Brandon Dimmel

Small Canadian companies are having big success against even bigger opponents of late. Just a week after a U.S. judge confirmed Toronto tech firm i4i's claim against Microsoft's use of XML technology in Word, an Oakville, Ontario company has won its ... domain name case against search giant Google. For those who've missed the news, Microsoft last week lost its appeal over an August decision that forced it to remove XML functions in its very popular Word, a big part of Microsoft Office. On the winning side was small Toronto-based i4i; the court decision means Microsoft must remove the conflicting ... (view more)

If you don't have any trouble reading deep into Microsoft job postings, it would appear that the Redmond-based company is preparing to bring its extremely popular Xbox Live online gaming network to Windows Mobile phones. The postings in question ... were for a principal program manager and for a software test engineer. The former was filled on December 23, 2009, but that doesn't really matter -- for the wider interests of techies, the devil is in the details. The job ads made several blatant references to Windows Mobile and the possibility of some level of integration with Xbox Live, currently ... (view more)

MouseExtender MouseExtender is a utility with shortcuts to programs, folders and system functions (Control panel, Restart and Shutdown). This program allows you to improve your productivity. It is extremely simple and fully customizable. ... http://www.me.codeplex.com MouseMixer Want to customize every click of your mouse? This application enables quick and easy swapping of the primary mouse button. One click will automatically change from left to right and vice versa. http://www.fxc.btinternet.co.uk Today's fresh software picks were provided courtesy of Bob Helmer at Shell Extension City, in ... (view more)

Is Apple to blame for hearing loss as a result of listening to one's iPod too loud? No, says a federal appeals court. The decision came this week and upholds the original dismissal of a lawsuit that claimed Apple's popular digital media device and ... the headsets sold along with it were defective and could cause permanent hearing loss -- without warning of such a possibility. Original Suits Filed in 2006 The original suit was filed by a disgruntled Louisiana iPod buyer and then supported by a similar claim in California in 2006. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, judges found that neither ... (view more)

Sony's PlayStation 3 has only in the past year started to emerge as a legitimate contender for the console crown currently held by Nintendo and its Wii. However, even as PS3 sales slowly inch up, news of the company's next gaming system has recently ... emerged. According to a report from Japanese industry insiders "PC Watch Impress," Sony is currently working on a multi-core CPU (Central Processing Unit) to be used in its next gaming console, tentatively (and likely) dubbed the PlayStation 4. Sony Exploring Multiple Options for PS4 CPU It's not yet known what the exact specifications ... (view more)

Context-Sensitive Spelling Checker Context-Sensitive Spelling Checker (csSpell) is a spelling checker that examines words and their context to detect potential misspellings instead of using a spelling dictionary. csSpell can scan plain text files; ... files that contain non-text elements such as SGML, HTML, or XML tags; and even files that contain program code. http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com NTP Time Server This utility will set up a NTP time location for a Windows 2003 Server. You can run this against any remote server you have admin access to without having to be on it or remote-controlling it. ... (view more)

While most people in the media take this time to offer interesting retrospectives on the year that was, security company McAfee has prepared its predictions for hacker threats in 2010. It forecasts a troubling year for Adobe software, which McAfee ... believes will be heavily targeted in 2010. McAfee made the forecast in its 2010 Threat Predictions report, which argued that popular tools Adobe Reader and Flash would become big targets for hackers intent on spreading malware across the worldwide web. McAfee also predicts social networking sites and HTML 5 could be threatened, too. Adobe Offers ... (view more)

NoDrives Manager Want to be more discreet and keep your PC a little more secure from prying eyes? NoDrives Manager is a simple, free tool for hiding Windows drives. The hidden drives are still accessible but they are not visible in Windows Explorer. ... http://nodrvman.sourceforge.net Netman Tired of having to be right next to one central computer in order to access important files and passwords? Then try Netman, which offers a secure and easy-to-use remote software that allows you to take control of your main system from afar. Free for personal use. http://netman123.com Today's fresh software ... (view more)

Back in May 2009, it was reported that the popular Duke Nukem franchise would finally come to and end, after the parent company (3D Realms) was forced to lay off all its employees . Duke Nukem, as many PC gamers already know, was especially famous ... for his raunchy and violent exploits in the 1996 first person shooter (FPS) Duke Nukem 3D. After over a decade of rumors that Nukem would return to PCs and consoles, it appeared then that such hopes had been dashed. However, in a recent interview with the gaming media, 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller said that Duke was not dead at all; in fact, he ... (view more)

Vista Services Optimizer When you install Microsoft Windows Vista for the first time, you will notice the low performance of your system. There are many reasons of the performance problems in Windows Vista, one of them that there are many of Windows ... Vista services that are running in the background that consume a lot of CPU power and take up much space in the system memory (RAM) which we do not really need them at all. So I suggest to tweak Windows services by stopping and disabling unwanted services in order to reduce CPU usage and save some space in the system memory. http:// ... (view more)