BlueStacks App Player is a great tool for allowing you to run your favorite mobile apps/games in fullscreen in your browser using a PC or Mac.
BlueStacks App Player Key Features
Fully customizable environment
Support for multiple OS configurations
Google Play integration
Once installed, BlueStacks App Player can be configured to work with your choice of popular social media platforms i.e. Facebook or Twitter. As the environment runs Android apps, you can configure BlueStacks App Player to work with your Google Play account, so you can access all your favourtite apps and games!
The user interface of BlueStacks App Player can be totally configured to suit your needs. Additionally, it is capable of integrating with the custom software experiences which are designed and developed by PC manufacturers.
BlueStacks App Player supports multiple languages.
You can enjoy a full Android environment through BlueStacks App Player, or if you choose, you can just install Android app icons directly onto the Windows desktop.
When you're navigating your hard drive you can spend a lot of time looking at folders, so it's a good idea to customise them to suit your taste. Open the Folder Options control panel.
Here you can choose whether to show common task links to the left of folder windows, as well as the type of files you'd like displayed. You can change the icon or picture used to represent a folder (see tip 5), but you can also add a background image or colour to folders.
You could do this the hard way - by manually editing configuration files - but a better and easier way is to use a third-party program that can do the hard work for you. Windowpaper XP is that tool. Once installed, just select your chosen image, click 'Change Image' and select the image you want to use.
Note that you can't stretch or centre your chosen image - if it's smaller than the window in question it will tile, so bear that in mind when choosing your image. If the image is too vibrant, consider creating a copy in your image editor, then increasing the brightness and lowering the contrast to produce a washed-out look that won't distract you when browsing the folder.
2. Organise your applications
On any new Windows XP installation, it's a good idea to stack the Quick Launch toolbar on top of a double-decked taskbar so that everything you use is close at hand. You can then add shortcuts for all of your regularly used applications to the Quick Launch toolbar, as well as shortcuts to My Computer and your My Documents folder.
3. Create your own theme for Windows XP
Given that it's so important, and so easy to change, you'd have thought that Microsoft might have included more than two themes with Windows XP. Fortunately, it's easy to change the existing ones.
To change themes or colours, you'll need to get into the Display Properties. To do this, go to the Start menu and select 'Settings > Control Panel', then in the Control Panel select 'Display'.
Click the Appearance tab at the top of the dialog. You'll see that you can manually go in and change the colour of every menu, piece of text, dialog box and so on. If you don't like the default colours in the colour palette, click 'Advanced', then click the colour square, select 'Other' and you can create your own colours using RGB or HSV values.
For easier re-selection of colours that you create manually, click the 'Add to Custom Colours' button once you've created a new colour you're happy with, and it will now be added to the User Palette.
Finally, click the 'Desktop' tab. Here you can select an image to use as a background picture for your desktop. You can either use a small repeating pattern that can be tiled to fill the desktop, or you can use a single larger picture that fills the entire screen. If the picture is too small for the screen, you can select the stretch option to ensure that it fits.
Click the 'Browse' button to select a picture file from your hard drive. Windows XP recognises BMP, GIF, JPG, JPEG, DIB and PNG picture formats, as well as HTM and HTML web page formats. If your image is in another format, such as TIFF, you'll need to convert it using your favouriteimage editing program.
Having customised your display, click the left-hand tab in the Display Properties dialog, and you'll see the Themes window appear. From here, you can select one of the defaults from the drop-down list. More importantly, you can save the current theme for future use.
4. Change your icons
If you're not happy with the icons used for some of your shortcuts, you can change them to something else that may be more obvious (or make your own, see tip 6 below) for that particular type of application. Right-click the shortcut, select 'Properties', and click 'Change Icon'. Now, use the 'Browse' button to choose a file to search for icons, make your selection, and click 'OK'.
5. Make custom icons
If you decide to make your own custom icons, there are a few things to be aware of. First, they come in different sizes according to where they are displayed, such as the desktop, the Start menu, Folders, Drives, and so on.
Icons are measured in pixels, and the three sizes used on Windows XP are 16 x 16, 32 x 32 and 48 x 48. Second, icons use a 32-bit palette, enabling you to use any colour that the eye can detect.
In the past, icons were either opaque (solid), or completely transparent, making them appear as sharp-edged cutouts on the screen. Now, they can gently fade into the background, and you can create subtle shadow effects.
Finally, the default Windows icons are packaged and encoded into the shell32.dll, and many program icons are similarly hard-coded. If you choose to replace these icons, you can either select any of the default icons, or you can add icons you've downloaded from the internet or created yourself in an image editor or icon creator. Individual icons have the ICO file extension, while icon groups have the ICL extension.
