Google Information - Revamped (May 2008)

- Google News -

Google's got a new browser address icon, more about that here.

- App Engine -
App Engine
App Spot
App Gallary

- Maps -
Google Maps
Google Siteseeing
Google Maps Wallpaper - (Closed) Site violates the Maps TOS. (Who's next?!?)
Google Maps API
Google Maps Mania

- Earth -
Google Earth ... and the reason behind google earth.... ;-)

- Mail -
Gmail

- Code -
Google Open Source Code / API's

- Blog -
Google Blog
Google Blog Search

- Labs -
Google Labs

- Video -
Google Video

- World News -
Google News RSS / Atom feeds

- OCRopus -
Open source document analysis and OCR system

(I'll add more when I find more...)

WinDirStat - Free Windows Disk Usage Tool

WinDirStat is a free and open source disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Microsoft Windows. This tool is extremely simple to use.

WinDirStat reads the whole directory tree once and then presents it in three useful views:

• The directory list, which resembles the tree view of the Windows Explorer but is sorted by file/subtree size,
• The treemap, which shows the whole contents of the directory tree straight away,
• The extension list, which serves as a legend and shows statistics about the file types.

More information about WinDirStat is available here.

Simutrans - Transportation simulator

Simutrans is a freeware open source transportation simulator that runs under Windows, Linux, and a few other operating systems (Mac with Intel processors, BEOS).

You take on the role of operating a transportation company, and your goal is to get goods of various kinds, as well as passengers and mail, from one place to the next.

More information is available here.

World Wide Telescope

WorldWide Telescope, launched late Monday, was developed by Microsoft's research arm.

It knits together images from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and others.

Computer users can browse through the galaxy on their own or take guided tours of different outer-space destinations developed by astronomers and academics.

Minimum System Requirements

• Microsoft® XP SP2 (minimum), Windows® Vista® (recommended)
• PC with Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 2 gigahertz (GHz) or faster, recommended
• 1 gigabyte (GB) of RAM; 2 GB RAM recommended
• 3D accelerated card with 128 megabytes (MB) RAM; discrete graphics card with dedicated 256-MB VRAM recommended for higher performance
• 1 GB of available hard disk space; 10 GB recommended for off-line features and higher performance browsing
• XGA (1024 x 768) or higher resolution monitor
• Microsoft Mouse or compatible pointing and scrolling device
• Microsoft® DirectX® version 9.0c and .NET Framework 2.0
• Required for some features; Internet connection at 56 Kbps or higher.

More information is available here.

Nintendo Wii Update - Official Patch Notes - May 6 2008

The Wii's been updated again! This one seems to have slipped through, Oops.

Nintendo Channel

The best tidbit about this update, you can now download demos to your DS from your Wii and play them from this Channel. I tested out the preview for Brain Age 2 and Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword this weekend, fun games!

The official "Nintendo" blurb about the "Nintendo Channel"...

The Nintendo Channel, the newest Wii Channel, is an interactive guide to what's new in the world of Nintendo - and it is available for easy download to your Wii from the Wii Shop Channel. Watch trailers, mini-documentaries, product demonstrations, and gameplay videos. Gain useful information about your favorite games on Wii and Nintendo DS from reading the game guide pages. You can even click to buy straight from your Wii.

Information about Nintendo Wii updates is available here.

Another Free Physics Game - Falling Sand

Falling Sand Game, also Hell of Sand, is a Java applet.



The game involves four main falling particles: sand, water, salt, and oil. Each of these particles have special properties that can be manipulated; among these include burning, desiccating, growing, eroding, and more.

Along with these four, main particles are auxiliary environmental manipulators: Wall, Fire, Plant, Spout, Cera (or wax), ???, and Erase. By putting these together, one can thoroughly enjoy the modeling and the construction of very complex structures and systems.

More information about falling sand is available here.

Several spin offs of the game exist, and they are available here.

nLite - Free Windows Installation Customizer

Have you ever wanted to remove Windows components like Media Player, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, Messenger...

How about not even to install them with Windows ?

nLite is a free tool to customize the windows installation process.

Features Include:

• Service Pack Integration
• Component Removal
• Unattended Setup
• Driver Integration
• Hotfixes Integration
• Tweaks
• Services Configuration
• Patches
• Bootable ISO creation

More information about nLite is available here.

World Of Warcraft Item Creator

So, I saw a World Of Warcraft Community Comic that was pretty funny.


Based on that comic, I was wondering if there was a site that you could create your own items!

I'd like to introduce the "Gnomish Portable Cattle Guard" Trinket.

WoW Item Creator allows you to create realistic-looking World of Warcraft items and spells.