How To Change The Wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter Edition

When I first decided to try out Windows 7 on my Dell Mini, I made the big mistake of putting Windows 7 ultimate on it. Boy did that run like molasses! It was so painful, I promptly went right back to running Bauer-Puntu (Which runs like a well oiled machine on netbooks by the way).

A little while later my friend asked me why I didn’t put Windows 7 Starter on my netbook, after all, that is the version that is designed for netbooks. If you haven’t heard of Windows 7 Starter Edition, here is the description from Wikipedia:

[Windows 7 Starter is] the least-featured edition of Windows 7; the Windows Aero theme is not included, and it isn't available in a 64-bit variant. The desktop wallpaper, and Visual Style (Windows 7 Basic) is also not user-changeable, although third party software such as Stardock MyColors can allow these changes to be made. This edition is available pre-installed on computers through system integrators or computer manufacturers.

Stardock MyColors? Yes, you can change your wallpaper with it, as well as the entire theme. What if you want to keep your netbook running light? Then you probably don’t want to change the theme, you just want to change the wallpaper. I found a free utility that does simply that! It is called Starter Wallpaper Changer. To use it, find a jpg wallpaper you like, then run Starter Wallpaper Changer as administrator. Select your jpg file, and change. Then log off, and log back in. Simple!

I first tried changing the registry, but it kept reverting back. I also tried replacing the wallpaper image Microsoft uses, but that just made my wallpaper black. That is what led me to Starter Wallpaper Changer.

Do you have Windows 7 Starter edition? Did you figure out a different way to change the wallpaper? Know of any other tricks on Windows 7? Let us know in the comments!

Technorati Tags: how to,change,wallpaper,windows 7,starter edition

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How To Create A Hackintosh Install USB Flash Drive On the Easy

Last year some time I first got my Dell Mini 9, and proceeded to hack it with Mac OSX. Not because I like OSX per se, but because I heard I could do it, and wanted to try it out.
When I first installed it I followed the instructions from Gizmodo on installing OSX on my Dell mini. The instructions were fairly straight forward, but still kind of a pain in the butt.
The other day a friend of mine showed me a utility that will take all of the real work out of turning your netbook into an ultimate Hackintosh bad boy toy!
There is a Google code tool called Netbook Bootmaker. You use it to make a bootable OSX install USB Thumb Drive! It currently works with both OSX Leopard (10.5.6 - 10.5.8) and OSX Snow Leopard (10.5.6 -10.6.x)! Currently, here are the supported netbooks:

• Acer Aspire One D150
• Dell Mini 9 / Vostro A90
• Dell Mini 10v
• Lenovo S10 2 
• HP Mini 110
• Samsung NC-10

The cool thing about the Netbook Bootmaker is that once you create your install DVD it will work on any of the above netbooks! No muss, no fuss!
What you will need:

• Retail DVD of OSX
• A USB Thumb drive with at least 8GB of storage
• A Mac/Hackintosh already running OSX

That last bullet point kind of sucks, but the Netbook Bootmaker is an OSX application, and will not run on Windows. Once you have what you need, do the following on the computer already running OSX:

• Download the Netbook Bootmaker
• Insert your retail OSX DVD
• Insert your USB Thumb Drive
• In Finder, click on Go > Utilities > Disk Utility
• Click on your Thumb Drive and select Restore
• Drag and drop your DVD to the source
• Drag and drop your USB to the destination
• Check the box to erase, then click restore
• Go make some coffee, because this will take a while
• Once complete, open up Netbook Bookmaker
• Select your Thumb drive from the drop down
• Click Prepare Boot Drive
• Done!

Now when you are ready to install OSX on your netbook, just boot up to your thumb drive, and go through a typical install! After everything is installed on your new Hackintosh, go into your utilities and run the Netbook installer app to make sure everything is working right. It literally couldn’t be any easier!
Do you know if a similar utility to create an easy bootable USB for Hackintosh that will run on Windows? Let us know in the comments!

Technorati Tags: how to,make,netbook,osx,mac,macintosh,snow leaopard,install,usb,hackintosh

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How To Enable God Mode in Windows 7

I grabbed this from Karl over at AskTheAdmin. I thought it was pretty interesting. With just a quick renaming of a folder in Windows 7 you can make fancy folders. One of them being a “God Mode” folder. Check it out:

So it turns out there are a list of folder “Codes” that you can add to the end of a folder name to create all sorts of special folders. Check out the list of codes here:

{00C6D95F-329C-409a-81D7-C46C66EA7F33}
{0142e4d0-fb7a-11dc-ba4a-000ffe7ab428}
{025A5937-A6BE-4686-A844-36FE4BEC8B6D}
{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}
{1206F5F1-0569-412C-8FEC-3204630DFB70}
{15eae92e-f17a-4431-9f28-805e482dafd4}
{17cd9488-1228-4b2f-88ce-4298e93e0966}
{1D2680C9-0E2A-469d-B787-065558BC7D43}
{1FA9085F-25A2-489B-85D4-86326EEDCD87}
{208D2C60-3AEA-1069-A2D7-08002B30309D}
{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
{241D7C96-F8BF-4F85-B01F-E2B043341A4B}
{4026492F-2F69-46B8-B9BF-5654FC07E423}
{62D8ED13-C9D0-4CE8-A914-47DD628FB1B0}
{78F3955E-3B90-4184-BD14-5397C15F1EFC}

And, as a reminder, to create the God mode folder itself, use this string:

{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

All you need to do is create a new folder with any name, then a period, then one of the text strings above. For example, the first one could be a folder named “AskTheAdmin.{00C6D95F-329C-409a-81D7-C46C66EA7F33}” (use everything inside quotes–but not the quotes themselves).

