Using Custom Icon for Your USB Flash Drive

Isn't it great to have your personalized USB Flash Drive Icon ?

First things you need to do is to prepare your own icon. If you still cannot get one, I recommend you to read my post: Create your .ICO Icon File.

Follow the steps below to change your USB Flash Drive icon.

1. Copy your prepared icon to the most outer location of your flash drive. In this post, my icon name is"dora.ico"
   
   
2. You will now have to create "autorun.inf" file at the same location as your icon. I recommend you to download my autorun.inf file from here (Right click on the link and click Save Target As ..) and put it on your flash drive.
   
   
   
3. Change the content of autorun.inf file by double click on it. You will need to change my "dora.ico" to your icon name. Don't forget to save the updated file before closing Notepad.

   [autorun]
   icon=dora.ico

4. Safety remove your flash drive and plug it in again. And your flash drive icon will be changed to the specified icon : )

Creating Your .ICO ICon File

There are times when you need to create your own .ico icon files :) With your own icons, you can do many things to personalize your workspace. For example, Using your icon for a USB Flash Drive's Icon or your icon for your file folder.

Creating an icon file is easy. All you need is a icon editing software. In this post I will show you how to create icon using Sib Icon Editor which can be downloaded and used free of charge. You can find the download link at the end of this page.

To create an icon using Sib Icon Editor, follow the steps below.

1. Start the Sib Icon Editor program.
   
   
2. In most cases, you will want to create icon from photo or prepared image from another image editing program. We will click on "Create a new icon from image file" in this step and choose your image.
   
   
   
3. The image will be imported. You can configure some parameters of the generated icon in this step.
   
   
   
4. You can do some further editing. When you're done, click on the File menu and Save as... to save your icon file.
   
   
   
5. The icon files created from the program will have .ICO as extension.

You can now use the icon created anywhere you want : )

Related Pages:

• Download Sib Icon Editor - http://www.sibcode.com/icon-editor/index.htm

New Microsoft Touchless Demo: Multi-touch without Touch

Well, Microsoft has just release their new Touchless SDK which enables the user to give input using gesture, without touch :) This is possible via the use of color tracking with web camera.

The Touchless SDK is an open source SDK for .NET applications. It enables developers to create multi-touch based applications using a webcam for input. Color based markers defined by the user are tracked and their information is published through events to clients of the SDK. In a nutshell, the Touchless SDK enables touch without touching.

However, I found that running the demo isn't quite straight forward. Here is what you need to do.

1. Set up your web camera by selecting the camera you want to use in "Camera" page.
   
   
2. Set up the markers. You need to use "Markers" which should be objects with bright colors such as tennis ball, a plastic toy. You need to get the web camera to see your marker and click "Add A New Marker" button. The image will be freeze and you need to mark area of your marker by click on the image and drag a circle around your marker. After that, the demo will be able to track your marker like this.
   
   
   
3. Now, enjoy the demo! :)

For those who still cannot run the demo now, you can watch the video of demo program running here.



Related Page:

• Touchless SDK on CodePlex - http://www.codeplex.com/touchless

Control Windows Media Player using Windows Mobile Devices

I once coded a Power Point controller for Windows Mobile. It works great and I wanted to bring similar things to other applications, such as Windows Media Player, too.

However, I found Bluetooth Remote Control for Windows Mobile. And it is actually working for me :) I can now get Windows Media Player to play next song, increase/decrease the volume .. from my bed. Doesn't that sounds cool ? :P

Here are some few things to note:

1. You need a PC and a Windows Mobile Device all with Bluetooth radio. The PC must also runs Microsoft Bluetooth or Widcomm/Broadcomm bluetooth software (technically called a Bluetooth Stack.)
2. Don't forget to check "Allow Bluetooth devices to find this computer" in Bluetooth setting in Control Panel.
   
   
   
   
3. The setup is straight forward. Just install the software on PC with Windows Mobile devices connected.
4. To use the application, run the Bluetooth Remote Control Server on PC and run the Client in your Windows Mobile Device. Select the server from list and you can now enjoy the application :)

Download Bluetooth Remote Control

A New Hope for PSP Emulator on PC

Actarus has just release "Sam", the new PSP Emulator which runs on PC. At the current stage, the emulator can only run some PSPSDK examples and homebrew games developed by the community.

Actarus, the author, also provides source code of this emulator at his page. You can check it out here (Sam)

I wish the emulator will be able to use with commercial games soon :)

Compile Source and Run programs from Notepad++

Notepad++ is, unarguably, one of the most popular text editing tools of the moment! It supports syntax highlighting of all imaginable programming languages. Best of all, it is open-source software which can be used for free :)

Notepad++ itself is intended to be a text editor. However, we can configure it so it can run some external tools such as loading a web browser with the current file, or compile a Java/C++ source files. This can be done with the help of Notepad++'s built-in environment variables.

For example, the typical command for running a Ruby program is

ruby "C:\path\to\my\file\myfile1.rb"

To run this command from Notepad++ and applies path of current file instead of "C:\path\to\my\file\myfile1.rb", you can goto Run menu -> Run ... and type the following command in the only text box in the dialog.

ruby "$(FULL_CURRENT_PATH)"

Now you can try to run this by click on the "Run!" button of the dialog. The $(FULL_CURRENT_PATH) is one of the environment variables available. The others are

The 5 environment variables contain:

FULL_CURRENT_PATH	: E:\my Web\main\welcome.html
CURRENT_DIRECTORY	: E:\my Web\main\
FILE_NAME	: welcome.html
NAME_PART	: welcome
EXT_PART	: html

However, there is a problem left. After you click the "Run!" button, a black command-line window appeared and disappeared immediately so you can't see the result.

You can prevent the command-line window from automatically closing by using this command.

cmd /K ruby "$(FULL_CURRENT_PATH)"

Hope this helps :)

Related pages:

• Run external tools - http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/run-HOWTO.php
• Stop command-line from closing - http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/21655-45-stop-command-line-window-closing

Internal Error 2739 while installing Adobe CS3 on Vista

If the setup program prompts you with "Internal Error 2739" then, you might want to consider this solution.

1. Click on the Start button. Go to Accessories. Right click on the "Command Prompt" and choose "Run as Administrator" from the context menu.
2. Type regsvr32 jscript.dll in the black window and press enter
3. Try to run setup again. It should proceed smoothly now :)