trail of the light
the truth is out there

If You like s.f. genre and would appreciate its taste accompanying You while using Your Windows PC, then I’m happy to tell You about some tricks, which nicely bring this science-fiction flavor, making it often visible - like some appetizing season :) .

First and foremost, the funny thing about it is that a small tool which enables You to have this gadget - serves a bit of a different purpose, and its s.f. component is rather like “side-effect”, so to speak ;) . The whole thing is about switching between multiple sound cards (if You use more than one). Fortunately I’m almost sure that this is not necessary for You to benefit from the s.f. effect :) .

If You, however, do use multiple sound-cards, this tool may be much of a help, making the whole situation much easier to manage. It’s not that simple and convenient to handle multiple sound cards “by hand”, using native Windows functionality - AudioSwitch is excellent in that it enables You to handle this a little bit convoluted stuff... with a few keyboard shortcuts :) . So, for example, this way You can:

• switch between sound cards, as a result of which all sounds from Your computer will be provided by the current (active) one,
• increase/decrease volume level,
• mute volume;

In case of the last two this is the place when s.f. effect mentioned earlier shows up. Just set up the “Ignition OSD” skin on the General (bookmark) › OSD Settings section - then switch to the Hot Keys bookmark, define Your preferred keyboard shortcuts for Playback Volume Up, Playback Volume Down, Toggle Playback Mute and - in case of using multiple sound cards - Next Playback Device - and mark the Show OSD check box next to each of them, excluding the last (because here it seems to be an useless choice). When You finish setting it all up, click the* Apply Hotkeys & Close* button on the right bottom.

Back to OSD skin list - as You’ll notice, You can preview each skin while browsing the list, so it is quite convenient (while in other apps You need to click the apply button first to preview Your choice). But there is another great thing to it: when an OSD skin is visible while browsing the list, You can drag and move it to Your most preferred location - and after closing the app’s settings window it will be saved. That simple :) . I love that kind of brilliance and smartness in software :) .

You can download AudioSwitch from here »