Are you looking for a desktop wallpaper that will spark and inspire your imagination? Then you will definitely want to have a look at our fantasy theme wallpapers collection.

Note: Click on the picture to see the full-size image—these wallpapers vary in size so you may need to crop, stretch, or place them on a colored background in order to best match them to your screen’s resolution.

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If you are looking for even more great wallpapers be certain to look through our other collections.

How-To Geek Wallpaper Collections

• Desktop Fun: Underwater Theme Wallpapers
• Desktop Fun: Winter Theme Wallpapers
• Friday Fun: Retro Nintendo Wallpapers
• Totally Awesome Lego Wallpapers for Your Desktop
• Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Guitar Edition
• Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Abstract Art Edition
• Awesome Desktop Wallpapers: Windows 7 Edition
• Fun Wallpapers: The Linux Desktop Edition
• Amazing Desktop Wallpapers: Castle Theme Edition

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Everyone needs a few minutes to relax and unwind during the work day. For some people visiting their favorite social network is the perfect solution, but if you love games then you will definitely want to have a look at the Avalanche!! extension for Google Chrome.

Ready to Play?

As soon as you have installed the extension you are all set for gaming goodness. To get started just click on the “Ninja Toolbar Button”.

As soon as you click on the “Toolbar Button” you will see a “blank” popup window like this. To get the game started just press either the “Left or Right Arrow Key”. The “Left & Right Arrows Keys” are all that is require to operate Avalanche!!.

Note: Each time you close and then reopen the popup window the scores will all be reset to zero.

This is what the game looks like once started. Your objective is to move your “ninja” side-to-side (right or left) to avoid falling icicles for as long as possible. This game moves quickly and it is easy to get killed by an icicle if you are not careful.

Another round of Avalanche!! in progress. Notice that your highest score is displayed as long as you have not closed the popup window.

If you get hit by an icicle the game ends and the startup screen is displayed along with your score. To start a new round of Avalanche!! just press either the “Left or Right Arrow Key” and you are on your way again.

Run ninja run!

Conclusion

If you need a quick break during the day then Avalanche!! is an excellent way to relax before going back to work.

Links

Download the Avalanche!! extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

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It’s Friday and you’re sick and tired of the boss telling you about the TPS Reports that are due. Time to have some fun on company time and play the fun flash game Mechanical Commando 2.

Mechanical Commando 2

This is a cool game where you are in the cockpit of your mech and visit different planets to obliterate enemies and save civilians.

At the main menu you pick the planet where you want to start a mission at. As you progress through levels you’ll have more mission options. From here you can control the game volume and quality.

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When each mission starts you’ll get a briefing with a main objective.

Here is an example of the first mission…you’re in the mech and start shooting enemies and structures. The controls are simple…aim and shoot with the mouse and use the “WASD” keys to move around.

Here we’re rescuing civilians…

Trying to defeat a boss so you can take control of a larger vehicle to continue destroying the enemy.

Once you defeat the boss you can take control of the vehicle and continue on with more fire power.

Sometimes the terrain will be blocked off so you can’t always use the larger vehicle and will need to hop out of it by pressing the Space bar and continue in your mech.

There is a hanger for you to grab weapon upgrades as you progress in levels.

If you’re looking for a fun way to pass the time until the whistle blows this game will do the trick.

Play Mechanical Commando 2

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Do you wish you could just jump right into playing music when you open Media Center? Or maybe just skip that start up animation? Today we are going to show you a variety of startup switches that will allow you to customize the way Media Center opens in Windows 7.

Startup Customizations

We will be adding all of these switches to the end of the Target, on the Shortcut tab in the properties of Windows Media Center. If you start Media Center from the Start menu, go to Start > All Programs, right-click on Windows Media Center and select “Properties.” If you launch Media Center from a desktop shortcut, simply right-click on the icon and choose “Properties.” On the “Shortcut” tab, you will see the Target box with the text string: %windir%ehomeehshell.exe.

To add each of these switches to the Target, simply leave a space after %windir%ehomeehshell.exe, type the switch, and click “Save.” When you are finished, it should read like this:

%windir%ehomeehshell.exe /no startupanimation

Disable the Startup Animation & Music

This switch opens Media Center without it’s animation and music. It doesn’t seem to open Media Center any faster, but if you are annoyed by the animation and music, this will rid you of both.

/no startupanimation

Media Only Mode

Media Only mode keeps Windows Media Center displayed in full screen with the minimize and close buttons hidden. A small padlock will appear in the top right corner next to the time.

/mediamode

You can turn off Media Only mode from within Media Center by going to Tasks > Exit Media Only.

