While Windows Vista has an interface that looks much better and has higher customization features than the previous Windows versions, a lot of computer users always want to change the look and feel of their operating system down to the smallest detail, and one of them is the picture in the Start Menu. After all, maybe you want to have your own picture there, and not a cat, a dog or a fish...



Fortunately, there's no need for you to resize your pictures to fit in or to edit the registry and restart the computer so that changes are applied. The process of changing your Start Menu picture is pretty straightforward, so here we go...

- Press the Start Orb, and then click Control Panel to open it.

- Here, pick User Accounts and Family Safety.


- In the window that opens, click on Change Your Account Picture.

- Now, pick one image from the list, or click Browse for more pictures... and select the one that you wish.

- Click on Change Picture after selecting the new one, and your changes will be applied in an instant!

This is it. Much easier than expected, don't you think?

Since Macintosh is a platform used by many graphics design professionals, Adobe has a strong position on the Mac OS software market. This being the situation, Leopard's release, the latest version of the Mac OS X operating system, couldn't have been overlooked by Adobe...

While it is already known that many applications from Adobe's application suite known as Creative Suite 3, or simply CS3, are fully compatible with Apple's new operating system, Acrobat and the professional video applications from the suite are going to get minor updates soon to ensure full compatiblity.

If you are using an application from CS2 on your Mac, as well as various other programs from the same generation, such as Fireworks 8 or FreeHand MX and earlier editions, the verdict is clear - there is and there won't be any chance to run them on Leopard, simply because they weren't designed to run on it.

Scheduled for January 2008, the updates required by Acrobat 8 Professional and Reader are the first ones to arrive, followed by small updates to Premiere Pro CS3, Encore CS2, After Effects CS3 Professional and Soundbooth CS3. Even so, according to Adobe, installing and running these products on Leopard won't give you any problems, since all Creative Suite 3 products seem to work like a charm already, according to their testing team.

Not so long ago, when we talked about some useful keyboard shortcuts for basic Vista usage, I mentioned Flip 3D, the new way of displaying open programs using a tri-dimensional approach. While this looks extremely cool, as you can see in the screenshot below, it can also be a performance issue for some slower computers, and setting a low number of windows to display in this mode would be a good idea...

Unfortunately, this trick involves editing the registry, so if you're not comfortable with this, call a friend, or double check and triple check before saving your changes. Despite the fact we're not tinkering with vital system settings here, it's always better to be safe when changing the registry, so you could back it up first, "just in case". All right, these being said, let's get things moving here, shall we?- Press Windows key+R to open the Run menu.- Now, type in "regedit" and press OK (or tap Enter on the keyboard) to open the Registry Editor.
- Move to the following registry key "HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM".

- Open the Edit menu, and choose New>DWORD (32-bit) Value to create a new entry.

- Name this value Max3DWindows.- Set this new value to the maximum amount of windows you want to have open in Flip 3D mode.

- Click OK, exit the Registry Editor and reboot your computer to apply the changes.While having 5 windows displayed in this mode or less can help people with slower computers, this can also come in handy to help you get organized and switch through your open application easier and faster than before. Good luck!