Issue Seven - Conversations on Technology, Business and Society

LEARN
HOW TO...
58
Apps4Africa
contest for East
African developers
has been in the
news lately.
Albert Mucunguzi
(AM) interviewed
one of the
organisers, Josh
Goldstein.
Customise your Windows 7 Logon Screen
You can change the logon screen to anything you want
Did you know you can customize your logon
screen? Windows 7 has the ability to change the
logon screen built into it to make it easy for Original
Equipment Manufacturers to brand the machines as
they ship them but you can also use it.
Lets show you how to get rid of that background
image and replace it with one of your photos.
First we shall look at how to do it manually then I
will point you towards a tool that can help you do it
faster. The first part is for people who like to know what
happens behind the scenes in a computer.
Manually
To change the logon screen manually follow these
steps:
1. Fire up registry editor (Win Key + R and then
type regedit, hit enter)
2. Browse to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\
LogonUI\Background , double click on key named
OEMBackground and change its value to 1 (If you
cannot find the path or the key go ahead and create it,
remember OEMBackground is a Dword)
3. • You just enabled the OEM Background
functionality. Now browse to the folder %windir%\
system32\oobe\info\backgrounds within Windows
explorer. %windir% refers to your Windows install
directory C:\Windows in most systems. Again the
folder path may not exist already, so you can go ahead
Tips for cut down printing costs
Here’s a quick trick to cut down on printer
consumables: downsize your output so that two pages
fit on single sheet of paper. It’s easy to do, and it can
save you up to 50 percent on your printing costs.
The “2-on-1” approach works like this: Each page
gets reduced in size and rotated 90 degrees, so that
two pages can fit side-by-side on one sheet (think:
booklet). Programs like Word and Adobe Reader give
you this option right in the Print menu. In programs
that don’t (like Firefox), you can venture into the
Properties menu for the selected printer and look for a
“page layout” or “page scaling” option.
and create required folders (info and backgrounds are
generally not present)
4. Now put in any JPG file with size
less than 256 kb in this folder and rename it to
backgroundDefault.jpg. This file will be stretched
to fit the screen, so you would want it to match the
resolution of your screen so that image doesn’t look
bad. Adobe Photoshop, or even Microsoft Photo Editor
can help you crop and resize an image to fit your
screen size.
5. Now check whether it has worked by
pressing Win key + L. If you have followed the
instructions you should now see your photo as the
background on the logon screen. If you cant see your
photo check to make sure it is in the right directory
and is not bigger than 256kb. If it is bigger Windows
will use the Windows 7 default image.
Tweak tool
For those of you who do not want to get your hands
dirty, just go to www.pctechmagazine.com/downloads
and download a free Logon changer application that
will help you with the change. This application from
tweaks.com will take care of the resizing, file size and
even has an option to set the background to keep
scrolling through a set of images. It will also help
restore the original settings incase you decide to revert.
Adapted from www.makeuseof.com
Obviously this won’t always be practical; there are
times when you need full-size, full-page prints. But for
situations when you just need to review a document
layout or keep printed materials on hand for reference,
the shrunken pages work just fine.
Also, you can save paper further by printing on
both sides of the paper. The option for printing on
both sides is in the print options dialogue box.
Then the best way to save paper is by not printing
at all unless you must. So before you print ask yourself
a simple question: “Do I really need to print this?”