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Open source inSSIDer is a Vista-friendly netStumbler


I had tried NetStumbler before on my Vista laptop and not met with much success. So when I read on MetaGeek's web site that their inSSIDer was designed to do the same job with native Vista APIs, I was intrigued.

If you're a road warrior, this is a great utility to keep at the ready. inSSIDer's scanner makes it a snap to identify available access points, quickly displaying available SSIDs and their channel, signal strength, speed, and encryption type.

Click the edit menu, and you can copy discovered AP data or the chart pane to the clipboard.

It does an admirable job of locating wireless signals, usually picking up at least one that Windows doesn't report. Not that it's very useful, as it's always turned out to be the weakest signal for me. Still, I like to know my surroundings.

inSSIDer is free, open source, and will run on 32 and 64-bit Vista or Windows XP (with the .NET 2.0 runtimes installed).

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Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

CiviballsI 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.

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