How to Set One Picture from a Theme as Wallpaper in Windows 10 - The Easy Way! #WIN10

Work from home in style, maximizing your Windows personalization experience.

Windows personalization themes generally come with a pack of images that automatically play in a slideshow on your desktop. Users can choose the speed of the slideshow and, depending on their software version, users can pick a single image for static display.

However, while Windows software versions prior to WIN10 allowed selection of one static image from that pack, WIN10 presents with slideshow-only theme function. There is a workaround, which involves finding your user-downloaded theme files and copy/pasting their packed images.

An abbreviated version of the personalization process:

Panos Sakalakis via Unsplash

• Open file explorer and click on C: drive
  
• Find Users folder and open it
• Open the User folder containing downloaded theme pack
• Open AppData folder, then /Microsoft/Windows/Themes
• Click on named theme folder of choice- the folder will open and display a "DesktopBackground" folder--open it.
  
• Copy desired images to chosen folder, such as This PC/Pictures

Now you should be able to "personalize" your desktop image with your desired theme pack image via settings (accessible when you right-click your desktop).

While other users may have a different experience, it was this easy for me. No need to change any file extension names, or run any extractions, as is a common solution for the issue.

REF:

How do I find my Themes folder?

How to Cancel, Restart Amazon Prime Video Channels

Are you paying for Prime Video Channels that you haven't watched in months?

Aha! Read on to learn how to:

1. Check your subscribed Amazon Prime Video Channels
2. Cancel (or restart) a Prime Video Channel

First, sign into your Amazon account.

Next, under Amazon's "Hello, [your name]" greeting, hover over "Accounts & Lists" to access the main drop-down menu. It is here that you can find your "Memberships & Subscriptions" (circled, below).

Click on the "Memberships & Subscriptions" link (circled in orange) to arrive at the page entitled "Your Memberships & Subscriptions", pictured below. Here, you will immediately find two new drop-down menus entitled "View" and "Sort by", along with any listed memberships and subscriptions below them.

While this is in fact a reference page for "Your Memberships & Subscriptions" at Amazon, it is not the page with the link to manage cancellations and restarts of your favorite Prime Video Channels. *There is not an "advanced controls" link with the "Memberships and Subscriptions" listed here, as suggested in Amazon's Help & Customer Service regarding management of these features. Therefore, one cannot simply "cancel subscribe with Amazon subscriptions" via this page.

Rather, this method simply allows one to view a list of their memberships and subscriptions, as well as provides a text link to payment management (same method for all payments due).

So, don't drive yourself crazy looping around some of those Amazon help links found when searching how to cancel—if it looks like the link you need isn't where it's supposed to be, it's probably not! Keep reading to learn how to actually cancel or restart your Prime Video Channel Subscriptions:

How to Manage your Amazon Prime Video Channel Subscriptions

In order to cancel a Prime Video subscription, or restart one previously cancelled, it is necessary to navigate specifically to "Manage Your Prime Video Channels", which is found on the "Your Account" source page (not the banner drop-down menu).

To get there, click "Your Account" from the banner drop-down menu. This takes you to your account summary page, where you will find frames containing various links. Find the "Memberships & Subscriptions" frame, then find your "Prime Video Channels" (circled in orange, below). 

Your Account > Memberships & Subscriptions > Prime Video Channels

Click on the "Prime Video Channels" link, and voila! Here you will find your Prime Video Channel invoice links, along with listed current and past subscriptions and their options to either "cancel" or "restart".  Refer to the image below for an idea what this will look like:

Under "Prime Video Channels", users cancel channels or restart cancelled channels.

Note: A user could navigate to the channel management page from the hitherto ineffectual "Memberships & Subscriptions" page, when presented with this option in a scrolling menu at page bottom. This option is shown in our second image from top at bottom left. (It just so happens that the link image text doesn't indicate that management options are available, thus users often won't click it.)

As well, a user intent solely on Prime Channel management could skip the "Memberships & Subscriptions" page altogether and head directly to "Prime Video Channels" as outlined just above. Their channels will be listed for simple reference, and they'll be able to make adjustments.

* * *

Hopefully, this blog post about Amazon Prime Channel management helps to eliminate confusion and save some time for you. After all, the Amazon experience can be a jungle at times!

* * *

Do you have channels listed that you haven't watched in awhile, or do you think it's time to go shopping for a new Prime Video Channel? 

Please, let us know if this how-to helped you out. We'd appreciate it! 

Movie Review: Manglehorn

Romance/Drama Stars Al Pacino & Holly Hunter, Features Harmony Korine

A brooding chapter in the life of one older man sums up Manglehorn in one simple phrase. However, to rest on such an oversimplification of fact as the total sum of a worthy review would be impossible. 

