I didn't think it was possible to do much more on the Pong theme. After all, it's been around since the 1970s. It took me just a few minutes to figure it out. I was fascinated with this game and I spent nearly an hour playing it the first time. I get bored easy, so that's a big two thumbs up on this one.
click to expand picture
Quote from the website
PLASMA PONG is a variation of PONG that utilizes real-time fluid dynamics to drive the game environment.
Players have several new abilities that add fun twists to the classic game. In the game you can inject plasma fluid into the environment, create a vacuum from your paddle, and blast shockwaves into the playing area. All these abilities have fluid-based kinetic effects on the ball, making Plasma Pong a fast-paced and exciting game.
My wife and I have spent hours there at times, just looking at some of the odd-ball stuff people have shared. I've found a few ways to download those videos so I could share them with other folks who don't surf as much as I do. One of the most unique applications I've seen for grabbing YouTube videos is called TubeSucker.
Firstly, I'll mention that this is a free program, but not true freeware. I'd call it LiteWare because the free version doesn't include many features that the paid versions do. I have no problems with that idea and I've used many Liteware or CrippleWare applications in the past. You just have to decide if you can put up with the occasional grayed out feature or the occasional message telling you to upgrade.
Some good things:
■ The search box is nice, but like many of the options in TubeSucker, it's not something you can't do at YouTube on your own.
■ After you find a video you like, just click on the download button. Like many of the features in TubeSucker, the buttons and other features don't stand out and can be hard to spot at first. Look around at the program for awhile to get familiar with the features.
■ The "Play" tab allows you to play videos, music, and display images that you have downloaded. The videos are listed on the left very nicely and it's easy to navigate through folders to find saved items you are looking for.
■ Once you are playing a video, you can easily change back and forth between windowed and full screen mode.
Some bad things:
■ The program contacts it's home website to look for updates every time you launch it. Some folks really hate that, but many of us have figured out how to block that when we want to.
■ The browser on the search page is Internet Explorer and you can't choose the the browser you'd like to use (such as Firefox).
■ The video player it uses is actually Windows Media Player (WMP). I think WMP is bloatware but I guess it makes sense for the author to take advantage of the fact that it comes pre-installed on all Windows machines.
■ The author left way too many unusable (paid) features in this free version and he asks you to upgrade every time you try to use one.
Conclusion:
I like this program but I doubt if I'll keep it for long. I typically use UnPlug, a Firefox extension, when I want to snag videos from websites.
click to expand picture
Quote from the website
TubeSucker - YouTube Video Downloader makes downloading videos from the internet and watching them from your PC or TV quick and easy.
This is my preferred method for downloading hidden content from websites. Unplug can often provide me download links to streaming video or audio that I wish to download for viewing or listening to later. Once this Firefox addon is installed, you can right click on any webpage to see if any of the hidden media files are available for downloading.
Quote from the website
Unplug is a Firefox extension which lets you save video and audio which is embedded on a webpage.
Unplug scans web pages and tells you where things like media players and other embedded objects are getting their data from, and displays it as a simple hyperlink: in most cases, you can then follow the simple download link to save the media file.
It doesn't need to connect to external sites to find where media is kept - but it can do if you want it to by downloading the results from KeepVid and VideoDownloader. Unplug will search, ask and even guess where media is on a website, presenting its results in an easy-to-use results page.
Unplug connects with a number of other extensions, including Down Them All and NoScript. Version 1.4.5 works as a Songbird extension too.
I haven't tried this one yet, but I thought I'd throw it in this week as an alternative to the TubeSucker and UnPlug utilities I've reviewed. It sounds cool and I've chatted with the author before so I trust him at his word when he says it's freeware.
Here are a couple of the features that drew my attention:
YouRipper includes an RSS Feed Reader, preloaded with feeds so that you are only ever a click away from seeing what's new and what's hot. Even when there is nothing worth watching, the integral ShoutCast Radio Player within YouRipper will having you bopping and popping to any of the thousands of Internet radio stations available.
Give it a try if you like. I'll be happy to post any comments here. If you have any questions or suggestions, I can ask the author to reply.
Quote from the website
YouRipper is a small, easy to use utility which enables the end-user to download videos from the major video sharing websites such as YouTube. YouRipper also enables Webmasters, Bloggers and MySpace Hosts to Embed videos from YouTube etc into their own pages, using a generic, fully customizable video player.
