While it might be fun to use Tweak UI to fiddle with the UI, its real power becomes apparent when you use it to create your own customized XP interfaces. For example, you might be the type who is concerned about only one thing when you use your PC: pure functionality. You want to get your work done fast, and you don’t want to be bothered by the extra frou-frous that XP throws in your way and that slow down your system. Here’s how to create a speedy, stripped-down interface using Tweak UI:

The Mouse section also lets you change the mouse’s sensitivity to “hovering”—for example, displaying a tool tip when you hover your mouse over an icon. To speed up the hover display, highlight Hover underneath the Mouse section, then decrease the numbers next to “Hover sensitivity” and “Hover time.” Test out your settings using the test icon.

Desktop icons take up RAM and clutter your interface, so you want as few of them as possible on your desktop if you want a stripped-down version of XP. You can delete most desktop icons, but some of them such as Outlook and Internet Explorer apparently can’t be deleted. However, Tweak UI lets you delete them. Go to the Desktop section and uncheck the boxes next to the icons that you want off the desktop. (You can force the Registry to do the same thing [Hack #13] .)

The Control Panel is filled with applets that you will rarely, if ever, use, and they clutter up the interface, making it more difficult to find the applets you do want to use. To hide applets, go to the Control Panel section and uncheck the boxes next to the applets that you want to hide. (You can force the Registry to do the same thing [Hack #9] . That hack also shows you how you can run the applets, even after you’ve removed their icons.)

When you right-click the desktop and choose New, you can automatically create a new document by choosing from a submenu. That submenu can offer many choices of which document types to create, depending on the applications you have installed on your PC and how those applications handle their installation process. In many instances, those choices can be little more than clutter because you might rarely need to create new documents of certain types. Strip down that submenu to the essentials so that it has only those document types that you frequently create. Choose Templates, and uncheck the boxes next to the document types you rarely create. For example, most people rarely use the Briefcase [Hack #29] , but that is one of your choices, so remove that unless you regularly move files using it. (To add power to the right-click context menu in Explorer, see [Hack #28] .)

If you’re the primary person who uses your PC, you can enable autologon so that you’re logged on automatically when the system starts. Choose Autologon from the Logon section, check the box next to “Log on automatically at system startup,” and make sure your username, domain, and password are correct.

To hide unused applets using the Registry, run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionControl Paneldon't load.

The key, as its name implies, determines which Control Panel applet icons are not loaded into the Control Panel. You’ll still be able to run those applets from the command line after you hide them (as explained later in this hack); you just won’t be able to see their icons in the Control Panel.

To hide an applet, create a new String value whose name is the filename of the applet you want to hide. For example, to hide the Mouse Control dialog box, the String value would be main.cpl. See Table 2-1 for a list of Control Panel applets and their filenames.

Create separate String values for each applet you want to hide, then exit the Registry. The applets will vanish from the Control Panel. To make a hidden applet appear again, delete its string value from this same registry key.

If you have XP Professional, you don’t need to get your hands dirty with the Registry to hide unused applets; instead, you can use XP Professional’s exceedingly useful Group Policy Editor to accomplish the same task. The Group Policy Editor is primarily used for setting network and multiuser policies and rights, but it can also be used to customize the way XP looks and works. (For example, to use it to hack away at the Start menu and taskbar, see [Hack #10] .) Run the Group Policy Editor by typing gpedit.msc at the Run prompt or command line.

Once you’ve run it, go to User ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesControl Panel, the section that handles the Control Panel. As you can see when you get there, you can do a lot more than hide the Control Panel’s unused applets in this section of the Group Policy Editor; you can also control many other aspects of how the Control Panel looks and functions.

Now right-click “Show only specified Control Panel applets,” and choose Properties. You’ll see the screen pictured in Figure 2-3.

Figure 2-3. Disabling Control Panel applets in the Group Policy Editor

Get ready for a bit of counterintuitive selecting. To disable Control Panel applets, you must choose the Enabled radio button because you’re enabling the feature to show only certain Control Panel applets. Strange, but true.

When you do this, you’ll hide all applets in the Control Panel, which is a bit draconian. If you don’t want to see any applets at all for some odd reason, you’re done; just click OK. But you’ll most likely want to show some applets, so to add them, click the Show button. The Show Contents screen appears. Click Add, and you’re ready to list all the Control Panel applets that you want to appear. For each item that you want to appear, type in its Control Panel filename, which you can find in Table 2-1. For example, if you want the Date and Time dialog box to appear, type in timedate.cpl.

You can also use Tweak UI [Hack #8] to hide Control Panel applets.

When you’ve listed all the Control Panel applets that you want to appear, click OK and exit the Group Policy Editor. Only the applets you’ve chosen to display will now appear in the Control Panel.

This technique is most useful when you’re hiding most of the applets in the Control Panel and you want to display only a few. There’s another way to use the Group Policy Editor to hide applets, and it’s better suited for when you want to hide only a few applets. In User ConfigurationAdministrative TemplatesControl Panel, double-click “Hide specified Control Panel applets” and choose Enabled. After you click Enabled, choose Show → Add and type in the Control Panel filename (which you can find in Table 2-1) for each applet you want to hide. Click OK in each dialog box that appears. When you exit the Group Policy Editor, the specified applets will no longer appear in the Control Panel.

To customize other aspects of how the Control Panel works, follow the same instructions as outlined previously—right-clicking the item you want to change, choosing Properties, and then picking your options.

