Regular readers of The Windows Club, may be familiar with our several Windows freeware releases. The one common thing among them all was that they were all small portable apps which did not require an install. But this one is different! It does a lot, is a 10 MB download, and requires to be installed.

Ladies and Gentleman, we present to you our new release: Ultimate Windows Customizer ! While our Ultimate Windows Tweaker allows you to tweak various settings in Windows 7 and Windows Vista, this freeware will let you easily customize and change your Windows 7 (Windows 8 support to be added later) look – like changing the Start Button, Logon Screen, Thumbnails, Taskbar, Explorer look, Windows Media Player, etc.

Customize Windows 7

There are tons of applications available to customize your Windows installation, but the problem is that most are tweak specific. Hardly any offering multiple customization options. Ultimate Windows Customizer (UWC) is the first integrated freeware that offers you almost everything that can be customized in a Windows installation – well everything that matters, atleast!

Once you have downloaded Ultimate Windows Customizer, unzip the contents, open the folder and click on UWC Setup file to start the installation. The installation is simple and there are no boxes to check/uncheck. It is completely clean, and like all our other Windows freeware  does not include any of the hated toolbars or accompaniments. You can see the UWC Installation Screenshots here.

It is important to note that before running Ultimate Windows Customizer, if you have tweaked your operating system either manually or by using any other software, we recommend that you reverse the changes first. This is due to the fact that upon First Run, UWC will generate backups of the Current Files and Registry Settings, to allow the user to revert back to Default. Due to the wide nature of Customizations, this is the only option to revert back to Default.

Once you are sure about this, create a System Restore Point first. Then you can go ahead and start customizing to your heart’s content!

The customization tweaks in Ultimate Windows Customizer have been classified in to the following sections:

• Explorer
• Context Menus
• Libraries
• Logon Screen
• Start Orb
• Taskbar
• Miscellaneous
• Extra Settings
• Windows Media Player

Each section offers several customization tweaks relating to the function. It is really difficult to list the near-endless options being offered, but you can see all the UWC UI Screen-shots here. This will give you an idea. You can also watch a video on UWC here.

Once you have customized your Windows, you may click on the Close button to exit UWC. You will be asked to log off or restart your computer or Explorer as the case may be.

Click on the appropriate button to allow the action to complete and the effects to take place.

If you face any errors, they will be recorded in the Error Log for easy troubleshooting. You can view the error log by clicking on the View Error Log in the Extras tab.

Ultimate Windows Customizer Features.

1. Lets you customize almost all aspects of Windows including, Start Button, Logon Screen, Windows Explorer, Libraries, Context Menu, Taskbar, Windows Media Player and more
2. Very simple and easy to use. No manual Hacks. No need to manually edit the Windows Registry and Windows System files
3. Tested over and over for compatibility between various customizations.
4. 70+ major features with literally tons of sub-features
5. Built in Update Feature to be easily notified of new updates.
6. Backs up all System Files and Registry Settings that UWC deals with and does not modify these.
7. Error Log for easy display
8. Easy uninstallation via the Control Panel.
9. Creates System Restore Point before any customizations are done.

Ultimate Windows Customizer also includes the following tools which will be of help to you before, during or after the customization process.

1. RegOwnIt: Lets you to take ownership of a Windows Registry key
2. Replace It : Lets you replace system files easily
3. Restart Explorer
4. Screenshot Tool
5. System File Checker
6. System Restore Creator

UWC will automatically check for updates and download then automatically. But you can also Check For updates from the Settings & Extras tab.

If you use the Update Feature from the application itself. The new file will be download and automatically extracted to your desktop. Just open the folder and run UWC Setup.exe.

Ultimate Windows Customizer System Requirements.

• Runs on Windows 7, 32-bit and 64-bit. Support for Windows 8 and more customization options will be included in the next update.
• Minimum Space Required for UWC is 28MB. This is due to the nature of the customizations and for backup purposes.

Download File

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Copyright confusion

Outdated font

A site that works

Can you relate to these situations? Please share your funny stories and comments below…

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This has to rank as one of the biggest stressors out there.  You go to your site and it is not there!  You get one of many messages.  You panic.  You wait on hold for the hosting company ’s tech support to answer.  You message your tech.  You call friends and ask them if they see your site.  Here is what you should do first.  Just go to this site (and be sure to bookmark): DownforEveryoneOrJust Me Now wasn’t that easy?  At least you know if the problem is on your end or global!