Don't be distracted by those who'd write the Manglehorn experience off as a predictable or otherwise somehow knowable story—a story of 'any old man'. Rather, treat yourself to the opportunity of another of Al Pacino's incomparable performances in a role of an unexpected kind for the tenured actor. 

A.J. Manglehorn (Angelo) hardly stands out in a society of conformity, being essentially a made man who owns his own business that serves the community. He lives in a little home on a nice block in a quiet Texas town with a red-flag mailbox. Yet, Manglehorn harbors an obsession that deserves a second look and understanding, and requires a growth of the human condition.

While Manglehorn may not be a family movie per se, anyone could watch. Ultimately, though, this is an adult-themed drama/romance movie best saved for those times when you truly have a movie moment to sit back and take it all in.

It'd be going too far to even define the Mangelhorn character as eccentric. It is, however, a worthy character study that delves into the ongoing state of sorrow experienced by a man who has come to be (mostly) alone in life. (Really, is that in itself a problem?) What is Manglehorn's greatest regret? Probably not what we initially believe. 

Despite being an introspective, creative sort who writes and sometimes draws to sort out his feelings, Manglehorn doesn't seem able to shake his depression concerning a past relationship. Will he ever break free?

Humans are a quirky, interesting lot—without contemplative films like Manglehorn, we'd normally miss out on the experience and understanding of such characters who cope with life's challenges in their personalized, yet society-conforming, ways. 

Al Pacino - Manglehorn

How do people survive? What a loss it'd be, to not have these opportunities to be flies on a wall of the less-than-braggable experiences of others, with which we ourselves are just as likely to contend in life. 

Manglehorn's supporting cast lends its own eccentricities to the life of the man, and works to engage its audience in some part of the ongoing struggles experienced by them all.

Find Manglehorn on IMDB

Motivational Icon Napoleon Hill: Success in Motivation for Others

Controversy Needn't Negate Positivity

The internet being what it is for quotes, most of us today are familiar with extrinsic motivator Napoleon Hill. Born October, 1883, Hill became a leading giver of sage advice over a long career as a writer and speaker.

Hill's enduring, perhaps most ironic quotable message was that "fervid" expectations are essential to improving one's experience; a message to be found referenced in several publications not penned by Hill—an idea based in impressions derived from Hill's written works. 

Despite being a controversial figure with personal failings, Hill nevertheless followed in the footsteps of his most admired motivational figures and painstakingly created success for himself (as well as any conflicts in his wake).

Through his own life experience, Hill realized that people need external motivation at certain times in their lives. Thus, he offered it. Best known for the personal development work entitled Think and Grow Rich (1937), Napoleon Hill is usually well regarded for his writing and inspirational lifestyle, and responsible for many of the multitude of motivational quotes that grace the streams of social media.

Napoleon Hill Quotes

Motivational quotations taken from the Hill library include such sage points as:

•  Neglecting to broaden their view has kept some people doing one

  

  Napoleon Hill

  thing all their lives.
• When your desires are strong enough, you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve. 
• If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self. 
• The starting point of all achievement is desire. Weak desire brings weak results.
• Where thought prevails power may be found!

These relatively few samples are a good indication of the type of instigating content motivation-seekers desire, in order to enrich themselves.

No doubt, much of Hill's subject matter is invaluable to those who seek or stumble upon it, and many consider themselves to have benefitted from it in some way.

Extrinsic Motivational Prompts Can't Replace Our Actions

While some are luckier in life, others don't have quantifiable positive external motivators in their lives. They may rely on outside sources of positivity to generate the force within themselves.

Sure, everyday facts of life can be motivating or offer positive as well as negative experiences, but such inevitable events aren't necessarily motivating in that positively targeted way that instills the excitement of cheering directly for our benefit! Rather, such motivation is available primarily in the service product of motivational speaking.

Plus, with motivational speaking comes the studied, often experienced, tips for success. It's not just about the cheer-leadership, but about gaining insights gathered along the road to proven success.

In the end, however, we must realize—about ourselves—that the power to succeed is within each and every one of us, and sometimes only needs to be encouraged, or revived. This is what makes such positive external motivators as Hill worthy resources in our work on ourselves. 

Whether we are more or less intrinsically motivated to positive or negative actions is largely based in our environmental experiences. While circumstance may stall or upend us, we make our own base decisions. We pick up our own books, choose our best-anticipated Ted Talks, and we choose what our free time (time not spent earning a living) will look like. 
Ultimately, we must pick our own most-effective leadership.

REFERENCES

The Edge Bulgaria: Open Innovation for Tomorrow – Bridging the Gap Between Research and Business Development, theedge.solutions/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Think-and-Grow-Rich-by-Napoleon-Hill.pdf.

Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/.

"Napoleon Hill." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, 17 Feb. 2004, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_Hill. Accessed 23 Aug. 2019.

Novak, Matt. "The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time." Paleofuture, 6 Dec. 2016, paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-napoleon-hill-the-greatest-self-he-1789385645.

