Brandon Dimmel

Talk about kicking a man, and his company, when they're down. Just two weeks after the (somewhat) shocking revelation that Duke Nukem developer 3D Realms was closing its doors forever , the company is not only being sued for breach of contract, it's ... also receiving jabs at its 80s-inspired protagonist. News of the 3D Realms meltdown became public on May 6, a shameful end for a company that once showed so much promise. The developer is best known for its Duke Nukem franchise, including the character's side-scrolling roots and his mid-90s climax as the cigar-chomping, alien-blasting star of ... (view more)

Icloud iCloud takes cloud computing to the next level. Now you can get your very own virtual computer online, complete with desktop, mail, applications, up to 50GB storage, and much more. Use Icloud for storing files online and open from any ... computer. http://icloud.com Firefox Optimized Not at all impressed with Microsoft's ubiquitous browser Internet Explorer? Not ready to take the plunge with Google's new Chrome? Still think Mozilla can do a little better with Firefox? Try Firefox Optimized for faster, less memory-intensive browsing. http://weblog.pigfoot.org Today's fresh software picks ... (view more)

Vmware Esxi Bare Metal Hypervisor VMware ESXi is the easiest way to get started with virtualization and it's free! Consolidate your applications onto fewer servers and start saving money through reduced hardware, power, cooling and administration ... costs. VMware ESXi has been optimized and tested to run even your most resource intensive applications and databases with minimal performance overhead. http://www.vmware.com Harden-It Harden-It is a network and system hardening tool for Windows. By hardening the IP stack, your network can sustain or completely thwart various sophisticated network ... (view more)

It's been some time since we had a massive laptop battery scare; breaking the stalemate is computer hardware giant Hewlett-Packard, which recently announced a recall of some 70,000 notebook battery packs for PCs across both the United States and ... Canada. The recall was issued on Thursday, May 14th, and includes lithium-ion batteries HP worries could overheat, "posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers." A Familiar Issue for HP In a report submitted by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC, HP and Health Canada revealed that in at least two instances batteries " ... (view more)

Kludgets Kludgets is an exciting new open-source widget engine that allows PC users to run Apple dashboard widgets on Microsoft Windows operating systems. http://kludgets.com Kidsmenu Designed to be a child friendly alternative or replacement ... windows shell, Kidsmenu is also functional as a normal launcher and menu application. Kidsmenu avoids some of the frustrations associated with the standard Windows shell (Explorer) when put in front of young children. For example, as there's no start menu, hitting the Windows key accidentally while playing a game won't show the start menu. http://glob. ... (view more)

The European Union (EU) has finally laid down its much-anticipated antitrust fine against microprocessor firm Intel. Almost a decade after rival Advanced Micro Devices first complained about Intel's business practices, the EU has slapped the latter ... with a massive 1.06 billion euro fine. The complaint was first lodged in 2001. The gist: eight years ago AMD claimed that competitor Intel had violated antitrust laws by pressuring retailers to push its own microprocessors over those of its rivals through retroactive rebates. Such practices made buying a processor cost-effective for everyone but ... (view more)

As Windows 7 slowly creeps towards its holiday season release date , consumers will undoubtedly be wondering if the upgrade is worth it. In this article we'll briefly discuss some of the key features in Windows 7 that you won't find in Vista or XP. ... Let's start with the features new to Windows 7 -- particularly those that will be most appealing to consumers interested in making an early upgrade, or buying a new PC with Windows 7 loaded. Customization and Power Saving Options Perhaps the best part of Windows 7 is its customization options. To say the least, this is the most configurable ... (view more)

Eject USB Eject USB is designed to close all programs running from a specified drive or folder. Extended functionality includes flushing the file cache, closing Explorer windows and removing registry entries and recent document shortcuts targeting ... the specified drive or folder. http://www.ejectusb.com Trash Reg TrashReg is an advanced Registry cleaning tool. The main function is to allow the removal of unnecessary keys from the Windows Registry. Many programs leave keys in the Registry, even after programs are removed through legitimate uninstall tools. Trash Reg allows you to decide whether ... (view more)

Service Tuner Service Tuner is a utility that lets users tweak the start-up state of the background services using presets. It is also capable of saving the current start-up state of all services, as well as restoring that saved state at a later ... time. Lastly, users have the options to start/stop, uninstall, and change their start-up state on the fly through a customizable tab. http://www.hiren.info Smart NTFS Recovery Smart NTFS Recovery is a data recovery tool for the Windows operating system that supports the NTFS file system. The software easily recovers data from hard disks and any type ... (view more)

In the tech world, Christmas time is key to successful sales. Failing to release Windows Vista by December 25, 2006 was a large setback for Microsoft, which afterwards watched in vain as consumers opted for the older XP instead. It's not clear if a ... Christmas release would have changed that for the likes of Vista, but holiday sales may have helped cement it as a 'must-have' for consumers. That said, Microsoft will likely not make that same mistake again. The Redmond-based company has confirmed that Windows 7 will in fact be released in time for the holidays, and the move could help drive up ... (view more)