PStart is definitely the most minimalistic option, but it works out well. It’s very light-weight and has ALL its settings and information stored in one single XML file. So the program itself is easily kept (and managed) on the root of your drive.

The first thing you’ll want to do is download PStart. Be sure to get the non U3 edition listed.

After you download it, install it to your thumb drive, which is pretty self-explanatory. After that, open your thumb drive and you’ll see PStart.exe in the root of the drive. I personally renamed PStart.exe just to Menu.exe, but if you do something similar to this, you will also need to rename the XML file it creates (when it runs for the first time) to the same name. Example would be Menu.exe and Menu.xml both need to reside in the same folder. If you have Menu.exe and PStart.xml you’re configuration won’t work. The simpler solution here is just to leave it as PStart.exe unless you’re picky.

After this, you can create an autorun.inf file that will let you launch the menu automatically. Keep in mind that Windows 7 has disabled autorun files from functioning off USB media, so this only works for Windows XP and Windows Vista, but is still handy to have in case you ever plug into an XP/Vista machine.

My autorun.inf file looks like this:

[autorun]

LABEL=Corey DeGrandchamp
ICON=.\CruzerMicro.ico

ACTION=Menu
OPEN=.\PStart.exe

shell\Menu\command=PStart.exe
shell\Lost\command=Lost.exe

This is how it looks when it’s working properly.

The LABEL and ICON attributes will affect how the drive looks in “My Computer” when it’s plugged in. I have a custom icon for my Cruzer Micro that I use, so I have that assigned also.

If you’re wondering what the “Lost.exe” portion of that file is, we will get to that later!

Once you have your autorun configured, and set a custom icon (if you wish), then it’s time to move onto installing apps!

Most apps I have are from the PortableApps suite of applications, and they can be downloaded individually from the AutoIt. We’ll specific component we’ll use is “Aut2Exe”. This will convert our .au3 file into a .exe to be run on any computer running Windows. I ended up using a custom icon for this as well, you can grab my icon below. Just right click and save it.

The Aut2Exe is pretty easy to use, just feed it your .au3 file and the .ico file, and tell it where to make the .exe file. I put mine in the root of my USB drive and tied it into the autorun file above.

Next up on the list, is a simple batch script that checks your USB drive for errors.

@ECHO OFF
CLS
COLOR 0A
ECHO.
ECHO.
ECHO.
TITLE Checking %2 USB drive for errors…
ECHO Checking USB drive for errors…
ECHO.
CHKDSK %1
ECHO.
PAUSE

Just copy/paste the above and save it as check.bat and make a slot in your PStart menu for this as well.

And the last item is a way to eject a USB drive… This one is a bit more complicated… It will prompt you to close all open files and programs, you do NOT have to close the PStart menu before using this, just any open files, such as a portable application or a document from your USB drive. It’s just a friendly reminder, if you don’t close them, the drive will just fail to eject properly. After it prompts you to close the programs, it will wait for any key input to confirm you’ve closed them, then it will instruct the user to wait for the confirmation message that the drive has been ejected before removing the drive. See the screenshots below for more details.

This isn’t a simple copy/paste job for this, so I’ve packaged up everything that I’ve used as a .zip file. Just put it somewhere on your thumb drive and point your PStart menu item to the Eject.bat file.

Here’s the download: USB_Disk_Ejector.zip

That’s about all I have for you for right now. If you have any questions at all leave them in the comments here and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

10. MobileVolumeSound – is a very simple modification to iOS, it simply adds the familiar “bloop” sounds from OS X when you’re turning the volume up or down. Just a nice little addition that gives your jailbroken iDevice a bit of charm. Works out of the box on iOS 4 and iPhone 4!

09. PDF Loading Warner – is a little utility to prevent hijackers from taking control of your device. Comex’s jailbreak used a PDF font exploit to jailbreak your device, but attackers could use that same vunerability to take CONTROL of your device. This is a must install for those “just in case” scenarios. It will simply pop up and ask if you really want to laod a PDF, so no websites can try to load them without you noticing.