Brett Christensen, the author of HoaxSlayer newsletter, also has a blog in which he mentions useful, and mostly free software. He had neglected this blog for awhile, but I was happy to see a new post recently. Keep up the good work Brett.
SyncToy - Folder Synchronization Tool
Recently, I was looking around for a program that would allow me to easily synchronize two folders across two computers on my home network. While there are a number of applications that will perform this fairly simple task and a lot more, Microsoft's SyncToy v 1.4 turned out to be just the ticket for what I required ...
I love space shooters and this one is modeled after the classics. It's fast and furious action from the start and a sure death to those not fast enough (like me).
click to expand picture
Quote from the website
You are captain of the cargo ship Chromium B.S.U., responsible for delivering supplies to our troops on the front line. Your ship has a small fleet of robotic fighters which you control from the relative safety of the Chromium vessel.
One of you recently wrote me with an excellent question:
Clif-
I'm not sure where to post my question, so I'm going to give this a try. Being a relatively new subscriber to your newsletter, I may have missed this discussion.
I'm looking for a freeware application that alerts me when any application tries to load itself so it launches when I start my PC. I would like to be able to accept/reject the application's intentions. Therefore, the application would need to monitor the start-up files so that nothing can be slipped in there, without my approval.
For example... my daughter uses AIM instant messaging. She launches the program, uses it, and then closes it. The next time I re-boot, AIM is loaded, and displays on my screen. I alter the settings, but it still launches the next time I reboot (after she uses it). Another example is Yahoo pager... this application is constantly loading itself when I re-boot.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
Wolfe
I love easy questions. Here's one of my favorite solutions to this problem. I've been using StartupMonitor since about 1996. You may use other programs that monitor the startup folder and startup registry locations, but not many give you immediate notice that a new program has placed itself as an automatic startup. It does this while using only a tiny amount of system resources. You won't even know it's running.
Quote from the website
StartupMonitor is a small utility that runs transparently (it doesn't even use a tray icon) and notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup. It prevents annoying programs from registering themselves behind your back.
The WAV to MP3 convertor looks very nice. But do you know of other music file convertors that maybe are more universal. I have some WAV's that need converted, but I also have some m4a files that would be nice to convert to mp3. Have you heard of m4a and do you have any advice/direction?
Gary at Internet Fixes continues to amaze me with hundreds and thousands of tips for your PC. Whatever your operating system, or how you use it, a visit to Gary's site will soon have you saying "So that's how you do this!".
Thanks to everyone who commented on the articles last week. You gave me more ideas and some good advice. If you see comments on an article, you will be missing out if you don't click on them to take a look.
If you commented last week, check to see who commented on your comment!
Here are the comments from last week.
Reviews
REVIEWS
Ad-Aware 2007 - new look but no major improvements •
Safari 3 beta - Apple's new web browser for Windows •
I saw one of these awesome videos on TV the other night and I decided to visit their website to see if they had any free downloads. They didn't really have much there, but I was able to download a short video.
After I downloaded this video, I was able to upload it to PBwiki (my webhost) and they displayed it for me using one of their partner services called Fliqz.
COOLSITES is a list of safe, fun, useful, informative and just plain cool websites and programs that are FREE, FREE and FREE. All of the programs and websites I list are free. If I list anything that is so good but isn't free I will list the price with it.
You need a free 2.8 GB Gmail account to access many of the cool features at Google. After more than two years in beta testing Gmail is open to the public. Just go to http://gmail.com and sign up for an account.
I think Gmail works best in the awesome Firefox browser. It's free, easy to use, and it's way more secure than Internet Explorer. My favorite thing to do is to customize Firefox so that it does much more than IE ever could. You can select new button controls for your toolbars, install extensions to add new features, or change the look of your browser with themes - the way Firefox looks and works is under your control.
Wow! Over 700 people and still growing! I invite all of you to record your locations on this map. You can include as little or as much information as you wish. I think you'll enjoy seeing yourself there.
Here's a small look at my frapper map.
Write your own review
I get many of the reviews in the newsletter from the readers. You don't have to be a genius or computer guru. Just answer a few questions and send me a review. I'll probably put you in the newsletter.
What do you have to say?
Just tell me what article you are talking about and leave me your comment.
Quote from the website
Quote from the website
Quote from the website
Have you ever seen an eagle trying to take off with a fox in it's claws? Apparently a guy in Finland did, and here's his proof ...
Source - 
Source - 
