How-To Geek
Week in Geek: The Happy Father’s Day Edition
In celebration of Father’s day this year, I did nothing—and it was everything I thought it could be. Also, Happy Father’s Day to the rest of you!
In other news, Windows hacker Rafael Rivera, the same guy that has been patching Windows core files so you can install custom themes, has released a free application called UxStyle that replaces the need to patch system files entirely.
You’ll notice that the service phones home during the beta period…
These are really very standard install screenshots, not sure why I’m including them!
And that’s all there is to it.
Once the application is installed, you’ll notice it running in the background, barely taking any memory at all.
At this point you should be able to follow the rest of the instructions to enable custom themes, just make sure you skip over the patching files part.
Download UxStyle from uxstyle.com
Random Links We Found This Week
Random stuff is great! Pity we were lazy this week and only found a few.
- Windows 7 Creates New Folders With a Hotkey [Lifehacker]
Short version: Use Ctrl+Shift+N to create a new folder. Awesome! - Nobody likes IE 6
Hilarious comic =) - Windows 7 Build 7232 Leaked, New Wallpaper Inside [Tweaking with Vishal]
This is an awesome wallpaper image. - Outrageously cool new hard drive [ZDNet]
Neat! - Halo 3 HUD Desktop [Lifehacker]
Now this is a serious desktop customization. - StandaloneStack is an Awesome File Browsing Widget [Lifehacker]
This is a really great application that I’ve been using for a while. - Nexus Dock Has Leopard-Style Eye-Candy Effects [Lifehacker]
There are so many docks. - Disable Ubuntu’s Annoying Update Manager Popup [Lifehacker]
What’s really funny is watching people defend this “feature” - Daum Blue Firefox Theme is Clean, Simple, and Elegant [Lifehacker]
Nice theme, though I’ll stick with Glasser. - Rename Folders to Merge Them Together Easily [Lifehacker]
Tiny tips are fun.
Reviews And Such
We’re going to be upgrading the reviews section this week – adding loads of features, including the ability to leave your own reviews and ratings.
| Cakewalk Music Creator 5 | |
| Media Monkey Standard Version 3 | |
| WinUtilities 6.4 | |
The Weekly Articles
In case you missed them, new stuff from the week.
- Deactivate Location-Aware Browsing in Firefox 3.5
- Friday Fun: Frantic
- Update Portable Iron Browser the Easy Way
- Preview Tabs in Firefox with Tab Preview 0.3
- Change Default Formatting in Word 2007
- Easily Manage Your Downloads with Download Statusbar
- Fast Duplicate File Finder Identifies Extra Copies
- Organize and Share the Web with Thumbtack
- Replace Internet Explorer’s ‘Accelerators’ with SmarterFox
- Amazing Desktop Wallpapers: the Castle-Themed Edition
- Restore the Default Settings in Firefox Without Uninstalling It
- Watch Streaming TV with StreamTorrent
Editor’s Weekly Note
We’ve got some major upgrades coming to the site, loads of great new features that we’ve been working all night, every night, to finish.
Got Feedback? Join the discussion at discuss.howtogeek.com
Comments (3)
Programmer by day, geek by night, The Geek, also known as Lowell Heddings, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.
- Published 06/21/09
Why would someone prefer installing a service that runs in the background all the time (even if it does use few resources) to simply patching a file?
Not to be a Negative Nancy, just wondering if there’s some benefit I’m missing.
@Jonathon
With the hacked patch files, you have to re-patch every time there’s a major Windows update… which usually means you can’t install any updates until there’s a new patch file out.
@The Geek
Ahh, I see now. I’m still using WinXP, for which there are no major upgrades any longer, so that problem never occurred to me.