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U Gt Skoold!

Online gaming is evolving.  In the dying out ages of Flash gaming, you had to guide a little cartoon character across platforms, watching out for various moving bits of food.
  Instant Action is the future of online gaming.  On the website you have a various bunch of online games which are in full 3D, which play directly from your browser.  You can choose to play these games online or on single player.  The games themselves vary from simple marble games (which get VERY complicated), to full-on FPS shooters (which have yet to be released but have been promised).
  Inviting friends to join awards you with credits, which can be used to purchase stuff (I don't know what I'm not an expert).  The website is currently in BETA mode but is still DEFINITELY worth signing up for (its free!)!
  P.S. Sorry I forgot to update the song, homework and that (its soooo antisocial)!


More Desktop Fun!

This is another funny yet slick addon for your desktop.  There's not much to describe about it past the picture.


I've Been Meaning To Clean That Up...

Entertaining yourself without Internet connection can be tough.  So that's why they have invented Real Desktop (Google it), a program that you can set to run on startup that makes your desktop look as shown below.  Move, arrange and throw about icons that would usually be sitting painfully still.  There's a free Lite version or you can pay for a more enhanced one.  Definitely worth using!


WHY?!

I HAVE JUST TRIED TO GO ON TO WWW.TVCATCHUP.COM BUT WAS CONFRONTED BY A MESSAGE SAYING THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN TERMINATED.  AND YOU CAN TELL I'M ANGRY ABOUT THAT BECAUSE I HAVEN'T TAKEN OFF MY CAPS LOCK...
  THEY SAY THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE SO WHY AM I NOT ALOUD TO WATCH THE  TV ON MY PC!
  THIS IS JUST LIKE WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT OTHER WEBSITE THAT LET YOU WATCH TELEVISION (WWW.TVLINKS.COM).  GRRRRRRRRR!

FilmOff...

I don't know whether or not you've heard of the new www.filmon.com, but I gave it a try and thought it to be absolute rubbish.
  I found out about it on a banner of a bus (and was quite drawn to the imagery - hubba hubba), and after ages of putting it off I finally took a look at it.  Basically it's like YouTube charging you for good quality videos.  Yes, really, you do have to pay for the majority of the material.  Ugh...
  Finishing this entry on the lighter side, this week's track is Ice Cream by New Young Pony Club from their album Fantastic Playroom.  You know, that song from the strange Intel advert (and from a FIFA game I think)...


Back It Up A Bit!

So you've just lost your pen drive or folder with all the files you needed to keep on it.  Don't PANIC!  With www.adrive.com you get 50GB worth of FREE and secure storage space to back up all you need.  I've tried it and it's relatively easy.  If you need a bigger storage space and you still don't want to pay, also look out for www.mediamax.com and www.xdrive.com, which offer 25GB and 5GB of storage space respectively.  That's 80GB in total of FREE storage space!


Side-Splitter.  Seriously.

Usually you don't see a lot of gore that's not some movie special effect.  I recently got an e-mail with a link from a Japanese YouTube equivalent showing some seriously unlucky guy on a moped who was caught on CCTV.  If you're not squeamish, then check it out at:
http://share.youthwant.com.tw/sh.php?id=23003335

Breakthrough!?

After all these years of fighting piracy and illegal music downloading, the ingenious idea of Qtrax has stepped into the fray.
  Qtrax is a P2P software that provides over 25 million (and growing) LEGAL songs to download.  Legal?  Yes, actually.  They compensate for putting the artist's songs available for free download by putting ads that don't disturb the downloader in the store.  After reading this in a newspaper I decided to give it a go.
  One problem though is that an annoyed Steve Jobs is not prepared to make his iStore content free, so at the moment you cannot get your Qtrax files on an iTunes Library.  Takes out the point of Qtrax, I think.
  First I got Qtrax Beta and installed it on my PC.  It asked me if I wanted to upload any songs on my computer to the iTunes equivalent.  Nope.  I then had to register, where I was asked ridiculous questions (at one point I was forced to enter an American zipcode and, being a Brit, just thought of 90210).  I picked some music I fancied, clicked download, but the pop-up said download coming soon.  I was pretty annoyed but I'm not going to give up.
  Give Qtrax a go, it's not available for Mac OSX yet but it will be soon.  Once it comes out of Beta mode I think it will be a thriving community of pleased customers!


Funky!

