Archive for the ‘gadgets’ Category
Sunday, May 30th, 2010 |
<p>Friends are an important part of our lives and the best way to keep your friends is to communicate with them because you can’t say a person is your friend if you only talk to them twice in a year. Any way, since our whole world revolves around the computer and the internet or any combination of the two – like a mobile phone with internet connectivity – most of my friends now communicate via the internet. And what cheapest and funniest way to talk to them and even see them in real time than the instant messeging services.
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There are more possibilities and one of them is Pidgin. Pidgin is actually a multi-protocol instant messaging client. It is compatible at the same time with the other IM services like Yahoo, Zephyr, SILC, MySpace IM and a lot more that you will find in the picture below. What really cool about this Pidgin is the fact that it allows you to be connected to all the above mentioned IM services simultaneously. You do not have to sign in and out of one of these every time you want to communicate with your friends or other IM users. You can talk to a friend using Yahoo messenger and with another one from MSN at the same time, with multiple windows opened. It’s absolutely wonderful to be able to do this.
Now you have the possibility to add your Pidgin list to your sidebar thanks to a new gadget that can be installed on any computer that has Windows Vista or Windows 7 installed – <strong>Pidgin gadget</strong>. This gadget is called Pidglet and can be easily downloaded and installed on your computer or any other device with internet access. The first thing you have to do is download the <strong>Pidgin gadget</strong> from Google or from <a href=”http://code.google.com/p/pidglet/” target=”_blank”>here</a> and you will get a package containing the plugin (a dll file) and a sidebar gadget installer (a .Gadget file).
If you want to install it on your computer and have it work immediately all you have to do is extract the contents of the package on your C: partition in Program files. There you will be able to find a directory called Pidgin plug-ins or Pidget gadget . Install it by simply performing the double click operation and then your sidebar gadget will be installed. But you still have to import all contacts from all the accounts of instant messeging you have if you want this to work. You will need the Pidgin plugins for this and you can access them from Tools , after restarting Pidgin.
When you go there and choose the plug-ins you will see a window with the available plug-ins. Just select the Pidget plug-in. This way you will see all your contacts from the accounts you sign in to on the windows sidebar. But if you have a long list of friends this can be a bit tiring and it will certainly get a lot of space, so you’d better limit the number of contacts to be displayed.
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Sunday, May 30th, 2010 |
The Super Solvers, Gizmos and gadgets is an old computer game that used to be very popular in the late 1990a and was discontinued in 1998. It was compatible with Windows 95 and 98 and they appeared on the market os CDs with the game on. The main purpose of the game was to teach children of age between 7 and 12 the different tools , machines, electronic devices and magnets that represented the basic technological knowledge for them.
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It was an educational game that was both fun and also brought basic information and skills for the children.It was a kind of a puzzle game , as you had to win 15 races by solving puzzles. you could do that if you changes 15 vehicles that you had to build of pieces. The component pieces could be found in different warehouses. The vehicle parts were kept in this warehouse that looked like a maize and the player had to navigate inside it and choose the part they needed.
Since the game was quite a hit in its time, some people still remember it and there are a few who still want to play it. As CDs with the game are very unlikely to have been kept for such a long time and if you found one you certainly could not use them for playing the game, as they deteriorate in time, the best thing to do is to try to find the Gizmos and gadget download version.
I found more web sites offering this for free, so feel free to visit these links and you might also find some new things about this game which, by the way, appears on Wikipedia, too: www.oldgames.nu, www.thepiratebay.org (via torrent), www.dosgamesonline.com, www.goldfiles.com . After you finish the Gizmos and gadgets download you can try playing it and you will have the pleasant surprise of discovering or rediscovering a very nice game that is totally different from the computer games you know.
Actually you will feel a kid again and it bring back memories from childhood. In this game your character is part of the Super Solvers team and , of course, you have to fight against an enemy – in this case Morty. You have to compete in all kinds of races in order to find out which one is the best. The best player has to prove he is a better scientist than the other and in order to do that they will have to solve puzzles and also build better and faster racing cars.
