With the unveiling of iTunes 10, it is reported that Apple has removed the “create your own ringtone” feature. After the launch of the iPhone, feature was first introduced. It lets iPhone users to create ringtones from a track purchased from the iTunes store. As Mac Life realized, the feature is still found on iTunes 9.2.1 but is no longer built into iTunes 10. You can still use a manual method to create your own custom ringtone for your iPhone by using iTunes 10 for free.

If you want to create your own custom iPhone Ringtone , simply follow the step-by-step procedures. As I am a Mac user, the guide is written particularly for Mac user. That said, it should also work for those using Windows. I have highlighted the difference (if any) so Windows user can also follow. What if you are using the older version of iTunes (say, iTunes 9)? Despite the guide is specifically written for iTunes 10 user, you can also follow it to create ringtone on older iTunes version. The procedures are very similar. Okay, let’s get started. Step by Step Procedures to Create Free Ringtone on iTunes 10.

1. Launch iTunes and pick a song you want to convert to ringtone
2. Right-click on the song and click “Get Info” to view the song properties
3. Select “Option” and fill in the “Start time” & “Stop time” to extract the song you want to create as your iPhone ringtone. Ensure that the length is not longer than 30 secs. Otherwise, iTunes will not recognize it as a ringtone.
4. When you are ready, click “OK” to confirm.
5. Again, right-click on the song and select “Create ACC Version”.
6. iTunes automatically extracts the portion of song you have instructed in the previous step. The new song file is 30 sec in length. That’s the song you work on from step 6 and onwards.
7. Next, right-click on the song and select “Show in Finder”. This will launch Finder and locate the song file you just created. (Note: For Windows user, you should choose “Show in Windows Explorer” instead.)
8. Rename the file extension from “.m4a” to “.m4r”.
9. Next, go back to iTunes. Right-click on the song you have created and select “Delete”.
10. Click “Remove” to confirm the removal > click “Keep File” when you’re prompted. This instructs iTunes to remove the song from iTunes library & keep the actual file.
11. Go back, double-click on the ringtone file (with extension .m4r) you have just renamed. Your ringtone will automatically add to your iTunes’ ringtone library. You can sync it to iPhone using iTunes.

Most of the people have started testing recently released Windows 8 Developer Preview build. Many of Windows 8 Developer Preview users might have notices that the Microsoft have removed the previous start menu and replaced it with the new Start Screen. No option is available for changing the new start menu to the old start menu of Windows vista or Windows 7 style. So in this article I am going to share some information with the help of which you can easily change the new start menu to the old one. Two methods are there to do the same; I am going to discuss them one by one.

1. Using Registry Hack

In this method a small registry trick is used to enable the old start menu in Windows 8. (Note that these registry trick can disable new Metro UI stuff & ribbon in Windows Explorer.)

1. First of all press “WIN_R” key combination. Then type regedit > Enter. After that Registry Editor will open up.
2. Now you have to go to the following key: “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer”.
3. In right side pane, change value of “RPEnabled” to 0.
4. After this you can enjoy your old start menu in Windows 8.

2. By Renaming System File

In this method you have to rename a system file known as “shsxs.dll”. This will enable old Start Menu but will disable the new start screen. Like the above mentioned method this method will not disable Ribbon UI in Windows Explorer. You have to follow the given steps for doing the same.

1. First press “WIN+R” key for launching the RUN dialogue box and then you have to type %windir%. After that press Enter. A windows folder will open in front of you.
2. Now you have to look for a file named as “shsxs.dll”. Once the file is found, you have to rename it to “shsxs.dll.bac” (say). If you get an error while renaming the file, then first take the ownership of the file.
3. Now at last you have to restart your computer system and then you can enjoy your old Start menu.

If you are keeping a tab on Windows 8 new features and improvements, then you must hear about the inclusion of virtualization client in Windows 8. The Windows 8 include Microsoft virtualization manager and hyper version for proficient users, so that they don’t have to switch to Windows 8 Server in order to use Hyper- v client.

If you are not familiar with Hyper- V, also known as Viridian, it’s a hypervisor(hardware/ physical virtualization technique to run multiple guest Operating System, currently on host system) based virtualization system for x86-64 instructions set based system architecture and is already included in Windows Server 2008.

