As you’ve probably noticed, if you’ve been here before, I’m giving my blog a new look.
The default wordpress theme looked great, and suited the way I’d layed out my content. But let’s face it… it’s the default theme. Anyone who knows me knows that just won’t do.
So now it’s a new theme, a new header, and possibly soon a new title. In the meantime please forgive anything that seems missing or unfinished.
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Hey people 
I just got word that the guys at www.delgine.com are having a themed modelling contest on their forum. First prize is $500, second and third are $250 and $100 respectively. Competition closes September 14th.
If you fancy yourself to be bit creative and wouldn’t mind an extra $500, or just the opportunity to show off what you can do, get yourself a copy of Deled Lite or Deled Pro. Then head over to the forum thread here: http://www.delgine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3255 to get started.
I’ll be entering a pic of my own by the way, so be sure to vote for me
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Ok in this Post I’m gonna give some tips on how to tidy up your desktop and make it more efficient and suave looking. My tips are for Windows XP since I haven’t tried Vista yet, some of them might still apply, you’ll have to check for yourself.
My desktop.
1. Efficiency
Nothing says “I don’t know how to work a computer” like having an icon for every file or program you’ve ever used on your desktop, and I cringe every time I see it (mainly because I know a better way).
Make a folder on your hard drive and name it something like “My shortcuts”. Move the shortcuts from your desktop that you use most, but have no business being on your desktop to that folder (eg: shortcuts to your work or downloads folders, fileshare programs, backup drives, image editors). If you have shortcuts that you don’t use, delete them (unless they came with windows). Most things can be found in the start menu anyway.
Next right click the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Scroll up to where it says Toolbars and choose New Toolbar. Then browse and find the folder you just made and click OK. Done
Now to get to all your favourite apps and folders you can click the little arrow beside the shortcut folder’s name on the taskbar, you don’t have to search all over the desktop to find what you want.
2. Suaveness
Okay, now that your desktop’s tidy, it’s time to add some zazz (metalalocalypse, haha. Love that show). The following sites and info should help you with that.
2a. Custom themes:
Notice the black Vista style taskbar in my screenshot? Usually in Windows XP you’re not spoilt for choice as far as how it looks overall. The only two themes that come with it are the default one, and a silver one. Traditionally the only way to get more was to shell out a lot of money for the official themes software from Microsoft. Luckily there’s an easier way now. It’s not officially condoned, but it works and it’s relatively safe (I wouldn’t use it if I thought otherwise).
To get started I suggest going here.
They have a link to the patch that lets you do it and a few nice themes to start you off. You can always do a Google search if you want to find more themes.
2b. ClocX
Another thing you may have noticed I have, and maybe you don’t, is ClocX. It’s an analogue clock for your desktop that, again, helps lend a Vista feel to XP. You can download it here. (It’s free of course).
2c. Wallpapers
Really this is half of why we wanted to get rid of all that clutter isn’t it? My two favourite sites for wallpapers are InterfaceLIFT (for scenery and artwork), and WidescreenBabes (for… well, babes). Both sites have great looking High Def and widescreen wallpapers that between them should have most people’s tastes covered.
2d. Resolution
Make sure you’re resolution is turned up as high as it will go, unless you have trouble reading things. Everything looks better at a higher resolution and it gives you more space to see your pretty new wallpaper.
And that’s It. I hope it’s of use. If you’re wondering about the visualization in media player it’s Energy Bliss from Microsoft, check my other post for the link.
Update: Sorry people, it looks like widescreenbabes is gone. I’ll see if I can find a suitable alternative.
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Life:
Life would be so much easier if I just didn’t care at all. Not better, just easier.
Social etiquette:
Telling me to take my elbows off the table is more disruptive than having them there in the first place. I think there’s a difference between having manners and being polite. Seriously where did that rule even come from?
Video Games:
It’s fun to watch other people play video games.
Sundays:
Most people complain that they hate Mondays, But Sunday has always been my least favourite day of the week.
Sundays are like being told that you’re about to be punched in the face, and Mondays are like being flicked on the forehead instead.
Mondays are never as bad as you think they’ll be the night before, but you never remember that on a Sunday.
Also you can never really get anything done on a Sunday because the shops are closed, and all your friends sleep in after Saturday (or go to church) and go to bed early so they don’t sleep in on Monday. It’s just a worrisome nothing kind of day.
Guitar Hero:
Playing Guitar Hero can be very therapeutic when you’ve got a lot on your mind.
It makes it easier to shut out distractions and sometimes just helps to take your mind off what you were angry about, long enough to realise it wasn’t worth it.
Dial-up:
Dial-up sucks!
Arguments:
Logic and reason rarely count for much when trying to resolve an argument. Often it just leads to more yelling. The better your argument is the more defensive your opponent will be, even if you’re effectively on the same side.
Thinking:
Sometimes thinking can be counter-productive. Especially overthinking, hesitating and not actually doing.
Unrequited Love:
Maybe they don’t feel the same way, that doesn’t mean your feelings are any less real. Sometimes people try to convince you otherwise.