The game is actually pleasant and surprisingly well designed. It starts with the easier levels and increases in difficulty as you advance through the game, bringing more and challenging tasks. Because this is an educational game, there are a lot of explanations about the devices you have to use and you also learn how they work it practically as you can see what they do. The player the game addresses to is just a child and these children under 12 are fascinated by machines and also very thrilled by the sound effects, so this game is perfect for them with all those realistic buzzes and noises of the machines and also of the car races.The bottom-line is that, even though old, this is a nice and pleasant game to play.
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Sunday, May 30th, 2010 |
<p>A <strong>gadget game</strong> is a cool way of spending some free time when rain keeps you stuck inside the house. There are different cool websites where you can play the<strong> gadget game</strong> of your choice. In general, these are great mind games that are bound to keep the brain working while you go out there and try to solve puzzles and riddles that involve… well… gadgets
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An example of a website where you can find this type of games is <a href=”http://www.shegame.com/”>www.shegame.com</a>. This website offers games from lots of categories so not only are your able to play with gadgets, but you can choose between bomb games, boat games, even Bin Laden games, casino, chasing, chicken, collecting, jumping, horse, hockey, ice, kids, machine, magic, Mario, maze, pinball, puzzle, puppet, rescue, robots, role playing, running, scary, seduction, soccer, solitaire, sumo, stunts, space invaders, terrorist, Tetris, Tom & Jerry, traps, turtles, undead, war, water, zodiac, zombies and many, many more.
All of the games that you will find on this website need Abode Flash installed on your computer or laptop in order for them to work. For example, the title of a popular game played on this website is “The Package” which involves a bomb sent in a package which has already been activated. In order for the player to escape, he needs to solve the puzzles in order to survive. “Professor XYZ” is another gadget game that you may fancy. The mission of the player is to prevent Nip and Tuck from opening the safe.
Using a very simple machine, you must build a security system in order to prevent this from happening. Playing the game is easy as all you have to do is to click on the tools and then drag them to the most appropriate place inside the machine. After you close the toolbox, you can click the handle and then start up the machine. Nip and Tuck are said to be fast workers so you have to be quicker and catch them before their open up your safe.
“Art Thief” is another cool flash based gadget game that allows you to practice your skills as a painting thief. You are known as “The Specter” and you are master at disarming the most high-tech alarm systems to steal valuable work of art in order to sell them on the black market and earn some dirty cash. When you enter the museum, the clock starts ticking and there is little time for you to waste. You now have to start disabling the alarm system before the cops get to the museum and bust you.
The idea of the game is pretty simple: the faster you are in turning off that alarm, the more money you get the chance to earn on the black market. This is the time to sniff out the alarm codes and see what everyone admires you for. Other cool game titles are “Operation STAT”, “Ant city” or “Lords 3 – Catapult”. And if these don’t sound fun enough, try some other gadget game websites.
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Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 |
People have always been fascinated by the Moon first because it is the biggest celstial body that can be seen from Earth, being at the same time the closest one. It was thought to be a goddess until they realized it’s in fact the natural satellite of our planet. People in the ancient times depended a lot on the Moon, as it provided the light they needed during the night, so cavemen for example only went hunting during the nights with full moon. Again medieval legends said that night’s creatures were awoken by the full moon and it turned people into ware wolves. But the Moon is still affecting us all. It causes the tides and also influences people’s sleep. I personally find it very difficult to sleep when it’s a full moon ( maybe I used to be a hunter in another life).
