Island Dog is at it again with a new video tour, this time taking you through the paces of WindowBlinds 5.5 on Windows Vista. The video, posted on MSN Soapbox, gives you a glimpse at multiple Stardock applications working together under Vista. Notice the animated wallpaper, Forever Frost, a part of the Stellar Dream Master Skin running in the background. The video clocks in at 4min 41 seconds and is a good way for users who aren't quite sure about WindowBlinds, or specifically Wi...
Before there was Clippy and his Office Assistant friends annoying users, before there were so many wizards built to automate tough tasks, there was Bob. Released to the world in March 1995, Bob was supposed to be a user-friendly replacement to the Program Manager in Windows 3.2. In fact, several of the "helpers" seen in later Microsoft products came from bob. Rover, the yellow dog for example can be seen when you search for things under Windows XP. Bob is generally considere...
This next review is our favorite around the office out of all the ones posted so far. G4 turned out a glowing review of the game that really dives deep into the raft of features we packed into the expansion pack. Like many other reviews, this one floats the idea that this is practically a sequel for all the new goodies tossed in. Here's a brief snippit: "That’s largely due to A.I. wizard Brad Wardell’s hard work retooling the game’s "brain." If you have a powerful enough C...
Blogging, the art of spewing forth text onto the web for all to read, usually in some sort of personal journal sort of format, has turned 10. For a full decade now, people have been getting up on their virtual soapbox and sharing with the world their thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams. In recent years, blogging has taken on a life of its own, getting a piece of the action in the last US presidential election, and regularly being the "source" of news. Hailed as both the bane and ...
Blogging, the art of spewing forth text onto the web for all to read, usually in some sort of personal journal sort of format, has turned 10. For a full decade now, people have been getting up on their virtual soapbox and sharing with the world their thoughts, fears, hopes and dreams. In recent years, blogging has taken on a life of its own, getting a piece of the action in the last US presidential election, and regularly being the "source" of news. Hailed as both the bane and ...
One thing Microsoft was heavily blasted for over Vista was how long it took to get it out the door. Five years between OS releases is a long time considering Apple's 1.5 year turn-around on OSX iterations, and even Redmond's own history (95, 98, 2000, 2002) with desktop OS versions. This time though, Microsoft has no intention of letting things go that long before the next version of Windows. Technology blogger for ZDNet, Mary Jo Foley has a bit of information on what this interim...
MySpace is often the target of hackers looking to harvest personal data and gain unrestricted access to hundreds of thousands of home PCs through security holes in site code and in web-browsers. As one of the most popular sites on the Internet, a single exploit on the site can affect countless end-users. Considering the average MySpace user appears to be, on the whole, not exceptionally tech-savvy, it's all ripe pickings for hackers. According to a PC World article, a pair of user...
Robert Scoble, one of the more prominent names in the blogging world the past few years due to his role as tech evangelist for Microsoft for three years, making public many of the inner workings of the Redmond giant. Having recently left the company, Scoble has recently turned on his former employer to vent his personal contempt for Microsoft's entire Internet strategy. "Microsoft's Internet execution sucks (on the whole). Its search sucks. Its advertising sucks. If that’s ‘in it to wi...
Another week, another poll. Last week I was trying to get a feel for how everyone uses DesktopX, whether they're mainly widget wonks, are the types to go in more for the full-desktop-replacement themes, or if they simply don't use the program at all. Well, the votes have been tallied, and here's the breakdown: Widgets. 41.29% Themes. 28.41% I don't use DesktopX at all. 29.17% What's DesktopX? 1.14% ...
Gamers' Temple put up their two cents on Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar yesterday, giving it a strong 95% and their Award of Excellence. Like previous reviews, time and attention is given to the improved graphics, the new spy system, and planetary terrain types, but this one gives a little bit more attention to an aspect of the game that is oddly overlooked; ship building improvements. Here's what the review has to say about what Dark Avatar adds to the Ship Builder: Many ...
Everyone here has heard a lot about Windows DreamScene, the extra for Windows Vista Ultimate users that lets you play pre-rendered video as your desktop background. It was one of the most anticipated extras after being showcased at CES 2007, and is something Stardock has partnered with Microsoft on to develop content and technology, which resulted in Stardock DeskScapes, an extension to DreamScene that allows more than just static video playback by adding event triggers, and the ability t...
Ever wonder what contributes to economic growth? What is it that fuels our modern economy and keeps many of us employed? According to a study by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, it's IT that has been the reason for nearly all economic growth in the past ten years, adding $2 trillion to the economy each year. This is largely due to the integration of technology into virtually every aspect of the workplace. That integration is happening at increasingly rap...
Typically in the world of technology, US law enforcement has lagged behind criminals in tools, resources, training and know-how. Computer crime is something, that until recently, had federal prosecutors, investigators and judges mystified and even a little bit terrified. A crime that used to take a great deal of physical risk on the part of the criminal, such as robbing a bank, became someone a teenager in his parents basement could do. And be harder to catch. To comb...
BetaNews reported yesterday that NVidia has this week released the fianl version of Gelato 2.1, the company's GPU-accellerated 3D rendering tool. Originally designed for film and animation, it now can be used for design work and game development. The cool part is that it's 100% free and comes in various flavors for operating systems ranging from Windows XP to RedHat and SuSE Linux. This may be a neat app for would-be animators to play with. The only catch is you have to be u...
Welcome back to Monday folks, made extra-fun by the time change we here in the US had to go through yesterday (spring forward... blah!). In an attempt to get some regular content flowing again, I'm going to try and revive the weekly poll. The current poll, "Have you switched to Windows Vista?" Was a pretty popular one last week, netting nearly 900 votes! Here's the breakdown: No, and I don't plan to 377 42.17% I have and I'm loving it! 366 ...