3 Insanely Rare And Valuable Atari 2600 Games You Wish You Owned

More often than not, when gamers get nostalgic for the games of yesteryear, Nintendo consoles are the ones that come to mind. There are some ridiculously valuable games out there for NES, and on the Sega side, the Genesis/Mega Drive has its fare share of sought after games as well. If you really want to spend some big money (or make some big money if you are lucky enough to own any of them), the Atari 2600 is actually a gold mine. Sure, Stadium Events and the NES World Championships are worth some big money on NES, but Atari has...

Read the full article: 3 Insanely Rare And Valuable Atari 2600 Games You Wish You Owned

7 Stellar Visualizations That Help Us Fathom The Mysteries Of Space

“Cool” is a much abused word. Cool sometimes is an understatement. When it comes to appreciating the power of visualizations, the former is true, and the latter is just as apt. Visualizations have one basic purpose – they help us fathom the unfathomable. When it comes to understanding the mysteries of outer space, visualizations help to give its vastness some scale we can understand easily. Data visualization is a well-practiced art (and science) now. Informational visualization is about communication and the newer web technologies are just the right vehicle for it. When we have to talk about space and how...

Read the full article: 7 Stellar Visualizations That Help Us Fathom The Mysteries Of Space

Microsoft Has Designs On 3D Printing As It Releases 3D Builder For Windows 8.1

Microsoft has just released a 3D builder for Windows 8.1, meaning Windows users will be able to print their own 3D objects. Yes, you will need a 3D printer. After that, Microsoft’s recently introduced app called 3D Builder for Windows 8.1 should make it easier for amateurs to try their hand on 3D printing. The application takes advantage of the native 3D printing feature on Windows 8.1 which comes with plug ‘n play support for 3D printers. The operating system also recognizes 3D print file formats. 3D printing technology is trending, and though still not mainstream, there are sufficient resources...

Read the full article: Microsoft Has Designs On 3D Printing As It Releases 3D Builder For Windows 8.1

Bitcoin Bonanza, vBulletin Hack, PS4 Fix, Google Canal View [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, Bitcoin enjoys its biggest day yet, Google and Microsoft team up to combat child porn, vBulletin is hacked, Sony issues a fix for your bricked PlayStation 4, Pocket 5.0 is released, Venice is added to Google Canal Street View, and YouTube goes down for around half an hour, causing the Web to lose its collective s**t. Bitcoin’s Big Day Bitcoin, the virtual currency that has entered into mainstream conversation in 2013, had quite the day on Monday (Nov. 18). First up, its value hit a new all-time high (at the time of writing) of US$900,...

Read the full article: Bitcoin Bonanza, vBulletin Hack, PS4 Fix, Google Canal View [Tech News Digest]

Google+ Shows Line Counter for Long Posts

Google+ now shows the number of lines that are collapsed next to "read more", so you can see if the post is long. If the post has less than 10 lines, Google doesn't display the number of lines.

Here's an example of a long Google+ post: "read more (50 lines)".

Google+ shows a similar line counter for long comments:

These are only displayed in the stream and profile pages, not for the post pages.

Google Asks Users to Disable Ad Blocking for Its Sites

It looks like Google started to show warnings if you use AdBlock Plus, the most popular ad blocker and the most popular browser extension. A reader from Brazil noticed this message: "Oh no, it seems like you are blocking Google's ads. These ads pay for Google products that people use every day. It's easy to deactivate ad blocking just for Google. And it won't change your ad blocking settings or other settings".



The message links to a filter that includes a long list of exceptions like "@@||www.google.com^$document" and "@@||maps.google.com^$document".

Here's a screenshot of the Google whitelist filter (it actually includes more domains):

This is pretty weird, considering that the ads were not blocked, as you can see in the screenshot. Google ads are not blocked by default in AdBlock Plus, since they're considered "acceptable ads". Some sites have speculated that Google paid AdBlock Plus to whitelist its ads, but that's not very clear.



Google Discovery also reported about this back in May, so it looks like the experiment is limited to Google Brazil, at least for now.



{ Thanks, Marcos Alexandre. }

Changing Windows 8.1 Boot Logo Using 8oot Logo Changer Tool

CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL POST



In our previous post, we let you know about the release of 8oot Logo Changer, a free tool designed to help you change the original boot screen logo of Windows 8.1 with a custom picture. Even though replacing the default boot logo using this tool is relatively easier, first time users might need some help […]

Flipboard Launches on Win 8.1 With Live Tiles, Introduces Catalogues

Flipboard, which makes personalized social magazines for you on Android and iOS, has finally launched a native app for Windows 8.1 that takes advantage of the new Live Tiles. The service has also embraced e-commerce to launch a Pinterest-like catalogue feature. The Flipboard Live Tile gives you an up-to-date look at all the content you’ve subscribed to, along with the ability to pin specific Flipboard selections to your Start Screen. In the app, you can swipe up from the bottom for Subscribe, Refresh, Edit, Flip It, and other options, while swiping down from the top brings up suggestions like what...

Read the full article: Flipboard Launches on Win 8.1 With Live Tiles, Introduces Catalogues

How to Write SEO Friendly Blog Posts to Stand out in Google Search Results

In the past days, low quality keyword-rich contents could get ranked well with less effort. In fact, following spam methods, one could be successful very easily. But now the search engines are growing smart. They intend to show only relevant results on their search engines. Concerning about the matter, the search engine sensation ‘Google’ is rolling out many algorithm updates regularly. They started to filter their search results from December, 2000 but I think the most significant year for them is 2013. Till 19 August, 2013 the ‘Panda’ and ‘Penguin’ updates were effectively rolled out to hit upon website results with low quality contents and spam backlinks.

But in 20th August the same year, a new Google algorithm update ‘Hummingbird’ tingled all the search results. After every 3 or 4 months, a new update reveals to filter search results. It is almost unbelievable that many popular sites lose approx 90%-100% of their traffic instantly just because of these algorithm changes. So, the question is how to do proper SEO to prevent algorithm updates of all time? When it is about blog posts, how should we optimize these? I am actually not a search engine expert but I will advise to go naturally. Here I will focus on the major areas of blog posts that should be naturally optimized to beat Google updates.

Read more »

How To Increase Storage Space On Windows 8.1 Devices With SD Cards

Windows 8.1 devices are all full PCs — yes, even the tablets — and often support SD cards. This allows you to easily expand your PC’s storage. Just insert an SD card and you can treat it as a “permanent” part of your device. The SD card will likely be slower than your device’s built-in storage, but it’s a great way to store music, videos, pictures, and other files. The original release of Windows 8 didn’t have very good support for SD cards. You couldn’t easily access them from Windows 8-style apps without going through some obscure tricks on the...

Read the full article: How To Increase Storage Space On Windows 8.1 Devices With SD Cards

The Italian City Of Venice Is Now On Google Street-View

There’s something unique about Venice – it has a lot of water in and around it, which means that it is impossible for a car to get anywhere near it. So you would think that this would prevent Google Street-View from getting anywhere near it, right? Well wrong. If Venice thought they were safe from Google by virtue of water, they were badly mistaken, because Google found a unique way around the situation – with their Trekker technology. From the looks of things, the Trekker technology consists of a round green camera which is mounted on a person’s back and...

Read the full article: The Italian City Of Venice Is Now On Google Street-View

What The Windows XPocalypse Means For You

If there is one thing that Microsoft has an aptitude for, it’s pomp. Windows 95 launched to a soundtrack scored by none other than The Rolling Stones and Weezer. For Vista, Redmond made sure that those who turned up to the launch party were given enough worthless tat to fill a landfill. However, nothing quite topped the vainglorious fanfare of the launch of XP, which saw New York turned into a literal, honest-to-god fairground, which was scored with a performance by Geordie crooner, Sting. Few technology products are quite as well loved as Windows XP was. In the first three...

Read the full article: What The Windows XPocalypse Means For You

What The Windows XPocalypse Means For You

If there is one thing that Microsoft has an aptitude for, it’s pomp. Windows 95 launched to a soundtrack scored by none other than The Rolling Stones and Weezer. For Vista, Redmond made sure that those who turned up to the launch party were given enough worthless tat to fill a landfill. However, nothing quite topped the vainglorious fanfare of the launch of XP, which saw New York turned into a literal, honest-to-god fairground, which was scored with a performance by Geordie crooner, Sting. Few technology products are quite as well loved as Windows XP was. In the first three...

Read the full article: What The Windows XPocalypse Means For You

Windows 8.1 Boot Screen Logo Changer

CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL POST



We already know it’s possible to change the Windows 8.1 boot screen logo that appears just before the lock screen when you turn on the PC. The method, slightly complicated though, involves editing or replacing the original system files, and require you download a couple of tools to extract system files. Even though there are […]

Defective PS4 Debuts, Apple Accuses Samsung, Batkid Wins Internet [Tech News Digest]

Today in Tech News Digest, Sony sells lots of games consoles (including some defective ones), Apple ratchets up its selling techniques, Steve Ballmer reveals the truth about his exit from Microsoft, Netflix gets a fancy new makeover, Apple’s Phil Schiller accuses Samsung of copying, Amazon and Facebook team up together, and Batkid goes viral on social media. PS4 Sells Well, Some Consoles Defective The PlayStation was released on Friday (Nov. 15) and proved to be an immediate hit. Despite some less-than-stellar reviews of the games console (mostly down to the lack of standout launch titles) Sony claims to have shifted...

Read the full article: Defective PS4 Debuts, Apple Accuses Samsung, Batkid Wins Internet [Tech News Digest]

Reboot To: Quickly Reboot From Windows 8.1 Into Windows 7

CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL POST



By now, you’ve either upgraded your Windows 7 installation to Windows 8/8.1 or you have installed Windows 8/8.1 in dual-boot with Windows 7. If you have upgraded your Windows 7 installation to Windows 8/8.1, you might not find this guide helpful! If you have installed Windows 8/8.1 in dual-boot with Windows 7 and have set […]

YouTube Tests Channel Cards

After adding music cards and testing cards for shows, YouTube experiments with cards for channels. They're displayed in the right sidebar of the search results page and show the latest videos from the channel and some of its playlists.



Here's an example for Google Chrome. The channel is still included in the list of search results.

Here's how you can enable the experimental feature. If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:



1. open youtube.com in a new tab



2. load your browser's developer console:



* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac



* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac



* Internet Explorer 8+ - press F12 and select the "Console" tab



* Safari 6 - if you haven't enabled the Develop menu, open Preferences from the Safari menu, go to the Advanced tab and check "Show Develop menu in menu bar". Close Preferences and then press Command-Option-C to show the console.



* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console".



3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:



document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=2IS0PWox26Q; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();



4. press Enter and close the console.



Some examples of searches: [google], [apple], [comedy central].



To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:



document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();



{ via Rubén. }

Did You Ever Contribute To Wikipedia? [MakeUseOf Poll]

Last week we asked you how many friends you have on Google+. Aside from giving us an insight into how many of you actually use Google+, the poll also turned into a discussion about the recent switch to Google+ comment on YouTube, which forced many people to start using Google+. We also wanted to compare the results to a similar poll about Facebook, but since Google+ attracted only about half the voters, it’s hard to get a clear picture. Out of 267 votes in total, 4.5% have 201-300 friends on Google+, another 4.5% have 301-500 friends on Google+, 7.5% have...

Read the full article: Did You Ever Contribute To Wikipedia? [MakeUseOf Poll]

Blue YouTube

I like blue, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that YouTube made some UI elements blue (#2793e6): the like button and the line below the number of views. Maybe someone was unhappy that Android KitKat removed all the blue icons and decided to compensate in other ways or maybe it's an attempt to calm YouTube users and make them stop posting silly comments.

Folders in Chrome's App Launcher

Chrome's latest Dev channel release lets you create folders in the app launcher. If you use Chrome 33 (Dev, Canary) or Chromium 33 for Windows, you can paste this in the address bar:



chrome://flags/#enable-app-list-folder



Then click "Enable" next to "Enable the app list folder" and then click the "Relaunch now" button at the bottom of the page to restart the browser and enable the experimental feature.

"If enabled, user will be able to create app list folder by drag-and-drop," informs Google. It works just like in Android: drag one app on top of another to create a folder, then drag other apps to the folder.

Here's the Google folder from the screenshot above:

It's a simple feature that lets you organize your apps and reduce clutter.



{ Thanks, Silviu. }