RTL Mode

If you prefer to look at things from right to left, you may enjoy RTL mode.

/rtl

This switch essentially flips the direction of everything in Media Center. You’ll notice that in windowed mode, even the close, maximize, and minimized buttons are flipped to the left side.

Remove Shut Down from Tasks

This switch disables the Shut Down tile under Tasks on the Windows Media Center Start menu.

/noshutdownui

This can be especially useful for preventing family members from clicking shut down and turning off your PC when it needs to stay on to record your favorite shows.

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No Chrome

This switch opens Media Center without the window frame and doesn’t display an icon on the task bar.

/nochrome

It’s got a cool appearance if you don’t mind not being able to either move the window around with your mouse, or easily exit out of Media Center. To escape this mode once you’ve entered it, double-click on the green Media Center logo at the top left to pop it into Full Screen mode, then click the ”X” at the top right to exit.

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Open in the Video Library

Start directly in the Video Library in Full Screen mode with this switch.

/directmedia:video

Start in Recorded TV

If you want to dive into your recorded TV shows right off the bat, this switch will open Media Center in your Recorded TV library in Full Screen mode.

/directmedia:tv

Open in the Picture Library

If pictures are more your thing, try opening Media Center in the Picture Library in Full Screen mode.

/directmedia:pictures

Open in the Music Library

If you use Windows Media Center more for music than Video or TV, you may want to try this switch on for size. It opens Media Center in the Music Library in Full Screen mode.

/directmedia:music

Play Your Music at Startup

Start your music collection playing on startup with this switch.

/playallmusic

If you’d rather start up to only your favorite songs, try this switch instead.

/playfavmusic

Play Music with a Slideshow

Start off Media Center with a slideshow accompanied by your music.

/playslideshowwithmusic

Or play the slideshow with only your favorite music.

/playfavslideshowwithmusic

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Start with Just a Slideshow

If you prefer only a slideshow on startup, try this switch.

/playslideshow

Or a slideshow of just your favorites.

/playfavslideshow

Conclusion?

Some of these switches will help you customize your Windows 7 Media Center experience to your liking. Others may simply be more interesting than useful. If you like these switches, and use Media Center primarily to watch Live TV, you may want to check out our previous article on? Starting Windows 7 Media Center in Live TV Mode.

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If you’ve got a pet or toddler, then you know that an unguarded keyboard is a recipe for disaster – deleted files, lost work, and hard-to-explain Facebook status updates are just the beginning. In this article, we’ll show you how to disable your keyboard at the touch of a button – and, of course, how to re-enable it.

Keyboard Locker is a small program that does this job well and takes up very few system resources. It’s a small AutoHotKey script that was originally written by an AutoHotKey forum-goer named Lexikos. We’ve spruced it up a bit and compiled it so that you don’t need to have AutoHotKey installed. If you do have AutoHotKey installed, we’ve included the original script so you can tweak it to your liking.

When you open Keyboard Locker, you’ll see a small keyboard icon appear in your system tray.

To lock the keyboard, press Ctrl+Alt+L.

The icon in the system tray changes to indicate that the keyboard is locked.

Almost all keyboard input is now disabled, including most special keys on media keyboards and caps and num locks. There are a few key combinations that will still work, such as Ctrl+Alt+Delete and Win+L to lock your computer, but those are extremely unlikely for a paw or tiny hand to hit.

When you want re-enable keyboard input, simply type in the word “unlock.”

By default, the balloon notification seen above are not shown – only the system tray icon changes. If you’d like to enable the balloon notifications, right-click on the system tray icon and click on “Show tray notifications”.

If you don’t like the notification but you forget the right keyboard shortcut or command to type in, you can hover your mouse cursor over the system tray icon and a tooltip will pop up with the appropriate instruction.

Keyboard Locker won’t have any detrimental effects on your computer if you leave it running at all times, but if you want to close it, right-click on the system tray icon and then click on “Exit”.

Start Keyboard Locker when Windows starts

If you want Keyboard Locker to start up automatically when you boot your computer, you can create a shortcut to Keyboard Locker in your startup folder.

To do this, click on the Start button, then All Programs. You should be able to find a folder called Startup.

Right click on the folder and click on Explore.

An explorer window will pop up. It may have some other shortcuts in here already (if there are programs in here that you don’t want to start up when Windows boots up, you can remove them here!). In either case, right click on an empty portion of the window and click on New > Shortcut.

Click on the Browse… button and navigate to the location that you saved Keyboard Locker in.

The path will be filled in. Click next.

Give the shortcut a name if you’d like, then click Finish.

You should now see a shortcut to Keyboard Locker in the startup folder. From now on, Keyboard Locker will start running every time you boot up your computer!

