Instant Elevator Music is a fun application for users who like to be accompanied by calming soothing music during file operations. I’m not saying that any sane person would want to listen to that music for a long period of time, but it is fun the first times you run into it.

You need to install the software before you can enjoy music during most file operations and even some splash screens. You can open the program’s settings to define when the music starts to play while you are waiting.

Popular choices include “anything with a progress bar” to Firefox downloads or the Adobe Photoshop CS5 splash screen. And if you are annoyed by the elevator music in a particular application you can turn that off to. The ignore list in the program settings offers to add programs that will stay silent even if they would trigger the music otherwise.

You can also add your own tunes to the music playlist for some extra variety. One of the issues that I ran into was that the music started playing even while I was playing another video or song on the computer. The program can be configured to identify some music playing applications like Winamp to block the elevator music while other music is playing, but there is no option to do the same for video players or even web video.

Regardless of that; You can still have some fun with the little application. It is likely that you will uninstall it sooner or later though.

Windows users can download Instant Elevator Music from the official website. It should work with 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

In many of his videos, he combines the real world with video gaming, and that’s where it begins to get funny. Ever wanted to know how an aimbot would look like in real life? How a Portal gun could have its uses? How cart racing would be that more exciting if it would be Super Mario Kart racing instead?

Below is a selection of videos that I personally liked. Freddie has uploaded almost one hundred videos to his Youtube channel. Most videos have a play time of around one minute. The videos are professionally done thanks to his background as a video producer. Lets start with the videos.

Aimbot: Cheaters use aimbots in games, either for the fun of destroying the game for other players, or for showing of. Watch how an aimbot would look like in real life.

Rocket Jump: Many first person shooters offer a rocket launcher in their arsenal. Team Fortress 2 is such a game for instance. You can do rocket jumps in those games to reach areas you either cannot reach at all, or not directly. Watch how a rocket jump could help you out in real life combat situations.

Future First Person Shooter: A first person shooter with real characters. How would it look like.

Real Life Portal Gun: A portal gun can have its uses in real life. But you better be sure you know how to use it.

3D First Person Mario: Animation this time, but really funny nevertheless.

There are lots and lots of videos like the ones linked above. If you like them, visit Freddie’s YouTube channel to watch them all.

Yup, the North American Aerospace Defense Command centre (NORAD) has put it’s Santa tracker back online which you can access at www.noradsanta.org.  This year you can also track Santa on your mobile phone, so if you’re out partying and have forgotten to leave some brandy for him and some milk for Prancer and Rudolf, you can rush home to get them ready before he reaches your country.

You’ll have to be quick though because you’ll be surprised at just how quickly this man can deliver parcels, Amazon have apparently been trying to get him on staff for years, though as they’ve not got an office in the North Pole, they’ve not been able to find him.

At the time of writing Santa is chilling out at his North Pole home, probably catching some Zzz’s ahead of his big night of the year.  His elves are putting the finishing touches to all the toys and presents for the girls and boys who have been good this year and it’s even rumoured that they’ve bulk-ordered iPads and Samsung Galaxy Tabs.

So make sure you’re online checking Santa Claus as he visits your area but make sure you’re quietly tucked up in bed when he visits and leaves your presents for Christmas morning  ;)

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from everyone at gHacks

But this website can help even if you are one of the two people on earth who never watched a Star Wars movie before as it will display an image of the weather conditions as well.

The script that is running on Tom’s website performs an automatic IP lookup of every connecting user, queries the Yahoo weather api to pull the weather conditions of the location and display an image of that weather condition alongside a few lines that point out the Star Wars planet with those weather conditions.

Now everyone who knows Star Wars would probably be able to tell the same thing by looking out of the window and thinking about a planet in the Star Wars universe that would match the weather conditions. But an automated way is more comfortable and the bylines are excellent. Now I just have to find a Tauntaun to to climb inside.

Apple Adds App Approval Status Tracker

Apple now allows app developers the peace of mind of at least knowing what stage of the approval process their app is in. A new feature added by Apple gives the status of apps as they go through the approval process.

You and I might not think much of it but this translates to a bit more clarity for the developers. They have always complained about how tough it is to communicate to the iPhone app reviewers. So instead of leaving them in the dark, this tracking feature tells them how tantalizingly close they are to approval. Hopefully, Apple is feeling the pressure to streamline and organize the process now that the app count has reached 100,000. As more developers race to get a piece of the action, Apple will be forced to make the process easier on them to and that means having to handle less complaints and queries and clarifications. [read]

Punch Him In The Face With Your iPhone

We all have that annoying friend who we would love to haul over and roundly beat up. But you obviously cannot do that in real life without falling out with your friend and/or getting thoroughly beaten up yourself in the process. The answer is in a new stress/anger/frustration management iPhone app called FaceFighter.

