Create a Shortcut or Hotkey to Turn Off the Monitor...

Have you ever wanted to hit a shortcut key to turn off the monitor? Sure, you can use the Win+L combination to lock the screen, but that leaves your monitor on… and those of us with multiple monitors find it a pain to hunt down the power buttons all the time.

First we’ll show you how to simply power off the monitor, and then how to both lock and power it off.
Create a Shortcut to Turn Off the Monitor
To create this shortcut, we’ll first need to grab a tiny multi-purpose utility called NirCmd from the great folks over at NirSoft. This Swiss-army knife tool can do an amazing array of tasks, including powering off the monitor. All we really need to do is create a shortcut to it.
Right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose New \ Shortcut:

Then you’ll want to browse to the location where you saved the nircmd.exe file, and add the following arguments:

“C:\path\to\nircmd.exe” cmdwait 1000 monitor off

Make sure the path has quotes around it, and then you add the extra arguments, which will wait 1 second before powering off the monitor (otherwise Windows might misinterpret your last keystroke and wake back up).
 
Next you can go into the shortcut properties and assign a shortcut key, and then click Change Icon to pick a better one than the default.

In Vista, at least, there’s a great icon for turning off the monitor… pick the somewhat ugly one from the list below:

And when the icon actually shows up, it’s nice and shiny. Of course you are free to pick your own icon instead.

Lock the Workstation Too
For extra credit, you can create a shortcut that both locks the workstation as well as turns the monitor off. Unfortunately the Nircmd way involves more steps than necessary in Vista (in my testing, at least), so I’ve created a tiny executable called LockAndPowerDown.exe that will do both in one step.

To install it, simply download and extract the executable, and create a shortcut to it just as you did in the step above. To find the same icon, click on Change Icon, and then paste in “C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll” into the browse box.

Temporarily Lock Your PC if Somebody Tries to Guess Your Password......

Have you ever worried that someone could figure out your password by trying different key combinations?  Here’s how you can prevent this by temporarily locking your computer when the password is entered incorrectly a couple of times.
What we’ll do is use Windows security settings to temporarily lock out the account for 30 minutes whenever the wrong password is entered 3 times. This will prevent them from being able to repeatedly guess your password, or at least make it take a lot longer.
Important Note: This setting can also let somebody prank you by incorrectly entering the password 3 times and lock you out for 30 minutes. It would be wise to have another administrator account that can unlock the regular account. Either way, use caution with this setting.

Change Your Local Security Policy

To change your password settings, open the Local Security Policy settings dialog.

Please Note: Local Security Policy is only available on Business, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate versions of Windows 7 and Vista.  If you’re using Starter, Home Basic, or Home Premium, you’ll need to use the Command Prompt method listed below.

To open Local Security Policy, simply enter it in the Start menu search box and select the correct entry.

Now, double-click Account Policies on the left and select Account Lockout Policy.

By default, your account should not automatically lock out when the password is entered incorrectly.  To change this, double-click on the Account lockout threshold entry.

In this dialog, enter the number of times you want to allow before your account will lock out.  We entered 3, so our account will automatically lock out if the password is entered incorrectly 3 times in a row.  Click Ok to save your settings.

Windows will prompt you to set suggested settings for Account lockout duration and the length of time to Reset account lockout counter.  This will choose 30 minutes by default; you can select another time, or go with the defaults by clicking Ok.

You’ll now see your new settings in the Local Security Policy dialog.  With our settings, our account will be locked for 30 minutes if the password is entered incorrectly 3 times in a row.  If you want to change the settings, simply repeat these steps and enter the new settings you want.

Change Password Settings in Command Prompt

If you’re using a home edition of Windows, or prefer working in command prompt, you can change the password lock settings directly from command prompt.  First, open an Administrative command prompt.  To do this, right-click on the Command Prompt link in the Start menu and select Run as Administrator.

Now, in the command prompt, enter the following:

net accounts

This will list your current password policy, which by default should Lockout threshold: Never which means that your account will not lock you out if the password is entered incorrectly.

Let’s change this to automatically lock us out when then password is entered incorrectly.

Please Note: Before you proceed, make sure to complete the full directions, or you could permanently lock your accounts on a  Home Premium computer.

