How to get Windows 8 UI Design on Chrome Browser

There are people who like and dislike Windows 8 UI design or the tiles. It is good if you have touch screen to play around with the Windows 8 UI.
What if you don’t have Windows 8 installed and still want to install and play around with the UI design or the tiles of windows 8. Irrespective of the operating system installed, you can enjoy the tiles and the UI design of Windows 8 provided you have Google Chrome browser installed in your machine.

Follow the following steps to install Windows 8 UI design on your Chrome browser.

• Install Google Chrome Browser.
• Go to Chrome Store and search for ‘iStart – new tab page, in metro style’.
• Launch or install this app and open a new tab. You will see UI design something similar Windows 8 as shown below.

This app is not just about UI, the functionalities are good enough. Some of the UI features are even better than the Windows tiles like your can search for something on Google or YouTube or Amazon from the app tile or you can search for someone from Facebook or Pinterest tile. The best thing about this app is it configurable, you can customize it the way you want. You can drag and drop apps and to configure an item all that you need to do is right click on the tile that you want to configure. When you do so, you get an option at the bottom of the browser to edit or customize the way you want. You can add your own tile, link, colour, icon, background etc. Other features include fast access bar and mouse wheel support. If you want to add a tile then you can select icon, set title and a link. All your chrome apps that you have installed will appear to the right, to view this just scroll to the right. I like this new tab page in metro style. Install this and let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Getting started with Photoshop Express for Windows 8

Adobe's Photoshop Express, previously only available on iOS and Android, is now available for Windows 8. We'll show you how to get started with the app.

Previously only available for iOS and Android devices, it's now ready to be downloaded for free to your Windows 8 tablet or hybrid device from the Windows Store. Here's how to get started with Adobe Photoshop Express for Windows 8:Adobe's Photoshop Express is a basic photo-editing app for your mobile device. With Photoshop Express, you can correct photo properties like contrast, exposure, and white balance, or use the autofix feature to let Photoshop try to fix everything for you. You can also crop your photos, apply creative filters, and share them to Facebook directly from the app.

Opening a photo

When you first launch Photoshop Express, you'll be prompted to select an image source for editing. You can select a photo from your Pictures Library, take a photo from the device's camera, or pick a photo from Revel, Adobe's photo storage and synchronization service. If the photo you want to edit isn't stored in those locations, you can always browse to the photo with Windows Explorer, right-click on the photo, then go to Open with > Photoshop Express.

Editing a photo

Once you've opened up a photo, you'll see six editing choices on the lower left side: Crop, Correct, Looks, Red Eye, Auto Fix, and Reduce Noise. Just tap or click on any of those choices to edit your photo.

Crop lets you rotate, straighten or flip the photo, as well as crop with strict photo ratios.

Correct allows you to change the contrast, clarity, vibrance, exposure, highlights, shadows, temperature and tint. All of these enhancements work by moving the slider, which works very well on a touch screen. You can also choose to have the app correct the exposure and white balance automatically.

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Looks contains 20 free Instagram-like filters. There are also 20 premium filters (Adobe Looks Pack) that you can buy for $2.99. You can try all the premium filters for free, but you'll have to buy the upgrade to save any changes.

Red Eye helps you remove red eye from photos, just by tapping on the problem area. If you have a touch screen, you can use zoom gestures to enlarge the photo to make it easier to select the red eye. If you decide you don't like the enhancement, you can tap on the undo button in the upper right-hand corner. The redo button is located there as well.

Auto Fix attempts to enhance the photo with a single tap. As with most of the enhancements you make with Photoshop Express, you can tap and hold on the View Diff or View Original button that appears on the lower right side to compare the edited version with the original.

Reduce Noise is another premium feature that tries to "smooth out unwanted grain and speckling." The Noise Reduction Pack costs $4.99 from the Windows Store.

Sharing a photo

You can share your photos to Revel or Facebook directly from Photoshop Express by tapping on the Save/Share button in the lower left-hand corner. You can also try using the Windows 8 share feature from the charms bar. If all else fails, you can always save the photo to your device, then share it the old-fashioned way.

Adobe Photoshop Express for Windows 8 should work well for most casual users and is particularly fun to use on Windows 8 devices with touch screens. Let us know what you think of it. Does it have enough features to meet most of your needs or do you require something more robust?

How to customize the new Start screen in Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 users can easily move and resize tiles, create and name groups of tiles, change the background image, and pin freshly installed apps on the Start screen.

You can more easily tweak the Start screen in Windows 8.1.

(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

The Windows 8 Start screen is largely a love-it-or-hate affair. But even those who aren't too keen on the screen may welcome the new ways you can customize it in the Windows 8.1 Preview.

Right off the bat, Windows 8.1 offers a dedicated Customize button for the Start screen where you can tweak a variety of settings. Right-click anywhere on the Start screen to display the app bar and click on the Customize button. You can also right-click on any tile to open the Customize view.

The screen dims slightly. You can now drag and drop any tile to another spot on the screen. Moving a tile by dragging and dropping is nothing new. But in this Customize view, you can't accidentally open an app by clicking on or tapping its tile.

