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Nik Fletcher

Brighton, UK - http://twitter.com/nikf

Despite a background in classical music, Nik works for a small Macintosh software company in sunny Brighton, England. Since joining Download Squad in 2007, he's also spent time writing for Download Squad's sister site TUAW, as well as penning a couple of articles for The Guardian newspaper. Nik also spends a fair amount of time travelling to the US - be it for Macworld, SXSW or just holiday, and makes no secret of his plans to move across the pond at a date yet to be determined.Like almost every other person on the planet, you can follow him on Twitter - he's @nikf.

Filed under: Games, Internet, Time-Wasters, Web

First-Person Tetris messes with your mind - Time Waster

If you're a fan of Tetris (who isn't?) you've no-doubt lost hours to the fabled game. Due to the cult status of the original and its sequels means I've rarely found a variant I've wanted to play. Today's time-waster changes that and takes the classic game to an all-new, mind-blowing level. First-Person Tetris presents you with a moving piece, and you then rotate the screen around it to eliminate rows of blocks.

First-Person Tetris is surprisingly difficult to get pieces into place, forcing you to think even harder about every move and whilst it IS slightly crazy, it's complete with a wonderfully-retro design -- all the way down to the music that accompanies the game.

You'll probably only last 10 minutes without getting a headache and giving up... but it is just a time-waster after all!
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Filed under: Web services, Social Software

Leave virtual notes around your neighborhood with BlockChalk

With all the location-based services sprouting up, it's surprising to find one that's a little different from the now-formulaic location-based game. However BlockChalk is just that. Instead of requiring you sign up and tell your friends where you're re-enacting The Hangover, BlockChalk lets you anonymously leave messages for your neighbourhood to read. If you're wondering how on earth this would be useful, the BlockChalk folks provide this handy guide:
  • Got something to say? BlockChalk.
  • Neighborhood tip? BlockChalk.
  • Lost kitty? BlockChalk.
  • Lost croc? Call 911.
  • Borrow a lawnmower? BlockChalk.
  • Report a pothole? BlockChalk.
  • Sell your pot? NOT BlockChalk.
  • Pub crawl? Absolut BlockChalk.
  • Bitch about BlockChalk? We can take it.
In short, it's a ridiculously simple local noticeboard for nearby folks, with options to share "Chalks", reply publicly and privately, and bury useless ones. There's an iPhone app and webOS app out now for the service: with support for other devices in the works. Whilst it's not currently the prettiest service out there, it's certainly fun -- and potentially very handy to know what's going on around you. Check out our gallery, and an introductory video after the jump!

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Filed under: Palm, Web services, Social Software, Beta, web 2.0

Foursquare for the Palm Pre gets a new look and a speed boost [Gallery]

It's been just one week since the Foursquare webOS app entered beta, and amidst a flurry of news around the location-based game that broke free of its city-limits this week the webOS application has already seen a sizeable update.

The original beta of the application, whilst stylish, was (understandably) slow and incomplete - however today's new build is both feature complete and blazing fast. Not only that, but the new update sees the app sport a slightly new look.

When it comes to location-based games, Foursquare currently has the lead in terms of devices supported - with a universally-accessible mobile site, Blackberry app, Android client and the original iPhone app available. However we're going to be keeping our eyes on the other location-based services: Gowalla recently announced their plans to bring out Blackberry and webOS applications 'this year'.

If you want to play with the latest version of the Foursquare app, it'll be available in the App Catalogue shortly - or you can download it from the Foursquare for webOS Github page. The app remains open source, with the code available via Github.

Take the jump to check out the gallery!

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Filed under: Palm, Mobile Minute

Mobile Minute: Palm's 2010 plans for webOS

In case you're wondering why your RSS reader has gone into overdrive, it just so happens to be Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week -- and that means that all the mobile companies bar one (Apple!) are announcing their new devices and software. Today's turn is underdog Palm, who've been outlining their plans for the webOS platform.

[Images courtesy of our brethren at Engadget]

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Filed under: Utilities, Macintosh, Productivity, Open Source

Getting Started with Wine on Mac OS X

Whilst there's a couple of excellent, paid-for, virtualization options around for OS X (Parallels and VMware), they can be a little heavy-handed if you only need to run one or two applications. Not to mention the price of a virtualization application as well as the necessary Windows licence can make it an expensive purchase! Of course, there's Boot Camp, but that also requires a Windows license. But there's is an alternative: the free and open-source Wine project. Wine allows you to run Windows applications within Mac OS X without either a Windows licence or virtualisation application -- though not every application will work.

As Wine's not the easiest thing to install, this handy guide is available to walk you through the setup and configuration. You'll need to be comfortable in the Terminal to make the most of the tutorial, but if that's not too big a challenge, a little Terminal-fu is a small investment for begrudgingly running the odd Windows app.

[Photo by kcdsTM]

Tumblr lets you ask questions of your favourite Tumblogs

If you're a Tumblr user, you may have noticed the Tumblr staff teasing a new feature on their own Tumblogs over Christmas -- Ask a Question. It allows you to easily pose a question to the Tumblr user (or users) behind your favourite Tumblog. The blog owner can then easily post the question and their response from within the Tumblr dashboard. Today sees the launch of the Ask feature to all ...

Latest Chromium build for Mac finally adds a bookmark manager

In amongst a chorus of "what took them so long", the Google folks working on the Chromium project -- the open source project behind the Chrome browser -- have at last added basic support for bookmark management in Mac OS X builds. Now, before you run over to the nightly builds page for Chromium, it's worth noting that the feature is still incomplete - you're not able to remove items from the ...

Nine Inch Nails fans turn 400GB of data into downloadable 2009 tour video

Back in March last year, Nine Inch Nails were touring the US with their Lights in the Sky tour - albeit without a professional production team to produce the tour DVD. Given the band's history with making their music readily available to their fans, Trent Reznor and crew decided to make over 400GB of High Definition footage from their tour for fans to remix. Today sees the results of this ...

Facebook for iPhone 3.1 gains Push notifications

iPhone Facebook junkies rejoice - for you no longer need to wait for email notifications from the service! With version 3.1 of the widely-acclaimed iPhone application (which has just arrived) you can now receive push notifications as things happen on Facebook. That's not all, however, as the update also adds the option to sync Facebook friends to your iPhone address book - complete with photos: ...

webOS homebrew brings DOOM to the Palm Pre

If you've used a Palm Pre, you're probably wondering just what's possible with the webOS developer SDK. Over the last few updates, it would appear that Palm are really working to bump the number of technologies available for games -- and the homebrew community has been busy looking at the updates to figure out what's available. Over the Christmas break, the folks at Pre Central noticed that ...
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Featured Time Waster

Level Up! A platform-hopping RPG Time-Waster

I don't know if this is a labor of love or merely the brainchild of four very gifted games designers, but Level Up is a really weird mash-up of gaming elements that you have probably never seen in a Flash game before. Let's start with the premise itself: Groundhog Day meets Memento. The game experience revolves around 'days': you explore the world and the clock slowly ticks towards the evening. You bounce around picking up gems and talking to the denizens of 'Level Upland'. Eventually you feel tired and head back to ...

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