As I was doing an overview of the TextMate product for my tip yesterday, I noticed TextMate offers a nice collection of user submitted themes. Some of these I really liked (i.e Fake and Plastic Code Wrap) and would love to be able to use them in my text editor of choice, Notepad++. With the help of the “Textmate theme to Notepad++ styler” tool, this is not only possible, it is incredibly easy.

This tool, quite simply, takes in a TextMate style source and outputs a style source for Notepad++. For instructions, take a look at this post which walks you through the entire process.

I haven’t had a chance to get to this yet, but I am going to be giving this a shot as I find black backgrounds much easier on the eyes.

If you really want to dig into Firefox customizations and make some interface changes which may not be available through existing themes or add-ons then utilizing the userChrome.css file is what you need to do. Don’t worry, you don’t have to learn a scripting language (unless you want to of course) as there a numerous customizations available for you already.

This is a good tidbit to know because you can apply small changes without having to go out and find and apply a new theme. For example, you can move the URL location bar under the selected tab (just like how Google Chrome handles it).

If you are curious about other uses, just google userChrome.css and see what is out there.

One thing you probably knew Firefox did, but might have never explored is applying a custom theme/skin. The latest release of the popular browser fully supports this functionality and even offers a theme repository on their own site.

There are tons of themes available and you can probably find one for just about anything you can imagine, so take a look. Vista users (or fans of the Vista Aero look) might want to check out the Aero Silver Fox theme which shares a similar look.

If you run an older computer  there are certain services you can safely disable in Windows XP. This won’t make your computer blazingly faster by any means but it will gain you a "few extra horsepower", so to speak.

To access your running services:

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Double-click the Administrative Tools icon.
3. Double-click the Services icon.

This will bring up a list of all the services in your Windows XP installation.

It should look similar to this:

To disable a service…

Double-click the one you want, click Stop then choose the Startup Type to be Disabled so it will not start again.

Remember: You can re-enable any service by doing the exact reverse.

Error Reporting Service

I have never found a solid reason to keep this service running. Any error report I’ve ever received has not served to assist me whatsoever. So I disable this.

Help and Support

Do you ever use the built-in Windows XP Help and Support section? I don’t.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Remote Assistance will not work if this service is disabled. But if you never use RA you can disable it safely.

Indexing Service

The description of this service is "Indexes contents and properties of files on local and remote computers; provides rapid access to files".

What I’ve found is that this does nothing but slow down XP. If you’ve ever found that your hard drive seems to "think about stuff" for no reason whatsoever even when your computer is doing (seemingly) nothing, this is why.

In a networking environment this would be bad to disable (as it would make access slower). But if you’re just using one computer it’s 100% okay to disable this.

Themes Service

This is the service that gives XP its themed look, called "Luna". If you disable this service your XP will look almost identical to Windows 2000.

Of all the services you can disable, this will speed up Windows XP the most. Without the graphic overhead, screen draws and redraws occur much faster.

Important note: Some applications (albeit few) assume that you have Luna enabled. Without it running these apps may not look correct. But this does not happen often.

In order to make any changes to your Wordpress theme, you’re going to need to understand the basic structure of your theme. In this video, I will show you how your theme is put together and which file goes to what.

Video Length: 10:42

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

Your Wordpress theme is going to be the design of your website. There are LOADS of free and very nice Wordpress themes available for your new blog, but you need to know how to install them to your blog. In this video, I will show you were to find a theme for your site and how to install it to your blog.

Video Length: 10:36

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.

Please Login or Register to read the rest of this article. Gold/Silver Membership required.