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12 days of holiday downloads posts

Filed under: Fun, Games, Internet, Kids, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Commercial, Shareware, Freeware, Open Source, Browser Tips, Time-Wasters

12 Days of Holiday Downloads, All Wrapped Up

WindowsMacLinuxTime Wasterby Jay Savage Dec 22nd 2006

By popular demand--okay, by demand--we've collected all 24 of our 12 Days of Holiday Downloads posts into one convenient package. And just because it is the season of giving, we've included pointers to some of the other seasonal software we've covered, too. Because really, three days before Christmas, what's better than one-stop shopping?

I'll also give you my picks for the best of the bunch.

See the full list after the jump.

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Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, Christmas

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Filed under: Fun, Macintosh, Shareware

12 days of holiday downloads, Day 12: Mac

Macby Jay Savage Dec 19th 2006

Frosted screencap
For our 12th day of Mac downloads, I have a very merry Mac Christmas screensaver: Skyrocket Software's Frosted. Why is it so very merry Mac? Because it features a talking snowman and talking Santa that use the the Mac's built-in Text-to-Speech interface. And best of all for Mac geeks, they use two of the most traditional Mac voices: Bruce for the Snowman, Fred for Santa. Actually, the synthesized voices are a little creepy. Fun creepy, though, in a way that takes you right back to OS 9. The sprite-based animation will take you back, too. But isn't that what the holidays are all about, tradition?

All jokes aside, though, that Mac geek on your Christmas list (maybe your inner Mac geek?) will get a kick out of it.

The free version is fully functional and not even nagware. The $5.00 registration will turn on some sound options and let the snowman say your name.

Previous 12 Days of holidays downloads for OS X:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9, Day 10, Day 11

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, 12DaysOfHolidayDownloads, Christmas, frosted, mac, os x, OsX, screensaver, skyrocket software, SkyrocketSoftware

Filed under: Fun, Macintosh, Freeware

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 10: Mac

Macby Jay Savage Dec 15th 2006

hebcal screencap
As I mentioned today's Windows download post, we've been a little Christmas-centric around here. Unfortunately, though, quality of non-Christmas holiday downloads is one area where Mac users don't really have it better than Windows users. For the first night of Chanukah, though, I give you Hebcal, a little widget that takes you zip code, looks up the chart, and tells when to light the candles, for these eight nights, and holidays all year long.

Previous 12 Days of holidays downloads for OS X:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, Chanukah, hebcal

Filed under: Fun, Windows, Commercial, Time-Wasters

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 10: Windows

WindowsTime Wasterby Jay Savage Dec 15th 2006

kwanzaa screensaver screencap
We've been calling this 12 Days of holiday downloads, but up until now, we've focused exclusively on Christmas. I'm sure many of you are feeling left out, and I apologize. The truth is, though, that the holiday download options for other holidays just really aren't up to snuff. Why? I really can't say. If pressed, though, I'd say it has something to do with other religions not commercializing their major feast days to the same extent, but what do I know?

Either way, I did track down a couple of decent screensavers from San Diego Screensavers for those of you celebrating other holidays this season: one really nice animation of Kwanzaa candles (above), and one set of dancing Hanukah bears (below) that were just too crazy to pass up.

(There's a surfing Santa, too, if that's what you're into.)

Hanukah teddy


Previous 12 Days of holiday downloads for Windows:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, Day 9

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, San Diego Screensavers, SanDiegoScreensavers

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Commercial, Time-Wasters

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 8: Windows

WindowsTime Wasterby Jay Savage Dec 13th 2006

Christmas Tale screencap
Today's bit of Windows Christmas time-wasting is Christmas Tale from Alive Games. The objective here is to solve a bunch of puzzles that involve stacking gift boxes and blocks of ice to allow Santa to get to the tree. The trial comes with a handful of puzzles. If you get addicted, there's a full version with 20 or so levels.

Previous 12 Days of holiday downloads for Windows:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, Alive Games, Chrisstmas Tale, Christmas

Filed under: Fun

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 8: Mac

by Jay Savage Dec 12th 2006

bocken screencapToday's holiday download is bocken, a widget from hockeywidgets that shows the live webcam feed from the Gävlebocken, a giant straw Christmas goat erected each year in the Swedish town of Gävle. As christmas traditions go, this one is so much cooler than a guy in a Santa suit sitting in a mall food court that I don't even have words for it.