The app lets you kick, punch and block your opponent, all the while seeing bruises and bandages appear on his face. You can also knock out his teeth. To get started, you have to take a picture or choose one from your camera roll. Then you follow the app’s instructions to line up the face with the cut out, zoom in, zoom out and all that. Then you are ready to knock the living day lights out of that guy, virtually of course.

This is not much of a game although it is not as simplistic as that app that lets you shoot things that your camera is seeing. Still, if you do not want to spend $0.99 for the paid version, you can download Face Fighter Lite, which is free. [read]

Universal Studios Can Has iPhone App Too

Universal Studios Home Entertainment is the latest big name to have released its own iPhone app. This is not a stand-alone app that lets you borrow their titles online but it will enhance your Blu-ray movie viewing experience.

The latest group of Blu-ray releases from the company – American Pie Presents, 9, Inglorious Basterds, etc. are going to come with two BLU apps. These BLU apps can be used by iPhone and iPod touch users in conjunction with certain Blu-ray players.

The pocket BLU app allows you to remotely interact with your Blu-ray player through a sleek iPhone interface. It features advanced remote control features, a pop-up keyboard and more. Social BLU allows you interact with Facebook and Twitter if your Blu-ray player is connected to the Internet.

Premiere League On iPhone Via Sky TV

You can now watch the Premier League and more on your iPhone through the newly launched Sky TV app for the iPhone. For £6 per month, users will be able to access live TV channels that are part of the Sky Sports bundle including Sky News, Sky Sports channels and ESPN channels.

The app currently works only over WiFi and not 3G and that is because O2 forbids its customers from using any such app in its T&C. That’s because the carrier has their own similar services to protect. Existing Sky subscribers will have to pay separately for this service and new customers will have to apply for a Sky customer ID. [read]

First iPhone Worm Rickrolls Jailbroken iPhones

This has been the main worry about everything Mac, They do not have viruses now, true but as they start to get more popular they will attract the attention of malware creators. So in that vein of paranoia, we have news of the first ever worm for the iPhone.

You can cut out the screaming and the deep breathing exercises because it is a) completely harmless and b) only effective on jailbroken iPhones. It does things like change the wallpaper and rickrolling users, so it is not exactly destroying your iPhone yet. A worm on a jailbroken phone is a worm on a device that has already been tampered with. So you can wait for the first ever worm on legit iPhones before you hit the panic button. [read]

Complete Car Control Via iPhone

Okay, this is certifiably crazy. In fact, we should probably start a ‘gHacks Certifiably Nuts’ award just for these fellas. But I must admit that what they are is doing is pretty cool. We know that the iPhone can already be used to start your car remotely but fully driving with the iPhone kinda takes the cake.

So what you do is you take some electronic control circuits, hook them up to control your steering, acceleration and brakes and then control them wirelessly. If you want a less vague and more accurate description, check out the videos. It is quite nicely done and I especially love the fact that they are using the accelerometer to control the steering.

The result is pretty 007-ish — that you can drive your car through your iPhone. Look M(a), no hands! [read]

HD Radio Comes To The iPhone Via Gigaware

Now that the Zune HD is out, your least favorite co-worker who loves to make fun of your liking for Apple has probably been going on and on about how his Zune HD does HD radio and your iPod Touch does not. Setting aside the all important the question of how many good HD radio stations are there near you, you can now get back at him saying “there’s an app for that!”

But that would be kinda half true because even though iBiquity has made an app that plays HD radio on your iPhone, you still have to get an additional hardware for accomplishing the feat. The device is called Gigaware Navigation Controller and is essentially an HD tuner with iPhone integration. It allows you to seek and auto tune as well. Plus there is Facebook tagging and iTunes tagging.

Works with the latest iPhone and the iPod Touch. Available on RadioShack. [read]

Sparkz Projector For Your iPhone

Do you want to spend a lot of money on a pico projector that will work with your iPhone/ iPod Touch/iPod Video? If you do, you can now have the Sparkz dock that lets you connect any of those devices and more to it so that you can project your favorites onto a nearby screen. It will support a/v and VGA inputs too.

Other than this extended support for inputs, it has a resolution of 640×480, stereo speakers and a 60-inch viewing area. It charges your docked device while it is projecting and it comes with its own tripod. The price so much goodness? A mere $495. Hey, I did say a lot of money. [read]

piZap is an online photo editor that offers something more. To be more specific, piZap lets you have fun with images. The flash-based application is ideal for people who love to manipulate their pictures and make them goofy. You can upload a file from your computer or play with one of the demo images on the site.

How do you make pictures funny? piZap allows you to add text via thought bubbles, put in stickers like emoticons or different parts of a face from the available options. You can also add effects to the picture or just paint over whatever you want. The options are endless. Here’s a photo I played around with.

