I've been using Windows 8 for some time now, and there has been one thing I wanted to change but couldn't. It's the limited choice of colors and images you could use on the Start screen. Come to find out, the folks over at Stardock have a great product called Decor8 that does just that.

The background settings inside of Decor8

With Decor8, you can change everything on the Start screen. You can use your images for the background and adjust all of the colors: background, accent, standard tile, and text. You can even change the color of the Charms bar with Decor8.

The color settings inside of Decor8

Decor8 also has some cool background effects too: fade, blur, color, and contrast. You can change how the parallax scrolling (where the background scrolls, but slower than tiles) works. You can even create a custom color scheme from the background image. Here's a quote from Stardock's website.

What is Decor8?

Windows 8 limits your start screen customization options to only a few provided background images and a few pre-defined color schemes. Decor8 removes these limitations and provides the freedom to personalize your start screen with your own images and colors.

Background Images
• Choose from more background images to personalize your start screen
• Add your own photos and images
• Select multiple images to create a custom slideshow
• Randomize background images in timed intervals for a fresh look
• Apply effects to scroll, fade, blur, recolor and add contrast to your background images
• Choose your own image for your lock screen background

Color Schemes
• Decor8 will automatically create a color scheme to match each of your background images
• Or you can customize the color scheme, it's up to you. Custom color schemes can also be applied to your charms bar
• Choose one of the standard Windows color schemes Create, save and apply your own color scheme

Customization
• Control how many rows of tiles are available on your start screen

Decor8 comes from Stardock, makers of ModernMix, and is only $4.99. I found it to be well worth the $5 bucks. For more information on Decor8, follow the link below.

Decor8 - Personalize the Windows 8 Start screen with Decor8

Virus removal can be a tricky thing, so a good anti-virus program is a must. And remember that you can only have one anti-virus program installed at a time because they will conflict with each other and degrade system performance. But did you know that there are programs that work as companions to your existing anti-virus software? One of my favorites is Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.

The main screen inside of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware looks for items that may otherwise be overlooked by anti-virus software, like keystroke/password loggers, rootkits, and spyware. It works great for finding PUP's (probably unwanted program), PUM's (potentially unwanted modifications), and P2P (peer to peer) software.

The settings screen inside of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware comes in four (4) versions; Free, Pro, Small Business, and Enterprise.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Free features include:

• Advanced malware detection and removal
• Industry-proven clean-up technologies eradicate existing malware infections
• Rapid response malware database and heuristics updates
• Access to expert community and knowledgeable support teams through e-mail and forums
• Chameleon technology gets Malwarebytes running on infected systems
• Multi-language support

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro, Small Business and Enterprise features include:

• All of the features of the free version
• Real-time active malware prevention engine blocks known threats
• Heuristic protection prevents new zero-day malware infections
• Malicious website protection blocks access to known and zero-day malicious web content
• Automatic priority updates and scheduled scanning
• Fast flash scans

Here's a quote from Malwarebytes website:

Detect and Protect with Byte

Malware is big and malware is bad. Your computer is constantly at risk from infection by malware including viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits, dialers and spyware. Malwarebytes specializes in fighting malware.

If viruses are mischief, malware is mayhem. Malware doesn't just want to disrupt your network, it wants your keystrokes, logins, passwords, address book, data, credit card information, favorite t-shirt and possibly your cat.

Malware is not going away any time soon. Malware is growing, developing, constantly evolving. Malware is becoming more difficult to detect, and even harder to remove.

Only the most sophisticated anti-malware techniques can detect and remove malicious programs from your computer. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware PRO combines powerful new technologies designed to seek out, destroy, and prevent malware.

For more information on Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, just follow the link below:

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

As a computer repair technician, I do a fair share of data recovery. One of the most asked questions is, "How can I recover a file that I accidentally deleted?". For simple recovery of deleted files on a Windows-based computer, I always recommend Recuva from Piriform.

The main screen inside of Recuva

When you delete a file or folder, it's not entirely erased. It's just not visible to the operating system anymore. Recuva scans for these files/folders and allows you to undelete them quickly and safely. It works on internal and external hard drives, memory cards, mp3 players, and iPods.

The advanced scanning options inside of Recuva

Recuva even scans inside files, like Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail database files, for deleted e-mails. And it works excellent for undeleting photos from memory cards used in digital cameras. Recuva is from Piriform, maker of CCleaner and Defraggler, and has a simple interface and is easy to use. Here's a quote from Piriform's website:

Accidentally deleted an important file? Lost something important when your computer crashed? No problem! Recuva recovers files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. And it's free!

Recuva - Features

File Recovery

Undelete files on your computer
Deleted a file by mistake? Recuva brings lost files on your computer, USB drive, camera or iPod.

Recovery from damaged or formatted disks
Even if you've formatted a drive so that it looks blank, Recuva can still find your files on it.

Recover deleted emails
Emptied your email trash and need it back? Recuva's got you covered with full support for Microsoft Outlook Express, Mozilla Thunderbird, or Windows Live Mail.

Recover deleted iPod music
Deleted music from your iPod or MP3 player? No problem, Recuva will get this back for you along with any additional track data.

Restore unsaved Word documents
Did Microsoft Word crash or did you forget to save that important Word document. No problem with Recuva! As it can intelligently rebuild Word documents from their temporary files.

Quick-Start Wizard
If you need your files back right away without fiddling with options, Recuva's Quick-Start Wizard is the answer.

