Technology articles (130)
VTX5000: Part 4 - Communications
In part 3 we saw how the VTX5000's 8K ROM is structured and how the BASIC program drives the terminal.
VTX5000: Part 3 - Software ROM
In part 1 we covered the history of Prestel and Prism, and in part 2 we cracked open the VTX5000 to examine the hardware. Now how did they squeeze a viewdata terminal app into 8KB...
VTX5000: Part 2 - Hardware
With the design spec in hand, Prism Microproducts contracted O.E. Ltd - a UK electronics manufacturer - to implement and produce the VTX5000 as a self-contained Prestel terminal that sat beneath the rubber-keyed Speccy and plugged straight into the edge connector at the back meaning no extra hardware and no extra power supply.
VTX5000: Part 1 - Prism, Prestel and Teletext
The Prism VTX5000 for the ZX Spectrum and the first modem I ever owned. With its bright colourful viewdata graphics and decent-download 1200/75 bps speed it ignited my life-long interest in data communications and online communities.
Extracting files from Tatung Einstein disk images
Kevin Edwards got hold of some 3" disks containing source code to various old commercial games and once they were imaged with a high quality process (a Kryoflux) it was time to write some tooling to get the files out of the corresponding DSK file.
A quick primer on floppy disks
I've always been fascinated by floppy disks from the crazy stories of Steve Wozniak designing the Disk II controller using a handful of logic chips and carefully-timed software to the amazing tricks to create - and break - copy protection recently popularised by 4am.
Mac OS System 9 on Windows
I'm often digging into old bitmap font and UX design out of curiosity - and someday hope to revive a lot of these fonts in more modern formats using a pipeline similar to that for ZX Origins so we can get all the usable fonts, screenshots etc. out of them.
Notes from my Spectrum +3 manual
I've recently been working on a full HTML5 conversion of the Sinclair Spectrum +3 manual with full canvas-drawn screenshots and diagrams for smooth scaling/high res displays as well as some close font matching and layout as well as cross-reference links all over the place.
DDR4 memory information in Linux
Guide to reading DDR4 SPD memory information on Linux using the ee1004 driver — the older eeprom driver doesn't work on DDR4's flash-based SPD chips — to inspect timings, manufacturer, and die details.
Revisiting my BBC Micro - display, speech & more
Recent upgrades to my BBC Micro including a Commodore 1942 multi-sync CRT for proper RGB, speech-chip restoration, and other modifications made since the earlier revitalising post.
Monitoring URLs for free with Google Cloud Monitor
As somebody who runs a few sites, I like to keep an eye on them and make sure they’re up and responding correctly.
Notes on Edward Tufte’s Presenting Data and Information
Here are my notes from today’s event by renowned statistician Edward Tufte, author of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information and Envisaging Information, primarily for my own reference but perhaps of interest to others.
Quality of SSL protection for US financial institutions
Troy Hunt put together a list of top Australian banks and their SSL rating using the Qualys SSL Server Test that reveals the somewhat depressing state of SSL security of various banks down-under.
Make Home & End keys behave like Windows on Mac OS X
I’ve been using Mac OS X daily since 2001 when I purchased my Titanium PowerBook. I still can’t get used the Home and End key behaviour.
Revitalizing a BBC Micro
My "Beeb" is in good condition and works well, but the case screws have long since disappeared (a common theme in my collection), and it needed a good clean. These older mechanical keyboards attract dust and dirt...
What to do before your iTunes Match subscription expires
At $25 a year the iTunes Match service can be a little tough to swallow given all it does is synchronize your music across iTunes especially when other file-sharing services are cheaper and more general purpose (OneDrive, Mega, DropBox etc).
Setup an Ubuntu server at Digital Ocean
Virtual machines are called Droplets at Digital Ocean so hit Create then:
A case for my MacBook Pro: Snugg wallet case review
I did it. Earlier this year I caved and purchased a MacBook Pro 15″ Retina after being Mac-less for a few months despite some reservations about the lack of upgrade options.
Windows media keys on a regular keyboard
Many full-size Windows keyboards come with extra buttons some of which are of questionable value but the volume and music controls are useful especially if you’re a programmer that likes to listen to music all day.
Working at Microsoft
What's it like working at Microsoft? Well, like all places there's good and bad and Microsoft is so large no two teams are quite alike...
