EggJax: Five almost related web services in one

We're big fans of software that does one thing and does it well. But we also have a soft spot in our hearts for jack of all trades style applications. And EggJax almost falls into the latter category. Except we're not entirely sure why all of these trades are in the same package. Here are the five things you can do from the EggJax page:

1. Reverse phone number lookup
   
2. People finder (enter a name, city, and state and try to find a street address and phone number)
   
3. Business directory
   
4. Weather forecasts by city
   
5. TinyURL creator

Now, maybe it's just us, but one or two of these things are not like the other. Sure, we can imagine a situation where you're looking up an old friend in the city you grew up in, want to find the company where he now works, and then want to check the weather forecast for next week so you know whether to bring an umbrella when you show up to surprise him. But what's the TinyURL clipper for?

[Via: MakeUseOf ] [Tag: ]

Microsoft does NOT release XP SP3 through Windows Update today

For the last week or two we've been telling you that Microsoft planned to release Windows XP Service Pack 3 through Windows Update today, meaning most Windows XP users would download and install it automatically. But then Microsoft decided to go and make liars of us, by holding off on the release.

ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley reports that Microsoft discovered a compatibility problem that the company wants to solve before pushing out the update to all users. The problem is with Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System, and affects Windows XP SP3 and Windows Vista SP1. And we can't for the life of us figure out why Microsoft would delay pushing out SP3 to all of its retail customers for a compatibility issue that will only affect customers who use a niche business oriented application from Microsoft.

If you're tired of waiting, you could always just download Windows XP SP3 the old fashioned way, by finding a link someone dug up and posted on a web site. If it makes you feel any better, the download link points to a Microsoft server. [Via: Download Squad ] [Tag: ]

TypeRacer: Competitive typing test - Time Waster

You probably think you're hot stuff because you can type 90+ words per minute. But how well do you perform when you've got a couple of other speed typists hot on your heels? While competitive typing isn't likely to hit the Olympics, or even ESPN2 anytime soon, TypeRacer is an online game that makes typing speed tests a bit more interesting by letting you see how your skills stack up against others.

TypeRacer asks you to type a relatively short snippet of text, which may be a quote from a book, movie, or something else you can purchase on Amazon (the site is designed to make money by getting you to click on Amazon affiliate links). As you're typing, a little car will move across the screen and you can see other drivers/typists racing. New races start pretty regularly so you should only have to wait a few seconds to join a race.

Just remember, if you spend too much time eying the competition, you're going to fall behind and then you'll never make the high scores list.

[Via: AppScout ] [Tag: ]

Wrongcards: ecards for the insensitive

If you're tired of cheery, politically-correct e-cards and want to say it like you mean it, check out Wrongcards' offerings. Their e-cards don't have animated fluffy bunnies or smiling sunflowers, but they do have direct, honest quotes and illustrations covering the obvious topics like birthdays and anniversaries.

For example, send a "get well" card that says what you're really thinking: "Get Well, but if you don't, I'd find it very consoling if you left me your Wii." Or for the confident romantic, try this one: "Obviously this anniversary comes as a surprise...because you should totally have dumped me by now...but whatever..."

Wrongcards has the standard featureset of other e-card sites: send the card to multiple e-mail addresses, add your own custom message to the card, and get notified when someone reads your card.

[Via: del.icio.us ] [Tag: ]

Skype for Windows hits version 3.8

Less than a month after releasing a public beta of Skype 3.8 for Windows, the company has launched a public version of the updated internet telephony client.

As a point release, you shouldn't expect to find a ton of new features in Skype 3.8. Most of the changes are under the hood, but users should notice improved call quality, meaning fewer dropped calls, less delay, and less background noise. The new version should also do a better job of automatically configuring your firewall and router settings.

Skype has also hidden away user profile images from incoming requests. This might not sound like a big deal, but if you've ever received a request from someone with an avatar you'd rather not display on your work computer, this update could be a life saver. [Via: Download Squad ] [Tag: ]

Yelp launches business accounts

Yelp lets customers write reviews of restaurants, shops, and all sorts of other businesses in communities throughout the country. And that's the sort of service that makes the site both incredibly useful and incredibly dangerous for business owners.

Now Yelp is giving business owners tools that let them keep a closer eye on the reviews their establishment is receiving. If you sign up for a Business Owner Account, you can track how many people view your business page, update your business profile, and send messages to people who have reviewed your business. In order to get a business owner account, you'll obviously need to verify that you actually run the business in question.

