Transparent emacs on windows

Here's a handy function which lets you choose a transparent level (0 is fully transparent and 100 is opaque), for the main emacs frame in both focused and unfocused state.

(defun transparent(alpha-level no-focus-alpha-level)
 "Let's you make the window transparent"
 (interactive "nAlpha level (0-100): \nnNo focus alpha level (0-100): ")
 (set-frame-parameter (selected-frame) 'alpha (list alpha-level no-focus-alpha-level))
 (add-to-list 'default-frame-alist `(alpha ,alpha-level)))

To run M-x transparent. 

Enter the values you want for when the window has focus and when it does not. In the background you can see system status information on the desktop, which is another excellent utility from sysinternals called BgInfo. It let's you display useful info about your system right on your desktop, similar to tools you may find on linux. 

Windows command window title

Did you know you could change the title in the window of a command prompt using the title command? Example:

title Poop ha ha

Now that's only really useful for making windows with rude words in their title bars right? Well actually, I've found a great use for it. If you have a bunch of command prompt windows open then you have no idea which one is which on the Windows taskbar, once they are stacked. So naming them is a really useful habit since once named you can see which window is which.