Hackintosh Virtual Machine ~~~~~

Posted on June 7, 2013 by

I finally got a working Hackintosh vm working on my system, after a few tries and a lot of frustration…

Here is the screenshot:

Hackintosh Virtual Machine on Windows

Hackintosh Virtual Machine on Windows

This was possible mainly because of this post : http://lifehacker.com/5938332/how-to-run-mac-os-x-on-any-windows-pc-using-virtualbox by Whitson Gordon which explains how to install OSX Mountain Lion in Virtual Box. The installation did not go very smoothly but eventually I was able to get it up and running. Now I am setting my sights on creating a ‘real’ hackintosh on real hardware. I will post whatever progress (and problems) that I have with this project in the coming weeks………

Posted in Computer Article, Computer Discussion, Computer Lessons, Computer Skills, Operating Systems, Windows 7, Windows 8 | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Windows 7 Theme by Shane Zentz

Posted on May 13, 2013 by
Photoshop Artwork by Shane Zentz

Photoshop Artwork by Shane Zentz

Hi,

Here is a new Windows 7 Theme created be me, Shane Zentz. It contains 18 photos created by me using photoshop. (the photos may be a little small 1024 x 768, but I will increase the size of the photos for my next theme.) So here it is, available to download at 4shared.com : http://www.4shared.com/file/F1QGG3tc/Shane-Zentz-Camo.html Go ahead and download it and try it out and feel free to let me know what you think of it.

Here is a preview of some of the included artwork photos by Shane Zentz included

in the theme:

Photoshop Artwork by Shane Zentz

Photoshop Artwork by Shane Zentz

Photoshop Artwork by Shane Zentz

Photoshop Artwork by Shane Zentz

Thanks for reading this post and for reading my blog!

Posted in Computer Article, Computer Discussion, Computer Lessons, Computer Skills, Operating Systems, Uncategorized, Windows 7, Windows 7 Themes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Video Introduction with After Effects

Posted on March 25, 2013 by

So one of the tasks of my job has become video editing. Very simple and basic editing, but still video editing. So lately I have been trying to learn Adobe After Effects (along with other video editing software), so recently I combined Adobe Illistrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe After Effects to create a video introduction. This is something that maybe would be the introduction of a TV show or something like that. It is a very simple video introduction, but was fairly easy to complete (it took about a day from start to finish). In the future I will try to keep improving at after effects and hopefully produce something very polished and professional looking. But for now this is kind of my first project with after effects, so here it is:

Feel free to leave comments and to let me know what you think about it.

Posted in after effects, Computer Article, Computer Discussion, Computer Lessons, Computer Skills, illistrator, Uncategorized, video edit, video editing | Tagged , , , , , | 768 Comments

Easy Way to Create Neon Black Light Effect in Photoshop

Posted on March 14, 2013 by

Easy way to create a neon black light effect in Photoshop

So, Open Photoshop and Let’s Get Started

Pre photoshoped vs image

Before….

Victorias Secret Stock Photo after Photoshop Editing

After Photoshop Editing….

This tutorial will show how to change this photo to that:

OK, first thing to do is to load the photo into photoshop, then hit ctrl+j to create a duplicate layer of the background. On this new layer, use whatever tool you want to make a selection of the girls in the photo, I used the lasso tool, but you could also use the pen tool or even the magic wand. After you have the girls in the image as the active selection, ctrl + click (that is hold ctrl key while left clicking with the mouse) on the little image (next to the little eye icon) with the selection in the layers panel (right side). Then hit ctrl+j again to create a new layer with only the girls selected. It should look something like this:

photoshop with active selection

Photoshop with active selection on new layer

 

You can see that a little clean up will be needed, so use the eraser tool to remove as much of the white outline around the girls as possible. Then, with this layer as the selected layer, go to the top menu and select: filter -> Stylize -> Glowing Edges. The settings for the glowing edges that I used are: Edge Width: 2, Edge Brightness: 11, Smoothness: 4 , but you should also fiddle with the settings until you achieve the effect that you want. When you have the settings that you like, simply place this edited layer on top of the original background layer to see the new photo.
Here is what the edited photo will look like:

Victorias Secret Stock Photo after Photoshop Editing

After Photoshop Editing….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another thing you can do for a slightly different effect, is to remove the blue from the RGB channel, by going to the top menu bar and selecting -> Image -> Adjustments -> Channel Mixer and setting Blue channel to zero (making sure that the layer with only the girls is active). Here is what the result will be:

Edited VS Photo with Blue Channel Removed

Same photo with Blue Channel of RGB Removed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can also try applying other filters to achieve different effects. Here is another filter in photoshop that I used to create a cartoon like effect or a comic book look for this photo:

Cartoon Effect in Photoshop

Cartoon Effect in Photoshop using Filters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Try to experiment with all the available filters in photoshop (and even add other filters) to see what you can do with any image. The only limit will be your own imagination. So have fun and thanks for reading this photoshop tutorial….

Posted in Computer Article, Graphics Tutorials, Photoshop Tutorials, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

How to create an odd moon in Photoshop

Posted on February 21, 2013 by

This is just a short photoshop tutorial on how to create a kind of odd looking moon in photoshop. The main point of this tutorial is some of the things you can do with some of the included filters with photoshop, in this case the ‘plastic’ filter. So to get started, create a new image, 1070X768 and 78 dpi is fine for this. Next create a background layer with white, and add a new layer. On the new layer, create a perfect circle with the elliptical marquee tool(hold down shift while dragging the mouse to get a perfect round circle), and then choose a light gray color from the color menu and use the fill tool to fill the circle with the gray color.
So now you should have something like this:

photoshop-1

A gray circle in photoshop….

Next, on the same layer as the gray circle, use the paint brush along with a slightly darker gray color (than the fill color of the circle) and create several dots/circles of varying size in the circle.
So now it should look like this:

photoshop-4

Gray circle with dots

OK, now we want to ‘plasticize’ this moon type thing. So with the moon layer active, select the filter menu, and then select the artistic menu, and in the artistic menu, select ‘plasticize’. In the menu that pops up, adjust the settings to your liking, but mainly increase the intensity of the lighting which will give the circle more of a moon look.
Here is what you should have now:

photoshop-5

Odd type looking moon

From here you can firstly adjust the opacity to add some transparency for a cooler look. And then add a background or even add more filters to create something even cooler than this….
Here is the final image:

Odd Photoshop Moon

Odd Photoshop Moon

Thanks for reading this tutorial!!!!!!

Posted in Computer Lessons, Computer Skills, Computer Tutorials, Graphics Tutorials, IT Tutorials, Photoshop Tutorials | Tagged , , , , | 59 Comments

Free Text in Photoshop Tutorial

Posted on February 5, 2013 by

Free Photoshop Text Tutorial

Learn some basic text styling in photoshop

Today I will show you how to achieve some really cool text effects in photoshop, and it is very easy and will only take a few clicks of the mouse to make cool text. This is the kind of text that you see in advertisements and newspapers and magazines, so this kind of text is used all the time and is a basic skill in photoshop. I will break this up into a series of tutorials, so this one will just start with the basics of text in photoshop. But this is not a comprehensive tutorial on text in photoshop, so I assume that you already know how to use the basic text tool in photoshop. I will show how to transform basic text into something cooler and better than just plain old text. So let’s get started.

First, open photoshop and start a new document, something around 6″ x 4″ should suffice. If you started a new document with transparency, then create a new layer and add a white background layer, and also create a new layer for the text. Next select the text tool and choose a font and font size from the menu. Almost any font will work, but plain text would be better to start with, avoid the scripts/handwriting styles for now. And make sure that your font size is reasonably large, like a heading font. Type any word you like, maybe just your name. So far you should have something like this:

Free Photoshop Tutorial - Text Effects

Free Photoshop Tutorial – Text Effects

Not very interesting, but it’s a start. Now lets add some effects to this plain text to spice it up. Before adding effects, it is a good idea to ‘rasterize’ the text, so select the layer with text and right click and select ‘rasterize’ to rasterize the type. With that done, double click on the text layer to open up the style options dialog.