Acer Aspire S7 review: two months in
Given my new focus on Windows 8 apps and the loss of my MacBook Pro I was in the market for a Windows 8 laptop.
Using your Xbox Kinect as a webcam for Skype on Windows
Thanks should go to ScottOrange on the MSDN forums however it’s along thread that has lots of pieces to pick out and try.
Build a great Windows 8 developer & gaming desktop for $900-$1500
A detailed parts list for a $900–$1500 Windows 8 desktop aimed at developers who also game, with second-choice components for tighter budgets.
My one-year check-in with my Windows Phone 7
It’s been almost a year since I bit the Windows Phone 7 bullet and put my iPhone 3G away. As a long-time Mac fan (our house is nothing but Macs) I wasn’t sure I’d last…
Three weeks with Windows Phone 7: a Mac users perspective
It’s been a few weeks since I took up Microsoft’s employee offer of a free Windows Phone 7 (when you renew a 2 year contract) and combined it with AT&T’s offer of buy-one-get-one-free for my wife.
Six great new features at Xbox.com
It’s been quite a while since xbox.com had a major update and today sees the launch of the new version with a clean new look and a whole host of new features that our teams here at LIVE engagement have been working on.
MacBook Pro 256GB SSD upgrade experience
I wanted an SSD for some time and finally caved in. Armed with credit card, screwdriver and trusty MacBook Pro I fitted a sweet SSD and decided to document the experience.
MacBook Pro two year check-in
It’s been an interesting couple of years with nothing but a maxed-out MacBook Pro 17″ as my only home machine.
Five steps to blog (re)design
For some time I’ve wanted to refresh the design here at damieng.com which evolved out of the Redoable theme with my own tweaks to colors, typography, images and background until it was almost my own.
First impressions of Snow Leopard
I came home from work today to find my family pack upgrade version of Snow Leopard. It’s been a few hours, so here are impressions so far.
Disappointing new MacBook Pros
Like many other MacBook Pro owners I’ve been waiting for the October 14th event with some excitement. The highlights include:
MobileMe up and down at me.com
Me.com was up, briefly, just long enough for me to grab my usual handle and get the confirmation message in fact.
What I would like to see in Snow Leopard
The word is out that Snow Leopard will be about trimming down Leopard, likely Apple’s effort to switch to lower-capacity solid-storage such as found in the MacBook Air and perhaps future iPhones and maybe a tablet.
Apple Store Vancouver opens tomorrow
Apple are opening an Apple Store here in Vancouver, BC tomorrow at 10:00am.
Boot Camp 2.1, VMware Fusion 1.1.2 and MacBook Pro firmware
Apple have released [Boot Camp 2.1](https://www.apple.com/bootcamp) which finally includes official 64-bit support on Vista and support for Windows XP Service Pack 3.
WordPress 2.5 notes from the field
It’s been a few weeks since I upgraded to WordPress 2.5 and while the upgrade went well it hasn’t been all plain sailing.
Four Windows apps for home-sick Mac users
Windows equivalents for four favourite Mac apps — Libra for Delicious Library, E Text Editor for TextMate, Digsby for Adium, and Dash for QuickSilver.
Calendar spam, the next nuisance?
Tomorrow morning at 5am where I can enjoy an advanced fee scam! I’ve had these in email format before but never in my calendar…
Windows 2008 Server on my MacBook Pro
A troublesome disk (a story for another time) has forced me to reinstall my MacBook Pro and review my Windows partition.
Access AIM and ICQ via Google Chat
Google just added support for AIM to Google Chat so you can just enter your login details and chat right away from your Gmail or Google Apps for Domains account as if they were Google Chat users.
Microsoft opens Office binary file format specifications
Microsoft have released the binary file format specifications to their Office suite (the XML ones are already published) under their Open Specification Promise.
What being open means to Apple & Microsoft
An observation on the curious inversion of openness — Apple ships open-source technologies but operates as a closed company, while Microsoft ships closed technologies but communicates openly through blogs, forums, and direct engineer access.
What’s in your laptop bag?
Since my new laptop arrived I’ve been fine tuning my accessories in search of the developer-on-the-move setup. Here is my current contents complete with shameless Amazon Affiliate product links where applicable ;-)
Mac freebies for Christmas
Christmas Mac software roundup including MouseWarp for Spaces, LiteIcon, the Think focus utility, Carbon Copy Cloner, and the full MacHeist bundle of free apps unlocked by completing the alternate-reality game.