Okay, it’s not great but don’t let my lack of creativity stop you. If you’re happy with how your picture looks, click ‘save’. The site then allows you to download the file, embed it on a website, and lets you post the image directly to most of the social networking sites around like Facebook, Twitter and the like.

One additional advantage to piZap is that you can have your picture printed on products like mouse pads, mugs, posters, tee shirts, calendars, etc. and then purchase them off the site. Of course, if you’d rather have someone else print the photo for you, you’re welcome to do that.

I quite like the site. It offers something different and is totally free. No registration required as well. Plus the site is really easy to use. I’d say the site is definitely worth a visit. How do you like piZap?  Do you find it interesting? Let me know in the comments.

Website owners can leave it at that or create their own custom 404 error page to provide the user with solutions or to further humiliate him. Really depends on the type of site that you are visiting. Long time reader Daniel collected four interesting best of 404 error lists on the Internet on his (Swedish) Bloggliv blog. He is also giving away three Hypersnap 6 licenses if you are keen to win that software.

The four best of lists that he links to contain a total of 245 404 error pages. Many pretty funny, some stylish and more than a few plain evil. Want some examples? Here we go:

To view them all follow this, this, that or this link.

That reminds me that I have to create a custom 404 error page for Ghacks..

The channel currently hosts 23 video clips of which 21 are from Monty Python shows and movies. It is not an immense collection at the moment but it looks as like new videos will be uploaded regularly to Youtube.

Some famous scenes from their movies are already available like the fight with the black knight in the Holy Grail movie or the Biggus Dickus scene in the Life of Brian. So, if you are a Monty Python fan head over to their official Youtube channel to watch the videos there.

This year the Elf Yourself website has been redesigned. There is a bit more of advertisement on the website but also additional content to make up for it. Don’t worry! There is still the classic elves dance for those who might have missed it last year or cannot get enough of it.

In addition though you can now see them dance Disco, Country or Charleston as well each with a unique stage and effects. The music is obviously also different on every stage.

The developers have added possibilities to download the videos to the desktop or post them on various social networking sites like MySpace or Facebook. Expect a huge increase in Elf Yourself appearances on those sites.

I have spotted a Pepsi advertisement on Youtube that is airing in South-America only which has all the traits of an interesting fun to watch ad. Honestly, what can go wrong if you combine Kung Fu Fighting, Mini Me and Godzilla in an ad?

Interestingly enough that’s not all there is to be seen and done for the viewer. They did release a free browser widget for Nokia Mobile phones built by interactive design & marketing group AgencyNet that can be downloaded free of charge from a newly created website. Supported languages are Spanish, Portuguese and English. The Pepsimundo website itself is only in Spanish but easy enough to navigate.

How does this ad compare to the ads you usually see when turning on the television?

Update: The video has been deleted on YouTube, it is no longer available on the popular video hosting website. The account that has uploaded the video has been deleted as well. The video itself does not seem to be available as a copy on the site, which is often the case when a video goes down.

Here are related videos that you may enjoy. The first is a French Pepsi commercial.

A Dr. Pepper commercial featuring Godzilla.

Nike’s famous Ronaldinho commercial.

Please let me know if you find the original Pepsi Kung Fu commercial on the Internet, I’d like to embed the video again on the site.

The process reminds of the Mii creation on the Nintendo Wii. The user picks a gender for his avatar and can then customize various facial features like the hair, eyes and nose. Nintendo Wii users should experience no difficulties creating the avatars and everyone else won’t run into a lot either.

It’s pretty much about picking the right facial feature and color to go along with the avatar. Face, Eyes, Nose, Mouth, Ears and Hairs are the six main parts of the face that can be changed. Most containing subcategories; Eyes are for instance further divided into Shape and Eyebrows.

Add clothes, stuff and background to that and the opportunity to add makeup to the avatar. Want your avatar to wear a tie, a peace logo, tattoo and piercing? No problem. The avatars are send to an email address that has to be entered with some additional data. It’s probably a way of collecting emails and I would advise to use an email account that does not receive private emails for that. It has to be able to receive attachments so most disposable email services are out of the question.

The prices for the watches start by roughly 8900 Yen which is about 80 US Dollars to more than 99000 Yen which would be more than 900 US Dollars. Most watches on the other hand are sold for $80-160 which is quite reasonable in my opinion.

It definitely takes some time to get accustomed to this new way of reading the time especially if you purchase one of the crazy blinking models that do not resemble a watch at all. Take a look at a few models to get a feeling for what they have on offer:

I guess people would have a hard time figuring out the exact time on any of the above watches.Would you get one of those?

The update applies to all editions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Probably even better than having to download a 56 Megabyte file for five additional words is the fact that the computer has to be restarted after updating the operating system.

