Posts Tagged ‘Windows’

Renewed hope for Steam on Linux: Valve job boards looking for engineer to port Windows games

Posted by admin at 2 September 2010

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If we’re to believe this new job posting over at Valve, reports of Steam for Linux’s death may have been greatly exaggerated. As you can see, Valve is on the hunt for a senior engineer who can port Windows games to Linux.

If you recall VP Doug Lombardi’s actual words, he never said Steam for Linux was dead — only that they weren’t currently working on it. Maybe that’s because they just hadn’t found the right man or woman for the job yet. As Sebastian pointed out to me, this doesn’t necessarily mean “Steam for desktop Linux” — it could just as easily have to do with embedded gaming.

Whatever the case may be, the news is certainly a bit more encouraging than Lombardi’s interview.

[via Tech Drive-In]

update: as Kaushik points out (as do a few of our friends at Reddit) this one’s a tad on the old-and-moldy side. Linux gamers, return to your pining…

Renewed hope for Steam on Linux: Valve job boards looking for engineer to port Windows games originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Linux – Steam – LinuxSteam – Valve Corporation – DougLombardi

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ColorPix is a fast, free Windows color picker

Posted by admin at 2 September 2010

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I recently went on a search to find a good color picker for Windows that was both portable and fast so that I could stop making the trip to Photoshop whenever I needed to find a color value.

After trying a number of different applications, I was delighted to find ColorPix (an app from ColorSchemer, who is the developer behind the previously mentioned ColorSchemer Studio 2).

ColorPix has an interesting lock and unlock mechanic for selecting the color that you want to find. While the application is active, hitting any key will unlock the picker, which you can then move anywhere on your screen. Once you’ve found the color, hitting any key again will lock it in so that you don’t accidentally nudge the mouse while clicking to make your selection. It also includes a magnifier window to help with pixel precession at several different levels of zoom.

Once you’ve locked in a color, you can click anywhere on the RGB, HEX, HSB, or CMYK values and copy the individual color for the mode that you’re working in directly to the clipboard. If you want the HEX value, you can use the Ctrl+C shortcut to get it even faster.

My typical workflow consists of hitting Alt+Tab (to make ColorPix active), hitting Space to unlock the picker, finding the color I want, hitting Space again to lock it in, using the Ctrl+C shortcut to copy the HEX value, and then pressing Alt+Tab again to go back to the application that I’m working in. The grand total of time that I’m using is usually less then 15 seconds.

The only two features that I’d love to see added would be support for the HSL color mode and an option to change the RGB scale from 0-255 to 0-1.

ColorPix weighs in at about 600 KB and doesn’t require an installation; that makes it perfect for storing on Dropbox so that it is readily available whenever I need it.

Apps like ColorPix make my workflow a little faster and my life a little easier. It’s become one of my favorite productivity boosters that I use any time I’m doing design work. If you do a lot with color, it’s definitely worth a download.

ColorPix is a fast, free Windows color picker originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows – RGB color model – CMYK color model – Download Squad – Adobe Photoshop

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FilerFrog adds loads of useful actions to your Windows context menu

Posted by admin at 1 September 2010

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Want a way to put dozens of handy commands within two-click reach? Download FilerFrog and bolt it on to your context menu, and you’ll have a wide array of new tools available via your right mouse button as you browse your files and folders in Explorer.

Unlike some context menu multi-tools, FilerFrog installs only a single item on the top level of the context menu — everything else is tucked neatly into submenus. So what can FillerFrog do?

  • print directory contents
  • extract, split, and join files
  • move files up one level or to a recently accessed folder
  • copy the current path to the clipboard
  • resize images and swap formats
  • encrypt and decrypt files
  • quickly jump to favorite folders
  • perform bulk file renames
It’s a nice assortment of tools in a single package, and it’s not cluttering up my context menu the way some apps I’ve tested do. While I don’t need most of these commands on a regular basis, I do like knowing that they’re easy to get at when I do need them.

