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If you got bored with simple design of Google Chrome new tab, there is an easy way to make it more interesting with app called Awesome New Tab Page. With this app you can add much more functionality (or shortcut links to applications) to the new Google browser tab and in this tutorial I will show you how.


With Microsoft’s Metro looks like interface, Awesome new tab Page allows you to customize the new tab and even add widgets. Installation is as simple as adding the app from the Chrome app store. Once done, you will see that, when you click on the new tab option, space appears completely configurable.
To organize things, you need to unlock them by clicking on lock icon located at the left side of your screen. Then you can move, delete or edit anything you like.

To create a new icon, you must click on one of the empty boxes. Then enter the URL you want to target and add 128 x 128 pixels icon to customize the appearance of the link.

If we wish to add more useful features inside new tabs, you can download additional widgets from the Download Widgets section located at the left side of your screen.

The little effort you need to spend in customizing Google Chrome new tab is worth, because you will have a very comprehensive menu from which you can access all content you use frequently on your computer. Please share with us your impressions and opinions about this Google Chrome add-on and tell us what you think.

I’ve written a lot about Windows 8 and some of it’s advanced features, but I haven’t yet gone through a detailed explanation of the new Start Screen in Windows 8. It’s obviously a very different experience than the traditional Start Menu, but I’ve gotten the hang of it now.
In this article, I wanted to go through the Start Screen and show you how it can be customized and rearranged to suit your style. I’ll also explain some of the features of the Start Screen and how to access them in Windows 8.

Customizing Start Screen Background and Color

The first thing you can do is simply change the background and color of the Start Screen. If you open the Charms bar, click on Settings, click on Change PC Settings, then click on Start Screen from the Personalize category, you’ll see about 20 different background options and some color choices.

These are the only options you get as of right now. For whatever reason, you cannot load your own background or choose a color other than the ones shown above. I personally find a lot of the backgrounds to be terrible because of the crazy floral patterns.

Adjust the Size of Tiles

The next thing you can do is adjust the size of the tiles on the Start Screen. You can right-click on a tile and then choose from either Smaller or Larger depending on the current size of the tile.

If you right-click on a tile and it doesn’t have the option for smaller or larger, then that just means the size of that tile cannot be changed. There are only two sizes for the tiles, one that is a square and one that is a rectangle. There is no way to change the tiles to a custom size.

Live Tiles

Live Tiles are a cool unique feature of Windows 8 that will show you real-time updates for an app in the tile on the Start Screen. For example, the finance app automatically updates with the latest Wall Street data and the weather app tile tells you the current weather for your location.

Depending on what app you install, you may not care about the live tile. You can right-click on the tile and choose Turn live tile off. This will replace the live info with just an icon for that app.

Number of Rows

With a small registry hack, you can also adjust the number of rows that show on the Start Screen. By default, Windows 8 will choose the number of rows based on your resolution. However, that may not be what you want. You can check out my previous post on 10 Windows 8 registry hacks where I mention how to adjust this setting.

App Groups on the Start Screen

By default, all apps are put into groups. You can tell which apps are in a group by the amount of spacing between the apps. The groups are spaced much farther apart than the apps inside of a group.

You can drag and drop apps from one group to the other by just clicking on an app, holding your mouse down and dragging it to another group.

As you can see above, the apps in the other group automatically move out of the way to accommodate the new app. If you don’t like the default grouping that you get when you install Windows 8, you can create your own groups. Instead of dragging the app to another group, drag it to the space between the groups or to the far right of all the groups. At this point, you will see a vertical bar appear, which would create a new group when you release the mouse.

Move Groups Around on Start Screen

Once you have created your groups, how do you move the groups around? Well, you first have to zoom out. You can do this in a number of ways. The easiest way is to just click on the dash (-) at the very bottom right of the screen.

You can also press CTRL + - or press CTRL and then scroll the mouse wheel down to zoom out. This will make all of the apps smaller and now you can just drag and drop the groups in any order you want.

Rename Groups

By default, no group will have a name. If you want to give your groups headings, you can go into the zoomed out mode that I just described above and then right-click on the group you want to name.

You’ll see a bar pop up at the bottom of the screen with an option called Name group. Click on that and give your group a name. So it’s easy to create groups for tools, news, websites, or whatever else you like. Hopefully that gives you a good overview of the different ways you can customize the Start Screen and organize apps in Windows 8. If you have any tips of your own, feel free to share them in the comments. Enjoy!

In this tutorial I will show you how to use free Windows app called Balabolka to convert many types of documents: doc, docx, txt, epub, pdf, odt… directly to MP3 audio. This can be quite useful for people who need to read long reports. By converting those reports into MP3 you can then sit back and listen them on your computer, a music player, phone, etc..


Before proceeding to below steps make sure you download Balabolka app for Windows from this link and then install it on your computer.
Step 1: Start Balabolka by double clicking its shortcut on the desktop or start menu.
Step 2: Once program opens click the File menu and then click Open.