The explanation on the other hand is quite boring. The update replaces the dictionary files with the updated versions meaning the user is actually downloading the full dictionary files and not just a patch that adds the five words to them.

Most users on the other hand will probably never use those five words anyway, lets hope that this update will be optional and not mandatory.

It is even possible to add your own message to customize the add-on. The settings can be set to a specific day and time of the day until the office beer o’clock. The user can select the interval between messages that are shown and there is even a “getting close” period in which the reminders are displayed more frequently.

That’s definitely a fun way to spend the days in the office. I would probably either add dozens of new messages or change the interval to display a message to once or twice a day instead.

Much like the A-Team did in the good old days when they build some huge car to break out of their prison. It seems that someone wasted a lot of time to add a list of problems solved by MacGyver to Wikipedia. Every episode of the five seasons is mentioned in the list and it’s interesting and sometimes funny to read.

Stuff like “MacGyver builds a distraction by balancing pots and pans on a bag of ice that melts from heat produced by a toaster oven. He spreads vegetable oil in the ground to incapacitate some kidnappers” or “MacGyver starts out in Berlin, trying to escape with a microfilm containing government secrets. He takes the place of a dead person and is carried in a coffin towards a bridge, where he is dumped into the water by friends. Upon hitting the water, Mac hits a button and turns his coffin into a jet ski, riding away to safety” are precious, don’t you think..

The pendant had no moving parts but she still had to race back to the check in to check in her carrying bag with the necklace because here luggage had long been gone. I like the question that one of the security guards was asking after the incident: “How do you know it wasn’t a real gun?” Classic, ain’t it ?

Now who would have thought that this incident could be topped so soon ? Brad Jayakody booked a flight with British Airways from Heathrow to Dusseldorf, Germany. He is wearing a showing Optimus Prime carrying a gun. Apparently passengers with shirts that depict guns cannot board flights anymore and he was asked to change his shirt to be able to board the flight. He was also reminded that he would be arrested if he would change the shirt again.

So what’s next. Asking someone with a gun tattoo to remove it before boarding the plane ?

Update: Most airlines and national travel and transport agencies are making lists of items available that cannot be taken on board during flights. This basically is restricted to dangerous items and items where it is not clear if they are dangerous or not. While it is for instance possible to take an umbrella with you on a plane, you are not allowed to take non-safety matches, large scissors or even cigarette lighters on board.

It is recommended to check with the airline or the local travel agencies when in doubt.

I loved that movie when I saw it and I still do. It even made me ignore my lack of talent and draw (yes, on a real paper, using my very own clumsy hands!) a picture, which is fairly untypical of me and hardly ever found in my regular schedule. Having had my own computer out of order for some time now, I had lots of time to spend on a homework we got in school – writing an English essay that would resemble a classic fairy-tale.

I meant it to be inspired by the movie from the very beginning but still wanted to make it somehow original. Then I got a few ideas on how to adapt the basic story to the IT environment and internet culture and thought that those ideas weren’t that bad after all. After one whole afternoon spent on writing (again, on a real paper instead of word processor canvas), I came up with something that may not be exactly called “art” but I still liked it myself and wanted to share it with the web community. Though, I do recommend watching the movie first, if possible.. no, I’m not adding a torrent link here.

Link: Gate to the Net – Bridge to Terabithia for Geeks via Scribd.com

Description:

The excellent and beautiful movie “Bridge to Terabithia” inspired me to write this remake as a school essay. Specially designed for people with a slight insight into the technology world and internet stuff.

System requirements:
Fantasy Unlimited 2.0
Friendship Understanding 2008
Emotion Extension Pack Free
+ Technical Inaccuracy Ignorance Engine

If you happen to like it, I’d appreciate another digg.

Currently four of those gift boxes are available: A Pro Whisk Set with 28 whisks, the Visor Organizer which turns the head into another pocket, the Smoke Alarm with custom sounds ranging from sounds of the rainforest to Dixieland tunes and last but not least the Auto Power Strip which is a electronic hub placed directly under the rear mirror of the car.

I simply had to write about these, forgive me, hehe.

via Fosfor

Face in a hole makes that possible. Just select a scenario from one of the many available. You can filter scenarios by categories if you like. Available categories are for instance Sports or Advertising. Once a user has selected a scenario he has to choose a source for the face that he wants to put on the image. The choices are either a webcam image or one from the hard drive.

The image is then added as a layer to the scenario and you can move it around, zoom and rotate it so that the face fits perfectly with the image that you have uploaded. The system tries to put the image that you upload in the correct relation to the scenario that you have selected.

Once you are satisfied you can simply save the image and send it to your friends or upload it to your Facebook or Myspace profile. Lots of fun guaranteed !