Wallpaper XChange is a image browser/viewer program that's used as a convienent and powerful way to set your Windows wallpaper. It has a host of useful features, including:


It allows you to set .bmp, .gif, .jpg, and .png images files as wallpaper
It has a graphical image browser to help select a particular file, with customizeable image sizes
It offers a listview of image files and allows you to sort by name, size, date, or resolution
It color codes the image resolutions to easily identify those with the same ratio as your screen
It has a preview area complete with monitor effects such as inner shadows and a glare
It has an optional caching system to make loading directories lightning quick
It allows you to easily remove/copy/rename files, and supports drag and drop
It offers high quality bicubic interpolation to resample images to your screen resolution
It has an image viewer mode that shows the picture in its own window, resizable to zoom in/out
It's resizable so make the directory browser and preview area large or small


Goto http://www.xymantix.com/programs/wallpaper_xchange.html for more details and the download link

Yes, I know there are a half a dozen different and even skinnable programs that offer some of the same basic features. However, I never found one that I really liked because many times the programs didn´t do exactly what I wanted and were too restrictive. What I really wanted was a program that was resizable, ´always on´, easily supported multiple zoom levels, and could show RGB and HEX color info at a glance. Xoomer is the result of this. It's not skinnable, but it´s very handy for skinners.

Features include:

- Various magnification factors from 1/2 up to 30x
- Smart Update feature to only update the display when the mouse is moved
- Normal or Always On Top mode
- Fully resizable - make it as big or as small as you need
- Current mouse position is displayed in X and Y coordinates
- Current pixel is outlined in a red rectangle for easy placement
- Current pixel color is shown in RGB and HEX
- Bottom band displays the current pixel color in a larger area
- Right-click menu allows easy zooming and configuration
- The +/- keyboard keys can also be used to make it zoom in and out
- No risk install: the uninstaller removes everything - files, directory, registry entries

SysMetrix 2.0 adds dozens of new features, objects, and monitoring capabilities to give you even more statistical information and control over your computer. Among the list of additions since the 1.0 release are:

- Tons of new items to measure such as OS information, CPU average, mixer information, mouse position and current pixel color, media player information, etc.

- Interactive buttons and sliders to remotely control WinAmp/QCDPlayer, control volume, launch email programs, etc.

- Themed Animations to aid in notification of new email, full recycle bin, high cpu usage, etc.

- A magnifying glass feature to zoom in on any section of the desktop, with a variable magnification factor

- Support for Motherboard Monitor 5 to report on CPU and case temperatures, fan speeds, voltages, etc.

- Mouse hover fade and blending effects for interactive buttons and sliders

- Integrated WinStyles support, recycle bin drag and drop, reserve screen space, hide desktop icons, snap to screen edges, and more!



To view a detailed list of improvements and enhancements, goto http://www.xymantix.com/sysmetrix/changelog.txt

To download version 2, goto http://www.xymantix.com/sysmetrix/download.html

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1037305,00.asp

Here's a link that covers the story about how XP Patch 811493 can slow some XP systems down to a crawl. I know I've been fretting because my 2-week old system suddenly went from a speed demon to a sloth. It took it forever to do anything. After uninstalling the patch, my machine is back to its wonderful speedy self.

I'm not recommending that anybody uninstall the patch, just passing along information so that you can make an informed decision...

SysMetrix 2 has been released as a beta. The new version adds three new object types (animations, interactive buttons and sliders), a lot of new things to monitor and control (such as a WinAmp2 compatible media player and your soundcard), and dozens of new features.

Goto http://www.xymantix.com/sysmetrix/download.html to download the beta

and

http://sysmetrix.skwire.net/sysmetrix/beta/SysMetrix_Beta.txt to see what's new

SysMetrix 1.0 released! SysMetrix is a skinnable clock and metering application unlike any other. It provides system metrics in a variety of interesting, useful, and cool ways. It can monitor and report on over 40 different types of statistics such as time and date, CPU usage, memory usage, network traffic, unread email, and much more! It can represent the information in many different ways, such as plain text, bar graphs, histograms, sliders, and even analog-style gauges.

Click here to see SysMetrix in action: https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=28

Click here to learn more about SysMetrix: http://www.xymantix.com/sysmetrix/index.html

Click here to download it now: http://www.xymantix.com/sysmetrix/download.html

Ok, I just started using the WinCustomize Browser and really like it so far. I've got a couple of questions about threads, though.

1) It seems as though when reading a thread via Internet explorer (instead of the WinCustomize Browser), it keeps track of the last response that I read for a particular thread. So, if I click on the thread later after others have posted to it, the thread loads and it goes to the last response that I read. With the WinCustomize Browser, it doesn't seem to do this. It always puts me at the top of the thread. I checked the Discussion/WinCustomize.ini file and all of my entries have a 'LastReadID=' section (with nothing after the equals) that implies it's not keeping track of the last post that I read of the thread.

2) If I click on one of those threads where there have been further posts, the thread will be marked as read after about 10 seconds. I noticed that I can force the issue via a right-click on the thread and choosing the "Mark as Read" menu option. 10 seconds seems really long to me as, depending on the thread, I can catch up in a second or two. Is there any way to configure the timeout? If not, what about a hotkey to mark the thread as read in addition to the pop-up menu?

Geez - he's done it before with my Blip skin at DA and I asked him nicely not to do it again. Now he ripped Black Banana and posted it here https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=9&SkinID=93. Admins, can you please remove this ASAP?

Xymantix

Ok, I ventured back into the DXScript world and am having a blast. I'm experienced in a few languages, including VB, so VBScript isn't very difficult to pick up. so far I've found most of what I need from MSDN, but thought that a good book might help speed things along. So, anyone have any good recommendations for a VBScript book? I'll browse Amazon's recommendations of course, but thought I might get some good suggestions here as well.

Also, has anyone used ActivePerl as the scripting language before? I've got a few perl scripts that I would like to try converting to use with some DX objects.

TIA

Hi all,

This has probably been asked before, in fact I seem to vaguely remember a posting about it. Unfortunately I've forgotten what was posted and can't find it anymore. Anywho, now that I've gone to the dark side (!!) and am running Windows XP I decided to give the new Start menu a whirl. I don't think it can give NextSTART/Workshelf a run for their money, but I'll give it an opportunity

So, I need to find out how to customize the Start menu on XP. I've already gone through the properties/customizations/advanced stuff but seem to be missing a few things. Here's what I'd like to do:

1) Customize the user icon in the top left
2) Customize/hide the login name that appears over the icon
3) Most importantly, have shortcuts to folders that appear as a menu. IOW, right now I can have it show my Favorites or Control Panel. That works well, and I like how they can be configured to display as a popup menu. I'd like to do the same thing with a custom folder of my choice. I dragged 'n dropped my custom folders onto the Start menu and it works fairly well since I can even customize their icon. However, they always display as an explorer view instead of a popup menu.

TIA