E3 2010: A summary so far

A lot happened this year at E3, so here's a nice little summary for you. First, let's talk about Playstation. There's now a tiered online system; with $50 a year for Playstation Plus but normal PSN is free -- you just don't get the added benefits that Plus gives: notably premium content, early access to betas and Qore.

Sony also announced Playstation Move, its Wii challenging motion based gaming based system (but now also Xbox challenging, read on for that...). It isn't cheap: on top of the normal PS3 cost you need to cough up $99 which gets you the Sports Champion Bundle with Playstation Eye and Move. A controller is a hefty $50 and the (Nunchuk competing) option controller is another $30. However, a bundle which gives you everything listed above will be available for $399. It'll be in the UK on September 15th and in the States 4 days later. Extra peripherals are the Charger ($30) and Gun attachment ($20).

But Sony wasn't the only big company to have some press at E3 this year, Nintendo has been snapping on its heels with its 3D DS; 3DS for short. It features 2 screens like the normal DS range, but the top one is 3D. You don't need glasses, and it has a slider switch to change the effects of the 3D or turn it off altogether. It features an analog stick, similar to the PSP, but no word on price as yet.

Finally, Microsoft's news from E3 this year. They had two big announcements. One of these was the new Xbox 360, and the other was Kinect. I won't go into detail about Kinect because Steve already has but let me tell you a bit about the new Xbox 360.

It is a thing of beauty in some respects. The black outer with chrome looks mean and aggressive. The "brick" power supply means that it's easier to transport as well as fitting better into the room. It's got touch buttons like the PS3 as well so it should be a comfortable device to use. It's the same price in the States at $299 so let's hope that stays the same for the UK.

Also, for those on a tight budget but love a game, the Arcade will be phased out and be replaced by a $199 Xbox 360. Xbox also will have Zune Music and there will also be ESPN3 on it. Netflix will have search but that's US only for obvious reasons.

To conclude, E3 2010 has been a great event filled with lots of fascinating news. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the new hardware announced, as well as the new games and titles which were also announced.

Xbox Kinect

Microsoft Xbox Project Natal just got a name: ‘Kinect’. This full-body-sensing, full-body-recognizing, voice-understanding camera enables interactivity with games without the requirement of controllers. It’s been known of for a while but only under the guise of ‘Project Natal’, a moniker which has now been wiped away due to USA Today leaking an advert. Microsoft’s E3 speech will now be relatively underwhelming.

FrontierVille

Zynga has taken the popularity of FarmVille and applied it to the wild west in FrontierVille.

One of the biggest changes in FrontierVille involves your neighbors (basically, the friends you’ve connected with in the game, who are always shown in a panel at the bottom of your screen). In FarmVille when you visit a friend’s virtual farm, your potential actions are quite limited — you can’t do much to engage with your friend’s plot of land. In FrontierVille that dynamic has changed. You can now swing by a friend’s plot of land and tend to some of their chores, like harvesting their crops. Doing so gives you a reward, and also helps them save time. There’s one caveat to this though: your friend will have to approve your actions before they take effect (some players prefer to trudge through these tasks on their own).

FrontierVille is also putting a much bigger emphasis on its storyline. Soon after you start the game, you’ll encounter a letter from your betrothed who is stuck “out east” — it’s your job to build up your home and garden so that they can come out and join you. Once that happens you can start having children, who you design to look exactly as you want them to. Family members can be used to help decorate your land (which sounds a little weird, I know), and can also help speed up the rate at which you collect resources like wood. In addition to these story elements, there are also new missions that are designed to help mix up gameplay. For example, the game may instruct you to harvest flowers (something that you may not normally do) for the purpose of making a bouquet to woo your spouse.