Sorry I have not been able to make any additions to this website for a few days (schoolwork and that), but I have got some good news!
  There is now music on this website!  The song will be changed weekly sometime roughly on Friday evening and will be automatically played when you enter this website.  The player is located at the bottom of the page if you want to stop the song.  This week's track is Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by French house duo Daft Punk
  Problems with the guestbook?  Keep checking because I WILL get it working again.


Look At 'Em Go!

If you like little 3d prism creatures clambering about your desktop then you'll love Binary Toys.  It's an .exe that doesn't even need installing that gives you a wide manner of creatures to play around with.  Check it out on the downloads section!


MacBook Air?  MacBook Meh...

Apple top gun Steve Jobs recently announced his new creation - the world's thinnest laptop, MacBook Air.  It's 2cm thick at it's thickest point, has 80GB hard-disk space, 5 hour battery life and an Intel Duo Core 1.6Ghz processor packed into it.  Sounds good?  Wrong!
  To me this is just another attempt by Jobs to give a piece of rubbish electronics a makeover like he did with the iPhone.  It does not even have a DVD drive!  What use is that?  I'm also pretty sure it's super fragile.  My honest opinion is to stick to Apple's other MacBooks or even something like a Dell Inspiron.  They're quite good!


It Brings Imitating People To A Whole New Level!

Now it may not be free to download, but graphic boffins Reallusion have got a new programme entitled Crazy Talk.  The easy user interface enables you to upload any of your pictures or a snapshot from a TWAIN supported device, identify points of the face and then create or upload a script and make that face talk.  Basically you can make any sort of face be it an animal or a human and give it speech.  You can even add emotions.  See it in action in the Crazy Talk YouTube video as shown on this website.  The best part yet is that the output can be an .avi or an .htm or even a .3gp!  The possibilities are endless! 


You Know!  The Song That Goes...

Have you ever heard a song you really like and you want it but all you can remember about it is how it goes.  Well have a Pick at www.midomi.com, a website where you can hum a tune into your microphone and get told the name to the song and who sings it.  It actually works! La laa laaa laaaa laaaaa...


For Those Of You With Internet And No Freeview PVR...

I recently came across an extremely useful website called www.tvcatchup.com.  You simply just register for free and receive 10GB worth of movies to record your favourite shows from a TV guide or index of shows from all the UK Freeview channels like BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five and so on.  Never miss a program again with the Series Link Tool, and lend or receive missed recordings to and from people.  Who says using the Tape Recorder is still better?


BEWARE THE XP WIDGETS!

I'm not usually the one to dissuade people but this piece of PC kit is a must-not-have.  I always thought of widgets as cool little desktop pets that you could do anything with, but since I am running Windows XP they didn't come with my machine.  So I try getting Yahoo! Widgets.  Great fun... until I  was confronted with the Blue Screen Of Death for the umpteenth time in my life!  It was so good I didn't want to remove it from my PC even though I had to.
  To help my widget addiction I tried Google Desktop, which are the widgets actually used on Vista.  I had them on my computer for a while until I realized all they were really doing was slowing down my PC.  There wasn't really a wide range of widgets like on Yahoo!.
  I guess my opinion is to go with Yahoo! widgets if your an XP user who wants some useful widgets on their desktop - but expect the usual Yahoo! software failure that is soon to follow...


Literally "Explore" The Internet

The new generation of browsing HAS arrived.  3B is an innovative new browser in which you create a 3D avatar which walks around cities filled with walls of Internet websites.  Make your own room full of your favourites, upload a Myspace or even have a conversation with over avatars across the world!  Includes built-in Firefox browser.  Give it a Pick!


Your StickFigure Dreams...

If you like watching animations of little stick men playing around a blank screen (see Animator vs. Animated) then you'll love Pivot.  It's a stick figure animating software that uses stop motion frame capture and movable joints to produce a .gif movie.  Also check out droidz.com to download a manner of stick creations and props to enhance your epic animation.  Becoming a YouTube star has never been this easy!


Headshot!

Want a huge FPS Hi-Res thrill straight from your desktop.  Try Phosphor.  It's a 3D FPS that runs with Shockwave.  It's still in BETA and only contains one map but there is a working multiplayer mode and a range of 4 classic and futuristic weapons.  It's probably one of the most advanced internet games out there currently.  Google it.


Welcome To The Pick!

The Pick is a brand new blog based on the latest tech and the coolest websites!  I hope to be able to constantly update it with all the latest websites, software and games.  Got a good website yourself that you want to share?  Post it to this site with the guestbook!  Keep coming back here to this website and remember - keep Picking!


Simple blog filled with cool websites and software that is constantly updated. Your source of PC entertainment!