January 20, 2010 18:52 pm by Jal
As a security measure, there are times when you need to stop access to certain programs to other users. In Windows, using the Local Group Policy Editor, you can specify which all programs you want to prevent from running. This is very useful if you are administering an Internet lab in school and colleges or running an Internet café. Here’s the work around:
1) Press 
+ R to open the ‘Run’ dialog box. Type ‘gpedit.msc’ and click ‘OK’.
2) The Local Group Policy Editor window will open. In the left pane, navigate to ‘User Configuration’ > ‘Administrative Templates’ > ‘System’. Now in the right pane, double-click ‘Don’t run specified Windows applications’.
3) In the window that appears, click the ‘Enabled’ radio-button and then click ‘Show…’ button under ‘Options’.
4) In the ‘Show contents’ window, specify the executable file (.exe) of the programs you wish to prevent from being executed. Finally, click ‘OK’.
You’re done! The programs specified here won’t run until you ‘Disable’ the setting in step 3) or you remove the program’s .exe from the ‘Show Contents’ window.
January 19, 2010 2:39 am by Jal
I think Microsoft has developed a ‘thing’ for music since Windows 7 launched. Some weeks back, we
did a post on Microsoft’s Win741 campaign and provided free MP3s of songs featured in Microsoft videos.
Now recently Microsoft declared its sponsorship to ReverbNation’s Playlist 7 program whereby music fans like you and me can vote for and download 7 free tracks every week. For those unaware, ReverbNation is a major marketing platform for more than 500,000 music artists, labels and managers. It basically gives exposure to immerging music talent.
It so goes that music fans vote for 7 artists every week to help them make it to the ‘Playlist 7’ and get further promotion and of course, some bucks. In return, the fans get to download 7 of their music tracks every week. The first 50 tracks are already available for download. So it’s a win-win situation for everyone.
Mr. Jed Carlson, the Co-Founder of ReverbNation said,
“Windows’ generous sponsorship for this program (Playlist 7) means that more emerging Artists will be heard as well as compensated for their art. It’s a great way to bring bands and brands together for mutual benefit.”
To vote for the artists and download some really beautiful tunes click the link below:
Download from Playlist 7
January 8, 2010 20:37 pm by Jal
deviantART is full of crazy people doing all the awesomeness don’t know since when. One such deviantART user,
oO-MrHigh-Oo made a small utility called ‘Startmenu Animation’ that gives a nice 3D animation to the Startmenu in
Windows XP, Vista and 7. Basically that’s all it does. But it deserves a post because the way it seamlessly integrates with the system without hogging much resources is what appealed to me. Here’s what the startmenu looks like after running ‘Startmenu Animation’.
Startmenu Animation runs on Windows XP, Vista and 7 so try it out now.
Download Startmenu Animation / 1.3 MB
Digg it or Tweet it to let your followers know about this utility.
January 2, 2010 11:00 am by Jal
December 21, 2009 13:53 pm by Jal
Windows 7 has a very nice feature called ‘Jumplists’ which is otherwise very helpful but can get a little annoying at times. The main concern is that it not only displays the core functions of a program in the Windows 7 taskbar, it also displays a list of recent items stacked together, which is not so good on the privacy front. If you wish to remove the recent items from the Windows 7 jumplists, here’s a simple trick.
Removing recent items from Windows 7 jumplists
» Assuming C: as your Windows partition, navigate to:
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations
» Here you’ll find many AUTOMATICDESTINATIONS-MS files. Things are little tacky here. If you wish to delete only specific recent item entry, you need to open each file in a text editor to check which file corresponds to which recent item. Else you can delete all the files and get rid of recent items for all the programs at once.
No more recent items in jumplists!
November 22, 2009 19:52 pm by Jal
The festive season is not too far away and so I thought of creating some eyecandy using Christmas as a theme. Did my best in Photoshop to make some beautiful hi-resolution wallpapers and then gift-wrapped them into a Windows 7 themepack. Enjoy!
Details:
5 beautiful 1920×1200 widescreen wallpapers.
Windows Sound scheme: Festival.
Download Windows 7 Christmas Theme Pack
[Alternative link]
Just want these wallpapers? Click here.
Also see: Christmas 2010 Windows 7 Themepack [LATEST]
[All rights reserved for Windows 7 Christmas Theme Pack]
November 20, 2009 13:24 pm by Jal
Today’s technological scenario is all about integration and making every task simpler and every information easily accessible. Well, similar are the thoughts of UXLabs at Microsoft. They have created a very sleek Facebook client application that brings the complete Facebook experience right on your Windows desktop –
Fishbowl.
Although in a ‘trial’ (beta) stage, Fishbowl offers some features that surely will excite Facebook power users. Apart from the seamless integration with Facebook, here are some of the plus points of Fishbowl:
» Fishbowl offers mini-mode which is more fun and less obtrusive.
» Smooth user interface and sleek navigation. It supports drag n’ drop pictures to publish them on Facebook. Furthermore, it can go full screen and play a slideshow of your albums.
» You can update your status, view your friends’ albums, their updates, news-feeds and other notifications.
» “Interest Level”, my favorite feature, helps you filter your stream anonymously in order to avoid boring updates from friends.
» If you are a Windows 7 user, you can monitor your Facebook stream right from your taskbar using jumplists.
If you want to give it a try then click the link below.
Download Fishbowl / 6.6mb
