How to get Apple OS X Leopard Stack dock for Windows, and other docks

Stack effect on Apple dock was an addition in its Leopard version. Manipulating this effect on windows was somewhat an old topic. But there has been recent enhancements in the docks for windows area and in this blog I wish to talk about stack dock and the circle dock for windows operating system.

Stack Docklet:

If you are new to this area, Manipulated docks for windows has been allowed through several programs. Two of the popular and more efficient ones are Object Dock and Rocket Dock.

First install either program;
Object Dock: Download Object Dock from http://www.stardock.com/products/objectdock/.
RocketDock: Download latest version of RocketDock from http://files.punklabs.com/RocketDock/RocketDock-v1.3.5.exe.

Install the stacks effect to Dock program;
Download stack addon files from, http://matias.securityconsultant.com.ar/StackDocklet-preview-FileSystemFoldersOnly.zip
Unzip to this folder and copy files to C:\Program files\RocketDock(or Object Dock)\Docklets
Now you should see a StackDocklet subfolder inside the Docklets folder.

Run the dock program right-click on the dock and you should be able to see "add stack" There you have it, if you didnt know how to do this, you should be good to go now.

Circle Dock:

Here is an improved program of the original Stack dock for windows. You can find more information about features and download from, Circle Dock.

Drawbacks of manipulated OS X stack dock:
- Program and animation definitely takes up more memory to function.
- If you click a stack icon from the dock, when the stack open either as a span or grid, while still open, if you move your mouse over to another icon and click that, the stack would still stay there and would not disappear unless you rerun the program.

Manipulated programs have their own glitches and will never equal the original OS Dock, but it will appease your needs.

Learn to use Yahoo Finance: part 1

Yahoo finance is a real-time stock market display website. This site is used mostly for college level finance classes as well as investment classes. If you signed up with a yahoo.com email address it will let you pick stocks and develop your own portfolio and watch the performance. This site is only for displaying of market-performance and not for trading securities.

Today's blog post I will introduce what each of the terms reflect in yahoo finance website.

On top left, shows the real-time DOW Jones and Nasdaq index's percentage changes for today.

For demonstrate the layout of Yahoo Finance, I pulled out Dell Inc stock.
Last Trade: is the price or the value of a share of Dell for the trade time mentioned in the line below.
Change; reflect the percentage change of share price from the starting share price of Dell stock.
Prev. Close; is the last share price at which Dell stock was closed the day before.
Open, is the price at which it was open today.
Bid and Ask; Ask price is always higher than Bid price, which means if an investor to buy a Dell stock he would pay the Ask price, and if you sell a stock you will get Bid price. The difference between Bid and Ask price is called the Spread and is kept as profit by the broker.

1yr Target Est, is the estimated price of the Dell stock in 1 year from now.
Day's Range, shows the total fluctuation of the stock price of Dell for the day. The line below that is 52 weeks combined range of price fluctuation. This will give a potential buyer of Delll stock an idea of how high the stock price has been over last 52 weeks, as well as how low is has been.
Volume is the number of shares trading at the moment. This is also the number of outstanding shares of Dell, which is less than the Authorized shares. And companies will not always sell all their authorized shares.
Next Lines, Avg Vol (3m): average volume of shares traded over past three months.
Market cap, or market capitalization is a quick way to estimate the value of a company. Also is the Stock Price x Number of outstanding stocks. Roughly, if market cap is larger than $5 Billion is it called "Large Cap", $1-5 Billion is "Mid Cap", and $1 Billion or less being the "Small Cap".
P/E(ttm), in general P/E is the Earnings Yeild, price of a share relative to its earnings, which gives a percentage return metric. In ttm basis, means the current market price is divided by "Trainling twelve month" earnings per share. This look at the past 4 Quarters of earnings for Dell.
EPS (ttm), once again looking 4 Quarters back for the earnings per share.
And the last line "Div & Yield" is past divident payments.

Also the graph on the right side shows days progress of Dell Inc.. Stock price in a graphic format. Below the graph you can see "1d 5d 3m ..." clicking these each will display and explicit graph for the selected period of time. For some investors looking at a graph tells more than numerical values. In the next topic I wish to cover other components on Yahoo Finance real-time stock viewer website. Please feel free to flood the comments with your feedbacks and questions.