6. Remove text from icons
You can improve the general look of your PC's desktop by removing the names of shortcuts, leaving the icons to speak for themselves. If you try renaming a desktop shortcut to a single space, Windows XP won't let you.
However, you can force it to accept a space as the name by holding down [Alt] and typing 255 on the number pad. If you want multiple shortcuts to have blank names, you'll need to give each one a different number of spaces to avoid them having identical names.
7. Remove programs from the 'Open With' list
Stop programs appearing on the 'Open with' list when you're trying to open an unrecognised file.
Open Regedit and browse to HKEY_ CLASSES_ROOT\Applications, and you'll see a list of programs that are installed on your PC as subkeys in the left-hand pane. To remove an unwanted program from this list, select it and right-click in the right hand pane.
Choose 'New > String value'. Name it 'NoOpenWith'. Repeat for each application that you want to remove from this list.
8. Choose a new screensaver
Windows XP comes complete with a selection of screensavers, and it's easy to switch between them. Right-click the desktop and choose 'Properties > Screensaver'. There are plenty more screensavers available online too, although be careful when looking for them. There's plenty of research that indicates that 'free screensaver' is a search term most likely to lead you to malicious software.
9. Personalise your folders with images
Right-click inside a folder and select 'Customize This Folder...'. If you decide you'd like to use a picture to represent your chosen folder, when you use thumbnail view, the folder icon will display the picture you've chosen. For example, if the folder is a collection of family snaps, you might want to use a photo of your family. Alternatively, you can use the Change Icon option to give individual folders a unique, identifiable icon.
10. Edit your drive names
If you've split your hard drive into two or more partitions, renaming drives can make them easier to identify. Partitions enable you to store groups of data separately from each other on your computer - effectively like having multiple hard drives. Simply right-click a hard drive partition in My Computer, select Properties, and enter a new label.
11. Disable autorun for discs
Put a disc in your CD/DVD drive and you'll notice an appreciable lag as it spins up, even if you're not just about to use it. If you don't always need your CDs and DVDs to launch automatically when you insert them, the needless spinning up of the discs can slow your machine down.
You can disable CD autorun by modifying this registry key:
'HKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current ControlSet\Services\Cdrom'. Double-click the 'AutoRun Dword' value and set it to '0'. Change it to '1' to restore it.
12. Add your own sound effects
You can configure your system so that it plays sounds to accompany various events, such as when dialogs appear, or when you make menu selections. Visit the Sounds section of the 'Sounds & Audio Devices' control panel to choose from a number of pre-configured schemes, or choose any selection of WAV files from your hard drive and create your own schemes. You can even have your favourite song play when your PC starts up.
13. Create a mute shortcut
You can make a custom shortcut that mutes and unmutes your PC's sound by downloading a small utility called Nircmd.
Download and extract the file contents to 'My Documents'. Next, right-click the desktop and choose 'New > Shortcut'. Enter the following for the shortcut location:
"C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\nircmd\nircmd.exe" mutesysvolume 2.
Ensure that the path points to the location where you extracted the 'Nircmd.exe' file. Name the shortcut 'mute_ unmute'. Double-click it to mute your speakers and do so again to turn them back on.
14. Correct file sorting
By default, a file named '2.jpg' will be sorted after one called '20.jpg'. Many people work around this by starting single-digit numbers in file names with a leading zero, but you can change this behaviour by making a Registry edit.
Browse to the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explore. Create a new DWORD value and name it 'NoStrCmpLogical'. Right click and modify its value to '1'.
15. Display shortcut keys
When you open a menu or My Computer window in XP, you can see what shortcut keys are available by pressing [Alt] once - underlined letters will appear, and pressing that letter will trigger the appropriate shortcut, whether it's ticking a box or selecting a button.
You can make these underlined letters appear automatically from the 'Appearance' tab under the 'Desktop' control panel. Click the 'Effects' button and remove the tick next to the box marked 'Hide underlined letters for keyboard navigation until I press the Alt key'. Click 'OK' twice.
16. Perform a complete redesign with these tools
If you want to go beyond the options in Windows XP itself you can try an overhaul using these customisation tools:
TweakUI: No discussion about personalising your PC would be complete without mentioning TweakUI - the indispensable Microsoft tool from the team behind Windows XP. There are so many small but important changes you can make to your system with this program, but by far the best way to find out about them is to download it and experiment.