Another social gameplay element is the notion of “hiring” your friends, which entails paying some in-game money to have a buddy harvest your plants or do other tasks. In reality your friends aren’t actually sitting at their computers doing this “work” themselves (which would be pretty boring). Instead, you’re merely controlling their in-game avatar. The social element of this stems from the game’s stat system: over time you can accumulate multiple kinds of experience points, based on how much you’ve engaged with your friends and what you’ve accomplished in the game. The more points you have, the more ‘work’ you do for your friends when they hire you, which in turn makes it more likely that your friends will be looking to hire your avatar.

Finally, there’s a new set of features that Reynolds refers to as the “living world effect”. In short, these are events that are beyond your control, which help the virtual world feel more alive. Log off for a few days, and you’ll find that you may have some weeds growing in the yard. Trees will grow larger over time, and eventually they’ll start to drop seeds where seedlings will start growing. And an array of creatures like snakes and bears will sometimes encroach on your territory. They won’t ever actually harm your property, but they drain energy when you’re close to them.

ZYNGA GOES WEST WITH FRONTIERVILLE from Zynga on Vimeo.

Facebook Security - A Warning

Facebook is a bit stupid and ignorant when it comes to the security of their own social networking brainchild. The story of insecurity is generally based around Facebook fanpages or groups. It all started when someone decided that it would be a good idea to abuse the Pages system, which was initially developed for usage by celebrities, to share a joke he'd thought of with friends but thru which he unintentionally gained over 100,000 fans. Ever since then people began making fanpages by the dozen, with practically all users with at least two pages of their own, totalling to a shocking 80million fanpages likely to be in existence at this exact moment in time.
So what does this have to do with security?
Well, thanks to Facebook Pages being abused as mere jokes, someone created the very first Facebook meme. By making fun of a song which initially had the lyrics 'My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and they're look, ooh aah', a meme was created throughout Facebok. Over 100 pages were created following this meme and soon other memes started appearing.
At the moment it's the somewhat annoying 'lol jk' pages.
Sadly, all this kerfuffle surrounding pages soon lead to a security flaw.
A load of groups started popping up which forced you to go to an external website just to be able to see a picture or a video. This soon led to people being gullible enough to stray onto viral websites. Before long people were wondering why a fanpage had infected their computer with malware. But Facebook doesn't seem to care because now they've gone totally overboard by allowing web developers to embed 'Like' buttons onto any old website. This isn't doing any harm at the moment but it makes you wonder why they're actually doing it because most things which people 'Like' are now on websites other than Twitter. They're trying to make out that they're doing it for the sole purpose of sharing the social networking experience across the entire Internet.

--- Like technokratos on facebook and receive post updates there ---

But I personally think they're only doing it so that they can take the strain away from their own servers. If this is true then that really sucks, because eventually, 'Liking' something on an external website will automatically infect your PC without even opening the website. Before long, merely clicking a 'Like' button from an unknown source could literally destroy your computer's operating system.
You were warned.

Post WWDC news

First up in this large amount of post WWDC news is that iWork will be coming to the iPhone. In a (now removed) picture from the Apple website, it shows an email having the option to open in keynote. Also, iTunes 9.2 has been released allowing iBooks syncing, and updated app organising including folders.

In other iPhone related news since WWDC, Google Goggles will be coming to the iPhone which allows you to search for items just by taking a picture of it. Finally, (for the UK), O2, Orange and Vodafone have announced they will be selling the iPhone 4 but there has been no word on costs, but I wouldn't expect it to be free on £20 a month. Anyway, that's just the start of the WWDC news, so stick about here for more. Remember, the iPhone 4 is coming out in the UK and US on the 24th of June and we'll try our best to use one on the day (my co-blogger, Steve, is also contemplating buying one).

Bumpers for iPhone 4

The iPhone 4 may only available in white or black (white being my preferred choice) but don't despair: it is possible to brighten up your iPhone 4. With Bumpers, you can make the iPhone 4 any colour you want (as long as it's white, black, green, orange, blue or pink). This is sort of a reminder of the iPod Nano chromatic, but it'll seriously brighten up your iPhone. Any why not? It's endorsed by Apple so you might as well.

