Bing Turns Europe Aerial Photos into an RSS Windows 7 Theme
Last Updated on Sunday, 29 January 2012 07:45 Written by Alan Sunday, 29 January 2012 06:00
Not long ago Microsoft released RSS-driven Windows 7 Themes and now they are beginning to build up a library of them. An RSS theme brings a whole new dimension to the Windows 7 theme concept, with pictures constantly being added via RSS, which is a syndication feed normally associated with media files like podcasts. This allows new pictures to be added dynamically to a theme.
Microsoft have been continuously adding new themes to their Windows 7 library with a constant stream of new, and timely, themes based on current events like recently released movies and games, as well as seasons and holidays. With the addition of RSS the themes from Bing can now instantly update newly added pictures that will show up on your desktop. In this case, the new RSS theme is aerial photos of Europe. Microsoft describes the new theme like this:
“Enjoy a fresh perspective with these breathtaking aerial images of the landscapes of Europe, including Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the UK, and more. This free Windows 7 desktop theme exhibits the very best of Bing Maps aerial photography.”
The new theme will contain an ever grown number of pictures, all of which are aerial shots of locations in Europe. All Windows 7 themes are free to download and use. They are compatible with Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate editions.
Bing Autralia Releases New Windows 7 Wildlife Screensaver
Last Updated on Saturday, 28 January 2012 05:27 Written by Alan Saturday, 28 January 2012 08:00
The Bing Australia team have announced a new Windows 7 screensaver based on some animal pictures they have used as their background images in the past. This isn’t the first Windows 7 offering released by the Bing team in Australia, as they came out with the Best of Bing Australia theme a while back as well. The new screensaver doesn’t just contain Australian wildlife, but also many other animals from around the world.
To get the new theme you will first have to download and run the installer. Be careful here because it will change your browser homepage and search engine to MSN and Bing by default if you don’t uncheck the boxes. Of course that’s perfectly fine, we just want you to be aware. Once you are past that then the screensaver itself will begin download and it’s only an 8 MB file, so it won’t take long. Unlike a theme, the screensaver won’t activate by default. You will need to visit your Control Panel to take care of this. Simply right-click your desktop, choose “Personalize”, and then click “Screen Saver” at the bottom right to activate the new Bing pack.
While Bing Australia doesn’t get much attention they have done a lot for Microsoft, Windows 7, and the web in their brief time. This latest offering, which is called “Cute and Charming”, is just one more reason to give them a shout out!
Always Display the Full Context Menu in Windows 7
Last Updated on Wednesday, 25 January 2012 11:54 Written by Alan Friday, 27 January 2012 07:00
The right-click context menu in Windows 7 is handy, but it has obvious limitations. It only displays a handful of the options that are actually available when you right-click an item, leaving out many options that users may actually want. There are solutions that can fix this. For instance you can hold down the Shift key while right-clicking or you can modify the menu displayed, which isn’t particularly complicated, but still a hassle and not something you want to explain to a computer novice.
Now an app for Windows 7 called “Full Context Menu” will enable all of the options in the right-click menu without need to hold down the Shift key or modify Windows 7. Best of all it’s a portable app so you can stick it on a USB drive and take it with you wherever you go. Full Context Menu enables the full context menu in Windows Explorer, and displays the extra items including the explorer window, Downloads, Favorites, Links, My Documents, My Pictures, Desktop and other options.
You can launch the app the from the system tray when your USB drive is plugged in and you can right-click the app to pause it if you have any reason to do so. The first time you launch the app on a new system it will give you the option to always launch it on startup – of course, the drive needs to be plugged in for this to work.
The app has been fully tested to work on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. You can download the app, and the source script if it interests you, from the programmer’s website. It’s a free app, but if you like it you can make a donation.