One Response to “Help, My Website Is Missing!”

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Google describes the Google Wallet app like this:

“Google Wallet is an Android app that makes your phone your wallet. It stores virtual versions of your existing plastic cards on your phone. Simply tap your phone to pay and redeem offers using near field communication, or NFC.”

Right now, Google Wallet supports two payment methods:

1. Citi MasterCard credit cards
2. Google Pre-Pay cards

Eventually, we believe Google carries enough clout that they will be able to do deals with all major credit and debit cards to bring them on to the service. If you sign up for a Google Pre-Pay card, they give you $10 for free to start.

At launch, Google Wallet will be compatible with Nexus S 4G by Google, available on Sprint and will only be available in the USA. Check for local stores that accept Google Wallet here.

How does it work?

Is it secure?

From Google’s site …

Google Wallet requires you to set up a Google Wallet PIN that must be entered before making a purchase. This PIN prevents unauthorized access and payments via Google Wallet. Android phones also feature a separate lock screen.

Google Wallet and MasterCard PayPass™ provide many layers of security. Google Wallet stores your encrypted payment card credentials on a computer chip on your phone called the Secure Element. Think of the Secure Element as a separate computer, capable of running programs and storing data. The Secure Element is separate from your Android phone’s memory. The chip is designed to only allow trusted programs on the Secure Element itself to access the payment credentials stored therein. The secure encryption technology of MasterCard PayPass protects your payment card credentials as they are transferred from the phone to the contactless reader.

Essentially Google is saying you have to enter a pin to pay and that the card details are stored on a physically separate chip on the phone. This means Google Wallet is basically as secure as your physical pin-protected credit/debit card. There will obviously be a great deal of effort by hackers to figure out how to abuse this system.

Square Card Reader

Square is now processing over $3,000,000 per day with their free credit card reader – a pocket-sized credit card reader that plugs into your phone’s audio jack.

On the back of this success, they’ve launched a virtual wallet app for Android and iOS called the Square Card Case.

How does it work?

Instead of using NFC like Google Wallet, it uses the idea of a ‘Tab’. Here’s how it works, using buying a coffee as an example:

1. Walk into a coffee shop that accepts payments with the Square reader (they’ll probably be using an iPad with the Square reader)
2. Open the Card Case app and click ‘Use tab’. This connects you to the store’s Square app and creates an ‘account’with the store
3. Order a coffee
4. Ask to pay with your Square Card Case tab
5. They see your name in the Tab list, so they select it
6. You grab your coffee and go
7. The money is taken from your account (which is connected to your credit/debit card).

This video shows a working example.

Is it secure?

It’s hard to tell as Square isn’t revealing anything about how the technology works.

Where can you use it?

Card Case currently works in stores in SF Bay Area, New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC and St. Louis.

Our verdict

We’re clearly early days in the cashless society. However, Google and Square have begun the process and we believe it will catch on and eventually evolve the way humans pay for items.

The primary hurdles are security and user adoption. Square’s Card Case is a little confusing and the Google Wallet requires you to have an Android device with NFC.

What do you think? Will we always use credit/debit cards and cash, or is this the beginning of a new age?

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Privacy

Before you share your document, please make sure that it’s not private. If it is, you’ll be the only one who can see it. If your document is private, click the link shown below to change its settings and make it public.

Spreadsheets

To add a spreadsheet from Google Docs, open it and click on the share button at the top right corner of your screen. Click on the “Publish as a web page” link.

Click on the “Start publishing” button:

From the second dropdown menu select the “HTML to embed in a page” option:

The last step is to copy/paste the iframe code into a Post, Page or Text Widget in your WordPress.com blog.

Forms

To share a form click on “More Actions” and select “Embed”:

Copy/paste the iframe code into your blog:

Presentations

To share a presentation set the privacy settings then click “Share”:

Click on “Publish document”:

And then copy/paste the iframe code into your blog:

Google Docs Documents

To share a document, click “Share” then select “Publish to the Web…”:

Click on “Start publishing”:

And then copy/paste the iframe code into your blog:

External Documents – .doc, .docx

1. To embed a document without converting it to the Google Docs format, use Upload > Files, and then uncheck the checkbox for file converting:

2. Go to the files list, select your file and click on the Share link:

3. Make the file public for everyone

4. Reload the page

5. Copy the iframe code into your blog:

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“Idea is simple! Surprise + smile = be surprised smiling with a new Moscow Style!”

