Author: Tony Aldridge

As a devout pigeon-hater I thought it my job to bring you this retro-shooting game for the Palm. Yes, it’s a bit of Friday fun, but really any day is good for pigeon shooting. Bang! Bang! looks and sounds like the kind of game I was playing about twenty years ago, when I was just a child pigeon-hater.

Get your shotgun and aim at as many flying rats flapping over the back of your garden as possible. There are also cats strolling past for cat-haters and bottles and tins for those of you who hate rubbish. Shoot everything, including bullets to increase your ammo. As soon as that runs out it’s game over. If you remember enjoying games like Duck Hunt on the Nintendo then this one’s for you. If you hate pigeons you’re going to have a great weekend.

Tis the season to be sporty, but if like me you can’t be bothered why not get physical with some heated competition in these summer games. First up is golf, and whether you like your birdie action stretched out over 18 immaculate holes or forced through colourful windmills we have the lot. Wacky mini golf is especially ‘wacky’ on the Mac and Pocket Mini Golf is a mini golf game that fits in your pocket. Where do they get these names from?

I’ve always thought of tennis as more of a dance than a sport which is why I’ve been drinking my barley water out on fantasy island where tennis is more Manga than MacEnroe. Fantasy Tennis is a great new take on the old game; imagine Sampras in Streetfighter and you get the idea.

If cricket is more your thing then Brian Lara is back for 2007, hooking a chinaman, marking his crease and tossing a googly, or whatever it is they all do for fun.

Lovers of nature and good fish can get out on the lake with Pocket Bass Angler on the Pocket PC and hook a monster from the deep. And for all of you who prefer garden games you might like fellow mobile friends: Lawn Darts (bowls-cum-darts with an octopus) and Hammer Heads, where you have to smash surfacing gnomes into little bits with a mallet. Now that’s what I call summer.

Rumours, gossip and quiet-talk abound at the moment as our spies tell us that Microsoft is on the verge of offering its latest Works package as an ad-supported free download. The move is a direct show of force to competitors OpenOffice, ThinkFree Office, Zoho and Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Microsoft Works 9.0 will offer word processing, spreadsheet and slideshow facilities, apparently based on older coding of Office. The big question is with so many customers switching to alternative users for various reasons are people prepared to go back, even if it is for free. Let’s see what happens with this one, I still can’t find it and it’s meant to be available now. If anyone has any free spies available Softonic might be interested.

Here at Softonic we like to keep you up-to-date with all the latest Firefox developments, whether it’s new browsers, more secure versions or just handy applications for the summer. But it’s worth taking a moment to go back and remember what it was that made us fall head-over-paws in love with our foxy little friend – those funky tabs.

However, with the focus now on boosting your Firefox with the latest updates, it might be time to consider if your tabbing is as effective as it once was. Wow there are a lot of ‘f’s in this blogpost. Here’s a handy 10-point guide to stop the fox from freaking you out. Enouf!

Summer is the time for big weddings and parties, so rather than spend those sunny evenings (or rainy, depending on where you’re reading this from) writing thousands of invitations why not try something a little different. Phonevite gives you the chance to call all your invitees by recording just one simple message.

The software works in two ways – either record a message on the Phonevite website using a microphone or enter your mobile number in the ‘record on phone’ option and the service calls you so you can leave the invite you want sent out after the beeeeeeeeep. Then add all the phone numbers of the people you want at your fiesta and set the time for the message to go out. Recipients then press 1 for a ‘yes I’m definitely coming’, 2 for a ‘wouldn’t be seen dead at your party’, and 3 for ‘I’ll see who else is going before I say yes or no’. Actually it’s just 1: yes, 2: no, 3: not sure, but you know what they really mean.

There are lots of other options too and it’s all free. However, you will need to keep checking the website to find out who’s accepted your invite. Seems a shame they can’t send responses to your mobile, but if you’ve got as many friends as me it’s probably just as well. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to organise a party.

If you don’t know what to do with all those digital photos of you and your friends pulling funny faces on holiday why not create a beautiful online photo album. There’s a lot of software out there already to help you edit, save and manipulate your pics but Mixbook is a website with a bit of a difference. It follows the, and there’s no way round the phrase I’m afraid, ‘social networking’ formula.

The site allows all those invited to build online albums from a shared collection of photographs. So if like my brother’s friend Steve, you had a stag-do last weekend and walked around Barcelona in a swimsuit and a floppy hat, you can commemorate the humiliation with a special online album. Or order a professionally printed copy through the publishing page. With photo-sharing features on sites such as Facebook already, Mixbook might seem an unnecessary extra website to visit but all albums are available as widgets on blogs, MySpace and Facebook and that’ll probably keep everyone smiling.

Worried about bearing all your wobbly bits on the beach this summer? Well quick, we’ve still got time. Just because you’re stuck in the office all day doesn’t mean you can’t get the workout your body demands. Here at Softonic we like nothing better than crowding round a computer and burning our toxins to a spot of yoga. We’ve found these lovely ladies to work out with. They make you feel healthier just by watching them. And it’s funny – you know laughter’s one of the best ways of shedding calories?

We have everything you need to drop those pounds including a yoga kit, a personal iWorkout for the more physical among you, natural healing therapies if you prefer your exercise with nuts and oils and a fitness assistant to make sure every kilojoule is accounted for. Only problem is you might have to buy a new swimsuit. Yes you’re going to look that good, friend.

For fans of SlideShare, today’s news that the service is opening up the possibility to synchronise audio files with all slide show presentations might bring a sigh of relief rather than a great hurrah.

The YouTube-style site has been building up a community of users since it began allowing people to upload PowerPoint or Open Office presentations last October. Content ranges from show reels of holiday snaps, baby pics and business presentations. But until now it has all been done in silence.

Well at last SlideShare is going to be available in stereo. Users can synch the audio for their presentations or simply upload an MP3 of a recorded speech. SlideShare is already a great resource but it’s always frustrating watching pictures without sound. Unless it’s a James Blunt video. This addition should really get the service rocking.

When Dr Jonathan Schaefer set out to create the world’s greatest draughts-playing machine he had no idea the project would take him 18-years to complete and have him branded as a murderer. You remember Frankenstein?

But yesterday, the doc declared the job done, he had developed the world’s first unbeatable draughts program. Don’t believe him? You can try it here. Dr Schaefer, an expert in artificial intelligence at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, had to overcome 500 billion billion possible moves on the eight-by-eight chequered-board as well as accusations that his over-competitive friend had killed the one-time draughts champion Marion Tinsley.

Dr Schaefer said: “It’s been 18 years and my patience has been tried. I was pretty naive in the beginning and didn’t think it was going to take so long, but once I’d got it going I was determined to finish it. But this is the end. Life is too short to spend this much time on one thing.”

You said it doc, besides at Softonic we still like to pretend man beats machine. Check this one out for something a little easier, and more fun.