Change Default Folder (Option 1)

In Windows 7, the default location when opening Windows Explorer is the Libraries folder. Here is a simple trick to set a custom location:

1. Right-click on your desktop and select > New > Shortcut.
2. Under Type the location of the item enter: explorer.exe /root,path
3. Then click Next, enter a name for your shortcut, and click Finish.

Note that you need to give the full path to the desired folder. If you wish to point to Computer, paste the following location: explorer.exe /root,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

Once you have a working shortcut, you can pin it to your taskbar, move it to the QuickLaunch bar or use it from your desktop.

Change Default Folder (Option 2)

To simply change the default Windows Explorer startup folder anywhere, do this:

1. Right-click a folder or the Windows Explorer icon in the taskbar to bring up the jump-list.
2. In the jump-list, right-click on Windows Explorer and select Properties.
3. In the Shortcut tab change the Target to the desired location, as per the list below.

Alternatively, you can also change the properties of any other shortcut you are using to open Windows Explorer.

Potential locations:

• Documents folder: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n,::{450D8FBA-AD25-11D0-98A8-0800361B1103}
• Computer: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /E,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
• Recycle Bin: %SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /E,::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}
• Default (Libraries): %windir%\explorer.exe

For information on how to find out the GUID (Globally Unique Identifiers) for your desired location, check out the following article on How-To Geek: Enable the Secret “How-To Geek” Mode in Windows 7

Navigate Windows Explorer With Keyboard Shortcuts

Nothing is more easy and geeky than nifty little keyboard shortcuts. Here are some relevant key combinations to navigate through the Windows Explorer folder structure:

• [Windows] + [E] = launch Windows Explorer
• [ALT] + [RIGHT] = go forward
• [ALT] + [LEFT] = go back
• [ENTER] = open selected folder
• [ALT] + [UP] = move to parent directory
• [ALT] + [TAB] or [F6] = move between focus areas
• [ALT] + [D] = focus on address bar and select current path
• [F4] = open address bar drop-down menu
• [F3] = focus on search bar and drop down search filter options
• [ALT] + [P] = open preview pane
• [ALT] + [ENTER] = view properties of selected file
• [F2] = change file name of selected file
• [F10] = jump to file menu
• [F11] = switch to full screen mode and back
• [CTRL] + mousewheel = change icon size (works almost everywhere, useful in browser)

Gently Terminate & Restart Windows Explorer

When an application hangs and won’t let you close it, or when Windows Explorer crashes, or to see the effects of editing a current user registry entry, what do you typically do? You either log off and back in or you reboot? However, closing and restarting Windows Explorer has the same effect and is much faster.

Here is a safe way to terminate and then restart Windows Explorer in Windows Vista and Windows 7:

1. Go to Start.
2. Click [CTRL] + [SHIFT] while you right-click an empty space of the Start menu.
3. Select Exit Explorer from the menu that appears.

This procedure will gently terminate Windows Explorer, meaning all your folders will close, your desktop will be empty, and the taskbar will be gone. Your system, however, is still running.

To bring Windows Explorer back, do the following:

1. Use the keyboard combination [CTRL] + [SHIFT] + [ESC] to launch the Task Manager.
2. Go to > File > New Task (Run…)
3. Type explorer.exe in the Create New Task text field and click OK.

Et voilà, Windows Explorer is back and fresh as rebooted.

Do you know of any other tips and tricks everyone should know about? Please share with us in the comments!

In this article I will list the most common programs, what type of notifications they put out, and how you can disable them.

Windows System Tray / Notification Area

Generally, you can individually turn off desktop notifications for any programs or services represented in the Windows system tray. Right-click the task-bar and select Properties. Under Notification area click the Customize… button. This will open the respective Control Panel window with a list of icons for any program or service that was ever registered in the notification area.

To turn off the notifications for a specific item, find it in the list, and select Hide icon and notifications from the drop-down menu to its right.

