TECH/PC SPECIAL...Easy Ways to Customise and Dress Up Your PC

Easy Ways to Customise and Dress Up Your PC

You don't need to spend money or waste time by upgrading the entire operating system of your PC. If you like a few features in a new OS, you can get them quite easily.

Make Windows XP/7 Look Like Windows 8 or MAC OS X Windows 8 has a number of visual enhancements compared to older versions of Windows. You get a new login screen, revamped start screen, refined windows explorer and various new menus. And you can now experience all these new changes without even purchasing the operating system. You can also transform your existing Windows PC to resemble the user interface from Apple's OS X Lion using free transformation packs.
HOW TO
Head to www.thememypc.com — select the Windows 8 (47.5MB) or OS X Lion transformation pack (58MB). The idea of a transformation pack is that everything is included in one install.
The downloaded file for either packs will have the ".zip_" extension. To open it, right click on the file and select Rename. Now remove the "_" from the file name and save the file with the new extension. It can now be opened in any zip program (like 7-zip).
Before installing, create a Windows Restore Point (Run >All programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore). This will ensure that you can revert to the original state of your Windows install in case something goes wrong during the transformation.
Start the installation, choose the settings that you would like to apply and let the setup finish. It will take a few minutes to complete and after that you will have to restart the computer for all the appearance changes to take effect. Deep Customisation Using Skins and Widgets
Samurize
Samurize (Windows XP/Vista/7) lets you add various meters and widgets to monitor your PC or enhance your desktop. You can configure widgets, easily change how it looks with add-on skins or even monitor your PC remotely over a network. Download it for free from www.samurize.com (just 5.5MB).
Launch Samurize and a system tray icon will appear. Right click on the system tray icon, go to Select Config File and click on sample.ini to launch the default widget — it will appear on the top left of your desktop and can be placed anywhere you like.
To customise the default skin, right click on the system tray icon and click Edit Config File. This will launch the Config editor where you can select and customise various aspects of each meter including its name, appearance, source and so on.
You can also download pre-configured skins and configs from the Samurize website. You will need to import and save these third party files using the Config editor. To apply the new config, right click on the Samurize system tray icon to select it.
Rainmeter
Rainmeter is similar to Samurize, but offers slightly more functionality and is simpler to use. The documentation is extensive and there is quick help available on the forums. And unlike Samurize, Rainmeter also works with Windows 8. It's free to download from www.rainmeter.net (just 1.2MB).
After installation, launch Rainmeter and it will load up the default theme (complete with widgets) on your desktop. You can choose to keep the widgets you want and rearrange them on the screen using simple drag-and-drop.
You can download more skins for Rainmeter, developed by different users — just follow the links in the Discover section on the website. Installing a skin is easy — just paste the downloaded files into the respective Rainmeter folders on your computer.
You can also choose to have individual components from various skins on your desktop. Open the Rainmeter Manager box, right click on the component you want from a particular theme and select load to have it displayed on your desktop.
Power-packed Desktop Productivity Tools
LAUNCHY www.launchy.net
Launchy is an open-source, cross-platform application launcher that can save you a lot of time. It indexes the applications on your computer (or folders/files specified by you) — you launch the item by just typing the first few letters of its name & pressing enter.
ROCKET DOCK www.rocketdock.com
RocketDock is a completely customisable application launcher 'dock' similar to what you get on OS X by default. Not only can you add whatever applications you like to it, you can change skins, animation or use it as a Windows taskbar replacement.
DEXPOT www.dexpot.de
Dexpot is free for private use — it quickly and easily adds additional, virtual desktops to your Windows PC. You can switch between the additional desktops with keyboard shortcuts, view them all on one screen and easily organise multiple windows and icons.

Karan Bajaj & Hitesh Raj Bhagat ET121205