Theming

ArmoredCavalry Uncategorized

One of my hobbies is to tweak the GUI (graphical user interface) of computers, to make them more appealing. Below you can see screenshots of some of my favorite themes, click for full size view. If interested, you can patch a file called uxtheme.dll in Windows XP  (located in C:\Windows\system32) to enable use of third party visual styles. To do this you must use a program called replacer, and a patched version of the uxtheme.dll file. For a great collection of Windows visual styles, check out deviantART. For the widgets on the side I use the popular Yahoo Widgets program. For some awesome wallpapers, check out interfacelift. Happy themeing!

Windows XP (mimicking Vista):

Vista Type Beach

Vista Type

Nature Desktop:

Green Desktop

Intro Page

ArmoredCavalry Uncategorized

I created an intro page, done in flash, I started with a great flash template (free!) from a website called flashmo. From there I applied a few tweaks to make it personal, and now you see it on the front page. Of course, I’m the kind of person who loathes flash intros, so if you are too, then make sure you bookmark this page (as in the one your on right now), that way you don’t have to agonize through hitting that “skip movie” button again!  Feel free to leave a comment about what you think, but only if what you think is something along the lines of “man that is awesome”, “boy that is cool”, or “yo, dog, that is off the chain”.

Update: You can view the intro page here. Tell me what you think of having it as the main page.

Serving the Interwebs from home.

gesmache Uncategorized

Whether it’s just a simple page, a file server, a MySql database, an ftp file tree, or even php and perl, you can do it for free. And, from you own computer. Even better, you can set up multiple users. There are two programs I use for file serving. The first is HFS. It is very small, and less than a megabyte in size. This is the one I primarily use to upload and download files when I am away from my computer. You can even set up multiple folders and users. The configuration, overall, is simple. There are, however, a few issues with ports you may face. You must, in order to be able to access it from the internet (not the intranet), be able open the corresponding port on your router (portforward.com). You must then set HFS to the port you opened, and then do a test connection inside of the program itself. If it gives you an okay, you should be able to see your computer on the internet, provided you have a domain name registered, or just an IP address. Once you get that up, setting up HFS for extra users is a snap. Another program I have is called BRS Webweaver, which also takes very little memory. However, it is more complicated, and may be the subject of a later post.

Screenshot of HFS (served to a client):
HFS screenshot