This should make customizing your Windows 7 machine a lot easier!

By Karl Gechlik of AskTheAdmin.com

Technorati Tags: how to,enable,god mode,windows 7

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Another Twitter Cleaner FTW!

Periodically when using Twitter you tend to get a lot of junk in your Twitter stream. Also, Twitter is overrun by spammers galore, and people who don’t have anything relevant to say. Plus, there are those who sign up for Twitter once say something, then drop off the face of the planet.

A while back I introduced some of you to a pretty cool tool called Mutuality. It did three following three things for you in bulk:

• Un-follow all who do not follow you back
• Un-follow all
• Follow all who follow you

The other day I was introduced to an even better tool for un-following spam bots and time wasters. It is called TheTwitCleaner. This tool does the following according to their page:

• Analyses all the people you follow
• Finds time wasters, spammers, the boring, bots etc
• Creates a detailed report of everyone you're following
• Increases the integrity & authenticity of your brand or personal image
• Clears up the 'background noise' of Twitter
• Enables you to focus your time & energy (whether you're on Twitter for friendship, business, or both)
• Un-follow people & blame it on us! *wink*

I ran the tool, and true to form they sent me a DM with a link to my detailed report. It showed me the spammers I was following, those who post nothing but links, people who haven’t been active for months, and a few others. I did a bulk clean-up with just a click on the button. It also un-follows people a little at a time so as not to trigger the mass un-follow alarm on Twitter’s end. All-in-all, not too shabby.

What tools do you like to use to keep your Twitter stream flowing smoothly and garbage free? Let us know in the comments!

Technorati Tags: twitter,cleanup,how to,mass unfollow,spam,bots

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New Years Resolution to Quit Social Networking? We Have a Tool for You!

Driving in my car on the way home from work last night I heard a local D.J. talk about a site on the internet that sound pretty cool, and yet oh so very drastic. The idea is that for those who wish to unplug, and fully quit the social networking seen, they can be assisted in committing suicide. Well, suicide of their online personas of course (I mean, really, don’t go commit suicide if you are sick of Twitter!)

This site is called The Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. This is from their site:

Liberate your newbie friends with a Web2.0 suicide! This machine lets you delete all your energy sucking social-networking profiles, kill your fake virtual friends, and completely do away with your Web2.0 alterego. The machine is just a metaphor for the website which moddr_ is hosting; the belly of the beast where the web2.0 suicide scripts are maintained. Our service currently runs with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and LinkedIn! Commit NOW!

I just checked out their site today, and BAM! Already Facebook is blocking them. They are looking for ways to get around Facebook’s IP blocking so they may carry out their virtual Kevorkian duties. If you go to their site today, you will see the following message:

After more than 50,000 friends being unfriended and more than 500 forever "signed-out" users, Facebook started to block our suicide machine from their servers without any comment! We are currently looking in ways to circumvent this ungrounded restriction imposed on our service!

I am thinking that this might be good for people like my buddy Sundance who likes to re-invent his online self approximately every six months or so. I think it might also be a nasty little tool if you find out someone’s login information, and want to wipe out all of their accounts in one fell swoop. Other than that, I don’t think I have any personal use for it.

What about you? Have any interest in committing Web 2.0 suicide and reconnecting with the real world? Let us know in the comments!

Technorati Tags: web 2.0,suicide,machine,social networking,how to delete all accounts at once.

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Keep The Feds Out With Decaf

Have you ever wondered what the authorities use to gather data from your computer? One of the big tools they use is call COFFEE, or Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor. It is a tool that runs on a USB stick that the Feds can plug into your laptop to automatically gathers a whole boat load of data that could potentially land you in the slammer. I mean, I am sure you are all just downloading free Open Source applications, and Creative Commons music from Bit Torrent right? Ha!

According to Microsoft’s COFFEE page, Coffee allows you the Feds:

… to run more than 150 commands on a live computer system. It also provides reports in a simple format for later interpretation by experts or as supportive evidence for subsequent investigation and prosecution. And the COFEE framework can be tailored to effectively meet the needs of your particular investigation.

To combat this tool, a group of Hackers put together their own counter-tool called DECAF! I first heard it mentioned on HAK5, and when I Googled it I found an article on Wired saying this about DECAF:

[Decaf] deletes temporary files or processes associated with COFEE, erases all COFEE logs, disables USB drives, and contaminates or spoofs a variety of MAC addresses to muddy forensic tracks.

I fairly certain that using this tool to hinder an investigation is probably illegal. You know, obstruction of justice and all that jazz, but if your privacy is a concern to you, and you don’t want Uncle Sam’s minions digging through your laundry, then perhaps DECAF is right for you!

What is your favorite anti-authority program? Know of other programs like COFFEE and DECAF? Hit us up in the comments!

Technorati Tags: decaf,microsoft,coffee,computer forensics

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Happy New Year – I’m On A Mac Parody

I wanted to wish all of you loyal readers a very happy New Year. I hope you are all not too hung over to read this. Anyway, 2009 was a pretty good year for Bauer-Power. We have steadily increased our RSS Subscribers, and we steadily have about 50-60,000 visitors per month. Not bad for something I try to do in my spare time!

We hope to bring you even more techy goodness in 2010. In the mean-time, I thought I would show you a funny video my buddy sent me. It is a spoof on Andy Samberg’s “I’m on a Boat” video. It is called, I’m on a Mac! Check it out:

What did you think? Hilarious right? How many of you are switching to Mac for the new year? I’m not, but want to know if any of you are. Hit me up in the comments. Let me know why you are making the switch or not.

Technorati Tags: i'm on a mac,parody,happy new year

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