HOW TO DISABLE OR REMAP CAPS LOCK (or any other key)

I got to thinking about the caps lock key because of ALL CAPS DAY, and it took me a while to remember the last time I used it. It was last month… oh wait, that was when I pressed it by accident. The month before that I used a few times… no, those were accidental too. 90% of the times my caps lock key is pressed, it’s either unintentional or it’s my cat.
If caps lock were somewhere else on the keyboard it would be alright. But as it is, it’s more useful if it’s turned off. So here’s how to silence the beast that is caps lock. This article is just for Windows, but I’ll write something like this for Linux sometime.

Windows XP revamp, part 2: convenience (a.k.a. UI improvements)

Now you have a nice, easy-on-the-eyes Windows XP desktop. If you don’t, then you either missed the first part of the guide or I just suck at writing guides. So anyways you have a pretty XP setup, but it’s still rather annoying and inconvenient sometimes. Here are some cool programs I found that give Windows XP a little usability boost.

Windows XP revamp, part 1: visuals

Truth be told, I’d love to have Windows 7 once it’s released. It has the nice looks of Vista plus some slick interface improvements. But alas, I’ll only get a new computer next year, so that’ll have to wait. In the meantime I’m making my XP desktop nicer. There are a lot of things in XP that are less than satisfactory, both in looks and in usability. So I’ve improved on some of these, and I now I’ll tell you what I learned.

5 addicting open source games

There are lots of games in the world of open source, which means lots of cheap fun. Well, sort of. Many of these games aren’t complete enough to be playable, others have been abandoned, and some just aren’t very fun. But there are many good open source games, and out of these a few are just amazing. So amazing, in fact, that you just might get addicted.
I’m pretty new to open source games, but here are 5 of those rare, addiction-inducing open source games that I’ve found, in no particular order. All of these games are available for Windows, Linux, and MacOSX. Fun for everyone!

deck out your Windows XP, Linux style

I like Windows XP, mostly because I don’t have money to buy Vista. XP works alright, but after using Linux (Mint and Ubuntu) there are just a few really useful features that I miss. XP also looks pretty bad compared to newer operating systems. So here are some nice improvements I’ve found. These are best for people who use Linux as well as Windows, but most of these are useful even if you don’t use Linux.

foobar2000: a new kind of music player

Well it’s actually been around since 2001 (that’s how old the license is, anyways), but this is the first time I’ve tried foobar2000. I’m in a fresh Windows XP setup until Ubuntu 9.04 comes out. Of course, I can’t go 10 whole days without crankin’ up some tunes, so I downloaded MediaMonkey, my standard music player. After I got error messages upon trying to import my music library, I decided to try something new for a change. I picked foobar2000, since I’d heard about it but never tried it.