As cool as a live feed of a straw goat is on its own, the widget is also a bit of internet public service. Apparently, Gävlebocken are quite frequently victims of arson; only about half of them have made it to Christmas without being burned. This year's goat has already out-lived last year's by a week. So if you happen to see someone trying to burn the goat, take a screencap, please, and email it to the Gävle PD.

Previous 12 Days of holidays downloads for OS X:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, 12DaysOfHolidayDownloads, Gävle, Gävlebocken, mac, macintosh

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Macintosh, Freeware, Time-Wasters

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 6: Mac & Windows

WindowsMacTime Wasterby Jay Savage Dec 8th 2006

Super Frog screencap
In the spirit of holiday peace, we have a combined post for midpoint of our 12 days of downloads. Today's features are two free cross platform games from Koingo Software. Pictured above is Super Frog, a holiday riff on and all-time favorite: Frogger. The object is to get the little green guy across the road without getting run down by cars. Once you get across, you have to make your way though the maze, dodging deadly stockings, candy canes, and trees, and get to the wrapped gift. There are three speeds of game play, and no directions (hint: hit shift to resurrect, at least on the Mac), so it's a fun little time-waster.

Below is Christmas Crisis, where you get to play Santa. You control Santa's sleigh as it flies over the city, trying to drop presents down chimneys. the goal is to hit 70% of the houses in each level, which sounds easier than it is.
Christmas Crisis screencap

Previous 12 Days of holidays downloads for OS X:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5

Previous 12 Days of holiday downloads for Windows:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, Christmas, Christmas Crisis, Koingo Software, KoingoSoftware, SuperForg

Filed under: Fun, Macintosh, Freeware

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 5: Mac

Macby Jay Savage Dec 7th 2006

Today's dose of downloadable Mac geekery is a double dose: a Dashboard widget from Blue Lemon software that counts down the seconds until this year's Dr. Who Christmas episode ("The Runaway Bride," for those of you keeping score) airs on the BBC. Because nothing says Christmas to me like a countdown to an invasion of Robot Santas.

Previous 12 Days of holidays downloads for OS X:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, Apple, Blue Lemon, BlueLemon, Christmas, Doctor Who, Dr. Who, Dr.Who, Mac

Filed under: Fun, Windows, Commercial

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 5: Windows

Windowsby Jay Savage Dec 7th 2006

Drunken Clock screencap
Today's Windows holiday download is Cool-Screensavers' Drunken Clock screensaver. That may not sound very Christmas-like, but the default skin features a winter scene with a wobbling clock made from icicles. The app lives up to its name, and staring at it for any lenghth of time will give you that feeling of having put too much rum in your eggnog. And really, isn't rum-laced eggnog what the holidays are really all about?

The nagware version is free, full version is $14.99. There is also a 3D version which features a skin with a Christmas Tree, but it requires in OpenGL graphics card.

Previous 12 days of holiday downloads for Windows:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, 12DaysOfHolidayDownloads, Christmas, cool-screensavers, Drunken clock, DrunkenClock

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Commercial

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 4: Windows

Windowsby Jay Savage Dec 6th 2006

Revenge of the Yolk Yolkstar screencap
Today's bit of tasty Christmas goodness: InterAction Studios Chicken Invaders 3: Revenge of the Yolk (Christmas Edition). If you've never played Chicken invaders, think Galaga, but with chickens. The goal of this installment is to fly across the galaxy and save Earth from the chickens' evil weapon of mass destruction, the Yolkstar (pictured above).

IA puts out a slick product and CI3 is no exception. They also put out some of the worst puns in the galaxy. If the chickens don't get you, the humor may. Which is, of course, why it made my Christmas list.

The trial version may be enough for some, but the full version is worth the ~$30US (€22.50) if this is your kind of twisted.

