Author: Pat Skinner

I make apps.
I love empowering people with tech, saving time, and delivering delight.
Piano player and German speaker.

Categories
Handy Interface

Theming Windows XP

The user interface is the one thing you are going to see more of than anything else on your computer. Fortunately plenty of software titles allow you to switch between different themes.

Good news if you use XP. Microsoft’s theming engine is not limited to the lame “Luna” themes introduced with XP. You can get the benefit of using Windows’ internal theming engine without actually paying a dime.

Cursive Screenshot

NOTE: This hack has worked for me through many Windows installs, but if you screw up your computer, I claim no responsibility.

The theme format for Windows XP has been very successfully reverse engineered. The three versions of Luna are all this format, and the themes for StyleXP also are in this format. Microsoft tried to limit the engine to only Microsoft themes, but we can patch the file that checks that.

Here’s what we’re going to do:

  • Patch uxtheme.dll so it accepts third party themes. Run this. You’ll probably have to restart.
  • Download this guy and open it.
  • Almost done! Now, copy the folder “Cursive” to “C:\Windows\Resources\Themes”. There should already be a Luna folder in here.
  • Go to the Display control panel, go to the Appearance tab, and select Cursive from the list, click OK, and you’re golden!

    • Hooray, StyleXP for free. Just move additional themes into the Themes folder to make them accessible through the Display control panel.

    P.S. Oh, and if you need to justify using themes to yourself beyond their cometic appeal, know that some themes like Cursive (below) can be functionally better. Thinner scrollbars, thinner titlebars, and a collapsed start menu translate to greater screen real-estate. As software gets more and more palette heavy, that can be quite handy.

    Categories
    Humor

    “Crusin Down The Street In My 64”

    Go see “Dynamite Hack – Boys in the Hood.” The video.
    Prepped out golfers livin it badder than Easy E? Definitely choice.

    boys in the hood, driving SUVs
    …if you have RealPlayer
    (just download it instead, streaming is lame.)

    Categories
    Visit This Site

    Secrets of the successful companies

    It’s always highly interesting to me to see what the big tech companies that have “made it” do to get where they are. Sometimes its surprising how the little changes make huge differences. Google is full of examples just like any other company:

    One of the biggest leap in search usage came about when they introduced their much improved spell checker giving birth to the “Did you mean…” feature. This instantly doubled their traffic, but they had some interesting discussions on how best to place that information, as most people simply tuned that out. But they discovered the placement at the bottom of the results was the most effective area.

    Marissa Meyer, Product Manager for Google

    Read the rest.

    Another interesting presentation is about Amazon.com. Amazon is supposedly one of the best sites for usability out there. It’s in their financial interest to be easy to use, because when ecommerce was new, it needed to be friendly and predictable to its users to succeed. Amazon is a “new” way to buy things and breaking the ice with new Internet users was a tricky chore for them. Check out the pages about 1/2 way through about the site redesign options, pretty interesting usability research.

    P.S. First picture post! This is me at The Gates last February.

    upwards view of me at the gates

    Categories
    Technical

    Server Info

    I got some name-based VirtualHosts goodness set up so you can read real-time stats of the site. Thanks to phpsysinfo for making this easier.

    Edit: VirtualHosts barfed. Back to the normal way until my OS Scripting practical is over.

    Edit 12/2009: This is another feature that didn’t make the transition to new hosting and I have no intention of bringing it back. So there.

    Categories
    Humor Technical

    googolplexes of maps

    Not to play second fiddle to tech news sites but this one is really cool. Google Maps just integrated Keyhole’s satellite images, so you can search for a place and see a real photograph of the place from 5,000 feet. Google bought Keyhole last October.

    Here’s where I’m living right now at RIT. Reading headlines off newspapers will remain exclusively for the CIA, but what we get (for free) is really cool.

    Not to pull a Bush and forget about the rest of the world …a world-wide already existing alternative is right here.