FilerFrog installers are available for both 32 and 64-bit Windows versions of Windows XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

[via gHacks]

FilerFrog adds loads of useful actions to your Windows context menu originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows 7 – Windows XP – Microsoft Windows – Windows Explorer – Context menu

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Windows Phone 7 goes RTM

Posted by admin at 1 September 2010

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Sure, Apple’s been stealing most of the blog headlines this afternoon, but Microsoft has some pretty big news of their own. Today, Windows Phone 7 was officially released to manufacturing — and the boys in Redmond are pretty stoked about it.

Microsoft’s Terry Myerson certainly sounds pumped in the official blog post. “We’ve had thousands of independent software vendors and early adopters testing our software and giving us great feedback. We are ready.”

As the Engadget crew points out, devices are unquestionably on their way — but we’re more interested in seeing some kick-butt apps and games… Which are also no doubt just around the corner.

Windows Phone 7 goes RTM originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft – Operating system – Apple – Windows Phone 7 – Software release life cycle

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About:labs lands in Google Chrome — brings tab overview to Mac, side tabs to Windows

Posted by admin at 1 September 2010

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Chromium — Google Chrome’s open source cousin — recently debuted the new about:labs page which brings easier access to bleeding-edge features. The Labs page provides a simpler, GUI-based system for enabling things like side tabs which you previously had to activate via command line switches.

In the latest Chrome Canary update, Labs has arrived. That means Mac users can now enable tab overview (an Expose-like feature which shows all your open tabs) and Windows users can play around with side tabs — no switches required! Just enable the feature on about:labs and restart, and you’re good to go.

Remember, this has just hit Canary — but the dev channel shouldn’t be too far behind.

Hopefully Google will begin adding other features to the page now that it’s made the jump to Chrome. First on our wish list; hardware acceleration!

Thanks for the tip, Jim!

About:labs lands in Google Chrome — brings tab overview to Mac, side tabs to Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Chrome – Download Squad – Google – Browsers – Open source

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Microsoft bringing back three-license Windows 7 Family Pack

Posted by admin at 1 September 2010

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People were pretty excited when Microsoft officially announced the Windows 7 Family Pack, and with licenses for three machines for $150, there was good reason for that excitement. Last year, the limited run was sold out within about six weeks — leaving a lot of potential customers in the lurch.

Don’t fret! Assuming you didn’t already go out and buy three licenses for your machines, you’re going to get a second shot at the Pack. Yes, Microsoft is bringing back the Windows 7 Family Pack to celebrate the first anniversary of the Windows 7 launch on October 22nd.

Better news: this time, the deal will be available outside the U.S. as well. The lucky countries include Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, and Australia. Microsoft is leaving the door open a bit; other countries may still be added to the list.

As before, it’s going to be a limited run, so make sure you grab a Pack as soon as you can.

Microsoft bringing back three-license Windows 7 Family Pack originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft – Windows 7 – Canada – France – Germany

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Windows Live Sync dies, zombie Live Mesh is reborn

Posted by admin at 27 August 2010

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When Microsoft revealed the first beta version of Windows Live Essentials, a number of Live Mesh users were a little miffed. In addition to dropping the name, Microsoft dialed back the free storage space from 5GB to 2GB.

Today, however, they’ve announced that they’re going to take a mulligan and un-re-name Live Sync. It’s going to be called Live Mesh after all, and more importantly you’re also going to get that extra 3GB of space back.

Mesh probably makes more sense anyway, what with Sync including the desktop remote functionality. But hey, who gives a rat’s patoot about the name when you can now cram in more than double the digital crud? Who knows, maybe some day they’ll open the floodgates and let us have Mesh access to the whole 25GB SkyDrive theoretically offers…

Windows Live Sync dies, zombie Live Mesh is reborn originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Live Mesh – Microsoft – Software release life cycle – Windows Live SkyDrive – Windows Live Essentials

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AeroTweak is an option-filled tweaking app for Windows 7

Posted by admin at 27 August 2010

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A while back, I ran down a list of 7 tweaking apps for Windows 7. One more worth knowing about is AeroTweak, a fully-portable Windows tweaking app which allows you to modify and disable a wide range of features.

