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December 06
Atari Arcade: is the official place to play beloved Atari classics online, any time and free of charge.
Adventure - Few games can be said to have created a genre. But Atari’s Adventure is rightfully considered by many to be the first ever action-adventure game. It was also the first ever to allow a player to have a stash of items, requiring the player to select which one to use at any given moment. Your mission: find the enchanted chalice and return it to the gold castle.
Asteroids - No history of the Golden Age of Arcade Games is complete without praising Asteroids, a game so popular that video arcade owners were sometimes forced to install larger boxes to hold the amount of quarters that were spent by players.
Battlezone - A forefather of today’s 3D action games, Battlezone was introduced in 1980. It was so advanced at the time that the U.S. Army ordered modified versions of the games for training purposes.
Crystal Castles - Noteworthy for being one of the first arcade games with an actual ending, in Crystal Castles the player controls Bentley Bear, who collects gems located throughout castles while avoiding enemies out to get him as well as the gems.
Lunar Lander - Often duplicated, never equaled. The objective of Lunar Lander is to pilot a lunar landing module as it prepares to touch down on the moon. With gravity, a finite fuel supply and the craft’s handling characteristics to contend with, find one of the flat areas for a safe landing.
Yars' Revenge - Atari's best selling original title for the 2600, you are a Yar: an insectoid creature who must nibble or shoot through a barrier in order to fire his "Zorlon Cannon" into the breach and destroy the evil Qotile.
December 04
Microsoft's Office 2010 Newsgroups Forums provides a place to discuss the Office 2010 program and other information around the new version of Office. You are welcome to post questions, comments and thoughts about your experience. (Thanks Clint)
Office 2010 Forums:
Microsoft has released their Bing API Software Development Kit (SDK) containing a Compiled HTML Help file and code samples for developing applications with the Bing API.
The Bing API Software Development Kit provides:
- A Compiled HTML Help file that documents core concepts, available protocols and SourceTypes, and reference infomation necessary for developing applications with the Bing API.
- 65 code samples covering each of three protocols (JSON, XML, and SOAP) for each SourceType in multiple languages (JavaScript for JSON, Visual Basic and C# for XML and SOAP).
Microsoft has released a Free 30 Day Trial Evaluation of their Windows Home Server Free with Power Pack 3. With Windows Home Server, you can back up all of your family's PCs automatically. Plus you can connect, organize, and share your photos, videos, music, and other files with friends and family. (Thanks Nicole)
PROTECT: Back up and restore files and PCs - Windows Home Server completes an image-based back up of every home computer every day, so you can restore a single file or an entire PC.
- Restore home computer step by step.
- Data recovery step by step.
CONNECT: Access your data anywhere - You and your family can now access the home network-at home, in the office, or even on the road.
- Connect and upload photos step by step.
ORGANIZE: Store and share digital files - Organize your digital media in a central location, making it easier to share photos, music, videos, and more.
- Organize, store, and stream your digital files step by step.
GROW: Increase your storage capacity - Easily increase your data storage, by adding additional internal or external hard drives of any size, and install innovative add-ins to make the most of your home network.
- Increase your data storage step by step.
December 03
Microsoft has released their "MSN Search Toolbar" upgrade to "Bing Search Toolbar" for Firefox & Internet Explorer.
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Easy access to entertainment, breaking news, videos & more.
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Be productive while surfing with confidence using the new integrated Safety Center.
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Customize your toolbar by adding and arranging features.
December 02
NOTE: Asynchronous UDFs are exactly what they sound: you can create a user-defined function (UDF) which starts some asynchronous process (such as sending out a request) and immediately returns. Excel tracks the pending result. When the result becomes available, the add-in sends it back to Excel through a call-back function. This lets you send out many external requests at the same time, to be concurrently run on external resources.
New Holiday Goodies:
- Install Yule Log Visualization for Windows Media Player
- Open Windows Media Player
- Go to Now Playing --> Visualizations --> Yule Log
- Play your music
Vintage Holiday Goodies for Windows XP:
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Christmas Theme 2004 – A Christmas desktop theme with new wallpaper, animated cursors, new icons, new sounds, and a 3D screensaver.
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Digital Photography Winter Fun Pack 2003 – The holidays are a great time to share photos with friends and family. This download includes several tools that let you display your photos on your PC in fun ways, or create cards with holiday-themed templates.
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Windows Media Player 9 Winter Fun Pack 2003 – Dress up your Player for the holidays, organize your holiday music, or reorganize your whole music library. The Winter Fun Pack includes skins, auto playlists, a visualization, and a tool to export details about your whole catalog to put you and your computer into the holiday spirit.
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Winter Fun Pack for Windows Movie Maker 2 (2002 & 2003) Check out this expansive collection of wintry sound effects, holiday music, titles, video titles and cut scenes!
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Winter Fun Screensavers – “Holiday Snowflakes” transforms your computer monitor into a winter wonderland with three-dimensional snowflakes falling from the sky.
DO IT YOURSELF:
Microsoft Office Clip Art & Templates
Odds & Ends
I blame John Howard for starting all this!