Windows 8 Hyper- V client supports one feature which is not there in Windows server 2008 R2 and that is sleep/ hibernate option. The recently released developer build of Windows 8×64 version comes with Hyper – V disabled, but you can easily enable both Hyper- V core and Management tools from the control panel. Just follow the below given steps for doing the same:

1. Firstly open the Metro control panel.
2. Now from left side select more settings to open control panel category view.
3. Now click on programs and features.
4. In the programs and features click “Turn Windows features ON or OFF” option present in left sidebar. This will open Windows feature.
5. Now enable Hyper-V checkbox, and expand it to view Hyper- V core and Hyper- V Management tools.  Make sure that both checkboxes are checked.
6. Now click OK.
7. After doing this Window 8 will start applying changes to features and then prompts you to restart your computer system. So click on “Restart Now”.
8. After rebooting the system you will see a Hyper-V Virtual Machine connection and Hyper- V manager shortcut tiles on Metro start screen.

Now you can easily import Virtual Machine from external storage medium and can create new ones.

If the appearance of the iPhone, iPad and iPod is lost and you want to have similar appearance on your Windows PC then iOS Pack is the best choice for you. It’s a transformation pack that helps you to bring Apple’s iOS devices look of to your Windows 7 computer. iOS Skin Pack changes the overall appearance of the operating system including boot screen, login screen and Windows Explorer. The package also includes cursors, wallpaper, icons, visual style and some extras. Below are the steps for transforming Windows 7 into iOS with iOS Skin pack.

1. Before installing iOS Skin Pack on your computer, you should create a system restore point, disable the User Account Control (UAC) and close all open programs.
2. After performing the above recommendations, just download iOS Skin Pack and run the file setup (exe) that you downloaded to start installing the packet processing on your computer.
3. The installer offers quick installation (Quick) and Custom (Custom). The custom installation allows you to select the components of the packet processing you want to install on your PC.
4. The package also includes the UxTheme Patch file needed for the installation of third-party themes in Windows 7.
5. After completing installation, restart your computer to apply the look of Windows 7 iOS.

Download iOS Skin Pack x64

Download iOS Skin Pack x86

If you have installed Windows 8 Operating System and now you want to know that how you can change Window 8 Metro start button then you must know that “My WDP Start Button” is the ideal tool to replace the default Windows 8 Start button with custom one. My WDP Start Button is a portable utility to change the default Metro Start with your own picture.

How to change Windows 8 Start Button:

1. First you have to download “My WDP Start Button tool”.
2. After that you have to launch the tool with admin rights.
3. Now click on the big picture the main image to change the Start button with an image composed of 3 orbs. Or, click on a small picture to select a single picture as Start button. (Please note that the picture file should be in PNG or Bitmap (32-bit) format.)

The tool will apply the Start button and then automatically restarts the explorer processor you. Wait for a few seconds to see the new Start button. (Please note that the tool may take a few seconds to minutes to restart the Explorer). You might see a blank screen while applying the new Start button. On our testing PC, it took 135 seconds to restart Windows Explorer. (Please note that the tool does not offer an option to revert to the default Start button. So, do not forget to create a system restore point before applying the new Start button, your Anti-virus software may warn you against this software. It is just a false positive.)

Hot Recorder is one of the most effective tools to record any VoIP call, not only Skype. However, if you are a Skype user you can rest assured that it is a tool that’s very well integrated with the Skype application. Below are the steps to do the same:

1. Set Up Skype to Record Calls: Installing and using Hot Recorder is about as simple as it gets. There is virtually no setup. After you run the install and launch the application, it attaches to your Skype window. Whenever you move your Skype window around the screen, the Hot Recorder window stays attached at the upper left edge.

   There are a few things that you may want to configure in Hot Recorder depending on your preferences. For example, in the options menu, you can assign a folder on your computer to save all of the audio files. The Sound Quality and Recording Type settings are also important because they will ultimately determine how quickly the size of your audio file grows. If you have a huge hard drive and are only recording the call for yourself, by all means keep the sound quality high and use Stereo sound. However, if your intent is to email the file or you’d like to store it on smaller media that does not have quite as much storage capacity; you may want to consider using Medium or Low quality.

