Filed under: Games, Internet

'Tis the season to go on a murderous rampage, according to PETA. Once again proving hostile to cavemen but friendly to animals, PETA has re-created Cooking Mama in a Flash version (downloadable on Macs and PC's through the magic of Adobe AIR).

Unlike the soothing "Better than Mama!" you're used to on the Wii, this Mama is more akin to Sweeney Todd. PETA is calling their creation, "Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals." I think I just heard the Lawyermobile at Majesco pulling out of the garage.

Killing turkeys, ripping out their guts and stuffing them with Atkins-unfriendly carbs is the name of this game. PETA tries to drive home the point that cleaning and cooking a turkey is a messy, horrible affair. Unfortunately, I had too much fun with the cartoonish game to truly grasp the horror of the situation. Luckily, after two rounds -- and regarless of whether you "win" -- you're treated to a "bonus" video describing and illustrating the sad lives commercially-raised turkeys are forced to endure. It ain't pretty.

Still, I give the idea two big thumbs-up for creativity; PETA has always been a creative bunch. But I doubt the Southern gents I know would be dissuaded in the least by this game. It's tricky to preach through videogames, and trickier still to illustrate terror when making something so cute and fun. All the same, I look forward to "Hello Kitty: Shelter Edition" if they ever pick up the idea.

Check out the screenshots... if you dare. Oh, and if you check out the game I recommend you turn your speakers down. There's some screaming and loud music involved. Enjoy!



[Via Planetsave]

PETA mashes up Cooking Mama and Stephen King for gruesome holiday fun originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Design, Text, Productivity

Designers know the words "lorem ipsum" all too well. If you've mocked up a layout for anything with chunks of text in it, you've probably run across the infamous Latin paragraphs that commonly show up as filler. Where do you get your lorem ipsum, though, and how do you make sure it's the right fit for your design? Lorem2 is one great way to do it.

Lorem2 is a nicely laid-out collection of lorem ipsum paragraphs and bullet points, both short and long. If you're the kind of person who keeps a text file full of this stuff, you might be better off filling it up with the whole contents of Lorem2. You'll never have to give a second thought to avoiding repeated text that detracts from your layouts, because the solution will be close at hand.

Lorem2: for the discerning lorem ipsum aficionado originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Text, Freeware, VoIP

Fring is a fantastic mobile application, allowing mobile users access to voice and text chat via Skype, MSN, GTalk, and more on their mobile handset or iPod Touch.

On their official blog yesterday, they announced the introduction of embedded ads on a trial basis. No specifics were given, only the reassurance that revenues would be used to sustain development and bring even more great features to Fring.

Ads will appear only for "a small number of randomly selected Fringsters each day." They continue, reassuring users that their Fring experience won't be affected.

While I don't own a device capable of running the app, I have used it on a friend's iPod touch. I'm not generally a fan of adware, Fring is certainly a good enough app to deal with the minor annoyance of a few banners - provided they're kept to a reasonable level.

If you're a Fring user, what do you think about this news?

[ via Symbian Freak ]

Mobile voice, IM app Fring announces embedded ad trials originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Utilities, Browsers, Mobile

I recently wrote about Intersquash, a service that generates code to optimize your site for iPhone browsing. BareSite is the flipside of that: it allows mobile browsers to access a "bare" mobile version of any site, based on the RSS feed. The results aren't as pretty as what you'd see from a natively mobile site, but sometimes you don't have that choice. On the other hand, a decent mobile browser and RSS reader can achieve the same results.

So, does BareSite work? I actually had some trouble with it. It seems to be confused by RSS feeds without a pubDate element -- like, currently, Download Squad's. This definitely detracts from the BareSite's usefulness, especially considering that decent RSS readers already exist on several mobile platforms. The Google search function on BareSite is also useful, but kind of unnecessary, as Google has mobile versions of its sites, and some mobile browsers build a Google search function in already.

BareSite tries to improve the mobile browsing experience originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Mozilla, Browsers

Fashion Your Firefox offers easier browser customization originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Freeware, Time-Wasters, Web

Remember the classic arcade game Marble Madness? If you enjoyed the frustration that is trying to guide a ball along a 3D course using an isometric view, without falling off the arbitrary edges, just like in Marble Madness, you'll probably enjoy Gyroball.

