Sebastian Anthony
United Kingdom - http://www.mrseb.co.uk
Based in the middle of nowhere, England, Sebastian finds his lonely, friendless, hoboesque existence to provide the perfect vantage point for bias-free, objective opinionation.
Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters
Delightful and haunting Braid-clone Time-Waster
by Sebastian Anthony Nov 24th 2009
The Company of Myself is one of those games that you don't want to conclude. When it does end -- if you have what it takes to get there -- it leaves you feeling sad. Kinda empty. Like there's a gap in your soul that's exactly Company of Myself-shaped and there's nothing to fill it with.The game is very simply played, platform-style. You progress through each level to the green door, passing obstacles as you go. The first few levels have dialogue where you are seemingly talking to yourself, reminding yourself how to play -- it's weird, but it works. It works really well.
But there's a twist. A twist of genius!
Filed under: Utilities, Windows
How to add network activity lights to your system tray in Windows 7
by Sebastian Anthony Nov 24th 2009
With the aid of a tiny little program -- of the juicy, sub-100-kilobyte freeware variety -- you can get those cute little blinking-blue screens back onto your system tray in Windows 7.In yet another case of inspired naming, Network Activity Indicator for Windows lets you re-attach the network activity indicator to your system tray. It's been sorely missed in both Vista and Windows 7 by many users, and now... you can have it back! Yay! No longer must you wonder if your router has crashed -- you can see it right there on your desktop!
I wish I had more to say, but... that's it really. You can set a blink duration (though it doesn't seem to make much difference), and you can tell it to load at startup... and that's it. Quick and simple, just how I like my, er, apps.
Visit the site, if you really need more information -- or download it directly (57KB).
Filed under: Mozilla, Browsers
Is Firefox causing laptops to overheat through CPU overuse?
Those of you that are fortunate enough to primarily surf the web on a desktop machine, you probably won't notice just how much of a resource hog web browsers can be. But if you use a laptop -- or any kind of portable really -- you have probably experienced the full 100%-CPU-ow-ow-my-thighs-are-burning-and-my-fingertips-are-sweating experience. It turns out that the issue is so pronounced in some cases -- generally ultra-lights/netbooks with less heat dissipation -- that laptops are overheating and shutting down!For whatever reason, web browsers and portable computers just don't go well together. Whether it's the constant hard-disk swapping or the heavy use of Flash, something causes laptop CPU usage to spike -- a lot.
Fortunately, there's a neat support page on the Mozilla site that details a few ways to reduce CPU usage, if you're one of the few that has an overheating laptop.
Over on CNET they're suggesting that Firefox suffers more than other browsers. Whether that's true or not might be anecdotal, but a support bod at Mozilla did say that 'Safari is possibly better at optmizing Flash-based sites compared to Firefox.'
And I'll pipe in and say that I get CPU spikes using every browser on my laptop. But I'd love to know if Firefox actually munches up more resources than other browsers, or if it's simply a matter of configuring your browser correctly. Perhaps we can expect to see a 'performance version' of Firefox that looks uncomfortably like Safari...?
Filed under: Google, Microsoft, Search
Microsoft will pay content providers to shun Google -- and get in bed with Bing
In a marketing ploy so draconian and heavy-handed as to be reminiscent of the original XBox launch, Microsoft is now offering to pay-off publishers if they delist their content from Google's indexes.Sounds crazy, but it's true. Microsoft has approached News Corp and offered to pay them to de-list from Google's search indexes. So you have some idea of how big a deal this is, News Corp owns Fox, the Wall Street Journal, MySpace and dozens of other publishers and news sources around the world. They are the second biggest media group in the world after Disney.
Google have already gone on the record and said that news content isn't a huge money-spinner for them, but it begs the question: how much money is Microsoft willing to throw around?
They have one of the largest cash reserves in the world. And let's face it, content providers drive the Internet. If Microsoft is really this serious about securing a slice of the search pie, you might begin to see 'Bing exclusive' content very soon.
It won't stop with News Corp -- slowly but surely searching for news on Google will become impossible. And then MySpace music pages won't turn up in your searches either. What if they go to the adult content providers...? What if Bing's new slogan becomes 'the only place to find porn on the Internet'? WHAT IF?
[via The Business Insider]
Filed under: Utilities, Microsoft
Hate the new Windows 'start menu'? Get the classic XP menu back with this little app!
By now a lot of you will have experienced the 'All-in-One Omnipotent Start Menu' thing that was first introduced with Windows Vista and can now be found in Windows 7. It combines My Computer, My Documents and your installed programs into one big, gribbly menu.Some people love it. Some hate it. Personally, I like the all-in-one search/run input box... but that's about it. I much prefer the old drop-out menu, even if it is a bit stupid when you've got 500 programs installed. I still use icons on my desktop, rather than getting at everything through my Start Menu.
There have been a few tools that replicate the old Start Menu, but this one(aptly called 'Classic Windows Start Menu'), unlike the others, also works with the Windows Aero theme. Sadly, as you can see in the screenshot below, there still seem to be some bugs with the display (ironically, probably when you have a lot of stuff installed), but otherwise it all seems to work as intended!
So if, for some reason (and I'm sure there are lots of possible reasons) you don't like the Vista/7 Start Menu, why not grab this tiny little app?
Direct download link / developer's site (it ain't pretty, but you can find other-language versions there, if you don't want it in English)
[via Into Windows]
Google's Chrome and Android operating systems will converge sooner rather than later
by Sebastian Anthony Nov 21st 2009 {1 comments}
Google's co-founder, Sergey Brin, spoke to some reporters yesterday, after the Chrome OS presentation. Citing the common WebKit and Linux code found in both operating systems, he said "Android and Chrome are likely to converge over time." "We're reaching a perfect storm of converging trends where computers are behaving more like mobile devices, and phones are behaving more like small ...Foobar2000 v1.0 Beta -- holy crap, it's finally here!
digg_url = 'http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/11/20/foobar2000-v1-0-beta-holy-crap-its-finally-here/'; Believe it or not, almost 7 years after its initial release, the Foobar2000 v1.0 Beta is finally out, and with it comes a large list of changes. Most of them are much-needed interface fixes, but there is the welcome addition of built-in support for the streaming of Windows Media formats ...Waste some time and toss the turtle
by Sebastian Anthony
Nov 20th 2009 {13 comments}
No, no, really... I'm not suggesting you head to the supplies cupboard and actually toss the turtle! It's a game! NO! Not the kind of game you play with friends while drunk! A Flash game! Adobe Flash! In your browser! Toss The Turtle is the epitome -- the end of the line -- the ULTIMATE 'fire a canon ball as far as you can' game, a genre that you might remember from the (really) olden days. The ...Finally, serious competition for iTunes...from Sony!
They've been awfully quiet the last couple of years, except for the recent PS3 price reduction and slow drip-feed of good games. But it seems, after the appointment of a new CEO back in 2006, the results of some internal reshuffling might finally be coming to fruition! There's no name for the new software reported on by BusinessWeek. There's also very few details of the functionality Sony's ...Proper web browsing on a console: Firefox coming to the Sony PS3?
It seems the age of humdrum, crippled browsers on consoles might finally be coming to an end! Though the details are very slim, with the only source being an unnamed insider very close to Sony, it is exciting news indeed if it turns out to true. Games consoles have always had feeble browser offerings, with PS3's default browser generally considered one of the worst and most unreliable. Porting ...
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