Of course, there's no guaranty that you'll be able to prevent people from writing that your food tastes stale or that your bathrooms are smelly unless you actual improve your food and clean your bathrooms. You know, unless those folks on the internet are lying. But that never happens.

[Via: TechCrunch ] [Tag: ]

K-Melon: It's like Firefox, without the Bloat

K-Meleon is a light weight web browser for folks who don't need a ton of plugins, options, or much of anything except for a good utility for viewing web sites. The browser uses the same rendering engine as Firefox, so pretty much any page that you can access in Firefox can also be opened in K-Meleon. But don't expect your Firefox add-ons or Greasemonkey scripts to place nice with K-Meleon.

Because K-Meleon lacks some of the bells and whistles you'd find in Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Opera, the browser is fast. Like really fast. It also doesn't use as much RAM as Firefox, which is known to be something of a memory hog.

That's not to say that K-Meleon is a one-trick pony. The browser is customizable, and you can choose from a variety of skins and themes. And K-Meleon supports tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, pop up blocking, and macros.

K-Meleon is Windows only. But if you're looking for light weight Mac or Linux web browsers that use the same Gecko rendering engine as Firefox, check out Camino or Galeon. [Via: Download Squad ] [Tag: ]

Wigix wants to be the next eBay, offers no-fee auctions to do it

In case you hadn't noticed, there's been a bit of a revolt among eBay power sellers. Basically, eBay increased some fees, which led some buyers to hold a boycott. But the truth of the matter is eBay is a giant, and if you make a decent portion of your income buying and selling goods on eBay, there aren't a ton of good alternatives. Wigix wants to change that, and the site is willing to waive fees on all items sold for less than $25 to do it. For pricier items, WIgix has significantly lower transaction fees than you'll find on eBay.

Wigix isn't exactly an auction like eBay. Rather, it's an "exchange," which lets buyers and sellers connect with one another. Sellers don't have to fill out product descriptions manually. Instead they choose from a database of products which already have product descriptions. This database also makes the search process easy for buyers. When you start to enter a term in the search box, Wigix will provide a list of items to chose from before you even hit enter. When you find the item you're looking for, you can see how many buyers and sellers there are, and you can set a price at which you're wiling to buy an item. As soon as the item is available for that price, Wigix will hook you up with a seller.

You can conduct similar transactions with eBay's Half.com, which lets you "pre-order" an item which will automatically be purchased as soon as someone offers one for sale at your desired price. But Half.com only includes books, movies, music, and video games, while Wigix users can sell pretty much anything.

[Via: Mashable ] [Tag: ]

Xbox Live up and running, but still having "difficulties"

As you may have noticed, Xbox Live has been a little wonky as of late and, according to Microsoft's latest status update, it looks like it could stay that way for at least a little while longer. While the service itself is apparently "up and running," it seems that anyone matchmaking or using client voice communication may "experience difficulties," which is just a little bit more than a minor issue. No word on a full return to form just yet, but it seems that the folks in Redmond are on the case.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in] [Via: Engadget ] [Tag: xbox, xbox live, xbox live outage, XboxLive, XboxLiveOutage ]

Launchball- Today's Time Waster

Launchball is a fun, smart, and polished game courtesy of the Science Museum in London. The game uses a common premise: coax a ball into a goal. The objects you can use to accomplish this task though are based generally on electricity, magnetism, and mechanics.

There are basic shapes like "ski jumps" and ramps, but there are also batteries and steam generators (which also require a water tank and fire) to power magnets and fans. There are switches, springs, cushions, and rubber blocks. Each level provides you with a certain set and quantity of objects to help you get the ball in the goal (not all objects need to be used though).

If you take a few seconds to create a free account, you'll be emailed a code so that you can login at a later time and resume where you left off. Otherwise you have to play through all of the levels each time. There are three main categories of levels: tricky, sneaky, and crafty.

You can even create your own levels and share them. In the "Extras" section, you can play levels that were created by players.


[Via: toddkedwards ]
[Tag: ]

Launchball- Today's Time Waster

Launchball is a fun, smart, and polished game courtesy of the Science Museum in London. The game uses a common premise: coax a ball into a goal. The objects you can use to accomplish this task though are based generally on electricity, magnetism, and mechanics.

There are basic shapes like "ski jumps" and ramps, but there are also batteries and steam generators (which also require a water tank and fire) to power magnets and fans. There are switches, springs, cushions, and rubber blocks. Each level provides you with a certain set and quantity of objects to help you get the ball in the goal (not all objects need to be used though).

