In a previous tutorial, we have shared how easy it is to insert private characters with Character Map. But, what about making your own special characters in Windows? Yes, you can do that. In this guide, I will show how to create and save your unique symbols using Private Character Editor. They can be inserted into any document, whenever you need. Let’s see how it works.

Andrew Shoemaker, Nebraska-born but currently residing on the Californian coast, wants to travel the world and capture its beauty through his viewfinder. For now he has started closer to home. His seascapes, showing a bright, vivacious world of Californian beaches and Hawaiian paradises, have already gathered a large number of fans. Originally an automotive technician, he’s branched out into photography professionally and hopes that one day he will be able to exhibit his work in galleries. The 31 year old enjoys the great outdoors, is very active and enjoys hiking, fishing and exercising. To find out what inspired Andy to get his first DSLR and enjoy his stunning work, we recommend reading his interview below. This is a theme not to be missed out on!

Windows has a set of sounds applied to events and programs, such as "Close Program", "Default Beep", "Maximize", "Minimize", etc. The collection of all these sounds is called a sound scheme and is associated with a Windows theme. For example, the themes that come bundled with Windows 7 and Windows 8 use the Windows Default sound scheme. When you change your Windows theme, the sound scheme is also changed according to the new theme’s settings. If you are not happy with a certain sound scheme, you can easily customize it so that it uses the sounds you want to. You can even create your own sound schemes. Let’s see how it all works.

SSquared-Photography, the duo of Poland born Slavo Janowski and Italy born Stefano Canali, are a self-taught team of photographers currently based in Ireland. Their new home with its beautiful scenery and haunting shores not only brought them together as artists, but also provided fuel for their inspiration. They’ve developed a business from their passion for photography and are the proud honors of a small studio that offers prints, web design solutions as well as artistic and commercial photography. They love taking long exposure shots and want to bring unique and creative imagery to landscape photography. To find out how the duo came together and have a look at their beautiful work through a Windows theme, we recommend reading their interview below.

Windows 8 themes are not different from Windows 7 themes, at least not when you look at them for the first time. The process for creating and customizing themes is the same in both operating systems but the theme files that result from the process have a different file extension and they are not compatible with each other. Why is that? I really wanted to learn the answer to this question and I decided to do a bit of research on my own. Here's what I have learned:

Maria Galea’s photographs show a keen eye and a sensitive nature hiding behind the viewfinder. Although she’s only 18, Maria, originally from Malta, shows great potential and an enthusiasm for learning new things and improving her technique. Her chosen subjects, often flowers and waterscapes as well as portraits, showcase a budding talent that is just beginning to shine. Still in highschool, she intends to pursue higher education in the future and loves all the arts, especially literature and photography. To learn more about Maria and download her Malta-flavored theme for Windows 7 and Windows 8, we recommend reading her interview below.

Tomasz Huczek’s photographs are full of spectacular landscapes, tumultuous seas and starry skies, a vibrant world showcasing nature at its most beautiful. The 27 year old Polish national left his home country for the beautiful beaches of Cyprus where he discovered his passion for photography. He believes that the best photographs happen only at the right time and place and he is always patiently waiting for that moment. Although he works in IT, he cannot imagine life without his camera and his guitar. To learn more about Tomasz and download an amazing Windows theme featuring his work, we recommend reading this interview.

Eugen Males, the 25 year-old lead vocalist and guitarist of up and coming post rock band "Fluturi pe Asfalt" (Butterflies on the Asphalt), has a passion for photography and all visual design and believes in the beauty that chance brings to photography. In his opinion, haphazard represents reality much better than any artificial poses and sets can. Originally from the Republic of Moldova, he is currently residing in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and also works as a graphic designer. His work is atmospheric and moody at times, but offers charmed snapshots of the beauty always lurking around the corner of our everyday existence. To find out more about Eugen and his photography of chance, we recommend reading his interview below!

Dan Gheban's photographs take you on a whirlwind adventure from dizzying panoramas through storms, fog and clouds to the intricate frailty of microscopic life. It's only natural, the 50 year old anatomical pathologist and amateur photographer from Cluj-Napoca claims, since optical systems and the microscopic world are a part of his everyday life and constitute the tools of his trade, not just of his photographic pursuits. To find out more about him, his passion for photography and what exactly is an anatomical pathologist, read our interview with him.

What do you do when you have to insert special characters that can't be found on your keyboard? You use the Character Map tool found both in Windows 7 and Windows 8. It allows you to insert scientific notations, mathematical operators, currency symbols and characters from languages like Japanese Hiragana , Katakana, Korean Hanji and others. In this tutorial, I will show how to find the Character Map, share a few ways of searching for a character and how to copy characters to any Windows application.

If you are like me, you always want to use another set of ringtones than those bundled with your phone. Luckily, in Windows Phone 8, this is not a hard thing to do, even though you do need to follow a specific procedure and meet a few requirements. I will share everything you need to know in this tutorial, so don’t hesitate to read it.

Depending on the smartphone you are using, creating custom ringtones for it might not be that easy. Unfortunately, on systems like Windows Phone or iOS, the process involved is a bit more complicated, as ringtones need to meet specific requirements in terms of format, length, etc. But what about creating ringtones, for free, for any smartphone platform? We did some research and we found a great application named Ringtone Maker. It is small, free, very easy to use and it is compatible with all major smartphone platforms, including Windows Phone. Let’s see how it works and how to create custom ringtones for just about any smartphone.