12 favorite Time Wasters from 2010 to kick off your 2011 gaming!

2010 has come to a close, and that means it's time for us to kill what little remains of your final Friday productivity with a look back at some of our best Time Wasters. Grab your mouse and keep your eyes peeled for the boss, it's time to fire up some casual gaming goodness in your Web browser!

Each screenshot is linked directly to the game pictured -- so when you see something which catches your eye, click on through and start playing!

Continue reading 12 favorite Time Wasters from 2010 to kick off your 2011 gaming!

12 favorite Time Wasters from 2010 to kick off your 2011 gaming! originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FIRST SOLAR FINISAR FEI COMPANY

So Much For FREE!: Apple Will Sell $2B in Apps in 2011

I've often wondered if the early Web pioneers had it all to do over again if Web companies would have put less of an emphasis on free. People have been conditioned against paying for services or content on the Web, and the Web elite only have each other to blame. For all the talk of Web companies getting users first and "figuring out" how to make money later, the only two jaw-droppingly, multi-billion-dollar, innovative new ways to advertise online have been Google's paid search ads and Groupon's solution to unlocking local ad dollars on a mass scale. Those who win big--like Google-- just perpetuate the cult of free content and services as a way of spoiling would be competitors. Witness a big disconnect between popularity and money. Exhibit A: Yahoo. But on the mobile Web it's a do-over, and it's a totally different playbook from FREE!

LIBERTY GLOBAL LM ERICSSON LOGITECH INTERNATIONAL

Video Review: About.me lets you easily create a personal landing page

About.me is a direct competitor of Flavors.me; both services try to help you create a personal landing page, hooked up to your "social media presence" on other sites (Facebook, Flickr, et al).

About.me left public beta a few days ago, and I decided to give it the video treatment today. I've put together an extensive review covering most of its features from a first-time user perspective. It's meant to be simple to use, and in the video you can see how friendly it is to non-techies. It basically allows you to create a beautiful page for yourself without writing a single line of code, and get a whole bunch of analytics while you're at it. Check out the video review after the jump!

At the end of the video you can see that Flickr integration did not work for me; that's not About.me's fault - it's because of my Flickr sharing configuration.

[Full Disclosure: About.me was purchased by Download Squad's parent company, AOL, shortly after Erez recorded his review. -- ed.]

Continue reading Video Review: About.me lets you easily create a personal landing page

Video Review: About.me lets you easily create a personal landing page originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MAXIMUS

How to boot Ubuntu on the Cr-48 Chrome OS netbook

It was only a matter of time: a page on the Chromium Projects website has emerged, detailing how to install Ubuntu on a Cr-48 netbook. The process is, understandably, a little risky -- but it's not like there are any tech bloggers out there that don't know how to use Linux, right?

Snarkiness aside, the process is actually very easy. You have to hack at the SSD's filesystem a little and fiddle with the Chrome OS kernel, but if you do everything right, you should be rewarded with a dual-boot system capable of running both Ubuntu and Chrome OS.

The best bit, though, is that you have to enable 'developer mode' to escape Chrome OS's 'verified boot' security measure. To do this, you need to flip a switch on the back, under the battery, as per the hilarious instructional photo shown after the break.

Continue reading How to boot Ubuntu on the Cr-48 Chrome OS netbook

How to boot Ubuntu on the Cr-48 Chrome OS netbook originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 14 Dec 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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China tightens hold on rare earth exports, markets soar

If you own a flat screen TV, a hybrid, a PC, or any number of cell phones, chances are you own a small but very sought after piece of China. The country accounts for 97 percent of the world's rare earth production, which is used in all manner of gadgets, and it recently announced plans to scale back exports by 10 percent in 2011. The move probably won't have a big impact on the average consumer, but it's certainly gained a lot of attention on the world market: the US threatened action in the World Trade Organization, stocks for rare earth mining companies spiked significantly, and Sony Corp. vowed to decrease its dependence on the minerals. It's actually not like the rest of the world is lacking for rare earth resources -- American's are actually sitting on 13 million metric tons of the stuff, which companies in the US and Canada are making a mad dash to mine. Trouble is, just getting the stuff out of the ground isn't enough -- China still has a monopoly on rare earth processing, and US companies are reluctant to spend the eight years and minimum $500 million necessary to construct a chemical separation plant. So what does all this mean for you? Well, not a whole lot, unless you happen to be China's Minister of Commerce, in which case you should probably stop surfing the web and get back to work.