A lot of people assume that you have to live with a person for a certain length of time, or be in a formal relationship, before you can say that you’re in love and not just infatuated.
It’s usually those same people who claim that they were never really in love when their own relationship ends.
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Ok. Well I’ll start with something easy . Something I’ve done before and not too personal.
Here’s a list of some of my favourite free or open source software. I posted this on my Myspace blog about four months ago. Some of them are pretty well known and you might already be using them. Some of them will probably be too advanced for most users.
Hopefully there’s something here for everyone
3d modeling and animation
Anim8or
“Anim8or is a free 3d animation and modeling program. It includes modeling, character design, and scene animation support, and can read and write 3d files”
DeleD lite
“DeleD is a 3D modeler designed to help you create content for your game project, whether you’re a professional or indy game developer.”
Blender
“Blender is the open source, cross platform suite of tools for 3D creation.”
UVmapper
“UVMapper is a freeware Windows and Macintosh utility for texturing 3D models.”
Security
Avast! Antivirus
“Avast! 4 Home Edition is a full-featured antivirus package designed exclusively for home users, non-commercial users.”
Ad-Aware 2007
“Scan your system for ad-supported software components and remove them.”
ZoneAlarm
“ZoneAlarm is an easy-to-use firewall that blocks hackers and other unknown threats.”
Emulators
ZSNES
“ZSNES is a Super Nintendo emulator programmed by zsKnight and _Demo_.”
VisualBoyAdvance
“VisualBoyAdvance is a Gameboy/GBA emulator for Windows.”
Project64
“Project64 is a great, free Nintendo 64 emulator which can emulate a lot of the comercial n64 roms out there.”
ePSXe (needs playstation bios files, which can be hard to find)
“ePSXe is a playstation videogame emulator for windows and linux.”
DOSBox
“An open source DOS emulator for BeOS, Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2, and Windows. Primarily focuses on running DOS Games.”
Internet
Firefox
“The Firefox Web Browser is the faster, more secure, and fully customizable way to surf the web.”
GetRight
“GetRight extends your file-downloading power by resuming broken downloads and accelerating them to make them faster and more flexible.”
StumbleUpon
“StumbleUpon is a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles.”
Windows Live Messenger
“Windows Live Messenger is the next-generation MSN Messenger. It has everything you already love about Messenger, and much more!”
Media players and codecs
WinAmp
“Play and organize a variety of audio and video files, as well as rip and burn CDs.”
Lyrics Plugin
“Lyrics Plugin is a piece of software tailored for music fans. To put it simply - it is an add-on to view lyrics in WinAmp or Windows Media Player.”
Energy Bliss for WMP
“The ultimate visualization companion for Windows Media Player 10. Includes album artwork and track information right in the visualization.”
Quicktime Alternative
“QuickTime Alternative will allow you to play QuickTime files (.mov, .qt, .3gp and other extensions) without having to install the official QuickTime Player.”
FFDShow
“Open source DirectShow decoding filter for DivX, XviD, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, based on libavcodec from the FFmpeg project.”
AC3Filter
“AC3Filter is a high quality free audio decoder and processor filter. It allows media players to playback movies with AC3 and DTS audio tracks.”
Media Editors and convertors
VirtualDubMod
“VirtualDubMod is a unification of several popular modifications of the famous video editing software VirtualDub.”
Audacity
“Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.”
PSP Video 9
“PSP Video 9 is a free PSP video conversion and management application.”
Games and animation
Liveswif
“LiveSwif is a free flash maker like Flash MX or Swish.”
GameMaker (haven’t used the latest version, since I bought and use DarkBasic Pro now)
“Game Maker allows you to make exciting computer games, without the need to write a single line of code.”
File compression
WinRAR
“WinRAR provides the full RAR and ZIP file support, can decompress CAB, GZIP, ACE and other archive formats.”
7zip
“Open source Windows utility for manipulating archives. Formats 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR are supported fully, other formats can be unpacked.”
WinUHA
“UHARC is a high compression multimedia archiver. It has a better compression ratio than ZIP, RAR, ACE, etc… WinUHA is a powerful GUI (Graphical User Interface) for UHARC.”
Misc
DAEMON Tools
“The FREE Virtual CD/DVD-ROM-EMULATOR. Works with nearly all common imagetypes. Emulates nearly all known protections.”
Advanced Installer
“Windows Installer authoring tool with built-in support for Java applications, integrating them fully into the Windows OS and making them look and feel just like a native application.”
A.F.5 Rename your files
“Use various easy-to-use functions to rename hundreds of files in a few seconds.”
WordWeb
“WordWeb is a one-click English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows that can look up words from in almost any program.”
Unlocker
“Get rid of error message like Error deleting file or folder, cannot delete folder: it’s being used by another person or program.”
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I’m Trav. And this is my first attempt at blogging, outside of Myspace, Facebook, etc.
I’m 24, Male, from Australia, and I have a lot of time on my hands.
Expect to read about the video game I’m currently programming in my spare time. My thoughts on music, movies, games, computers, life and relationships. And some of the usual ranting and raving that bloggers do.
But not right now. check back soon.
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