Hiding applets goes only partway toward cleaning up the Control Panel. You can also recategorize applets and put them in any category you want. For example, by default, the Mouse Properties applet can be found in the Printers and Other Hardware category, but if you prefer that it instead be found in Accessibility Options, you can move it there.

To put an applet into any category you want, you need two pieces of information: the filename of the applet (for example, main.cpl for the Mouse Properties dialog box), and the Registry value for each Control Panel category (for example, 0x00000007 (7) for Accessibility Options). For filenames of each applet, see Table 2-1. For the Registry value for each Control Panel category, see Table 2-2. With these two pieces of information in hand, you can recategorize any or all Control Panel applets.

To recategorize a Control Panel applet, run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionControl PanelExtended Properties{305CA226-D286-468e-B848-2B2E8E697B74}2. The key {305CA226-D286-468e-B848-2B2E8E697B74}2 is the container that holds all Control Panel categories. (Remember that it’s safest to back up your Registry first [Hack #86] .)

Now find the Registry key of the applet you want to recategorize. The filename of the applet will appear on the end of the key; for example, %SystemRoot%system32main.cpl is the Mouse Properties dialog box. Turn to trusty Table 2-1 for a list of other filenames for Control Panel applets.

Change the key’s DWORD value to the value of the Control Panel category into which you want the applet to appear, as detailed in Table 2-2. For example, if you want the applet to appear in the Performance and Maintenance category, give it a value of 5. The value will then be displayed in the Registry as 0x00000005(5).

When you’re done, exit the Registry. The applet will now appear in the new category.

If you’re a “just the facts, ma’am” type, you’ll want to bypass the Control Panel altogether. Rather than clicking effete icons, you can instead force XP to display Control Panel applets in a cascading menu when you choose Control Panel from the Start button, as shown in Figure 2-4.

Figure 2-4. Turning the Control Panel into a cascading menu for quick access to applets

To force the Control Panel to display as a cascading menu, right-click the taskbar and choose Properties → Start Menu. Click the Customize button and choose the Advanced tab. In the Control Panel heading, choose “Display as a menu.” Click OK twice.

Armed with all this Control Panel hackery, you can build customized Control Panels. For example, you can build a Control Panel for computer newbies, which hides the more technical applets and categories. Hide the applets in the Network and Internet Connections category, the Performance and Maintenance category, and the Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices category—that way, newbies can’t get into trouble by making changes that will affect the system in unexpected ways.

For system administrators, group all system-type applets into a single category, such as Network and Internet Connections. You’d probably want to keep all the existing applets there, but also add the Administrative Tools, Scheduled Tasks, and System applets to it, as well as the Printers and Faxes applet. (If the administrator has to handle other hardware, such as scanners, add the Scanners and Cameras applet as well.)

For those who like to hack their systems and want instant, stripped-down access to customization tools, take all the applets that are now in Network and Internet Connections, and all those in Performance and Maintenance, and group them into the Appearance and Themes category. Then force the Control Panel to display as a cascading menu, and all of the hackery-type applets will be available instantly because the Appearance and Themes category is at the top of the cascading menu and all the relevant applets will be available directly from it.

You can use Tweak UI [Hack #8] to hack the taskbar to a limited degree. Go to its Taskbar section, and you can disable or enable balloon tips, and enable or disable warnings when you’re low on disk space. Underneath the Taskbar section, you’ll find a Grouping subsection that controls how taskbar “grouping” works. When you run too many programs with too many files open, all of them can’t fit individually on the taskbar. So, XP groups files from the same application with each other. For example, if you have four Word files open, it shows only a single icon for Word on the taskbar, with the number 4 inside it. Click the icon, and a list of all four files pops up. You can then choose which to open. Tweak UI lets you control how that grouping works; you can decide whether to first group applications with the most windows, or instead first group applications that you use the least. You can also choose to group all applications with two or more windows open, three or more windows open, and so on.

You might want to ban other programs from the list, not just those that XP bans by default. Just because you use a program a time or two doesn’t mean you want it on the Start menu’s Most Frequently Used Programs List. You can ban programs from the list using a Registry hack.

Run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTApplications. Underneath this key, you’ll find a series of subkeys, each representing an application. The primary purpose of these subkeys, as you’ll see later in this hack, is to determine whether the program appears on the Open With dialog box that appears whenever you try to open an unknown file type. But you can also add a value to any of the subkeys which will ban programs from appearing on the Most Frequently Used Programs List.

Look for a subkey that is the executable name of the application you want to ban from the list—for example, visio.exe for the Visio business illustration program. Once you find the application’s subkey, create a new String value for that subkey, named NoStartPage. Leave the value blank. Exit the Registry. You might have to reboot for the setting to take effect and the program to be banned from the list.

Another use for HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTApplications

While you’re rooting around in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTApplications, you might want to hack the Open With dialog box (shown in Figure 2-6) that appears whenever you try to open an unknown file type. Each application’s subkey in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTApplications controls whether that particular application will show up on the dialog box.

Figure 2-6. Hacking the Open With dialog box

If you want to ban a particular program from the Open With dialog box, look for the application’s subkey underneath HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTApplications, add a String value named NoOpenWith, and leave the value blank.

Ban programs from the Most Frequently Used Programs List with Tweak UI

If you don’t want to muck around in the Registry, you can ban programs from the Most Frequently Used Programs List using Tweak UI [Hack #8] . Run Tweak UI, and choose Taskbar → XP Start Menu. You’ll see the screen shown in Figure 2-7, with a list of programs and checks next to most or all of them.