"Wisdom for the Soul." Google Books, books.google.com/books?id=-T3QhPjIxhIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=isbn:9780977339105&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Mark it on Your Calendar: "Plan Your Epitaph Day"

November 1 marks the day that some of us will sit down to write our own epitaph. Whether near the end of life or not, some comfort may be taken in the power of the written word as one drafts these final words in brief summation of their existence.

Some may sense a macabre element inherent in such an occasion as November's Plan Your Epitaph Day, and there may be. However, it may be more a matter of convenience and surety.

Our epitaph is kind of like our 30-second elevator speech, only more personalized and usually shorter—thus deeper (emotionally); and, with much less predictability regarding the circumstances and delivery of the communication.

What is an epitaph?

An epitaph is essentially a story by which an event, person or time may be remembered. Take, for example, the image of the Haymarket Riot Memorial:

Image via Wikipedia Commons Author

The Gravesite Epitaph

The best examples of an epitaph like that which we're considering herein are found on individual gravestones and crypt plates. These epitaphs, or ultra-short stories, comprise a message about the deceased person to which they refer. An epitaph may be as simple and fundamental as

In memory of . . .

Alternatively, or in addition, an epitaph may be a more elaborate statement:

With Love, Throughout Eternity . . .

Yet more detailed epitaphs can be found, such as:

GOOD FREND FOR JESVS SAKE FORBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HERE.
BLESE BE Ye MAN Yt SPARES THES STONES,
AND CVRST BE HE Yt MOVES MY BONES.

—classical literary work, as appears on the tomb of William Shakespeare

There are epitaphs you wouldn't want, like that of a maid of Queen Elizabeth:

Here lies, the Lord have mercy upon her,
One of her Majesty's maids of honour:
She was both young, slender, and pretty,
She died a maid, the more the pity.

Why Draft Our Own Epitaph

See, when you think about it, a special day set aside to draft our own epitaph makes perfect sense. We could leave it to chance, and most probably do. But, all things considered, summation of our life experience may be best left to us.

Of course, there is little guarantee of our wishes being met before our death—and much less after; but, we do know that desire and clarity are important factors in our best, results-oriented, goal setting.

Being that the date of the occasion is November 1 each year, there are several other reasons for the inspired event.

1. Being the day immediately following Halloween, our minds are ceremonially prepared for the macabre side of life. 
2. Being the fall season—aka the cooldown that signals the end (or hibernation) of many things, such as green leaves and growing food
3. Being the day also known as All Saints Day, November 1 is already a celebration of sorts. (In some traditions, food gifts are commonplace.) Why not make it a little about ourselves as we strive to follow in the footsteps of our most hallowed. 
4. Being All Saints Day, one of the traditions of the day is to actually visit cemeteries. Many do visit deceased loved ones on this marked day. Notably, in the Americas at least, florists are likely to see a spike in patrons at this time due to the tradition of bringing flowers to graves on November 1.
5. Self-help strategy: Minding one's own potential epitaph on an occasional basis is a way of gaining introspective insight into their persona, or how they relate to the world outside their personal sphere. What do you think about yourself, and what would/should others be saying about you after you pass on from this world? Do these perceptions match up?

So, we can see that writing one's own epitaph is not all as macabre as one might initially think. Still, it doesn't hurt to be in such a frame of mind. The post-Halloween autumn season of falling leaves and temperatures certainly lends to an ambience conducive to the task.

Can you think of any other inspirations to draft your own epitaph?


REFERENCES:

Famous Literary Epitaphs. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/epitaphs.html

November 2019 Official, Fun, Crazy and Bizarre Holidays. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.brownielocks.com/NOVEMBER2019.html

Plan Your Epitaph Day, November 2 or April 6 at Holiday Insights. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/April/planyourepitaphday.htm

Shakespeare's funerary monument. (2006, April 4). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare's_funerary_monument

Legends of the Music Business: Tom Petty

Born October 20, died October 2, (1950–2017) Tom Petty remains legendary in the world of iconic musicians. Fans were shocked when Petty was rushed to the hospital after cardiac arrest during October of 2017, only to pass away within hours.

The musically-inclined American songwriter and performer was a talented multi-instrumentalist, and had known he would sing before picking up his first guitar.

"Petty knew that he wanted to be in a band. Eventually he learned to play guitar. And of course, if you played guitar, you needed to sing."  —via Marc O'Hara, The Unique Guitar Blog

There's no mistaking the originality of the songwriting and sound of Tom Petty . . . such that draws listeners into his realm of storytelling. Such creativity and novelty kept fans interested over decades of performance.


The artist's conception stage regarding each piece often involved a character-driven perspective that brought focus and direction to his writing. Hence, much of his work parlayed well into the world of music video during its high time—primarily throughout the 1980s and mid-90s. These videos featuring Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers continue to be some of the most popular, as evidenced by the number of YouTube plays alone.