2. Recording Skype Call: When you hit “Rec” and then dial a phone number or connect with another user on Skype, you will see the Hot Recorder display status change to “Recording” and the size of the audio file updates as well so that you know how much space the audio file is going to consume on your hard drive or USB drive. The current time duration of the call is also displayed, so if you are running a Podcast or radio show and you do not want the conversation to go beyond a certain time interval, you will know exactly how long the discussion is going. If there are parts of the conversation that you do not want to record, just click on “Pause,” and then when you are ready to start rolling again you can click “Rec” again and the call will continue. Once you click on “Stop,” you will be presented with the screen above so that you can fill out details about the phone call including who you talked to and anything else you want to note about the call.

   The important field is “Conversation with” because the listing of your calls shows this clearly, and it is one of the best ways you will have of remembering your calls. You can use any file name convention you like, so keep it in a format that you will be able to organize. You can easily sort all your interviews by date. Once you click on save, you will see the application encoding the audio and saving it to file. One interesting thing to note here is how the audio will get encoded when you choose audio. Hot Recorder saves the conversation in 2 channels it means that during playback your interviewee’s voice will play on the left and your voice will get played on the right. This is actually pretty cool if someone has stereo headphones. Unfortunately if one of your listeners has mono headphones or will be listening to your audio file on any mono device the conversation will seem oddly “one-sided.”

3. Playback and Extra Options: Playing conversations back after you are done recording is as simple as clicking on the “Player” tab. When you click on the Player button, you will see a list of all of the conversations you have had. Because the saved recordings are displayed by whom the conversation was with. If you accumulate a lot of conversations over time, there’s also a search feature available. There are a couple of cool extra features with Hot Recorder, and one of them is an answering machine. You can be anywhere in the world and never miss a phone message again as long as you have Internet access to check your email.

   If you run podcast/radio show, another cool feature are the “emotisounds,” which let you embed various sound effects into the conversation. This can get really hilarious if you play it right. Whenever someone says something that you do not like, just click “boo” or if they’re boring you to death just click on “Snore” – you will have your listeners in stitches. If you use Hot Recorder that is, recording phone calls for later playback and transcription to text, the free version is more than enough. However if you want to convert your files over to MP3 or WAV format so you can use them anywhere, you will need the inexpensive premium version that comes with an embedded Audio Converter.

In newly launched Windows 8 you will find “green” as primary background color for copious user interface elements, ranging from Start Menu, Search, Share, and Setting pane, to User tiles and Login screen. If you are into customize Windows 8 new user boundary elements, you might like to alter the background color of Start Menu, right-side pane, login screen, etc. In this post I am going to cover 2 methods for altering Windows 8 Start Menu, Login Screen, Search, split, and Settings pane. (It must be noted that following methods can only be applied on 64-bit edition of Windows 8 Developer Build; you may not need to apply tweaks on final version of Windows 8, as it will have an in-built option to change background color of Metro user interface elements).

Both methods require advance read and write administrative privileges. You can either use Rizone Take Ownership tool to quickly replace the basic read and access permissions for System 32 system files with full read and write control or manually change System32 folder permissions from Advance Security dialog box accessible from Properties –> Security tab.

But before doing anything create backup of both uxtheme.dll and shsxs.dll files at a convenient location before applying tweaks. It is a very simple process and you can do it easily. So go ahead and follow the given points.

1. Edit Default UxTheme.Dll File: The first method is relatively difficult than second method, as it requires editing DLL file in Hex editor. First off, install HxD Hex Editor. Now move to System32 folder and search uxtheme.dll from Windows Explorer search bar. Copy the file to desktop and then open the copied version in Hex Editor. This method enables you to change Start Menu, as well as, right panes and login screen. To get started, bring up Goto dialog box via Ctrl+G hotkey combination and enter 096F30. Now under 00 01 02 03 columns replace the default OE 6D 38 FF values by custom RGBA color code.

   

    You can, for example, choose to replace the default color with D3 D3 D3 FF to apply grey background color. Using any color picker, like Instant Color Picker, or Just Color Picker, select color code of your favorite color and replace the first 6 Hex values under 00, 01, and 02 column with custom color code. This will only change colors of Windows 8 login screen and Start Menu. Nevertheless, if you want to change other UI elements as well, download the tutorial, open ‘Metro Customization – Hex Table’ text file and replace the Hex values of specified Hex offsets.

2. Using Tiles Series Purple: This method does not require tweaking with uxtheme.dll file manually. It includes pre-designed Start Screen and right-side panes by devaintArt member – thepanda-x. All you need is to take administrative read and write privileges of system 32 folder and then rename default uxtheme.dll and shsxs.dll files to uxtheme.dll.old and shsxs.dll.old, respectively. Once done, copy both uxtheme.dll and shsxs.dll files from downloaded folder to System32 folder. Now reboot your system to let changes made to uxtheme and shsxs DLL files take effect.

   

   Once rebooted, you will see purple login screen, right side panes, and Start Menu. It is advised that you should not remove uxtheme.dll.backup and shsxs.dll.backup in System32 folder; as they can be used to bring the default green Start Menu and other UI elements back. The Uninstall.bat file in tiles series purple folder will help you automatically apply default user interface color (green).

Everyone love to watch videos and for this they require some media player. So media Players are very necessary tool for everyone. But choosing right media player for your operating system is a little tough task. But because of this reasons I am explaining some of the coolest media players which can be found easily and will always gives you a smooth performance.

1. VLC Media Player: VLC is one of the best media players and is liked by everyone. This magical tool is lightweight, portable and is capable of playing almost any video format. VLC can even be used as a streaming media server, can play DVD’s, can be used as an audio decoder, and doesn’t require external, extra codec’s to run. VLC can also escort customizable skins, as well as nearly every operating system that exists (Mac, Windows and Linux). According to me it is the best media player till now. So you must try it once. If you will not try the you will miss something really good.
2. Media Jukebox: It is an all- in- one media player, music collection organizer, iPod connector and music store with extreme tagging techniques. This music player can pretty much do it all. While not as small as VLC, it definitely does have a bunch of features. It can even be used to synchronize your phone, while finding tags for your newest imported songs, and simultaneously downloading the newest plug-in to customize your user experience. You can further maximize Media Jukebox’s abilities by adding playlists to download automatically and creating or using a custom skin. Media Jukebox deserves to be on this list for sure.
3. Song bird: Song bird is one of the most customizable media players ever created. Besides being created by Mozilla, and being open source, it allows users to create add-ons/plug-ins for added user experience. Built-in options include; Last.fm playback history plug-in, support for the iPod, available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, metadata management, etc. Songbird truly shows what media players need to become with regard to customization.
4. Winamp: Winamp is also one of the most famous windows media players. It is one of the most widely used media players in the world. It has developed into one of the most feature oriented media players ever created. Features include: lots of customizable skins, built-in internet radio, support for a wide variety of audio and video formats, flash support, customizable plug-ins, support for multiple languages, ability to sync with your iPod, etc. There is a free version, of course, but you can upgrade to the PRO version for even more features.
5. KM Player: It is not as widely used but it is one of the best, free, media players. While supporting numerous different formats, languages, skins, etc, it is relatively lightweight and can be used for numerous different media related material. The application itself is extremely customizable by its own settings, but can be further customized to fit your own needs as well. Some of its cool and unique features are: Compressed album support, multiple file formats, numerous decoders, support for subtitles, plug-ins, etc.
6. DivX Plus Software: It is also not so famous but it is among one of the best media player. You will rarely found such type of media player. It is served with the services and bundles of all real players. It supports Video on Demand Service. It is a multipurpose Media Player means you can do many things with this media player. Though it is not popular but you must use it one for enjoying its cool and extra ordinary features which are : Download videos at a very high rate, Transfer videos at a very quick speed, Burns DVDs for TV, Supports TV and Movies.
7. Ace Media Player: This media player is only for Windows 98/ 2000/ XP/ Vista. This allows you to watch Quick Time, Real Media, DivX and Windows Media files within a single Media Player. It enables you to: Play all your local media types with a uniform interface, Avoid frequent switching from one media player to another, Use less memory while it is loading quickly, Has full screen playback with onscreen controls., Play and manage different types of media player with in the play list, Save desktop space in share mode, Auto- plays high quality of CD and VCD.
8. Adobe Media Player: It is a third party desktop video player which is totally based on AIR runtime.  This plays a clear image of video which you want to view. If you are adobe media player user then you can enjoy its various exciting features.