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Get Microsoft Songsmith installed on Windows 7 beta

Over the past few days, many of you have downloaded the Windows 7 beta from Microsoft. Another app that was talked about (that you may have missed amongst the Win7 hoopla) is Songsmith, a slick music creation from Microsoft Research

It's designed to intelligently create music to match a singer's vocals. Don't know the first thing about instrumentation? Don't have a band to back your killer vocals? Songsmith may be just what you need.

Sure, the idea sounds a little sterile, but is it really that far off from the over-processed tripe in heavy rotation on Top 40 radio? I digress. "Back to the lecture at hand," to quote Snoop.

You've got Windows 7, and you want to play around with Songsmith too - but you can't get it to install? Thankfully, Rafael Rivera has come to the rescue again. The same guy that brought us the Blue Badge tool to unlock hidden features in earlier betas has released a batch file and .mst that allow you to get Songsmith installed.

Download the Songsmith trial, then grab Rafael's fix (search for the word simply if you can't find the link). Extract the files in it to a folder, then place the Songsmith installer there as well. Run the .bat, and you're ready to make music. Rather, your Windows 7 PC is ready. All you have to do is sing.

Don't forget to move away from the mic to breathe in.

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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.

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