Connecting two computers together over network: Part 2

On a previously published blog post I covered how to connect two computers over the network and have a single keyboard and mouse to control both computers, so as the mouse would disappear, when moved out of the screen, and appear on the other computers screen, allowing both computers to be controlled.

To achieve this I presented to you several options;
Maxivista, vnc programs, and hardware choice.

The topic we are continuing today is ideal for someone who want to develop a dual screen setup, but does not have a dual output VGA card, or find no use for investing money in such devices.

If you remember from that previous topic, I mentioned that file transfer between computers were a difficulty. After much research in today's topic I am glad to tell you that I will be covering how to achieve this step- the file transferring between computers over the network.

Note: this will require both computers running on Windows XP or at least windows.

What we are going to do is create a "workgroup" over the network and connect both computers to the workgroup by which allow them to share folders, files, or even a whole drive.
The below link will provide further information in creating a workgroup and sharing files over network: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323386


Questions that you might incur during the process:

Q: Work group not showing up in "my Network Places"
A: if you know you have created the workgroup and added other computers to this work group, restart both computers and this will remove additional work groups and show up the correct work group.

Q: I added several workgroups how to I delete a workgroup?
A: Go to Start> right click My computer> Properties > computer name tab and click "change" then under "member of" select workgroup and change the name. If you know you only want a single workgroup and its name is "XXX" put that as member of workgroup name. Restart the computer after all done.

Q: How to setup permission for the shared folder?
A: Open my Computer, Tools> Folder options> View tab, scroll down under advance settings, deselect "Use simple sharing settings" click ok.
go to My computer > Right click on Shared Documents and select "Sharing and Security"
- The option should be selected to share this folder. If you want only one other user to access the shared folder with permission, Select and type 1 for "Allow this number of users"
- Click "Permissions" and Add a user and select how much control you want the other user to have.

Q: Does the Network Driver need to be copied and installed on all the other computers that need to connect to workgroup?
A: Not necessarily, but you will have to create a Home or Office workgroup group in all the other computers and give the same name as Workgroup name. That should be enough to get all the computers connected to workgroup.

If you happen rise with any other questions during your process to achieve a perfect connection between computers, feel free to write them up here.

The Broker by John Grisham

Amazon review:
Before he was sent to federal prison for treason (among other things), Joel Backman was an extremely powerful man. Known as "the broker," Backman was a high roller--a lawyer making $10 million a year who could "open any door in Washington." That is, until he tried to broker a deal selling access to the world's most powerful satellite surveillance system to the highest bidder. When caught, Backman accepted prison as the one option that would keep him safe and alive, since the interested parties (the Israelis, the Saudis, the Russians, and the Chinese) were all itching to get their hands on his secrets at any cost. Little does he know that his own government has designs on accessing that information--or at least letting it die with him. Now, six years after his incarceration, the director of the CIA convinces a lame duck president to pardon Backman, and the broker becomes a free man--and an open target.

aP rating: 3.8/5
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 368

aP review: John Grisham as a well recognized writer does a grand job in writing a grand thriller and spy novel; The broker. The story does contain several aspects of a highly entertaining action and suspense novels. Only part where I found the novel to be veering away from this theme was when the writer use pages explaining how the main character Joel Backman learned Italian. In other words, this novel will also provide you a good Italian language learning lessons. I liked his writing style of starting from the peak of the story, starting the story with a mysterious story, and continue the story while in the mid parts go back to the past and try to fill in the gap between past and present. Later parts of the novel again picks up on the suspense and running-for-life action which counter-balance the lack of action during Italian lessons. Overall quite good suspense novel by John Grisham.

How to earn extra cash while at college?

Most of you interested in this subject have definitely explored the web and local for opportunities to earn extra few bucks while you are at college. In today's blog post I will provide a list of ways to earn few extra bucks while at college from my own experiences and from other blog sites.

College students during sleepless nights of college work spend hours studying and reading trying to ace their exams. During this hectic college life if you can make a few bucks by doing something that would only take couple of your hours or a small effort, would favor the odds of winning college students liking in participating in those cash earning activities. College students live on very small budgets, unless of course you prefer a luxurious life style which would be infeasible for a small budget. But a couple of bucks means a lot to most college students, it could help them pay for a midnight snack, or to enjoy an event or simply get drunk… yes I said get drunk.

