John’s Background Switcher

I can’t stand plain, boring backgrounds. John’s Background Switcher (or JBS for short) periodically changes the background image on your computer (like every hour or every day) to something interesting. You can specify which pictures to choose from:

• Individual pictures on your computer.
• Folders containing pictures on your computer such as ‘My Pictures’.
• Flickr photo sharing – selecting pictures by person, tags, sets or just plain random. You never know what you’re going to get next!
• Phanfare web albums – keep up to date with your friends and family.
• smugmug photo galleries – yours, your friends, anybody’s!
• Picasa Web Albums – choose from specific albums or any search text.
• Facebook – your friends photos on your desktop!
• Yahoo! image search – the internet is your oyster!
• Any Media RSS feed – choose pictures from sites like DeviantArt, Photobucket, LOLCats and Zooomr amongst many others!

http://www.johnsadventures.com/software/backgroundswitcher/

Vista Services Settings

A good guide for those wishing to tweak vista services.
Just beware of what you're turning off so should issues arise you can undo what you did. For example you wouldn't disable themes if you want windows to look the same as it does before you turn it off.

TweakHound's Vista Services Recommendations

A-Patch

Remove the components that you don't want from your Live Messenger

A-Patch was designed to make patching Messenger easier than ever before. Not only are there tonnes of options to choose from, but now there's a Preview which lets you see the changes as you select them!

A-Patch Website

XP Tweaking

The purpose of this guide is to help you increase both the performance of Windows XP and and to customize the various settings to your personal preference. The goal is "Your computer, your way."

TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide - SP3 Final

StartUpLite

StartUpLite is a lightweight and simple to use application that allows you to speed up your system startup, safely and efficiently. The program allows you to disable or remove unnecessary startup entries from your computer. By using StartUpLite, you can dramatically help shorten your startup time with only a few clicks of the mouse.


StartUpLite Website

VistaGlazz

VistaGlazz is a small program that allows you to patch your Windows Vista system files.

After the patch is applied you can use custom styles and themes.


VistaGlazz Website
A few themes for you to try
Some on deviantart

Here's two shortcuts you mightn't yet use much but are handy to.

• Windows-D - Minimizes all open windows so you can see the desktop. A second tap restores them.

• Windows-E - Opens Windows Explorer (the file-management tool, not the browser). This is much quicker than right-clicking the Start button and then Explore, or trying to find Explorer in the Start menu.

How To Auto-Logon To A User Account At Startup With Vista

A quick and easy way to make it so you don't have to login each time you turn your computer on.

1. Click on the Start button and type in ‘netplwiz‘. This will open the Advanced User Accounts menu
2. In the Users tab, highlight the account you want to login to Vista automatically with, and then untick ‘must enter a username and password to use this computer’
3. Click on ‘Apply’. A new window will now popup asking you to enter the password of the account you’ve just highlighted. Do this, and then click ‘Ok’
4. Click ‘Ok’ on the Advanced User Accounts menu to finish

Now, whenever you boot up, Vista will login automatically to your chosen account which is great if you are using a HTPC.

How to Customize Your Mouse Pointer

1. Click Start and select Settings.
2. Control Panel.
3. Double-click the Mouse icon to display Mouse Properties.
4. Click the Pointers tab.
5. Click the down arrow on the right of the Scheme field to display the different pointer designs.

Start by trying all of the schemes. When you choose a scheme, scroll the box of specific pointers associated with specific tasks or events (much as sounds are). Find the scheme that you want to work with.

You can customize individual pointers within a scheme (just as you could change individual sounds within one scheme). Select the pointer and click the Browse button, which opens a window on the Cursors folder. Choose Medium Icons for a slightly distorted preview of each pointer.

Filenames give some indication of the scheme and intended use, but you can mix and match and use any pointer for any purpose. Cursor files are of the type .CUR and .ANI (animated). You will find many more on the Web, as well as programs for creating your own. Select a pointer and click Open. If you want to undo your choice, click the Use Default button.

Transformation Packs

Vista Transformation Pack [Download]

Vista Transformation Pack does all kinds of appearance tweaks, and makes Windows XP look like Vista. From icons, transparency to new sounds, this pack does it all to make your XP look like Windows Vista.








FlyakiteOSX [Download]

Make your windows look like Mac OS X. However, it’s much more comprehensive than the above one. This enhancement utility does everything from registry tweaks, visual styles, sounds, icons to imitate the appearance of Mac OS X. See other screenshots here. If you’re using iTunes then make sure to deselect ‘iTunes Multi-Pugin’ option (under ‘Software’) in the installation wizard.


