NORAD's Santa Tracker is back, and with only four days till the big day, the NORAD website has many fun things for your kids (and you, we won't tell). We've mentioned the site in previous years; Thankfully, there will be no semi-celebrity greetings section this year.
Visitors can take a stroll through Santa's North Pole village and click on the downtown shops for fun games and activities. Including Mrs. Claus' Alphabet soup typing test, an illustrated PDF Elf story and a snowboarding game.
After using Microsoft Visual Earth for last year's high-tech tracking, this year NORAD will display it's tracking info via Google Earth. Last year, Google provided its own tracking data, unaffiliated with NORAD. An iGoogle module is also available so you can track Santa from the comfort of your Google homepage.
The Santa Tracking Control Center kicks off operations on 2:00am MTN Christmas Eve and lets you track Santa live as he navigates the globe. If you're left wondering, as we were, why the multi-billion dollar NORAD defense operation would burn time and resources tracking harmless lil' Santa Claus, there's actually a rich and storied history behind it all.
NORAD's Santa Tracker site is up and running for 2006 and counting down the seconds until Christmas Eve. The site has been beefed up over previous years with info and history about NORAD and the Santa Tracker, some downloads, maps, music, and activities. Most interesting, perhaps (until the actual tracking begins, at least), is the Celebrities section, which features video greetings from folks like Dick Van Patten, Edward James Olmos, George Lopez, Joey Lawrence, Leeza Gibbons, Michael Bolton, and many more who I think will be far more recognizable to people younger than myself.
Last year Google got in on the act with a Google Earth Santa tracker, but there's no word yet whether there will be an encore for 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.
Are you right into the Holiday Spirit? Decorating everything in sight and singing good old fashioned Christmas songs? Or even if you have had it with all the crazy shoppers this time of the year, Google can brighten your season. If you do celebrate, Google wants to help you get into the festive mood with a list of holiday gadgets aimed at the holiday season. How would you like to decorate your Google Desktop with your very own Christmas tree, one that you can actually decorate yourself? Maybe you need a reminder to how many days are left in the year? Try out a Countdown to New Year's calendar. Or maybe you would like a pretty little clock with Santa in the middle that plays a Christmas Carol every hour? You can get them all care of Google's Desktop Gadgets.
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.
It's a sad day here at Download Squad: the final day of our 12 days of holiday downloads. But it's not goodbye, it's "'til next year." And since it's never to soon to start planning conspicuous consumerism--or at least conspicuousness--as our parting shot I leave you Holidaysoft's Holiday Lights Designer 3.
HLD will take a series of pictures of a building and form a 3D model on which you can hang lights and decorations to plot out your holiday display. There are a number of preset lighting combinations including minibulbs and old-fashioned C9 and C37 bulbs, or you can add your own lighting configurations and decorations. When you're done decorating, you can view the model in different ambient lighting conditions and even through snow and fog. And when you have it just right you can use the scale tool to figure out exactly how many feet of which kinds of lights strings to put where. For the true Christmas addict, this is an ideal way to weather those long months of withdrawl until the lights go back up next Novemember.
The free five day trial is fun to play around with. If you think $49 is too much for the full version, though, you're probably right. It's not that the designers don't deserve it; there's actually been a lot of thought and effort put into the interface and functionality. It's a pretty slick little program. But we're talking about Christmas lights. If you design light displays for a living and need mock-ups to show clients, though, HLD might be money well spent.
Today's Mac download is A Very 3D Christmas Screensaver by Rob Bennet of Useless Creations. As 3D screensavers go, this one is pretty well done. You get to watch Santa fly through the sky and hop down chimneys from a number of different angles and the OpenGL rendering is fast and smooth. The saver will play your choice of Christmas carol (from a predefined list of 50+) and counts down the second to Christmas at you locale.
It is nagware (full version is $7.50), but it's not crippleware, and as an added bonus there's a Windows version, too, if you roll that way.
Today's holiday downloads is Free New Year ScreenSaver from Download for Free. It's not the world's most sophisticated saver, but it has falling snow, and anyone who's been following this feature knows I'm a sucker for that. And it plays the Twelve Days of Christmas, which just seems appropriate.
Santa is coming to Google Earth! And its up to you to find the treasures that Santa's elves have left all over Google Earth! Starting December 12th, and finishing up on December 24th, a clue will appear outside of Santa's North Pole workshop every day. If you can solve it, you will be lead to a toy hiding in Google's satellite imagery. Don't worry if you get stuck, the whereabouts will be revealed the next day, when the next clue gets dropped. What are you waiting for? Start hunting!
Today's Mac timewaster is Dracosoft's Christmas Sudoku. I'm not usually a big fan of Sudoko, personally. I don't need to spend my free time looking at numbers in a grid. Isn't that what Excel is for? The folks at Dracosoft, though, replaced the traditional numbers with colorful Christmas icons. That I can get into. If you're already into Sudoku, the three levels of gameplay should provide hours of fun. If you're not hooked yet, this may just be the thing that drives you over the edge into obsession.
The price tag is $5.99, with a one-hour free trial.
Today's Windows download is Desktop Christmas Tree from Drive Software. It's exactly what it sounds like: a little Christmas Tree that sits in a floating window. Now all you PC users who've been feeling left out since I posted the OS X Christmas Trees can get in on the fun. Or at least most of it: DCT isn't configurable like its Mac brethren. But it's cute and Christmasy, so who's counting?
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.
Today's download for Windows is Pinch ol' Santa 2 from SwordLord. As an added bonus, the most recent version also runs on OS X and many flavors of Linux and BSD. the premise is pretty simple. Santa is running across the rooftops jumping down chimneys and delivering presents. If you pinch him, he'll jump up in surprise and drop a present that you can pick up and keep for yourself. Not the most sophisticated game in the world, but a great little time-waster that doesn't require much commitment.
Something to keep in mind: you move your pinching hand with the mouse/trackpad, so if you want to catch Santa, You may want to bump up your mouse tracking speed before you start.
If you checked out our Day 2 download, X-MasTree, you may have already found your way to today's download; it's on John Schilling's recommended reading list. If you didn't check out X-MasTree or didn't poke around some of John's links on the X-Mas-Tree page, then you missed out on another great holiday lightshow: The Arctic Mac's MacLampsX. MacLampsX adds a string of configurable christmas lights to the border of your Mac's screen. The default is old-fashioned christmas bulbs, but you can also choose regular mini bulbs, the round lights you can see in my screencap, or snowflake lights, plus a some holly. Through in the christmas tree of your choice and maybe some snow, and your Mac's really beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
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.
NORAD's Santa Tracker is back, and with only four days till the big day, the NORAD website has many fun things for your kids (and you, we won't tell). We've mentioned the site in previous years; Thankfully, there will be no semi-celebrity greetings section this year. 
NORAD's Santa Tracker
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?
