet Mask: Windows fills this in automatically.
Default Gateway: Here we'll enter the number we copied, 99% of routers are set to 192.168.1.1.
DNS: If you've never heard something about a specific DNS fill in the same as in the Gateway Box..

As I like the number 27 my window will look like this:

Hit OK, and your computer will start loading. It's possible it will teka a minute or two, so be patient, it's also possible that the windows show glitches during this process or get white, etc.

TIP: Now try your Internet connection. If you've done it right it should work normally, in case it doesn't you'll have to check the previous steps. If you aren't able of finding the error set the IP and DNS back to automatic..

Now our computer is ready, let's start with the router.

.: The router

Your router is configured from the explorer window. Open your Web Browser, type 192.168.1.1 (in case this was your gateway), You will be asked to login.

My router is the one that is shipped with Telefonica Spain and is white bos with green lights (Comtrend Zyxel), if yours the same model you will be able to follow this tutorial step by step. If it isn't the same it doesn't matter but the menus won't be exactly the same. In this case the login data will be:

User: 1234
Pass: 1234

The login window is the one Firefox displays, the one used by explorer is slightly different but does the same. Once we've logged in we'll see a window like this:

On the left you'll see a sidebar, hit Advanced Setup, when you hit it mre options will appear under "Advanced Setup" (Ignore what's happening to the right) now look for the Nat option, now click it, ignore what happens to the right of the list and click on Virtual servers.

Once you clicked "Virtual Servers" on the right there will appear a chart with only one row and the buttons "add" and "remove", click on "add". Something like this will appear:

Now comes the tricky part. Well have to fill in the chart with the data it needs. First select "custom server" and fill in the nearby box with "eMule" (it doesn't really matter what you fill in, it's just for you to recognize it later). Now fill in the "Server-IP Address" write the Ip addres you gave your computer previously. Now we start filling the chart:

External Port Start: Open eMule and check the preferences to find the ports it uses. If eMule says your port 3267 I would recommend to write 3260. (eMule uses a TCP and a UDP port, you'll have to fill them into separate rows)
External port end: Now add ten to the previous value (3270)
Protocol: now select if the port you filled in is the TCP or the UDP port.
If the intern ports don't change automatically write the same as the external port ( 3250 and 3260)

Now repeat this for the other Port. Once you finished filling in all the data hit "Save/Apply". You will be taken back to the uneditable chart where the eMule ports appear by now (eMule ports are random, so don't use the ones on the image below as a reference for yours). It will look something like this:

Restart eMule, if the donkey on the taskbar doesn't wear any more sunglasses and the arrows around the world on the eMule window get green after connecting you've done it right. If just one gets green you can connect to other servers or hit the "Check firewall" on the Kad tab. If this doesn't work recheck the ports.

.: Add servers automatically.

Everyone knows that eMule servers come and go, eMule has a tool that sets it to autoupdate the list of servers everytime it connects to a server or client. To enable it we go to the eMule preferences and select: "Server" and check the different "Update when..." options. Ir'll look something like this:

Now you're ready to go. Have fun downloading.

eMule: How to get started

2009-10-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

Many people think eMule is slow or useless because it's not always easy to make it work. But I'll show you that it's easier than it may sound. Lets get started.

.: Instalation

Download eMule for free from this page: http://www.emule-project.net (BE CAREFUL, it's known that some people try to scam others adding a need to send an extremely expensive SMS in order to get an activation key, if your eMule installation asks you to do that delete it and get another)

You will now find a standard installation process. When it finishes you'll find a eMule icon on your desktop, if not you can just create one. Start eMule .

A wizard will help you through the process of making your eMule work. The first screen (shown below) will ask you to choose a username, be original and creative. Choosing whatever name you choose is not relevant and it can be repeated, it's only use is making other members recognise you.

You will find two more checkboxes below your username, you can fill them with whatever you want. If you want eMule to start up with the computer you'll have to activate the first one (this is mainly useful for a screenless pc that is remotely controlled). The second one is quite interesting as it will make eMule automatically connect to the different networks it uses. Both options are quite useful but in no way required so if you aren't sure about what to choose leave them blank.

