These freeware programs are easy for anybody to use, but they still do things that are really impressive. Show off to all of your friends.
If you ever wanted to do something really cool on your computer to show your friends, but didn’t know how or want to spend hundreds of dollars on “professional” software that is probably garbage anyway 
, then this article is for you! All of these programs and tricks are completely free for any amount of time, compatible with Vista, and virus-free.
And remember- I found these programs in a great quest to find the best freeware known to man. If there is something better to use for any of these actions let me know. I know how to use them pretty well, so feel free to ask me questions if you don’t understand them. Even stupid questions, if it means you get the advice you need. Actually, the stupider the better 
Make Your Own Cursor
get RealWorld cursor editor here
Using the program is simple: once you have it open, just paint the grid different colors, like MS Paint on a larger scale and a pattern in the background. At the left is a test area, test the cursor by waving or dragging your mouse over it. When it looks the way you want it to you will also have to pick the hotspot, the part of the cursor that clicks, like the point of the arrow-shaped cursor you probably use now. You do that with the button that looks like a plus with a hole in the middle. Sometimes the pattern of squares shows through your drawing meaning that part of the cursor is transparent, to prevent transparency slide the bottom slider in the color selection area all the way to the right. When you’re done save and go to “cursor” at the top. Then go to “Use Current For…” and click on the one you want to replace. Be sure your friends see that you changed the cursor, and tell them you designed it yourself! To change it back open Control Panel and find the button for “mouse”. Under the “pointers” tab click “Use Default” (On Windows Vista). If you look in the Help menu you can learn how to animate your cursors, although I never got to figuring that out before switching to Linux.
Using Icons
Try saving any image with “.ico” at the end, and it will become a Windows icon. These files are very useful for organizing, and can look very nice too. For best results, make your icons 16, 24, 32, or 48 pixels square, or at least close to the size the folder you’re using it for. If the size isn’t close enough it will turn out black. If you have a program that makes layered images, try making a 48 x 48 layer, then copying it and scaling the copy down to the next size until you have all the sizes and exporting the icon without flattening. Once you have an icon, right click on a folder and go to properties. Under the “Customize” tab click “Change icon…” It will show you a list of built-in icons that you can use. To find one you made click “Browse…” And navigate to where you saved it. Having all your folders look different helps you tell them apart and looks neat.
This will only work on Windows, changing icons on Linux is too difficult to bother with at all. Speaking of which, same with cursors.
Icons can be useful in another way that the original creators never intended. If you want to give a layered image to someone else without flattening it, but they have a different editor than you and you aren’t sure if theirs will support the format yours uses, you can just save your image as an icon and it will still have separate layers, as well as most other data!
Make Your Own Fonts
Despite being a beta, or test, version, The Raster Font Editor seems to be the best out there in terms of usability on Windows (but on Linux you can use FontForge). It just doesn’t have a help section. Inside the font editor window there are four smaller windows. One shows you what the different characters look like, one allows you to choose which character to edit, one allows you to edit things like font name, switch to editing the appearance of the characters when bold, and the like, and the last one is where you actually edit the character’s appearance. If you click the X at the corner of any of these, it will shrink to a bar at the bottom.
To start out, go to the File menu and hit New Font. Then select which character you want to change/create and draw its new appearance in the editing box.
Convert Ant Media File
get Quick Media Converter here
Quickly convert your videos and music between tons of different types, even turn videos into sound, thus removing the visual part (like if you had to record music with a camera or you want to add music from one video to another video). It also has some other functions built in for some reason, It has CamStudio (see below) and it can record video from your web cam if you have one. See the site.
Converting files can help make them smaller if done correctly, so QMC can be useful for people with disk usage problems.
Record Videos From the Screen
CamStudio has a clear purpose: it records what’s happening on the screen as a video, nice when the PrtSc button just isn’t enough. You don’t have to record the whole thing, though. Under “Region” you can choose to record an area with specific dimensions, or to draw an area to record. you can also change things like format and video quality to save space. Aside from that, this simple program pretty much speaks for itself. However, certain video games (the ones that change your screen resolution) can fail to record for different reasons. So you can’t use this to record yourself jumping down after getting zoned in Fate .
Image via Wikipedia, but it doesn’t look like this anymore.
I recently found a neat program called Jing that does the same thing for free, with extra features. Jing also has an upgraded pay version. See the Jing website here.
Also, this is another thing they haven’t done right on Linux yet.
Change File/Program Icons
If you tried the icon changing trick on regular files, you (probably) found that it didn’t work. Icons for files are set by the default program that opens them. I’m guessing you don’t have the time or skill to completely rewrite the program, and either way it’s a better idea to use Resource Hacker.
After installing, the editor is usually easy to use. Just track down the program that opens your file, then open Resource Editor, and open the program with it. From here you get a number of options to change. Under “icon group” it will allow you to change the icon displayed by the program itself, and the icons displayed for the different file types it opens (if any). Go to Action -> Replace icon, and two lists will appear. Select the icon to replace and use the browse button to find the icon to replace it with.
Icons for file types like raw text may be also built into your system, in a .DLL somewhere. Please note that this will not edit a singular file. I used to list XN Resource Editor for this purpose, but I think Resource Hacker is better.
On Linux this would be done the same way as changing the folder icons.
Abstract 3D Art
Most modelling programs are really hard or confusing to use, usually with so many features that each one is buried under the others. Top Mod is different, all the functions are right there where you can see them, and with a bit of tinkering you can easily make sense of each one. Select a basic shape to start with and then extrude and add handles and stuff. Then you can add textures to make your model look pretty. Try to start with a specific goal in mind, or your model may turn into a mess. The biggest downside is that if you try to do a really big operation or a smaller operation while you have a lot in your undo history it will just quit on you.
Munk’d Music
I’m sure you’ve heard one of those annoying songs that you used to like until someone sped them up so that it sounded like chipmunks were singing them. Well now you can destroy other people’s favorite songs!
I’ve had Audacity on my computer for quite some time and finally realized that it would be perfect for this. Just open the song in Audacity and go to Effect -> Change Speed. Set the percent change to 50 or higher, and just like that you’ve got munk’d music! If you don’t feel like hunting down an MP3 codec, just save it as Ogg Vorbis. You may not have heard of it before but most software players support it (but not hardware MP3 players).
Now that I realize I can do this I have munk’d all sorts of songs. I realized two things: some songs just shouldn’t be munk’d, and some songs don’t even sound different. Strange.
Audacity is also useful for noise/click removal, recording, and extracting audio from video files.
One Response
this is really good man keep it up