Skype

As far as I’m concerned, Skype is one of the biggest offenders when it comes to annoying notifications. Whenever someone comes online or goes offline, a little message pops up to share the event with you. Haven’t we all seen this obtrusive little notification jump on top of full screen videos or public presentations?

To manage your Skype notifications, click through to > Tools > Options… and switch to the Notifications side tab. Under Notification settings you will find a list of Windows tray notifications which you can check or uncheck.

While you are at it, you can also jump to the Alerts & messages section and turn off the unwelcome Help and Skype tips as well as Promotions.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird is a great desktop email client, but when it comes to notifications, there is room for improvement. It has been a long time since I started from scratch with it, but as far as I remember, the default setting is to show a system tray alert and play a sound.

To stop this impertinence, go to > Tools > Options… In the General tab under When new message arrives you can uncheck the boxes to Show an alert and Play a sound. If you were a fan of incoming email notifications, you could also customize them to include the subject and sender or play a favorite sound. But seriously, who wants that?

Google Talk

When I recently re-installed my computer, I suddenly received all these new email messages and had no idea where they came from, especially since they were turned off in Thunderbird. Finally it dawned on me, that the source was Google Talk.

As with the previous programs, you can easily turn these notifications off if you know where to find them. Click Settings in the top right of Google Talk, then navigate to the Notifications tab and uncheck Show notification for New email.

Windows Balloon Tips

Windows is set up to deal with DAUs (dumbest assumable users). Consequently, it likes to pop up messages about things the average user either doesn’t care about or already knows. These unhelpful notifications are called balloon tips.

To disable balloon tips, go to the Start menu and search for Group Policy. Open the result Edit group policy, then navigate to > User Configuration > Administrative Tasks > Start Menu and Taskbar. In the list find the entry Turn off all balloon notifications and double-click it.

“If you enable this settings, no notification balloons will be shown to the user.” Hence, to disable the balloon notifications, you have to select Enabled for this setting. To enable the balloon tips, select Disabled or set it to Not Configured.

You can also disable or enable balloon tips with a registry hack. A registry fix for either enabling or disabling the tips, which will save you messing around with the registry itself, is available from SevenForums.

Do you frequently have to write essays or do you enjoy undisturbed creative writing? Check out OmmWriter, which I have reviewed here – Meet Your Writing Deadlines In A Distraction-Free Writing Environment With OmmWriter.

What do you find most distracting when you work on your computer and are there any notifications you have struggled to get rid of?

Image credits: Kitch Bain

Despite this, I have heard about Launchpad. Launchpad is a Mac OSX feature which makes launching applications easier and (of course) more stylish. I know it’s pretty darn easy to launch applications on my iPad, and I’ve been searching for something similar for my Windows machine.

If you’re also looking to tweak your Windows’ look and feel and make it somewhat more Mac-ish, you’re going to love WinLaunch.

Getting Started With WinLaunch

WinLaunch is an application launcher for Windows XP, Vista and 7, which aims to look like Apple’s Launchpad. To start, download WinLaunch, open the zip file and extract the suitable folder for your operating system (x86 or x64). When you’re done, launch WinLaunch.exe.

As you will see, nothing much happens. The first time you run it, you’ll get a “heads up” window telling you about known issues with WinLaunch, which is still in beta. After that, there’s nothing. To start WinLaunch for the first time, hit Shift+Tab.

The screen will blur and this message will appear. WinLaunch doesn’t crawl your system for your applications; you need to add those manually. Hit ‘F’ and start dragging in applications.

As basics go, this is pretty much it. You can drag as many applications as you want, and when the screen is full, WinLaunch will create more pages. You can flip through these pages by left clicking your mouse and sliding it on the screen, much like you would with a touch screen.

Now let’s see how what else you can do with WinLaunch.

