I started my gaming “career” on an Atari 2600 system with stunning games like River Raid and Pitfall, bought a C-64 later, then an Amiga and finally a PC. If your history looks similar you’ve come across many unforgetable moments and games – that is why I’am going to post this retro game article. Every game mentioned is free to download and play. I know that a top 10 is probably not enough because there are many great remakes out there but I had to limit my post somehow, therefor, it is only a top 10.
Alan Wake demo running on Intel Quad-Core
You might know the Swedish game producer Remedy who created the blockbusters Max Payne and Max Payne 2. Remedy are working on a different game for the last 18 months called Alan Wake which features a highly dynamic world and lots of interactivity. The story takes place in the idyllic town of Bright Falls and the player takes command of the best selling author Alan Wake who escapes to this small town to recover from the mysterious disappearance of his fiancée. In Bright Falls Wake comes face to face with his darkest nightmares.
Songbird the ultimate Media Player ?
Songbird is a relatively new open source media player that is build from Mozilla and aims to revolutionize the media player market the same way firefox did to the browser market. Songbird is currently available in revision 0.2 “test flight” and runs on Windows 2000+, Linux and Mac just like firefox. Songbird comes with pretty much the same functionality as iTunes and more, due to the fact that it is based on the same core as firefox you can easily use songbird to browse between websites of radio stations, podcasts and blogs. Which means you play the songs and at the same time read what they have written in the same program.
System Safety Monitor 2
System Safety Monitor 2 is available in a free version from the developers website. The tool basically works as a firewall preventing malicious software to be started automatically. The free version runs in paranoid mode which means you have to allow or disallow every process and get nagged quite a bit at the beginning. Once the majority of rules are established the software runs a lot smoother and seems to come forth only when you tend to install a new program or change existing ones.
Importing mail from Opera to Thunderbird
I finally decided to make the switch from Operas M2 mail client to Thunderbird. The reason for the change was primary that the anti-spam combination Opera and Spamahilator was not working that well anymore and I thought that it would be better to have one single program to handle the spam and the mail. Thunderbird has a great working junk filter that seems to handle spam really well even after just a few days of working with the program.
Google Image Wallpaper Application
I found a pretty small and useful open source application that pulls images from google images in a given interval and displays them as the wallpaper on the pc the application is running. Once unrared you can run the application right from that location without installation; you will see a small icon in your system tray if the application is running. Right-click the icon and select options.
Windows Vista RC1 64-bit client download
Until yesterday it was only possible to download the 32-bit client version of the release candidate 1 of Windows Vista. Yesterday Microsoft added the Vista 64-bit client to the download list which can be downloaded through your browser by either using a direct download or Microsofts download manager. As usual this version is time limited and will stop working on June, 1st 2007. You will also need a product key for vista, I wrote a little article detailing the procedure to receive one.
Quick links for 2006-09-26
I decided to post some quick links to interesting sites that are not worth a complete story. Not worth is maybe not the right phrase – there is not much to write about so I decided to compile them in a list with just a short explanation. The first big news that seemed to hit every blog on the planet was the release of Firefox 2.0 Release Candidate 1. The release candidate is finally out of beta and firefox 2 is on schedule to be released next month. You find versions for windows, linux and mac as usual on the mozilla ftp site.
Star Wars Stormtrooper Armor
Ever wondered where those guys in stormtrooper armor got their suits from ? Look no further, the Shepperton Design Studio is selling a complete Stormtropper armor for a very reasonable price. You can purchase the battle helmet for 299 British pounds and the suit (without helmet) for 999 British pounds. Both combined sell for 1299,95 pounds. The offers seems successful because currently all items are out of stock and will be available again in October.