08. Winterboard – is clearly one of everybody’s favorites. Seems to work with iOS4 and iPhone 4 without much issue. The old themes based on summerboard aren’t really worth it anymore, especially if you have an iPhone 4, but if you’re graphic savvy you can make some of your own themes. Right now I’m using Winterboard to change #02 in my list (biteSMS) to the standard retina display’s Messages.app icon. Possibilities are really endless though, so keep an eye out for some iPhone 4 based themes!

07. Notifier – is a modification of an old favorite, StatusNotifier. It uses the same technique but actually works on iOS 3.X and 4.X. You may want to install the package called “Status Notifier Fix” instead though, it will include this and the required libraries to run, as well as a Winterboard theme to make the notifier icons used the ones that were originally packaged with StatusNotifier. For those of you unfamiliar with StatusNotifier, it puts icons next to your battery to alert you of new IMs, SMSs, MMSs, emails, missed calls, and voicemails! Please note however, Notifier has not been updated with iPhone 4 graphics, so they’ll look a bit “old school” until there is an update.

06. Installous – is a shady subject for sure… But lets face it, it lets you try out apps before dropping big money into them. Like $30 for the LogMeIn app. Add the repository of http://cydia.hackulo.us/ and install this package. You’ll be quite satisfied. As of right now they’re currently looking for graphic designers to help assist in a redesign and update for iPhone 4 displays as well!

05. LockInfo – is actually a bit pricey for an app, but the things that it does is fairly amazing. It’s not 100% ready for iOS 4 just yet, it works but there’s still some bugs in it. I personally use this to keep myself informed of new emails on my lock screen, the current weather, new notifications, and I keep a an event list of my calendars visible for the next 2 weeks. It really helps me stay organized and helps me stay up to date on work-based tasks also.

04. SBSettings – was something I found it hard to live without when I purchased my iPhone 4, it’s something you take for granted and should be one of the first things you install. Thanks to BigBoss for keeping this updated and ready to go for iOS 4!

03. Cyntact – by saurik, who is the author and maintainer of Cydia. It’s $0.99, but I always recommend this one, as it helps support Cydia’s developer which can’t be a bad thing at all, but also for the simple fact that its an amazing modifaction to iOS which shows your contact pictures next to their names in the contact list, phone list, and even works in third party apps as well. It’s been updated for iOS 4 and the iPhone 4 with support for high resolution pictures as well!

02. biteSMS – is an amazing SMS tool with amazing popup notifications, and SMS management. It has a large number of settings. It’s been updated for iOS 4, with high resolution graphics for the iPhone 4 as well. You really need to check it out to see for yourself!

01. Infinifolders – written by chpwn is $1.99, but its absolutely well worth it. It’s something Apple should have done from that start, it allows you to have more than 12 apps per folder, it allows you to scroll through them vertically. Having one “Games” and one “Utilities” folder really helps clean up your Springboard

One problem I have had for awhile was I couldn’t figure out how to apply a theme to Pidgin using GTK+. I have yet to find a suitable guide for this so I decided to write one.

What you will need:

Step 1: Install Pidgin with GTK+
Step 2: Configure the options and plugins (Optional)
Step 3: Find and download a theme – (Here)
Note: Take note of the theme name, you may know of a different site. If you want, post the link in the comments.
Step 4: Extract the zip file to C:\Program Files\Common Files\GTK\2.0\share\themes\
Step 5: Open the start menu and navigate to All Programs\GTK+\Theme Selector
Step 6: In the new window that opened click the name of the theme you downloaded under the Current User List
Note: You can click the theme name under the Global list as well.
Step 7: Restart or open Pidgin and you should see your new theme.

If you want to customize the theme a bit further you can use a built in plugin to control more aspects of your theme. (Notably Text, Link and different colors across Pidgin)

Step 8: Open the Pidgin Buddy list.
Step 9: At the top menu click Tools\Plugins
Step 10: Scroll down to Pidgin GTK+ Theme Control and check it so it is active.
Step 11: Now with Pidgin GTK+ Theme Control selected click the button Configure Plugin along the bottom of the window.
I’m not going to go in to detail on how to configure the colors

Any feedback you have is 100% encouraged.