Creating Folders And Renaming

WinLaunch allows you to create folders in a way that’s very similar to what you get on Apple’s machines. After dragging in your applications, click on an app with your mouse and drag it over another application. This will create a folder, which you can continue to add to.

If you want to rename the folder (“New Folder” is not very informative), or if you want to rename an app, click on the plus sign on the bottom left corner, and then click the “Rename” button at the bottom of the screen, and then click on the icon you want to rename.

This way, you can easily rename folders to more descriptive titles, and also change any name if you don’t like the one its been given by WinLaunch.

You can open a folder by clicking on it, and then launch any application in the folder by clicking on the icon.

Playing With The Settings

WinLaunch is rather configurable, and you tweak many things to suit your needs and desires. To access the settings, click on the “Settings” button at the bottom of the screen.

In the settings, you can enable and disable hotkeys and HotCorners. With these you can decide how WinLaunch will be activated. What you set here will be the only way to activate the program, so remember these settings. I found the a hot corner worked very well for me, and you can use it to both enable and disable the app. If you choose the “Show desktop when activated” option, WinLaunch will not be maximized; otherwise, it will be launched on the entire screen.

Among other things, you can also change the icons’ size and text size, and all the colors. It’s a bit hard to understand which color is which at first, but playing around with it makes everything clearer. There are some ready-made themes to choose from, and you can even upload photos for the launcher’s background if you wish.

There are more things you can tweak, such as adjusting WinLaunch for multiple monitors (choosing which one it will appear on). Playing with the colors is the best part, though, and as you can see from the above screenshots, you can create lots of different styles and backgrounds. It can look like this:

And even like this (or better, if you actually have talent).

The options are pretty much endless. One downside of WinLaunch is that it’s a bit heavy on the RAM. On my computer, it was using up to 50MB of RAM, just when lying in the background. That’s a bit steep, but the developer does intend to fix this issue. Other than that, WinLaunch runs very smoothly, especially considering it’s still in beta, and toggling it on and off to launch applications quickly becomes a second nature. So if you’re on the hunt for better ways to launch your Windows apps, give it a try!

Know of more Launchpad emulators, or other original ways to launch apps in Windows 7? Share in the comments!

A while ago, Mozilla implemented a feature called about:config into its applications. This feature allows you to edit every single one of Firefox’s internal settings manually, yes, even settings that can’t be accessed through the normal Options panel. Gaining access to these program settings is actually quite simple. All you have to do is go to the URL bar in Firefox and type….you guessed it, about:config! Then just start typing which setting you want to tweak and it will appear on the screen.

Keep in mind that it is possible to break Firefox if you grow too adventurous and fiddle around with parameters that you shouldn’t be fiddling with. MakeUseOf is not responsible for any damage you may cause to your browser or computer by exploring the following tweaks.

browser.ctrlTab.previews

Normally, when you use Ctrl + Tab to navigate through your current tabs, Firefox will just switch from tab to tab, rendering the page with each tap. If you set this setting to true, you’ll instead be shown a row of thumbnails that you can tap through. By default, this setting is set to false.

browser.taskbar.previews.max

In Windows 7, when you hover over the Firefox taskbar icon, you’re presented with a popup that shows a thumbnail preview of all the tabs you have open. If you like to have a lot of open tabs, this list can get pretty big and wieldy. Set it to 1 to minimize its intrusion, or whatever value you prefer. By default, this setting is set to 20.

browser.tabs.closeButtons

Do you hate having an X (the close tab button) on every single open tab in Firefox? Then tweak this setting to your pleasure. Setting it to 0 will only show the X on the currently active tab. Setting it to 2 will not display the X on any tabs at all. Setting it to 3 will remove the X from all of the tabs and create a singular X at the end of the tabs list.