Talisman Desktop: If you're interested in more extreme forms of computer personalisation, Talisman Desktop can completely transform the appearance of your desktop - even the default theme is something to behold, but there are plenty more available for you to choose from.
WindowBlinds: Next you should head over to Stardock, where you'll find even more desktop enhancements. One such example is WindowBlinds, which enables you to not only change the appearance of your windows, but also the way they act. It's one of the most powerful customisation tools, and you'll find plenty of other tools on offer too - the full set is available for £32/$50 as part of the Object Desktop suite.
17. Make Windows XP fun for your kids, Part 1
The first thing you should do before installing anything on your system is create a separate account for your kids. Open the User Accounts Control Panel, create a new account and select 'Limited' for the account type.
There are several ways of making your desktop child-friendly without installing extra software. First, get yourself a good wallpaper. Younger children can find a range of excellent wallpapers at the Cbeebies website. You could also take a look at the wallpapers from the National Geographicfor older kids.
What about the icons? There are a couple of options here - older children will enjoy the Plou icons available in Stardock's IconPackager. Alternatively, another set of child-friendly icons can be found atWinCustomize.
18. Make Windows XP fun for your kids, Part 2
Since we're forgetting all concepts of taste in pursuit of an appealing children's desktop, why not swap the standard cursors too? You'll needCursorFX to use the really bright and colourful ones.
Once you've downloaded and installed the program, open the configuration window and click the CursorFX tab. You can select the different cursor sets from the Theme drop-down menu. To install a new theme select 'Browse' from the Theme drop-down menu. After a short pause while CursorFX renders the icons, you'll see your new set. Configure each cursor by clicking the Configure button and double-clicking an item in the main window. Save your modified set by clicking 'Save As'.
19. Make Windows XP fun for your kids, Part 3
You can really go to town on your desktop if you use a shell program.DesktopX is a great way of combining an enjoyable environment with access control. In Edit mode you can set up the desktop, and in User mode, you lock everything down.
You can import large pictures and use them as shortcuts to specific programs, and you can include sounds and animations too. The program comes with a couple of basic examples, such as a theme called Kids, which includes an embedded web browser and links to five sites. Your children can only access those sites, and they're unlikely to encounter anything dubious no matter how many external links they manage to follow.
Load DesktopX Builder by selecting 'Start > Programs > StarDock > Desktop Object > DesktopX Builder'. Load the 'Desktop Playground' theme if it isn't already. This mode enables you to customise the desktop in many ways - we'll add a web shortcut.
If you want to do some editing then right-click one of the frames and select 'Properties > States'. The 'Appearance' tab below should be selected. Click the 'Browse' button and select the PNG files, now click the 'Mouse Over' state and select the PNG file.
Click the General tab, then clear the location menu and add the URL - in this example it's http://www.cbeebies.com/asia/. Finally, click the OK button and you'll see you now have a special shortcut to the Cbeebies home page that can be double-clicked.
RAR Password Recovery Professional recovers passwords for RAR archives created with WinRAR, RAR or any other RAR-compatible software. Forgetting a password for an archive created long time ago is a common annoyance. RAR Password Recovery helps you to get your data back. It is easy-to-install and easy-to-use. 1. 100% RAR password recovery rate for all versions (Include newest WinRAR 4.20). 2. 3 efficient attack options: Brute-force, Brute-force with Mask and Dictionary attack. 3. Multi-core CPUs and NVIDIA-GPU optimized for faster recovery. 4. Save recovery process automatically & Shut down computer automatically after recovery. Key Features: Fast and Efficient RAR Password Rescuer: Support password modifications including case changes, reversed words. Quickly recover or remove passwords for all versions of RAR archives. No matter the password is weak or strong, can all be recovered or removed. Throughout the recovery process, no loss or damage will be caused to data. You can save pretty much time if multi-core CPUs or NVIDIA GPUs are used. Offer 3 Powerful Attack Types: Brute-force Attack--This method will try all combinations of password, but require maximum time. Choose it when passwords are long and complicated. Brute-force with Mask Attack--Use this attack when you still remember part of your password, say the approximate minimum and maximum length of the password. Dictionary Attack--This attack is highly recommended for it works fastest by seeking for the password based on a built-in or self-created dictionary. Recover Fast with Multi-core CPU & GPU: RAR Password Recovery uses multiple-core CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs efficiently to speed up the password recovery process by 15 times. The more CPU cores you have, the faster recovery speed you will enjoy. Upgraded with NVIDIA-GPU optimized, RAR Password Recovery can recover password 15X faster than original speed. Advanced Algorithms and highly optimized code to accelerate recovery speed.
