Creating Your Own Computer Icons
If you're the artsy type of individual or want to create
your own personal touch on your desktop,
one avenue you may wish to pursue is creating your own icons.

To do this, open Paint and before doing any creating, do this:
Click Image, Attributes, and make the height and width 32 pixels, click OK.
Click View, Zoom, and select the "Show Grid" option.
Click View, Zoom, Custom, and go to 800%, click OK.
Now, you can create to your heart's content.
Save the file as .bmp, and then in Explorer, rename it to an .ico file.
Ignore the Caution Warning about "If you change the file extension the file could become unusable".
Use this icon wherever you wish.


Or... in Microsoft XP just open an existing picture file in Paint.

You can select just a portion of the picture if you want by choosing the
Select Button and cutting out a portion of the picture.
Copy and paste to a blank Paint screen.

Go to Image then Attributes and create a square image,
by decreasing the smaller number to the equal of the larger number.

You may want to CENTER the image now, use the Select Button
 to move the original portion of the picture.

Then go to Image then Stretch/Skew, you will have to play around with this until
you get a 32 by 32 <or> 33 by 33 pixel image,
be sure to click UNDO each time you get it wrong.
When you are ready to save the new image, it should be saved as a .bmp file.
You will want to rename the file if the original was already a .bmp file.
It is OK to save this in the same location where the original file came from.

Now right-click on the new file and select RENAME "Picture.bmp" to "Picture.ico"
Ignore the Caution Warning about "If you change the file extension the file could become unusable".

Now select the Desk Top item or File Folder you want to change.
Right-click on it, go to Properties, and select the Customize tab and the Change Icon button,
this will bring up the standard and default XP Icons, select the Browse... button, and go to where the icon is.
The rest is self-explanatory.

	One Note of Caution:  If you later MOVE your icon file to another location
Windows will default back to a normal file folder, but that is no problem if you just redo the above paragraph.



From John Burkitt:
Ok, gang, how many of you have Windows XP at work or at home?
Ever notice those irritating choices for the little user icons you sign in with?
Wanna be a guitar, cat at mouse-hole, chess-piece, or a dog?
Then you're covered.  Else... well... better not said.

‘TILL NOW.

It doesn't matter if it's the universal symbol, first class, Cub Scout,
or one of your favorite patches. If you can make it a 50 x 50 pixel
JPEG file, you can keep it in your C:\WINDOWS directory and then go to
Control panel, choose USER ACCOUNTS, and pick the little icon that
currently (miss) represents the real you.
Choose "Change my picture”. BROWSE to C:\WINDOWS
and locate your new self, be it BSA_HERO.jpg or whatever. 
The next time you start up, BOOM, there you are!

If anybody is interested, I can also tell you how to design a true
Scouting color scheme. Not the crappy CRAYOLA 16 pack, but a true
24-bit color scheme that practically screams at the world,
"I ONLY LIVE WHEN I'M IN UNIFORM!!"

John Burkitt         chakal@CATBOX.COM