By default, this setting is set to 1.

browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab

In a fresh-out-of-the-box Firefox browser, closing the last remaining tab will result in the entire browser closing. Some of you may not like this. Luckily, all you have to do is change this setting to false and you’ll be able to have an open browser without having any open tabs. By default, this setting is set to true.

browser.urlbar.trimURLs

This tweak is a small one, but some of you may desperately be wanting it. Have you noticed that sometimes the URL bar will truncate the http:// portion? If you want Firefox to stop doing that, then simply change this setting to false. By default, this setting is set to true.

browser.allTabs.previews

At the end of the tabs list, there’s a small button you can click to show a list of all the currently open tabs. With this setting, you can flip it to true and transform the tab list into a tab grid. You’ll see a grid of thumbnails that show all of the tabs you have open. This is very useful for quickly exiting out of multiple tabs.

This is probably one of the more unknown tweaks out there, but it’s a most useful one. By default, this setting is set to false.

Do you know of any other awesome Firefox about:config tweaks that people would find useful? Share them with us in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

However, there’s one technique that is rarely used. In fact, it’s much different from the common advice to close applications you don’t need. So what is this secret technique?

What Is Process Prioritization?

Process prioritization has existed in Windows for quite a while now, but it hasn’t really been used by most people because it’s hidden in a pretty technical corner of your computer. Whenever a process, or running application, has an assigned priority, the system will try its best to allocate its resources (which will be primarily the amount of CPU power) to fit the process’s needs based on its priority. So theoretically, the higher the priority, the faster the application should run.

How To Do It

There are two ways in order to do this. First, you can change the priority of processes through the task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) by right clicking on each process and changing the priority. However these changes disappear once the process ends, and it takes time to apply those priorities to multiple processes. You also can’t create “rules” for new processes. Here’s where a nifty little program comes in.

About Process Prioritizer

Process Prioritizer makes managing process priorities easier than with just the Task Manager. With Process Prioritizer, you can essentially create rules for Windows to follow for any processes that you choose. You can even choose to change the priority of system processes if you run the program as an administrator, but only do it if you’re 500% sure what you’re doing. However, you’ll need to install it first in order to make changes.

Installation

For installation, you’ll need to go to this site, scroll to the very bottom, and hit the last download link. Go through the setup wizard as normal, and you should now have an entry in your start menu. Go ahead and click on it, and a tray icon should now appear. Right click on it and select Open to start the configuration.

The Program

As you can see, the window isn’t exactly stylish, but for a fairly administrative task you can’t really ask for much in that department. There are a couple of tabs for configuration, and each tab only has a certain option.

The “Operation” tab allows you to choose how it should update the process priorities. I would recommend leaving it at the default setting as it’s the fastest without using up a lot of CPU power.

The next four tabs simply allow you to enter in the names of processes for each level of priority. Real-time is the highest, and Idle is the lowest. Note that putting in process names in the Normal tab won’t do anything unless the operating system launches that process at a different priority by default, which I wouldn’t recommend touching.

Also, when entering processes, don’t forget to add “.exe” to the end. So for example, you can add “chrome.exe” to change the priority of Google Chrome. You can find out the name of the process you’re looking for in the task manager or in the tab labeled “Current Processes“. In that tab, you can confirm that the targeted process has changed priorities.

Conclusion

Like I mentioned above, the positive effects are theoretical. There isn’t a guarantee that it’ll bring much, but it’s always worth a try. Through personal experience I’ve seen that processes that don’t have a graphical part to it (like a GUI) have the most benefit from it. Chrome sometimes benefits from it, being faster one time and it feels like it’s stumbling over itself another time. It’s always best to try it out as you might get some much appreciated speed.

What’s your favorite way of speeding up your system? What has worked, and what hasn’t worked that you thought might have? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

It’s been a key criticism since the launch of Unity, that Ubuntu is now impossible to configure. Ubuntu 11.10, the latest version of Ubuntu, is a mixed bag on this front. Some things, like automated backup, are easier to configure than ever before. Other things, like screensavers, are seemingly completely missing.

Let’s take a look at some tools that give the power back to you, the user. Then let’s have a conversation about other tools for the job in the comments below.