Step 3: Select the document you want to covert into .mp3 and click Open button.

Step 4: Text free of images and formatting is imported into the software. Make sure you delete all blank lines, notes and references.

Step 5: If you want to split the document into several audio files, separate each part with a double blank line.

Step 6: Click the File menu and click Save.

Step 7: Click Save to save the document in text format in the same folder as the original document.
Step 8: Click Read aloud or press the F8 key on your keyboard to start playback.

Step 9: You can also adjust diction playing with the sliders Rate, Pitch and Volume.

Step 10: Now when we have adjusted all parameters for our MP3 we can covert text into .mp3. To do that click the File menu and then click Split and Convert to Audio Files…

Step 11: Click the Browse button and select the folder where you want to save .mp3 file.

Step 12: Then select the audio file format, in our case it will be MP3.

Step 13: If you want to you can change the file name.

Step 14: Under Split Mode section make sure that field by two empty lines in succession.

Step 15: Finally, click Split and convert button and the conversion will start.

Now you have your full report in audio file, import in any music player or even in iPod and sit back!

Windows 8’s touch friendly metro interface is a feature that has been heavily criticized for desktop and traditional PC use and applauded for tablet use. Microsoft is of course a tech leader, so could a simple, futuristic OS like Windows 8 help push PC innovation forward? When you create a hybrid, tablet/desktop OS like Windows 8, the answer is yes.

If you’re in the market for a new Windows 8 PC, you are going to have a few more choices than just notebook, desktop or tablet. Because Windows 8 is a desktop + tablet operating system, PC manufacturers and engineers have designed a slew of new Windows 8 ready devices that are certainly driving innovation and reimagining the consumer PC experience.

Windows 8 Desktops/All-in-ones

A standard tower PC and CRT monitor may not provide for the most optimal Windows 8 experience, but the new range of touch and optimized for Windows 8 desktops certainly will. Whether it be an all-in-one or a new kind of desktop all-together, PC manufacturers are pushing the limits early on creating new Windows 8 desktops.

The Acer Desktop, Aspire range reengineered for Windows 8, incorporating minimalistic, all-in-one design, touch screen integration, and redone Windows 8 optimized keyboard and mouse.

Want to switch from desktop mode to a full on touch interface? Move the keyboard and mouse to the side, pivot the Aspire’s “kickstand” base, and you now have a high resolution 23” tablet.

Windows 8 Tablets

Windows 8’s Metro interface is optimized for touch screens as is, so expect a wide variety of different Windows 8 tablets from different PC manufacturers, including Microsoft. With different varieties of Windows 8, including Pro and RT, PC manufacturers have more room to develop tablets using different architecture and components, meaning Windows 8 tablets will range from ultra affordable to high-end.



Microsoft’s Surface Windows 8 device is considered to be a tablet. However, it also has a minimal, detachable keyboard/cover, allowing for faster word processing and typing.

Windows 8 Hybrids

A cross between a traditional notebook PC and a tablet, hybrids aim to offer the best of both worlds, giving consumers a device that they can simply use as a tablet, or snap back into place and have full-on notebook capabilities.

Not to be mistaken for a Windows 8 tablet with keyboard cover like the Microsoft Surface, hybrid Windows 8 devices incorporate full-featured, traditional notebook bases with expandability ports such as USB 3.0, charging ports, card bays and more. Example, HP ENVY x2.

Windows 8 Convertible

With similar functionality to the Windows 8 hybrids listed above, Windows 8 convertibles offer a different way to go from notebook to tablet quickly and effortlessly. Instead of a simple, detachable tablet monitor, convertible Windows 8 devices simply rotate in order to switch to tablet mode.

The Dell XPS 12 features a rotating touch screen that is integrated to the device’s bezel.

The Asus Taichi utilizes a basic folding hinge design, but because it has two screens, you can simply close the lid to use tablet/convertible mode.

Windows 8 Touchscreen Notebook

If you will mostly be using Windows 8 via keyboard and mouse, but would like the ability to occasionally utilize the touch interface, you might go with a essential Windows 8 touchscreen notebook. No screen flipping or detachable tablet, but rather, a traditional notebook PC with a touch screen.

The Aspire s7 by Acer is one of their newest Ultrabooks that has been updated with a touch screen and more optimized trackpad for more effective Windows 8 usage.

Windows 8 Sliders

Unlike hybrids that feature a detachable screen and unlike convertibles that feature a rotating to outer screen, Windows 8 Sliders utilize a sliding mechanism rather then a hinge.