If you take a few seconds to create a free account, you'll be emailed a code so that you can login at a later time and resume where you left off. Otherwise you have to play through all of the levels each time. There are three main categories of levels: tricky, sneaky, and crafty.

You can even create your own levels and share them. In the "Extras" section, you can play levels that were created by players.


[Via: toddkedwards ]
[Tag: ]

Flipping the Linux switch: Xfce, the hidden gem of desktop environments

In the beginning, we talked a bit about the holy war that wages onward between KDE and GNOME. Some of you aptly pointed out that there is a third desktop environment out there. It was never our intention to slight this desktop (we actually use it regularly). Like a mouse dodging to avoid the crashing footsteps of the desktop environment giants, Xfce is often included in discussions as an afterthought.

So apologies if the fact our current discussion of Xfce supports the "afterthought" theory. It wasn't our intention, and hey, we offer the consolation that if it really is an afterthought, and least it's going to be detailed.

Xfce indeed, is the third major desktop environment. It's kind of like the fifth Beatle. People know it's there, but... What's it called again? What's it do?

That, friends, is totally unfair. Xfce is one of the fastest and easiest desktops out there. It balances pretty and functional without any extraneous annoyance getting in the way. It isn't most people's first Linux desktop environment. But it very well could be.There are a lot of reasons to love Xfce. It's a cross platform sort of desktop. This means that you can use it in Linux, or Solaris, or FreeBSD or even OS X. It's modular. If you don't need some of the modules, they can be excluded from the installation. There are also quite a few cool little features, like a kiosk mode, neat little widgets, and a built-in compositor. The compositor is particularly nice for those who don't like or can't get their machines to run Compiz well.

But just because we're total nerds, and because we've found ourselves in other desktop environments wishing for its presence, let's begin by talking about Thunar. Thunar is Xfce's file management system. It's the equivalent to Dolphin, or Nautilus, or Windows Explorer.

In the grand scheme of things, it seems fairly unremarkable. It doesn't have a split view like Dolphin, for instance. It's extensible and has plugins, much like Nautilus. But what makes it stand out is how clean, how well integrated, and how fast it is.

There are nice features like bulk renaming, as well. Honestly, though, even if we never used that sort of feature, we prefer Thunar to the other file managers. It's that much faster, and requires less configuration for (what seems to us, anyway) logical file manipulation.

Xfce is based on the GTK+ library. This is nice, because not only are there some native "Xfce-flavored" applications out there for the desktop, but GNOME apps play quite nicely and don't look terribly out of place. KDE applications, of course, also translate quite well, but we've still found the look a little incongruent. For our favorite KDE applications, though, that's not a deal breaker.

It's the little things that have made Xfce really work for us. It seems sort of ridiculous, but we have to come to adore that right clicking the mouse anywhere on the desktop, by default, brings up the main menu. Stupid? Yes. And wait till you get used to it, and are dropped in either a desktop environment or operating system that doesn't have this handy little tweak enabled. That's when you'll realize just how often you use it.

The visual flexibility of the desktop is appreciated. With the release of Hardy Heron, it seemed as though Xubuntu went for the "GNOME-esque" look with the Xfce layout. Not at all a problem, really, and it could even be an advantage if you're making the switch from GNOME to Xfce. But it didn't really float our boat. We actually liked that Xfce looked... well, the way it looked before. It was sort of an OS X feel.

Every desktop can be made to look a certain way, but some just lend themselves to it better than others. Xfce is so understated in terms of customizations, but the customizations offered change the look so much. We only want one panel? Xfce can do that. We've totally lost our minds and would like several hundred panels? Xfce leads us down the road to that insanity. Do the panel widgets and icons send us in to a homicidal rage, and the only thing that can quiet us is to remove, move, or substitute images? Absolutely no problem.

Though we are running our current install of Xfce with Compiz-Fusion and Emerald, there is, as previously mentioned, a nice little compositor built right in to Xfce. It's not quite as dramatic as Compiz, but it's also a lot less likely to make your older machines scream in agony. It's also endlessly easier to make work than Compiz, which still requires, in some cases, the customary sacrifice of two Little Debbie snack cakes to the Composite Gods.

This kinder, gentler compositor can be found on the Settings Manager panel by clicking the Windows Manager Tweaks icon. You won't be able to get a passing virtual rainstorm to put out e-fires you've lit on your desktop, but you will get some nifty transparent windows and drop shadows.