Gnome Tweak

Designed to make Gnome 3 and its Gnome Shell easier to customize, Gnome Tweak gives access to many Ubuntu/Unity tweaks as well.

Those wanting to change Ubuntu’s look will be particularly interested, because Gnome Tweak Tool gives you back the ability to change icon themes and more. Why this disappeared in Gnome 3 I’m not sure, but at least with Gnome Tweak we can do this again.

Read more about Gnome Tweak or click here to install Gnome Tweak.

Looking for some worthwhile themes? Check out Bisigi.

Compiz Configuration

Do you want a finer level of control over how Ubuntu behaves? If you’re using the Unity 3D interface, you’re actually using Compiz. In fact, the Unity “desktop” is really just a Compiz plugin. This means the CompizConfig Settings Manager can give you a great deal of power over the Unity Desktop and its behavior.

Want to know more? Read more about configuring Unity with the CompizConfig Settings Manager or simply click here to install CompizConfig Settings Manager. You’ll find a wide variety of configuration options:

xScreenSaver

Most people probably didn’t notice this, because most people don’t really use screensavers anymore. If you’re a screensaver addict though, you almost certainly cried after installing Ubuntu 11.10, which pretty much completely removed all screensavers in favor of a blank screen.

Don’t worry: Liberian Geek found out how to re-add screensavers to Ubuntu 11.10. The process consists of the following commands:

sudo apt-get remove gnome-screensaver
sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl-extra xscreensaver-data-extra

Once you do that, you need to add this program to your startup, in the main Ubuntu settings menu:

xscreensaver -nosplash

This should give you access, once again, to your screensaver of choice. Need more precise instructions? Read Liberian Geek’s article on xScreenSaver.

Ubuntu Tweak

It is perhaps the single most famous Ubuntu configuration tool, and certainly the one with the most Ubuntu-specific customizations. If you want to make changes to Ubuntu, I highly recommend you check out Ubuntu Tweak.

Highlights include quick access to programs not found in the repositories, a package cleaner, theming access and the ability to change default programs for various filetypes. Read more about Ubuntu Tweak or Visit the project’s websites for download information.

Conclusion

There you have it – 4 tools for customizing Ubuntu. If one of these don’t work of you, of course, you could always test one of Ubuntu’s many versions in order to replace Unity entirely.

Those of you unwilling to take that leap, however, should join in the comments below. I’d love to discuss other tricks for tweaking Ubuntu, so let me know what you think of.

I’m one of those people who like to have their computers “just so”. Before Windows 7 came along, I was an avid Litestep user for years. Windows 7 offers a beautiful interface that is actually usable (a great improvement), but still, there are plenty of things that could be changed and customized.

EnhanceMySe7ven is a free app (optional Pro version available) for tweaking these settings, and it also provides lots of system information. The name is a tad too lame (at least for this writer), but the application itself feels solid and well thought-out.

Let’s look at the main UI layout:

So, as you can see, the interface is Ribbon-based, and is chock-full of system information. The information within each section is sensibly laid out; even though there’s a ton of data on the screen at any one time, it doesn’t feel crammed or cluttered. Here’s what the mainboard and memory info page looks like:

This is just the Information tab on the Ribbon. Other tabs include Tools, Most Used Tweaks, System, Optimizations, and Customizations. Sounds promising! Let’s move on to Tools. The first tab on Tools is called Processes, and it shows a listing of all currently running processes in a tree-like structure, somewhat similar to Process Explorer.