If you ever want to stop Keyboard Locker from running at startup, simply delete it from this folder.

Conclusion

Keyboard Locker is a great utility for those of us with curious creatures and inquisitive infants. If you have a different use for this program, let us know in the comments!

Download Keyboard Locker free from How-To Geek

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What’s a geek to do with VMware, extra hard disk space, and RAM to spare?? Why fill it with all the operating systems he can! For the fun of it, we take a look at virtualizing a classic version of Windows.?

We start with one of the first popular version of Windows – Windows 3.11.? Many of us can remember using Windows 3.11, but may be surprised to go back and see how many things still function similar in today’s versions. Here’s some screenshots of Windows 3.11 running in VMware Player on Windows 7 x64.? Yes, that’s a 16 bit OS running on top of a 64 bit OS.

Windows 3.1

The installer looks surprisingly familiar … hey, it looks just like the initial stage of XP’s installer.

Yes, we still have to start Windows by entering “win” at the command prompt…

The famous 3.1 boot screen … looks a little different than the Vista or 7 startup animation.

Do you need to learn how to use the mouse? I was actually using a Microsoft Wireless mouse in Windows 3.11, since it just looks like a standard PS/2 mouse through VMware.

Welcome to Windows 3.11.? No exit buttons; just double-click on the left-hand side of the Window.? Amazingly, you can still exit programs this way in all other versions of Windows, including Windows 7.

The great-granddaddy of Windows 7 Libraries…

The infamous Paint…formerly called Paintbrush.

We’ve all wasted countless hours on Minesweeper…

There wasn’t the ability to save documents to a whole lot of different formats back then.

But don’t forget, we’re running it inside Windows 7.? Hey, it looks pretty good in Flip 3D…

Oh, and don’t forget to exit Windows when you’re done for the day … it was basically just a program that is running on DOS.? Clicking Exit doesn’t shut down your computer, it only exits to DOS.

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We hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane…those of you who are old enough to remember that is. Leave a comment below and share your Windows 3.1 stories. We remember this was quite a defining moment in computer geek history when it was launched.

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Would you like a “built-in” same tab dictionary reference function in Google Chrome? Today we look at the Google Dictionary extension which easily allows you to find word definitions from your browser.

Installation & Setup

You will need to confirm the installation while adding the extension to Chrome…click “Install” to complete the process.

Once the installation process has finished you will see a new “Address Bar Icon”, a quick message explaining how the extension works, and how to manage your extensions.

There are three methods for accessing the options for the extension. The first is using the “Chrome Extensions Page”…

And the second is right clicking on the “Address Bar Icon. Please keep in mind that in certain instances the “Address Bar Icon” will not be visible (i.e. Speed Dial, Chrome’s special pages for extensions, etc.). The third is in the “Address Bar Icon” drop-down window itself (shown below).

These are the options for Google Dictionary. Choose the desired dictionary language, how popup definitions are (or are not) activated, and if you would like to use the “Address Bar Icon” or not.

These are the available dictionary languages…

Google Dictionary in Action

When you are on a page where Google Dictionary can be used this is what the drop-down window for the “Address Bar Icon” looks like. Notice the third way to access the options for the extension in the lower part of the drop-down window…

For our example we left the default setting for popup definitions unchanged. We chose a word, double clicked on it (auto-highlights the word), and the popup definition immediately displayed. If you are wanting more than what is shown in the popup click on the “More >> Link” in the lower right corner.

Clicking on “More >>” will open a new tab with additional information such as additional definitions and synonyms. If you are really interested in learning more about a particular word then this will definitely provide the best viewing venue.

Remember how the word “auto-highlighted” when we double clicked on it? The word will be automatically pasted into the drop-down window’s text field and you can view expanded information in this manner (if you prefer to avoid opening a new tab).

If you were curious you can view both the popup definition and use the drop-down window at the same time for a quick look at additional information (if needed).

Conclusion

The Google Dictionary extension is an extremely useful and efficient way to find reference information for words while browsing. If you are always looking for definitions then you might want to add this extension to your browser.

Links

Download the Google Dictionary extension (Google Chrome Extensions)

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Windows Home Server comes with some shared folders in different categories by default, and chances are you’ll want to create your own as well. Today we show you how to create your own shared folders, manage permissions, enable folder duplication, and more.

Note: For this article we’re accessing the Home Server Shared Folders from Windows 7.

Default Shared Folders

After installing Windows Home Server you’ll notice that the default shared folders are Music, Photos, Public, Recorded TV, Software, and Videos. These folders cannot be deleted, but we can create our own folders if needed. We can also go through and change permissions and view folder histories.

