Extra Topics (Joe’s Blog Site)

I found this super cool virtual piano software called Electric Piano. It’s FREE and allows you to play musical notes, chords and even drums using the computer keyboard utilizing the MIDI technology.

Electric Piano has the following feature:

• 128 Musical Instruments (General MIDI Standard)
• 47 Drums sounds
• Play 12 types of Chords by pressing a single key
• Chords can be played simulating the 6 strings of a Guitar
• Combine the sound of up to 7 different Musical Instruments
• Octave and Volume selection for the melody and chords

Electric Piano main interface

Electric Piano also includes an open source simplified version called MiniPiano.

MiniPiano interface

Download Electric Piano using this link (547 KB), or you can check the official website.

Windows registry is a directory which stores settings and options for your Windows operating system. When you install programs on your computer, they add a lot of entries on your Windows registry. If you later decide to uninstall them, some registry entries are left behind. As these entries build-up, they tend to slow things down on your machine. You should remove them using RegCleaner.

RegCleaner screen shot

RegCleaner is a FREE tool which allows you to view the author and the name of the software. Simply find the name of the uninstalled program, select them and click “Remove Selected”. It’s that simple.

In addition, RegCleaner also has an automatic registry cleaner (under the Tools->Registry Cleanup menu) which would remove invalid registry entries from your system. Invalid entries are one of the major causes of system crashes. By cleaning up your registry, your system should not only be more stable but it will also help improve your system performance.

RegCleaner has the following key features:

• Remove file types
• Remove entries of old software
• Uninstall and remove Software from the Add/Remove list
• Remove unused DLL files
• Remove unused Shared DLLs (Automatically detected)
• Automatic backup feature

Download RegCleaner from this page (541 KB)

Whenever we encounter QuickTime media on the internet such as videos and musics, we are required to download Apple’s QuickTime player for such formats. Unfortunately, Apple’s QuickTime installs lots of craps on your computer. There is an alternative which is light and installs quickly. It doesn’t install other nonsense and stuff. It also has an add-on for compatibility with iTunes.

You can download QuickTime from this page.

You would immediately notice in the new version of Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 that the messenger contact list’s appearance has changed. It now shows 2 lines per contact and so having larger avatar images by default. This is called the Detailed view which shows more information but less number of contacts on the list. Most of us are used to the old one liner per contact which is called the Compact view, which shows less information but more contacts on the list.

If you want to switch from the detailed view to compact view, follow the steps below:

1. Go to Messenger->Preferences (or Ctrl+Shift+P)
2. Click the Appearance tab
3. Select Compact view
4. Finally, click Ok.

When you sign-in to Yahoo! Messenger, the Yahoo! Insider appears immediately. When you’re doing something else and suddenly someone sends you a message, that annoying message window appears right in front of you. It would be better if a new message would simply stay minimized on your taskbar until you decided to read it right? So here’s what you should do:

1. Go to Messenger - Preferences (or simply press Ctrl+Shift+P)
2. Go to Generals tab
3. Uncheck Show Yahoo! Messenger Insider.
4. Now go to Messages tab.
5. Select Minimize the message window to the taskbar.
6. Check Show messages at the bottom right of screen.
7. Finally click OK.

Yahoo Messenger message preferences