Summary of WWDC 2010

At 6.31 PM GMT, Apple unveiled the iPhone 4. Amongst the iPhone 4 there is also the and the as well as some other interesting software news. I'll quickly go through it in chronological order (thanks to engadget for all the photos). Steve Jobs started talking about some changes to the iBooks app for the iPad. He said that it will support PDFs.

After a cheap crack at Adobe, Jobs went on to talk about the App store. Then Reed Hastings from Netflix came out to speak about how Netflix will be coming to the iPhone (it's already on the iPad) in the "summer" for free. Mark Pincus from zynga then came out to say that farmville was coming to the iPhone in July. Guitar Hero for iPhone was announced to be improved, but it'll still be nothing in comparison to Tap Tap, especially since it's $2.99. Steve was soon back to say that they have given over $1b revenue to developers. Then came the iPhone 4.

Powered by an A4 processor, this iPhone is ready to thump the opposition. The screen is at an incredible 960x460 resolution with IPS. Couple that with a 5MP stills camera with LED flash and a VGA secondary camera, not forgetting that the primary camera does 720P video at 30fps. There's a gyroscope so Jelly Car is super sensitive now! It does use Micro-SIM but that was to be expected. Battery is up, too: 40 hours audio beats any iPod and 7 hours of talk/data time on 3G (12 on 2G) and 10 hours on WiFi means this'll easily last the day smartphones aim for. Size wise it is incredibly thin at 9.3mm but weighs 2g more than the 3GS at 137g.

Oh yeah, and OS 4 has been renamed iOS 4. I can't understand why, but I guess it's to make it sound more Apple like. Still, fantastic event and the iPhone 4 is sure to be a massive hit.

Read on for the pick of the pics...

The All New Apple iPhone 4

The iPhone 4 handset is now fully unveiled by Apple after a somewhat successful WWDC this year. Here are some of the new features:

FaceTime

'People have been dreaming about video calling for decades. iPhone 4 makes it a reality. With just a tap, you can wave hello to your kids, share a smile from across the globe, or watch your best friend laugh at your stories — iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi. And it works right out of the box. No other phone makes staying in touch this much fun.'

'iPhone 4 has two cameras: One on the front, which focuses on you. And one on the back, which focuses on everything else. FaceTime lets you switch back and forth between them at any time during a video call. All you have to do is tap a button.'

Retina Display

'The Retina display on iPhone 4 is the sharpest, most vibrant, highest-resolution phone screen ever, with four times the pixel count of previous iPhone models. In fact, the pixel density is so high that the human eye is unable to distinguish individual pixels. Which makes text amazingly crisp and images stunningly sharp.'

Mutlitasking

'iPhone 4 introduces a whole new way of multitasking. Now you can run your favorite third-party apps — and switch between them instantly — without slowing down the performance of the foreground app or draining the battery unnecessarily. This smarter approach to multitasking is available only on iPhone.'

HD Video Recording and Editing

'Shoot your own movies in high definition. Capture impressive video even in low-light settings, thanks to the advanced backside illumination sensor and built-in LED light. Then edit and create your own mini-masterpiece right on iPhone 4 using the new iMovie app — with Apple-designed themes, titles, and transitions. It’s coming soon to the App Store for $4.99.'

5 Megapixel Camera with LED Flash

'Take beautiful, detailed photos with the new 5-megapixel camera with built-in LED flash. The advanced backside illumination sensor captures great pictures even in low light. And the new front-facing camera makes it easy to take self-portraits.'

Folders

'Thanks to the App Store, you can choose from over 200,000 apps and games. But these apps can fill your Home screenspretty quickly. That’s where the new Folders feature comes in. It gives you an easy way to keep your apps organized and declutter your Home screens. And you can launch your favorite apps with a couple of taps.