One week with a MacBook Pro 17″
It has been one week since I picked up my new MacBook Pro 17″ to replace my aging first-generation 15″ model.
When SQL Server replication eats disk space
Part of my job involves revising our SQL Server architecture. My plan includes the addition of a read-only reporting SQL pair for non-critical inquiries and reports. This allows the heavy and unpredictable load from reporting away from from the primary SQL pair responsible for critical operations (shipping orders).
How dangerous is HTML injection?
A few years ago I believed that HTML and SQL injection vulnerabilities were headed for extinction. Thanks to object-relational mapping tools SQL injection continues to die but HTML and script injection vulnerabilities are as popular as ever.
More free Mac software picks
Six free Mac applications worth adding to your toolbox — Alarm Clock 2, AP Grapher, AppFresh for keeping apps up to date, Cyberduck for FTP, Senuti for recovering tracks off an iPod, and SyncMate for Windows Mobile.
Windows Experience Index on MacBook Pro 2GHz compared
I just got the opportunity to try out the latest version of VMware and thought I’d do a quick Windows Experience Index on Boot Camp, Parallels and VMware to see what the performance is like before my new MacBook Pro 17″ arrives (hopefully on Friday!)
More Silk Icons: Silk Companion #1
FamFamFam produces a great set of 1,000+ free silky-smooth 16×16 pixel icons called Silk Icons. You can never have too much of a good thing.
Show Package Contents in Mac OS X
Bundles are a concept in Mac OS X whereby a specially named folder becomes what appears to casual users to simply be a file that can be copied as usual and often launched by double-clicking on it.
SQL Server replication blocking on cleanup job
For some time my primary workplace has been having a problem with SQL Server replication delaying for several minutes at a time which is surprising given the 12GB of RAM and quad processor hardware behind it.
MacBook Pro 17″ 2.6GHz ordered
Since moving house I have been using my MacBook Pro 15″ 2.0GHz at home, for contracting and even for the odd diagnostics and organization in the office.
Freeing up disk space on Mac OS X
Space was a little tight (5GB) after my upgrade to Leopard and so I went on the hunt to free up space and ended up freeing almost 20GB of my 100GB disk, enough to let me set-up a new 20GB Boot Camp partition that will host Vista and take over from my XP Pro Parallels image with any luck.
Mac OS X Leopard: my story so far
I couldn’t pick up a copy in the USA as the Seattle store was closed for remodeling and when they said October 26th, they meant at 5pm and not 9am, go figure! Luckily, IQ in Guernsey had them in-stock when I arrived back home Saturday.
Apple’s Boot Camp beyond the expiry date
Stories about Apple’s Boot Camp and the looming expiration of the 1.x beta versions to coincide with the release of Mac OS X Leopard and Boot Camp 2.0 are abound.
Silk companion #1 preview (more Silk icons)
The Silk icon pack available from FamFamFam (also known as Mark Jones) is an excellent pack of free 16×16 pixel icons.
Pixelmator for Mac released
One of the things I love about Apple is the way they enhance Mac OS X with great features for other developers to leverage. Built-in spell-checking, incredibly rich edit controls, development environment and the recent Core frameworks are such additions. Core Image allows applications access to real-time hardware-accelerated graphic effects and is used within some of Apple’s own apps for various effects.
In search of the perfect keyboard
I started programming at 12 and have been fortunate to carve out a successful career in something I love to do. People find it strange when I talk with passion about IDEs, fonts, color schemes, mice and keyboards.
iPod refresh and ring-tones
Reaction to Apple's September 2007 iPod refresh — the new nano, classic, and touch — plus criticism of the new pay-twice ringtone scheme and the iPhone price-cut that left early adopters out of pocket.
Dell Inspiron 5000e Unofficial FAQ*
*and other Compal N30 series machines
ARCAM DVD Player Unofficial FAQ*
* Including the DiVA DV88, DV88P, DV88Plus, DV89 and FMJ DV27, DV27Plus, DV27A models
MGT Lifetime/Universal Disc Drive FAQ
FAQ for the Miles Gordon Technology Lifetime and Universal Disc Drives covering documentation, connectors, settings, and how to use these external drives with the BBC Micro, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, IBM PC, MSX, Sinclair QL, and Spectrum +3, Plus D, and Beta 128.
