Welcome to Mars!

Just Surfed In?

So What Am I In For Here?

• Unique Windows 95 Animated Cursors that do their magic in a full 63x63 area -- not just the usual puny 32x32.
• The Original Windows Wallpaper that got me started on the path to Wallpaper Heaven! I've also got some basic info on Downloading Wallpaper and How I created it.
• My newest creation: the Advanced Shuffle Screen Saver! I'm partial to Screen Savers that manipulate the existing desktop.
• Under development is the ResHack Resource Editor, a fun utility that will let you add, change, and delete the internal Resources used by your Windows 95 programs. It will be the first (and so far, the only) Email-Ware or Freeware Resource Editor ever available on the 'Net!
  (Note that this link will take you to the ResHack home page.)
• For the adventurous, I've also created the Automatic Visual Basic Error Message Generator... since you probably haven't seen any errors since you installed Windows 95...
• And lest we forget... please check my Copyleft Notice!

My Gently Pulsing Windows 95 Animated Cursors!

Pulsing Pointers:

Inspired by his efforts, I created a Normal Select pointer and a Text Select pointer to the same specification. My Normal Select has "running lights" that travel down the edges, and the Text Select's vertical bar "flows" gently downhill.

My Wildly Gyrating Win 95 Animated Cursors!

New! Now there are four! Check out Airplane Crossing.ani. And check back soon, because I'm testing Four Butterflies.ani on my PC right now!

Fighter Jet.ani: You are watching your Head-Up Display. Suddenly, you hear the soft whine of your targeting systems as a bogie appears at 11 O'Clock! You pursue, fire missles, and the target is neutralized.
This animated cursor is unique among all I've seen so far. It's not restricted to action within a 32x32 pixel box. By adjusting the hotspot, I have an effective drawing area of 63x63! You've got to see it to believe it... and Win95's preview box doesn't show you the full effect. Try it for real!

Fireworks.ani: It's the Fourth of July every day. Oooh... Ahhh!
This animated cursor uses the same 63 x 63 technique as the Jet Fighter cursor. The shell goes up... up... up!

Brick Wall.ani: And the walls came tumbling down, down... down, down.
This is a Normal animated cursor -- just 32 x 32. By the way, you get to see the wall being rebuilt brick-by-brick.

Original Windows Wallpaper

Program Notes...

Welcome to Mars!

My fabulous "Plumbing" Wallpapers!

Also available:

• The Blue version, an "ok" text background. I need to work on it.
  This is the background for my Job Page.
• The Grey version, a nice background for light text.

My High-Traffic "Crossroads" Wallpapers!

Also available:

• The Grey version, still Win95 standard colors.
• Crossroads in blue, nice text or Windows background.
  This is the background for my Home Page.
• My original Crossroads, with solid colors. It looked great in Win 3.1, but Win95's green is the color of pickled olives. Uck!

My first Wallpaper ever -- "It's full of stars!"

Stars.gif: Probably not as seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey
Yellow and Aqua show up surprisingly well on this background -- or at least, they do if you use the h1 tag!

Also available:

• The Grey version, which used to be the background for this page (before I switched to Planets)

Another early Windows Wallpaper -- "It's full of... cars?"

carlot.gif: Have I got a deal for you! By the way, the tile is exactly 64x128, if that's any help.

Also available:

• The Grey version (of course).
  Yellow and Aqua show well on this background, too, with the h1 tag, but otherwise it's a bit too contrasty for a Text background. But why not see what you can do with Paint Shop Pro and a little time?

My whimsical "Cracked Windows" Wallpapers!

Wincrack.gif: This is what my screen looks like after I debug my code.

Winblood.gif: This is what my screen looks like after I've been debugging my code all night!
(The dripping blood was brighter in Win 3.1)

How to Download Wallpaper

To download almost any graphic using Windows and Netscape, follow these simple steps.

