Brandon Dimmel

One of the Internet's most popular free web hosting services, GeoCities, is closing down for good. Yahoo, which has owned the service for the last decade, announced in April it planned on shutting off the pages remaining in operation, and yesterday ... the lights went down on GeoCities for the very last time. Started back in 1994 under the title "Beverly Hills Internet," GeoCities early on adopted an operating design that emulated its name. For example, a site about celebrities might fall under the city-themed title "Hollywood," while those constructed for the purposes of blogging about PC ... (view more)

VirtualIQ Pro VirtualIQ Pro is a dashboard for reducing virtualization complexity, that is simple and easy to use. Use VirtualIQ to manage up to 5 CPUs and 25 virtual machines at no cost. Free download with email registration. ... http://www.toutvirtual.com WuInstall WuInstall is a command line tool for Windows, which enables you to install windows-updates for a certain workstation in a controlled way by using a command line (DOS) script instead of the standard Windows update functionality over a web browser. http://www.xeox.com Today's fresh software picks were provided courtesy of Bob Helmer at ... (view more)

Well over a year since the HD-DVD format bit the dust , Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has hinted that a Blu-ray drive could be on its way to the Xbox 360 console. Like its nigh-forgotten HD-DVD add-on, a future Blu-ray player would be an accessory ... device, and not built-in as with Sony's PlayStation 3. Microsoft's HD-DVD player, which attached to the Xbox 360 via USB cable, launched about three years ago. Back then, the Toshiba-fostered format was an equal challenger with Sony's Blu-ray; although the latter offered greater disc storage capabilities, HD-DVD players were much cheaper and the ... (view more)

Wireless Net View WirelessNetView is a small utility that runs in the background and monitors the activity of wireless networks around you. For each detected network, it displays the following information: SSID, Last Signal Quality, Average Signal ... Quality, Detection Counter, Authentication Algorithm, Cipher Algorithm, MAC Address, RSSI, Channel Frequency, Channel Number, and more. This is particularly useful if you want to test the signal strength of your networks and to see which networks are on what channel. http://nirsoft.net Boxee On a laptop or connected to a High Definition TV (HDTV), ... (view more)

Tweet My Pc Nearly 1 in 5 web users use Twitter or a service similar to Twitter. If you're interested in getting into the action yourself, check out this exciting new program that allows you to control your computer through Tweets. Features include ... Screenshot, Memory usage, IP address, Custom commands, Reply from TweetMyPC and lots more. http://tweetmypc.codeplex.com Commands In Demand Commands in Demand provides non-technical users with easy access to more than 80 Windows commands and features that can be hard to find or time consuming to acquire. The program includes shortcuts to terminate ... (view more)

It seems more and more folks are 'tweeting' with Twitter these days. According to a new study, almost 1 in 5 Internet users are using Twitter or a similar service to share personal and work happenings with their friends and colleagues. Helping the ... incredible rise in Twitter's popularity are Google and Microsoft (via Bing), whose search engines have actually begun indexing Tweets, otherwise known as "common status updates." Google, MS Index Filtered Tweets Microsoft announced yesterday it had begun a new beta feature in Bing that provides real-time Tweet updates alongside relevant ... (view more)

With Microsoft's highly-anticipated Windows 7 set for release, the Redmond-based company has finally provided a Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, a tool designed to examine a user's PC in order to determine if it's ready for the new operating system (OS). ... Microsoft's operating system launches on October 22nd, after at least a year of hype and speculation. Microsoft believes the new OS will bring back the "cool" to PCs running Windows, but early reviews remain skeptical -- some critics, including PC World blogger Jeff Bertolucci, just don't think the upgrade is worth $120 . (Source: pcworld.com ) New ... (view more)

Rizone Power Tools Rizone's Power Tools update has been released and now includes Repair Tools, Registry Backup and Optimization. The tools now only use 1% processing power when idle and Rizone has optimized the Recycle Bin Monitoring code. ... http://www.rizontech.com Defrag Drives If you need to defragment multiple hard drives or partitions try DefragDrives, an alternative to the standard Windows interface. And it works a whole lot better than the standard Windows interface, allowing options Microsoft didn't think to include. English documentation included in link below (further down the page ... (view more)

Users of Microsoft's popular Xbox Live online gaming community for the Xbox 360 can now interact with friends in that annoying real world outside Halo 3 matchmaking forums. It's good news for the social lives of clammy-skinned basement gamers, but ... is it worth all that and a bag of chips? For those who don't have an Xbox 360, you can think of Xbox Live as a sort of online operating system for gamers. Anyone who can connect with a wireless or Ethernet cord to a high speed router can get online, allowing them access to all kinds of free game demos, movie trailers, and even gaming guides. Users ... (view more)

Microsoft Photo Story Create slideshows using digital photos. With a single click, you can touch-up, crop, or rotate pictures. Add stunning special effects, soundtracks, and your own voice narration to your photo stories. Then, personalize them with ... titles and captions. Small file sizes make it easy to send your photo stories in an e-mail. Watch them on your TV, a computer, or a Windows Mobile-based portable device. http://www.microsoft.com ShellRunas The command-line Runas utility is handy for launching programs under different accounts, but is not convenient for heavy Explorer users. ... (view more)