Yesterday Nine Inch Nails joined the group of popular bands that are releasing their latest albums online for free, or close to that. The band dedicated the album to the fans, who have supported them throughout the years, and have also announced that a physical version of the album will be available on CD and Vinyl in July. Even though I’ve never listened to any albums of theirs before, only assorted singles, I found the album surprisingly good with a nice variety of songs and themes. Some are lyrical, others are more instrumental, others are more computerized, but overall, it’s an above average album and I recommend it to anyone Read more »

Even though what I enjoy most about WoW is the Player VS Player part of the game, I have found myself doing a lot more PVE (Player versus Environment). The problem I found with switching from one to the other is that while on PVP you have resilience and crit, on PVE you have stats, haste, expertise, etc. And all of those affect your damage differently, and depending on the stat, it might make a world of difference. Thankfully, I found a website that gives the exact answers to what should be your next upgrades, and you’ll be surprised to find out how many great items you can get without Read more »

In the world of Windows Mobile Cellphones, HTC is seen as possible the largest or most influential company. Here, in Portugal, it’s rare to see someone with a Windows cellphone that isn’t HTC. Today they unveiled the latest model in their new Touch brand, the Diamond. The first HTC Touch was largely consider by many the Microsoft answer to the iPhone. Although it didn’t live up to the hype of Apple’s device, it was an above average device, and since Apple isn’t in any hurry to unveil the highly anticipated 3G model, now is a great time to announce a new device. Here are the Diamond’s specifications: * Windows Mobile Read more »

…against a horde of doctors who will stop you from killing anyone. Team Fortress 2 was one of the online gaming franchises that received the most uplifting facelift yet. The game was thoroughly balanced, the comedy factor was increased, and a few new game modes were enabled, so you weren’t always running after flags all the time. With this weekend, Valve decided to promote it’s flagship multiplayer game by allowing players to experience it fully for 2 days, which not only debut a new map/mod called Goldrush, but also debut the new unlockable items for the Medic class which become available when 30/60 or 90% of the game’s achievements are Read more »

Oh Microsoft, oh Microsoft… how long will you continue to kid with us? First you tell us that we wouldn’t be getting any support after a certain date (because we already “got more than what we payed for” in your own words), then you delay that date by a few months, then you expand support and availability beyond that date for a certain class of devices. Now you’re telling us XP support will not end, and we’ll continue to receive security and bug fixes and they’ll continue to provide support for companies who acquired extended support contracts with M$. This means that Microsoft might continue to provide updates and support Read more »

AVG is one of those programs that slowly grew into people’s hard drives. It was the first free anti-virus software I heard of, but it wasn’t adopted very much because people consider their competitor’s products much better. As time went by, Grisoft greatly improved their product that went from a very basic anti-virus that provided protection only the simplest, or most obvious, of viruses to a much more solid security program that does most of the things Norton or any other’s AV programs do without consuming 20% (or more) of your computer resources. Version 8 now includes built-in protection against Trojan horses. Although I still prefer to use a dedicated Read more »

Messenger for Mac is largely considered the “bastard” child of one of the world’s most used IMs. Although other messengers are already several steps ahead with video and audio-chat support, Microsoft has decided time, and time again, to leave these features exclusive for their Windows desktop version. This new version allows you to use the Office Communications Server 2007 for video audio/chat, but I’m guessing that very few of you will ever use that service. On the other hand, some new features which you are likely to use include: editing your contact’s names, and searching for contacts using the new search field on the contact list. The blog entry regarding Read more »

It’s been a long time in the making, there was even an unofficial SP3 made by fans, due to popular demand, but it’s finally here. The last major upgrade we’ll ever receive for our beloved, or at least tolerable, Windows XPs. Unlike Sp2, this upgrade doesn’t bring as many changes to the interface, as most things are done under the hood. It features a very large amount of bug fixes, improves connectivity a bit, but only large corporations will really take advantage of that. Amazingly, I was unable to find a dedicated page for SP3 to give you more details, but essentially that’s what you’ll find. It’s sad to see Read more »

MSI recently announced a very small Intel Atom processor-powered laptop that is surely meant to compete with the popular Asus EEE. This new laptop will have either an 8.9″ or a 10″ LED lit LCD screen, a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 80GB of HDD, 1GB of RAM and a 1.3 Megapixel camera. Compared to the Asus, it has much more capacity, but on the other hand, it uses a standard hard drive. It will come with Windows XP pre-loaded, so it will at the very best, be as cheap as the Asus EEE. Even so, for these devices, I think that a flash-based hard drive is a much better choice. Read more »

Some of our young readers probably don’t know what IRC is, but in short, it was a chat program where people could join channels and chat regarding it’s theme. Most channels were for small groups of friends, but eventually groups emerged to chat about common interests. In an attempt to bring back this old/new type of social-networking, Microsoft is beta testing a new Live Messenger functionality called “Messenger Groups“. Groups allows you to create a virtual chatroom that will always be available for those who wish to join it, or those you wish to invite. You’re not obligated to join it, but getting in is as easy and double clicking Read more »