To change the setting and make your login automatically lock you out, enter the following, substituting the number at the end with the number of times you want to allow the password to be entered before the account is locked.  Make sure to set this as 1 or more.

net accounts /lockoutthreshold:3

Here we set the account to lock out after the password is entered incorrectly 3 times.

Now, you need to set how long the account will be locked when the password is entered incorrectly.  Enter the following, again choosing any option over 1.  We set our computer to lock for 30 minutes, but you can choose less or more, depending on your needs.

net accounts /lockoutduration:30

Then enter the following to choose how long to wait before the incorrect login count is reset.  We recommend entering the same number you used for the lockout duration.

net accounts /lockoutwindow:30

Once you’re finished, you can enter net accounts again to review your settings.  They should look something like the settings below, depending on what you chose.

Now you’re all set.  Your account will automatically prevent people from logging in if the password is entered incorrectly too many times.  If you ever want to change or remove the settings, just repeat the steps with the new options you want.
Let’s see how this works in action.

Logging In With The Password Limit

After setting your new password policy, your login experience won’t be much different than before unless you enter your password incorrectly.  The main login screen won’t look any different than before; just select your user account and enter your password as before.

If the password is entered incorrectly, you’ll be prompted that it’s incorrect.  Click Ok, and then go back and enter the password again.

Then, if you enter the password incorrectly more than the number of times you set before, you’ll be prompted that the account is current locked.  You’ll need to wait the length of time you set before you can log in again.  In our test here, we entered the password incorrectly 3 times, and then had to wait 30 minutes before we could try again.

While this may not make your computer fully secure, it does help keep people from casually snooping on your computer while it’s running.  This will make it much harder for someone to guess your password, since they’ll be blocked out after entering it incorrectly several times. 
Don’t forget that you can quickly lock your computer by pressing Win+L on your keyboard, which is a good idea if you want to keep your data safe when you’re away from your desk.  Also, you can set your computer to automatically switch to the login screen when you’re away if you wish.

Stupid Geek Tricks: 6 Ways to Open Windows Task Manager.........

Bringing up Windows Task Manager is not much of a task itself, but when a virus disables Ctrl+Alt+Del and takes it hostage, how else are you going to open task manager? Or maybe you’re just looking for some diversity in your life, so here are 6 different ways to open Windows Task Manager.

1) Ctrl+Alt+Del

Readers will probably be most familiar with the three-finger salute (AKA Ctrl+Alt+Del). Up until Windows Vista was released, pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del brought you directly to Windows Task Manager. Since Windows Vista, Ctrl+Alt+Del now brings you to the Windows Security screen which provides users with five different options including Windows Task Manager.

2) Right-Click Taskbar

Arguably the fastest way to bring up Windows Task Manager is by right-clicking the taskbar and choosing the Start Task Manager option. It’s just two clicks and voilà! You’re staring at Task Manager in no time! Of course, you could always create an AutoHotKey script to bring up Windows Task Manager even faster with a click of a button.

3) Run taskmgr

The Run command is a great tool for accessing shared folders, but you can also use it quickly up programs such as Registry Editor or a Command Prompt. Click the Start button then the All Programs folder. Under the Accessories folder click the Run command. You can also press they Windows Key + R on your keyboard or enable the Run command in your Start Menu. Finally, simply type “taskmgr” and hit Enter.

4) Ctrl+Shift+Esc

Another quick keyboard shortcut to bring up Windows Task Manager is Ctrl+Shift+Esc. Besides bringing up Windows Task Manager while using Remote Desktop, you can also use Ctrl+Shift+Esc to bring up the task manager while working locally.

5) Browse to taskmgr.exe

This is definitely the longest way of opening the task manager, but if it’s your only option then it’s better than nothing at all. Open up Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Windows\System32. The location of taskmgr.exe should be the same in all recent versions of Windows. Scroll down (or search) for taskmgr.exe and double click it.

6) Create taskmgr.exe Shortcut

And last on our list is creating a nice, accessible shortcut to the Task Manager on your desktop. Right-click on your desktop and choose New then click Shortcut. A new window will pop up. Browse to the same path as above, C:\Windows\System32. Scroll down until you see taskmgr.exe, highlight it, and then click OK. Click Next, type a name for your shortcut, and finally click Finish.

That’s the end of our list! Some methods are obviously more efficient than others, but if you’re in a tough situation battling a virus, any method is a good one. 

Map Any Key to Any Key on Windows 7 / XP / Vista.....

