Configuring the somewhat unpleasant Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse

Apple’s Mighty Mouse is considered by many as the worst Apple product ever made. It has to be said, it is not a great mouse. It feels cheap and plasticy, the mouse buttons take some time to get used to and the default sensitivity is impossible to get used to.

You may have no other choice, therefore you are looking for some tweaks you can carry out to make your experience with the Mighty Mouse just a little more bearable.

This is specifically for those with large resolutions.

Firstly you should download USB Overdrive and install it. The software is free unless you wish to remove the message when your computer boots up.

Once you have installed the software, visit System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse.

Configure your options as seen below

- Tracking fully right

- Scrolling fully left

Open USB Overdrive and configure:

- Speed: 100 dpi

- Acceleration: 20%

After some use you should find this more comfortable.

Remove/disable “For testing purposes only. Build 7000″ watermark and “Send Feedback” link from your Windows 7 beta 1 desktop

So previously we showed how to unlock the superbar, remove the activation countdown and remove the watermark from Windows 7 build 6801.

Since then, Windows 7 Beta 1 (build 7000) has been released into the wild. This time around, removing the watermark (”For testing purposes only. Build 7000″) is proving more tricky than before. We spent a good proportion of the day trying to work out how the winsxs folder is affecting user32.dll.mui. We’ll post a fix within the next few days.

However, the “Send Feedback” link seen on all windows can be removed relatively easily.

Step One - Create the .reg file

- Start Menu -> Accessories -> Notepad

- Copy and paste the italic text below into Notepad.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
“FeedbackToolEnabled”=dword:00000000

- Save the file anywhere, naming it “fbr.reg” (include the quotations when you save it as otherwise it will be saved fbr.reg.txt).

Step Two - Execute the file

- Find your created file and click it. Agree with the messages until it confirms that the value has been entered into the registry.

- Restart your computer.

Remove “For testing purposes only. Build 6801″ watermark from your Windows 7 desktop

Our previous tutorial showed how to unlock protected features such as the superbar, remove the watermark and remove the 30 day trial.

In this tutorial we’ll just be showing how to remove the watermark at the bottom right of the screen on Windows 7 build 6801 desktops in easy steps. The watermark should state “For testing purposes only. Build 6801″ and look a little like the image below.

Once all steps have been completed, the watermark should disappear.

Step One - Switch off Windows UAC (User Account Control)

- Start Menu -> Control Panel -> User Accounts

- Find User Account Control, you’ll then be shown a vertical slider, move the slider to the bottom of the screen.

- Restart your computer.

Step Two - Rename user32.dll.mui

- Start Menu -> Computer -> C Drive -> Windows -> System32 -> en-US

- Your browser should now be at C:\Windows\System32\en-US\.

- Locate user32.dll.mui, right click it.

- Select the ‘Security’ tab, click the ‘Advanced’ button and then visit the ‘Owner’ tab.

- Select the ‘Edit’ button and make yourself the owner of the file.

- Exit that dialog, saving changes and return to the original properties dialog.

- Click the “Edit…” button, select Users and give yourself Full Control by selecting all the checkboxs.

- Exit properties saving changes.

- Rename user32.dll.mui to user32-backup.dll.mui.

Step Three - Finishing up

- Users of regular 32bit systems download x86. Users of 64bit systems download x64. This zip file contains a patched user32.dll.mui file.

- Extract the user32.dll.mui file and place it in the folder en-US (C:\Windows\System32\en-US\).

- Restart your system. Enjoy.

Unlocking special features and taskbar, removing 30 day trial and watermark on Windows 7 (build 6801)

Windows 7 build 6801 was released into the wild shortly after PDC this year. You may have found and installed a copy simply to find the regular (so last summer) Vista taskbar and wondering what all the fuss is about. There have been some tutorials on how to fix these issues, but they are not all that easy to follow. For example, Rafael Rivera posted a great fix, which allows you to unlock the protected/hidden enhanced Windows 7 taskbar. However, the instructions were a little short and required you to use a command line interface, which simply isn’t necessary. The issues that will be solved are:

- Unlocking the protected/hidden Windows 7 features that were shown at PDC but were not made available in the 6801 build to those who aren’t close to the development of Windows 7. This includes the enhanced Windows 7 taskbar.

- At the bottom right hand side of your desktop is stated, “For testing purposes only. Build 6801″, as discussed in a recent article, Windows 7 is finished at anyone point in time, so you may want to use build 6801 as your primary PC until a newer build is released.

- When you installed Windows 7 build 6801 you probably left the serial/activation key blank. This leaves you with only 30 days to tryout Windows 7.

First things first, we’d recommend that you completely disable UAC for the duration of this process and then you can choose to switch it back on afterwards. You can do this by visiting Control Panel -> User Accounts -> Turn User Account Control on or off and then move the slider to the lowest point and restart your computer.

So firstly you will want to unlock the hidden Windows features, Rafael Rivera created an executable to help with this, most likely you are on a 32 bit computer, so download x86. If you are using a 64 bit version of Windows 7 then download x64. Download and extract, inside you’ll find ‘unlockProtectedFeatures.exe’, move or copy this file to C:\Windows (My Computer -> C Drive -> Windows). Now restart your computer, just before the Windows loading screen occurs press F8 repeatedly until a text screen displays, navigate to “Safe Mode”. Once you’re in safe mode, hold down the keys Ctrl - Alt - Del on your keyboard, open Task Manager. Choose the tab which states “Processes”, find explorer.exe and Kill task. Navigate to File -> New Task. Browse to C:\Windows. Rename explorer.exe to Explorer.exe and then locate unlockProtectedFeatures.exe, right click this file and Run as administrator. A window should open that allows you to unlock protected features. Once you have completed the form and submitted the new taskbar should dsiplay itself. However it will be hardely noticable in safe mode. Once you have restarted you should now have the new and improved enchanced taskbar.

This fix is one that we worked out all by ourselves (pat on the back). The file in Windows which contains the text that displays at the bottom of Windows 7 build 6801 (shown in the image above) is stored in C:\Windows\System32\en-US\user32.dll.mui. Visit this location, right click the file and select the Security tab, click the “Advanced” button and then visit the owner tab, click the edit button and make yourself the owner of the file. Exit that dialog, saving changes and then click the “Edit…” button, select Users and give yourself Full Control. Exit properties saving changes. Rename user32.dll.mui to user32-backup.dll.mui. We’ve edited the version that was bundled with build 6801 and uploaded it. You can download it here. Once you have unpacked it, place it in the directory C:\Windows\System32\en-US\ and restart your computer.

To activate your copy of Windows and remove the 30 day trial, visit the Start Menu and right click My Computer -> Properties. Scroll to the bottom, you will notice that you have a number of days left to activate your copy. As we officially tested Vista in RC1 stage Microsoft provided us with a serial key a long… long time ago. We simply did a search for RC1 in Outlook and found the key. Typing this key into Windows 7 activation dialog activated our copy. However not everyone tested Windows Vista. We cannot provide you with an activation key, however if you search for “RC1 Vista serial” with the power of Google then you may stumble upon something that may help you.

If you come across any issues or are confused, please leave a comment.

Retro Red Text in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will be creating a 3D styled ‘Retro Red Text’ graphic. This tutorial is aimed at beginners, this tutorial uses basic Photoshop features such as distort, duplicating layers, photoshop effects and blending options.