Accessing Shared Folders

You can access your shared folders on the server a few different ways. One is to double-click the Shared Folders on Server icon that was created on the Desktop when you installed WHS Console.

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Or right-click on the WHS Console icon in the tray and select Shared Folders.

Open WHS Console and under Shared Folders right-click and Open the folder you want.

You can also go into Network and double-click on the Home Server icon…

Which ever method you use, it’ll open the Shared Folders directory and you can begin browsing through your data.

Add New Folder

Adding a new folder is pretty straight-forward. Open Windows Home Server Console and under Shared Folders click Add from the toolbar or right-click an empty area in Shared Folders and select Add from the context menu.

Either way it will pop up the Add a Shared Folder wizard where you type in the name for the folder and give it a description if you want to. You’ll need to decide if you want to enable folder duplication or not. With it enabled, it duplicates the folder and files contained in it across multiple drives on the server. It will take twice as much space on the total storage of your server and can take a while for the process to complete. In this example…these files are going to be large video files, and we don’t need to create a duplicate.?

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Next we need to select the type of access each user will have for the new folder. The types of access are as follows…

• Full – The user can view, add,.modify, and delete files in the shared folder.
• Read – The user can view files in the shared folder, but cannot add, modify, or delete files.
• None – The user can’t view, modify, or delete anything in the shared folder…they have no access.

The folder has been successfully created and you can close out of the wizard and start adding files.

Now in Windows Home Server Console we can see the created folder named DVD Movies. We also see the Description, it’s currently empty, Duplication is off, and a status of Healthy.

Delete a Shared Folder

If you ever find that you need to delete a shared folder you created, right-click the folder and select Remove from the menu.

Then click finish on the warning message if you’re sure you want to delete it. Remember that if a folder is duplicated, that will be deleted as well. Also you can’t delete the folders that were included by default by WHS.

Change Folder Properties

We can also go back and change the properties and user access to the folders at any time. In this example we created a Documents shared folder and want to enable Folder Duplication and change user access. Just right-click the folder and select Properties.

The Properties window appears and under the General tab we want to mark the box next to Enable Folder Duplication. You need at least 2 drives on your server to enable folder duplication. What it does is automatically duplicate the folder and its contents over to another drive. It also syncs the folder with the duplicate. So for example if you take a file out of the folder, that is updated in the duplicate as well.

This is very handy incase one of the server drives fail, you’ll still have access to the folder contents. Remember that duplication takes twice the amount of space of total storage space. You might want to use this feature for your most important files and documents.

Click on the User Access tab to change the type of access each user has to the folder.

You’ll get a message reminding you that the new permissions won’t go into effect until the user logs off then back on to the machine.

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If a user tries to access a file that you haven’t assigned rights to, they’ll get a File Access Denied error message.

You can also check out folder history and see how it has grown over time. Right-click a particular and select History…which brings up a screen showing what’s been going on. You can choose to display week, month, year, or a full history.

If you try to view the history of a folder that hasn’t had enough time to accumulate any, you’ll get the following error. A folder needs to be in operation for a minimum of one week.

Conclusion

Windows Home Server is an excellent way to centralize all of your data, and access it from different machines throughout the house or small office. Managing the shared folders on the server will be one of the main administrative functions you’ll need to do. You’ll be able to administer user account access to the folders on the network and over the web. The Folder Duplication feature is a great way to ensure there is redundant backup of your most important files.

This guide should help get you started with using and understanding shared folders on your home server. You might want to also check out our articles on how to manage user accounts in WHS, and how to backup WHS folders to an external drive.

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Windows Home Server comes with some shared folders in different categories by default, and chances are you’ll want to create your own as well. Today we show you how to create your own shared folders, manage permissions, enable folder duplication, and more.

Note: For this article we’re accessing the Home Server Shared Folders from Windows 7.

Default Shared Folders

After installing Windows Home Server you’ll notice that the default shared folders are Music, Photos, Public, Recorded TV, Software, and Videos. These folders cannot be deleted, but we can create our own folders if needed. We can also go through and change permissions and view folder histories.

Accessing Shared Folders

You can access your shared folders on the server a few different ways. One is to double-click the Shared Folders on Server icon that was created on the Desktop when you installed WHS Console.

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Or right-click on the WHS Console icon in the tray and select Shared Folders.

Open WHS Console and under Shared Folders right-click and Open the folder you want.

You can also go into Network and double-click on the Home Server icon…

Which ever method you use, it’ll open the Shared Folders directory and you can begin browsing through your data.