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Easter is also established according to the Moon phases – just ask a priest and he will tell you exactly. So I think it is very interesting to know when it’s a full moon or a new moon. you don’t necessarily have to be an astronomer or an astrologist to be preoccupied of these things. If you know the moon phases you can plan some very practical activities that require dark or , on the contrary , Moon’s light. For example I plan my camping trips with the family only when it’s a full moon, in order to have the necessary light for a nice outing and avoid getting my kids scared in the dark. It’s a lot cheaper than having lots of flashlights and also a lot more enjoyable. Then the new moon nights are perfect for those passionate of astronomy or who want to learn something about stars. Join your son for a night of star exploring activity , so keep an eye on the calendar to know when to plan it.
<p>For all the activities that I mentioned above and also for various other reasons (just for fun maybe) you need a nice gadget called <strong>Moon phase Vista gadget</strong>. It can be installed on your computer easily by downloading it for free. It needs very little space and displays a picture of the Moon in the present phase. It updates all the time and this picture changes when the Moon phase is changing. You also have the possibility to find out what Moon phase will be in a certain night in a certain month because you will access a calendar when you click the Moon icon. Some of the types of Moon phase Vista gadget allow you to see a fading image of the Moon when it is rising or setting down, which is cool in my opinion. Any way, there is no need for you to have the whole table with all the Moon phases in a week or in a month, but only the image of the Moon phase for the day.
When you open that window just pick a certain pase and see what nights in that month will have full moon for example. You will also see if the Moon is 30% full or 70% full. You can now download this gadget for free <a href=”http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=3f2a765f-1114-4f69-bc57-ba736f16c3a0″ target=”_blank”>here</a>, <a href=”http://www.softpedia.com/get/Windows-Widgets/Widget-Miscellaneous/Full-Moon.shtml” target=”_blank”>here</a> and <a href=”http://www.thoosje.com/vista-sidebar-gadgets-livestyle.html” target=”_blank”>here</a>.
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Friday, May 21st, 2010 |
<p>I don’t know about other people, but I just love having all the information I need handy and easy to reach, that is why my desktop is always full of icons. I have a lot of shortcuts but also a lot of gadgets installed on my computer, so when I need to know something I just find the information in a glimpse of an eye. That can be really useful, especially when you have such a gadget as a CPU metre installed that displays your CPU parameters, so you will know instantly if something is wrong and take the necessary measures before it gets worse.
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<p>I guess those people who released the Vista with all the gadgets it offers thought about people like me. You now have the possibility to install one or more of those gadgets on your desktop either as part of the toolbar or “floating” on the desktop. Any way one of my favorite gadgets is <strong>Vista currency gadget</strong> because it is rather small and easy to use and it also updates permanently showing you the currency exchange rates of the moment. You can choose the main parity you are interested in, for example USD/EUR like it is shown in the picture below or any other currency. This can be very useful for the people working in the trade business, in the financial markets or in any other field that has direct connection with different currencies. It is very important because you can lose or earn some money according to this parity, so it’s a good thing to always keep an eye on it.
<p>Imagine that you are a businessman, not necessarily a big one, buying your merchandise from USA and selling it in Europe. You just have to know exactly the cost of the deals you make and how much you will get from any transaction and so on. It can also be very useful if you go on holiday in a different country and want to have some idea about prices, to see if they are big or right, by introducing them into this nice tool and getting the value in the currency at your choice, the one that you are used to.</p>
<p>If you are interested you can get the Vista currency gadget <a href=”http://www.topshareware.com/vista-sidebar-gadget-currency-converter/downloads/1.htm” target=”_blank”>here</a> (either as free trial or purchase the whole version) or <a href=”http://www.softpedia.com/get/Windows-Widgets/Widget-Finances-Business/Financial-Info.shtml” target=”_blank”>here</a>.Just download the gadget and install it on your computer and you will have this useful tool ready to use in no time.
<p>Even if many people complained about Windows Vista for various reasons, especially because it is annoyingly asking you the same thing again and again and some other downsides I won’t detail right now, I found it innovative in many aspects. The fact that it brings you the possibility to use all these eleven gadgets directly is one of them. It may be space eating, but it’s convenient, at least for some people. You might want to try it and then remove it from your computer if you find it useless for you.
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