To create a folder, touch and hold an app until it wiggles, drag it onto another app, and you’re done. You can repeat the process with more apps. For example, you can put all the games your daughter plays in one folder, all your news apps in another, and all your productivity apps in yet another. You can also create folders and organize apps using iTunes on your Mac or PC, then sync it all back to your iPhone.

iPhone automatically assigns a name to your folder based on the category of the apps inside it: Games, News, Sports, and so on. Of course, you can change the folder names to whatever you want, such as Katie’s Games or Baseball Apps.

You can have up to 180 folders on your iPhone. And since each folder can hold 12 apps, that means you can keep up to 2160 apps organized on your iPhone at any time. Which is a great way to use all those gigabytes of storage available in iPhone 4.'

iMovie

'Make beautiful HD movies anywhere with iMovie, the fun, feature-rich video editing app that’s designed for iPhone 4. Create a video postcard of your day at the beach and publish it to the web without leaving your spot on the sand. Or make a movie of your child’s birthday party and send it to your parents while the party is in full swing. You can start several projects on your iPhone 4 and finish them whenever you want and wherever you are.

The iMovie app was designed specifically for the Multi-Touch technology on iPhone 4. You tap to add or record video into your project. Drag to trim the length of clips. Pinch to zoom the timeline and get a closer look. Slide to quickly scrub through the video in your project. It’s a completely natural way to make a movie.

Give your movie the Hollywood treatment with iMovie themes. Just choose one of five themes — Modern, Bright, Travel, Playful, and News — and a coordinated set of titles and transitions is applied to your project. The titles can even automatically display the location where you shot your video. iMovie also comes with unique soundtracks to match each theme. Change your mind? Just select a new theme to instantly swap all the themed elements in your project.

iMovie lets you add a soundtrack to your project in seconds. You can choose from custom-scored music that matches each iMovie theme or browse and select from your own song library. If your video has lots of audio — conversations or narration, for example — iMovie will automatically reduce the volume of the soundtrack. You can also add photos to your movies, then customize each photo with a unique Ken Burns panning effect.

When you’re finished with your movie, it’s time to share it with friends, family, or the world. First, export the project in one of three sizes: Medium (640 by 360), Large (960 by 540), or HD (1280 by 720). Then choose how you’d like to share it: in an email or MMS message, on the web, in a MobileMe gallery, or on YouTube. No matter how you share it, your finished movie remains on your iPhone, ready to copy to your computer the next time you sync.'

Google gets Backgrounds

Google.com, but not Google.co.uk, now allows users to set their background image to something of their personal preference. They've already been accused of copying Bing, Microsoft's search engine, which has had the ability for a while. Bing of course doesn't allow you to alternate to custom backgrounds. But Google has taken the concept one step further and...
Well, go to http://www.google.com and click the link in the bottom left corner!

There are four ways you can add photos.

• Upload a new photo from your computer.
• Choose one of the photos submitted by the public.
• Choose one of the photos recommended by Google staff.
• Pick a picture from your Picasa Web Albums.

Find the photos like I did below and select it!

Once you've selected your photo you can double click it to set your background.
I now have a picture of my girlfriend as my Google wallpaper:

Google says:


Make your Google homepage feel more like, well, home! Choose your own image or photo to appear as the background to your Google homepage. You can choose an image from your Picasa Web photos, your computer or a Google public gallery.
This feature is distinct from iGoogle, which allows you to further customize your Google homepage with personalized gadgets.

How to add a background image

1. Sign in to your Google Account in the top right corner of the Google homepage. Don't have one? It's easy to create a Google Account.
2. Click Change background image in the bottom left corner of the Google homepage.
3. Choose where to select your background image:
   
   
   • From my computer: Select an image saved on your computer.
   • My Picasa Web photos: Select an image from your Picasa Web Albums.
   • Public gallery: Select from public photos featured in Picasa Web Albums.
   • Editor's picks: Select from a set of Google recommended images.
4. Once you've chosen your image, click Select at the bottom of the window. It may take a moment before your new Google homepage background appears.