The latest release of Pidgin (2.7.0) has a borked installer on Windows, it fails to download the (now required) updated to GTK+, and causes issues making it not launch.

My initial reaction to this was to find the latest version of GTK+ and install it, however the official packages from the GTK website were just .zip files, and extracting them were I felt they would work, yeilded the same results.

There’s a quick fix to this issue though, and it’s to download Pidgin’s offline installer, located:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pidgin/files/Pidgin/2.7.0/pidgin-2.7.0-offline.exe/download

That should fix the issue right away.

Just for reference these are the errors you’d encounter during the online/live installer.

Error Downloading the GTK+ Runtime : http://pidgin.im/win32/download_redir.php?version=2.7.0&gtk_version=2.16.6.0&dl_pkg=gtk

While installing, and then the two following after the install “completes”.

The program can’t start because libatk-1.0-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

and

Error loading pidgin.dll. Error: (126) The specified module could not be found.

This probably means that GTK+ can’t be found.

For reference, this is the error in question (when trying to rename a folder).

And here are some hotfix registry patches to apply to fix the issue. I’m sure Microsoft will get enough complaints about this to fix the issue, but in the meantime this should do the trick. As always, use this at your own risk, and don’t touch it if you’re unaware of what the registry is.

FolderFix – Includes both x64 and x86 versions, and should work on Windows 7 and Windows Vista.

The real downfall here, is that Sikuli was seemingly designed from the ground up for OS X 10.5 and 10.6 (Leopard and Snow Leopard). The Windows version works great, however if you install it on a 64-bit version of Windows, it wont even run, you get nothing. To fix this we need to go to the batch file which runs Sikuli, usually located in

C:\Program Files\Sikuli\Sikuli-IDE.bat

You will need to change it to look like this.

@echo off
PATH=%PATH%;%~d0%~p0\tmplib
“C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe” -Dpython.path=”%~d0%~p0\sikuli-ide-full.jar\Lib” -cp “%~d0%~p0\sikuli-ide-full.jar” edu.mit.csail.uid.SikuliIDE %*

Save it and now just run that .bat file instead of the .exe, as the .exe file still wont work to launch the Sikuli GUI.

The only real downfall to this method is .skl files wont launch unless you set them to launch with the .bat file you just edited. After you do that, they run just fine (with a java window that pops up and closes when it’s finished the script).

• com.logmein.SetLMIAccount,7
• com.logmein.SetLMIAccount,5

This is a huge issue because you simply cannot install LogMeIn with this issue. There is however a workaround available, which requires installing the .pkg for LogMeIn from the terminal.

To start, open up your Terminal.app and enter the following command.

sudo installer -pkg “~/Downloads/LogMeIn Installer.pkg” -target /

Please note that “~” in a UNIX-like OS means the users home directory. If your installer .pkg is not in your user’s Downloads folder, please change the command as required.

Also note that the above command will ask for your password.

And a final note, you may still get an error similar to the following.

Install Failed
The following install step failed: run preflight script for LogMeIn. Contact the software manufacturer for assistance.

THIS IS OKAY! – As long as you see the LogMeIn logo in your menu bar, then we’re off to a great start. You’ll next need to open that up, by right clicking and choosing “Open LogMeIn” and then you’ll need to just tie it to your LogMeIn account and you should be good to go from there!

This never used to be an issue at all, until shortly after Windows 7 launched, microsoft pushed a botched update to users, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

At some point, trying to get Boxee to connect to a Windows 7 network share promted for a username and password, no problem, right? Wrong, because it never worked, even if you entered your proper credentials in. For the longest time I had thought this was a Boxee issue, but boy was I wrong.

It turns out Microsoft pushed an update to “Windows Live Sign-In Assistant” that just BORKED some sources from connecting w/ the proper credentials. The easiest way around this issue is to just uninstall the “Windows Live Sign-In Assistant” That’s right, it’s that simple, just uninstall, and reboot both your HTPC w/ Boxee, and Windows 7 for good measure (Windows 7 reboot is required after the uninstall).

