AlliedGamer Community News...

It's Time To Open Pandora's Box!

AlliedGamer Admin — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 02:55:35 GMT

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Pandora really seems likely to pull the plug. More on this sad turn of events in the forums. Thanks Wickett!

"At Pandora, we have a single mission: To play music you'll love - and nothing else.

To understand just how we do this, and why we think we do it really, really well, you need to know about the Music Genome Project�.

With Pandora you can explore this vast trove of music to your heart's content. Just drop the name of one of your favorite songs or artists into Pandora and let the Genome Project go. It will quickly scan its entire world of analyzed music, almost a century of popular recordings - new and old, well known and completely obscure - to find songs with interesting musical similarities to your choice. Then sit back and enjoy as it creates a listening experience full of current and soon-to-be favorite songs for you."
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If you love music then this is one sweet package. More of that ol' internet magic box stuff. Not sure how they do it, but they can fit your mood with perfection. It sounds perfect and best of all it's free.

This one's a must try.

Debunking Common Windows Performance Tweaking Myths

AlliedGamer Admin — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:52:11 GMT

"As a tech writer, one of my biggest pet peeves is the plethora of bad advice littered across almost every web site dedicated to system tweaking. Besides the tweaks that simply don't work, some of them will actually cause your computer to run even slower�or worse. Let's examine some of the most offensive myths out there regarding PC performance tweaking, and debunk them once and for all".

Full story here.

Drop.io Now Open

AlliedGamer Admin — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:17:41 GMT

A truly free & easy way to share files, Drop.io enables you to create simple private exchange points called "drops".

The service has no email signup and no "accounts". Each drop is private, and only as accessible as you choose to deliberately make it. Create multiple drops, add any type of media, and share or subscribe as you want. To make a drop just click the big red button that says 'drop it'.

I setup an open 'drop' for AlliedGamer here. It takes all of 5 seconds to set one up so go get yours and start sharing your media files. Want privacy for your share? Password it and then tell us about it in the forum Private section!

Giveaway of the Day

AlliedGamer Admin — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:05:11 GMT

Welcome to the Giveaway of the Day project, the new initiative in the software distribution world! Every day we offer for FREE licensed software you�d have to buy otherwise!

Today's software giveaway is Magic Utilities 2007. I tried it and didn't get any nasty surprises and the guys over at [H]ardware seem to have the same experience.

Some previous giveaways include a DVD ripper, a media grabber, data recovery suite, and a video converter. You'll have to check back daily to see what's available next.

On the weekends they also have Game of the Day. One of this weekends game is an unnamed MMO/RTS title. Most of the games are simple casual gamer style, but I would have like to have gotten Operation Victory.

Can't argue with free, but if you miss a day, you can't go back and get a title, so be sure to check daily.

How to check if your ISP is messing with your packets

AlliedGamer Admin — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:31:19 GMT

Posted Apr 11th 2008 10:00AM by Ian Dumych

A while back, the EFF caught cable provider Comcast using basic hacking techniques to restrict the use of Bittorrent on their connection. People who catch their ISPs in the act can send evidence to the EFF, which will in turn help their case to take legal action against sneaky ISPs.

Check your conection by using the just released Wireshark app. Wireshark is basically a packet analyzer that allows you to detect if your ISP is utilizing packet shaping.

Story: Downloadsquad

Whitpaper: Detecting packet injection: a guide to observing packet spoofing by ISPs

XP Beyond June 30th Deadline

AlliedGamer Admin — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 17:27:20 GMT

San Francisco - Microsoft plans to extend the availability of Windows XP beyond June 30, with an announcement expected later this week, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Source: InfoWorld

Ray Tracing To Debut In DirectX 11

AlliedGamer Admin — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:37:22 GMT

[excerpt from Techarp article]

Microsoft has decided to switch to ray-tracing in DirectX 11. They also plan to have DirectX 11 ready in time to debut with Windows Vista Service Pack 2.

DirectX 11 could be part of Windows Vista by late 2008. Development is expected to be very short as much of the work had already been done by Intel. Coincidence?

Post in our Forums for more info and to let us know what you think of all this here.

You can find the original TECHARP article here.

XP SP3 Available in April

AlliedGamer Admin — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:58:19 GMT

Windows� XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers� experience with the operating system.

This white paper summarizes what is new in Windows XP SP3.