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Are you a windows user? If you are, do you sometimes swear at your computer and wish it had more useful things or get free apps that are as good as the ones that cost? If so I have brought you a treat alright. Here are the top ten must have free windows downloads:

#10:
7-Zip- A file archive manager that replaces winRAR and winzip. It accepts all common zip formats and is an easy to use manager that is also open source. Download here: http://7-zip.org/

#9:
Foxit-Reader- If you wait and wait for Adobe Reader to load up your PDF’s while taking up system resources, this is perfect for you. It’s light and speedier than most PDF readers. Download here: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

#8:
SyncBack- Regardless of what platform or size, this utility backs up anything you want. Keep your data safe with the thought of it never going away. It’s light and speedy. Download here: http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html

#7:
Picasa- This lightweight photo manager developed by google is by far one of the best photo managers out there, regardless of it being priced or free. Organize, tweak and publish your photos with amazing features and a slick UI. Download here: http://picasa.google.com/

#6:
Notepad++- Don’t ever subject yourself to Notepad’s anemia again. Notepad++ is a free, open source, tabbed editor that handles much more than just plain text. Download here: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

#5:
foobar200- If you have been searching for the most lightweight, skinnable amd pluggable free music player, you WANT foobar200. In reviews from famous gadget blogs, they say they would pick this over WMP or iTunes. Download here: http://www.foobar2000.org/

#4:
Trillian- if you have multiple chat accounts and don’t like logging in completely different websites, you should take a look at Trillian. You can log into AIM, MSN, Yahoo! and IQC IM accounts on this one application. You can also skin it to make it look the way you want it to from the available skins on their site. Download here: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

#3:
Paint.NET- If Windows default Paint application was a paper airplane, Paint.NET would be a fighter jet. Get powerful image editing features associated with expensive photo editors like Photoshop for free with Paint.NET. The required free .NET framework installation is worth it for multi-image support, layers, and advanced effects. Good Photoshop substitute. Download here: http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

#2:
Quake III- This amazing yet old shooter game is now available as a free download. Walk through levels melting people with your plasma gun or blowing them up with your rocket launcher. Either way, you’ll have fun! Download here: http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,4100-page,1-c,action/description.html

#1:
Mozilla Firefox- This one is a must have. The most secure and speediest and coolest browser on the world should be downloaded if you don’t have it. It has great resources and blows IE7 out of the water. Download here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Honorable mentions:Open office- word processor, Opera-open source browser, Windows Blinds-windows skinning program, GIMP-photo editor. I’m not giving you download links for the honorable metions. I’m tired. Just google them.

Yes, all the Microsoft fanboys REJOICE! Microsoft’s rip-off of the slim PS2 has been somewhat confirmed! At a press event, Microsoft India said that the rumored Xbox 360 Slim is REAL and we should expect to get the announcement of it sometime in December, just in time for the holidays! I’m just waiting for Microsoft to deny it, then announce it in December.

Yes, this weekend, Anay and I will be going to Wired NextFest with a video camera and gonna take videos and do floor reports! Hang on to your butts, this is gonna rock!

Edit: Due to conflicts with other already planed… well… plans… we will still cover NextFest, just not this weekend. We will cover it sometime in October. Sorry for the broken promise.

Me, Anay can go on Sun., meaning I’ll get some coverage. Note, some. Try too look for the post about the NextFest around Mon.-Tue.

First of all, sorry for no new updates lately. Anay and I have had a lot of things to do. Now, on to teh review!

Fracture is the new third-person shooter from LucasArts. Yes, the same LucasArts who made the ever so disappointing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The demo came out the 18th of September and I finally got it and beat it.

The big hook of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was that The Force was a powerhouse of… well… power. The big hook in Fracture is what they call Terra Deforming. Let me clear it up for you:

Terra Deforming is the opposite of Terrforming. Terraforming is the act of creating terrain, hence the terra. Terra DEforming is the act of destroying terrain. Here’s an example.