Figure 2-7. Using Tweak UI to ban programs from the Most Frequently Used Programs List

Each program with a check next to it will be allowed to appear on the Most Frequently Used Programs List. To stop a program from appearing on the list, uncheck the box and click OK.

By default, the Most Frequently Used Programs List has room for six programs, but you can change that default and have more or fewer programs appear. Right-click the Start button and choose Properties → Customize → General. The Customize Start Menu dialog box, shown in Figure 2-8, appears. To customize the number of programs to include on the list, edit the “Number of programs on Start menu” box. You can choose any number between 0 and 30. Be aware, though, that depending on your screen resolution and whether you’re using large or small icons, the entire list might not appear if you choose a large number. No matter how high your resolution is, for example, don’t expect there to be room for 30 programs.

Figure 2-8. Customizing the number of programs on the Most Frequently Used Programs List

The Pinned Programs List, just above the Most Frequently Used Programs List on the XP-style Start menu, gives you instant access to any program you want. You, rather than the operating system, decide what programs go there. To add a program to it, drag the program’s icon or filename to the Start menu, and when the menu pops up, drag it to the spot on the list where you want it to appear.

This list makes a lot more sense than the Most Frequently Used Programs List: after all, you know better than XP what programs you want within easy reach. So, do what I do: kill the Most Frequently Used Programs List as a way to make more room for the Pinned Programs List. When you kill the Most Frequently Used Programs List, there will be a big blank space between the Pinned Programs List and the All Programs button. Drag programs to fill that space; the shortcuts will stay there until you delete them.

You can kill the Most Frequently Used Programs List with a Registry hack. Run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer. Create a new DWORD called NoStartMenuMFUprogramsList and give it a value of 1. You’ll have to reboot or log off and back on for the setting to take effect. When it does, the nice big blank space will be left for you to fill with pinned programs.

The Registry is your best tool for personalizing XP. It will let you change both the text and balloon tip associated with system objects. First, you need to know the object’s class ID (CLSID), which uniquely identifies each system object. Table 2-3 lists the CLSIDs for common desktop objects.

Armed with the proper CLSID, it’s easy to change the name and balloon text of system objects. First, use Table 2-3 to find the CLSID for the object whose name or balloon text you want to change. Then run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] , go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID, a key that lets you change characteristics of system objects, and highlight the CLSID whose name or balloon text you want to change. For example, to change My Computer, highlight the subkey HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}. Keep in mind that HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID has many CLSIDs listed under it, so it might take you a while to find the proper subkey.

Once you find the right subkey, if you want to edit the name of the object, open the Default value and type in the text that you want to appear underneath the object. If you want to edit the balloon text for the object, open the InfoTip value and type in the text that you want to appear as balloon text. Once you’re done, exit the Registry and reboot.

You might also be able to force the changes to take effect without rebooting. After you exit the Registry, go to your desktop and press F5 to refresh the screen. The new names and balloon tips might appear now.

You can hack objects besides names and balloons with this method. You can also change the desktop icons of system objects that appear to have unchangeable icons.

First, using Table 2-3, find the CLSID for the object whose icon you want to change. Then run the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID, and look for the CLSID subkey from Table 2-3 for the object whose icon you want to change. Open the subkey and then the DefaultIcon subkey under that. For example, to change the icon for My Computer, open the subkey HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}DefaultIcon. Change the Default value to the path of the icon that you want displayed. Exit the Registry. You might have to reboot for the new settings to take effect.

The system tray, also called the notification area, is the small area on the far-right side of the taskbar, in which utilities and programs that run in the background, such as antivirus software, show their icons.

I don’t find it a particularly intelligent use of screen real estate, so I prefer not to see the icons there. To hide them, run the Registry Editor [Hack #83] and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer. Among other things, this key controls the display of objects throughout XP. Create a new DWORD called NoTrayItemsDisplay. Assign it a value of 1. (A value of 0 will keep the icons displayed.) Exit the Registry and reboot.

While you’re at the HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/Explorer key, you can also delete the My Recent Documents icon on the Start menu. Create a new DWORD called NoRecentDocsMenu. Assign it a value of 1. (A value of 0 will keep the icon displayed.) Exit the Registry and reboot.

You might want to display some icons in the notification area but hide others. If so, you can hide icons on a case-by-case basis. You’ll do it by delving through menus, though, not by hacking the Registry. Right-click the taskbar and choose Properties → Taskbar. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box appears. This dialog box, as the name implies, lets you control how the taskbar and Start menu look and function.

In the Notification area of the dialog box, check the box next to “Hide inactive icons,” then click Customize. The Customize Notifications dialog box appears.

Figure 2-9. Hiding inactive icons

Click the program’s listing in the Behavior column, and choose from the drop-down menu to hide the icon when the program is inactive, to always hide it, or to never hide it (see Figure 2-9). Click OK twice. Your changes will take effect immediately.

When you use certain Windows applications (such as Notepad) to open a file, on the left side of the Open dialog box are a group of icons and folders (such as My Documents, My Recent Documents, Desktop, My Computer, and My Network) to which you can navigate to open files.

Good idea, bad implementation. Do you really keep documents in My Computer? Unlikely, at best. It would be much more helpful if you could list only those folders that you use, and if you could choose to put any folder there, not just ones XP decides you need.

