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- Intel Launches Sleek Single-Slot Arc Pro A60 Workstation Graphics Card
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April Fool’s Day Office Pranks
It’s a shame April 1st falls on a Sunday this year, as April Fool’s Day is often best celebrated in the workplace. In honor of the occassion, we’ve pulled together a few great office pranks that work well throughout the year, so feel free to put them to the test on April 2nd and beyond–in the office or out.
Some of the mentions include fake caller ID, fake BSOD, shocking cell phone and my personal favorite, the TV-B-Gone.
Source: Product Dose
How To Escape Professional Handcuffs
Because Sundays are slow for news, I seek out to find some of the oddest websites to link you to, and this one fits the bill. In under a minute, you can learn how to unlock professional handcuffs, using only a bobby pin. Of course, we assume this knowledge be best used in the comfort of your own home and not in the back of a police car…
Source: Fun Distraction
Why Google Search is #1
This blog post really does explain well why Google is such a good (and thorough) search engine. Though the specific site is not mentioned, spiders were tracked to see what they were doing, and how many pages they were tracking. Google tracked an insane amount of pages compared to the other two.
Source: Tech Soapbox
NY Upset At GTA: IV Trailer
The latest version of an ultraviolent video game will unleash its murderous mayhem on the streets of New York. And outraged political leaders say the rampant brutality of the game, Grand Theft Auto IV, has little in common with reality. “Setting Grand Theft Auto in the safest big city in America would be like setting Halo in Disneyland,” said City Councilman Peter Vallone, chairman of the Council’s Public Safety Committee.
I for one do not understand that quote at all, but it doesn’t matter. Politicians of course have no sense of humor or realize that it’s “just a game”.
Source: NY Daily News
Contest 2 and 3 end tonight!
Drop what it is you are doing and enter our contests! Thermaltake is offering up a chance at a silver Armor case to those who currently own fabulously ugly cases. On the gaming front, you can have a chance at winning Razers Barracuda headset, DeathAdder mouse and also their Tarantula gaming keyboard. All you need to do is submit your funniest gaming screenshots! Both of these contests close up at midnight EST tonight, so get moving!
Source: Contest Page
Top 10 Free Windows Downloads
At every turn on the internet, someone’s offering a free software download for your PC. But separating the wheat from the evilware-addled chaff isn’t for busy users with better things to do than test applications all day long. That’s where we come in. Today we’ve got our top picks of free Windows software downloads that will make your PC faster, stronger, more functional and productive.
I must be half cool, because I use exactly half of the applications they mention. The best ones (in my opinion) mentioned would have to be GAIM, foobar and of course, Firefox.
Source: Life Hacker
RIAA Speaks at ASU Campus
David Hughes, senior vice-president of technology for the RIAA, held an open discussion about digital music and software piracy at Arizona State University. The talk was mostly civil – despite some sincerely lame protest attempts, the majority of the discussion was David offering the RIAA’s position on software piracy and the future of the music industry.
This is a lengthy presentation, weighing in at an hour and twenty minutes. If you dislike the RIAA as much as most people, then you will probably turn away quick so as to not punch something. There is a protest that occurs as well, but it’s quite minor.
Source: geekMethod
Amsterdam sold for $50,000
Going, going, gone. Amsterdam sold for $50,000. Ok it’s not the real-life city, but the virtual one created in Second Life which was auctioned off this week on eBay. One of the landmark businesses in Second Life, ‘Amsterdam’ is modeled on the city’s red light district and specializes in adult content.
Nothing like a virtual porn city to draw in the big $$.
Source: ZDNet Blogs
Inside Firefox 3.0, Alpha 3: Gran Paradiso
If development goes according to plan, this will be the first version of Firefox—or of any browser, for that matter—to have the three key components needed to support offline Web applications: DOM Storage; an offline execution model; and synchronization. That critical foundation will let free or low-cost Web suites compete with Microsoft software and possibly break the company’s decades-long domination in office productivity apps.
PC Magazine takes a first look at the next Firefox, so if you want to know what’s on the horizon, give it a look. I just want a version that doesn’t randomly crash on me…
Source: PC Mag
Mexico City Starts ‘Games for Guns’ Campaign
Strange as it may sound, Mexico City is giving it their all in their efforts to crack down on gun related violence. The chief of police has ‘announced that anyone prepared to surrender a high-calibre weapon, such as a machine gun, will receive a free computer in exchange.
Wow. I’d be interested to see how well this project actually does. It’s quite the concept, that’s for sure. Hopefully it does some good.
Source: Slashdot
ICANN Again Rejects Creation of .XXX Domain
An international agency today once again rejected the creation of an .XXX domain for web sites that contain adult content. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted down the proposal by ICM Registry LLC in a 9-5 vote — ICANN is responsible for managing the domain-name address system for the Internet. The latest vote marks the third time that ICANN denied a proposal for a universal .XXX domain.
Is this ever going to happen? Not by the looks of things. It sure won’t stop people from trying though.
Source: Daily Tech
Apple iTunes Offers Complete My Album
Apple has introduced the “Complete My Album” feature on its iTunes Store which gives a full credit of 99 cents for every track the user previously purchased and applies it toward the purchase of the complete album. For instance, most albums on iTunes cost $9.99 so a customer who already bought three tracks can download the rest of the album for $7.02, previously they would be charged the full price.
It’s about time, but of course there is a catch. The offer to purchase the rest of the album at a "discount" will only be available for 6 months after the purchase of the song(s). Still, that’s not so bad, as many people would likely purchase the album before that time frame anyway.
Source: Neowin
How An Online Business Self Destructed
This is not a guide nor a review, but a story explaining what has led up to how a business was uncovered scamming it’s customers. Not only were they selling computer goods they did not own, they were taking the money and putting it back into advertising. We are sending out this article because this business has been advertised on numerous hardware websites and even in major magazines.
This has been a story floating around the net for a while now, but it’s finally hit a conclusion of sorts. The owner of the company is a fake and even goes as far as to verbally attack his customers he’s scammed in online forums. If you were pondering a purchase from Zio Systems, it’s wise to read this first.
Source: Gideon Tech
Xbox 360 120 GB HDD Content Revealed
Microsoft let us know that every standalone 120 GB hard drive and Xbox 360 Elite hard drive will have the full version of the Xbox Live Arcade game Hexic HD as well as a variety of dashboard themes and gamer pics. The stand alone 120 GB hard drive will be preloaded with between 3-5 game demos depending on the region as well as an assortment of Xbox Live Arcade games demos and HD game trailers.
This is nothing to get too excited over, as all the content can be downloaded for free to begin with. I’m just psyched we are finally going to get a larger hard drive. 120GB still doesn’t seem huge, but it’s a vast improvement over the measly 20GB model we are dealing with now.
Source: TeamXBox
Students Sue Anti-Cheating Service
The lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, seeks $900,000 in damages from the for-profit service known as Turnitin. The service seeks to root out cheaters by comparing student term papers and essays against a database of more than 22 million student papers as well as online sources and electronic archives of journals. In the process, the student papers are added to the database.
This is an interesting case and I am somewhat inconclusive on it. The fact is, Turnitin -did- store copyrighted material so that it can be scanned in the future. It’s going to be a tough case, but I’d like to see the outcome.
Source: Washington Post
Boot Camp Now Officially Supports Windows Vista, Mostly
Owners of Intel-based Macs can now join their PC brethern in rejoicing – or demeaning – Microsoft’s latest Windows operating system, Vista. With the release of Boot Camp beta 1.2, Apple has added support for the 32-bit versions of Vista.
I still haven’t figured out who wants to run Vista on a PC, much less a Mac! Yes, I had to be "that guy".
Source: Daily Tech
Why The RIAA Doesn’t Want Defendants Exonerated
The music industry’s exit strategy from cases it deems undesirable to pursue—due to mistaken identity, poor likelihood of winning, or other factors—has been just as consistent. The record labels file for a dismissal without prejudice and everybody goes their own ways, footing their own legal bills, and no one is officially cleared of wrong-doing. Recent events may be casting a shadow over the wisdom of the RIAA’s strategy.
The RIAA walked into a corner with this lawsuit, but we all knew it was bound to happen. If these conclusions occur more often, then we will have a real reason to celebrate. Knowing what they are like… it will happen.
Source: Ars Technica
Google Wants You To Swim Oceans
You can’t always rely on the advice of computers, especially when it comes to transoceanic driving directions. Google, either encouraging physical fitness or zero population growth, offers the above helpful suggestion when mapping the route from Chicago to London.
You’ve got to appreciate such a strange sense of humor. You can view the path that the post is talking about here. The swimming across the ocean part is the 20th step listed.
Source: Consumerist
OpenOffice.org 2.2 Released
With upgrades to its word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, and database software, the free software package provides a real alternative to Microsoft’s recently-released Office 2007 product – and an easier upgrade path for existing Microsoft Office users. OpenOffice.org 2.2 also protects users from newly discovered vulnerabilities, where users’ PCs could be open to attack if they opened documents from, or accessed web sites set up by, malicious individuals.
Nothing quite like being direct and to the point. There have been many updates made to the software, including better support for Microsofts office documents. The new .docx formats from Office 2007 are still not supported, however.
Source: OpenOffice.org
More Eidos Titles On Steam
Eidos Interactive, one of the world’s leading publishers and developers of entertainment software, and Valve® today announce the availability of an additional seven games via Steam, a leading platform for the distribution of PC Games. The latest wave includes games from the highly-acclaimed Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Thief series of games. Plus catch the Eidos Action Gang, a limited-time collection featuring Just Cause, Snowblind, and Rogue Trooper together for just $59.95.
It’s good to finally see Tomb Raider: Legend available. It’s not such a bad price at $26.95 either. I am a huge TR fan, so I am hoping it won’t take long before the others become available.
Source: Steam Powered
OCZ Announces PC2-6400 1T Modules
Sunnyvale, CA—March 29, 2007—OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the latest addition to the award-winning OCZ NVIDIA SLI certified series, the PC2-6400 SLI-Ready DDR2 modules. Optimized specifically for current and next generation nForce platforms, this series features reduced latencies and a 1T command rate for ultra fast memory accesses at 800MHz data rate.
Source: OCZ Press Release
Stacking Vista Licenses Too High
Microsoft’s claim of 20 million Vista licenses sold simply doesn’t add up when trying to assess who realistically bought them in the time frame—”in the opening month”—stated in today’s press release. Further, the press release claims that “Windows Vista made a splash in its debut.” What kind of Kool-Aid are they drinking up there in Redmond? Who spiked the Windows Vista-logo soda cans?
Stretching the truth is not uncommon in this industry, and Microsoft has become quite good at it. This article points out that Microsoft did just that with regards to their "20 million" Vista sales announcement. It’s a rather long read, but the math is there.
Source: Microsoft-Watch
Dell To Finally Offer Linux
Dell has heard you and we will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line. Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems. We will provide an update in the coming weeks that includes detailed information on which systems we will offer, our testing and certification efforts, and the Linux distribution(s) that will be available. The countdown begins today.
If there was an appropriate word right about now, it would be, “Finally!”. Ubuntu and openSUSE will probably be the first supported distros just given the fact that they are so popular. I’m curious to see how great their Linux support will be though, especially regarding their drivers. At least we’ve gotten this far!
Source: Dell.com
Circuit City Fires 3,500 Overpaid Staff
Circuit City is firing 3,400 store workers because it thinks it’s paying them too much. To rub salt into the wound, it is offering the retail fat cats some severance and the chance to apply for their old jobs – at lower wages. But only 10 weeks after they have been fired. This company is all heart.
Overpaid? That’s a hilarious statement, as I’m sure most people would disagree. Especially the workers themselves.
Source: Channel Register
University of Maine Refuses To Serve RIAAs Complaints
Following the lead of places like the Universities of Wisconsin and Nebraska, the University of Maine has apparently decided it has better things to do than to act as the RIAA’s messenger when it comes to the “pre-settlement” offers it’s pushing on students.
If only other university’s, such as Purdue, followed the lead like this. The RIAA is slowly getting beat, as long as this keeps up. People are getting tired of dealing with their bull, so hopefully it won’t take much longer before they are forced to wise up.
Source: Tech Dirt