Notes on the move to WordPress
The change to WordPress from Subtext went without major hitch. This was great considering I was tweaking the design and articles right up to going on holiday. I wouldn’t do this in a professional environment but my blog is a sandpit for such dare-devil risk taking.
New iMac available only with glossy display
When I use a computer I want to view my email, pages and work and not watch a light-show of what’s going on behind me. Glossy displays are therefore unappealing and Apple’s latest iMac update has me suitably worried.
Great free system tools for Mac OS X
Roundup of free Mac OS X utilities worth keeping around — Deeper for hidden preferences, AppTrap for clean uninstalls, the 0xED hex editor, TrimTheFat, SafariStand, and The Unarchiver.
Windows Mobile 6 on the HTC TyTN with a Mac
It’s been a while coming but HTC have announced Windows Mobile 6 for the TyTN (Hermes, Dopod 838Pro, iMate JASJAM , SoftBank X01HT).
Importing BlogML into WordPress
I’ve been trying to get my content out of Subtext and into WordPress – a process that shouldn’t be difficult however Subtext only supports the blog-independent BlogML format and while WordPress supports a number of import formats BlogML isn’t one of them. For export WordPress only supports it’s own WordPress WXR format although the BlogML guys have an exporter available.
Hidden menu options on the Mac
Apple tends to hide away unusual functionality in order to keep the user interface easy to use.
More free gems for the Mac
It must be that time again already… here we go!
So you believe Apple is more expensive than Dell…
Apple are often accused of being more expensive and that Dell are much cheaper.
My windows 64-bit experiences
Windows XP 64-bit has been on the market for some time and both Intel and AMD’s current processors are 64-bit. Even cheap office Dell boxes are coming equipped with the 64-bit Core 2 Duo. (This is the x64/x86-64/EM64T/AMD64 architecture which comprises of 64-bit extensions on top of the existing x86 32-bit architecture and not to be confused with Intel’s IA64 Itanium stuff or DEC’s Alpha 64)
Apple’s next enclosure material?
Olivier wonders about Apple’s next enclosure material and that got me pondering. Jobs has already utilized:
Google Apps Premier Edition announced
I’ve been a user of Google Apps for your domain for some time, primarily to let me use the great Gmail interface for my own mail domains (thanks to the domain alias feature they introduced last month).
Book: The Art of the Start
Five-star review of Guy Kawasaki's The Art of the Start, a compact and practical guide to building a product, team, and company from scratch by a former Apple evangelist turned venture capitalist.
True cost of the iPhone
So you like the iPhone and think you’ll buy one?
Apple Macworld misfires
So the Apple TV and iPhone are finally announced and visually impressive with a very refined user interface, but some of the technical specifications aren’t quite there.
Remote denial of present (DoP) attack via Amazon wishlist
I placed eleven items this year into my Amazon wish-list for my family and girlfriend to pick from and all were quickly purchased.
Parallels Desktop 3036 beta build out
Parallels have released a beta build of their excellent virtual machine for the Mac and it’s loaded with cool new features. Once out of beta it will be a free upgrade to existing owners.
Office ribbon: patenting look and feel?
The ribbon is in effect a tabbed tool bar with large context-aware icons that show you more interactively what will happen when you use them and put the various options and selections right in there. It’s a concept I find that works very well, although some reviewers have been less enthusiastic.
LushOS cursors
A free pack of NeXTSTEP-inspired animated Windows mouse pointers designed to stay visible on any background without being distracting.
Heat, fan, power and battery monitoring on the Mac
Roundup of free Mac OS X utilities for monitoring battery health, CPU temperature, and fan speed, including coconutBattery, CoreDuoTemp, smcFanControl, and the iStat nano widget.
Microsoft withdraws Sysinternals source code
Anyone involved in support or development on Windows platforms has almost certainly come across the excellent tools from Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, collectively known as SysInternals (free tools) and Winternals (pay tools).
Vista: no pretty picture for me
Feature-by-feature critique of Windows Vista at launch, arguing that experienced users already have everything Vista offers via free XP add-ons — and that UK pricing is exploitative.
Reinstalling Windows XP on a 750GB monster
My first ever hard-disk was a whopping 2GB when 340MB was considered high-end. £800 meant it was a steal, an end-of-line trade-only offer…
One small step for web standards, one giant download for automatic update
Internet Explorer 7 has just offered to install itself on my machine helpfully already downloaded, all 14.8MB, by Windows Automatic Update.