The Terra Deforming in Fracture is actually real cool. It’s easy and quick to use (coughunlikeforceunleashed’sforcepowerscough) and you can use it in a variety of different ways. You can use the Left Bumper (I played it on my Xbox 360) to lower (if I am correct) the ground and the Right Bumper to raise it. That easy. Of course, there are the weapons that Terra Deform in a more fancy way, but to just do a simple raise or lower, that easy. The shooting is very good. It’s just what you would expect from a shooter game. Now, when you mix those two, it makes for the need of a strong mind. You can raise the ground to act as a wall to fire from or you can lower the ground and hide in the hole. You can raise the ground around an enemy to trap him or lower the ground he’s on to make him fall. You can use it to your advantage in many different ways.

Now, with all this said, it’s not all good. The demo suffers from the same fate as The Force Unleashed, IT’S. TOO. SHORT. You can finish it in about 5 - 15 going straight through. Now I took about 20 -30 minutes because I explored a bit, messed around with the weapons, and even found a few secret areas. It was also a bit too easy, but I was only playing on normal.

So, from what I have played, I would say this would be a rent for me when it comes out. It’s fun, but not so fun that I am like “I NEEDZ IT!” It still needs some tweaks and if they tweak it right, it will be a good game. Fracture comes out October 7, 2008 on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3.

So, UC Irvine professer Bonnie Nardi is awesome. She managed to get $100,000 to research (get ready) World of Warcraft. Yes, she was funded to study a video game. One question, why the heck am I not going to this school?

Source

Most of you have probably heard of photoshop before. If you have, you probably also heard how expensive it is. Well GIMP is here to save the day! GIMP is probably the best Photoshop alternative out there. It’s also a very light-weight program, meaning your computer wont run slow when yourun it, unlike Photoshop. Remove red-eye, balance shades, change light and texture, it’s all here. If you want it, download it here.

First, I know this is very late, but we just got the website up and running. So live with it. Now, on to the review.

“The Slip” is Nine Inch Nails’ 8th studio album and is also “Halo 27.” It’s called Halo 27 because (for all the people who don’t know) NIN labels everything they release, albums, singles, EPs, DVDs, EVERYTHING with a Halo number. The process of this album’s release was like this:

1: Trent Reznor posted the words “Two Weeks” on NIN’s website. Many people thought this meant another album because this was the same thing Trent did two weeks before the release of “Ghosts I-IV,” but many thought it was something else because Trent is infamous for taking up to 4 years to complete one album and “Ghosts I-IV” was released only 2 months earlier.

2: A bit later, the single “Discipline” was released to radio and on NIN’s website as a free download. The album was labeled as “?” and the extra comments said “Go to NIN.com on May 5th.”

3: May 5th finally came. A message written by Trent Reznor was put up. It said this: “thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one’s on me”. Alongside this message was a download link to download NIN’s new album, “The Slip”, for free. It was released as MP3’s from the site, or FLAC, Apple Lossless, 24-bit, 96 kHz FLAC or WAV files from official torrents. I jumped on that like a monkey jumping for another branch.

Now, for the review:

Track One - 999,999: The intro track to “The Slip.” A very calm song with Trent saying “How did I slip into?” at the end. A very nice build up, and gives the beginning of 1,000,000 just that much more punch. 4/5

Track Two - 1,000,000: The first track with vocals and I have never heard a song that made me want to go and start a riot more. It comes in fast and hard and never stops one bit. It’s like a full-out nuclear attack on your ears. The drums are instantly recognizable and one of the, if not THE, most important parts of the song. Trent’s constant yelling (like he always does) just adds that much more punch and the ever so distorted guitar sounds like someone injected an ounce of musical static into the mixture, but, as always, it works perfectly. 5/5

