Bootskin:Give your old startup screen the boot!

If you want a change from watching the same old “Microsoft Windows XP” standard bootscreen that comes with windows, it used to be a tough procedure to replace it with anything else (I should know, i tried one time back when i had Windows 98 and nearly locked up my windows from even loading!)

Thankfully this little program does it for you, easily, safely and free! So, for example,whether your feeling nostalgic for the good old days of your commodore 64,or you want something a little more hi tech,theres lots of free bootscreens of various styles to choose from here to get you started.The program can be downloaded for free from here. ………(and here’s one of my personal favorites ; )

KoolMoves: Make cool Flash in a flash!

Flash has long established itself as the standard for animation on the Internet. Its everywhere you look, banners, games, flash movies, even entire sites! So, there’s two ways you can go about making flash stuff, one is with the official Flash program from Macromedia, and the other is with programs such as this! The second option is usually a lot easier than learning Flash.

This program is great for making some pretty impressive stuff that would take hours to make in Macromedia Flash, you can make some very decent stuff with this thing. When you first use it, it walks you through a tutorial which makes you feel comfortable pretty quick. It has a simple to use interface and for the more experienced users it has a pretty good advanced mode too. They have a lite version of this program too, called ‘Flashy effects’, that mostly focuses on just text effects and banners. You can check them out by going here.

Do you need a POP Peeper?

Pop Peeper is a small utility that runs in your task tray and allows you to keep a check on all your email accounts. It works for both POP3 mail and webmail and it supports multiple accounts, so you can check email from Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail and many others, there’s a full regularly updated list on the website, so i’ll refrain from listing them all here.It allows you to preview the headers of your email, and view the messages. There is also support for file attachments, which allows you to view the name of the files. Using POP Peeper, you can quickly scan which messages are important enough to read, and which ones can be deleted without even opening your email client. A great little tool that works fast and efficient.

Idea: When you go away on vacation, simply take a Flash drive with a copy of POP Peeper to keep a check on your email easily from any computer you use. POP Peeper is freeware too! Always an added bonus!

Pop on over here to peep at more info and download it (Sorry! Couldn’t resist)!

3D Driving-School: Learn to drive at your computer…well, almost!

This is a really cool program i found that gives you virtual driving lessons, complete with virtual driving instructor! It’s based on driving in Europe, so left side of car and driving on the right! At least that was the case in the version I tried although i think they have other versions, but the site is a little confusingly laid out. Don’t let that put you off though. This is a very good program and you almost feel like you’re really driving,as you have to pay attention or you’ll break the rules of the road or even cause an accident!

In the version i played around with, you can choose from 4 driving instructors,
three car cockpits, three motorbike cockpits (Hornet, Scooter and a cool Chopper). It starts at beginner level with basics such as indicating and stopping at traffic lights, giving right of way, etc, all the way up to…well almost real life conditions!

I had the pleasure (and pain) of going on a road trip across Europe not so long ago, so i can say that the scenery and experience is pretty accurate in some ways! I’d recommend this for anyone learning to drive or planning on driving in Europe. It’ll give you a good chance to become familiar with the various rules of the road! All from the safety of your chair! (Seatbelt not included)

You can find out more info here

EvilLyrics: So THATS what they were singing!

Have you ever wanted to find out what the hell are those rock bands are singing about? And of course wanna make it quick? Well, you can search for your favorites band lyrics on the web or take a look at this WinAmp plugin…

EvilLyrics… Don’t be afraid of a scary title it’s not that spooky at all. All you have to do is listen to the song and the words each time you wanna look them up would just pop up automatically in a little window (just like one on the picture). Hold on, that’s not all! It’s also compatible with the excellent visualization that comes with WinAmp known as “milkdrop”. So when you’ve got sick and tired of those nasty documents on your monitor screen you can just turn it on visualization screen and see not only “milkdrops” but songs lyrics also. Very cool indeed! And with a combined database of over 15 million songs, you are almost sure to find whatever you’re listening to. I highly recommend this to all music fans, now you can finally know what they were singing about and find out it wasn’t at all what you had thought it was!

Ps: EvilLyrics also works with Windows Media Player, MusicMatch, Foobar, Quintessential Player, iTunes, Realplayer/Realone and MusikCube!

More info and free download here.

Partition Magic: Now for my next trick..!

If you ever tried to partition your hard drive, you know that it can be a very complicated process, best done when you are installing or reinstalling your operating system. But with partition magic there’s no need to worry because you can do it on your existing operating system without a complicated procedure.

It can be very useful to have at least one other partition, which the system then treats as a second drive, that way if for any reason you have to reinstall Windows, you only loose what’s on the “first drive”. Everything on the “second drive” (let it be drive D) stays untouched even after you reformat the main drive (drive C). Your computer treats it as two separate disks (even though in reality its still one, don’t worry, its not the old sawing someone in half trick gone wrong!.. after all this is partition “magic”!) So having a second partition for back up purposes alone is well worth while.

The other reason is you may want to be able to “dual boot” that is, to have a second operating system on the “second drive” with lets say, Windows 98 for games that don’t work on XP, or with Linux installed maybe. Partition magic allows you to do these things, and just about anything partition related you could ever need, such as merging, resizing, etc safely and effectively!

More information can be found here.

Munnin: Desktop Client for Ebay

Munnin is a desktop client for all eBay platforms, including USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It keeps itself fully synced with the online database of Ebay.

It allows you to watch desired items using drag-and-drop, manage your search favorites and repeat them at the touch of a button, calculate shipping costs using the integrated shipping costs calculator, plus many more features.For example,’Hot Items’ searches for items with more than 25 bids.

Its available in several versions, Light, Advanced, Professional and Business, Light being free, but this version has some restrictions when compared to the paid version of course!

It’s worth checking out for anyone who takes their ebaying really seriously or who makes a living out of buying and selling on it! For the rest of us its not really necessary.

Check out the site here for more detailed info.