I was one of the college students that lived on a small budget, so every opportunity to earn couple of bucks meant a lot to my budget and so will it be for most other college students.

1- Although 18 credit hours or 20 credit hours is an extremely heavy work load for most majors, for some college students finding time for a part-time 20 hours per week small retail or food service related job would definitely earn a good income on a monthly basis to pay for rent and food and other accessories. (Part time job)

2- If you live in a dorm, keep an eye on the bulletin board. Not only in dorms keep and eye for all the message boards on campus outside and inside buildings and classrooms. There can be opportunities that would make you some cash.
Things that will appear on message boards that would earn you some money are;

Experiments - Department of business, engineering, psychology etc. get grants all the time which are invested towards good use to improve academia. These are then used by masters of graduate students to perform experiments for their researches, for which they need participants. These participant finding attempts will only find the message boards across campus, providing college students the opportunity to make extra money.

Some example of these types of experiments is; finger print study, economic study, speech study. These would get you $10-20 for a session

3- If you hate needles then this is not the way to earn extra cash for you. Plasma donations can earn you somewhere from $10 to $40. This as the officials at plasma donation center would advice can be performed repetitively twice a week by a healthy individual. This option is only available if you are AIDS free and STD free and all the other diseases transmit through blood. But if you are going to hit this option be ready to let a thick needle pierce through your arm. With all that information, I would rank think option as the Last resort for money.

On the easy donation of bodily items, another area is sperm donation. Now this leave to individuals who want their kids running around the world (I said world because you will never know where this sperm is going to end up). Someday the child will want to know their dad which will come to haunt you down or it may not. If that doesn't bother you there is your choice, with an extra earnings of ranging from $1-200/week.

4- There is also bone marrow donation. More money for more pain you have to resist.

These options below are taken from other websites.
1- Tutoring students for few bucks
2- Sell things on eBay
3- Secret shopper
4- Surveys sites, inbox dollars, sendearnings (earn cash for checking emails and taking surveys)

If you are a college student and hoping to make few extra bucks for the weekend I hope this post helped you look for things around campus that you haven't thought about before.

Does 2008 Stimulus payment effect your tax returns?

Most people while filing for 2008 tax returns, when filing all the income they made, start to wonder if they should include the stimulus money they received during 2008 (bush administration).

The answer is; is should NOT be included as income (- IRS)

Here is the information relating to this topic extracted from IRS.gov.

"Most people received the maximum Economic Stimulus Payment in 2008. However, some people may be eligible for a first time credit or for a larger payment than they were eligible for last year.

This amount is called a Recovery Rebate Credit . You'll need to have the amount of your Stimulus Payment from last year so you can figure out whether or not you're eligible to receive this credit.

How Can I Find This Amount?
To use our secure online tool to find the amount of your Economic Stimulus Payment from last year, you'll need the following information from your 2007 tax return:

* Your Social Security Number
* Your 2007 Filing Status
* Number of Exemptions claimed on your 2007 tax return

Take me to How Much Was My 2008 Stimulus Payment? "

Technology: How to connect two computers (dual screen) over network

How to set up a Dual-Screen workstation with an additional computer.
What we try to achieve: connect a laptop or another computer to an existing computer and have the ability to control both computers with a single mouse and keyboard. (Without any hardware, but over the network)

If you have another laptop or a pc computer sitting around and is wondering how you can connect the two computers and use each computers' own processing power individually to multi task and speedup your working environment, there is a very easier way to accomplish this dream of yours. In today's blog post I will cover all the possible ways to achieve this.

If you do have a dual display supported video card, what you will be doing is using a single PC and spread out the processing power between activities and expanding the working area horizontally, with the use of an additional screen. But what we are trying to do is take advantage of two separate high speed computers and use their individual processing power separating while having the capability to control them with single input devices and eventually setting up a DUAL-Screen workstation.

Option 1: Maxivista.com
The program available on the site is non freeware software and has all the capabilities we are interested in, dual screen, single control, and mirror screening, all the functions done over the network. So if you want to pay some extra bucks for few more extra features, this is your best bet.

