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Filed under: Fun

Happy Halloween! Help yourself to these moldy old posts

Thumbnail for Halloween costumes from the Internet: happy Hallo-meme! Halloween costumes from the Internet: happy Hallo-meme!
Stepping away from the computer for a few hours to trick or treat or go to a costume party doesn't mean you have to leave the internet behind.
Thumbnail for Six classic horror-iffic games for Halloween Six classic horror-iffic games for Halloween
Turn out the lights and turn up the volume, it's time to scare yourself silly with some good, old Halloween-y games. Enjoy!
Thumbnail for Use your Mac to detect supernatural activity this Halloween! Use your Mac to detect supernatural activity this Halloween!
You knew your Mac could detect wireless networks and Bluetooth devices, but did you know it can also detect spirits? If you want to scan for supernatural activity, download an app called EMF6742,...
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Filed under: Fun, Features

Win one of three Halloween treat bags from Download Squad

Have you ever wanted your own bag of leftover schwag from SXSW Interactive? Or how about a new laptop bag? Would an AOL USB LED flexible light help you in any way? Check out each of the treat bags below, leave a comment on the pages that describe the treat bags to enter, and in a week we'll randomly choose our winners.

Sorry, limited to US and Canda, restrictions apply, read the rules, etc. and so on below. Happy Halloween from your friends at Download Squad! Each winner also gets a t-shirt or two from LogMeIn, since they sent us a giant bag of shirts.

Treat bag One: the musical coder.

Treat bag Two: the collector.


Treat bag three: the mobile warrior.

NOTE: Do not leave comments on this post -- you can't. You must leave a comment on the post describing the treat bag you wish to enter to win.


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Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Browsers

Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 now available!


Let's not beat around the bush: Download the new version of Firefox now.

With that out of the way, here are the new features that debut with Firefox 3.6, straight from the release page:
  • Users can now change their browser's appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas.
  • Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe.
  • Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames.
  • Support for the WOFF font format.
  • Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time.
  • Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies.
These new changes mostly come from an upgrade to version 1.9.2 of Gecko, the HTML engine that does most of the rendering work in Firefox (and its light-weight sister Camino) -- and as with all version revisions, you will have to update most or all of your add-ons (there's even a compatibility checker!)

Developers should check out the notes for 3.6, if they haven't yet updated the add-ons they administer.

If you've heard enough, here are some direct download links to get you upgraded to the Beta ASAP:

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

Scare yourself senseless with Inculcation -- Halloween Time-Waster


I didn't really know what to expect as Inculcation loaded up. 'Best played in the dark with your sound turned up loud' the loading screen tells me. Gulp. I'm not a fan of horror films or games. I accidentally scroll down a bit while it's loading and see a small snippet from the game's author: 'A Point & Click survival horror inspired by Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Exmortis.' Oh shi--

Unsurprisingly, you start off in a room with nothing. It's the de facto rule that all of these Room Escape puzzles share: you don't know how you got there, or why you're there, but damnit -- you're there, and you need to find a way out!



Inculcation is the first room escape game that I've played with real-time combat elements. There are actually monsters -- zombies? -- that pop up and require shooting. Fortunately it's very easy to shoot them dead, but it does mean that you occasionally lose health. There are syringes about the place that can restore your health.

Mostly the gameplay is what you'd expect from such games -- pick up objects, open doors, solve rudimentary riddles that involve some observation skills. It is nothing special in this regard -- in fact, some of the puzzles feel a little random and rely on guesswork rather than applying your knowledge of the game.



I played through the first house in Inculcation, and I can tell you this now: the enhanced elements of music, artistic direction and creatures that can actually kill you really add to the tension, the danger. I admit I yelped out loud a few times. I admit my hand slipped off the mouse a few times when attacked by zombies. I admit I'm a wuss when it comes to the horror genre.

There's one part in the first house where a door shakes -- as if something is behind it, desperately trying to get out -- and it keeps shaking. Over and over. Louder and louder. And when it finally comes to open the door... well... you're in for a big surprise. Give it half an hour of your time at least -- you won't regret it...

[via JayIsGames]

Filed under: Developer, Adobe

Adobe AIR 2.0 will hog less memory and add multitouch support

If you use Adobe AIR apps on a regular basis, you have a lot to look forward to in AIR 2.0. The next version of Adobe's cross-platform app framework adds a bunch of little tweaks and a few major ones, including support for multitouch and gestures. Maybe even more importantly, AIR apps now won't suck up your CPU cycles and memory at such an absurd rate. A full list of upcoming features was just posted by AIR developer Chris Cantrell.

I've run into a lot of people who choose not use AIR apps because of their memory-hogging tendencies, and the improved performance in AIR 2 - depending on how improved it is - might go a long way toward getting more people to adopt the framework. Meanwhile, folks whose machines support multitouch and gestures will start to see new apps that take advantage of zooming, rotating and more. Other less-flashy features include audio recording and opening files in their default applications.

My favorite assessment of AIR comes from Tweetie developer Loren Brichter: "AIR apps are like modern day Java applets ... sure, they run on every platform. But they also suck on every platform." Hopefully, AIR 2.0 will prove him wrong. A beta is coming later this year, with a full release in early 2010.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Microsoft to discontinue Office Accounting next month

Microsoft is killing off its small business accounting product, Office Accounting. The company will no longer distribute Office Accounting Professional or the free version, Office Accounting Express after November 16, 2009. According to Microsoft's FAQ, the company as determined that free templates that work with Excel are a better option for small businesses than the Office Accounting ...

ICANN approves non-Latin characters for domain names

As expected, the international agency that regulates internet domain names has approved a new rule that allows URLs to be written using non-Latin characters. In other words, native speakers of Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hindi, and other languages will be able to spell out web addresses using their oown alphabets. Roughly 1.6 billion internet users speak languages that don't use Latin characters. ...

Fugly Friday: Geocities Memorial Edition

Before there was anything today's Internet users would think of as "web design," there was GeoCities. The homepage service that let absolutely anyone try his or her hand at putting something on the Internet is also one of the cradles of contemporary Web Fugly. In fact, Fugly Friday owes such a debt to the GeoCities aesthetic that this week's installment is going to take a trip down memory lane to ...

Remember the Milk task manager exits beta in meaningless gesture

Four years after the service opened to the public, popular web-based task manager Remember The Milk is finally out of beta. What does that mean? Nothing really. The company isn't going to start charging for access to its core services. And the developers aren't done adding and refining features. It's just that after four years, the Remember The Milk team decided the product was probably robust ...

Halloween sale at PlayFirst -- games 50% off

Good for only a few days, until 2 November 2009, PlayFirst are offering great prices on most of their games. You might not even have heard of PlayFirst, but perhaps you've heard of their world-renowned games? Diner Dash, Wedding Dash, Dream Chronicles or Chocolatier? Either way, if you're looking for some fun, casual games -- usually ones with a great story too! -- either for you, your kids, or ...

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters


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