How about that for a jingle?

Quoted from the New brand of Moscow! Facebook page.

“How to make Moscow one of the most attractive cities in the world for business or a living? How to attract into the capital of Russia the most talented people? How to change the perception of compatriots and foreigners in Moscow?

“Our answer is — a large-scale project “Moscow — for you!”. The project has already begun creating a new brand of Moscow — with new content and identity. The program of preserving historic and cultural heritage in Moscow has already been started, as well as a new modern space for human living and developing.

“And what about common words? WOW Moscow! Moscow should become again a city with a comfortable living, where you can relax, work and smile wondering new discoveries.”

As well as all the surprise and wonderment, you can also enjoy the traffic.

I rarely use emoticons. When I do, it’s because I don’t want my poor attempts at sarcasm to be taken the wrong way. A swoosh for a smile? That could be okay. Emoticons? Not for me.

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If this looks like theory, don’t be fooled. It’s really entirely practical: if we consciously refer to principles like these as we go about our work as info-nerds of various kinds, we’ll have an easier time making good, useful content—and explaining our priorities when we’re called to do so.

Good content is appropriate

Publish content that is right for the user and for the business

There’s really only one central principle of good content: it should be appropriate for your business, for your users, and for its context. Appropriate in its method of delivery, in its style and structure, and above all in its substance. Content strategy is the practice of determining what each of those things means for your project—and how to get there from where you are now.

Right for the user (and context)

Let us meditate for a moment on James Bond. Clever and tough as he is, he’d be mincemeat a hundred times over if not for the hyper-competent support team that stands behind him. When he needs to chase a villain, the team summons an Aston Martin DB5. When he’s poisoned by a beautiful woman with dubious connections, the team offers the antidote in a spring-loaded, space-age infusion device. When he emerges from a swamp overrun with trained alligators, it offers a shower, a shave, and a perfectly tailored suit. It does not talk down to him or waste his time. It anticipates his needs, but does not offer him everything he might ever need, all the time.

Content is appropriate for users when it helps them accomplish their goals.

Content is perfectly appropriate for users when it makes them feel like geniuses on critically important missions, offering them precisely what they need, exactly when they need it, and in just the right form. All of this requires that you get pretty deeply into your users’ heads, if not their tailoring specifications.

Part of this mind-reading act involves context, which encompasses quite a lot more than just access methods, or even a fine-grained understanding of user goals. Content strategist Daniel Eizans has suggested that a meaningful analysis of a user’s context requires not only an understanding of user goals, but also of their behaviors: What are they doing? How are they feeling? What are they capable of?

Fig. 1. The user’s context includes actions, constraints, emotions, cognitive conditions, and more. And that in turn affects the ways in which the user interacts with content. (“Personal-Behavioral Context: The New User Persona.” © Daniel Eizans, 2010. Modified from a diagram by Andrew Hinton.)

It’s a sensible notion. When I call the emergency room on a weekend, my context is likely to be quite different than when I call my allergy specialist during business hours. If I look at a subway map at 3:00 a.m., chances are that I need to know which trains are running now, not during rush hour tomorrow. When I look up your company on my phone, I’m more likely to need basic contact info than your annual report from 2006. But assumptions about reader context—however well researched—will never be perfect. Always give readers the option of seeing more information if they wish to do so.

Right for the business

Content is appropriate for your business when it helps you accomplish your business goals in a sustainable way.

Business goals include things like “increase sales,” “improve technical support service,” and “reduce printing costs for educational materials,” and the trick is to accomplish those goals using sustainable processes. Sustainable content is content you can create—and maintain—without going broke, without lowering quality in ways that make the content suck, and without working employees into nervous breakdowns. The need for this kind of sustainability may sound boneheadedly obvious, but it’s very easy to create an ambitious plan for publishing oodles of content without considering the long-term effort required to manage it.

Fundamentally, though, “right for the business” and “right for the user” are the same thing. Without readers, viewers, and listeners, all content is meaningless, and content created without consideration for users’ needs harms publishers because ignored users leave.

This principle boils down to enlightened self interest: that which hurts your users hurts you.

Good content is useful

Define a clear, specific purpose for each piece of content; evaluate content against this purpose

Few people set out to produce content that bores, confuses, and irritates users, yet the web is filled with fluffy, purposeless, and annoying content. This sort of content isn’t neutral, either: it actively wastes time and money and works against user and business goals.