As you might be able to tell, I find Gyroball frustrating. The first few levels are fairly straightforward, but on the third or fourth level, I was completely stymied. It started driving me nuts. I'm sure many of you long-time timewaster players will cruise right through that level without a second look, but for whatever reason I just couldn't get the right combination of direction, momentum and control.

The game controls are dead simple - use your direction arrows to push the ball in various directions. Of course, because the game is presented in an isometric 3D display, the arrow keys do not correspond with the direction that your ball will typically be traveling; the ball is mostly going in diagonals, requiring multiple button presses at the same time, or very quickly alternating between two.

If your frustration tolerance is high, this game could be played for an extended period. Otherwise, it makes a nice, short time waster between tasks.

Gyroball - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Commercial, Freeware, Troubleshooting

Download Squad reader David contacted us, asking for a solution to his problem and it's one I've dealt with myself: fighting with the proprietary disc image formats of MagicISO and UltraISO.

"I've been looking through the web for some free program to do this for me and I haven't had any luck. UltraISO and MagicISO are great programs, but I just don't have the money to dish 30 bucks on each [one]."

First off, let's be honest. If you're dealing with a UIF or DAA, it's very likely a disc image of a program or game you torrented (this may or may not have been my own experience). If you're extracting, mounting, or burning something like that, you may as well just torrent MagicISO or UltraISO too and be done with it. I'm certainly not going to judge anyone for doing that.

Continue reading Help! I need a free app to convert DAA and UIF files!

Help! I need a free app to convert DAA and UIF files! originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Ask DLS

On Sunday, Business Week published an article stating "It's the end of instant messaging as we know it." In columnist Douglas MacMillan's mind, integrated chat features on sites like Facebook and GMail have signed the death warrant.

Oh really? That's kind of interesting, because there's a lot of evidence that IM is alive and kicking.

Taking a quick look at some stats on Download.com, I notice that these apps still seem to be pretty damn popular. Pidgin has more than half a million downloads to date. Since Trillian was added to the site, it's been downloaded almost 37 million times.

The latest release of Live Messenger 14 is well over 400,000 in just two months - and these numbers don't take into account the numerous other mirrors for these (and numerous other IM) apps.

Continue reading Ask DLS: Business Week declares IM dead - what do you think?

Ask DLS: Business Week declares IM dead - what do you think? originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Windows, Productivity, Microsoft, Freeware, How-Tos

While in in many cases it would be a security risk, having your Windows XP computer log in automatically can be useful. For example, I have my Windows XP instance running under a virtual machine on my Mac. The easiest way to do this would be to use the Administrator account and simply leave the password blank. However, this has two distinct disadvantages: you can't log onto a domain with a machine that is not using a password, and you cannot have a machine configured this way accept Remote Desktop connections.

I have no need to use Remote Desktop to access my virtual machine, but since my XP instance needs to access a Windows network, I do need a password set. In the past, the easiest way to configure your machine to automatically log on was to use TweakUI powertoy for XP, where there is a setting under Logon for configuring automatic logons.

But there's an even faster way do do this.

On the machine that you want to configure to auto-login, click Start, Run, then type "control userpasswords2" (without the quotation marks) and press enter. In the window that pops up, click on the user account that you would like to automatically log in, then uncheck the "Users must enter a username and password to use this computer" checkbox. You will now be asked for the password for this account. Set it, click OK and OK, and you're done.

How to log on to Windows XP automatically originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Internet, News, Yahoo!

It hasn't exactly been a good year for Yahoo!. Earlier this year, the company rejected Microsoft's offer to buy Yahoo! for $33 a share. This week, Yahoo! stock is selling for about $10 a share. Silicon Alley Insider estimates that the search company is out $2 billion dollars because of this misstep.

It's probably not fair to put all of that on CEO Jerry Yang's head. After all, the current economic downturn is taking its toll on everyone. But the Yahoo! board of directors has announced that it is searching for a new CEO. Once a replacement is found, Yang will step down as CEO and resume his role as "Chief Yahoo!," which is a ridiculous job title that's basically a corporate strategy job. He'll also remain on the board of directors.

Yang's resignation raises a lot of questions. Who will replace him as CEO? Will the move bring Microsoft back to the table, or has that ship sailed? Could Yahoo! be looking for a new buyer or a strategic partnership? Who wrote the book of love? Yeah, maybe not that one.

Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang to resign originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments