You must have heard of Google Earth where you can explore cities, streets, locations anywhere in the world. But do you know about Worldwide Telescope, a software made by Microsoft that can turn your computer into a virtual telescope allowing you to explore galaxies, starts, planets, etc. It is a powerful visualization software that brings together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes for a seamless exploration of the universe.

Note: To run this software you must have a high speed broadband.

Simply run the program and start browsing the collections. You can explore the solar system, do an all sky survey, view astrophotography, and much more. You can also see the earth, but you cannot view the cities so clearly like it’s in Google Earth.

And here is an example where I found black hole powered jet of electrons and sub-atomic particles from the center of galaxy M87.

This software can come handy for students, scientists, astronomy geeks, or people who just love seeing the outer world. Enjoy!

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Do you have a photo and would like to convert it into something more fun? Try FotoSketcher, it is a free little app that automatically converts your photos into art with the click of a button. You can create professional art images, make greeting cards out of them, or simply print them out and hang them in the wall.

According to the developer,

Different styles are available: pencil sketch, pen and ink drawing, various painting renderings. You can also improve your original photo with simple tools (enhance contrast, sharpen, simplify image, increase luminosity, color saturation etc…).

There are two versions available for download, one is the setup version and the other is stand alone version which is portable. I tested the later because it can be carried anywhere in a USB flash drive.

All you have to do is go to File and select Open A New Picture. Once the picture has been selected, all options of converting it into an art will be shown along with a preview. Once you have selected the desired settings, click Save to start converting the image. It has the easiest navigation available thus making it easy to use for even novice users.

Below are two more examples of how photos were converted into art using this tool.

You can see more examples here. Enjoy!

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Whenever users install software program, drivers, updates, hotfixes and other system changing files, Windows Vista and Windows Xp creates a Restore Point by using System Restore, where a snapshot and stored state of important system files are backed up and copied,  If anything goes wrong such as driver not working or program causes instability to the system, users can easily rollback to the previous state. If you pretty sure that you practice safe computing and can handle all disaster yourself, you can turn off and disable System Restore in Windows Vista and Windows Xp. Learn how to do it, after this jump.

Disable System Restore In Windows Xp

Right Click My Computer on your desktop, or click Start and it will be listed in the menu.

Click Properties, and above the General tab click the System Restore tab.

Click the check box Turn Off System Restore on all drives.

Disable System Restore In Windows Vista or 7

Right click on Computer, select Properties from contextual menu or click on Control Panel > System and Maintenance > System.

In the left pane, click System Protection. If you are prompted for an administrator password,  type the password or provide confirmation. You will see a list of hard disk drives, the check boxes with ticks indicate that System Restore is on for that particular volume. So to to turn off System Protection,  clear the check box next to the disk.

Now a System Protection dialog box will appear. Click on Turn System Restore Off button. Click OK and System Restore is now off.

To revert and enable or turn on System Protection for a hard disk, simply select (tick) the check box next to the disk, and then click OK.

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