Track Three - Letting You: From one riot-inducing song to another, Letting You sounds like NIN + extra distortion. Trent’s yelling during the chorus and his middle ground between yelling and singing in the verses make it feel like a whole marching army is singing.  The drums are amazing, especially during the chorus, and the guitar is pushed to the limit with tons of different effects used and insanely fast playing. If you didn’t get up and punch someone in the face because of 1,000,000, this will be your saving grace. 5/5

Track Four - Discipline: Now, this is where we start to settle down. This is the album’s first, and as of right now, only single and it doesn’t have nearly as much punch as the last two tracks. Now, I’m not saying it’s a BAD song, it’s good. I just don’t seem to like it as much as the other tracks on the album. Trent’s “OoohoohoohOOHH”ing actually works well and the drums, as simple as they are, are still awesome. The guitar isn’t pushed to it’s limits at all, but it still provides a nice backing. The piano is almost haunting and adds that final touch. But all in all, I’m not THAT big of a fan of the lyrics. It sounds like they were trying to make “Closer Jr.” 3/5

Track Five - Echoplex: Now, this is one of my favorite songs on this album, and it is well deserving of that title. True, it’s a hell of a lot calmer then the past few songs, even Discipline, but the simplicity really contributes to the feeling that Trent is alone, as he sings. The guitar is very cool, very much during the bridge. The drums are samples this time but still are really cool. The piano is very chilling and adds a creepy undertone to the song. The last lines leave the song with bringing that creepy undertone up from under the song and bring it to view. 5/5

Track Six - Head Down: Now we get back to the riot-causing songs. The verse is nothing but distortion. The guitar is distorted. The drums even sound a bit distorted. Trent’s yelling comes back to say hello during the verses but during the chorus, it changes places with his singing voice. The chorus is A LOT calmer then the rest of the song and is actually kinda calming. The piano really helps bring the calming effect and the softness of the guitar is calming also. It feels like a relay race between the fast, jock type guy and the slow, fat nerd. But in a good way. 5/5

Track Seven - Lights In The Sky: This song actually creeps me out. All it is is Trent and a Piano. Nothing more. That’s it. The verse is very calming and the chorus is just downright haunting. Trent’s heartfelt lyrics add to the creepy effect so much and almost gives you goosebumps. It may be the shortest song on the album (apart from 999,999), but it is the album’s somewhat hidden gem. 5/5

Track Eight - Corona Radiata: Before the review, Corona Radiata is a part of your brain. It’s an actual body part. That’s what the name means.

So, many people call this song a waste of time or just a space filler. I think this is a very well placed space filler. The seven minutes and thirty-four seconds of almost nothing has such a calming effect, it’s scary. I mean, after listening to 1,000,000, Letting You, and Head Down, you listen to this and your will be one of the most calm people in the world. The nothing eventually builds up to a nice ending, but it is really nothing but a space holder. But it’s a GOOD space holder. 3/5

Track Nine - The Four of Us are Dying: Another instrumental, but not as calm as the last one. It is like a mix of Rock and Trance music. They have the Trance like synth, but they have the Rock like guitar to not steer TOO far away from rock. Overall, it’s ok. 3/5

Track Ten - Demon Seed: The last one. The big closing BANG. And, yes, this album does go out with one hell of a bang. This 5 minute outro to “The Slip” has the drums at their most beatish (I make words up, ok?) and the guitar is calm and yet un-calm at the same time and the piano adds a awesome, yet hard to notice backup for everything else. About 3 minutes in, the s**t hits the fan and everything blows up. Trent starts yelling, the guitar goes crazy and it is just awesome. Then we have a bit of a calm part, then we get our heads slammed into the wall of epic. Trent’s voice gets the effect of echo, the guitar is funky and it’s counterpart is distorted, the drums is still beatish, and Trent adds his signature haunting voice at the end. 5/5

Overall: 5/5. I love Nine Inch Nails. I know I labeled almost everything a 5/5, but to me, this album is just plain epic. It’s a distorted-though, synthed-up, screamed-out masterpiece.