You can select multiple tiles by clicking on them, and then drag and drop all of your selected tiles en masse to another spot. There's an array of other options that can be run on multiple tiles.

You can unpin them from the Start screen, uninstall them, resize them, turn off any live tiles, or just clear the selection. You also have more tile sizes from which to choose. Certain tiles offer a choice of small, medium, wide, and large. You can enlarge the tiles for your favorite apps and shrink the ones for apps you rarely use.

If you organize your tiles into distinct groups, you can more easily name them. In the Customize view, simply click on the text box for Name Group and enter a name.

What other tricks will you find in the new Start screen? Less clutter for one.To get out of Customize view, just click or tap on the Customize button on the app bar.

In Windows 8, any app you install automatically takes up residence on the Start screen, easily turning it into a crowded and disorganized mess. In Windows 8.1, apps don't make their way to the Start screen unless you pin them there.

After you install a new app, click on the down arrow in the lower left corner of the Start screen. That takes you to the App screen where you'll see any recently-installed apps highlighted with the word New. Right-click on the tile or tiles of any apps that you wish to appear on the Start screen and click on the Pin to Start button. Windows 8.1 then transports you back to the Start screen to reveal the new tile.

Finally, more choices are available for you to change the color and background of the Start screen.

Hover your mouse over the small dash icon in the lower right corner of the screen to display the Charms bar. From there, click or tap on the Settings charm and then select the Personalize option. You can pick background and accent colors from the on-screen palette or choose a specific background image. Best of all, you can pick the same background image used by your desktop. That option makes the visual trip between the Start screen and desktop less jarring.

The Start screen may still seem like an unnecessary annoyance to many Windows users, especially those working with a non-touch PC. Windows 8 does offer a boot to desktop modewhere you can bypass the screen entirely. But the latest tweaks in Windows 8.1 do make the Start screen a bit friendlier and decidedly easier to manage.

Add Shortcuts in Windows 8 for Shutdown and Restart

I have been using Windows 8 as my primary OS since the past week and am overall quite happy with the various UI improvements. The Metro Tiles interface is primarily designed for the touch screen but it’s equally easy to navigate with a mouse and keyboard.

They got rid of the Start Menu in Windows 8 and as a side-result, there’s no dedicated menu option available to quickly shut-down or restart your Windows 8 computer.

How to Shutdown, Restart or Log Off in Windows 8

The regular approach I this. As there are no “shutdown” buttons in Windows 8, you can switch to the desktop view and press Alt+F4 to bring the Shut Down menu or the other option is that you press the shortcut key Win+C, go to Settings – > Power – > Shut down.

That’s too many steps especially when you are in a dual-boot environment and need to switch from one OS to another.

Wouldn’t it more convenient if you could create simple tiles – like any other metro app – and place them on the Windows 8 desktop so that you can Shut down, Log off or Restart your Windows 8 computer with a simple click (or tap).

Enter createButtons.vbs – this is a simple utility (or rather a script) that will automatically add Shut Down and other related buttons to your Windows 8 screen. There’s no installation required – just download the file to your desktop and double-click to create the various buttons.Here’s a video demo of the script in action:

Also, here’s the full source code of the VB script in case you are curious to know what it does behind the scenes. It may not be the most efficient piece of code but it will do the trick.

'
' This script will create shortcuts in the Start Menu
' Written by Amit Agarwal - 06/03/2012
' Web: http://labnol.org/?p=20989
' Version: 0.1
'
set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
strStartMenu = WshShell.SpecialFolders("StartMenu")
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strStartMenu & "\Shutdown.lnk")
oShellLink.TargetPath = "%systemroot%\System32\shutdown.exe"
oShellLink.Arguments = "-s -t 0"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.IconLocation = "%systemroot%\System32\shell32.dll,27"
oShellLink.Description = "Shutdown Computer (Power Off)"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = "%systemroot%\System32\"
oShellLink.Save
Set oShellLink = Nothing
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strStartMenu & "\Log Off.lnk")
oShellLink.TargetPath = "%systemroot%\System32\shutdown.exe"
oShellLink.Arguments = "-l"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.IconLocation = "%systemroot%\System32\shell32.dll,44"
oShellLink.Description = "Log Off (Switch User)"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = "%systemroot%\System32\"
oShellLink.Save
Set oShellLink = Nothing
set oShellLink = WshShell.CreateShortcut(strStartMenu & "\Restart.lnk")
oShellLink.TargetPath = "%systemroot%\System32\shutdown.exe"
oShellLink.Arguments = "-r -t 0"
oShellLink.WindowStyle = 1
oShellLink.IconLocation = "%systemroot%\System32\shell32.dll,176"
oShellLink.Description = "Restart Computer (Reboot)"
oShellLink.WorkingDirectory = "%systemroot%\System32\"
oShellLink.Save
Set oShellLink = Nothing
Wscript.Echo "Created Shutdown, Restart and Log Off buttons"