We mentioned native Xfce applications earlier. Some of them are pretty nice. We particularly like Orage, the calendar application. When added to a panel, it displays the date and time. Clicking on the date and time launches the Orage calendar. Clicking the selected date launches yet another dialog that allows for the addition of events, to-do lists, and journals ("Dear Diary, Xfce is dreamy but doesn't know I exist!"). A search function lets us find those events we so painstakingly wrote down, were reminded of, and totally forgot to attend anyway.

Orage also allows for the exchange, export, and import of calendar data in the .ics format. Entries can be archived, so we can look back at our youth and try to convince ourselves we didn't squander it. It may not be the most powerful calendar application out there, we'd still say that for most purposes, it's more than sufficient.

Xfce may not be the best dressed desktop environment (well, not right out of the box, anyway). We can say without reservation that it is the fastest, and most utilitarian desktop environment from the moment it's launched till the time we log off. The menu is always just a right click away, and well placed panels make easy work of finding applications. The plug-ins and widgets are imminently useful.

Xfce hit the sweet spot in desktop environments: easy enough for a newbie to get started and feel comfortable quickly, powerful and extensible enough for an experienced user to get it all done.
[Via: Download Squad ]
[Tag: ]

Eliminate the 3 second delay when installing Firefox add-ons

If you've ever installed a Firefox add-on, you've probably encountered a pop-up window like the one pictured here, which tells you to wait a few second before hitting the install button. For a long time, we thought the delay was because Firefox was busy downloading the file, but you know what? Most Firefox extensions are tiny. It doesn't take very long to download them.

No, the delay is actually so that your computer won't wind up running arbitrary code when you click on something that you only thought was an add-on. But if you only install add-ons from trusted sites (and have a backup of your profile), you can disable the delay dialog.

All you have to do is type "about:config" into your address bar to bring up the advanced configuration screen, and search for the security.dialog_enable_delay setting. Then change the value to 0.

Again, keep in mind that Firefox implemented that delay to keep your computer safe. But if you're too busy to wait three seconds, this trick will help you regain a tiny fraction of your day.


[Via: Lifehacker ]
[Tag: ]

Grab Windows XP SP3 a little early

Microsoft is set to release Windows XP SP3 through Windows Update tomorrow. But if you just can't wait to get your hands on the latest and greatest OS update from Microsoft (not that Vista isn't great...), it looks like a number of folks have found the download links that will let you grab the update from Microsoft's servers.

Microsoft released SP3 to manufacturers last week, and shortly after that, you could find the service pack on a variety of BitTorrent sites. But we've always been a bit wary of downloading something as important as an operating system update from BitTorrent. There's always a chance you're really downloading a trojan packed up to look like a service pack installer.

Note that the full installer weighs in at just over 300MB. If you wait to get SP3 through Windows update, there's a good chance your download will be significantly smaller since you probably already have some of the updates included in SP3 on your PC. The service pack includes a number of features and hotfixes that Microsoft has already released to SP2 customers.

The link above provides a download link for the English version of SP3. If you're looking for Chinese, German, French, Russian, or Japanese download links, GHacks has you covered.

In related news, Microsoft says it absolutely, positively has no plans to keep selling Windows XP after June 30th, despite recent comments from Steve Ballmer that seemed to indicate the company might reconsider. Meanwhile, Dell plans to continue offering Windows XP for a few more years by selling customers Windows Vista licenses and then giving them the option to downgrade to XP.
[Via: Download Squad ]
[Tag: ]

Speed up the feel of Windows with the double-click speed setting

Speed is all about perception, so any tip that makes a computer feel faster is gold as far as we're concerned. Today's tip is a doozy from Raymond Chen, the venerable Microsoft developer and blogger.

According to Chen, a number of user interface timers in Windows key off of the double-click speed registry setting.

The default double-click speed in Windows is 500ms , or exactly 1/2 of a second. Try dropping that down to 250ms -- about three-quarters of the way towards Fast -- and watch the rest of Windows feel just a bit snappier, since a number of other Windows user interface timings use that setting as a reference. Cool!
[Via: Download Squad ]
[Tag: ]

Find similar websites with WhoisLike.it

Looking for more web sites like Download Squad? While we think you'd be hard pressed to find a site written by bloggers as talented, well-rounded, and good looking as us, there might be a few other sites that you'd find interesting. And WhoisLike.it will help you find them.

The WhoisLike.it homepage is so sparse that it makes Google's home page look crowded. But it couldn't be easier to use. Just type in the URL of a web site you like, and WhoisLike.it will analyze the content and spit out a list of sites that seem to have similar content. Each site features a screen shot to boot.

