Download Squad week in review

by Brad Linder Sep 29th 2007

It's been a busy week here at Download Squad headquarters. And we assume you've had a busy week too. So if you've fallen behind on your tech news, here are a few things you might have missed during the week ending September 29th, 2007.

Download Squad interviews Evan Jones of 360desktop - Video

Ever get the feeling that there's just not enough space for all the shortcuts, temporary files, and widgets you need to live a contended life? 360desktop lets you use a panoramic photo as a desktop background. Since panoramic photos don't fit too well on a 1024 x 768 pixel monitor, 360desktop creates more virtual desktop space by letting you scroll beyond the edge of your monitor.

Is the Nokia N800 really an iPhone killer? - Video

Download Squad's Ted Wallingford has been spending some quality time with his Nokia N800, and he has the video to prove it. Sure, the N800 isn't technically a phone like the iPhone, but put that puppy near a Wi-Fi hot spot, fire up the VoIP and anything's possible.

Dear Facebook: May I have my life back please? - DLS commentary

Download Squad's Gordon Finlayson has a few questions about Facebook developers. So he sent e-mails to a handful of said developers. And he was labeled a spammer, his account was banned, and Facebook lawyers told him the immortal soul of his firstborn child was now theres. OK, we made the last part up. But Finlayson does have some interesting thoughts on Facebook's over-aggressive anti-spam policy.

Dev Chair: Keep sharp, stay valuable

Resident developer Alex Hung offers up some valuable advice for honing your skills even when your current job is far too easy for you. Only the strong survive, and one day you're going to be looking for another job. So why not contribute to open source projects, take evening classes, or actually show your bosses that there might be a better way of doing things.

ZoneAlarm ForceField protects your browsing session - DLS interview

Most of the threats to our computers come from the web. So while firewalls, anti-virus, and anti-spyware applications are great, sometimes what you really need is a way to protect your browsing session. At least, that's the premise behind ZoneAlarm's latest security offering.

Preview of Nero 8 - DLS interview

Nero is set to release the latest version of its popular CD/DVD burning suite next week. We got a chance to ask Nero technical director Craig Campbell a few questions about what sets Nero 8 apart from Nero 7. In a nutshell: a few performance enhancements and a whole bunch of visual tweaks.

Here are a few more of our most popular articles from the week:

Tags: 360desktop, dreamscene, excel, facebook, forcefield, gmail, n800, nero, nero-8, nokia, xp, zonealarm

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

manish patel said 9:28PM on 9-29-2007

i want to see the sky

Karl L. Gechlik said 12:07PM on 10-05-2007

Nero is sponsoring a free give a way of a retail boxed version of Nero 8 Ultimate here:

http://www.asktheadmin.com/2007/09/nero-8-pre-release-review-verdict.html

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters