While there’s no question that the iPhone experience can be greatly improved by a few choice accessories — a cool speaker dock and a snazzy case, for example — there are companies out there that have taken the concept to the extreme.
Here we take a light-hearted look at some totally unnecessary iPhone accessories that only the true gadget-addict would consider a good investment.
There are three types of gamers in this world the casual gamer, the serious gamer and the dedicated gamer.
This article is focused on dedicated gamer and as one myself, I know that all dedicated gamers love and need to try betas.
When a new product is created or upgraded, there are several stages in development before the product can be sold in the commercial marketplace. The first stage is the alpha stage, in which the product is tested by software testers within the company and debugged as necessary. A beta version is the name for the second stage of software testing, in which it is released for free or a reduced price to a group of users.
The beta version of a software release is considered to be a preview. It has all the standard features, but is not yet ready for wide release or sale. During this point, the company will collect feedback from users about the product’s usability — what they like and what should be changed — before the product’s wide release. A beta version of a program can be either a closed beta, which is limited to a specific group of users, or an open beta, which is available for the general public to use.
Though beta version products will often have all the features available in the final version of the product, they generally have limited, if any, technical support available to users. However, many products will often remain in beta version for years, during which time they are used by a wide audience as if they were full versions of products.
So lets have some open betas – these are beta versions open to the general public for FREE.
All Betas |
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| Title | Phase | Genre | Site | Date Added |
| League of Legends | Gone Gold | RTS | Web Site | 1/18/2011 4:14:00 PM |
| Rift: Planes of Telara | PreBeta | MMORPG | Web Site | 11/7/2010 12:00:00 PM |
| Darkspore | PreBeta | RPG | Web Site | 11/5/2010 6:06:00 PM |
| FireFall | Signup | MMOFPS | Web Site | 9/30/2010 11:26:00 AM |
| World of Tanks | Closed | Other | Web Site | 8/1/2010 6:21:00 AM |
| Bloodline Champions | Signup | MMOFPS | Web Site | 8/1/2010 6:05:00 AM |
| Fallout Online | PreBeta | MMORPG | Web Site | 8/1/2010 5:58:00 AM |
| Dawntide | Open | MMORPG | Web Site | 6/2/2010 8:09:00 AM |
| TERA Online | Signup | MMORPG | Web Site | 6/2/2010 8:00:00 AM |
| Adventure Quest Worlds | Gone Gold | MMORPG | Web Site | 4/17/2010 6:50:00 PM |
| Alien Breed Evlolution Episode 1 | Gone Gold | FPS | Web Site | 1/27/2010 10:10:00 AM |
| Port Galaxy | PreBeta | MMORPG | Web Site | 1/14/2010 11:27:00 AM |
There are many site that allow you to sign up for free betas www.betawatcher.com being one of the best
Another being bigdownload.com
After looking at the above sites and maybe even trying some games, what type of gamer are you?
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Season of the Witch’ tops the chart this week, followed by ‘TRON: Legacy’. ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ completes the top three.
| Ranking | (last week) | Movie | Rating / Trailer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | (5) | Season of the Witch | 5.5 / trailer |
| 2 | (1) | TRON: Legacy | 7.2 / trailer |
| 3 | (3) | The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader | 6.6 / trailer |
| 4 | (…) | Battle: Los Angeles (CAM) | 6.5 / trailer |
| 5 | (2) | The Next Three Days | 7.4 / trailer |
| 6 | (4) | The Fighter | 8.1 / trailer |
| 7 | (…) | Rango (TS) | 7.8 / trailer |
| 8 | (…) | Hereafter | 6.9 / trailer |
| 9 | (7) | The King’s Speech (DVDscr) | 8.5 / trailer |
| 10 | (…) | London Boulevard | 6.4 / trailer |
Now I saw this classic picture and I thought I needed to share it, maybe not for the reasons you think. Now I agree this picture IS a classic picture of a true union of brilliant brains, however I must point out that these hair cuts must not be allowed to become popular again.
The applications below may do more than just allow you to voice chat—many also allow you to call telephone numbers or video chat. We are evaluating these apps based on their user friendliness and quality of audio. On to our contenders!
The only exclusively mobile app on our list, Fring is a cross-platform app that allows you to call other Fring users and outbound telephone service via FringOut. It also has plugins for many other platforms including Google Talk and Skype. One of the more interesting applications I see with Fring is SIP compatibility, which allows you to interconnect with many other phone services for cheap calling rates, or to use it as an office extension.
The Google Voice service (via Google Talk) is another excellent voice chatting service. Google launched their voice service in 2009 after purchasing GrandCentral. After integrating it with the existing Google service, Google then offered free chat service (between Google Talk users) and also to regular phone numbers through Google Voice. It is easy to access through your web browser, and you simply dial the number you wish to call. You can also request an inbound number to forward to a number of your other voice chat devices.
