10 quick random tips that can be really useful

Time for some quick tips. Here are 10 quick random tips that can be really useful.

Creating invisible folders, changing your webbrowser, multiple Yahoo! messenger login and more small tips.

Create a “invisible” folder on your desktop

If you want to hide some files, a “invisible” folder can be handy. Here’s how to to create one on your desktop.

1. Right-click on your desktop and select New > Folder to create a new folder.
2. Right-click the folder and select Rename. Erase the name of the folder so there is nothing there.
3. With the name field still active hold down your ALT key and type 0160 on your number pad (Make sure Num Lock is on). Release ALT and press Enter.
4. Now richt-click on the nameless folder and select Properties.
5. Press Change Icon in the Customize tab and select one that has no image.
6. Press OK and you have your invisible folder that can only be accessed by going to C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Desktop.

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Change the Internet Explorer default download directory

Unlike other browsers (e.g. Firefox and Opera), Internet Explorer doesn’t have a default download directory. Here I’ll show how to set this default download directory.

1. Go to Start and press Run. Type regedit and press Enter.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer.
3. On the right page, create a new value of the type String and name it Download Directory.
4. Open the new value and enter the download directory, e.g. C:\Downloads.

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Firefox in Firefox

Small little tip (which is kinda pointless) which allows you to load the UI from Firefox in Firefox itself.

1. Copy the following code in the address bar of Firefox and press Enter.
   chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
2. Do this as many times as you want.

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Block ad-/spyware/popups without installing software

Here’s a small trick that will help you to block any ad-/spyware/popups without installing software that I posted before.

1. First, you’ll have to download (or open) the following file:
   

   Download “hosts.txt”

   The file was originally located at mvps.org.

2. Now browse to the following directory on your PC:
   C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc
3. Open the file called “hosts” (without quotes) with notepad. You can do this by renaming the file to “hosts.txt”.
4. Now select everything that is located in the just downloaded “hosts.txt” and place it in the one located on your system like this:
   1. Open the new hosts.txt
   2. Select all (Ctrl+A) and Copy (Ctrl+C)
   3. Open your host file located in the WINDOWS directory with notepad and Select all (Ctrl+A) and Paste (Ctrl+V)
5. Now save your file and you’re done (Remember to rename “hosts.txt” back to “hosts”)!

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View banned ImageShack hotlink images

Many images are hosted on ImageShack. Sometimes, you’ll see the original image replaced with a ImageShack image telling “Hotlink has been disabled for this domain”. Here’s the way on how to view these images anyway.

For Firefox

1. Type about:config in the address bar. The settings from the browser will show.
2. Type network.http.sendRefererHeader in the filter.
3. Double click on the filtered network.http.sendRefererHeader and change the value to 0.
4. Reload the page and you’ll see the images. When you’re done, set the value back to 2 because some websites will not display properly when it’s set to 0.

For Opera

1. Press the F12 key.
2. Uncheck Enable referrer logging.
3. Reload the page and you’ll see the images. When you’re done, check the Enable referrer logging again.

For Internet Explorer

1. Get Firefox or Opera
2. Follow instructions for webbrowser as above.

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Let images fly all over the screen in your browser

Not a really useful tip, but still pretty cool to see it in action.

1. Go to a website with a lot of images, such as Google Images.
2. Now copy and paste the following JavaScript code in your address bar.
   javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.getElementsByTagName("img"); DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position=’absolute’; DIS.left=(Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5)+”px”; DIS.top=(Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5)+”px”}R++}setInterval(’A()’,5); void(0);

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Multiple Yahoo! messenger login

If you have more than 1 Yahoo! messenger account, you maybe want to log in with both accounts at the same time. Here’s the way on how to do this.

1. Go to Start and press Run. Type regedit and press Enter.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\Pager\Test.
3. On the right page, right-click and choose new Dword value.
4. Rename the value to Plural.
5. Double click and assign a decimal value of 1

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Give Windows your own brand name

Here’s a little trick where you can change the manufacturer etc. from your PC. You can find these when you right-click on “My Computer” and select Properties. Hit the “Support information” button and you’ll see the information.

1. Open Notepad and copy the following code.
   [General]
* Manufacturer=Your name here
* Model=Your model here
* [Support Information]
* Line1=Your name here
* Line2=Your address here
* Line3=Your email address here
2. Change the lines into the things you want to be displayed (”Your name here” will be “Marco” or something).
3. Save the file as oeminfo.ini
4. Place the oeminfo.ini in C:\WINDOWS\system32 and you’re done.

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Kick everybody out a MSN conversation

Are you also a user of Windows Live Messenger (formerly known as MSN Messenger)? And don’t you hate it when you’re invited into a conversation with 10+ people, just because others think “it’s fun”? It’ll slow your computer down big time. Here’s a tip on how to kick all users out of the conversation.

1. In the conversation screen, type the following code and press Enter.
   .pif
2. That’s it! Everybody will be kicked from the conversation.

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Get the latitude and longitude of Google Maps

I got this little trick because I needed it myself for my sister website WeirdGlobeNews.com. To grab the latitude and longitude from the Google Maps center, do the following steps.

1. Go to Google Maps, enter your search term (Such as “Amsterdam, The Netherlands”) and press Enter.
2. Now go to your address bar in your browser en copy the following code and press Enter
   javascript:void(prompt('',gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));
3. A JavaScript popup box will appear, showing the latitude and longitude of the center point of your map.
   (52.373812, 4.890951)
4. If you’re using Firefox, you can turn this into an bookmark. Create a new bookmark and copy the JavaScript code in the Location. Now you can always get the coördinates with just the press of one button.

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Tags: computer tips

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