Quake 4 PC demo now available

Activision has released a trial version of Quake 4 with two single-player areas and two multiplayer maps.  This official demo for Quake 4 lets you battle through two large areas of the single-player game, including a heavily guarded Strogg installation and the chaotic air defense trenches cut through the desolate Stroggos landscape. This demo also features a multiplayer component, with two versions of the map “The Fragging Yard” for three different online modes.  Gamespot has more information on the demo.

Want to join the network police?

If you have been annoyed by a lame user on your network do something stupid and bringing down the entire network then you should enjoy this fake network traffic ticket.  Print this ticket out and issue it to your co-worker, friends, or lame network user next time the network goes down.

New Sysinternals tool RegDelNull and update to Autoruns utility

Sysinternals has released a new utility called RegDelNull which can find and delete Registry keys that are “undeleteable” by standard Registry-editing utilities because they have embedded null characters in their names.  This is useful if your Windows machine is infected with SpyWare and you are unable to clean it up.  A new version 8.4 of Autoruns was also released and adds enumeration of kernel-mode drivers, yet another attack vector being used by malware..  This utility will list all the places applications can startup which is great for making sure your machine is spyware free. Autoruns shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns goes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.

RIAA Now Banning the Act of Telling Friends About Songs

The Onion news has discovered that “The Recording Industry Association of America announced Tuesday that it will be taking legal action against anyone discovered telling friends, acquaintances, or associates about new songs, artists, or albums. “We are merely exercising our right to defend our intellectual properties from unauthorized peer-to-peer notification of the existence of copyrighted material,” a press release signed by RIAA anti-piracy director Brad Buckles read. “We will aggressively prosecute those individuals who attempt to pirate our property by generating ‘buzz’ about any proprietary music, movies, or software, or enjoy same in the company of anyone other than themselves.” RIAA attorneys said they were also looking into the legality of word-of-mouth “favorites-sharing” sites, such as coffee shops, universities, and living rooms.” This is a fake news story but very funny and one day may become true.

Firefox Browser Version 1.5 Final has been released.

The final release of Firefox 1.5 is now available for download and has a bunch of new features and bug fixes. Some of the new features are popup blocking improvments, automated updates, drag and drop reordering for tabs, and faster navigation. Mozilla has also updated the website design and it’s a much cleaner look and faster. You can download the new release here. PC Magazine has a review of the latest version here.

New Pixar movie “Cars” trailer released.

As a big Pixar fan I am excited that the studio has just released a new trailer for what looks to be another great movie coming in 2006 called “Cars”. You can check out the new trailer here. The movie has an all star list of actors doing the voices like Paul Newman and Owen Wilson. The movie is expected to be released in June and I can’t wait…

Great live concerts from NPR

If you enjoy live music you might be surprised that NPR has an excellent collection of live concerts available for download at no cost. NPR has full concerts available for listening here. You can also subscribe the the live concert rss feed here.

Google map hacks that are cool and fun?

If you like Google maps or enjoy the lastest mapping craze then you may be interested in this nice collection of Google maps hacks and mashups blog. I like the ski/snowboard resort map and New York city live cam map.

Do you have 5,000 radio, TV channels?

Well believe it or not Al Jessup from Beckley, has 12 satellite dishes on his front porch and has more than 5000 TV & radio channels.  Since 1998, the Beckley resident has amassed a collection of 12 dishes around his James Street home. He said he first just began subscribing to Direct TV and Dish Network, but he later learned that by purchasing special satellite receivers he could receive “free to air� programming from several different satellites swirling the globe. The information on how to adjust a dish and set up a receiver to pick up programming from these stations such as Galaxy 10, AMC 2 and Telestar 5 is included with these receivers. You can read more here and check out a picture of his porch here.

Lego RPG Game

BrickQuest is an RPG fantasy game that is built entirely out of Legos.  Players can snap together blocks to create custom dungeons and move lego men around to fight creatures and explore dungeons. The web site states “BrickQuest is a game of small-scale fantasy combat similar to HeroQuest, Warhammer Quest, or MageKnight Dungeons. It requires at least two players to play and can be played easily by four to six players.”  You can find more information about the game here.