Technology and ….
Enough with utilities – Here is something that is 100% fun.
The world of MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) is filled with graphically intense games like the World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies. Enter the Kingdom of Loathing (KoL). KoL is a MMORPG that has great game play and low end graphics. How low end you ask – Stick figures low. Do not be fooled by the low end graphics – This game is entertaining, complex and incredibly creative.
Disclaimer: I used to work for this company – Having said that I would HIGHLY recommend this product in any event.
Answers.com is a free web based knowledge retrieval system. It is not search. It Far Far superior to simple web searching. Web Searching always give you a page that contains the search terms – Answers gives you, well, Answers. For example – lets say you wanted to know about Bluetooth and what it does. With search you would put “bluetooth” into google and get 212,000,0000 results. Many of them selling bluetooth devices. Granted – you could probably find what you were looking for in the first ten results – but it is still a pain to get a basic understanding of a concept (Search – Sort – Read) With Answers you get the information you were looking for in one step. You enter the topic “bluetooth” and you get the following page:
It has a definition, examples, pictures, the wikipedia entry and more.
Now with the Windows client – things got even better! – Answers.com has truly provided information at the user’s fingertips. (more…)
Here are some more of the Firefox extensions that I would call “Must Have’s”
They are
Firefox’s power lies in the ability to add or change functionality with extensions.
A really cool extension is Viamatic foXpose. This is a great addition for users who work with multiple tabs. foxpose lets you see all your open windows as thumbnails in one window.
In my line of work I end up installing a huge amount of crap software on my PC. I try out different utilities. I install programs to reproduce problems. I try to uninstall these programs but often I forget. Sometimes there is no uninstaller, and sometime programs don’t completely uninstall. This leads to PC clutter. This clutter uses disks space, can cause slower boot time, and slower performance in general.
My solution is virtual PC’s. I use VMWare’s Player to run virtual machines. VMware Player is a free utility that emulates a PC on your PC. VMWare allows you to run a virtual computer (Down to the boot and BIOS) as software under your existing Operating System.
VMWare Player runs on Windows and Linux. You could have Windows running in a virtual machine that is running on Linux. You could have Windows running on a virtual machine that is running on Windows. (more…)
I use Firefox. If you do not – you should. It is far superior to IE or any other browser that I have seen to date. What makes Firefox so powerful are the extensions. Extensions are the plug-ins that add or change features within Firefox.
Here are a few of the extensions I use and highly recommend:
Another great free and Open Source utility is DBAN – Darik’s Boot and Nuke. This is a great bootable CD/Floppy that securly erases disks. Ever want to sell or get rid of a hard disk or PC? This lets you be sure that there is no data on the disk. It boots up straight from the floppy and will securly erase all data on a hard disk.
You can download it from http://dban.sourceforge.net/
I have been watching a great IPTV show for the last several months – it is called hak.5. The episodes come out on the fifth of every month and feature segments on hacking, moding, gaming and coding.
It is done very well. The hosts are knowledgeable and fun to watch. You can download the show from http://hak5.org
I have learned some really cool tricks from the show. Did you know you can get a command prompt during windows XP setup?If you are interested in cool tips, tricks, hacks and mods – check out the show.