Tech How To: Awesomize Your Windows Environment

Tired of the same looking Windows? Seems like your computer really isn't unique or personal? Well, here's a quick way to make your windows look awesome and get away from the default stuff.

Note: There are different ways and softwares to customize your win-environment but I'll talk about CustoPack tools since it's the easiest to use.

First a preview of one of the many ways your windows might look like after:

Preview one: My Computer

Preview two: Notepad

Preview three: MS Word 2010 Starter

Preview four: Google Chrome

I would have included the taskbar but it's mostly hidden and I didn't customize it much. There's a bunch more awesome customizations available. I'll show you how.

1. Install CustoPack

Download it here. While downloading proceed to step 2.

2.  Choose a Theme

Browse the themes here. Once you find one you like. Download it and leave it for now. My theme is Adaigo Some themes modify just a few elements while others customize everything from the logon screen to the taskbar and adds a nice transparency or changes most of the folder icons. I also suggest Elune theme.

3.  Run CustoPack and Install a Theme

Choose "Choose a CustoPack"

You'll be able to see a bunch of themes you've downloaded. Click one and it'll ask you to install the theme. Spam the next button until the installation finishes. It'll need a restart. So do it.

It's done. You'll see that the your windows environment has been awesomized (Well thats if you didn't choose the damn twilight theme). 

A few more things you can do:

4. Modify RocketDock

Some themes come with RocketDock which is a Mac-like object/app launcher. I'll make a more in-depth customization tutorial for it later.

5. Modify Desktop Wallpaper and Logon Screen

If the default wallpaper doesn't suit your style go ahead and change it. You can choose "edit current CustoPack" and it's pretty easy from there to change the Wallpaper and Logon screen.

That's it! Pretty easy and straight forward. Oh sometimes CustoPack crashes, just relaunch problem if that happens. Have fun!

Tech How To: Shiny Blue Facebook

Ok so my blog is back after zillion internet years (equivalent to a few months in normal human time). Anyway, here's a nifty little trick.

Since you probably use Facebook a lot because we happen to be humans who prefer to interact via the net instead of actually talking to each other. Here's how to give it a different look.

Output:

Note: No, it doesn't give you black bars duh. The gray area is what you get when you highlight a post. Feel free to search for my good friend "Jason Dy Music" on Facebook or you tube. 


Chrome Only:
1. Install Chrome
Obviously you need chrome. I don't know if there's an equivalent in Firefox or  IE. Anyway, download and install chrome if you're not using it yet.


2. Install Stylish
Stylish is a chrome extension. What it basically does is give you available "themes" per website. So you can have individual sites looking differently. Grab it here <--it's a hyper-link if you haven't noticed


3. Install Theme
Ok so now that you've got Chrome and Stylish installed. Download this particular theme. Click install and Stylish will do the rest.

There you have it! Now bathe in the new shiny blue Facebook awesomeness. You can also add skins to different website. Just click the Stylish icon in Chrome and find a theme you like and it'll skin the website to a new look!

Note: Why do this? 

I find websites with heavy use of white a big eye strain especially during night when you're only source of light is a laptop so I'm making my desktop, windows environment and everything else mostly black or dark blue.  I've recently just switched to a laptop and find this horrendously eye-straining.

It wouldn't be much of a problem to a desktop since you're farther away from the screen, laptops are much closer though especially if you use it in bed or don't have a workspace for it.  And yeah this site is white heavy so I'm going to change it probably (or not visit/update it lol).