Click on next. The next screen requires a bit more experience, so if you don't have any special configuration settings on your network, you should just leave them as is.

Click on Next. The next page displays settings that you can enable if you want. They are just a personal preference. In a summed up way both make the Downloads and Uploads that are less common on the web faster while it makes the commons a bit slower if there are some uncommon.

This means that if you're downloading two things, let's say Madonnas last song and Some 40 years old movie, eMule will try to get the 40 years old movie harder than the easy to get song.

Click on Next. Keep protocol ofuscation on and click on Next. Now activate the networks eD2k and kad.

Click on Next. Now eMule will tell us we're finished. Now when we click on finish a new wizard will pop up and ask us the speed we have on our network, if you know the speed of your DSL just select an aproximate value on the assistant, if you don't know you have to select the lower value that comes if you take ten times your explorer download speed. If you don't know what I've been saying select just one around 1000.

NEVER select too high speed, if you do this your downloads will slow down. And never set to unknown it will also slow down your network as your DSL is asimetrical (so uploading too fast will reduce download speed).

LUCKY YOU, your eMule is ready to go!

.: Using eMule.

Now you can start using eMule. For all those that are a bit lost look at the bar on the top that looks like that:

Choose Kad and hit the connect button on the right side, lots of numbers will appear. Ignore them.

Now select the serves tab and choose the one you want. You can also just hit on connect like on the Kad and it will chose one for you. Another day we'll see how to get a more complete server list. But for now choose connect and let it work. The first times it will take eMule more time than it will take later, be patient.

Now your eMule is set up and ready to download. (The process of connecting may sound difficult the first time but it will take you just seconds when you get used to it)

Now we can start our first download. To do this, click on the button on the upper part where it sas search.

You will see three fields to fill in:

Name: Type in the name of whatever you want to find.
Type: Choose the file type you want eMule to look for. You will be able to choose things like Audio, Photo or Video.
Method: Here you can set where eMule searches what you ask him to. You have got the following options:

Automathic: eMule will search whereever he can to get what you want. This is the best as its fast and convinient
Server: this will limit the search to the server you're connected, it is fast but brings less results.
Global (servers);This will search on all the servers you know. It brings many results but also a inmense ammount of SPAM. As a rule I would say that any file with a higher aviability than 1000 are SPAM.
Kad: this is a quite good method to search. It normally brings up good results and a low ammount of SPAM. But it is extremely slow.
Web: this will be useful if you look for a file that is not online now or if the normal search doesn't work..

When you're ready setting the search parameter click on Search. On the lower part of the window your results will appear..

TIP: The results are shown in columns. If you set it to arrange it by availability it will be far easier tooo find fast downloads. The higher a result now is the higher is the speed it downloads.

Double click the result you want to download, the letter will change the color and it will be made available in the tab "Traffic".

TIP: Avoid downloading files with strange names or that just by a coincidence match the following name: "Text searched + xxxx" you will soon know this endings as they're always the same.

Enjoy your eMule and don't get disappointed if a download is SPAM or corrupt, it's quite normal at the begining but it will get less with some time (but even I am scamed from time to time). You should use your eMule together with a good antivirus, I'd dare to recommend Antivir (Free)

Next: "Enjoy your eMule even more" (Soon)

Getting Started

2009-10-12T11:12:00.000-07:00

This Blog is for everyone that wants to make his PC work when and how he wants and not when or how it wants, helping you not to waste your valuable time with it and make your work more fun and efficient.

The posts that this blog will host will be low and medium level tutorials to teach you how to use your PC, the applications on it and will teach you some graphics design. It will be also filled with tech news and reviews to help you deciding which software and hardware is better for you to use.

We're always happy to receive any feedback, questions and C&C that you can make by commenting the posts or by eMail: cesarbretschneider****@gmail.com (removing the stars, as their only purpose is to avoid spam)