To know whether or not you have the right content for a page (or module or section), you have to know what that content is supposed to accomplish. Greater specificity produces better results. Consider the following possible purposes for a chunk of product-related content:

• “Sell products”—This is so vague as to be meaningless and is likely to produce buzzword-infested fluff.
• “Sell this product”—Selling a product is a process made up of many smaller tasks, like discussing benefits, mapping them to features, demonstrating results and value, and asking people to buy. If your goal is this vague, you have no idea which of these tasks (if any) the content will perform.
• “List and demonstrate the benefits of this product”—This is something a chunk of content can actually do. But if you don’t know who is supposed to benefit from the product, it’s difficult to be specific.
• “Show how this product helps nurse practitioners”—If you can discover what nurse practitioners need, you can create content that serves this purpose. (And if you can’t find out what they need before trying to sell them a product, you have a lot more to worry about than your content.)

Now do the same for every chunk of content in your project, and you’ll have a useful checklist of what you’re really trying to achieve. If that sounds daunting, think how much harder it would be to try to evaluate, create, or revise the content without a purpose in mind.

Good content is user-centered

Adopt the cognitive frameworks of your users

On a web project, user-centered design means that the final product must meet real user needs and fulfill real human desires. In practical terms, it also means that the days of designing a site map to mirror an org chart are over.

In The Psychology of Everyday Things, cognitive scientist Donald Norman wrote about the central importance of understanding the user’s mental model before designing products. In the user-centered design system he advocates, design should “make sure that (1) the user can figure out what to do, and (2) the user can tell what is going on.”

When it comes to content, “user-centered” means that instead of insistently using the client’s internal mental models and vocabulary, content must adopt the cognitive frameworks of the user. That includes everything from your users’ model of the world to the ways in which they use specific terms and phrases. And that part has taken a little longer to sink in.

Allow me to offer a brief illustrative puppet show.

While hanging your collection of framed portraits of teacup poodles, you realize you need a tack hammer. So you pop down to the hardware store and ask the clerk where to find one. “Tools and Construction-Related Accessories,” she says. “Aisle five.”

“Welcome to the Tools and Construction-Related Accessories department, where you will find many tools for construction and construction-adjacent activities. How can we help you?”

“Hi. Where can I find a tack hammer?”

“Did you mean an Upholstery Hammer (Home Use)?”

“…yes?”

“Hammers with heads smaller than three inches are the responsibility of the Tools for Home Use Division at the far end of aisle nine.”

…

“Welcome to The Home Tool Center! We were established by the merger of the Tools for Home Use Division and the Department of Small Sharp Objects. Would you like to schedule a demonstration?”

“I just need an upholstery hammer. For…the home?”

“Do you require Premium Home Use Upholstery Hammer or Standard Deluxe Home Use Upholstery Hammer?”

“Look, there’s a tack hammer right behind your head. That’s all I need.”

“DIRECTORY ACCESS DENIED. Please return to the front of the store and try your search again!”

Publishing content that is self-absorbed in substance or style alienates readers. Most successful organizations have realized this, yet many sites are still built around internal org charts, clogged with mission statements designed for internal use, and beset by jargon and proprietary names for common ideas.

If you’re the only one offering a desirable product or service, you might not see the effects of narcissistic content right away, but someone will eventually come along and eat your lunch by offering the exact same thing in a user-centered way.

Good content is clear

Seek clarity in all things

When we say that something is clear, we mean that it works; it communicates; the light gets through. Good content speaks to people in a language they understand and is organized in ways that make it easy to use.

Content strategists usually rely on others—writers, editors, and multimedia specialists—to produce and revise the content that users read, listen to, and watch. On some large projects, we may never meet most of the people involved in content production. But if we want to help them produce genuinely clear content, we can’t just make a plan, drop it onto the heads of the writers, and flee the building.

Of course, clarity is also a virtue we should attend to in the production of our own work. Goals, meetings, deliverables, processes—all benefit from a love of clarity.

Good content is consistent

Mandate consistency, within reason

For most people, language is our primary interface with each other and with the external world. Consistency of language and presentation acts as a consistent interface, reducing the users’ cognitive load and making it easier for readers to understand what they read. Inconsistency, on the other hand, adds cognitive effort, hinders understanding, and distracts readers.

That’s what our style guides are for. Many of us who came to content strategy from journalistic or editorial fields have a very strong attachment to a particular style—I have a weakness for the Chicago Manual of Style—but skillful practitioners put internal consistency well ahead of personal preferences.