Add New Folder

Adding a new folder is pretty straight-forward. Open Windows Home Server Console and under Shared Folders click Add from the toolbar or right-click an empty area in Shared Folders and select Add from the context menu.

Either way it will pop up the Add a Shared Folder wizard where you type in the name for the folder and give it a description if you want to. You’ll need to decide if you want to enable folder duplication or not. With it enabled, it duplicates the folder and files contained in it across multiple drives on the server. It will take twice as much space on the total storage of your server and can take a while for the process to complete. In this example…these files are going to be large video files, and we don’t need to create a duplicate.?

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Next we need to select the type of access each user will have for the new folder. The types of access are as follows…

• Full – The user can view, add,.modify, and delete files in the shared folder.
• Read – The user can view files in the shared folder, but cannot add, modify, or delete files.
• None – The user can’t view, modify, or delete anything in the shared folder…they have no access.

The folder has been successfully created and you can close out of the wizard and start adding files.

Now in Windows Home Server Console we can see the created folder named DVD Movies. We also see the Description, it’s currently empty, Duplication is off, and a status of Healthy.

Delete a Shared Folder

If you ever find that you need to delete a shared folder you created, right-click the folder and select Remove from the menu.

Then click finish on the warning message if you’re sure you want to delete it. Remember that if a folder is duplicated, that will be deleted as well. Also you can’t delete the folders that were included by default by WHS.

Change Folder Properties

We can also go back and change the properties and user access to the folders at any time. In this example we created a Documents shared folder and want to enable Folder Duplication and change user access. Just right-click the folder and select Properties.

The Properties window appears and under the General tab we want to mark the box next to Enable Folder Duplication. You need at least 2 drives on your server to enable folder duplication. What it does is automatically duplicate the folder and its contents over to another drive. It also syncs the folder with the duplicate. So for example if you take a file out of the folder, that is updated in the duplicate as well.

This is very handy incase one of the server drives fail, you’ll still have access to the folder contents. Remember that duplication takes twice the amount of space of total storage space. You might want to use this feature for your most important files and documents.

Click on the User Access tab to change the type of access each user has to the folder.

You’ll get a message reminding you that the new permissions won’t go into effect until the user logs off then back on to the machine.

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If a user tries to access a file that you haven’t assigned rights to, they’ll get a File Access Denied error message.

You can also check out folder history and see how it has grown over time. Right-click a particular and select History…which brings up a screen showing what’s been going on. You can choose to display week, month, year, or a full history.

If you try to view the history of a folder that hasn’t had enough time to accumulate any, you’ll get the following error. A folder needs to be in operation for a minimum of one week.

Conclusion

Windows Home Server is an excellent way to centralize all of your data, and access it from different machines throughout the house or small office. Managing the shared folders on the server will be one of the main administrative functions you’ll need to do. You’ll be able to administer user account access to the folders on the network and over the web. The Folder Duplication feature is a great way to ensure there is redundant backup of your most important files.

This guide should help get you started with using and understanding shared folders on your home server. You might want to also check out our articles on how to manage user accounts in WHS, and how to backup WHS folders to an external drive.

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If you’re looking for a new video player that provides great picture quality and is light on system resources, you might want to take a look at SPlayer. SPlayer is unique in that it utilizes the GPU in your video card and saves your CPU and RAM for other multitasking.

SPlayer

After installation, start up SPlayer (short for Shooter Player) and you’ll be given the opportunity to make it your default player or select manual settings. They offer a portable version as well which is nice if you want to use it on multiple machines.

If you want to try it out and make sure you’re happy with the player first, then pick Manual Settings and then you can choose the types of media files to associate it with.

Select a file to open up and play in SPlayer.

Here we take a look at running a video in SPlayer. Notice the player controls are at the bottom of the video screen.

The playback controls are only displayed when you hover the mouse over the video screen near the bottom.

Right-click on the video screen to access different menus to adjust settings of playback, Audio, access files, and more.

There’s a 10 band equalizer that you can adjust manually or use one of the several presets included.

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There is a cool Transparent Control feature that could actually help you out while you’re watching videos at work. Here is an example of the regular video screen over Firefox.

Now in this shot we’re sliding the Transparent Control slider…

Adjust the brightness and contrast of the video…

Video control features that let you tweak the display to perfection.

If you’re a Keyboard Ninja you’ll love all of the customizable hotkeys available.

SPlayer does subtitles really well too.

You can also play your music files in SPlayer as well, but its main function is being a video player.

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This is a very nice video player that is easy to use and plays most video formats. If you’re looking for a new video player that looks great, has several options, and is light on system resources, you might want to give SPlayer a try.

Download SPlayer including Portable Version

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