Perhaps the kind of attention to detail regarding the perceptions of the other as required for character writing lent to Petty's acumen pertaining to business. Petty was about as well-tuned to success in the realm of business dealings, including copyright trespass and dispute—if not professionally, then by virtue of will and determination to not be rooked by those in power over him and his fellow musicians.

Despite any inherent naivety common to initial, impassioned forays into professional landscapes (be they music, art, or any venue where an individual or group has a product they need to sell in order to get by financially) Petty was able to overcome some of the most potentially damaging steps over his and bandmates' best interests.

One example of such struggle would be the kind of notorious actions taken by big labels with little consideration for the artist, such as in Petty's case by ABC/MCA in their own respective best interests which overlooked those of Petty and company. Creatives of any kind can gain inspiration from Petty's legendary handling of artistic rights. As well, Petty's realism toward freedom of expression instills respect.

Take, for example, the case of Tom Petty vs. Sam Smith wherein Petty's "I won't back down" and Smith's "Stay With Me" turned out with distinctly similar sound. Although there was cause for official address, Petty never harbored ill will toward Smith regarding what Petty deemed a casual "accident" of music production.

Similarly, when the Red Hot Chili Peppers presented "Dani California" to audiences, many noticed significant similarity between it and Tom Petty's "Mary Jane's Last Dance". This particular scenario never culminated in any legal action, because Petty refused to believe that there was any "negative intent" behind the incorporation of sounds similar to those orchestrated by Petty at a previous time.

These instances are representative of the positive vibe generally associated with the work of Tom Petty, witnessed by millions and likely instilled into the hearts of fans.


REF:

O'Hara, Marc. "Tom Petty - His Life and Guitars." The Unique Guitar Blog, uniqueguitar.blogspot.com/2017/10/tom-petty-his-life-and-guitars.html.

"Op-Ed: That Time Tom Petty Wouldn't Back Down." Los Angeles Times, 9 Oct. 2017, www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-jules-how-tom-petty-took-on-the-music-industry-20171010-story.html.

Stone, R. (2017, October 3). The 10 Greatest Tom Petty Music Videos. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/the-10-greatest-tom-petty-music-videos-121611/mary-janes-last-dance-1993-122794/

Kreps, D. (2015, January 29). Read Tom Petty's Statement on Sam Smith Settlement. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tom-petty-on-sam-smith-settlement-no-hard-feelings-these-things-happen-35541/ 

FURTHER READING:

What's Come Out About Tom Petty Since He Died
https://www.grunge.com/144335/whats-come-out-about-tom-petty-since-he-died/

Tom Petty Save Rock N' Roll from the 80s
https://blog.discmakers.com/2017/10/tom-petty-saved-rock-n-roll/

These Tom Petty Quotes Will Remind You of How Powerful the Musician's Words Truly Were
https://www.bustle.com/p/these-tom-petty-quotes-will-remind-you-of-how-powerful-the-musicians-words-truly-were-2755068 

The Fall is Upon Us – Autumn has Arrived

By whichever name you say it, the final temperate season of the Gregorian calendar year has arrived.

Autumn, a.k.a. fall, has confirmed our (conscious or subconscious) awareness of the changing light of day. Sunrise seems delayed, while sunset falls on the horizon more quickly than yesterday, and the day before. 

fallen leaves of autumn

A week ago, Monday 23 September—whether or not the fall of leaves had begun in a particular area—the fall of the year began its official season north of the equator.

After summer's daily extensions of daylight time, the September equinox has changed our experience yet again, for a moment in time. 

More formally regarded as autumn, the impressionistic "fall" season was conferred its name as long and far ago as 16th-century England—a result of the progression of Indo-European–Germanic language upon Continental Europe.

Eventually, lingual usage of "fall" declined in Europe, but not before its favor and subsequent travel to the North American continent during the 17th-century period of English emigration to the North American British colonies; where, perhaps due to the proliferation of land forested with trees and their autumn leaves all across the eastern U.S., the name most like the perception of falling leaves remained.

Wishing you all a happy fall, of bountiful harvest. 

REFERENCES:

"Autumn Vs. Fall." Grammarist – English Grammar, Grammar Rules and Tips – English Grammar, Usage, and Style Blog, grammarist.com/usage/autumn-fall/.

"Autumn." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, 30 Dec. 2001, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn. Accessed 30 Sept. 2019.

College of Natural Resources, North Carolina State University Topography, Soil, and Trees [...]. Site, research.cnr.ncsu.edu/sites/woodlandstewardseries/wp-content/uploads/sites/15/2015/01/ForestryIncludesSoilTopographyandTrees.pdf.

Photo image, person holding fallen leaves, by Cecile Vedemil via Unsplash