Brandon Dimmel

What do you think of when you imagine the typical video gamer? A pre-teen hopped up on 7-Eleven slushies and processed cheese nachos twiddling his PlayStation 3 controller in front of the boob tube at 3am? You might be wrong. A recent study found ... that the average age of gamers is surprisingly high, and that the average player might also be overweight and understandably unhappy about it. This most recent study was launched by researchers from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. They examined approximately 552 adults between the ages of 19 and 90, most from the Pacific Northwest, ... (view more)

As the release of Windows 7 fast approaches, much of the tech industry has been neatly distracted by Microsoft's patent dispute with Canadian company i4i. The Redmond-based firm isn't about to lay down and accept a recent judgment barring its resale ... of its popular Word software -- instead, it's readying for a late September hearing it hopes will change its fortunes. Problems began for Microsoft two weeks ago now when a Texas federal judge ordered Microsoft to stop selling its Word software so long as it included XML functions whose patent is owned by Toronto company i4i. Tech Industry Faces ' ... (view more)

Quark Quark is a powerful security tool which will help you protect your computer from unauthorized access by denying any user interaction until the correct password has been provided. http://www.classic-software.ro Regshot Regshot is an open-source ... (GPL) registry compare utility that allows you to quickly take a snapshot of your registry and then compare it with a second one -- which can be performed after doing system changes or installing a new software product, for example. http://sourceforge.net Today's fresh software picks were provided courtesy of Bob Helmer at Shell Extension City. ... (view more)

Iso Disk Mount and create ISO disk images with this handy little tool. ISODisk is a free and powerful ISO disk image file utility that allows you to create up to 20 virtual CD/DVD drives. With it you can mount an .ISO disk image and access the files ... contained within the ISO image as if it were burned to CD or DVD. http://www.isodisk.com Mute Vista Do you find it annoying that Vista only lets you mute individual apps? If that's your dilemma then check out Mute Vista, is a simple VB.NET program to mute or un-mute the entire operating system. Click the 'freeware' link near top of the page, then ... (view more)

Two days ago we reported the case of Albert Gonzalez, a recently-apprehended hacker who went on a record-breaking credit card heist that cracked as many as 130 million accounts. Now, we're learning more about the man being the scheme, a veritable ... hacking prodigy raised on the craft from an early age. Albert Gonzalez was indicted in New Jersey earlier this week for what most consider to be the biggest credit card hack since the turn of the 21st century. Known around the Internet as the "soupnazi," a take on the curmudgeonly but very popular Seinfeld character, Gonzalez has been hacking for a ... (view more)

It seems all that press and some tasty "cashback" rewards have helped Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, gain more momentum in its race against industry rival Google. According to reports, Bing made more noise last month while its competitors took ... slight nose dives in popularity. Reporting on Bing's success is analyst firm comScore, which recently released figures revealing Microsoft's impressive climb in the search engine rankings. Back in late May, when Microsoft first released Bing, the Redmond-based company (known better for its operating systems and browser) held an 8 per cent market ... (view more)

Control Pad ControlPad turns the numeric keypad on your keyboard into a Windows command execution system. It's extremely handy for those of us who need to maximize their efficiency at work and at play. http://sector-seven.net Perfgraph Perfgraph is ... a CPU, memory, network, and hardware monitor. Implemented as an Explorer toolbar, Perfgraph offers CPU utilization display for up to 8 cores, a memory utilization indicator, network throughput monitoring via SNMP, network performance and reliability monitoring, CPU temperatures, and more! http://www.codefromthe70s.org Today's fresh software picks ... (view more)

It seems the troublesome Microsoft Word injunction is finally unearthing some real emotion from the Redmond-based software giant. In a recent court filing, Microsoft, sounding a bit desperate, warned that if the injunction continued to move forward ... it could inflict "irreparable harm" on the company. Some of you will recall that late last week a Texas federal judge ordered Microsoft to halt the resale of its very popular Microsoft Word because several of its functions -- those involving XML (.XML, .DOCX, or DOCM) -- infringe on Toronto-based i4i's patent . Issue More Serious Than Expected ... (view more)

Commands In Demand Commands in Demand is a program that provides easy access to more than 70 Windows commands and features that are normally difficult to find in Windows. The program includes shortcuts to terminate non-responsive applications, ... restart Windows Explorer, view/clear the clipboard, open a command prompt in a selected folder, access system folders, view TCP/IP configuration settings, and more. http://www.vasilios-free.gr Suse Studio With Suse Studio, you an build own custom Linux distribution with only a few mouse clicks. Customize it, and share it with the world. Even make it a ... (view more)

UNetbootin UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for a variety of Linux distributions, without requiring you to burn a CD. You can either let it download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply ... your own Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn't on the list. http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net Mp3 Quality Modifier Change the bitrate of your mp3 music collection in a really simple but intuitive way so that the filesize can be dramatically reduced while the audio quality stays the same. With this ... (view more)