AeroTweak lets you painless flip the switch on things like AeroShake, taskbar thumbnails, and low disk space notifications. It also provides one-click disabling of autoruns on all your drives, which is a nice way to enhance your system’s security (what with all those worms spreading from infected USB flash drives).

It’s also a bit like a gpedit.msc (the policy editor included in professional versions) replacement for Windows 7 home edition systems — which means those of you who want to quickly lock down things like Task Manager, Control Panel, and registry editing can use AeroTweak to do it quickly via a neatly-organized gui.

[via IntoWindows]

AeroTweak is an option-filled tweaking app for Windows 7 originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows 7 – Microsoft Windows – Control Panel – Taskbar – Task Manager

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Dell dropping Windows Phone 7 devices from its roadmap?

Posted by admin at 27 August 2010

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Now we don’t have much more to go on here than some analyst chatter and a lengthy article from TechCrunch, but if you believe what you read, a major player has just dropped Windows Phone 7 devices from its roadmap. And that player is Dell. According to Jonathan Goldberg, an telecom analyst at Deutsche Bank, the only remaining partners currently working on Windows Phone 7 handsets are HTC, Samsung, and LG. If this is true (and that’s a big if), that means that the seriously awesome looking Dell Lightning that we spied in leaks recently will never see the light of day — as a WP7 device, at least.

We already knew that HP was out of the game (instead focusing on webOS phones), but the casual suggestion that Dell has made for the door here is somewhat suspect. The company itself hasn’t made any statements (we’ve reached out but have yet to hear back), and while Dell has certainly concentrated a lot of effort on Android devices recently, its partnership with Microsoft is long-standing (despite dabbling in the world of open source). If the story turns out to be true, it could spell mixed (if not outright bad) tidings for the Windows Phone 7 launch, which Goldberg alleges may cost Microsoft upwards of half a billion dollars — no small fee. Losing two of the biggest computer-makers in the world can’t feel very good when you’re trying to fight your way back to relevancy, but at least on the bright side, neither HP nor Dell have a track record of making anything other than heroically mediocre handsets. Take this all with a grain of salt right now, however, as the author of the TechCrunch article provides no source for the statements from Goldberg, and… well, he’s an analyst, and they’re prone to making up all kinds of crazy things. We’re investigating, and will let you know as soon as we have more info.

Dell dropping Windows Phone 7 devices from its roadmap? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 10:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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uTorrent Quickly Patches Windows DLL Vulnerability

Posted by admin at 26 August 2010

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A critical Windows DLL vulnerability that makes several widely used programs targets for remote hijacks surfaced in the news this week. Among the affected applications are Firefox, Adobe Photoshop and uTorrent. Since the news broke dozens of exploits have already surfaced. Luckily uTorrent was one of the first to fix the vulnerability and now all users are encouraged to update their client.

utorrentDue to a DLL load hijacking vulnerability in the Windows operating system, dozens of applications have become a target for remote hijack exploits. Since Microsoft refuses to patch Windows, the developers of the affected applications have to take measures on their own.

After the news about the vulnerability became public earlier this week, several pieces of exploit code surfaced, attacks that allow outsiders to take control over the PCs of users who run the affected applications.

Included in the list of vulnerable programs are familiar names such as Firefox, Adobe Photoshop, VLC and also the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent. Upon hearing the news the uTorrent developer team didn’t sit still and yesterday an essential update was released that should fix the DLL vulnerability.

“There is a DLL vulnerability in all versions of Windows affecting a great deal of software applications. Subsequently, attack code targeting the uTorrent client surfaced on a third-party website, and while so far no attacks have been reported to us, we have released uTorrent 2.0.4 to fix this vulnerability,” uTorrent Community Manager ‘Firon‘ explained.

“The new client disables loading of DLLs from the current working directory and prevents this exploit from functioning,” Firon said, adding an ensuring message for uTorrent users. “We take our user’s security very seriously, and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.”

It is needless to say that all uTorrent users are encouraged to update their clients to the most recent version. With a userbase of more than 50 million monthly users uTorrent is a major target for exploits, so it’s good to see that BitTorrent Inc. takes these security threats seriously.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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