Month: April 2008

So April Fools’ is finally over and we’ve been left here with a bunch of pranks, fake news and weird software apps to be added to our personal collection. It seems that April Fools’ jokes are becoming more and more sophisticated each year: now it’s not a question of coming up with the most absurd idea to make people laugh; it’s trying to make those people actually believe that what you’re talking about is true.

During the past few years, Google has made it clear that they’re the absolute April Fools’ kings. Since they also used this date (April 1st) to launch Gmail for real, sometimes it’s hard to know whether they’re launching another new service or simply trying to fool us.

Yesterday we could see several examples of their creativity and sense of humor: the gDay (a new feature enabling you to search Internet content before it’s created), the Wakeup Kit (a new service in Google Calendar to make sure you get out of bed) and Virgle (a Virgin & Google project to set the first permanent human colony on Mars) were some of the Google pranks, together with some smaller details like the possibility to create a paper airplane in Google Docs or set an appointment with famous people in Google Calendar.

But Google is not the only one that tried to get us to smile yesterday. Youtube, for example, linked every single featured video on its homepage to Rick Astley’s hit Never Gonna Give You Up. Meanwhile, Aviary surprised us with a revolutionary web-based time machine that could take any photo and create its future – or past – version. The accompanying screenshots were just hilarious.

Pranks were not limited to software: videogames also contributed to the fun by providing us with great headlines like this: WoWinsider decides to give up on Blizzard’s MMORPG and focus on the much more exciting Hello Kitty Online. Talking about WoW, we also learned that this popular game was finally coming to consoles… but starting with the Atari 2600 platform at a “glorious 192i resolution”. Thinkgeek, the popular geek online shop, also contributed to the gaming April Fools’ with the awesome Super Pii Pii Brothers game for the Wii, as well as other remarkable objects such as the Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt or the USB Pregnancy Test.

Finally, we hope you liked our contribution to this year’s April Fools’. We had loads of fun while creating Satellite Live and hope you didn’t take the joke too badly!

If you’ve always dreamed of learning to play the piano but have never had the space or resources to have one yourself, then all is not lost. If you fancy yourself as the next Elton John or Richard Clayderman, your PC can emulate a piano to a pretty impressive degree of reality. Of course, it’s not exactly the same playing Beethoven’s Fifth on your keyboard compared to ebony and ivory but it’s a darn sight cheaper and a good start for beginners in particular.

Synthesia (formerly known as Piano Hero) is probably one of the most popular packages with beginners because of it’s simplicity although it’s by no means the most effective learning tool. The program merely requires you to play the simulated piano keyboard by following the notes as they fall on the keyboard which isn’t easy. However, it does allow you to connect an external keyboard if you have one. As the name suggests MidiPiano turns your keyboard into a MIDI synthesiser rather than a piano but it at least gets you familiar with the keyboard. Electronic Piano follows a similar format although with a much greater range featuring 128 different instruments, all of which can be played from a piano-synthesizer keyboard.

However, the most realistic dedicated piano app has to be KB Piano which realistically reproduces the crisp clear notes of a piano and also simulates the violin and guitar. However, it does rely rather heavily on DirectX and is the most likely to crash of all the piano tools out there.

Today is a special day for any Apple fanboy out there. On April the 1st 1976, Apple Computers Inc was founded by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak and the first ever Apple I personal computer kit was created in Steve Jobs’ parents’ living room. Since then, Apple has gone through many ups and downs of which memorable moments we remember Steve Jobs’ outing in 1985, his triumphant return in 1996 with the acquisition of NeXT by Apple, the release of the first Powerbook in 1991, the Apple Store in 1997, the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007 and the Macbook Air in 2008.

Although Apple’s market share in terms of computers in no way matches that of PCs, it has managed to create such a powerful brand image that any announcement it makes is instantly reported on worldwide. Just look at the release of the iPhone at last year’s Macworld convention, followed by millions around the world. And with the iTunes Store and the iPod, Apple has turned into a major player in the digital music world. The next step for Apple is the mobile world and the initial success of the iPhone shows Apple is going in the right direction.

Apple do not seem to have prepared anything special for their 32nd birthday. We encourage you to go to the Mac page on Softonic and try out some programs to celebrate more than three decades of Apple computers.

Oh, and did we forget to mention that yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the creation of Mozilla?

April Fools’ is here again and this means you must be aware of fake news, jokes from your friends and coworkers and of course, any possible tricks played on you thanks to technology. In case you want to take revenge, here’s a top ten list with the best techie pranks you can make use of on April 1st.

1. Fake desktop. A basic yet effective trick: take a screenshot of the whole desktop and set it as wallpaper on your victim’s computer. Then hide the toolbar and the shortcut icons and prepare to laugh at the poor guy’s efforts to regain control. Another possible desktop prank is to use this desktop image as wallpaper and make them believe, at least for a second, that their monitor is broken.

2. Blue Screen of Death. Install the BlueScreen Screensaver and put your coworkers on the verge of a heart attack every time their screensaver runs. Just remember to tell them it’s a joke before they actually throw the computer away.

3. Remote Control. Set a remote control app on your victim’s PC (ShowMyPC, TeamViewer, LogMeIn, Crossloop…) and have fun for hours, or even days. Some years ago we played this joke on a workmate’s PC for two weeks before he found out what was really happening, and we still roar with laughter when we remember his desperation.

4. Custom Errors. As we already showed you here, with MultiError Pro you can create hilarious system error messages with many customization possibilities, including message text, buttons, icon and time interval. You can even associate each button to a given action.

5. Mouse. Removing the mouse ball was a classic April joke some years ago. Now it has evolved to sticking a piece of tape over the laser sensor of optical mice. Color the tape with a marker and the effect will be even better!

6. Keyboard. Use KeyExtender to remap your victim’s keyboard layout. Watch them trying to fix language settings in the Control Panel while trying hard to keep yourself from laughing.

7. Photo composition. With a tool like Zeallsoft FunPhotor you can create amusing images with your friend’s photo and the backgrounds and templates included in the program. Print it and hang it on the office’s notice board or send it by email to everyone!

8. Voice Effects.Use AV Voice Changer Software to record yourself with a totally different voice and then use it to call your friends and play a great joke on them… A good idea is to record several different sentences so you can keep a conversation for a while, or at least until they find out it’s you.

9. Random Burper. For a cheaper prank, you can always grab hold of Random Burper which, as you may have guessed by the name, plays burping sounds from time to time until it’s turned off. The program’s settings enable you to set the volume to a maximum before burping and then restore the values back to the original settings.

10. DesktopFun. Besides the wallpaper jokes I mentioned before, you can also use this program to apply funny effects to your victim’s desktop: turn it upside down, make it blurry, remove color, apply a wavy animation… there are dozens of options to choose from.