Adding Live365 to Online Services in Winamp 5.63

I installed WinAmp 5.63 on a family member's Windows 8 system She wanted to add Live365 as a service to it. I had written instructions for doing that for Winamp 5.552 previously at Adding Live365 to WinAmp's Online Services List. I found that I had to modify the procedure slightly for Winamp 5.63. I found ml_online.ini was now in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml where Username was the user's account name. The ml_online.ini file contained the following lines:

[Setup]
[ml_online_config]
maxbandwidth=350
minbandwidth=1
[Navigation]
order=10100;221836;222078;222150;222427;222509;222542;22259

Beneath the C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml directory was an omServices subdirectory with files named omService_{0000xxxxxx}.ini where xxxxxx was a sequence of digits, e.g., omService_{0000221836}.ini, which had the following lines in it.

[OnlineService]
id=221836
name=Song of the Day
url=http://www.spinner.com/winamp-mp3-of-the-day
icon=http://download.nullsoft.com/customize/component/2009/1/22/W/icon_image/Mp3_of_the_Day.png
flags=0x00000001
version=3
generation=2

I put a 365.png file to serve as an icon in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml\omServices and created a file omService_{0000000365}.ini and put the following lines in it.

[OnlineService]
id=000365
name=Live365
url=http://www.live365.com
icon=live365.png
flags=0x00000001
version=1
generation=1

When I did so and reopened Winamp, I found that the ml_online.ini had 365 added to the order line as shown below:

[Setup]
[ml_online_config]
maxbandwidth=350
minbandwidth=1
[Navigation]
order=10100;221836;222078;222150;222427;222509;222542;222598;222598;365

Live365 was then at the bottom of the list of online services in WinAmp.

[/os/windows/software/audio/winamp/live365] permanent link

Closing Windows 8 Metro Applications

When you open a Windows 8 Metro app, there is no immediately apparent way to close the application when you are done with it. You won't see an "x" at the upper, right-hand corner of Metro applications windows and Moving the mouse pointer to the corners of the window doesn't show a way to close it. You can close the application by hitting Alt-F4, i.e., by hitting the Alt and F4 keys simultaneously.

An alternative method of closing one of the applications is to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the Windows Task Manager and then select the application to close by clicking on it and then choosing End Task.

References:

1. How to close Windows 8 apps, and how to disable SmartScreen
   By Sebatian Anthony
   Date: November 15, 2012
   ExtremeTech

[/os/windows/win8] permanent link

Personalizing Windows 8

To change the background that appears on a Windows 8 system when the system is locked, i.e., when it is waiting for you to enter the userid and password, you can follow the steps below. By default, the system shows a stylized image of the Seattle Tower in Seattle, Washington in the U.S.

1. Hit the Windows key and the I key simultaneously. The Windows key is the one with a Windows logo on it normally at the lower, left-hand corner of the keyboard as shown below:

   

2. Then select "Change PC Settings" which will be at the bottom of the panel that opens on the right of your screen.

   

3. With Personalize selected and Lock screen highlighted at the top of the window, you can then pick one of the other 5 images shown below the one for the Seattle Tower, or click on Browse to select another image of your choosing. Click on Choose Picture when you find the one you wish to use.

   

If you wish to change the picture that appears for your account, you can follow the same procedure as above, but choose Account picture, instead of Lock screen. An image can be displayed as a small 96 x 96 pixel image, a large 448 x 448 pixel image, or a video (dynamic image) - see Guidelines for user names and account pictures (Windows).

You can also change the Start Screen colors by choosing Start screen.

[/os/windows/win8] permanent link

Copying Windows 7 Themes to a Windows 8 System

To copy the themes that someone downloaded to her Windows 7 system to her new Windows 8 system, I located the .themepack files on the Windows 7 system, which I found in C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Temp, where Username was the name for her account on the Windows 7 system. Then on her Windows 8 system, I just double-clicked on each Windows Theme Pack file to install it on the new system.

[/os/windows/win8] permanent link

Adding a Link to a Website to the Windows 8 Start Screen

If you wish to add a shortcut to the Windows 8 Start Screen so that you can click on an icon on the Start Screen to go to the URL for a website, you can do so by taking the following steps using Internet Explorer 10.

1. Go to the website in Internet Explorer.
2. Click on Tools. If you don't see the Tools menu, hit the Ctrl and T keys simultaneously to bring up the Tools menu.
3. Select Add site to Start Screen.
4. A Windows Internet Explorer window will open showing the name that will be used for the item to be added to the Start Screen with the URL in the From field. Click on Add to add the site to the Start Screen.

   

References:

1. How to Pin a Website (Windows)
   Microsoft Developer Network

[/os/windows/win8] permanent link