In fact, you can do it with a Registry hack. It’ll let you put just the folders of your choosing on the left side of the Open dialog box. Note that when you do this, it will affect XP applications such as Notepad and Paint that use the Open and Save common dialog boxes. However, it won’t affect Microsoft Office applications and other applications that don’t use the common dialog boxes.

Run the Registry Editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciescomdlg32. This is the key that determines how common dialog boxes are handled. You’re going to create a subkey that will create a customized location for the folders, and then give that subkey a series of values, each of which will define a folder location.

To start, create a new subkey underneath HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciescomdlg32 called Placesbar, and create a String value for it named Place0. Give Place0 a value of the topmost folder that you want to appear on the Open dialog box, for example, C:Projects.

Next, create another String value for Placesbar called Place1. Give it a value of the second folder that you want to appear on the Open dialog box. You can put up to five icons on the Open dialog box, so create new String values up to Place4 and give them values as outlined in the previous steps. When you’re done, exit the Registry. You won’t have to reboot for the changes to take effect. Figure 2-10 shows an example of an Open dialog box customized in this way.

Figure 2-10. A customized Open dialog box

If you do not want any folders to appear in common Open dialog boxes, you can do that as well. In HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciescomdlg32 create a new DWORD value called NoPlacesBar and give it a value of 1. Exit the Registry. If you want the folders back, either delete NoPlacesBar or give it a value of 0.

To me, system beeps that my PC makes when it encounters certain system errors are like balloon tips—gnatlike annoyances that I can do without. So, I turn them off using a Registry hack. Run the Registry Editor [Hack #84] , go to HKEY_CURRENT_USERControl PanelSound, and find the Beep and ExtendedSounds String values. Set each value to No. Exit the Registry and reboot. The beeps will no longer sound.

This one isn’t a Registry hack, but I couldn’t resist putting it in here since it’s one of the more useful ways to customize the interface. The Windows XP graphic for your user account on the Start menu might not be to your taste, and your choice of other graphics to display there isn’t particularly inspiring, either. After all, not everyone wants to be pictured as a rubber ducky, a snowflake, or a pair of horses.

But you’re not limited to XP-supplied pictures for your user account; you can use any picture in .gif, .jpg, .png, or .bmp format. In this hack, I’ll show you how to use your own picture.

To change your User Account picture to any one that you want, from the Control Panel choose User Accounts, then pick the account you want to change and choose Change my picture → Browse for more pictures. Navigate to the picture you want to use and click OK. Figure 2-11 shows the screen you’ll use to change your picture; it also shows the customized User Account picture I use during the winter holiday season.

Figure 2-11. Changing your User Account picture

If you have a digital camera or scanner attached to your PC, a button will show up on the screen shown in Figure 2-11 that lets you take a picture with the camera, or scan a picture with the scanner, and then immediately use that picture for your user account.

For those interested in saving keystrokes, there’s a quicker way to get to the screen letting you customize your picture. From the Windows XP-style Start menu, click your picture, and the screen appears.

You can use this same technique in reverse to hide components you don’t want to be uninstalled accidentally. Simply put the word HIDE in the proper place in the entry that you don’t want to show up in the Windows Components Wizard. For example, if you want to hide the uninstall entry for the fax utility, edit its entry by changing:

Fax=fxsocm.dll,FaxOcmSetupProc,fxsocm.inf,,7

to:

Fax=fxsocm.dll,FaxOcmSetupProc,fxsocm.inf,HIDE,7

When you start your machine, you’ll see a vendor-specific welcome screen, which provides access to BIOS settings. Depending on your setup, after that you might see a menu that lets you boot from one of multiple operating systems [Hack #1] . But if you run only one instance of Windows XP, you will be greeted immediately by the Windows splash screen. To get an almost complete Mac experience, we are going to replace the default Windows logo with something more Panther-like (at the time of this writing, Panther is the name of the latest version of Mac OS X, Version 10.3). To do this, we use BootSkin by Stardock (http://www.stardock.com/products/bootskin), which is free for noncommercial use.

After downloading and installing the program we need to obtain a Mac-like boot skin. A particularly nice one is called G5, available at http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=32&SkinID=740. Once you have downloaded it, you need to import it into BootSkin. From BootSkin, choose File → Import from file. After you import it, it will show up in BootSkin, as shown in Figure 2-13.

Figure 2-13. The BootSkin main window with the G5 boot skin imported

To get an idea how your boot screen will look, you can choose G5 from the list and click the Preview button. Clicking Apply saves your settings and presents the G5 splash screen upon your next boot. Modifying existing boot screens is easy. Once you have imported a skin, you can find it in the skins directory, which defaults to C:Program FilesStardockWinCustomizeBootSkinskins. Documentation is available through the BootSkin Help menu.

The next step in transforming your PC into a Mac is to replace the default Logon screen with a more Panther-like version. Use the free program LogonStudio by Stardock (http://www.stardock.com/products/logonstudio). Download the main program as well as a logon screen called Mac OS X Panther (http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=26&SkinID=1476).

After you install LogonStudio, unzip Mac_OSX_Panther_LogonXP.logonxp.zip into a directory named Mac_OSX_Panther_LogonXP.logonxp. Now, move the newly created folder into the installation directory of LogonStudio, which has the default of C:Program FilesWinCustomizeLogonStudio.

Now, when you run LogonStudio, the Mac OS X Panther screen will appear in the list of available logons, as shown in Figure 2-14.