You can remove your background image at any time by clicking Remove background image in the bottom left corner of the homepage.

Image requirements

When you upload a photo, it is saved as a photo in a new unlisted album in your Picasa Web Albums.
We recommend that you use images that are wider than they are tall (landscape orientation). Images must be at least 800 x 600 pixels and in one of the following formats: .jpeg, .tif, .tiff, .bmp, .gif, .psd (Photoshop), .png, .tga, and selected RAW formats. In Picasa, you can resize photos.
And it's compatible with the following browsers:

• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer 7.x (Windows XP, Windows Vista)
• Internet Explorer 8.x (Windows XP, Windows Vista)
• Firefox 3.x (Windows XP, Vista, Mac OSX)
• Safari 3 (Mac OSX)
• Safari 4 (Mac OSX)

What I want in a tablet

At computex this year, loads of tablets have been announced. And quite frankly, I don’t want a tablet. I don’t want some tech company to force this form factor on me and I am going to make my own decision. I don’t want a tablet because I use my computer for serious typing almost all the time. I don’t watch many videos; I mostly social network and blog. Tablets would need a big slide out keyboard but that would make them too big. I don’t know. What I’m sure is that I don’t want a current tablet. Below is an image of the tablet I want, it is totally unoriginal but it’ll get my point across.

This is what I want on a tablet: a keyboard. Although this poses the problem of what orientation and it’ll be too big to thumb type. I know, why not use… a laptop! Yes, that’s what I want from a tablet, a laptop!

SmoothScroll

One of the things Firefox users boast about is the fact that they have most add-ons for their chosen browser. Well, guess what? Google Chrome has a whole load of awesome extensions which you can install to enhance your webs browsing experience. And SmoothScroll is one of my favorites. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of intertial scrolling, allow me to explain:
If you scroll vertically on an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, notice that the page doesn't stop scrolling as soon as you take your finger away. Depending on the force of your flick downwards or upwards, the page will keep flying by.
Flicking softly will make the page keep going for half a second after you've removed your finger. Meanwhile, a fierce flick and the page will keep sliding past for a few seconds.
SmoothScrolling brings inertial scrolling to your browser.
Have you ever used Google Picasa? Scrolling up and down in album view within this free application will give you an idea of what inertial scrolling feels like. It doesn't increase productivity but it looks and feels wonderful. And it works just as nicely while browsing the web. And the extension, like every single other Google Chrome extension, is entirely free. Download and install it here.

Future of the Xbox: Part 2

The Xbox isn't totally doomed for failure though; there are still some positive things about it which will give it both a bright future as well as a better future than the PS3. The main reason is social gaming: Xbox live has a feature called party chat, where you are able to speak with your friends in a group even when you are not playing the same game. 


On PSN, there is no such feature. This feature will never be made, because EA (who make a truck load of games for the PS3) said that they will no longer support the PS3 if they bring this feature to PSN. This means that the PS3 will either lose loads of exclusive games, of remain without party chat. 


Also, the Xbox has in built social aspects such as Facebook and last.fm so it is set for the future. It also holds a few over the PS3 in that Halo being exclusive to Xbox means that it will keep vital followers of both the console and the game. So, the future's not bleak at all for the Xbox, it's actually very bright!

[Thanks Felix]

Apple does a Google with HTML5

In the same way that one clever fellow set up a website filled with scraps of programming which require a seriously high level of JavaScript power, thus preventing browsers other than Chrome from using them...

...Apple has done something along the same lines and simultaneously had an indirect dig at Adobe Flash, by releasing onto their official website a range of programming scraps which require heavy HTML5 support:

Apple is being incredulously childish on so many levels. They're more or less eliminating the requirement of Flash on any Apple device and that leaves Adobe standing in the cold. And that's not a particularly respectable thing to do.