The next time you launch Boxee, go to the network settings and feed it your proper Samba credentials (Windows 7 box’s username and password that has access to the shared) and go from there, from then on out, it shouldn’t even be prompting you for a pass.

We’ve had TONS of questions, comments, and even complains about our old guide for this, so I’ve decided to write an updated guide on this.

Please Note
I have just followed this guide the day before writing this, it works 100% of the time, as long as you follow the instructions. Please read the entire guide before you start, and leave any questions in the comments below. Please share links to this guide with everybody you know.

This guide will have you connect to the servers run by Tru-WoW.
They are strictly “BlizzLike” which means everything (drop rates, experience) is how it is in retail, everything is the same as retail (with the exception of the few bugs, but the developers are working diligently on them!)

Tru-WoW is still running The Burning Crusade 2.4.3.
This is because of the massive amounts of problems and general “suckage” that the newer expansions would bring, such as scripted events and quests just plain NOT WORKING.

1. First off, you will need to install BOTH the original WoW client, and The Burning Crusade client.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft – The Burning Crusade

2. Once you download the files above, run them both, it will open a Blizzard Downloader (one for each.) It’s going to ask you where you want to save the files to, I just recommend your desktop, so you can find them faster when the time comes. It will take a couple of hours to finish. And generally The Burning Crusade will finish first (it will automatically launch the installer, saying that the original WoW client is required first, close out of it.) This means you have to wait for them BOTH to finish before you can really proceed any further. (Now might be a good time to go do something productive.) Or in the meantime, you could always start downloading the patches in step 5, and create your account in step 6, also try to read through the entire guide to familiarize yourself with the process.

3. After both downloads finish, you will have to open the original WoW folder that the downloader created, usually called “WoW-2.3.0.7561-enUS” and from there run the “Installer.exe” let it run, and finish installing.

4. After the original WoW client installs, it’s time to install The Burning Crusade expansion, so go into the folder named “WoW-BurningCrusade-enUS-Full-Installer” and run the “Installer.exe” from there too, and let it finish installing.

5. Next you’re going to have to patch your client to version 2.4.3, which can be a pain finding the correct patches to apply. I’ve made it easy for you, simply download and install (IN ORDER) the following patches. AFTER YOU APPLY EACH PATCH, THE WOW LAUNCHER WILL SHOW UP, AND TRY TO AUTO-UPDATE TO V.3.0+ – MAKE SURE YOU CANCEL IT, DO NOT LET IT UPDATE TO 3.0!!! – This is incredibly important, if you walk away from your computer for too long during this process you could come back to a 3.0+ game, and have it unplayable until you uninstall and start all the way over.
2.4.0 (923.74 MB)
2.4.1 (04.88 MB)
2.4.2 (15.07 MB)
2.4.3 (27.27 MB)
None of these patches are hosted on this server, they are all provided by FileFront, if for some reason any of the downloads above are not working, please use the list of patch mirrors at WoWWiki. Another quick note, one of these patches is stored in a .rar file, and must be extracted. If you can’t figure that out on your own… well… There’s not much anybody can do to help you

6. Now it’s time to create your account, please click here to create an account, be sure to create your account as an “Expansion” account type (TBC), this is what lets you play The Burning Crusade, instead of just the original WoW game. Please allow up to 10-20 minutes for your account to be physically created on the servers. I also recommend creating an account on the Darkwolf realm, simply because it’s more populated.

7. Download my pre-made realmlist.wtf file (right click it, and “Save Link As…”) and place it in your WoW directory, usually set to

C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft

And choose to OVERWRITE the existing file.
Or if for some reason you are paranoid, and do not want to download my file, feel free to browse to your WoW directory, open up the existing realmlist.wtf file, and change it to ONLY say

set realmlist truwowonline.com

And save it. NOTE: if your on Vista or Windows 7, it is way less stressful to simply download and copy the file I provided above, however to do so, you will have to agree to the User Account Control popup.