It's not quite clear how WhoisLike.it determines which sites are similar. It could be checking for incoming and outbound links, or the service could be looking for keywords and comparing a site with other pages in its database. But it does appear to work pretty well. While you certainly won't find every similar page on the web this way, WhoisLike.it will probably turn you on to a few interesting sites you may not have seen before.


[Via: Rotor Blog ]
[Tag: ]

How to add an IETab-like feature to Opera

While there are dozens of excellent web browsers for Windows, Mac, and Linux, many of them have a problem: There are a handful of web pages and services that are only designed to work properly with Internet Explorer, Firefox, or both. So as much as we love the speedy little Opera web browser, we've been reluctant to use it on a day to day basis. And then we discovered Neptune, a plugin that lets you open an Internet Explorer-compatible tab within Opera. Note that Neptune will only work on Windows, since you need to have Internet Explorer installed for the plugin to function properly.

In order to install the free plugin, download it, close Opera, and click the Neptune executable. Next, you'll want to find your Internet Explorer plugin folder (which will probably be something like "c:\program files\internet explorer\plugins," and copy the file called npmeadax.dll to your Opera plugin folder, which will probably be something like "c:\program files\opera\program\plugins."

Next you'll need to add a button to your browser toolbar to let you open a window using the IE rendering engine. You can find several buttons at OperaWiki. Just drag the button with the function you want to your toolbar. Make sure to drag it to the "Main bar" and not your "Personal bar." Because these bookmarklets use Javascript, if you put them in the Personal bar, they'll be converted into bookmarks that don't really do much of anything.

You can choose from several buttons that let you open a URL using the IE rendering engine in your current tab or in a new tab. Alternately, you can use the InIE and InFF buttons to open a URL in an external window using Firefox or Internet Explorer.

[Via: Opera Watch ]
[Tag: ]

Microsoft i'm initiative raises $1.3 million for charity

A little over a year ago, Microsoft announced a program that sounded just so crazy it could... be crazy. The company's i'm Initiative lets Windows Live Messenger users choose from a list of charities, and then every time they send an instant message, Microsoft will donate a small amount of money to that charity.

While this all sounded a bit silly to us last year, Microsoft has now donated $1.3 million dollars to ten charities through the program.

Of course, the money doesn't come from nowhere. Essentially, Microsoft agrees to donate a small amount of its advertising revenue to the charity of your choice. And the company really could have done that without asking you to sign up for a program. But then how would you know about this big charitable thing Microsoft was doing?

Microsoft says the initiative has been a success over the past year, which has prompted the company to continue the program.


[Via: WebWare ]
[Tag: ]

Stage6 clone DivXit becomes Vreel

Remember that Stage6 clone called DivXit we told you about yesterday? Apparently the folks at DivX didn't really like its name too much. Because today the site has a new name: Vreel. There's also a new Q&A which makes it clear that while the site was inspired by DivX's defunct Stage6 video sharing service, Vreel will build a brand new video database.

Vreel will, however, use the DivX codec and webplayer which are pretty much the things that made Stage6 special. Stage6 was one of the first sites to offer high definition video streams. While many other video sharing sites have since caught up, the DivX webplayer is still one of the best looking HD video streaming applications we've seen.

The launch date for Vreel has been pushed back a week to May 6th. Vreel says when the site goes live users will be able to upload files up to 800MB, with an eye toward enabling 1GB uploads eventually.

Vreel will eventually offer video downloads in addition to online video streams.

[Via: Davis Freeberg ]
[Tag: ]

LOOKTorrent: It's like YouTorrent but less useful

Now that YouTorrent is exclusively dedicated to boring, legal torrents, you might be looking for another BitTorrent search engine that searches a large number of BitTorrent trackers. LOOKTorrent fits the bill. Kind of.

The site lets you choose from a list of 25 BitTorrent trackers that you want to search. Enter your search term, and you'll start to find results from those pages. But unlike YouTorrent, which combines the results from each site onto one easy to use page, LOOKTorrent basically takes you to Mininova, The Pirate Bay, or whatever other sites you choose, while keeping a LOOKTorrent navigation tab at the top of the screen. If you don't find what you're looking for at one site, you can search the next. One at a time.

LOOKtorrent could come in handy if you can't find what you're looking for on one site, and need a good list of 25 BitTorrent trackers. But if you want all of your results on one page, you're probably better off with NowTorrents, ScrapeTorrent, or PizzaTorrent.


[Via: MakeUseOf ]
[Tag: ]

DupeDeDupe removes duplicate Windows Mobile contacts

Have you ever read an article where the title pretty much tells you everything there is to know? Yeah, this article is basically one of those. DupeDeDupe is an applications for Windows Mobile devices that searches for duplicate contacts from your address book.