A bit more info:

On July 22, “The Slip” was released as a Limited Edition CD/DVD combo. Only 250,000 were made and I have number 6,806. “The Slip” is available as the Limited Edition CD/DVD combo which includes:

CD with all 10 tracks

DVD with live rehearsals of 1,000,000, Letting You, Discipline, Echoplex, and Head Down.

A 24 page booklet.

One of 3 (Not sure if correct number) Sticker packs (depending on country)

All in a six-panel Digipack.

It was also released as a 180 gram gatefold vinyl LP with a 24 page booklet and the Limited Edition CD/DVD version should be at your local music store, they didn’t run out JUST yet.

“The Slip” is available for Free Download at http://theslip.nin.com.

So, you MAY have heard of Pitchshifter in the 90s when they broke out with hits such as “Genius” and “W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G,” but they have been long since forgotten, so I thought I would tell all of you about them, because they are freaking amazing.

At first, this band was actually one of the only UK Heavy and almost Death Metal bands. They had the screaming lead singer, Mark Clayden, and the crazy drums and all that stuff. It is now referred to as “Death Industrial” because of the Death Metal like vocals but electronic drums and samples.

A bit later, J.S. Clayden stepped up to the mic from being only backing vocals. He had about the type of singing/screaming as Mark, but changed to their trademark sound for their breakthrough album, www.pitchshifter.com. You may have heard songs from that album in Twisted Metal 3 and Test Drive 5 as “Genius” was the theme to Test Drive 5, “W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G.” was in a level of Test Drive 5, and “W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G.” and “Innit” was featured in the Hanger 18 and Tokyo level of Twisted Metal 3. (I own these games, I know.)

Sadly, in 2003, they had their last show of their “Farewell for Now” club tour, but do come together every now and then for random festivals.

Fun Facts (Thanks Wikipedia!):

1: Pitch Shifter played the Phoenix Festival in Long Marston, UK in 1995. The band’s manager, armed with a tractor, arranged for an enormous crop circle replica of the band’s famous “eye” symbol to appear in the adjoining field to the festival site during the night prior to Pitch Shifter’s performance there. The crowd’s enthusiasm for Pitch Shifter when they performed (in support of their Desensitized album) was so high that they rushed the stage, making Pitch Shifter’s performance the first in the history of the festival to be stopped early.

2: Pitchshifter’s music has been used in video games such as: Test Drive 5, Rallisport Challenge 2, MX Superfly,Twisted Metal 4 and Twisted Metal III, as well as movies, trailers and soundtracks such as: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, The Crow, Salvation, Brainscan, Catwoman, Paycheck, and lastly in commercials such as the Volkswagen ‘Vortex’ bug.

3: The band has released eight studio albums and numerous singles & EPs.

Well, hope you enjoyed this and hope you check out this band!

www.pitchshifter.com

Okay, so as you have heard, Metallica’s new album, Death Magnetic, has been released. Everyone is freaking out saying “It’s old, good Metallica!” But I don’t know, I’m not that much into Metallica. BUT, I am now pissed at them. They released torrents of their new album on the internet. Now, with them being 100% against downloading, the 6th track has a virus, but not just any virus, this virus won’t mess up your computer, it will mess up your life. What it does is when the 6th track in imported into a music library, the virus scans all the other songs in that library and sends all the information to Sony BMG, allowing them to have evidence and be able to charge you with stealing. So, by all means, DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT. Oh, and Metallica… WTF?

Well, today is the seventh anniversary of September 11th, 2001. I’m sorry to darken the mood, but I just thought I should bring it up. Just take a second out of your almost already over day to remember the fallen.

“Be there for one another, help each other out, care for each other. Don’t wait for another Sept. 11 to show you love someone.” - Jake Verterano

Feel free to discuss your 9/11 story in the comment section.