Freemake Video Converter combines video editing and conversion into one well-built application. It features an attractive design, a large amount of supported file types, and a modest video editing tool that is engaging and enjoyable. You will not find many faults with this application.
Pros
Friendly, appealing interface: Nothing about this program is complicated or unattractive. Large banner buttons and step-by-step guidance make using Freemake Video Converter a breeze. We found that the contrasting color scheme was beneficial for locating key objects.
Excellent conversion: We converted a wide selection of files and observed that the average video conversion only took approximately 40 seconds to one minute. Freemake Video Converter supports almost every media file type imaginable and features conversion settings designed for specific devices.
Great tools: The built-in video editor is comparable to many other applications, and the slideshow feature is one of the best we've ever used. The ability to merge files before conversion is great and works wonderfully.
Cons Bottom Line
Slow ripping: We used the DVD ripping tool on Freemake and were a tad unsatisfied that it took over 30 minutes to rip an hour-long segment. This was a standard definition file, so ripping a larger, more defined DVD will likely take a considerable amount of time.
Freemake Video Converter is one of the best applications we have encountered. It will suit nearly all of your needs, but we think adding a few more options would make it perfect. Ideally, we would like to see it include a free subtitle editor similar to that of Subtitle Edit. Nevertheless, this application is fully loaded, and we suggest you download Freemake Video Converter because it is the best on the market.
From Freemake:
Convert video free between 250+ video formats: AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, FLV, SWF, MPEG, 3GP, DVD, Blu-ray. Prepare videos for playback on your gadgets: iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, PSP, PS3, PS Vita, Xbox, Android devices, Nokia, Samsung, and BlackBerry mobiles. Rip and burn DVD with subtitles. Burn video Blu-ray discs. Download online videos from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, 50+ other websites by a quick copypaste of video URL into the program. Create a custom preset for any mobile phone, tablet or game console. Convert videos to Flash FLV or SWF and to HTML5 formats. Get ready embed code for web page integration. Extract sound of the video. Convert YouTube to MP3. Turn photos & MP3 into slideshows. Create audio visualisations. Upload your videos and slideshows to YouTube from program interface. Edit videos. Cut unnecessary video parts. Join several videos into one. Rotate videos 90 degrees. Limit output file size. Convert videos with 10x speed due to CUDA and DXVA support. The program runs under Windows XP/Vista/7 and is optimized for netbooks. It does not have any hidden costs or intrusive advertising. Freemake Video Converter is ideal for those who seek beauty, efficiency and simplicity in a single free program.
What's new in this version:
Version 4.1.5.3 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.
The latest iteration of Windows Media Player adds a lot of useful bells and whistles, succeeding in many ways as a competitor to iTunes for Windows. A tree-style file directory makes it easy to find the music you want quickly, and a simple search box gets you where you want to go immediately. A five-star rating system lets you rate your music, then organize it by rating, so it's easy to group your favorite songs. Drag-and-drop functionality and a handy Create Playlist button take any confusion out of the process of making your own playlists. Creating the perfect mix CD is equally as easy--simply drag and drop songs into a Burn List in the right panel, then click Start Burn to finish. Ripping was reasonably fast on our test machine, and the program let us pick our preferred bit rate and audio file type.
The biggest new feature in WMP11 is the ability to sign up with paid music and video services. Without registering, we were able to browse various sites and compare prices among services including XM Radio--all from the Windows Media Player interface. We like the new, cleaner look, and the back and forward buttons make it easier to navigate. The ability to sort music by year released makes for some great reminiscing. Overall, we think the latest Windows Media Player offers almost everything you need for every type of media, making it a solid choice for an all-in-one jukebox.
From Microsoft:
Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP offers great new ways to store and enjoy all your music, video, pictures, and recorded TV. Play it, view it, and sync it to a portable device for enjoying on the go or even share with devices around your home all from one place.
Simplicity In Design: Bring a whole new look to your digital entertainment. More of the Music You Love: Breathe new life into your digital music experience. All Your Entertainment in One Place: Store and enjoy all of your music, video, pictures, and recorded TV. Enjoy Everywhere: Stay connected with your music, video, and pictures no matter where you are. Check out the new Media Sharing feature.
A feature-rich dictionary lookup program, supporting multiple dictionaries' formats, perfect article rendering with the complete markup, illustrations and other content retained, and allowing to type in words without any accents or correct case.
Features
Use of WebKit for an accurate articles' representation, complete with all formatting, colors, images and links.
