The Microsoft Creating Skins For Windows Media Player 9 Series White Paper describes how to plan, design, and create a skin for Windows Media Player 9 Series. Readers should have a basic understanding of Microsoft JScript (or a similar scripting language), as well as a basic understanding of XML. (25 pages printed)

My old beige monitor looked rubbish once I bought a posh new case, so I decided to paint it black to match. I couldn't find a tutorial about how to do this on the internet, so I decided to write one myself.

To read how to do it, click here

Designtechnica have thrown up a new guide called Backup that data the smart way! Here's a snip.

No matter how good the components in your computer are, sooner or later you will have a major failure on your hands. Unfortunately it?s usually after such an event that people start thinking that they should have backed up their data.

Thanks to Digitalwanderer over at Elite Bastards for the Heads up!

Update: I should of credited cms of nVnews for posting the info up.

If, like me, you looked in the benchmark folder and found nothing yet wanted to benchmark, it's possible to do so. UT2004 is basically the same as UT2003 which has the same benchmark folder although it has some files. I copied the files from the UT2003 bennchmark folder into the UT2004 folder (I also had to copy of the contents of the sub-folder called stuff), modified the bat files so they would point to UT2004 instead of 2003,

Anton Shilov over at X-Bitlabs drops word of their new article called ATI RADEON 9600 XT: to OVERDRIVE, or not to OVERDRIVE? is out.

A number of readers asked us about distinguishing between different RADEON 9600 XT based graphics cards with and without OVERDRIVE capability. Apparently, not all ?Powered by ATI? performance mainstream solutions of the most recent generation sport the highly advertised feature.

Just got word that Anandtech have thrown up their updated Price Guides for February 2004! Here's a snip.

Memory continues to be a particular thorn in the PC market. Those of you who follow the enthusiast market particularly closely know that Winbond has totally run out of the BH5 chips. Unfortunately, it looks like they have also run out of CH5 chips as well and so we will start to see memory dry up that is based on those chips.

Have a Server Board but not sure what Memory type you should run then check out this new guide out at 2CPU.com which looks at Unbuffered vs. Registered vs. Registered + ECC Memory!

The SMP community has grown a lot over the last couple of years, and it gets a lot of its new users from the uniprocessor realm. Many of these new SMPers and others who are simply curious about "our" world are often confused by the different types of memory both available and often required by certain multiple processor platforms. It's with this in mind that we're here today taking a look at unbuffered, registered and ECC memory.

Connecting a HDTV to your HTPC can be a daunting task to most people. The first adventure into powerstrip and connecting your PC to your HDTV is something that we hope to make a little easier with this Guide. Powerstrip 101 by Joshua Schipmann is sure to be a guide that newbies and elders of the PC community will find helpful in understanding the application and the process of using it.

[H]ardOCP have thrown up a new article which looks at overclocking the Intel Prescott 2.8E processor with results on different boards! Here's a snip.

We are always looking for an investment that we can push beyond its specified limits, gaining performance and having a bit of fun in the process. Intel was kind enough to launch Prescott core CPUs ranging from 2.8GHz to 3.4GHz last week. With help from Azzo Computers, we were able to take delivery of a real-world 2.8GHz Prescott just like one you would buy. It is these CPUs that we like to do our enthusiast testing with as we rely on them to give us a look at the real world of overclocking.

A few days ago Microsoft released a preview version of windows XP 64-Bit Edition and today AnandTech have thrown up the first Preview which looks at performance of the AMD Athlon 64 on the new 64-bit Operating System! Here's a byte.

Your first task after downloading and installing the OS will be finding drivers for some of the components in your system. Microsoft's new 64-bit Newsgroup is a great place to start your search. Drivers are part of the new 64-bit OS, but they are still spotty in many cases. We needed to find a 64-bit driver for the 3Com LAN on our Asus SK8V and better video drivers. XP64 installed a driver for our Radeon 9800 PRO, but it was really basic and not much in the performance department.

Ever wonder how to make a sig that shows the viewer's IP or other info? Red Squirrel from IceTeks will show you how, it's actually easier than you think, as long as you have a linux/apache host with php.

Just got word that Brandon Hum at the All Hardware Zone has posted his ATi Radeon 9800 Pro Cooling & Volatge Mods Guide!

What do you do when you get one of the fastest video cards on the market? That's an easy one, you VOID the warranty by performing modifications on it. Well, I just bought an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB video card and am going to modify the cooling and the memory and GPU voltages. Although it's plenty fast, it could always be faster and with the help of these mods I'll find the limits of this card.

Thanks to Mackey D for pointing me in the direct of this beginners guide called 23 Ways To Speed WinXP Without Defrag ! posted over at Tech Builder's.

To defrag, or not to defrag? If you're looking for ways to speed WinXP machines used by your customers, then the answer is Not.

Overclockers.com have thrown up a new guide that will show you How to convert an ATX PSU to a BTX Compatible PSU! Here's a snip.

Neither the author nor Overclockers.com will be responsible for any direct or consequential damages to equipment or person if this procedure is followed. Proceed at you own risk?

Accelenation have thrown up a new guide, which looks at the Performance of Hyper-Threading on Intel's new Prescott processors!

When Intel broke the 3 GHz barrier with their Northwood 3.06 GHz processor, the model was more than just a speed bump to 3 GHz. In addition to breaking the 3 GHz barrier, Intel threw in an extra incentive to help boost performance.

OPN-462 is an intelligent program designed specifically to translate the three codes found on, or around the core of all Socket-A, AMD CPU's.

Now that Intel and AMD are pushing their next generation products onto the market, we see a performance gap between older generation CPU's and the new breed. At [M]adshrimps they try to give the Athlon XP an eXtreme performance boost so it can keep up!

XP installs way too much stuff for many of us. You've heard the cries of the flame warriors in the forums and message boards, "bloatware, bloatware!" Well, one mans bloat is another mans feature (or so Apple tells us ). However these flame warriors do have a point, we should be able to remove the parts we don't want. Actually, we should be given that option at install time, but, I digress. Removing unneeded/unwanted portions of XP has 3 obvious advantages; Security, less used hard drive space, and control. Read more at TweakHound

Club Overclocker have thrown up their new GeForce FX5900 to FX5950 Ultra Flash Mod Guide!

When overclocking my stock 5900 I noticed something unusual. Unlike all the other cards I have successfully overclocked, this one would not lockup, or develop any artifacts as I upped the core clock speed. I could go up to 500mhz or more, but my benchmark scores would get worse. The card was clocking faster, but getting slower! From what I understand the new nVidia drivers use the thermal diode on the GPU to monitor the temps and will "underclock" the card in case of overheating. I thought that the GPU core had allot of speed left in it, but the drivers were killing the performance by throttling back. I was actually looking for a way to disable the temperature monitoring feature of the drivers, when I came across the "flash" method we are discussing here.

Just got word that Anandtech have thrown up their update mobile GPU guide! Here's a snip.

Gaming/rendering on notebooks has never been up to par with the best of the desktop stuff (behemoth-sized desktop replacements don't count); yet, more and more people are looking for laptops that do just that. Our most recent case in point would be Half Life 2 on Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro and GeForce FX Go5650 based laptops. The laptop equipped with the Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro made Half Life 2 reasonably playable on a notebook - quite a noteworthy accomplishment. Meanwhile, the GeForce FX Go5650 (one up from the Go5600) based notebook went to a crawling halt.