Some kinds of consistency aren’t always uniformly valuable, either: a site that serves doctors, patients, and insurance providers, for example, will probably use three different voice/tone guidelines for the three audiences, and another for content intended to be read by a general audience. That’s healthy, reader-centric consistency. On the other hand, a company that permitted each of its product teams to create widely different kinds of content is probably breaking the principles of consistency for self-serving, rather than reader-serving, reasons.

Good content is concise

Omit needless content

Some organizations love to publish lots of content. Perhaps because they believe that having an org chart, a mission statement, a vision declaration, and a corporate inspirational video on the About Us page will retroactively validate the hours and days of time spent producing that content. Perhaps because they believe Google will only bless their work if they churn out dozens of blog posts per week. In most cases, I think entropy deserves the blame: the web offers the space to publish everything, and it’s much easier to treat it like a hall closet with infinite stuffing-space than to impose constraints.

So what does it matter if we have too much content? For one thing, more content makes everything more difficult to find. For another, spreading finite resources ever more thinly results in a decline in quality. It also often indicates a deeper problem—publishing everything often means “publishing everything we can,” rather than “publishing everything we’ve learned that our users really need.”

There are many ways to discover which content is in fact needless; traffic analysis, user research, and editorial judgment should all play a role. You may also wish to begin with a hit list of common stowaways:

• Mission statements, vision statements, and core values. If the people within your organization are genuinely committed to abstract principles, it will show in what they do. The exception is the small number of organizations for whom the mission is the product, as is the case with many charities. Even then, this kind of content should be supplemented with plentiful evidence of follow-through.
• Press releases. These may work for their very narrow intended audience, but putting them undigested onto a website is a perfect example of the how-we’ve-always-done-it mistake.
• Long, unreadable legal pages. Some legal awkwardness is acceptable, but if you want to demonstrate that you respect your readers, take the extra time to whittle down rambling legalese and replace needless circumlocutions with (attorney-vetted) plain language.
• Endless feature lists. Most are not useful to readers. The few that are can usually be organized into subcategories that aid findability and comprehension.
• Redundant documentation. Are you offering the same audience three different FAQs? Can they be combined or turned into contextual help?
• Audiovisual dust bunnies. Do your videos or animations begin with a long flying-logo intro? Do they ramble on for 30 minutes to communicate ten minutes of important content? Trim, edit, and provide ways of skipping around.

Once you’ve rooted out unnecessary content at the site-planning level, be prepared to ruthlessly eliminate (and teach others to eliminate) needless content at the section, page, and sentence level.

Good content is supported

Publish no content without a support plan

If newspapers are “dead tree media,” information published online is a live green plant. And as we figured out sometime around 10,000 BC, plants are more useful if we tend them and shape their futures to suit our goals. So, too, must content be tended and supported.

Factual content must be updated when new information appears and culled once it’s no longer useful; user-generated content must be nurtured and weeded; time-sensitive content like breaking news or event information must be planted on schedule and cut back once its blooming period ends. Perhaps most importantly, a content plan once begun must be carried through its intended growth cycle if it’s to bear fruit and make all the effort worthwhile.

This is all easy to talk about, but the reason most content is not properly maintained is that most content plans rely on getting the already overworked to produce, revise, and publish content without neglecting other responsibilities. This is not inevitable, but unless content and publishing tasks are recognized as time-consuming and complex and then included in job descriptions, performance reviews, and resource planning, it will continue.

Hoping that a content management system will replace this kind of human care and attention is about as effective as pointing a barn full of unmanned agricultural machinery at a field, going on vacation, and hoping it all works out. Tractors are more efficient than horse-drawn plows, but they still need humans to decide where and when and how to use them.

Of theses and church doors

One of the great images of the history of the Protestant Church is that of a German priest standing in the cold in front of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on All Saints Eve, nailing his manifesto to its wooden doors.

The reality of the publication of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses is messier, and whether the church doors were really involved at all is the subject of academic dispute, but one thing is clear: Luther published his theses to begin an open, public conversation.

Our industry doesn’t lack for manifestos, some of them even explicitly modeled after Luther’s. This article—and the book from which it’s extracted—is not one of the firebrand, nailed-to-the-door attempts at full-scale revolution.

But it is intended to continue conversations we’ve been having for years, and to spark new ones, about the shared principles and assumptions that underlie our work, and the weird and interesting things we can build on top of them.

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