Support of multiple dictionary file formats: Babylon .BGL, StarDict .ifo/.dict./.idx/.syn, dictd . index/.dict(.dz), ABBYY Lingvo .dsl
Support for Wikipedia, Wiktionary, or any other MediaWiki-based sites to perform lookups in.
Ability to use arbitrary websites as dictionaries via templated Url patterns.
Hunspell-based morphology system, used for word stemming and spelling suggestions.
Ability to index arbitrary directories with audio files for pronunciation lookups.
Full Unicode case, diacritics, punctuation and whitespace folding. This means the ability to type in words without any accents, correct case, punctuation or spaces (e.g. typing 'Grussen' would yield 'grüßen' in German dictionaries).
Scan popup functionality. A small window pops up with the translation of a word chosen from another application.
Support for global hotkeys. You can spawn the program window at any point, or directly translate a word from the clipboard.
Tabbed browsing in a modern Qt 4 interface.
Cross-platform: Linux/X11 and Windows + portable to others.
µTorrent (or uTorrent, commonly abbreviated as "µT" or "uT") is a free-of-charge, ad-supported, closed source BitTorrent client. It is one of the most widely used BitTorrent clients and was designed to use minimal computer resources while offering functionality comparable to larger BitTorrent clients.
µTorrent (bittorrent.torrent.utorrent) is a Windows software application that has been discovered and submitted by users of Software.com. The latest version that our users have reported running on their systems is µTorrent 3.3.2.30488. The most popular version of this application used by our users is µTorrent 3.4.2.34309.
The first thing you'll notice when starting Microsoft Office 2013 is it's clean, refreshing and coherent look across all supported platforms including desktop, smartphones and tablets. Through a subscription of Office 365 and the integration with SkyDrive you can access and edit your files from any computer via a browser. Among the new features are a "Read Mode" in Word 2013 which removes toolbars and lets you swipe and tab through a document like in an "E-Reader". Videos are better supported. They can be searched, added and viewed directly within Word. Excel 2013 has new easy ways of working with formulas and charts in spreadsheets. Powerpoint 2013 was enhanced with better controls while in presentation mode, for example "Slide Zoom" to zoom in on a section of your slide. Adding photos to a presentation also became easier as you can now search and add pictures from your albums on Flickr and other online photo and social network sites.
Office on 1 PC for business use.
Store your documents online with OneDrive.
Access, edit, and share your documents on your Internet-connected device using free Office Web Apps .
Word
Open a PDF in Word, and enjoy editing content, such as paragraphs, lists and tables, as if you created it in Word.
Show your style and professionalism with templates, plus save time. Browse Word templates in more than 40 categories.
Excel
In Excel 2013 each workbook has its own window, making it easier to work on two workbooks at once. It also makes life easier when you’re working on two monitors
You’ll find several new functions in the math and trigonometry, statistical, engineering, date and time, lookup and reference, logical, and text function categories.
Power Point
No more eyeballing objects on your slides to see if they’re lined up. Smart Guides automatically appear when your objects, such as pictures, shapes, and more, are close to even, and they also tell you when objects are spaced evenly.
PowerPoint now supports more multimedia formats, such as .mp4 and .mov with H.264 video and Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) audio, and more high-definition content. PowerPoint 2013 includes more built-in codecs so you don’t have to install them for certain file formats to work.
Out Look
The People Card collects all the key details about a contact in one place: phone, email, address, company info, social media updates, even whether they’re available. From the card, you can schedule a meeting, send an instant message, or give them a call, making it a one-stop-shop for all communication.
Receive push-based email, appointments, and contacts from Outlook.com, and Outlook.com (formerly Hotmail) - all conveniently delivered right into your Outlook experience.
Access
Simply type what you need to track and Access uses table templates to deliver an app that does the job.
Never again get "lost in the data." A standardized app framework makes navigating apps familiar and easy.
Entering data accurately is a breeze with drop-down menus and recommendations that appear when you begin typing.
Publisher
Create dynamic publications in very little time when you insert and customize prebuilt building blocks of content, both built-in and from the Publisher community, directly from Publisher. Choose from an array of page parts—such as sidebars and stories—as well as calendars, borders, advertisements, and more.
Use professional-looking effects for text, shapes and pictures, including softer shadows, reflections, and OpenType features such as ligatures and stylistic alternates.
Use Publisher to search your online albums on Facebook, Flickr and other services and add pictures directly to the document, without having to save them first.
Office Professional 2013 was designed to help you create and communicate faster, with time-saving features and a clean, modern look across all your programs. Plus, save your documents online in OneDrive to access virtually anywhere.
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