China tightens hold on rare earth exports, markets soar originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Dec 2010 01:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING AVNET BHARTI AIRTEL

NookColor is Barnes & Noble?s Top Seller This Holiday

In a few short weeks, the NookColor sold "nearly a million units," at least according to B&N, making it the company's best selling product. Launched in October, the NookColor is a hackable Android tablet originally designed to only read B&N's line of ebooks and play a few games. Since its launch, however, it's become a hacker's plaything and a popular alternative to the do-it-all iPad. In short, the NookColor could be B&N's ultimate weapon against Kindle hedgemony and has definitely put them firmly in the ereader race. Full PR after the jump.

EMC FIDELITY NATIONAL INFORMATION SVCS FISERV

Kube Tiny MP3 Player

ThinkGeek has a tiny, little MP3 player that almost disappears in the palm of your hand. �The Kube is about 1″ on a side, weighs less than an ounce, and can hold thousands of MP3 files. �The Kube comes with a 2GB microSD card, but you can supply your own 32GB microSD to hold about [...]

DIODES INORATED DIEBOLD DELL

Hands-on: Pinboard is a great Delicious alternative

So, Yahoo! went ahead and announced it doesn't like Delicious anymore. This is pretty much the dumbest move I've seen Yahoo! do in recent memory, and Delicious is going to fight for its survival outside of Yahoo!.

I really hope Delicious is going to make it, and I have every reason to believe it will. It's an incredible service, and one of the cornerstones of the Internet. Still, since I rely so heavily on Delicious, as soon as word got out about Yahoo! trying to kill it, I started looking for alternatives.

One of the most-hyped alternatives is called Pinboard, a paid service with an interesting pricing model: you pay a one-time fee determined by the current number of users * $0.001. This means the more users sign on, the more expensive it becomes. When I signed on a couple of days ago, the price was around $7. Now it's $8.65, and will probably keep rising.

Still, it's not a lot of money to pay for a safe home for all of my bookmarks, away from a big company that may make questionable decisions about a service critical to so many users.

But what did I get for my $7? I made a comprehensive gallery that you can see after the jump, and I'm going to walk you through it. Read on for the details!

Continue reading Hands-on: Pinboard is a great Delicious alternative

Hands-on: Pinboard is a great Delicious alternative originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SPSS SPANSION SONUS NETWORKS

Coby Kyros MID7015 7-Inch Android Internet Touchscreen Tablet

The Coby Kyros MID7015 tablet runs Android 2.1 and has a 7″ resistive screen. �It offers internet connectivity with WiFi 802.11b/g. �There’s 4GB of internal memory, and you can add up to a 16GB microSD card. �The Kyros tablet is preloaded with a variety of apps: alarm clock, calculator, mobile YouTube browser, and more like [...]

COMMSCOPE COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS COMPAL ELECTRONICS

Dear Manufacturers: You?ve Had A Rough Year, But Step It Up

It seems, at least at first blush, that we are out of the slimy gullet and into the potentially less dangerous teeth of this recession. Joblessness is still high but folks I know who are working in IT and CS are in high demand. People are hiring, but not out in the open, and shoppers, as evidenced by this year's holiday season, have a little bit of cash. But CE manufacturers, back in 2008, pulled into their turtle shells and haven't come out. The past few years have passed in a slothful haze and I'm worried that 2011 will be another year of negative innovation. Consider what happened this year: we saw a load of Android phones, we saw an iPad and a new iPhone, and saw some tablets. That's it. 3D TV was a flop, most other product lines saw little or no improvement, and generally CE industry sat this year out. CES, if all portents can be believed, will be a bust as well. People ask me every year what my favorite gadget is. That's almost impossible to answer. Sadly, for me, it's like asking a proctologist about his favorite patient: they all sort of blend together and none of the experiences are very nice. So what is my favorite gadget? The gadget that truly stood out? It's the freaking Parrot AR.Drone. That's right. A toy. Here's why, and here's what manufacturers can take away from this toy.