1. Right-click the image you want.
2. From the menu, pick: Save Image As...
3. Save the file somewhere on your hard drive
4. Convert the file to a .BMP using a .GIF/.JPEG converter
   (See below to see what I used myself!)

   What about Netscape 3.0's "Set As Wallpaper" option?

   If you want a quick preview of what a graphic would look like as Windows Wallpaper, Netscape 3.0 lets you send an image directly to Windows as the wallpaper file.

   But it looks awful!

   Netscape doesn't do a very good job of displaying .GIF and especially .JPEG images with much clarity. This may help the images load faster, but you lose image quality. Get a shareware package like the ones below and see how much clearer your favorite images really are.

   How I did it

   I put together my original .bmp's with Windows Paintbrush. Then, I used shareware programs such as Paint Shop Pro and PolyView to shade the colors and convert .bmp files to .gif files.

   The best site I've found to download this and other shareware and freeware is Randy's Windows 95 Resource Center. This robust site includes an excite! search engine that makes your software search a breeze.

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   My Original Windows 95 Screen Savers!

   Ever work one of those 4x4 puzzles? 15 numbered tiles in a frame with room for 16. Maybe you could solve it, maybe you couldn't. But you could sure Shuffle it!

   The Advanced Shuffle Screen Saver lets you do the same thing to your Windows 95 Desktop. You can configure everything!
   

   • Number of blocks (independent controls for vertical/horizontal)
   • Puzzle mode (looks like your 4x4 puzzle)
   • Bit manipulation mode (see below)
   • Mouse move ends Screen Saver, or is ignored

   But the best part is the bit manipulation selection! Look at these options, and try them all out.

   • Just Shuffle the blocks
   • Invert the blocks - don't shuffle them
   • Invert the blocks and shuffle them
   • Shuffle with XOR mixing
     - screen dissolves into homogenous shuffling static
   • Shuffle with OR mixing
     - screen dissolves into light and dark shuffling static
   • Shuffle with AND mixing
     - screen dissolves into dark and darker shuffling static

   Start out with a 4x4 (or possibly 5x5) "puzzle" mode setup After you try it, experiment with all the settings! If anything breaks, send me a note at robertb@geocities.com and I'll respond as soon as I can... but please note that, since you're not paying me, I can't make this my life's work! ;-)

   BASIC REQUIREMENTS

   • Windows 95
   • VB4.0 32-bit runtime files
     (get these at http://www.sfwa.org/greyware/software/vbrun.htp)
   • Patience and willingness to experiment!

   Try it! It's a lot of fun!

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   My Other Original Programs...

   sometimes I can't believe I get paid to do this...

   Since the advent of Windows 95, error messages are ever so rare, aren't they? Well, if you miss them, you're in luck because I give you... The Run-Time Error Generator!

   Just download this program (and Microsoft's 500K VB40016.dll, not included) and run it and you'll get all the excitement of a Real Visual Basic Error Message. A different error (almost) every time! You'll feel just like a real programmer.

   If you are a programmer, you probably already have all the support files you need on your PC. If you just want to generate random errors like a programmer, you'll need to visit this great site to get VB40016.dll or VB40032.dll (just get both, you'll need them eventually).

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   Don't forget to visit my other pages!
   Wallpaper Heaven: Index - Tile - Full - Cool - Tool - Oops
   Other Pages: Home Page - Creations - Job - Cookie Taste Test - Sunny D Menu

   Or jump on these rings and visit other similar pages!

   Get on board The Rail The Sightseer Line

   Prev Next Prev 5 - Skip Prev - Prev - Random - Next - Skip Next - Next 5

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   Last update: 7/11/97 (a lucky day?) by robertb@geocities.com (JavaScript upd 10/31/96)

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   My Web pages, including these images, are copyleft © 1996 by Robert Brooks. The whole mess is placed under the GNU Public License.
   This means that you are free to do pretty much whatever you want with anything I'm crazy enough to put out here, except make money from it.
   But as a favor, please leave my initials in the graphics. Thanks again!