Deep Scan
Recuva can find most files within a minute. Or, set the Deep Scan to look for more deeply-buried results.

Securely delete files you want to erase forever
Want to protect your deleted files? Recuva also allows you to permanently erase any traces of deleted files.

Portable version
Take Recuva with you wherever you go with the portable version.

Full Windows OS support and many languages
Recuva has support for every modern version of Windows and 37+ languages.

Recuva is available in three editions: Free (no support), Professional (priority support), and Business (premium support). For more information on Recuva, just follow the link below:

Recuva - Undelete, Unerase, File and Disk Recovery

As many of you know, I've been using two monitors on my workstation for over ten years. I like being able to view two or more programs all at the same time. So when Windows 8 came out, I was happy to see better multiple monitor support. Still, I didn't particularly appreciate running Windows RT / Metro apps, as they took up the full display area. They are nice, but it was just too much for me with a screen size of 2560 x 1024. Then the folks at Stardock came out with a program to run Windows RT / Metro apps in a window on the desktop called ModernMix.

Two Windows RT apps running on a desktop with two monitors using ModernMix in Windows 8

ModernMix allows almost any Windows RT / Metro app to run inside a window on the desktop in Windows 8. It remembers the settings of all of the Windows RT apps you have run, and you can manually modify them if needed. I came across a couple of apps that would only run in full screen. It also has a screen overlay you can enable in the upper right-hand corner that allows you to switch between modes (full screen, maximized, and windowed) and bring up the Settings charm for that app. You can even Pin a program to the Taskbar with ModernMix.

Application settings page inside of ModernMix

Here's a quote from the ModernMix website:

What is ModernMix?

ModernMix is a revolutionary new program that lets you run Windows 8 "Modern" apps in a window on the desktop. Windows 8 Modern apps, also known as Metro or RT apps, will use the full screen on your display regardless of how much of the screen they really need. As a result, that weather app, mail program or stock ticker is going to use the entirety of your computer display.

Features

Run modern apps in windows
• ModernMix enables you to run multiple Modern apps in individual separate windows on the desktop as well as launch them from the desktop.

Apply custom settings
• Modern app window sizes are remembered the next time you launch them.

Pin modern apps to the taskbar
• Active Modern apps will also appear on your taskbar where they can be pinned for quick access later. Also create desktop shortcuts for Modern apps.

Bring back the familiar Windows look
• Standard Windows 8 title bar is enabled for Modern apps.
• Explicitly close Modern apps by clicking its close button.

The price of ModernMix is $4.99 (at the time this article was written). For more information on ModernMix and Stardock, just follow the links below:

ModernMix

Stardock

Do you have an old Windows-based computer you would like to get rid of but want to make sure that all of your data is securely erased? Or maybe you would like to wipe all of the data from your hard drive and perform a clean Windows installation? Either way, you'll want to make the data is completely wiped out. Here's how to securely erase all of the data from your Windows-based computer.

Back-up all folder(s) and file(s) you want to save

This is the time to double and triple-check for any folder(s) and file(s) you may want to keep. If you plan on reinstalling Windows, make sure that you have all of the installation media available. If you need to create the recovery media stored on your computer, this is the time to do it. Once the hard drive is wiped clean, the recovery media images will be gone too.

Windows XP Backup

Windows 7 / Windows Vista Backup

Windows 8 Backup

Download and create bootable media with disk wiping software

The best way to completely wipe clean a hard drive is by booting the computer up on a CD/DVD or USB drive. This way, you can erase all of the space on the hard drive. There are several free utilities for doing this, including Darik's Boot And Nuke, CMRR - Secure Erase, and PC Disk Eraser. I recommend the Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD), which has all of these and more already built-in. Just download the image file (.ISO) and use your favorite disk burning software or Windows built-in disk burning to create the bootable media. You can even create a UBCD bootable USB drive.

Encrypt the contents of your hard drive

This step may seem unnecessary, but it makes data recovery virtually impossible on the drive you will wipe. Windows has a feature called Encrypting File System (EFS) built-in, but it's disabled by default. It allows files to be encrypted transparently with a File Encryption Key (FEK). For more on EFS, check out this Wikipedia article. So even if someone could recover the data on the drive after the wiping, it would be in deplorable condition. After that, the data would have to be unencrypted, and being in such a bad condition, would be hard, if not impossible.

1. Open File Explorer / Windows Explorer (Windows logo key + E).
2. Select the file(s) and/or folder(s) you want to encrypt.
3. Right-click on the items selected and then left-click on Properties from the context menu that appears.
4. On the General tab, left-click on Advanced.
5. Left-click the check box for Encrypt contents to secure data.
6. Left-click on OK. Be patient; encrypting the folders and files may take some time.

Insert bootable media and restart the system

When you restart your system, it should boot up on the media you created. Follow the on-screen instructions. If using the UBCD, navigate to HDD > Disk Wiping for the list of utilities. Each program will have similar data destruction settings. I always look for the latest Department of Defense standard (currently DOD 5220.22-M). If you really want to clean your hard drive, just run two or more of the disk wiping programs included on the UBCD.

If your system does not boot up on the media you just created, you may have to change the computer's boot order. Check the 'splash' screen that first appears when you start your computer. Sometimes there is an option for boot device or menu, usually an F key. If not, you will have to change it manually inside the BIOS (Basic Input Output System). The BIOS can generally be accessed by pressing the DEL or F2 key when the 'splash' screen appears. It's always recommended to check your motherboard documentation on which keys are used to access the BIOS and where in the BIOS to change the boot order.