And as aforementioned, this is little more than a clone of Chrome's showcase, only with HTML5 instead of JavaScript. But I must say that after trying out the HTML5 showcase on my iPod Touch, Adobe and Chrome are just small compromises.

It works incredibly well despite Apple's monopolistic approach which does knock a bit of fun out of it because there's less freedom for the average end user, and it's worth mentioning that the Virtual Reality module doesn't work on Windows or Linux.

Here are the seven modules and what they do:

• Video: Shows you a video of a Tron Legacy trailer with dedicated buttons for pausing, playing, stopping, fastforwarding, rewinding, and player scaling. But there seems to be a serious lack of a volume slider...
• Text: Allows you to generate artistic text.
• Gallery: Allows you to flick thru photos.
• Transitions: Slide through a range of photos using five different examples of stylish transitions which can be achieved between digital elements under a HTML5 module.
• Audio: Does what it says on the tin; plays audio.
• 360: Also does what it says on the tin; allows 360-degress rotation of an embedded graphical element.
• VR: Also known as virtual reality, this application currently allows a Street View-esque three-dimensional image of a certain place. In Apple's example, it's the Apple Store in New York City.

See here for a few snapshots of these HTML5 modules working on an iPod Touch.

FormSpring Facelift

As you may have already noticed, FormSpring has undergone a design change. FormSpring's official blog says this:

After more than a month of designing, iterating and implementing, we’re super excited to announce and showoff the new Formspring. Not only did the entire site get a visual facelift, but a lot of the functionality and workflows have been streamlined as well. Now keeping up with your friends as well as answering and managing your questions should be even easier! Here are a few of the improvements we’ve made:

The Questions

On your Questions page (formerly the Inbox), you’ll notice a number of improvements. Now you can answer any question you want without worrying about losing your place on the page. On the right-hand side of the page, you’ll see a list of your social networks. That way you’ll know when we add services and also have full visibility into which social networks you’ve connected to Formspring.

The Home Stream and Quick-fire Answers

Wanna hop onto Formspring and just quickly answer a couple questions? We’ve got you covered. When you login, you’ll be greeted with a quick-fire Formspring box at the top of the page. This makes it easy to browse and answer a few questions from your inbox, without ever having to leave the homepage. Just below, you’ll still find all your friends’ most recent answers, only this time we’ve added the questioner avatars as well. That way, you’re even more likely to discover new and interesting people to interact with on Formspring.

The Profile

At first, you won’t notice a ton of changes to your Profile page. You’ll still see a photo, bio and the option to Follow/Unfollow the person you’re viewing. What’s new is that information is now streamlined into an easy-to-read section on the left, leaving more space for your questions and Formspring box. You’ll also notice that there’s now a tally of how many questions a particular Formspringer has answered. In the future, we’ll be exploring even more ways to display useful information to you and your Friends.

What about the future?

It’s bright! We recently crossed the 12 million user mark (just around the same time as our 6-month anniversary), and we see no sign of slowing down anytime soon. The Formspring team has a metric ton of great ideas and features brewing right now and are working hard to bring them to you as quickly as possible. (Wanna help? We’re hiring!). We hope you’re as excited as we are about this latest update. Tell us what you think!

Send Your Twitter Followers on a Virtual Parade

http://isparade.jp/ is a website which allows you to take each and every single one of your Twitter followers and paste their face onto a virtual Flash-built walking figure on your screen in a huge parade:

And they'll even carry you on their shoulders. It's a truly amazing Flash application which serves no practical use but it's cool to show your friends. Here's Joy's:

If you wanna send your followers on a virtual parade click here.

Vers iPhone Case Hinting At Front Facing Camera?

This is the Vers iPhone case. Aside from being deliciously carved form a single chunk of wood there's something else which stands out. Take a look at the microphone hole carved into the wood at the top of the case. It's a bit wide isn't it?