Figure 2-14. LogonStudio’s main screen

Select it and click Apply. To see how the new logon screen looks (as shown in Figure 2-15), you can press Windows-L.

Figure 2-15. The Panther-like logon screen

The next step is to change Windows’ overall visual appearance so that it’s more Mac-like. Use WindowBlinds from Stardock (http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds).

It’s shareware; the registration fee is $20, although you can use a free version that has nag screens and some features disabled. Download the program and a visual style called Brushed Panther (http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=1&SkinID=3476). After launching WindowBlinds, choose “Install skin from disk” to load the skin, as shown in Figure 2-16.

Figure 2-16. Installing the Brushed Panther visual style

Change the desktop wallpaper to one that closely resembles Apple’s blue one. If you’ve installed LogonStudio, go to C:Program FilesWinCustomizeLogonStudioMac_OSX_Panther_LogonXP.logonxp and find Bitmap_100. Use that file as your wallpaper by right-clicking the Windows desktop, choosing Properties → Desktop, and clicking the Browse button. Navigate to the file Bitmap_100, choose it, click Open, and then OK.

At this point, we have a PC that looks very much like Mac OS X, from its boot screen to its logon screen, and to its entire look and feel. But we’ve changed only the way Windows looks. Now we’re going to give it Mac-like features as well.

Konfabulator

A popular Mac tool called Konfabulator displays so-called widgets, which are mini-applications that fulfill a particular task, such as displaying the state of your notebook’s battery, the current CPU usage, or the weather forecast for your town. Widgets are not applications written in ordinary programming languages like C++ or Java; rather, they are written in JavaScript and can therefore be developed easily. So, not surprisingly, there are a huge number of available widgets. In the upcoming Tiger release of Mac OS X (early 2005), Apple is expected to include a new feature called Dashboard, which closely resembles Konfabulator. For a long time Konfabulator has been a Mac OS-only application. Fortunately, though, a new version works for Windows (http://www.konfabulator.com). The program is shareware; you can try it for free, but if you decide to keep it, the registration fee is $25.

Konfabulator neatly integrates itself into Windows. You can access its functions by clicking an icon in the notification area to install a new widget. Once you have selected the widget in the file dialog box, you will immediately see it on-screen. Moving the mouse over a widget and pressing the right-mouse button produces a menu which you can use to close a widget or to modify its settings, as shown in Figure 2-17.

Figure 2-17. The Konfabulator WiFi widget with its menu

Some settings are widget-specific but others apply to all widgets. One nice feature is called Konspose, which hides all widgets that are in Konspose mode until a certain key is pressed. Just like on the Mac, the default key for this is F8.

Switching between windows and applications

The Panther release of Mac OS X introduced an intuitive way to switch between applications and windows called Exposé. If you press the F9 function key you get neatly arranged previews of all open windows. F10 does a similar thing but shows only windows belonging to the current application. This is particularly useful because it provides a quick overview of what is happening on-screen.

Entbloess 2 by Nipaco Enterprises (http://www.entbloess.com) brings Exposé-like features to XP. The program is shareware; it’s free to try, but the registration fee is $7.99 if you continue to use it. Figure 2-18 shows the program in action.

Figure 2-18. Entbloess in Exposé mode

The Dock

Another eye-catching feature of Mac OS X is called the Dock. Dock-like functionality has been present in several operating systems, and even the Windows taskbar can be considered some sort of Dock. The basic idea is to have some drop zone where you drag files and programs you need frequently. Accessing them is as simple as clicking the corresponding icon, which remains visible all the time. Additionally, the Dock shows all currently running programs. If you minimize an application window, program output takes place in the Dock.

What makes the Mac OS X version so outstanding is its visual appearance, with lots of nice animations. Several programs for Windows deliver a Mac-like Dock experience. One of them is called ObjectDock (http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock), yet another application by Stardock. The program is free to use. One you have installed the main application, make sure to download the Panther X Future (http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=29&SkinID=2924) and Striped Mac (http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=29&SkinID=78) extension packs. You need to unzip these in folders that match the name of the archive without the .zip extension.

Put the MacOSX folder in the installation directory of ObjectDock, which by default is C:Program FilesStardockObjectDock. The Striped Mac folder must reside in the Backgrounds directory.

Warning

If you decide to uninstall the various pieces of software used in this hack, make sure that you first reset XP to its original appearance before uninstalling. If you don’t, XP might still look Mac-like, even though you’ve uninstalled the underlying software.

To get a nice Mac-like background, open the configuration dialog of ObjectDock and choose Striped Mac, as shown in Figure 2-19.

Figure 2-19. The configuration dialog box of ObjectDock

To change the icons of applications, launch the desired program, right-click its icon in ObjectDock (Figure 2-20), and open the Properties dialog box.

Figure 2-20. Choosing an icon from the Mac OS X package

Now you have a PC with a Mac OS X-like Dock.

That’s it; you’re done. You’ve put considerable effort into transforming your PC into a Mac. Figure 2-21 shows what the final results look like.

Figure 2-21. My Sony notebook running Windows XP Pro, but looking much like Mac OS X Panther

—Thomas Künneth

If you’re like me (and most other people), you won’t be happy with the basic themes that come with XP. What good is an operating system, after all, if you can’t bend it, twist it, and make it your own?

There’s no single, central place you can go to make themes in XP. Instead, you’ll have to customize each part of XP individually and then roll it all up into a single theme. Once your system is using all the elements of your theme, save the theme with the following instructions.