Paul at MoDaCo wrote the utility, and it's designed to work with AppToDate, which means you can automatically download any future updates.

DupeDeDupe compares each contact's "file as" and email fields as well as home, work, and mobile phone numbers. If all of those fields match, the application considers your contact to be a duplicate.

Overall, the tool is easy to use, fast, and best of all free. It should work on any device running Windows Mobile 5.0 or newer.


[Via: Jason Langridge ]
[Tag: ]

Foxit 2.3: Would you like tabs with that PDF reader?

Foxit Reader 2.3 has just been released, and not only is it quicker and lighter on system resources than Adobe Reader, but the latest version adds a ton of useful features like tabbed viewing. For some reason tabs took the web browser world by storm a few years ago, but failed to catch on in other applications. But if you spend a lot of time reading PDF files, we don't have to tell you how much less clutter you have on your desktop when you open your documents in tabs instead of separate program windows.

In addition to tabbed viewing, Foxit 2.3 adds:

• Bookmarks
  
  
• Multimedia playback in PDF files
  
• Text tool for adding comments to documents
  
• Rulers for aligning documents properly
  
• Magnifier for zooming in portions of a document
  
• Automatic scrolling
  
• Improved ability to print just a selected area of a document

[Via: CyberNet ]
[Tag: ]

Record and save online radio streams with Chilirec

We've seen desktop applications that let you record music from internet radio streams. But ChiliRec is the first web app we've seen that rips music from online radio stations and stores it in folders.

Here's how it works. When you visit the Chilirec site, you can choose from a long list of online radio streams. By default, every single stream is selected, but you can uncheck the boxes next to any stations you don't want to record. Once you've selected your streams, ChiliRec will rip the songs from each station and store them online. You can access them from a list of recordings, play them with a Flash-based media player, or create and save playlists. You can also save files as MP3s to your desktop. Keep in mind, audio recorded from an internet stream may not sound as good as a track purchased from iTunes or other stores, and sometimes the beginning or end of the song may be cut off.

ChiliRec does not let users add their own radio streams. We have a feeling the service is constantly recording each of the streams in its directory, and when you sign up for an account it simply gives you access to the stored recordings starting at the moment you hit record. That would use up a lot less bandwidth and storage space than actually creating separate recordings for each user.


[Via: Go2Web20 ]
[Tag: ]

R.O.B.O.T. - Today's Time Waster

If you have a penchant for survival/defense type games, R.O.B.O.T. (Relatively Obedient Being Of Thought) will be right up your alley for your time wasting needs. It is basically a cross-over of both a defense game and a survival game (which intrinsically overlap as it is) in which you utilize both manual movement and firing with turret placement to advance through levels.

The premise appears to be that you are a Robot defending a heap of rubble and dirt, or getting attacked on top of it, however you like to think of it. As you kill enemies and progress through waves, you are able to buy upgrades for you plasma gun (your primary means of disposal), your treads, a placeable (and enhanceable) turret, as well as your shields, armor, and an EMP shockwave for use against heavily shielded enemies. Of course, the waves continue to get harder, with more enemies coming in all shapes and sizes and attack styles, which keeps things interesting.

Once you progress a fair bit into the game, it is fairly difficult even on easy, but if you feel that does not apply to you can go all the way up to Insane difficulty. But, regardless of the difficulty your play it at, it's all very forgiving since you can always continue from the last wave you managed to clear.
[Via: Download Squad ]
[Tag: ]

You Look Nice Today - Download Pod

With Twitter being all the rage these days, it was only a matter of time before a podcast would grow out of new Twitter friendships. And the time has apparently come, since You Look Nice Today is a podcast created by three friends that decided they enjoyed each other's senses of humor so much in their tweets that they ought to start recording their interactions for everyone else to hear.

You Look Nice Today describes itself as a "journal of emotional hygiene". Whatever that means.

The subject matter of You Look Nice Today meanders pretty erratically, but fortunately it's pretty consistently entertaining. Topics range from what each host uses to wash themselves in the shower, to the relative merits of each of the types of nuts in a can of mixed nuts.

The show is squarely aimed at adults (and probably primarily male adults), and It should be noted that despite the innocuous title, You Look Nice Today is decidedly not work-safe. It proudly sports an Explicit tag in iTunes, due to both subject matter and the odd forceful expletive.