The other tools are pretty much what you’d expect; note that you can’t use the Disk Cleaner tool in the free version, but free applications such as CCleaner can help you clean your disk without forking out anything for a commercial product. Now let’s take a look at the Most Used Tweaks tab:

This tab offers three tweaking categories. The Performance category lets you do things like disable the print spool service (in case you don’t have a printer and never print to PDFs), disable Automatic Folder View discovery (to make folders open faster in Explorer), etc. One perplexing thing is that the designers opted for long lists of radio buttons rather than listboxes in certain cases:

You could easily just have two listboxes where there are now twenty different radio buttons (I counted!). Other than this minor quibble, the Performance category is sensible. It won’t make your system into a beast, but speeding up menu animations can make things feel faster. Also, if you’re using Firefox, you may want to increase “Waiting time to kill non-responding applications” (if you know what I mean…).

Next, let’s look at what the System tab offers:

The Security panel lets us configure the Windows firewall, IE password options, Windows Update options, and even (surprisingly), Outlook Express options. Some of the options are handy, such as Enable Popup Blocker for IE. Others are potentially dangerous, such as Disable System Restore.

One interesting area is the Hide Control Panel Applets panel:

Again, this is a double-edged sword. It can be handy to hide the Windows Firewall control panel applets if you have people messing about with firewall settings for example. On the other hand, it can also be really annoying (quite a mean prank to play on someone, to hide an important control panel applet).

Last but not least, let’s take a moment to look at the Customizations tab and the panels it offers:

The “Common customizations” section is one of the handiest ones in the app. For example, you can use it to hide Pictures or Documents if you don’t use those.

Final Thoughts

EnhanceMySe7ven is not revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination, but it is potentially handy. It’s a nice roundup of lots of tweaks and customizations, and if you’re the go-to “computer guy” for your friends and colleagues, you might do well to have it on your USB stick. Pro-only options are sprinkled throughout the app, but at least they’re sectioned off as entire panels, rather than individual options within accessible panels.

But Windows 7 only offers 14 pre-set Aero colors, and if I need a change I have to go to my display options and do it manually. So Aero colors are a lovely thing, but let’s admit it, they’re a bit limited. So I’ve rounded up some cool tools that will enliven your Aero colors experience, be it custom colors, colors that match wallpapers, or even the weather.

AeroTuner

AeroTuner is a portable app that helps you do one thing: customize Aero color. If you’re tired of those same old default options (and let’s face it, only 3-4 of them are really usable), use AeroTuner to create your very own Aero color.

With this little application you can choose your main color and glow color, and then start playing with color balance, blur balance and Aero stripes. You can pretty much create any look you want, and within seconds, your system will have a unique look no one else can match!

If you change your mind, simply click restore and your previous colors will return. You can also find your previous colors in the Personalize area when you right-click the desktop area.

Aura

Windows 8 is going to have a new feature that will change Aero Glass color according to wallpaper. But what if you don’t want to wait? Try Aura.

This small and portable tool can change Aero color according to either wallpaper color or active window icon color. If you’re using IE 9 (which I’m not), it should also change color according to active tabs.

What Aura essentially does is turn the task bar transparent, so it reflects the wallpaper, and the windows themselves get a color that matches the wallpaper or the active window. I’m not sure how the algorithm works, but it seems to be giving out greys a fair number of the times. Nevertheless, the general feeling is rather pleasant.

AeroBlend

AeroBlend is very similar to Aura, but in my opinion seems to work a little better. This might be due to the algorithm that it uses to calculate the colors. It is also an actual installation, and not a portable app.

As in Aura, you can choose whether it should change colors according to wallpaper, icon or content (not only IE9!), and you can control the color intensity right there from the settings window. You can also choose to check the mysterious option “Fade colos”.

I’m assuming “Fade colos” is fade colors, and some testing seem to show that this is in fact the case. When you uncheck it, the change in color is immediate. The difference, however, is almost unnoticeable.

As you can see, AeroBlend creates a pretty good match to wallpaper color, and the entire work environment becomes much more lively. Fun!

AeroWeather

One of the coolest tools I’ve found on my quest to boost my Aero color is AeroWeather. This nifty little tool changes Aero color according to either temperature or weather conditions.