Icon and task-bar tools for Windows
A few things bug me about the Windows user interface and as I currently have no inclination to head over to Vista I thought it was about time I dug around and found some tools to address the job.
Switching from Boot Camp to Parallels
A few weeks ago I managed to screw up my Windows XP installation on my MacBook using some low-level tools and driver related stuff.
Stupid defaults: Internet Explorer 7
Some people just love shipping applications with the stupidest possible default settings.
Office shortcuts for accented characters on Windows
Many years ago I came across, by accident, a way of entering foreign accented characters into Microsoft Office applications by way of a standard non-accented UK/US keyboard.
Google Reader: contender for the online aggregator throne?
I wrote a while back about how Rojo’s upgrade was a disaster and that it had led me to look for alternatives.
Inside Apple Software Update for Windows
I was wondering whether Apple Software Update might search for and upgrade the various Boot Camp supplied tools and possibly drivers.
Apple’s Showtime and the disappointing iTV
Today’s Apple Showtime event showed some great products, and some disappointing ones.
Supplementing Boot Camp 1.1
Filling in the gaps left by Apple's Boot Camp 1.1 with third-party tools for the MacBook's back-lit keyboard, the missing PrintScreen/ScrollLock/Pause keys, updated ATI Mobility drivers, and HFS+ filesystem access.
The HTC TyTN smartphone reviewed
For some time now I’ve been on the lookout to replace my aging Sony Ericsson P900 with something just as powerful but better equipped. With a keyboard high on my wish-list too the choice kept coming down to Danger’s Sidekick II, the Blackberry or the iMate K-Jam.
MacBook Pro whine fix in 3 hours
It’s been an odd couple of weeks for my MacBook Pro 15″.
Apple releases Boot Camp 1.1
Walkthrough for Apple's Boot Camp 1.1 update, including how to extract the Windows drivers without burning a CD-R and how to manually re-install the Bluetooth driver if it goes missing.
Disappointing Apple WWDC announcements
The Rumor mills were overflowing with ideas of what Apple might show at this year’s WWDC and so I like many other interested parties sat down through the hour long presentation, though via a delayed stream.
Keeping an eye on the MacBook/Pro temperature
As most people know these things run warm but at last two applications are available for getting hold of those elusive CPU temperature figures.
MacBook Pro the ultimate developer machine?
I’ve been using my MacBook Pro now for about a month and think it’s the ultimate developer machine. You really are spoiled for choice and everything you might want is at your fingertips.
Firefox cool extensions: Sync, del.icio.us & microformats
These Firefox extensions just keep getting more innovative and useful. Here’s the latest additions to my ever-growing Firefox arsenal.
Hardware hacking the MacBook movement sensor
Developers keep finding new and unexpected uses for hardware and software, seemingly never more so than on the Mac and OS X.
Apple MacBook released, cheaper than comparable Dell
Apple have released their MacBook to compete on the low-end with similar PC laptops. I thought I’d compare it to a very similar Dell offering by using the Apple and Dell web sites…
Dell get pushy with insurance/extended warranties
We’ve all experienced the pushy salesman trying to get us to buy insurance/extended warranties when buying goods in stores but now it seems Dell are taking this to the extreme.
Mac software picks: Parallels, Gmail+Growl, Uno & TheftSensor
Another round-up of the best Mac OS X software I can find.
From Blogger to SubText: Export psuedo BlogML from Blogger
Getting my blog out of Blogger.com and into Subtext was not as easy as I’d hoped…
Apple introduces 17″ MacBook Pro
Apple have announced the 17″ MacBook Pro at their US Store that should be shipping within the next 7-10 days (early May).
Great Windows, Firefox and Web finds
Getting a new machine often spurs me to go out and find some new tools and utilities. Here’s some recent finds:
What are the unknown devices in XP on the MacBook Pro?
Identifies the unlabelled USB and ACPI devices left in Device Manager after the original Boot Camp install — Apple Remote, iSight, the TPM, hardware monitoring, and the keyboard backlight.
Fixing MacBook Pro keyboard annoyances under Windows
Workarounds for the MacBook Pro's UK keyboard layout under Boot Camp, including custom keymap downloads to fix the misplaced backslash and how to restore the Fn key with Input Remapper.