Free Photoshop Tutorial - Text Effects

Free Photoshop Tutorial – Text Effects

         By adjusting various effects, you can achieve some surprising and cool effects on your plain text. For this first one, I used the drop shadow with default settings and inner glow also with default settings, then added a 1px black stroke as well as a gradient, and also adding bevel and emboss and also contour (both with anti-aliasing). By fiddling with the settings just a little bit I was able to create these:

Free Photoshop Tutorial - Text Effects

Free Photoshop Tutorial – Text Effects

Free Photoshop Tutorial - Text Effects

Free Photoshop Tutorial – Text Effects

Free Photoshop Tutorial - Text Effects

Free Photoshop Tutorial – Text Effects

There are far more advanced things you can do with text in photoshop, so this is just a start. Look for more text photoshop tutorials to come in the near future…..Thanks for reading this blog!

Posted in Computer Article, Computer Discussion, Computer Lessons, Computer Skills, Computer Tutorials, Graphics Tutorials, Photoshop Tutorials | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1,556 Comments

How to Customize Access Databases – Follow Up

Posted on January 23, 2013 by

How to Customize Your Access Database Applications – Follow Up

In an earlier access tutorial I showed how to create a customized start ‘splash’ screen or pop up window that was set to open when the database application was opened. Now I will give a follow up to that which shows how to further customize your access database application. So, the first thing that you will want to change or customize is the title of the database, which appears in the upper window. By default, Access places simply the file name of the database in the title bar, but you may want something other than that, so here is how to change that. First click on the ‘Home’ tab at the top, and from the home tab, click on the ‘options’ menu on the left hand side of the screen. Now on the options menu that pops up, the first thing to do is to click ‘current database’ to make sure that you are making changes to the current database. Here is what the menu looks like:

Microsoft Access Database Tutorial

Access Options Menu

Here is where you can change the text in the title of your application, simply add your own text. Also you’ll notice that you can also add your own icon for the current database. If you have a 32 x 32 pixel .ico file that you would like to see in the taskbar area when your database application is running, then just click on the box and navigate to it and Access will add it automatically. You also have the option to make this icon the icon for the forms and reports in your database. These two things go a long way in allowing you to customize your access database application.

One more thing you can control from this screen is whether you want the user of your database program to have access to the navigation pane on the left hand side of the database application. This navigation pane is displayed by default and contains menus for tables, forms/reports, and queries. However there are times when you do not want a user of your access database application to have access to these things. The solution is to de-check the ‘display navigation pane’ checkbox as seen here:

Microsoft Access Navigation Pane

Microsoft Access Navigation Pane

This does not block the user completely from, say, opening up a table that you don’t want them to access and altering data, but most users will be unsavy enough to never realize that they can simply open the options menu for the database and check the ‘display navigation pane’ checkbox to have access to the navigation pane. So this will be an easy and effective way to block access to things like tables and forms that you dont want other users figeting around with.

Thanks for reading this post,
Look for more Access Tutorials to come soon……………………………………

Posted in Access Database Tutorials, Computer Discussion, Computer Lessons, Computer Skills, Computer Tutorials, IT Tutorials | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 915 Comments

Submit an Article – How and Why it Improves SEO Activities

Posted on January 17, 2013 by

Why submitting articles to directories helps your SEO efforts

And How to do it!