RADISYS RACKABLE SYSTEMS QUEST SOFTWARE

Gresso classies up the iPad with 18k gold logo and ancient wood case

We'll openly admit we never knew what African Blackwood was until Gresso started applying the stuff to its line of extremely luxurious cellphone mods, but now we can't imagine a new product from the Russian company without the 200-year old timber making an appearance. And sure enough, the Gresso iPad's rear is composed almost entirely of Dalbergia melanoxylon, broken up only by the insertion of an 18-karat gold Apple logo. Strangely, in spite of its extravagant constituent materials, this design is a very restrained, dare we say, classy, affair. It goes on sale on New Year's Eve at an unannounced price, but you know what they say: if you have to ask or you have to work for a living, you probably can't afford it.

Gresso classies up the iPad with 18k gold logo and ancient wood case originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 18:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SI INTERNATIONAL

Skype's Giving Up to 30 Minutes Free Talk Time To Those Affected By the Outage [Skype]

Skype went down last week! It was a harrowing 24 hours for VoIPers forced to scramble for a landline, and to make up for the trauma the company's apparently offering credit vouchers worth around 30 minutes of talk time in some parts of the world. Apparently Consumerist reader Marti received the following message from Skype's CEO: More »

NOKIA NVIDIA ORACLE

Zip Tie Snow Tires: The Cheapest Way To Blizzard-Proof Your Bike [Bikes]

It's officially that time of year, with snow and slush and ice perpetually impeding your biking. What to do? Well, if you've got a box of zip ties and feel like getting your MacGyver on, you do this. More »

NETGEAR NCR NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR

Deal of the Day ?Dell Vostro 230 Mini Tower with 20? LED LCD Monitor

The LogicBUY deal for Monday comes from the Dell Small & Medium Business store.� You?ll save on the Dell Vostro 230 3.06GHz Intel dual-core mini tower bundled with the Dell E2011H (20?) LCD monitor with LED-backlighting.� It?s equipped with 2GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM, 250GB hard drive, keyboard and mouse.� The operating system is Windows 7 [...]

RACKABLE SYSTEMS QUEST SOFTWARE QUANTUM

Window Expander for Chrome lets you view YouTube videos in near-full screen without hacking Flash

These days, you no longer have to be an esoteric nerd to sport a dual-monitor setup. Heck, many of us use three monitors, and some have been known to use entire walls. Now, when you have such a setup and try to watch a YouTube video in full-screen, you quickly discover an irritating fact: While you're watching a video in full-screen on one monitor, any click on another monitor collapses the video back to its tiny windowed size.

There are ways to get around this by replacing specific Flash DLLs with tweaked versions, but really, who wants to mess with system files like this? Window Expander for Chrome is a far less invasive solution. It adds a button to Chrome's Omnibar which you can click to display a full-screen window with the video you're currently watching. Since Chrome has so little, well, chrome, it's the next best thing to full-screen. Window Expander is simple, and it works. Go give it a try!

Window Expander for Chrome lets you view YouTube videos in near-full screen without hacking Flash originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 23 Dec 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DIRECTV GROUP ELPIDA MEMORY EMC

What 2011 Holds for Apple: Long Shots, Sure Shots and Even Money

While Google seems to be rethinking its whole Google TV approach and IBM is now predicting that we'll have holographic 3D phone calls by 2015, I'm looking forward to another bang-up year for Apple. I've got a handful of easy predictions, some likely predictions, and a couple wishful-thinking hopes for magical new products from the geniuses locked away on the Apple campus in Cupertino.

MICROS SYSTEMS MICRON TECHNOLOGY MICROCHIP TECHNOLOGY

Sony Ericsson Android slider leaks out, successor to the X10 Mini Pro?

It appears another device has slipped out of the Sony Ericsson camp. The above Android 2.3 loaded slider has now turned up in China where it is rumored to be the successor to the X10 Mini Pro. Specs you say? How about a 1GHz chip with an Adreno 205 GPU that pushes 42.5fp via Neocore. All of which is powering a 3-inch 320 x 480 multitouch LCD. When put to the test Quadrant benchmarks at 1,553 was the final analysis. Aside from that info not much else is really known about the mysterious slider but if you dig Sony Ericsson devices, hit the break for one more shot. [IT168 via Xperia10.net]

Sony Ericsson Android slider leaks out, successor to the X10 Mini Pro? posted originally by Android Central

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