Tip #1 - Check your mail(s) instantly (Windows 8)

Keep your Metro mail application open in background all the time. That way, you'll get toast notifications when you get a mail, and you can instantly check your mail with only one click in the top left corner.
To go back to what you have been doing previously, just click the top left corner again.

Create custom tiles for Windows 8 Metro Screen (Start menu) - OblyTile

You too started finding ugly the icons in the Metro menu which come when you install new application? Well don't worry anymore - OblyTile is the solution to this problem.

Screenshot from the app

With OblyTile you can make beautiful Metro tiles which will fit your Metro theme nicely. You just link a shortcut with an image which is 300x300 in size, and you got yourself a beautiful looking tile.

This is my unfinished Metro screen, and I like it how it looks so far.

(Click to make the image bigger)

I'm planning to finish all the icons first, and release a package with all the tile pictures.

Odium, Global Game Jam Macedonia winner game

The Global Game Jam (GGJ) is the world's largest game jam event. Think of it as a hackathon focused on game development. It is the growth of an idea that in today’s heavily connected world, we could come together, be creative, share experiences and express ourselves in a multitude of ways using video games – it is very universal. The weekend stirs a global creative buzz in games… while at the same time exploring the process of development, be it programming, iterative design, narrative exploration or artistic expression. It is all condensed into a 48 hour development cycle. Although the event is heavily focused on programming, there are many other areas where people who don’t code can contribute to a game.

- GlobalGameJam

The Global Game Jam in Macedonia took place from 25th January to 27th January. We as a team decided to join, and we had no idea what was it going to be like. 

This years GGJ theme was a heartbeat sound. We were told to interpret the theme as we wish.

17 games were made, where some of the teams had zero game development experience, and actually learned to program during this event. GameMaker, Unity, Flash and some other technologies were used to make the games during the Jam.

We interpreted the theme literally as a heartbeat. Meaning we made a game where you actually play inside of  an organism, and try to overtake the heart, and fill it with hatred, thus the name Odium. We were inspired by one of our team members, who created this short animation for a school project. Six people were in our team, and each one had stuff to do. We did pretty good job in my opinion. 

Our game got most of audience votes, and we won the competition. 

Here is a link to the game: Odium

Link to games made during the event.

Different resolution in .NET System.Windows.SystemParameters.PrimaryScreenWidth

If you are getting different resolution on .NET's

System.Windows.SystemParameters.PrimaryScreenWidth

and

System.Windows.SystemParameters.PrimaryScreenHeight

than your current resolution settings, you might wanna check out your viewing settings.

To do so, go to your desktop, right click, and select "Screen resolution".

Then, click on "Make text and other items larger or smaller"

After this, click on the Smaller - 100% radio button.

Eclipse pin to taskbar problem (Windows 7/8)

If you wanted to pin Eclipse IDE to your taskbar, and noticed that it creates another icon right next to the pinned one, you might wanna continue reading on how to fix that.

First, you need to find your Java Runtime Environment directory. It's usually
"C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin".

Copy the location, and open up "System properties" in Computer (Right click-> Properties when in Computer).

Now, go to Advanced System Settings, and click Environment Variables.
Select the "PATH" variable in the second list, and click Edit.
Move the cursor to the beginning of the textbox, and paste the location of the JRE.
Add a semicolon immediately after the location and press OK.
Close the remaining dialogs. 

If you have Eclipse pinned to the taskbar, unpin it first, run the .exe, and pin it afterwards.

Compile with Notepad++ (Any language)

Sometimes you wish you had a compiler with Notepad++, so you don't have to start another program just to see the results of your work. Well, there is a solution to this too.
You probably have noticed that Notepad++ comes with few plugins included since the installation. One of them is called NppExec.

NppExec menu

Read the full article!

Picture.15.JPG.zip Facebook virus

Few days ago you may have received a suspicious link from someone you know on Facebook. It usually looked like

http://vebest.com/8ll9z14Q77Q2R12R2 ffg

or a variation of that. This is an old Facebook virus, but someone modified the code so it was undetectable with anti-viruses few days ago. Of course, it's detected as a worm now.

First thing I did, I downloaded the file and opened it in a sandbox. It was a zip file, named Picture.15.JPG.zip. I unpacked it, and found an exe disguised in a .scr extension file. That stands for the ScreenSaver file format. I opened the file, and first thing it did was, it disappeared from the desktop. I believe it either attached to some process or it created new exe file and executed it.

Anyway, I noticed my laptop started showing the "Working" cursor. I knew the virus was working on something, so I turned off the Internet. After some examination, I found a new process, which was very similar to the ones Windows is using. 

Microsoft Security Essentials didn't detect the virus at first, but few hours after the infestation it did.

I managed to clean my computer by installing Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, and MSE as antivirus. Make sure you have the latest updates for each of them, and run a full scan after that.

NOTE: The virus might kill your MSE process and you'll have to download another antivirus for that time. My friend downloaded Kaspersky Free Virus scan, and it did the job for him.