Submitting articles to directories on the internet is a very good way to quickly build backlinks to your website. This article will discuss some of the benefits as well as describe the process of submitting articles as well as describing some things to look out for and avoid. So the first step would be to write an article. And this article should do a few things, it should be somehow related to your website (or product), it should be at least 500 words (most directories require at least 500 words before publishing your article), and it should be readable and even entertaining or interesting (in other words, not just a bunch of non-sense copied and pasted from who knows where filled with links). Write a 500 Plus word article for a start. The next step is to google for article directories. A good search term on google would be ‘free article submission’ or ‘submit article’, and many variations of these search terms will give good results. You should be able to find a good list with a ton of directories that will publish your article online for free. (In fact I may publish such a list later on). Then, one by one, sign up to as many of these directories as you can. However one thing to watch out for is directories with very low page rank, which are basiaclly link farms. My theory is to never try to get links from anysite with a lower page rank than yours, so be careful if your website has a page rank over 2 or so. After signing up for as many of these directories as you can, start submitting your article. A good idea would be to mix up the wording in your article for each submission (also called ‘spinning’) in an effort to avoid getting ‘punished’ by google or other search engines for having duplicate content. This is the most difficult part of the process, and it will be frustrating and hard, but just remember that it will pay off big dividends in the near future. It is a good idea to keep all your passwords for all of the directories so that you can return to these websites and submit more articles (and get more backlinks). Another time saving tip is to use firefox webbrowser with the autofill settings on, this will make submitting your articles way easier since the browser will fill in a lot of the fields on all of the forms that you will encounter with this, this will save you a ton of time and a ton of typing in the long run. Just remember to submit, submit, submit, and eventually you will start to see these articles coming up on google, and you will get the backlinks. And if you are lucky and your article is interesting, then other websites will pick up and publish the article, thus giving you even more backlinks. So get started today!
Thanks for reading this article and feel free to leave tips and hints on how to do this in the comments section, and add some links to article submission directories that you may know about.

Posted in Computer Article, Computer Discussion, Computer Lessons, Computer Skills, Computer Tutorials, IT Tutorials, webmaster | 495 Comments

Unlock God Mode in Windows 8

Posted on January 4, 2013 by

How to Unlock God Mode in Windows 8

Cool Windows 8 Secrets and Tricks

Hi Everybody,
Last week I posted how to unlock ‘God Mode’ in Windows 7, and after some trial and error I have learned that the process is nearly the same in Windows 8. So just to review, God Mode is basically just a centralized administration center where all controls are displayed in one location. Just like in Windows 7, the process for opening god mode in windows 8 is very easy and straightforward. First just create a folder anywhere, I think that the desktop is the best place, but you can place it anywhere in Windows that you want. Next, just rename the folder (right click and rename) to:
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

And then just like in Windows 7, the icon for the folder will change to a control panel icon. When you open the icon you will get a folder with every administration option available to the user, in other words ‘God Mode’ with complete control, or at least as much control as Windows will allow. So if you like to have one location to control just about anything that Windows 8 will allow you to control, then try to unlock the ‘God Mode’.

Thanks for reading this post!

Posted in Computer Article, Computer Discussion, Computer Lessons, Computer Skills, Computer Tutorials, IT Tutorials, Operating Systems, Uncategorized, Windows 8 | Tagged , , , , , | 693 Comments

How To Access Secret God Mode in Windows 7

Posted on December 27, 2012 by

How to access Secret God Mode in Windows 7

A Cool Trick in Windows 7

I just learned a cool new trick in Windows 7 and thought that I would share it. It is called ‘God Mode’ and I suppose was suppose to be a secret, but the secret somehow leaked out. Basically what this does is creates a secret folder that contains all the controls that can be changed or manipulated by the admin user all combined in one place. I don’t think that this is like the ‘Super User’ in Linux. It’s just that it places all the controls into one folder, which makes it easier to administer Windows 7 from just one link. It is really easy to do, just create a folder somewhere on your harddrive (I chose the desktop), and rename it to:
GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}
and when you do, it’s icon will change from a folder to the ‘God Mode’ icon that you can see in this photo:

windows-7-god-mode-folder

Windows 7 "God Mode" Folder

When you open the ‘God Mode’ folder, this is what you will see:

windows-7-god-mode-folder-2

Windows 7 God Mode Control Panel

From this folder you will have access to Action Center tools which includes things like user account control settings. You will also have access to administrative tools, backup and restore, credential manager, date and time settings, default program settings, device manager, devices and printers, display settings, folder options, fonts, settings for internet explorer, network and sharing center, performance information and tools, program settings, account settings, and much more. So try out God Mode in Windows 7 if you like to have one central location for all of the administration options.

Thanks for reading this post!

Posted in Computer Article, Computer Discussion, Computer Lessons, Computer Skills, Computer Tutorials, IT Tutorials, Operating Systems, Uncategorized, Windows 7 | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 670 Comments