To start, you’ll need to set up your location (zip code works in US only) and choose whether the colors should change according to temperature or conditions. If you choose temperature, you can decide the range according to which you’d like the color to change. When the temperature is close to the lower end, your desktop will look bluish-purplish:

When it’s close to the higher end, it will turn reddish:

There are all sorts of other colors in the middle.

AeroWeather can also dim your Aero color at night, which is a really cool feature. If you can’t see a real change, try increasing color intensity in Windows’ Personalize –> Window color.

AeroRainbow

AeroRainbow is another fun application – this time, an Aero color randomizer. This little app comes from the same developers as AeroTuner, but does something a bit different. The main feature is a constantly changing Aero color, either randomly or according to a list you can build yourself.

You can decide how often the change occurs, but the slowest setting is one change per minute, which is still a bit fast for my tastes. You can also use AeroRainbow to change your colors according to wallpaper, active window or active window icon, and choose whether this will be according to dominate color or average color.

If you create a nice color list, you can have a truly fetching desktop that never gets boring!

Bottom Line

Aero color tweakers, if you use them right, can help you create a system that is both fun and aesthetic. Just trying these tools out made me a happier person. Go ahead, indulge yourself and start playing with colors. It’s the easiest way to change your work environment so your eyes never get bored.

Do you know of some more interesting color customization tools for Aero? Let us know in the comments!

Image credit: Shutterstock

You may be wondering why you would need your iPhone to know how fast you are going when your car has a speedometer built right in. Well, what if you are riding on a train and you want to know how fast it is moving? Or how about a bus? Maybe you are in the third row of a friends giant Lincoln Navigator and you want to yell at them for driving like an old lady, but you need to make sure it isn’t just your imagination, and that he or she is, in fact, actually driving slowly.

Whatever your reason for needing to know your speed, I’m going to show you two cool Cydia tweaks that allow you to quickly and easily add a speedometer to your iPhone.

Installing The Apps

Both of the apps I am going to recommend today are available in the base Cydia repositories, so installing them is nice and easy. The first app is called “Speed for Maps.” Simply search for that in Cydia, install the package and you’ll be ready to go. The second one is called “Speedometer,” search for that in Cydia, download, and be impressed.

Speed For Maps

Speed for Maps is a very basic Cydia tweak that does one thing and does it well. It overlays a little speedometer in the base iPhone maps app. It drops it on the bottom right corner of the screen, so it will not intrude with the view of where you are going.

It is a very cool little tweak that works exactly as advertised. Simply install it in Cydia, respring your iPhone and open up the maps app. There is virtually no setup involved and you will be ready to use the app immediately. This is a small, highly functional tweak that adds something to the iPhone that should be there by default.

The speed was very accurate as long as I was moving quickly. I had a hard time getting it to pick up my movement while walking, but in the car it had no problem.

Speedometer

Speedometer is a standalone app that does not integrate with Maps. It simply launches and tells you exactly how fast you are moving. It offers two different display themes in the free version, and offers two more premium themes if you would like to pay. The free version also features a small ad on the bottom of the app.

The cool thing about this app is that it features social network integration. You can simply click the Twitter or Facebook button and the app will post how fast you are moving at that time. It will also share your highest speed with your friends. It might be a great way to get busted if you have some police officers on your friends list.

While this iPhone speedometer app is designed as more of a “for fun” app, it is still cool if you just want to quickly find out how fast you are moving and share it with your friends.

The speed accuracy on this worked the same as the first one. It was almost dead on to the speed that my car showed.

Conclusion

Both of these apps are cool if you want to know how fast you are traveling and you do not have access to a car’s speedometer. Speed for Maps is more of a functional app that adds a function to an already existing iPhone service. Speedometer, while still functional, is more of a novelty in that it just shows you your speed, and allows you to share with your friends. Either way, they both get the job done, it just depends on exactly what kind of functionality you are looking for.

Have you tried these iPhone speedometer apps? Did you set a land speed record? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit: Michiel2005