http://www.techsnake.com Tech talk with a UK based slant is what we're all about here, so sit back subscribe and get a daily post delivered to your RSS reader! Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:33:54 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I didn't know that people were this badly into engineering things out of lego, and trust me this is definitely engineering, in every sense of the word. But, yes, one person, naming himself "barebos" on YouTube, has created a V8 engine (32 valve no less) that took him 4 to ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/10/06/v8-engine-made-from-lego/ A collection of photos I've been hunting around the web for - servers, computers and server rooms that have found out what it's like to lose a fight against fire! Yes, you're right - that is a phone on top of that computer! That's why your downloads are slow - the exchange ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/10/03/server-rooms-fire-should-be-kept-apart/ Ever found yourself wandering around the internet when you stumble into something that you can't tear yourself away from? Me too - enter Tankball 2! You start off by picking a name for your tank, selecting your team colour and away you go! The controls are very simple, with the cursors ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/10/03/online-multiplayer-action-with-tankball-2/ I found this really interesting interactive Google timeline created to celebrate their 10th birthday. Just click and drag through the years to find out facts and stats about our favourite search engine. http://www.techsnake.com/2008/10/01/the-history-of-google/ The makers of World of Warcraft (WoW) have won a settlement today from a company who created a bot to "level-up" players of the popular online MMORPG. The software, called MMOGlider, gives players of WoW the opportunity to automate tedious tasks to increase their abilities and ultimately have a more powerful ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/10/01/blizzard-beats-bot-with-6-million-settlement/ News has emerged that Valve will be releasing a demo of its 4 player co-op zombie shooter Left 4 Dead. The demo, which should be out shortly before release, will more than likely be the first two maps of the game. The two missions start outside in the streets and ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/30/valve-to-release-demo-of-left-4-dead/ The search engine we all know and love has turned 10 years old today. It's odd to think that they've been around for only ten years to be honest - Google is intertwined with our online lives everywhere now. I personally use GMail, of course, Reader, Notebook, Analytics, Sitemaps, Video and ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/27/google-turns-10/ Those of you who have read my recent post on the failings of EA support, will know that it was impossible to get through to them. Well, I can now say the problem is solved and it is in no way down to EA's help. A member of the team at ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/23/dice-success/ I don't know if you've ever owned any EA games, and I don't know if you've ever needed their support with them - but trust me, don't bother because you are going to get nowhere fast with the support team. I have been a long time owner of EA Sports and ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/18/ea-support-fail/ Think of the unhappiest times with your computer.. What happened during those times? What would cause your face to freeze and your jaw to drop? In my experience it has almost always been because data was lost. It's normally the realisation that everything you had was gone - when you ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/15/create-a-simple-backup-batch-file-in-windows/ Pushing around the internetz, minding my own business, I fell upon an old Gizmodo article of a year ago about a cat that you can buy, from Japan. No ordinary cat, no, but a robotic electrocute your-family-and-take-over-the-house sort of kitty. Scarily realistic, you would wonder if children would be able ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/11/robotic-cat-it-will-kill-us-all/ With news that Google have just got that little bit closer to providing users of Google's Maps and Earth a more detailed than ever view of where we live, I wonder if it's all such a good thing.. The GeoEye satellite, 423 miles about the Earth, peers down as you're outside ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/07/google-getting-close-and-personal/ I'm not sure if this is a Microhoo story or not, but I do know that Yahoo's shares have dropped to a 5 year low - at what point does this equate to "Shareholder Value" exactly Mr. Yang? Of course, The Register were one of the first (even ahead of ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/05/yahoo-flailing/ I'm the sort of person that looks at something and wonders why it isn't as good as something else I have. Example: In your modern browser you have tabs, and you can click-drag these to reorganise. Something you don't need to do that often, but it's nice to have the ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/04/organise-your-taskbar-buttons/ I know, we shouldn't be getting the pallbearers ready just yet, but after the release of Google's Chrome it does raise the question of how it will affect Firefox & the Mozilla Foundation. The Foundation is largely funded by Google so it presents a complicated situation for the two groups. On ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/04/what-happens-to-mozilla-now/ Google Chrome was made available for download, by the public, from here, during a press conference & webcast at Google HQ (which I was lucky enough to view), which detailed the features of the new browser. A few things I noticed during the conference, was a lot of direct comparison between ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/02/google-chrome-first-look/ Here is the link to download Google Chrome - Please bare in mind that it isn't active until the Google HQ wakes up - at the moment it resolves to Google's homepage. Download Google Chrome http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/02/download-google-chrome/ Google - the world's favourite search engine, has decided to step up and compete in the browser market. Competing with, more obviously, Internet Explorer, but also the likes of Firefox, Opera & Safari, Google's Open Source "Chrome" browser (to be launched today in Beta) seems like a bold, but very logical ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/09/02/googles-chrome-to-take-on-internet-explorer-and-firefoxs-dominance/ Video Games Live, a show that tours America, is a full sized Orchestra that plays some of the classic arcade game music of the past and present - in front of a big screen showing the game in action. Hearing some of these old classics, expertly re-created is a real ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/08/30/classic-game-music-played-by-a-real-orchestra/ The micro-blogging app, Jaiku, has moved from it's previous hosted servers to a Google data centre, following problems with the system. Jaiku, who had been acquired by Google in October of last year, had always planned to migrate their systems to Google's servers, in readiness for integration with Google Apps. However ... http://www.techsnake.com/2008/08/30/jaiku-moved-to-google-data-centre/