For anyone really into astrology, astral signs and ascendants supposedly determine your life and even your mood for the day. L’Astrologue calculates your astral chart, presenting elements like planets, house, or the age of the moon. The interface is very clear and offers a cool dynamical chart to follow the progression of your sign.
Month: July 2007
Meet Halo as a 2D side-scrolling action game
The original Halo game turned the world of FPS games upside down. This humble 2D version is clearly not the same, but it offers all the weapons and enemies of the original title and it’s great fun to play. Halo: Hell on Earth Trilogy features many levels to complete and although its side-scrolling style doesn’t feel as real as a 3D first person shooter, it’s still pretty amusing!
Feedburner Pro to be made free
Feedburner has announced that it’s Pro edition is to be made completely free by owners Google. The TotalStats and MyBrand components used to be subscription only services but as of today, they are available at no extra cost. Feedburner estimate that over 450,000 people use these services and were previously paying around $5 a month for them.
The Pro service basically gives people more control over their stats. Users now have access to the number of people who have viewed or simply clicked individual content items in their feeds. They can also gauge their ‘Reach’ which estimates the daily number of subscribers who interacted with feed content. To activate it, simply navigate to the Analyze tab and then to the ‘FeedBurner Stats Pro’ section.
MyBrand meantime allows you to maintain consistency between your feed address and your hosted website domain. For example, rather than using ‘feeds.feedburner.com/MyFeedName’ your feed address can be ‘feeds.myexcellentdomain.net/MyFeedName’. MyBrand is activated by clicking on the ‘My Account’ link in the upper left-hand corner, and then clicking on ‘MyBrand’. Note that you need to be comfortable tinkering with DNS to get this working properly.
Escape from the digital dark ages
According to the UK National Archive the computing world is perched on a “ticking time bomb” because modern PCs are unable to open old file formats. Concerned at the prospect of losing over 530 Terabytes of data stored in bygone document formats, the Archive has just announced a deal with Microsoft which will allow the het-up historians to open old files. The Redmond giant’s UK head, Gordon Frazer warned that we’re now facing a “digital dark age.”
Unless more work is done to ensure legacy file formats can be read and edited in the future, we face a digital dark hole. Historically within the IT industry, the prevailing trend was for proprietary file formats. We have worked very hard to embrace open standards, specifically in the area of file formats.
To us, it sounds a little rich coming from a company that has made a living from locking users into a particular format. Don’t forget, Microsoft is bringing out its own new OpenXML office format while the rest of the industry gears up to embrace the supposedly all-emcompassing Open Document Format.
Whatever your views on Microsoft’s file standards policy, you can take your own measures to avoid getting sucked into this digital black hole. One particularly useful tool is the Microsoft Office File Converter Pack, which offers file converters and image filters for MS Office programs ranging from Office 97 to Office 2003.
Win a strategy guide for your favorite MMORPG
We’ve already talked about World of Warcraft a couple of times on insideTonic: we made a full review of the game and we also covered the launch of its expansion set, The Burning Crusade. However, this time we’d like to have you involved.
insideTonic has teamed up with Killerguides, a website specialized in professional MMORPG strategy guides that can dramatically improve your gaming experience. Killerguides offers guides for the most popular RPG, such as EverQuest, Final Fantasy XI, Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Star Wars Galaxies and of course, World of Warcraft. They are all available for purchase but we’re now giving some of them for free in our contest.
All you have to do is answer this simple question: Which novel, movie or fantasy world should be turned into a MMORPG next? Put your imagination to work and leave us a comment with all your ideas for a future RPG.
Killerguides and insideTonic will pick up the best three answers for their originality, humor and level of detail. Prizes include a complete game guide package for first place and one guide of your choice for second and third places respectively.
Spb Wallet – first look
Spb Wallet is a newcomer to the relatively well-populated ranks of mobile wallet applications – the programs you can install on your PDA to protect and encrypt confidential information. It’s a good, solid effort and combines the features available on most other wallet programs with a customisable, attractive user interface. Spb Wallet features 256 bit AES encryption, an industry standard, which is apparently very difficult to crack. The biggest risk to your data is probably your PDA itself: always remember to back up important information regularly.
