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Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Delightful and haunting Braid-clone Time-Waster

The Company of Myself -- Grabbed from the JayIsGames review.The Company of Myself is one of those games that you don't want to conclude. When it does end -- if you have what it takes to get there -- it leaves you feeling sad. Kinda empty. Like there's a gap in your soul that's exactly Company of Myself-shaped and there's nothing to fill it with.

The game is very simply played, platform-style. You progress through each level to the green door, passing obstacles as you go. The first few levels have dialogue where you are seemingly talking to yourself, reminding yourself how to play -- it's weird, but it works. It works really well.

But there's a twist. A twist of genius!

Read more →

Filed under: Utilities, Windows

How to add network activity lights to your system tray in Windows 7

With the aid of a tiny little program -- of the juicy, sub-100-kilobyte freeware variety -- you can get those cute little blinking-blue screens back onto your system tray in Windows 7.

In yet another case of inspired naming, Network Activity Indicator for Windows lets you re-attach the network activity indicator to your system tray. It's been sorely missed in both Vista and Windows 7 by many users, and now... you can have it back! Yay! No longer must you wonder if your router has crashed -- you can see it right there on your desktop!

I wish I had more to say, but... that's it really. You can set a blink duration (though it doesn't seem to make much difference), and you can tell it to load at startup... and that's it. Quick and simple, just how I like my, er, apps.

Visit the site
, if you really need more information -- or download it directly (57KB).

Filed under: Social Software, Microblogging

Greasemonkey script fixes Twitter's new retweets

Are you one of the many, many people who seem to be up in arms about Twitter's implementation of retweets? A neat little Greasemonkey script called Retweet Avatars might go a long way toward making you feel better about the new system. Instead of showing the original poster's icon, it shows your retweeting friend's icon, with a much smaller inset for the original tweeter.

This two-icon system is similar to the way some third-party clients plan to support retweets, and I think it's a good compromise. You still have "strangers in your stream," but their icons aren't displayed as prominently as those of the people you actually follow. Maybe Twitter should go ahead and use this system by default. Until they do, though, the script works for Greasemonkey in Firefox, although I couldn't get it working in Greasekit for Safari.

As a side-note: if you prefer to switch the icons, so the original poster's is larger, you can do that by making a 1-character change to the script. Instructions are on the userscripts.org page.

Filed under: Mozilla, Browsers

Is Firefox causing laptops to overheat through CPU overuse?

Those of you that are fortunate enough to primarily surf the web on a desktop machine, you probably won't notice just how much of a resource hog web browsers can be. But if you use a laptop -- or any kind of portable really -- you have probably experienced the full 100%-CPU-ow-ow-my-thighs-are-burning-and-my-fingertips-are-sweating experience. It turns out that the issue is so pronounced in some cases -- generally ultra-lights/netbooks with less heat dissipation -- that laptops are overheating and shutting down!

For whatever reason, web browsers and portable computers just don't go well together. Whether it's the constant hard-disk swapping or the heavy use of Flash, something causes laptop CPU usage to spike -- a lot.

Fortunately, there's a neat support page on the Mozilla site that details a few ways to reduce CPU usage, if you're one of the few that has an overheating laptop.

Over on CNET they're suggesting that Firefox suffers more than other browsers. Whether that's true or not might be anecdotal, but a support bod at Mozilla did say that 'Safari is possibly better at optmizing Flash-based sites compared to Firefox.'

And I'll pipe in and say that I get CPU spikes using every browser on my laptop. But I'd love to know if Firefox actually munches up more resources than other browsers, or if it's simply a matter of configuring your browser correctly. Perhaps we can expect to see a 'performance version' of Firefox that looks uncomfortably like Safari...?

Filed under: Google, Beta, Browsers

Chrome Extensions gallery taking shape, landing page now invites devs

If you're trying to get an extension gallery for your web browser off the ground, it's important reach out to developers. After all, they're the ones who will be creating the snazzy addons you plan to showcase.

So it's not surprising to see the change which took place in the Chromium nightly build recently. When you visit your extensions page and click the link to browse the gallery, you won't see the "coming soon" puzzle piece anymore.

Instead, you'll be asked to sign in with your Google account and then whisked over to the developer dashboard. Google offers the following explanation to clarify what you're looking at:
The Google Chrome Extensions gallery is currently in limited beta release to allow developers to upload their extensions. If you are a developer, you can upload your extension here. If you are looking to find and install extensions, please check back here soon!
Are you a developer? If so, the add button will allow you to upload your project. The developer agreement offers a few words about the gallery itself:
The Gallery is a publicly available site on which Developers can publish Products for distribution and use in connection with Google Chrome. In order to publish Products on the Gallery, you must acquire and maintain a valid Google account.
Most of the agreement is pretty standard redistribution/liability/takedown-related policy, though it does reveal that Chrome users will be allowed to rate extensions on the Gallery site. I think we expected that, since you can do it on the Firefox add-ons site.

The full gallery policies are available on this page in case you plan on submitting an extension.

It's apparent that the push is on - it's just a matter of time before the Chrome Extensions Gallery opens its doors to the public.

Wordoid helps you make nonsense names with good domains

digg_url = 'http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/11/23/wordoid-helps-you-make-nonsense-names-with-good-domains/'; "Wordoids", which are words that are made-up, but sound right. They follow the rules of phonetics, and if done properly, roll off the tongue. The need to have an online presence has increased the need for unique product and company names and has led to these wordoids. Yet, even with ...

Seesmic Mobile arrives for Android and Blackberry

Seesmic have released their 'Seesmic Mobile' Twitter client for Android and Blackberry on their respective application stores. Available for download free of charge, the clients are slick, feature packed and refreshingly free of advertisements. The Android client (pictured above) has a great design that utilises a standard tab-based user interface with a red accent, providing virtually every ...

SEVEN on Android - Ah, push it - push it real good...

The SEVEN Beta setup is an interesting one. As a company, Seven (enough capitalising already!) sell their excellent push e-mail products only via mobile operator channels, however their Beta program is an excellent way for users on unsupported carriers (that's likely you and I) to enjoy their software. Available in a variety of editions on a variety of platforms, Seven's software allows ...

Socialite (Née Eventbox) for OS X heads towards 1.0

Socialite (Née Eventbox) for OSX is now available in Beta 3 form prior to an expected full release later this month. Originally developed by TheCosmicMachine before being acquired by respected Mac house Realmac Software (creators of RapidWeaver and LittleSnapper), Socialite provides single client access to your favourite social networks. Currently supporting Digg, Facebook, Flickr, ...

Cisco releases free (but mostly useless) security information app for iPhone

This week Cisco released a new iPhone app called Cisco SIO To Go [iTunes link]. The application is primarily focused on delivering security and threat information via a number of freely available online feeds including Cyber Risk Report, Cisco Threat Outbreaks, Cisco Security Blog, and even some of Cisco's Twitter feeds. This information is available on the app's Security Alerts page. All of this ...

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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