Start off by right-clicking the desktop, choosing Properties, and then customizing your desktop using the following tabs:

Next, customize your mouse pointers by typing main.cpl in the Start → Run box and pressing Enter. The Mouse Properties dialog box will appear, allowing you to choose a preset pointer scheme or to select individual pointers you want as part of your theme.

To choose system sounds for your theme, type mmsys.cpl from the Run box and press Enter. The Sounds and Audio Devices Properties dialog box will appear. Click the Sounds tab and choose a preset sound scheme or select individual sounds for different system and program events.

When you’re finished customizing, go back to the Themes tab of the Display Properties dialog box, choose Save As, and save the theme to either My Documents or C:WindowsResourcesThemes. Now you can use the theme as you can any other.

This has been a rather roundabout way of creating your own themes. And face it, few of us (including myself) are visual artists or sound artists. So, even better than rolling your own themes is going online and choosing from thousands you can download for free from many Internet sites. Some people make themes and post them as a hobby, many companies create themes as a way to market products, and movies and TV shows frequently create themes as a way to get free publicity.

Or course, many online themes might violate copyright laws; people create themes using characters, sounds, and people from popular entertainment and then post them online for others to use. The entertainment companies’ lawyers will tell you the themes are illegal; on the other hand, others say the themes fall under the fair use provisions of the copyright laws. Who’s right? I don’t know, and at this point, I’m not even sure the courts do. As to which themes you can download and use, let your conscience be your guide.

A few popular theme sites are http://www.themeworld.com and http://www.topthemes.com, and the themes section of the download site http://www.tucows.com. In addition, many general software download sites include theme sections. Movie studios are good places to find themes, as are web sites created for movies.

Depending on the theme you download, you might have to install it differently, so check with the site from which you download, or check within the download itself. As a general rule, though, to use a theme that you download, install it into the C:WindowsResourcesThemes folder. Typically, a file with the extension .theme will be installed into that directory, and all the associated art, sound, icon, wallpaper, and cursor files will be installed into a subfolder of C:WindowsResourcesThemes. Once you’ve installed the new theme, choose it as outlined previously in this hack.

These are a few of my favorite themes

My hard disk is too full of themes to list them all, but I’ll give you some of my current and all-time favorites that I found online. I favor several Wallace and Gromit themes from the http://www.topthemes.com site. (If you haven’t come across them before, Wallace and Gromit are hilariously understated claymation animations from the Oscar-winning animator Nick Park.)

I must say, though, that being an opera fan, my favorite theme of all time is the one I found on http://www.themeworld.com, based on Verdi’s opera Don Carlo. There’s nothing like starting up your computer in the morning and being greeted by the sweeping sounds of one of the most dramatic operas of all time. I can almost see the Grand Inquisitor making his way onstage, preparing to burn an idolater or two at the stake. Figure 2-23 shows the wallpaper from the theme, which was chosen to match the mood of the opera. Other elements include the Startup sound taken from the orchestral prelude of the opera’s last act, the Shutdown sound from the last seconds of the opera, and many other sounds and icons.

Figure 2-23. The wallpaper from the Don Carlo theme, based on the Verdi opera

The most popular programs today allow users to customize Windows. Around this notion, users have created independent web sites to share their ideas and their creations. One such web site is WinCustomize, at http://www.wincustomize.com.

The WinCustomize web site is free. If you find a skin you like, you need only click the Download link to download it to your computer. However, if you want to access some of the advanced features, you must register with the web site. There is no cost to register, but there are different levels of access, depending on your level of participation or willingness to pay. There is an advantage to registering with the web site; you are given better search tools, which is useful considering that more than 2,000 custom skins are available for download!

WinCustomize is associated with Stardock, maker of WindowBlinds and Object Desktop, and therefore it has the most skins for its software. If you aren’t finding what you want, you might look at some of these other web sites:

Each site sports different features, but they all provide skins for various programs. The DeviantArt web site is unique in that it is more interested in digital art as an art form instead of simply pushing skins out the door. Some of the artwork on the site might not be suitable for everyone, but if you are interested in the digital medium, this is a good site to investigate.

If you can’t find a skin that suits your tastes, you can create your own skin for WindowBlinds. Not only can you create a skin from scratch, but also you can modify existing skins as you wish using SkinStudio. You can download SkinStudio from the Stardock web site for free, but you are reminded that you should register the software.

Creating a skin from scratch is not a simple project. As with most facets of our lives, practice in the art of making skins makes perfect. You can modify many elements of the Windows user interface, and you will need good tools and advanced skills to make your own skin look correct. Instead of jumping into this at the deep end, let’s learn from those who have perfected the art, by modifying an existing skin.

One of my favorite WindowBlinds skins is called Liquid2, which emulates the Macintosh OS X user interface (I’m a closet Mac user). One of the aspects of Liquid2 that I do not like is that the Start button has the word “Liquid” on it. I prefer something a little more familiar, like the word “Start.”

I used Photoshop to create the images in Figure 2-26. The Start button template consists of five separate subimages in the same file, each subimage being 57 23 pixels. The first subimage is the normal image, the next is when the button is pressed, followed by the disabled image, the focused image, and the default image. Once I am happy with the button, I need to save it somewhere I can access it. Since it is going to be part of the Liquid skin, I save the file as C:Program FilesStardockObject DesktopWindowBlindsLiquid2StartButtonNew.bmp.

Figure 2-26. The replacement Start button with five subimages

Now that we have a suitable image, it’s time to use SkinStudio to modify the skin. Bring up the skin browser (File → Edit). The skin browser looks different from the standard file browser. Click the box next to WindowBlinds Skins, locate the skin named Liquid2, and click the Edit button.

Figure 2-27 shows the Edit window for the Liquid2 skin. The box in the top left is for exploring the many different elements in the user interface. The box in the top middle is for previewing the skin. The box in the top right is for modifying individual attributes of the user interface. The box in the lower left gives you help and allows you to zoom in on portions of the screen. In the lower right is another editor for individual attributes.

Figure 2-27. The SkinStudio editor

To replace the Start button, click the box next to desktop in the Explorer box, then click Taskbar, and finally, the Start button, as shown in Figure 2-27. In the lower right, click the pop up next to the words “Adjusted Image.” Inside the list should be our new Start button named startbuttonnew.bmp. After you choose the new button, click the XP Taskbar button in the Preview area.

Once you are happy with the modified skin, click the Save button on the toolbar (the third button from the left). Saving a skin does not make it active. To make the skin active, click the Apply button on the toolbar (the seventh button from the left). The new Start button should now show up on the taskbar. If you click the button, the darker-colored image should appear as long as the mouse button is pressed.

SkinStudio is a very complicated program with many settings that you can modify. The official documentation is rather limited, but you can find an excellent tutorial that covers SkinStudio at http://www.aleksyandr.com/tutorial.htm.

—Eric Cloninger

The simplest way to get started with Knoppix is to download a CD image, burn it to a CD, and then boot from the CD. To obtain the latest version of Knoppix, download the CD image from one of Knoppix’s mirrors or send away for a CD. If you have an unmetered broadband Internet connection and a CDR/RW drive, simply download the CD image; it’s the best way to get Knoppix. A collection of mirrors listed at http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html provides CD images in ISO form over HTTP, FTP, or rsync. If you use Bittorrent (a peer-to-peer file-sharing application designed for sharing large files), you can use the Knoppix torrent link on this page. When you click a mirror you are taken to a licensing agreement page. Have your lawyer read through the software license (your lawyer reviews all of your software licenses before you accept, right?), click Accept to proceed, and then choose a file from the list that is presented. In addition to the latest version of Knoppix, most mirrors host a few past CD images with their MD5sum (explained in a moment).

When trying to decide which CD to choose, it helps to understand the scheme Knoppix uses for naming CD images. Here is an example ISO filename:

KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso

Deciphering the filename isn’t tricky and can be quite informative. In the aforementioned example, KNOPPIX is followed by the current version, in this case 3.4. Following the version is a date stamp, which indicates the CD image’s release date; in our example, the CD was released on May 17, 2004. These date stamps indicate the incremental version. After the date stamp, there is a language code, in this case EN for English. Knoppix is a German project, and while the default language can be changed with cheat codes at boot time, the Knoppix project releases both German and English CDs to save English-speaking users from having to enter a language cheat code at every boot. English-speaking users want to get images with the EN language code, and German-speaking users want to get images with the DE language code. Everyone else can choose either of the images and use a language cheat code at boot time.

Select the latest version of Knoppix by clicking the filename. The 700MB file can take anywhere from a few hours to a day to download, depending on the speed of your broadband Internet connection and the current load of your mirror.

Once the image is downloaded, you might want to confirm that the full file has been downloaded correctly and is an exact copy of the original file. An MD5sum is a checksum created from a large stream of data using the MD5 algorithm and is often used to verify that large files downloaded correctly. Practically speaking, an MD5sum-generating program takes your Knoppix ISO file and creates a fingerprint that only that one file is capable of making. Changing even a single bit affects the MD5sum; therefore, if any errors occur during the download process, the generated sum is different from the one listed on the mirror. If both MD5sums match, the file you have is exactly like the file on the mirror.

A number of utilities are available for creating an MD5sum under Windows. One such tool can be found at http://www.md5summer.org. Once you install this program, run it and navigate to the Knoppix ISO you want to verify, and click OK. On your Linux machine you will probably find that the md5sum utility is already installed. You’ll need to install it if it is not. Once md5sum is installed, make sure the .md5 file from the mirror is in the same directory as the image, and then type:

greenfly@clover:~$ md5sum -cv
                
               KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso.md5

KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso OK
greenfly@clover:~$

If the MD5sums match, you are dropped back to a prompt; otherwise you receive the following error:

greenfly@clover:~$ md5sum -cv
                
               KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso.md5

KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso FAILED
md5sum: 1 of 1 file(s) failed MD5 check
greenfly@clover:~$

You can also generate an MD5sum from the command line by typing:

greenfly@clover:~$ md5sum 
               KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso
                
7ee0382655abf194aa300a98100cacde  KNOPPIX_V3.4-2004-05-17-EN.iso

Compare the MD5sum you generate to the corresponding .md5 file from the mirror. If both match, you have a complete ISO and are ready to create a CD.

You can burn the Knoppix ISO to a CD using your favorite CD burning software. It is important that you select Burn Image or an equivalent option on your CD burning software. Do not select the option to burn a data CD; you will end up with a CD containing a single ISO file, which will not boot.

For computers purchased in 2000 and after, booting Knoppix is as simple as putting the CD in the CD-ROM drive and restarting the computer. For some computers, however, booting Knoppix might require changing the boot order in the BIOS. The BIOS is the screen that appears when you first boot a machine, and it usually lists the amount of RAM and the hard drives it detects. Older systems that don’t support booting from a CD require that you boot from a floppy.