December 01
Microsoft has released two more Office 2010 Developer & Deployment Tools:
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Office 2010 Tool: Compatibility Inspector compares existing (legacy) code against the Office 2010 object model by using a text search for known properties and methods that have changed. You can run the tool against specific projects. You also have the option to mark those areas in the code where text search has identified a possible object model match. The comment will include description of what was found along with possible remediation link to online content or help.
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Currently installed applications and installation environment
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Add-ins currently in use by Office clients
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Programs that are not registered as add-ins but still interact with Office programs
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Report: Environmental assessment (potential upgrade issues)
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Report: Add-ins assessment--list of third party programs and information about the compatibility of those programs with Microsoft Office 2010
Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft .NET Framework provides a source code library that can be used to access some features of Windows 7 and Windows Vista from managed code. These Windows features are not available to developers today in the .NET Framework. (Thanks Mike)
The individual features supported in this version (v1.0.1) of the library are:
Jump Lists, Icon Overlay, Progress Bar, Tabbed Thumbnails, and Thumbnail Toolbars
Windows 7 Libraries
Windows Shell Search API support
Explorer Browser Control
A hierarchy of Shell Namespace entities
Windows Shell property system
Drag and Drop for Shell Objects
Windows Vista and Windows 7 Common File Dialogs, including custom controls
Known Folders and non-file system containers
Direct3D 11.0, Direct3D 10.1/10.0, DXGI 1.0/1.1, Direct2D 1.0, DirectWrite, Windows Imaging Component (WIC) APIs
- Windows Vista and Windows 7 Task Dialogs
- Sensor Platform APIs
- Extended Linguistic Services APIs
- Power Management APIs
- Application Restart and Recovery APIs
- Network List Manager APIs
- Command Link control and System defined Shell icons
November 30
Microsoft's Forefront Team has (finally) joined Twitter. (Thanks Joel)
November 27
On October 13, Microsoft announced they were sponsoring a “commercial-free” Special Episode of Family Guy.
November 26
Microsoft's Office Project 2010 Team has (finally) joined Twitter. (Thanks Steven)
November 24
- Microsoft Excel 2010 Beta
- Microsoft Outlook 2010 Beta
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 Beta
- Microsoft Word 2010 Beta
November 23
Explore as Administrator PowerToy overcomes the limitations of Windows Explorer inability to throw up a UAC prompt when creating a folder within or copying a file into a protected folder such a Program Files or Windows. This is because, when running as a administrator with UAC enabled, your standard user token does not have write permissions to these protected folders.
Microsoft Office Home and Business "Click-to-Run" 2010 Beta is the essential software suite for managing small businesses and working from home. Enhanced tools and features help you run your business, connect with customers, and organize your household more efficiently. Office Home and Business 2010 features new photo, video, and text effects for creating standout documents and presentations. New communication tools in Outlook 2010 help you stay in touch and organized. Office Home and Business 2010 makes it easier than ever for you to manage things in the office, at home, or in between.
Manage your business more efficiently with flexible tools.
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Organize finances with Excel 2010 and get data analysis tools to make informed decisions at a glance.
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Share and edit documents with business partners, customers, or friends using Web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2010.
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Manage projects and resources from a single place by organizing your information in OneNote 2010.
Upgrade your customer communications.
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Create professional-looking communications faster with easy-to-use templates in Word and PowerPoint 2010, then add polish with updated text effects, photos, or videos.
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Minimize inbox clutter with new conversation management tools in Outlook 2010.
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Manage contact information from anywhere with Outlook 2010 on any PC or your mobile phone.
Organize and simplify your household routine.
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Help your child create high-quality class presentations using a variety of tools for adding video, photos, and text effects in PowerPoint 2010.
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Prepare and manage a budget easily with ready-to-use templates and analysis tools in Excel 2010.
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Connect with others, manage your calendar, and stay on top of your to-dos with Outlook 2010.
What is Click-to-Run? Click-to-Run is a new way to download and install Microsoft Office which uses virtualization to allow you to use your Office programs as they are streamed and cached on your computer. To enable you to use your Microsoft Office programs while they are streamed to your computer, the Microsoft Office Click-to-Run service is installed to your computer. Once streaming has completed, your Office suite is also completely installed to your computer and available when you are offline.
Microsoft's MSN Arabia has released a free set of 10 EID (local) "Holiday" Emoticons for Windows Live Messenger.
November 21
Microsoft Office Outlook Connector (version 14.0.4514.1004) - access and manage your Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail or Microsoft Office Live Mail accounts, including e-mail messages, contacts and calendars for free from within Outlook 2010. (Thanks Anirban)
RAW pictures are high-quality, uncompressed files that differ by camera manufacturer. Some common file name extensions for RAW picture files include: .cr2, .crw, .dng, .nef, .orf, .rw2, .pef, .arw, .sr2, .srf, and .tif.
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Canon (.CR2, .CRW & .TIF)
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Nikon (.NEF Nikon Electronic Format)
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