Fedora Transformation Pack [Download]

This tool is intended for making XP resemble the Fedora Linux Distro. Though the utility just packs a simple visual style, it does include icons, screensavers and wallpapers, and other Fedora-like skins for programs.

A few more freeware apps

Screenshot Captor
Screenshot Captor is a free tool that enables you to take a grab of your entire screen, a specific window or simply a section of the screen. It's a useful tool that competes with the commercial screen-grabbing tools on the market.
You can choose to include the cursor within your grab, the amount of compression you want to apply to your image, add special effects to the grab and, once you're happy with the results, export to a number of image formats.

- Capture many screenshots quickly, unique effects, multimon support, autonameScreenshot Captor was designed for grabbing screenshots with minimal intervention.

- Screenshot Captor has great multimon suport and includes a full image explorer with full shell functionality and unsurpassed integration with external tools like graphic editors, watermarkers, etc.
- Screenshot Captor also supports unique effects not seen in other capture tools, including the ability to automatically locate and enhance the active window.
- Supports tons of image capture methods, including full screen, multimon workspace, arbitrary regions, fixed sized areas, or gdi objects. Suppors gif, png, jpg, tiff and others. Easily embeds user coments in any image type.
Link

SideSlide - Stretch Your Desktop
SideSlide enables you to create a custom launchpad for programs, documents and folders, using a mini-desktop that hides on the edge of your screen until you activate it with your mouse. In addition to shortcuts the program also offers reminders (with alarm) and sticky notes as well as clipboard capture. You simply drag shortcuts into the workspace, create containers to organize your content and completely customize the appearance with background images and colors. The containers and notes can be arranged in layers, shrunk/expanded and moved around freely by means of drag and drop. Other features include support for Launch Groups that allow you to start multiple programs at once, zooming in and out of shortcuts, image display and more.
Link

GeoShell

GeoShell is a replacement shell for Windows™ to replace the standard desktop interface.

In other words, you trade your start menu, taskbar, system tray and desktop in, and you get our versions, featuring slick, skinnable geoBars which can be placed anywhere and alpha blended into your background.

GeoShell has plugins that add additional functionality like rss readers, weather forecasts, mail checkers, web search bars, virtual desktops and more. In it's default installation geoShell also uses less resources than Windows Explorer, and is particularly effective when combined with third-party web browsers and file managers to completely upgrade your basic Windows interface.

Link

DisplayFusion

This program is similar to Ultramon the main difference to Ultramon is that this one is FREE!
It is for displaying different wallpapers on multiple monitor setups.

DisplayFusion is an application that can make your dual monitor (or triple monitor or more) life much, much easier! From allowing you to use a different wallpaper on each monitor, to integrating with Flickr for image searching, to providing hotkeys for managing your application windows.
Link

Windows switching effects for XP

Do you like the 3D windows switching effects used in Mac and Vista?
This feature can be used by pressing Alt+Tab. Now Windows XP users can get this feature too using a small application called Shock Aero.
Shock Aero delivers the task switching effect of Vista or Mackintosh to Windows XP, 2000 and 2003.

Link

RocketDock

Have you ever glanced over the shoulder of a Mac user and seen the nifty little bar of icons at the bottom of their screen? This is known as a "dock." For those of you that haven't seen this, a dock is simply a bar that can be set to the edge of your screen with a background and a row of shortcut icons. The function of a dock is to bring quick access to these shortcuts in an organized fashion relieving your desktop of clutter. It acts much like the Quick Launch, pointing each icon to the original folder or file.

Note: RocketDock does not remove, replace, store, duplicate, or backup any of the items you drag into the dock. You should never delete the original items. Dock shortcuts are not stored as files and cannot be dragged back onto the desktop or anywhere else.
http://rocketdock.com/

Desktop Sidebar

Enhance XP with a Vista-like sidebar that includes: calendars, calculators, and more.

It looks and works much like Windows Vista's sidebar, and comes with many pre-installed applets, including a weather watcher, clock, performance monitor, news grabber, media player, quick launch pad, and plenty more.

In addition to the applets that come with the program, there are many more you can download from the developer's site. In addition, you can download different skins to change the way it look. Desktop Sidebar works with Windows Vista, as well as with XP, although there's no real reason to use it instead of Vista's built-in sidebar. Still, it's nice to have the option if you want it. After all, the program is free, so it may even be worth a try for Vista users.

Link

Desktop calendar

Rainlendar is a very handy calender you can lock in place on your desktop, add events to the calendar and it will highlight the date and remind you of the event.

It's the first calender application that I have found that I actually like, it's very handy in reminding you of important appointments, doesn't play up and doesn't use much in resources under 12MB of ram and no impact cpu wise.


Rainlendar is a customizable desktop calendar for more information and to download go to http://www.rainlendar.net/