Is this yet another piece of evidence which suggests that the iPhone HD/4G is going to have a front-facing, iChat-compatible camera at the front?

After all, the two prototypes which were identified recently as being authentic had such a device built into the front plate adjacent to the mic.

I guess all we can do is wait for what Apple is going to surprise us with...

Why I'm not surprised the iPad has sold well

Everyone’s rambling on about how the iPad has sold 2 million devices and 1 million in its first 4 weeks which blew away the original iPhone’s launch sales. Now, I think this is slightly unfair on the iPhone’s stats, but allow me to explain.

When the iPhone was launched, Apple was big but nothing in comparison to today. I don’t think it would be argued against if I said that Apple had the largest dominance in the market today. So, with all the hype the iPad had, alongside Apple’s influence today, it was surely inevitable that the iPad would sell well. 

If the iPad had been launched 3 years ago, I bet that it wouldn’t have sold half as well. But with the dominance of the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as Macs increasing in popularity and desirability, the iPad is a must-have gadget that if you own people will coo over — much like the original iPhone was. This therefore means that the iPad was destined for success, so you can’t compare it to the original iPhone’s sales really. 

Future of the Xbox: Part 1

With Robbie Blake leaving Microsoft, the future of the Xbox must look bleak. He was the pioneer of the Xbox and surely, without him, it'll lose innovation and turn into... well, the PS3: a device that was once ground breaking but now just isn't that exciting. Microsoft now don't have a prolific character who can be decisive for the future of the Xbox. Now, without Blake's presence, one could argue that the Xbox will be doomed.

With senior officials at Microsoft now reporting to Ballmer directly, the middle man - who was needed at Microsoft - is now gone and Microsoft may pay the cost. Despite the success of the Xbox 360 and games like COD Modern Warefare 2, the fortunes could change very quickly (remember Windows Mobile?) and this could spell disaster for the Xbox.

Ballmer can't possibly keep the Xbox progressing, so without Blake, the Xbox is certainly doomed for failure. In Part 2 I'll look at how the Xbox could possibly achieve greater things.

How To: Improve Laptop Battery

There are a number of ways that one can improve one’s battery life on a laptop. Many things are basic, but there are also some more intricate methods which can boost battery life and therefore productivity if you’re out and about or just not near a power source. One of the easiest ways to improve battery life is by decreasing screen brightness. Different versions of Windows and Mac use different commands, but it is often a function key which enables you to darken your screen which saves a surprising amount of battery life. Also, turning off WiFi will also increase battery because, let’s face it, it’s often on when we don’t use it. Other methods of increasing battery life are closing down applications, just go into task manager and shut some down you’re not using. For Vista users, there’s another, more intricate way, that you can increase the battery life, and this is probably similar on Windows 7 although I can’t remember because it’s a while since I used the RC and I don’t have the full version. Now, for a Vista user, go into Control Panel, then Mobile PC and Power Options from there. Once you see your power plans, click on change plan settings, then click on change advanced power settings, and do the annoying Vista confirmation stage then get clicking on how to save battery. It’s very easy and self explanatory, and I reckon it’ll be similar for Windows 7. So, now you can use your laptop on the go for that little bit longer now.

Google Desktop

I am quite a Google fan. I use Gmail, blogger, Picasa, and now Desktop. As a Vista user I could use Microsoft's own but that just isn't appealing and I thought I'd give Google's version a try. It has a one distinct advantage: less is more. Microsoft's version has loads of plugins which bombard you when you visit the site, whereas Google's offering just has a few pages of plugins. This is so much easier as it has everything you'd want from it. For me, I've got an internet data counter, an RSS feed, weather, CPU statistics and the annoyingly ever-present search icon. However, I have it off for when on other pages, otherwise my 15" screen would be made into 13.5" which I can't see the point of. I like Google Desktop, and recommend it thoroughly over Microsoft's version of a similar free product.