If your computer supports booting from a CD-ROM, but won’t boot the Knoppix CD by default, your problem is probably the system boot order setting in the BIOS. To change the boot order and save it, you must enter the BIOS setup, which you can do at boot time by pressing a special key. Some BIOSes tell you at boot time the key to press to change BIOS settings; the common ones are Esc, F1, F2, F10, and Del.

Once in the BIOS, find the section that changes boot device order. On some BIOSes you change this setting by selecting a tab along the top labeled Boot, while on others the option might be named “Boot device order” or something similar. Once you have found this setting, move the CD-ROM device so that it is listed before any hard drives. If you can’t find or change this option, or you need other information specific to your system, refer to the BIOS manual that should have come with your computer or motherboard. Once you have changed the boot device order, save your settings, which should reboot the computer, and after detecting the Knoppix CD, you should be placed at the Knoppix boot prompt.

Some older computers do not support booting directly from a CD-ROM. For these computers, you must first create a boot floppy that enables the system to boot off of the Knoppix CD-ROM. Fortunately, Knoppix has made this process easy. The boot floppy process has changed between Knoppix 3.3 and 3.4. Knoppix 3.4 uses a new boot process that requires two floppy disks. To create these floppies, first boot Knoppix from a machine with a floppy drive that is capable of booting from a CD-ROM. Once the machine has booted, insert a blank floppy into the drive and click K Menu → KNOPPIX → Utilities → Create boot floppies for Knoppix. This script automates creating boot floppies with a progress bar and a prompt that lets you know when to insert the next disk.

Once the floppies have been created, put the first floppy in the floppy drive, leave the CD in its drive, and reboot. The floppy contains a boot loader and kernel image that your system can use to boot far enough along that the CD-ROM can then be loaded.

Once you have booted from either a CD or a floppy, you are presented with the Knoppix boot screen, as shown in Figure 2-33.

Figure 2-33. The Knoppix boot screen

To boot directly into Knoppix, either press Enter or wait a few seconds, and Knoppix starts the boot process. At this boot prompt, you can enter special Knoppix cheat codes to control the boot process. Press F2 and F3 at this prompt to display some of the cheat codes.

As Knoppix boots, it displays colorful output while it detects your hardware. Once it has detected and set up your hardware, it automatically launches into the desktop environment and finishes by opening a web browser showing Knoppix documentation. At this point, you can launch programs, browse the Web, and play games. When you log out of the desktop environment, Knoppix shuts down and ejects the CD for you. If you use a floppy to boot Knoppix, remember to eject it, or the next time you start your computer, it will try to boot into Knoppix again.

Now you’ve booted from Knoppix. What’s next? It’s time to figure out what these windows, icons, and strange panels are for, and then to explore on your own.

After you boot, you should be looking at the default Knoppix desktop, as shown in Figure 2-34.

Figure 2-34. The default Knoppix desktop

The desktop

Probably the first thing that grabs your attention is the Konqueror web browser window that opens when the K Desktop Environment (KDE) is started. KDE is one of the two most popular desktop environments for Linux (Gnome being the other). KDE’s job is to manage your complete desktop environment. It draws your wallpaper, provides you with access to your programs through the menus and icons on the desktop, and manages the windows that appear once you launch an application. Once KDE starts, the first thing you see is the Knoppix help page. This web page contains information and help for Knoppix in many different languages and includes links to sites to purchase Knoppix CDs as well as get additional information. The help is available offline, which makes it very useful even when your network connection isn’t working.

The desktop itself contains shortcuts to the hard drives, CD-ROMs, and floppy drives on your system (Figure 2-35). Click any of the drive icons to automatically mount the drive as read-only and open up the mounted filesystem in Konqueror. Under KDE, the default is to open a directory or launch a file with a single click, which might take some adjustment if you are used to double-clicking icons on the desktop. As Knoppix defaults to mounting these filesystems as read-only, you can view and open the files you see, but you can’t edit, delete, or move any of the files on these filesystems. You can, however, copy the files to your desktop and edit them from there. To make these filesystems writable, right-click the drive icon and select Actions → Change read/write mode. The right-click menu also gives you options to unmount and, if the device is a CD-ROM, to eject the media.

Figure 2-35. Desktop icons

The K Menu

The KDE panel spans the entire bottom portion of your screen. On the left of the panel is the K Menu, represented by the K Gear icon. Click this icon to display the K Menu which contains most of the graphical applications and some of the command-line applications within Knoppix organized into categories like Editors, Games, Internet, and Settings (Figure 2-36). If you are new to KDE, Linux, or Knoppix, you will want to explore each category in this menu and get acquainted with how all the applications on the CD are organized.

Figure 2-36. The K Menu

At the top of the K Menu is a section reserved for recently used applications. As you run programs from within the K Menu, their icons will show up in this section to provide quick access if you want to run them again. Below this section is the Applications section with submenus for more items. After Utilities, instead of more application submenus, you will find icons that run specific KDE applications.

The K Menu is worth getting familiar with. Browse through the different categories and try out the huge library of programs Knoppix includes. Since everything runs from CD, you can’t really harm anything with your experiments. Now that you are familiar with the K Menu, let’s move on to the other parts of the Knoppix desktop.

knoppix@ttyp0[knoppix]$ sudo passwd
Enter new UNIX password:
Retype new UNIX password:
Passwd: password updated successfully

—Kyle Rankin