MacBook Pro round-up
Just a few quickies regarding my favorite laptop…
Life with Windows & Boot Camp on the MacBook Pro…
Hands-on report running Windows XP on a MacBook Pro via the original Boot Camp release, covering performance benchmarks, hardware quirks, keyboard annoyances, and the painfully short battery life.
Apple’s Boot Camp and my new MacBook Pro
Apple announced their Boot Camp technology, basically a set of drivers for Windows XP, a wizard to help resize your existing disk partition and the necessary magic to load XP from the EFI BIOS.
Gloomy long-term future for Apple?
Steve Jobs’ vision and leadership has turned Apple around from a great-promise but minimal market share in the computer business into a media and fashion darling envied by the likes of Sony, Dell and Microsoft.
Mac Mini Intel isn’t my digital life
This week Apple unveiled their new Mac Mini powered by the Intel Core Duo processor and using Intel’s core graphics, effectively giving it a significant boost while still retaining the attractive £400 price point.
Google nuggets
As a frequent user of many of Google’s various services I continually find myself finding new tips and tricks for getting the most out of them. Here are a few to share;
Why I haven’t yet ordered a MacBook Pro
My aging Dell 8100 is struggling with the recent demands of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 mostly due to the fact it only supports 512MB RAM. Paging is bad enough on a desktop but on a laptop with slower drives and battery drain…
What next for Mac OS X?
Well obviously the hot item for the next major release of Mac OS X will be Intel compatibility but I’m hoping they’ll get a chance to squeeze some new features in too. Here what I’d like to see next:
Apple announcements and a little fumbling
Reaction to Apple's October 2005 announcements — the fifth-gen iPod with video, the universal dock and remote, FrontRow on the new iMac, and iTunes 6 — arguing the video iPod doesn't deliver what the PSP already does for less.
Dell 2405FPW monitor review
Having now spent the best part of a month beneath the shadow of Dell’s 24″ wide-screen LCD behemoth, the 2405FPW, I thought a mini-review might be in order.
iTunes 5, iPod Nano & audio-book pricing
Apple hosted a media event yesterday, here’s my usual opinionated commentary.
More iPod fillers and Mac apps
Quick picks of free Mac applications and audio-book resources, including Podiobooks, the Fluid screen saver, CoverFlow album browser, and USB Overdrive for extra-button mice.
Google tracking outbound links from searches
I’ve never realized but Google use your browser in such a way it tells them which link you followed out from the search results. Searching for “damieng” for example will show my home page as the first result. The browser window will show https://damieng.com but click on it with JavaScript enabled and instead you’ll go somewhere like;
Hardware upgrades - part 2
Okay, so the memory was sorted which left me with two things I wanted doing. The parts this time were from UK supplier Overclock, not to be confused with Overclockers from the previous posting. Both suppliers delivered very quickly and automatically took off the VAT for me, one of the perks of living in Guernsey but one that is all to often eroded by inflated shipping costs, neither of which these two suppliers can be accused of :)
Hardware upgrades - part 1
I recently performed a few upgrades to keep my PC up-to-speed and thought I’d share a few tips.
Firefox for power users, part 2
Here are a few more useful bits and pieces to improve you browsing experience if you’re a Firefox user.
Firefox for power users
If you’ve been using Firefox for a while you might like to look at some of these tips and tricks to get more from your web browser. If you’re not using Firefox to find out what all the hoopla is about.
Phishing with IDNs
Currently “hot news” is the fact that Firefox, Mozilla and Safari browsers have been demonstrated as susceptible to a new form of phishing attack.
The future of Mac Mini
I’m sure you’ve read all about Apple's latest Mac Mini, a stripped-down machine for those wanting to try Mac OS X (according to Steve Jobs in his recent keynote). It also appears to be a good way to get mum-and-dad off your back with it’s practically non-existent rate of viruses and spyware. It even makes a reasonable server being that it comes with Apache, a firewall and can share your Internet connection, even wirelessly.
Visual Styles and themes in Windows XP
One of the less-touted features of Windows XP is it’s ability to theme the user interface. Not to be confused with Windows 98 Plus pack’s themes, this support includes ‘Visual Styles’ which allows the actual appearance of the windows, buttons and various controls to take on a whole new look providing the application has been marked as being compatible with themes using a manifest.