Personalised emoticons for Windows Live Messenger

Can’t find the right image to use for your Live Messenger character? Help is at hand from the new minimise me website. This has an online designer for creating a new avatar for Live Messenger software. Once installed they will appear as the character picture in conversations and also as four different emoticons to use in conversations.

It is simple to use although it is sometimes a little slow to respond when clicking on some of the icons, but this is common complaint with web based editors and it is a limitation with the technology as a whole. Read More »

Apple to Seed OS X 10.5.5

Sources are reporting that Apple is close to issuing the first pre-release build of the next maintenance update to Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Mac OS X 10.5.5 is said to include support for new Mac notebooks due out later this year (autumn).

“People familiar with the matter say Apple Developer Connection members and other high-profile software makers could receive the first test builds of the software prior to the start of the weekend,” AppleInsider reveals. “The first seedings will almost certainly arrive by the middle of next week,” the site notes, citing the same sources.

Apple’s latest maintenance update for Leopard, Mac OS X 10.5.4 was released on June 30, just a month after the first beta build had been seeded to the Apple developer community. Read More »

Live Search Gets Wallpapers

Microsoft is constantly evolving the products and services under the Windows Live brand umbrella, and one of the main focuses of the company is, of course, Live Search. Chris Rayner, Senior Product Manager, and Zach Gutt, Senior Program Manager Live Search User Experience team, revealed that the redesigned Live Search homepage would from now on feature background images. The Redmond company will ensure that the Live Search “wallpapers” will alternate frequently, but this process won’t be random, and it won’t happen on every refresh. Additionally, the Live Search backgrounds will have hotspots implemented, offering users a search item in accordance with elements contained in the image. Read More »

One Click Encrypt

We are all concerned about privacy and security but relatively few PC users actually ever get around to doing something about it. Now there’s no excuse, a small freeware utility called EncryptOnClick can encrypt any file on your PC in just a second or two. Just open the program and select the file, tap in your password or PIN and its done. The file is compressed and scrambled using strong 256-bit AES encryption, which will keep most nosey parkers at bay. The program is small, under 4Mb, and it fits easily on a USB pen drive, so you can protect your files when you are on the move.

Cool Sculpture

From a distance it looks like a piece of cool modern art, which maybe it is, but you’re unlikely to see one of these in a gallery or on public display, in fact it’ll probably never see the light of day as it’s designed to live out its life inside a PC case, keeping CPU chips cool. The Thermaltake V1 is designed to replace the boring old fan on many popular CPUs, including Intel Core 2, Pentium and Celeron processors, AMD Athlon 64 FX and X2 series processors. Heat from the chip is removed by four heatpipes and dissipated by the cooling fins, a super quiet fan set between the fins keeps the air moving. There’s more information that you need on the Thermaltake website, which may also be able to tell you where you can get your hands on one, if you want to be cool, and seen to be cool…

The Dell Studio Hybrid’s been released!

This is so cool it’s sick:
Introducing the Dell Studio Hybrid.

* IT’S SMALL
Same footprint as a Mac Mini Combo.
* IT’S MORE AFFORDABLE
Cheaper than a Mac Mini Combo. ($499)
* IT’S MORE POWERFUL
1.86Ghz Dual Core Pentium, 2GB memory (twice that of Mac Mini Combo), 250GB hard drive. (3x that of Mac Mini Combo) And it comes with Windows Vista Home Premium. Read More »

What makes LCDs shine light

Unlike typical cathode ray displays that produce images on a screen by bombarding electrons into a layer of phosphorous, liquid crystal displays can’t actually produce their light while functioning. This is because the pixels on an LCD are basically like little shutters that vary their opacity accordingly to the amount of electric current they receive.

This disadvantage is especially visible in the case of old-fashioned monochrome liquid crystal displays, which can be read only when they are lit with light coming from the environment, and become totally useless in the absence of it. In this case, light coming from the Sun or reflected by the environment enters the LCD, passes through all the layers of the display before encountering a reflective surface that sends the light back to the viewer. Read More »

Learn about Windows games

Windows comes with a small set of games that you can play whenever you’re in the mood for a bit of fun. This article gives a brief overview of each game. For more specific instructions, click View Help on the game’s Help menu.

The games that come with Windows are located in the Games folder, the central location for games on your computer.

To open the Games folder, click the Start button Picture of the Start button , and then click Games in the right pane. To open one of the games in the folder, double-click its icon.

Note: Windows games are not installed by default in Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise. To install them, click the Start button Picture of the Start button, click Control Panel, click Programs, and then click Turn Windows features on or off. In the Windows Features dialog box, select the Games check box, and then click OK. Administrator permission required If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. Read More »

How to Start building games for Xbox 360

XNA Game Studio
Platform games, shoot-em-ups, racing games, and adventure games. Peek this and poke that and the next generation of software developers were born. But why don’t people write games for fun anymore? Perhaps games and their programming languages went in different directions, we all grew up and wrote database applications. Writing simple games became hard and the immediacy and fun just got drowned out in the API calls and lines of C++. Read More »

Free Linux Wireless Driver from Atheros

Atheros Communications, a pioneer in wireless network solutions, is pleased to announce the free availability of the ath9k Linux driver for IEEE 802.11n wireless devices. The ath9k driver will be soon included in the Linux kernel. “The ath9k driver comes shortly after Atheros hired two key Linux wireless developers - Luis Rodriguez and Jouni Malinen. [..] We have been informed Atheros does plan to add access point support to ath9k and to work with the community to enhance and complete access point support in the Linux kernel. It is understood there is plenty of work required on the wireless stack to complete full access point support. Jouni Malinen will help drive this process within the community while Luis helps enhance regulatory compliance in the Linux kernel.” - the MadWifi team. Read More »