When first run, the program asks you to create your first encrypted wallet file. This stage includes a password strength test which will warn you if your password looks like it’s too simple. Next, you’re presented with a list of categories for data storage, headed by a very handy ‘About Spb Wallet’ section. This area contains a lot of guidance on how to use the program, template creation and more.
The number of categories and templates available is impressive enough, and that’s before you factor-in the easy-to-use template creation tool. Most of the templates also have smart little icons – and again, you’re allowed to create and import your own if you want. It’s worth noting, however, that most of the templates look very similar, beyond the pretty picture each one is customised with.
In the end, Spb Wallet does not bring much new to the table. It has been suggested in some quarters that Spb Software House are good at spotting popular programs and releasing their own versions which often bear striking similarity to their competitors’ efforts. I’d not go that far, myself. My opinion is that if Spb can spot a popular mobile program and work out how to make it better and more attractive, well they’re entitled to do it. Spb Wallet is a perfectly decent alternative to its competitors and, I believe, deserves to be judged on its own merits.
Social networking site for dead people
When I was 10 I went to my nan’s funeral and stayed up all night with my uncle Mike watching naked American women on television. Grief hits people in different ways.
Perhaps if my nan died now I would take advantage of the latest social networking site – Respectance. Founded by entrepreneur Tom Wilkinson and Kazaa man Richard Derks, the site allows grievers to write tributes and memories, share photos and videos, and build and join various groups.
A quick tour of the site shows-up tributes to the usual crowd – Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley, Elvis Presley (of whom one writer adds – amazing man, especially in Las Vegas), with length
y biographies – as well as more touching and personal memories from recently bereaved families and friends. Side-by-side all these are a whole group of dead dogs wearing sunglasses or superman costumes with tributes such as, ‘Sparky LoLo was a great pup’.
Only in death, and on the worldwide web, does it seem are we all truly equal.
The site is not accepting advertising but charges $1 for each funeral video. People video funerals? I’m only glad my nan died when she did.
Mastering combos in Icy Tower
Adepts of the little hoodster Harold the Homeboy know the strategic importance of combos in Icy Tower. If you want to make points and one day get your name on the high scores list, you need to know how to master your jumps. The player currently at the top of the list managed to pack in a whopping 1029 combo-jumps in a row!
What you need first is to gain speed, so that you can jump more than one floor at a time. As soon as you’ve managed that you’ll enter “combo mode” and the meter on the left of the screen will be activated. You’ll have to keep making jumps of two floors or higher to keep the meter from draining and ending “combo mode”. IcyTower.org has some good tips on how to make great combos by bouncing off walls or knowing the right time to jump. We also came up with a little list of hints and cheats for those of you that are struggling. The best way to learn though is by watching, so why not check out this little video of a few super combos:
[youtube]K7jCm0HU1EU[/youtube]
Top Independence Day software downloads
If you want to really make the most of this year’s Fourth of July celebrations then why not deck your PC out with a set of programs that help you embrace the spirit of the day? We’ve compiled a complete Independence Day toolkit that pays tribute to all things American and will help you get the party started on your PC.
Voyage of Columbus 3D Screensaver – Recapture the spirit of Columbus’ historic trip
BarGenie – Ensure that no one goes thirsty at your Fourth of July party
Fireworks Wallpaper – Make sure your celebrations go off with a bang
Nostalgia Baseball – Guide your own baseball team to glory
Living Cookbook – Get those hot dogs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ready
Black History Screensaver – Play out the path to black America’s freedom on your PC
Wild West Ransom – Send Pacman back to the Old West to munch ghostly varmints
Travel USA – Discover America using your cellphone
The easiest way to create Flash photo albums
You’re probably going to take lots of pictures during your holiday, but do you already know how to share them with your friends? Forget about boring photo shows and create an eye-catching Flash album with Anvsoft Flash Slide Show Maker. It requires no technical skills and no Flash knowledge at all. Just add background music, some transition effects and you’ll build your own Flash album in less than 10 minutes!