The topics are certainly entertaining, but this podcast is really about the personalities. If you're familiar with the concept of "ratholes" from MacBreak Weekly (and how they can sometimes be the most entertaining part of the show), just consider You Look Nice Today as one huge rathole, and you'll be on the right track. Your hosts are @hotdogsladies, @lonelysandwich, and @scottsimpson. This is how they describe themselves in the credits of the show, by their Twitter names rather than their given names, ostensibly due to the fact that the show grew out of their Twitter friendships. Their real names, respectively, are Merlin Mann, Adam Lisagor, and (unsurprisingly) Scott Simpson.
[Via: Download Squad ]
[Tag: ]

Googleholic for April 25, 2008

Welcome to Googleholic, your bi-weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

• Google Finance gets a revamp
  
• Google Product Search updated; still lousy
  
• Google Docs initial offline rollout complete
  
• Goolgle annoyances

Google Finance gets a revamp

Google Finance has received a nice facelift. The U.S, Canadian and U.K. outposts all sport the new look -- as well as the newest member of the Google Finance family: China. The new language-specific site covers all the latest Chinese financial news and also offers links to other global markets.

Google Product Search updated; still lousy

Google Product Search, nee Froogle, has received an important update that only underscores the lameness of the service. Now, if you search for a generic item, like "computer" - a list of popular search results will appear with price comparisons, product reviews and more. Unfortunately, searching for an individual product (or a less generic term) still leads to one giant list of product mash-ups, sans the comparable price table or product description.

As Google Operating System pointed out, even the old Froogle service had this ability. Way to innovate Google. Even with the updates Google's Product Search still reminds us of a crappier version of MySimon circa 1999.

Google Docs initial offline rollout complete

After its soft launch last month, the initial rollout for offline Google Docs access is now complete.

In the early stages of the rollout, only word processing documents could be viewed or edited offline. Now Google has added view-only access to spreadsheets and presentations as well. The service is still English-only, and Google Apps users need to specify that they want the service in their preferences, but offline access is developing at a quick pace.

Google Annoyances

We might love our Google, but Google isn't perfect. In fact, lots of aspects of Google and their never-ending list of services annoy us. We aren't alone. The guys over at Google Operating System list some of their top pet-peeves.

Some of our favorites:

• Constantly having to re-enter our password when using Google Analytics, even when already logged in
  
• The craptasticness of Blogger's commenting system
  
• The inconsistent nature of the navigation bar

[Via: Google Finance Blog ]
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Make Firefox more responsive when loading pages - Browser Tip

For some reason when a page is loading in Firefox, it doesn't seem to respond to user interaction immediately. For example, say you're loading a very long page (maybe you're using a free Backpack account), and you know that the content you need is half way down the page. By default, Firefox will ignore user interaction in favor of giving all processing power to page rendering.

It may well be that Firefox's engineers made this decision for a very good reason, but what if it bugs you that Firefox ignores you when you know exactly what you want to be doing? Well, it turns out there's a hidden setting in Firefox that will allow you to bend it to your will.

Firefox uses two priority modes when rendering a page: a low-priority mode that often checks for user input, and a high-priority mode that prioritizes page rendering over user input. There is a timer that determines how long Firefox will wait for user input before switching to high-priority rendering mode.

The Geek at How-To-Geek researched this setting, and determined that switching the default value from 750000 to 1000000 is a good balance that allows for a more responsive feeling browser, while still giving an adequate amount of time to the high-priority mode.

To make this change yourself, type about:config into your Firefox address bar, then type content.switch.threshold into the Filter field. You will likely not have any results returned. If the setting already exists, simply switch the value from the default 750000 to 1000000. If it doesn't, right click anywhere in the window and choose New > Integer. Use the following setting:

• Key Name: content.switch.threshold
  
• Key Value: 1000000

To reverse this tip, simply right-click on the setting and choose Reset from the context menu.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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Pirate Bay gets a new name: Liberty Bay?

Perhaps it's a blatant F.U. to content creators everywhere or maybe it's just an F.U. to Rockstar, but the Pirate Bay has gone out of its way to temporarily rename itself "Liberty Bay" in honor of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV.

The purpose for the publicity stunt is unclear, but -- considering the company's line of work -- it's likely to get the word out on the highly-rumored rumored Grand Theft Auto IV torrents that all the young kids blab about nowadays. Though we don't think the site's blog will address the gutsy move unless Rockstar starts throwing a fit, we'll let you know if things gets messy.


[Via: Kotaku ]
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Presdo: Yet another online scheduling app

Is it just us, or has there been an explosion of online scheduling services over the past few weeks? First there were Jiffle, Tungle, and When is Good. And now there's Presdo. Like the other services, Presdo makes it easy to schedule meeting with one or more people. You send out a request, and other users can reply with the times that work best for them. But there are a few things that set Presdo apart.