The Satellite U925T by Toshiba features a slider design that rests the screen in an upright position for laptop mode, but also a click and slide feature that slides the screen on top of the keyboard for tablet mode.
Those are just a few of the latest Windows 8 ready devices, and Windows 8 is still not even officially released yet! PC manufacturers and engineers now have a bit of room for innovation, aiming to provide consumers with more options when choosing their next PC, tablet, or hybrid device.
If you’re considering purchasing a new PC and are planning on running Windows 8 as a primary OS, you might want to hold off for a bit, because you now have more options and varieties to pick from than ever. Thank you for stopping by the site for today’s post.

I recently did a clean install of Windows 7 on my PC and downloaded all the drivers from the manufacture’s website and thought everything was good to go. I happened to go into Device Manager and noticed that there was a problem with Base System Device.
Actually, there were several Base System Device driver errors, all with question marks. I was surprised because I thought I had downloaded the important drivers for the system such as the graphics card, touchpad, network adapter etc.

Unfortunately, I didn’t seem to have downloaded all of the drivers. I eventually figured out what the problem was and didn’t get the error in Device Manager anymore. In this article, I’ll show you how to fix the driver issue in Windows.
Even though I installed most drivers, there were a couple that I didn’t install thinking that they were not necessary. The Base System Device is usually related to one of three pieces of hardware: the chipset, bluetooth or the SD card reader.

Go to the manufacturer website and find the drivers for your specific model. Make sure to download the chipset drivers and install the latest version. Also, find the the drivers for bluetooth and SD card reader, if you have those on your system.
Also, you can figure out what driver is needed by finding the hardware IDs for any device that shows up as unknown or with a question mark in Device Manager. To do this, double-click on the Base System Device and choose Details. Then click on Hardware IDs from the drop down.

It should look something like this:

PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_0405&SUBSYS_040515AD&REV_00
PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_0405&SUBSYS_040515AD
PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_0405&CC_030000
PCI\VEN_15AD&DEV_0405&CC_0300

Now you can go to a site like PCIDatabase and type in the vendor ID and device ID. Where are those numbers? The part after VEN_ is the Vendor ID. In the first line above, it’s 15AD. The device ID is the part after DEV_, which is 0405 in the above case.

Now if I type those IDs into the respective Vendor search and Device search boxes on the PCIDatabase website, I’ll get the following results:


As you can see above, it’s a NVIDIA graphics card running under VMware. Since I have installed Windows 7 in a virtual machine, VMware is the the vendor. The device is the graphics card installed on my host PC. Pretty neat huh? The next time you see a big question mark or Unknown Device in Device Manager, you can now figure out exactly what piece of hardware is missing a driver.
Now just go through all the Base System Device listed there and figure out exactly which driver you need to download. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment. Enjoy!

I this tutorial I will show you one really cool trick which you can perform inside Windows. You will learn how to hide a compressed .zip archive inside .gif image without using any third-party apps or changing image appearance. Note that for safety reasons, you can even add a password protected or encrypted .zip archive. By opening the image, it will display normally. However by opening the image with an archive manager such as 7-Zip, you can access the contents and unpack your .zip archive.


If you do not have image in GIF format, I will show you how to use Windows Paint to convert image from .jpg to .gif format.
Step 1: To open Paint click the Start button -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Paint.
Step 2: Click the Paint menu and then click Open.

Step 3: From your hard drive select image which you want to convert from .jpg to .gif and click Open.

Step 4: Again click Paint menu, mouse over Save As and click GIF picture.

Step 5: Click OK and now have a copy of your image in GIF format.
Now you have .gif image, continue following steps below to find out how to hide ZIP archive into your .gif image. Note that for security reasons, your archive can be completely protected by a password. If you prefer, you can even encrypt your sensitive files before putting them in your archive.
Step 1: At the root of your hard drive (C:\User\Account Name\), create a folder, for example techjournal and in that same folder put the ZIP archive and GIF image that you want to merge.

Step 2: Click Start menu, type cmd and press Enter on your keyboard.
Step 3: Now inside Command Prompt window open the folder where the GIF and ZIP archive are located using the command cd \ followed by the name of the folder where your files are located. Confirm with Enter.

Step 4: Then enter the command you can see below, replacing ttj-test.gif with the name of your image, and test.zip by the name of your ZIP file and merge.gif by the name of the final image which is a fusion of image and ZIP archive. Confirm the command with Enter.
copy /B + ttj-test.gif+test.zip merge.gif

Step 5: A new .gif image (merge.gif) is created with integrated ZIP archive. When you look/open at your image nothing suggests that a file is hidden inside.

Step 6: If you or a friend to who you have sent this image want to extract hidden ZIP archive, continue following steps below.
Step 7: Open 7-Zip File Manager app. If you don’t have it installed on your computer you can download it from this link.
Step 8: Browse your hard drive for the GIF file we previously created from Command Prompt and select it.

Step 9: Then click the Extract button.

Step 10: Choose the folder where you want to unpack the archive and click OK.
You can now open the folder used for decompression and your file(s) from ZIP archive which was hidden inside GIF image are available in there!