Previous 12 days of holiday downloads for Windows:
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, Chicken Invaders, ChickenInvaders, christmas

Filed under: Fun, Games, Windows, Freeware, Time-Wasters

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 3: Windows

WindowsTime Wasterby Jay Savage Dec 5th 2006

Christmas Bound screencap
Today's featured Windows holiday download: Christmas Bound from Blueskied Software. In this game, you play a tennis ball (yeah, I know, but physics games are in, right?) sent out by Santa to recaputre toys that have been stolen by nasty bugs. You bounce your way through levels trying to recapture presents without touching deadly skulls in what can best be described as a cross between Super Mario Brothers, Asteroids, and Pong. That may not sound promising, but Christmas bound strikes just the right note of nostalgia, cheese, and the surprising difficulty of controlling a tennis ball with the arrow and shift keys.

Previous 12 days of holiday downloads for Windows:
Day 1, Day 2,

Tags: 12 Days of holiday downloads, 12DaysOfHolidayDownloads, blueskied, Christmas, Christmas bound

Filed under: Fun, Macintosh, Freeware

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 3: Mac

Macby Jay Savage Dec 5th 2006

Festive Lights Widget screencap
Todays Mac holiday download is Festive Lights, a Dashboard widget from Interdimension Media. The widget does just about exactly what it's name implies: strings lights around your dashboard to brighten things up. The lights can be colored white, with a choice of blinking patterns. And yes, that's an X-MasTree in the background.

Previous 12 Days of holidays downloads for OS X:
Day 1, Day 2

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, 12DaysOfHolidayDownloads, Christmas, Festive Lights, FestiveLights, Interdimension media, Mac

Filed under: Fun, Windows, Commercial, Time-Wasters

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 2: Windows

WindowsTime Wasterby Jay Savage Dec 4th 2006

Crispy Christmas scrennsaver
Today, I present you with: the Crispy Christmas screensaver. I have no idea what's crispy about Christmas, but with a name like that, I just had to pass it along. Actually, there's a lot about this screensaver that I just don't get, like the kangaroos jumping out of the piper's horn and the thing that looks suspiciously like a d20 that flies around periodically. That's ok by me, though. It may be twisted, but it's my kind of twisted. I thought Santa jumping his sleigh over the "In Excelsis" scroll was a particularly nice touch.

Mac users feel left out? Don't. It seems has though FlashFast, the people behind the fun bit of insanity, have started putting out Mac content, too. the download bundle includes on OS X screensaver module, too. Free 7 day trial; $10 to keep it if you want.

Previous 12 days of holiday downloads for Windows:
Day 1

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, 12DaysOfHolidayDownloads, Christmas, Crispy Christmas, CrispyChristmas, FlashFast, screensaver

Filed under: Fun, Macintosh

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 2: Mac

Macby Jay Savage Dec 4th 2006

X-MasTreeToday's Mac Christmas download is two-for-one. The first is John Schilling's wonderful X-MasTree, a Christmas tree that sits in floats on your desktop or sits in your dock. It can be several sizes and the lights, garland, star and even tree color have a number of options. And if that isn't enough, John has information up on how to add custom ornaments. The real draw here, though, is the lights, which are extremely well done and can fade gently in and out, or blink and flash in that gaudy way only Christmas lights can.

Since X-MasTree began life as a tribute to the grandaddy (or is that grandma?) of all Mac Christmas trees, YourHead software's Christi's Tree, I think it's only fair to talk about them together, especially since John's X-MasTree page is the current repository for Christi's tree, too. Christi's Tree isn't as big on the lights as X-MasTree, but it's still shiny and comes with a classic Mac look and configurable garland.

Both programs can be configured as Christmas count-down clocks, just in case you've forgotten how long it is until the big day.

Previous 12 Days of holidays downloads for OS X:
Day 1

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, 12DaysOfHolidayDownloads, Christi's Tree, Christmas, Mac, OS X, X-MasTree

Filed under: Fun, Windows, Shareware, Time-Wasters

12 Days of holiday downloads, Day 1: Windows

WindowsTime Wasterby Jay Savage Dec 1st 2006

3DPlanesoft christmas screensaver
Well, the Mac users got their first dose of Christmas today and we wouldn't want the rest of you to feel left out, so here it is: your first Windows screensaver of the season. 3Planesoft's Christmas saver features a 3D snowman getting ready for the big day, complete with tree-trimming, confetti crackers, and steel drum carols on the old phonograph. Free to try, $10.95 to own.

Tags: 12 days of holiday downloads, 12DaysOfHolidayDownloads, 3DPlanesoft, Christmas, screensaver

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