First, it uses natural language recognition to help schedule your meetings. The home page isn't filled with a bunch of boxes to fill out. Instead, you have one search box, into which you can type "lunch with Bob," or "dinner with Joan." On the next page, Presdo will make an educated guess as to the best time for your event. If you enter something vague like "take over the world with Pinky," it'll probably just use the default "tomorrow at 10am." But it does a pretty good time of picking the proper times for meals.

You can also use Presdo to help find a place for your meeting. If you entered "Coffee with Mike," Presdo will let you pull up a window to search for coffee shops with Google Maps. When you send out your invitation, recipients can either accept or offer their own suggested times.


[Via: TechCrunch ]
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Twitter Twerp Scan - block Twitter spammers

Twitter users are increasingly starting to question whether the frequent number of Twitter accounts that are following them are actually people, or simply a form of Twitter spamming. The rule of thumb with that sort of question is usually that if you think something nefarious might be going on, unfortunately, you're probably right.

The next question that invariably comes up is, well, why? What benefit do these purported Twitter spammers get from friending everyone they possibly can? The answer is twofold:

1. There is a large number of very misguided people that seem to believe that the polite thing to do when someone follows you on Twitter is to follow them back. This is a ludicrous behavior. (As a quick aside, if one of the main things we struggle with in our high-speed, data filled lives is trying to keep a sane signal-to-noise ratio, and learning how to filter out the noise, why would we actively choose to follow random people's Twitter updates? What an incredible waste of time.) The thing is, this behavior can be and is exploited. If someone follows 20,000 random Twitter accounts, there is a very good chance that they will get at least 10% of those people following them back. Perfect! Now they have an audience of 2,000 people to spam, for free.

2. Using that same last example, having your name and possibly a link show up in 20,000 people's lists of followers is simply a form of free advertising. People often go perusing through their list of followers to find out who finds them interesting. Chances are at least some of those people will follow your link to whatever it is you're pimping.

So now that we've discussed whether or not Twitter spamming exists (it does) and whether it's worthwhile (unfortunately, it is), what can we do about it?

Though Twitter itself is conspicuously quiet about the topic of Twitter spamming, and does not offer any useful tools for managing Twitter spam, they do have a useful API available for other developers to make use of. And Carlo Zottman (an employee of Yahoo Germany) did exactly that to create a very useful tool called Twitter Twerp Scan.

Using your credentials, Twitter Twerp Scan will scan your list of followers for accounts that are likely abusing Twitter for public relations purposes. The current default setting is that it will look for accounts that follow more than 1000 people, and has a follower-to-following ratio of 1.5 to 1 or more, though these settings are configurable.

Give it a try and scan your account. You might be surprised at how many people are following you that clearly have no interest in what you have to say, but rather just want to have their name included on your list. Depressing, isn't it?

Welcome to the digital age.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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WordPress 2.5.1 security update

The WordPress team has released version 2.5.1 of the blogging software. The new version, which comes nearly a month after the initial release fixes a slew of performance and interface bugs, but also includes a very important security update. It is highly reccommended that all WordPress 2.5 users update their installations as soon as possible, especially if you allow open-registration (for user comments or for multi-author blogs).

In addition to the aforementioned security patch, 2.5.1 contains a number of fixes to issues that have plagued some WordPress users for the last couple of weeks.

The highlights include

• Improvements to the Media Uploader
  
• Performance tweaks for the Dashboard and the Write and Comments pages
  
• TinyMCE has been updated
  
• Layout fixes for IE users

Download the latest version of WordPress from their site and update your installations accordingly.
[Via: Download Squad ]
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DivXit: The second coming of Stage6?

Almost two months to the day after DivX shut down its marginally popular Stage6 video sharing site, it looks like a third party group plans to resurrect the service. Or at least to clone it.

There's not much information available about DivXit.net yet, other than the fact that the site should launch next week. We're going to go out on a limb and guess that the folks behind the site plan to implement a DivX web video player and set up online conversion tools that let users upload various video types to share on the service.

No word on how DivXit will be able to make a Stage6 clone profitable when DivX was unable to do so. The company shut down Stage6 because it was spending too much time and energy on the bandwidth-heavy site instead of focusing on its core mission of working with hardware manufacturers to deliver DivX-certified devices.

Update: It looks like DivXit has a new name and a new launch date.


[Via: GHacks ]
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