Options 2: vnc programs
You can use win2VNC and a VNC program such as ultraVNC, RealVNC, or TightVNC to accomplish the single input control feature.
Links: http://fredrik.hubbe.net/Win2VNC.exe - win2VNC
Instructions for usage: you will have to install win2vnc on the computer that you wish to have the control and a VNC program on the other computer which you are going to be controlling using the other computers' input devices. Both computers have to be connected to internet and relevant IP address will be shown after the program in run, which later will be needed in connecting each other.

Advantages:
- Share input devices (Mouse, keyboard) to control both computers and clipboards.
- Use each computers' own processing power to perform tasks, yet both are connected together to allow single control.
- Dual monitor setup/workstation

Disadvantages:
- Most of the VNC programs I tried excluding maxivista do not allow mouse scrolling function on the controlled computer, but only on the controlling (main/server) computer.
- Even though both computers seemed connected, you are only controlling the computers, thus no applications or windows can be shared. This is what you have to really understand, each run on its own.
- You can not transfer files between two computers using these VNC programs although you can use other file transfer programs such as teamviwer etc. to connect the computers and transfer files.

Option 3: using hard ware gadgets.

FYI: This feature is knows as FVM which stands for Keyboard, Video, Mouse control. Mostly used for controlling several servers with a single mouse, keyboard and a monitor.

If you have further questions about the Over network Dual monitor work station, please feel free to ask them in the comments area.

Economic Stimulus, rebate calculator

Recovery rebate calculator is to be available on IRS website soon. The link to check back is http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=187383,00.html

Goverment grant for tax payers: EXPOSED by aP

Deemed important to address today, so called highly-attractive and seemed-viable for the time being issue relating to possibility of receiving a portion of the recent Economic Stimulus package, we discussed on our last blog post.

With ashPresentom we try to educate the public about certain scams and plots in our Exposed series. Today’s post like wise mentioned earlier will be focused on the Government grant scam.

According to the site Scammer-alert.com website (01) if you are an American citizen you should be qualified for a government grant or part from the economic stimulus package. Although I found it hard to understand why government would want to give grants, which does not require a repayment, for the US citizens. Here is an example of one of the sites that promise you government money “grantsearch.securemediabox.com”(02) Along with dozens of these websites some seemed very apparent from the look of the site that there lies no credible background for those websites. This scam has also been heavily advertised on blog posts as well followed with comments mentioning the truthfulness of this program. This makes it extremely hard to identify whether they are lying or if it actually deem infallible. Govteconomicstimulus.com (03) is many of those blog websites.

Disclose the scam as it progress
According to consumeraffairs.com (04), scam take place explaining that there are several grants and a CD or an access code will give you the access to an online database containing these grants. Also suppose to help finding-grant process easier using this CD, had to be purchased from their sites for a small payment of $1.99. Seemed quite credible so far, the next step in the process is what urges this business or the scam, your credit card will not only be charged for $1.99 but also other fees which as said to be membership fees which you might not have exude in receiving at all. (04) Website provides greater resource of testimonies from people who had to experience this scam act.

With dozens of sites advertising these fake govt. grants it was difficult finding a website that actually spoke the truth. AshPresentom is hoping to cover important progresses in the economic stimulus package, which as of now will start rebating taxes starting from May 2nd. Please do check back our blog for these updates. Until then feel free to use the comments section for your thoughts and feedbacks.

01. http://www.scammer-alert.com/govt-grants.html?t202id=859&t202kw=government%20grant
02. https://grantsearch.securemediabox.com/?file=index_v6.html&affiliateid=EFNGFS01&sub_affiliateid=MA
03. http://www.govteconomicstimulus.com/about-me/david-brown/#comment-140
04. http://www.consumeraffairs.com/scam_alerts/grant.html

What ashPresentom's analysis and predictions of the $790B Economic Stimulus package

I am sure you are delighted to hear that on top of tax returns you will also be receiving another tax rebate from the IRS. But will it truly mean anything to the country’s troubled economy?

Specs of the last economic stimulus package $168B, January 2008 under Bush administration.


With the current economic stimulus plan in the process of being approved has a structure that holds these sections.


Tougher times as oppose to 2008 have certainly being taken into consideration in Obama’s stimulus plan. “Tax cut would be scaled back from $500 for most workers to $400, with couples getting $800 instead of $1,000.” – Associate Press.