If you are tired of the way certain keys on your system work, such as the Caps Lock key, you can re-map them to function as a different key by using a registry hack. But there should be an easier way, right?
This is where SharpKeys comes into the picture: It’s a small utility that will let you easily map one key to another key easily, or even turn the key off, without having to enter the registry at all.
For instance, I used the key mapping to just turn off my Caps Lock key, since I never use it.

You can click the Add button to bring up the Add New Key Mapping dialog, where you can either select the keys to map from the lists, or just click the Type Key button and press the key manually (which I find much more intuitive)

Once you are done, click the Write to Registry button and you’ll be told to log off or reboot for the changes to take effect.


Download SharpKeys from Randyrants

Manage Your Recycle Bin with RecycleBinEx..........

Would you like a simple way to manage your recycle bin from your taskbar or based on the age of deleted items? Then join us as we look at RecycleBinEx.

Using RecycleBinEx
The program is very easy to work with and when started you will be able to view the current contents of the recycle bin as seen here. Notice that each item specifically shows the time that it was deleted.

If you have a lot of items in the recycle bin but are looking for certain files you can use the filter bar to easily locate them.

You can also select recycle bin items based on age using the drop-down menu.

The context menu for RecycleBinEx. You can choose to empty all of the contents or just those that were deleted from your system after a set amount of time (i.e. 15 days).

For our example we chose to completely shut the program down and do a complete removal of all recycle bin contents from the context menu. All items were removed without the program window having to open up.

And checking the recycle bin after opening/starting the program showed a nice empty recycle bin.

For those who prefer to have their desktop icons show this is what the context menu for the recycle bin will look like.

Out of curiosity we found out that you can run and view multiple instances of the program at the same time as seen here.

There are only a total of four options to worry with for the program. The main one for you to focus on is if you would like the program to start with your system each time or not.

Conclusion
RecycleBinEx is a small easy to use program that will make managing your recycle bin a snap.
Links
Download RecycleBinEx

Make Your PC Look Like Windows Phone 7 .....

Windows Phone 7 offers a unique and exciting UI that displays lots of information efficiently on the screen.  And with a simple Rainmeter theme, you can have the same UI and content directly on your Windows 7 desktop.

Turn your Desktop into a Windows Phone 7 lookalike

To give your Windows 7 desktop a Windows Phone 7 makeover, first you need to have the free Rainmeter application installed.  If you do not have it installed, download it from the link below and run the setup.  Accept the license agreement, and install it with the default settings.

By default Rainmeter will automatically run when you start your computer.  If you do not want this, you can uncheck the box during the setup.

Now, download the Omnimo UI theme for Rainmeter (link below).  You will need to unzip the folder first.

This theme uses the Segoe UI and the Segoe UI Light font, so Windows Vista users need to install the segoeuil.ttf font first, and XP users need to install both the segoeui.ttf and the segoeuil.ttf font first.  Copy the appropriate fonts to C:\Windows\Fonts, or in Vista double-click on the font and select Install.

Now, run the Rainmeter theme setup.  Double-click on the Rainstaller.exe in the Omnimo folder.

Click Express install to add the theme and skin to Rainmeter.

Click Finish, and by default Rainmeter will open with your new theme.

When the new theme opens the first time, you will be asked to read the readme, or simply go to the gallery.

When you open the gallery, you can choose from a wide variety of tiles and gadgets to place on your desktop.  You can also choose a different color scheme for your tiles.

Once you’re done, click the X in the top right hand corner to close the Gallery.  Welcome to your Windows Phone 7 desktop!  Many of the gadgets are dynamic, and you can change the settings for most of them.  The only thing missing is the transition animations that Windows Phone 7 shows when you launch an application.

To make it look even more like Windows Phone 7, you can change your background to black.  This makes the desktop theme really dramatic.

And, if you want to add gadgets or change the color scheme, simply click on the + logo on the top.

Windows Phone 7 Desktop Wallpapers
If you’d prefer to simply change your background, My Microsoft Life has several very nice Windows Phone 7 wallpapers available for free.  Click the link below to download these and other Microsoft-centric wallpapers.



If you can’t wait to get the new Windows phone 7, this is a great way to start experiencing the beauty of the phone UI on your desktop.
Links
Download Rainmeter
Download the Omnimo UI Rainmeter theme
Download Windows Phone 7 inspired wallpapers