Month: October 2007

Here we are, Friday and another long, sweet weekend ahead to enjoy. Whatever your plans are, let me recommend you a great Flash online game that will challenge your logical skills, concentration, mouse speed and spatial coordination.

It’s called Stackopolis and it could be defined as a logic puzzle with some Tetris elements and cute pixel graphics. Your mission consists on building different city elements by arranging blocks on the screen. You’re given a hint (called “blueprint”) that shows how the final building should look like, and you only have one minute to reproduce it on the playing area.

Stackopolis features a bunch of levels, each one with a different building. Also, there’s a unique access code to each level, so remember to write them down as you progress through the game.

Finally decided to take a crack a that novel you’ve always promised yourself you’d write? Hope you’ve got some goods ideas and a lot of inspiration. That’s really what counts, not the pen or paper you’re going to use. After all, didn’t Jack Kerouac write On the Road on rolls of toilet paper?

Still, if you want to get into a writer’s mood, I can suggest a few tools that you can set up on your Mac. These are all word processors, but tweaked for the needs of writers, each with their own set of special features. Check them out and see if any one of them can spur your inspiration:

• Nisus Writer Express – A multilingual word processor for those of you courageous enough to write in different languages.
• Writeroom – No fuss, no distractions, just you and your words.
• CopyWrite – Create projects for each of the different novels you’re undertaking.
• Mellel – A word processor for all of you out there writing in Hebrew.
• Final Draft – Wanna be the next Tarantino? Use this pro solution instead of your mom’s old typewriter to draft up the next Reservoir Dogs.
• Ulysses – Aimed at creative writers, this word processor has a tabbed interface, notepads, and an advanced search function.
• Scrivener – Create outlines, jot down notes, and unite all of your story ideas in one simple interface.
• Schreiberling – A simple word processor, with clear divisions for chapters and works.
• Journler – Jot down any story idea into this cataloging tool. Can export to pretty much any application on your Mac.
• Avenir – Manage your creative process with this word processor/idea collector.
• Nisus Thesaurus – What would life be without a good ol’ thesaurus to keep your writing style fresh?

spodtronic brings streaming radio to Series 60 phones, giving you access to podcasts from stations around the world. In addition to simply allowing you to play music, the service sparkles visually too, offering information such as lyrics and sleeve artwork on your display. It’s a long way from the days when everyone used to huddle around the wireless at home.

Sometimes you need to boot Windows in a completely new way – and I’m not talking about with a pair of steel toe-capped Doc Martins – although God help me, I’ve been close. There are various little tweaks and customisations you can make to Windows boot sequence from creating your own images to loading entirely new operating systems on the same PC. Here’s 5 top Windows boot sequence customizers.

EasyBCD – Install multiple operating systems to boot

BootSkin – Boot Windows with a customised skin

EasyBoot – Boot Windows from CD if you’re having hardware problems

BootPart – Create a partition on Windows Multiboot menu

Magic Speed – Speed-up your boot sequence

Tired of calendars, postcards and slideshows? If you want to make something different with your photos, try Andreamosaic and generate a beautiful mosaic in a few minutes. Simply select the photo you want to turn into a mosaic and change settings accordingly. The program includes a detailed user manual and a pack of 500 images to use as mosaic tiles

BusySync lets you sync up multiple iCals to keep everybody up to date on upcoming events. From the BusySync interface, you’ll be able to select the calendars you want to share and the rights you want to give to other users (read, read or read & write). You can monitor when calendars have been synced and, if you’ve been disconnected for some time, BusySync can automatically sync calendars as soon as you reconnect to your network.

Call me a big baby, but I don’t really enjoy being scared stupid by playing horror games or installing terrifying screensavers. In fact, this year instead of tearing up the town with the rest of the local ghouls I will be sat in my house listening to Bing Crosby records in my fluffy pink slippers. I’ve even chosen the computer games that I’m going to play on my ‘anti-Halloween’ night and I’m hoping these ghost-free downloads will help me sleep easy:

• Hamster Blocks – What’s that creaking noise coming through the walls? Why it’s just a nice little hamster making a funny noise as he falls over. Don’t worry, he’s not hurt, he’s just taking part in a colourful block-building game. Ahh, bless him.
• Candy Crisis – Forget crazed zombies chewing up a city or chainsaw-wielding lunatics popping off teenage girls in the woods – this is what I call a real crisis. Some candy has got loose and it’s your job to take it back to the shop.
• Merry Frog – Install this game and you’ll instantly be transported to a happy place. There’s a cheerful frog to guide across across lily pads in a quest for yummy flies that will help you forget all about that serial killer at the front door
• Petal Palace – When I’m troubled by something I like to go out in the garden and pick flowers. Not tonight though because there’s almost certainly a mutilated corpse out there. Instead I’m going to solve some puzzles by plucking petals in this tranquil game.
• Dog Rescue – Wow, things have got quite serious since the candy incident. Now horrible meanies have captured some poodles and are holding them hostage. Time to wander aimlessly in the sunshine through flower-filled mountains to try and find them methinks. Happy Halloween!

If you use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express as your email client, you’ll be glad to know you can create customized email messages with Halloween decoration. You just need to download the Haunted Halloween stationery package and apply it to a new message.

In order to make stationery elements available from Outlook, you have to install or unzip them to the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Shared\Stationery\ folder. Once all the files are copied, launch your email client.

There are different ways to use stationery, depending on the program you use. In Outlook Express, click on the Message menu and choose the New Message Using option to pick the customized background for your email. In Outlook 2000 or higher, click on the Actions menu and select the New Mail Message Using option to obtain the same effect.

There’s only one day to go until the official release of Apple’s shiny new operating system, Mac OS X 10.5, also known as Leopard. This will also officially mark the end of Boot Camp as a separate application, as you can see from a note on the Apple support page. Apple has already removed the download page for Boot Camp, redirecting it to the Leopard features page. The download for the application still works though, so if you haven’t tried it yet, this is really your last chance. It’s worth noting here that if you’ve created installations with the Boot Camp Assistant, you will still be able to access and use them after Leopard; you just won’t be able to create new ones.

To remind you, Boot Camp is Apple’s virtualization software, which allows you to run Windows on your Mac and launch any Windows application. Easy to set up, it gives you flexibility to quickly switch between your Mac and Windows operating systems on one machine. It automatically installs all necessary drivers and you can even run Microsoft’s latest operating system, Windows Vista, with it. Boot Camp is top download this week on Softonic, something surely not unrelated to the imminent release of Leopard.