Timely concern of these tax rebates put into action by the Treasury; during the previous stimulus package which was approved to operate in January 2008, began sending payments starting from May. So we could expect a two months drag before tax payers will be able to receive the rebates. IRS will be using the 2008 tax return to determine eligibility and calculate payment amounts. As the previous time, there IRS will have a web page deem to provide detailed information regarding tax payer’s eligibility and status check.

On the previous occasion once the plan was passed, stock market showed a relatively interesting joy while found itself hard to maintain for a long time. Here is a graphical representation of 2008 plan and its effects.

Green area represents the immediate impact after Jan 22nd, the expectations of consumer spending and expected increase in profits for companies. But the Yellow area shows the length of this high-tone of stock market. Right after that it dropped on a continuous basis.

Given this economic stimulus package has a higher value and enclose more aspects in supporting troubled assets, it might mean to the overall country’s economy more than four or five months of stimulus.

Once the plan is approved and in place, be sure to check back ashPresentom and we will post more detailed niceties and useful links.

Graphic Design: Green

Desktop/iPhone Wallpaper: RGB

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Desktop/iPhone Wallpaper: The color Blue

Live Sri Lanka Vs. India 5th ODI, Streaming Working link

Here is a working link to watch the last of the One Day cricket matches of the Sri Lanka India Series. I have test the link and server deemed working for the moment. Enjoy the game!

Desktop/iPhone Wallpaper: The color Yellow

Desktop/iPhone Wallpaper: The color Red

Hello! today's post will feature another creative wallpaper from ashPresentom. As usual it has various resolution options. Please feel free to grab a one and enjoy it placed behind your work -on the desktop.

Inspiration for today's wallpaper; The blood shed by heroic soldiers of all nations to better the human society and mankind. In this graphic the color RED is not viewed as a color of warning, but for the heroic acts of historical leaders and soldiers. Graphic itself contain few educational information about color RED - the intuitive niceties, cited from wikipedia. Huge shape of an island silhouette surrounded by swerves of ocean waves representing the isolation of the battle of these heroics today....
Please feel free to comment and express your thoughts on this subject as I much love to hear them while you grab the wallpaper...

NOTE: The QUALITY of the base image was lost when it was uploaded to the blog, but the wallpapers do have a greater quality and clarity.

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Photo Manipulation

Few of my attempts at photo manipulation.

PS Tutorials: creating tentacles, recover from old archive

When brushing through my old archives I came across with one of my old graphics of tentacles. The unique technique involved in manipulating the tentacles, I am going to share the designing process in this tutorial post.

Final Product, this is one of the many ways that you can take advantage of the manipulated tentacle.



Step 1:
Run your version of Adobe Photoshop and open a new document, size of the new file may not cause much of a different although in here I have used 700 x 800 px blank white RGB 72px/inch ideal for web graphic file.

Step 2:
On the left side tool pane, second tool from top, select the "Rectangular Marquee tool" (if the rectangular marquee is not selected, then you will have to right click the marquee tool and select rectangular tool from the sub menu) and as shown in the image below draw a rectangle in the middle of the graphic to show as 1/3 of the graphic.

Step 3:
Having the middle of the graphic selected, click on the gradient fill tool from left side tool pane. From the top tool bar make sure you select "Reflected Gradient". After that click on the middle of the graphic and drag outside the previously selected area so you will get a gradient like shown below. After that press Ctrl+D to deselect the selected area. (The dotted lines should disappear)

Step 4:
Now we need to transform the shape of the rectangle to a triangle. To do this, press Ctrl +T or go to Edit>Transform>Perspective If you press Ctrl+T, then right click on the gradient area and select perspective as shown below.


Step 5:
Having the transform selected to perspective mode, drag the top corner either right or left towards the center so the top would become pointier.


Step 6:
To give the shear appearance to the triangle tentacle we have right now, go to Filter > Distort > Shear then as shown below play with the trend line on top until you arrive at a decent looking tentacle.


Step 7:
Congratulations, you have created a tentacle. You can modify this and colorize using Hue/Saturation as below.

Follow the same method and make several of those tentacles and you will have some generated graphics to play with for your graphic design.

Floralization pencil art part 2

Post today is the second part of the floral pencil sketches continuing from the last time. As there was a higher traction towards floralization and floral graphics, I decided to draw more of these graphics. So Please enjoy the pencil art work...