Muble is an open source voice chat application that is geared towards gamers and is optimized for low latency. Once you and your friends are in-game, Mumble interacts with the game to provide positional audio – meaning that it will make it sound like your friends voice is coming from a specific direction. You must have a server for each Mumble client to connect to.
Skype is one of the oldest voice chat apps, having started in 2003. Fast forward to today, Skype now has about 18 million people online at any moment in time. The basic Skype features are free – you can call to any other user with both voice and video for free. If you pay for it you can also buy Skype credits which allow you to call internationally for a minimum fee. Skype continually adds new features to their product.
Another application that is geared towards gamers, Ventrilo is a low-latency and efficient voice chat application. It is very lightweight and runs in the background. Ventrilo uses a client-server architecture and you can either run one on your own connection or rent one – many game hosting providers also provide a Ventrilo server.
Muble is an open source voice chat application that is geared towards gamers and is optimized for low latency. Once you and your friends are in-game, Mumble interacts with the game to provide positional audio – meaning that it will make it sound like your friends voice is coming from a specific direction. You must have a server for each Mumble client to connect to.
On the heels of its push to dissuade users from using Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft has announced the launch date of Internet Explorer 9. In a blog post, Ryan Gavin, Microsoft senior director of Internet Explorer business and marketing, said the next version of the company’s Web browser will be officially released Monday, March 14, during the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.
“In Austin we will be joined by some of the most exciting websites and web heroes out there, including Ze Frank. We also have a heck of party planned celebrating the amazing developers and designers who are creating a more beautiful web. We’ll feature live music from Yeasayer, the Head and the Heart, and Fences at Austin City Limits Live the night of the 14th. It’s a party you won’t want to miss.”
“But if you can’t make it to Austin, don’t fret. We also want to announce that Dean Hachamovitch will be the Day 1 keynoter at MIX 11 on April 12, 2011. Last year at MIX 10 Dean announced IE9 Platform Preview 1 with hardware accelerated HTML5. Eight platform previews, one Beta, one Release Candidate, and one final version of Internet Explorer 9 later he’s back for more.”
Some of the new features of IE9 include enhanced tabs, hardware acceleration and a notification bar.
WizMouse is a free and lightweight Windows application that enables a simple but effective trick: the ability to scroll the contents of a window that is under your mouse cursor without shifting the focus to that window.
It may not seem like much, at first glance, but the ability to scroll a window without having to click on it and shift the focus of your current window is a huge time saver. Once WizMouse is installed simply mousing over any open window and engage your scroll wheel for instant scroll with no additional click or shift in focus necessary. You’ll get so used to it you’ll forget that it wasn’t built into Windows from the start.
Hit up the link below to grab a copy of WizMouse, a free and Windows only application.
WizMouse [Antibody Software]
A friend of mine the other day installed some nasty piece of grayware that seemed to take over her machine, after she dropped off her laptop and I cleaned it all up for her I thought I’d post this article to help others in removing grayware with System restore.
From Microsoft’s site under Using Windows XP called: Use System Restore to Undo Changes if Problems Occur
Every time you download or install a new game, application, or software update, you make changes to your computer. Sometimes that change may make your system unstable. Have you ever wanted to go back to the way it was? With System Restore, you can.
System Restore works a lot like the Undo command in Microsoft Word. You can use System Restore to remove any system changes that were made since the last time you remember your computer working correctly. System Restore does not affect your personal data files (such as Microsoft Word documents, browsing history, drawings, favorites, or e-mail) so you won’t lose changes made to these files.
How does System restore work?
Windows XP periodically records a snapshot of your computer. These snapshots are called restore points. Windows XP also creates restore points at the time of significant system events (such as when an application or driver is installed) or you can create and name your own restore points at any time. If you’ve installed a program that has made your computer unstable, you can open system restore, choose a restore point, and return your computer to its previous stable state.
When you run System Restore, a calendar is displayed to help you find restore points. If you don’t use your computer every day, some days might not have any restore points. If you use your computer frequently, you might have restore points almost every day, and some days might have several restore points.
Use System Restore to undo changes you’ve made to your computer
Before you open the System Restore console, you may want to save your work and close all programs since System Restore requires you to restart your computer.
There are two ways to access System Restore > through Help and Support or through your All Programs folder.
Through the All Programs menu:
Creating a restore point can be useful any time you anticipate making changes to your computer that are risky or might make your computer unstable. If something goes wrong, you select the restore point you just created and Windows XP undoes any system changes made since that time.
In the Restore point description box, type a name to identify this restore point as seen in Figure 1 below. System Restore automatically adds the date and time that this Restore Point is created.
Read the rest, see screen shots, or bookmark Microsoft’s help pages Right Here!
Remember always keep your anti virus up to date and scanned regularly.