8. Run Wow.exe  from the installation directory. Do not run the shortcut on your desktop, because that points to Launcher.exe, which will automatically patch your WoW install to 3.0+ which will make it unplayable on Tru-WoW. Take this time to DELETE the shortcut on your desktop, as it will just cause issues having it there.

9. Select your realm, Darkwolf for PvP, or Frostmane for PvE… At some point in the future they’re supposedly merging and becoming a WotLK server.

10. Create a character, and enter the World of Warcraft, for free! Enjoy!

Will you mess something up? No… probably not, but you can’t come crying to us if you do!

Now, if you’re like me at all, you LOVE Google Calendar, and you use Google Mobile Sync… The sync is great, as it does contacts, gmail, and calendars… However it does not sync over your calendar colors. This is due to two things: There is no place in the Exchange ActiveSync protocol to include colors, and Apple has a terrible bug in their iPhone not allowing any custom/manual colors by default. Even if you use iCal to sync your calendars you’ll have noticed by now that the colors are NOT the same in iCal and on your iPhone.

If you have a lot of calendars, this can become mentally straining trying to memorize two different sets of colors. Not anymore! I’ve figured out how to manually chose those colors on your jailbroken iPhone!

First thing is first, you need to find out what colors you will need. You need RGB vales for this, NOT hexadecimal color codes. I just opened my Google Calendar, took a screenshot, and used a color dropper tool from any random photo manipulation tool to get my RGB values, and I jotted them down on a piece of scrap paper.

At this point you should also make sure SQLite3 is installed on your iPhone, just load up Cydia and search for it, if you’ve got a green check next to it, you’re all set, if not install it, and reboot if required.

Next up you’ll need to SSH into your iPhone. Use your favorite SSH tool to get in, and log in as root. Once you’re in you’ll want to issue these commands.

iPhone:~ root# cd /var/mobile/Library/Calendar/
iPhone:/var/mobile/Library/Calendar root# sqlite3 Calendar.sqlitedb
SQLite version 3.6.12
Enter “.help” for instructions
sqlite> select title,color_r,color_g,color_b from Calendar;
Default|-1|-1|-1
Personal|15|77|140
Work|181|0|13
School|229|98|0
Facebook|103|10|108
Tech Jawa|229|98|0
Tech Jawa Live|181|0|13
Holidays|47|141|0

Once you issue the above commands, you should see your calendar names and their current colors in RGB format. From here we’ll need to update the database to make changes. I made my changes to match my Google Calendar colors exactly, and here’s the commands that I entered, you should do the same, but replace the color values with your own, and obviously replace the titles with the titles of your calendars.

sqlite> update Calendar set color_r=102, color_g=140, color_b=217 where title=’Personal’;
sqlite> update Calendar set color_r=217, color_g=102, color_b=102 where title =’Work’;
sqlite> update Calendar set color_r=101, color_g=173, color_b=137 where title=’School’;
sqlite> update Calendar set color_r=51, color_g=102, color_b=204 where title=’Facebook’;
sqlite> update Calendar set color_r=242, color_g=166, color_b=64 where title=’Tech Jawa’;
sqlite> update Calendar set color_r=140, color_g=102, color_b=217 where title=’Tech Jawa TV’;
sqlite> update Calendar set color_r=221, color_g=85, color_b=17 where title=’Holidays’;
sqlite> select title,color_r,color_g,color_b from Calendar;
Default|-1|-1|-1
Personal|102|140|217
Work|217|102|102
School|101|173|137
Facebook|51|102|204
Tech Jawa|242|166|64
Tech Jawa TV|140|102|217
Holidays|221|85|17

That last command is just to verify your results, and you should be good to go, just open up the Calendar app (or re-open it, if you already had it open) and you should notice your changes. These changes also carry over to calendar based apps from Cydia such as “LockCalendar” and “LockInfo” as well.

Here’s my final results, compare them to the image at the top of the post of my Google Calendar colors.

Just in the case that you screw something up, here’s the original color values if you want them back.

181,0,13 – Red
229,98,0 – Orange
47,141,0 – Green
15,77,140 – Blue
103,10,108 Purple