Once the application is installed, you can see all the added buttons in the Windows Explorer and in other application windows.

The application preferences and button settings can be accessed from system-tray menu, click Options to access the main configuration.

Options dialog carries all application parameters and button settings at left sidebar. To add/remove any button from title bar, click Buttons Set to open button manger where you can change the arrangement  and add/remove unnecessary buttons.

The application also enables user to register hotkeys for frequently used functions, select the required button from left sidebar to add the hotkey and change other available options.

Unlike Chameleon Windows Manager, it allows user to not only toggle transparency but also opacity of an active application which can be selected on the fly without having to open main configuration window.

During testing, it threw several COM Surrogate exceptions for Windows Explorer. Hopefully, the errors/bugs will be addressed in the next iteration. It works on all versions of Windows was tested on Windows 7 x64 system.

Download eXtra Buttons

First person shooters are one of the biggest genres in the video game world today. With games like Call of Duty setting sales records across all of entertainment, not just gaming, I think it is safe to say first person shooters are here to stay. Obviously, since there are so many first person shooters being released, narrowing it down to the three best is no small task, but when I really thought about it, these choices were actually a no brainer. Remember, I am only looking at these games in regards to their multiplayer prowess; their single player side is of no concern for the purpose of this article.

Halo: Combat Evolved

I will start this off by saying I am not a great Halo player. I have played every Halo, and no matter how much time I spend with them I just cannot get good. I reached a point where I realized that Halo just is not for me. However, I would be insane to leave the original Halo list off any top list of first person shooters.

Game developers had tried to make a good FPS for consoles for a long time and no one could seem to nail it. Then Bungie stepped into the picture and completely flipped the gaming industry on its head. They took a completely PC dominated genre and made it work on a console better than anyone imagined. Bungie brought incredible graphics, a silky smooth frame rate and a control scheme that was adapted perfectly to a game pad instead of mouse and keyboard. Even though Halo features no online play, it is still one of the best multiplayer shooters in history.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Call of Duty was a fairly successful PC shooter before the first Modern Warfare game came out. Then the dynamic shifted, and Call of Duty became a massive franchise that breaks every sales record in the book every year when a new game comes out.

COD4 added so much to the first person shooter genre. The core game play in Call of Duty isn’t that revolutionary. What makes it so special is all the things it added in terms of multiplayer features outside of the actual game. They gave their game a sense of purpose that is not often seen in a multiplayer game. They added a level progression system that many other shooters are borrowing now.

Infinity Ward also added kill streaks, which is a genius way of rewarding players for doing well. If you are getting a lot of kills, what better way is there to be rewarded besides earning more kills!

Their perks system, which allows you to change specific attributes about your soldier based on your play style, is something that kept myself, and millions of other gamers coming back for more.

Battlefield 2

This is without question the video game I have spent the most time with in my life. I can’t even begin to imagine the number of hours I have spent playing Battlefield 2, and I think if I knew the number it would terrify me. Battlefield 2 was the game that finally broke first person shooters out of their World War 2 rut. I cannot stand playing WWII shooters because the guns always feel old and slow.

Battlefield 2 took the systems Dice originally laid out in their earlier shooters Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam, expanded them and put them in a modern setting.

What truly makes Battlefield so special is their emphasis on large-scale teamwork. It is one of the first games to bring giant 64 player battles to the player, and more importantly, they did it in a way that didn’t feel like an unmanageable cluster.

Dice took classes to a whole other level. Having people play as medics to revive and heal teammates, support classes to provide ammo and even engineers to repair damaged vehicles.

Did I mention vehicles? Battlefield 2 merged vehicle-based combat with on-foot combat in a way that I still don’t think has been replicated. They offered all kinds of vehicles like ATV’s, tanks and airplanes. The scope of the game is tremendous. One minute a player could be running around shooting a squad of enemies on foot, and the next flying around in an airplane dropping bombs on the very same squad.

For me, Battlefield 2 is the single best first person shooter ever made, and honestly, one of the best video games ever made. The only game that might top it could be Battlefield 3.

Conclusion

There have been hundreds of first person shooters released throughout the years. Pretty much any one of those shooters released in the last ten years borrows something from these three games. Not only are they revolutionary in their genre, they are also downright great games. Even today, going back to these games is still fun. And the best part? They all have sequels coming out in the near future.

What are your favorite first person shooters? Do you think my list is asinine? Let me know in the comments.

People suffering from eyes diseases such as amblyopia or lazy eye cannot see movies in 3D. However, that is the least of the vows of people suffering from headaches, nausea and dizziness after watching 3D. As this technology enters the cinemas, games and even our TV sets, we look at the implications of 3D technology and possible health hazards that it may cause.

Although there is news that the first installment of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows may not be released in 3D, however, it is quite likely that not just the next part of Harry Potter (Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows  2) will be released in 3D but also many other mainstream movies in the near future. People are already divided in two opposing segments comprising of the fans and haters of 3D movies and technology. It is a well known fact that people with eye problems can not only find it difficult (if not impossible) to watch 3D based imagery, but also suffer from health issues.

A few weeks ago Samsung posted a warning on their Australian website, saying that, “Some viewers may experience discomfort while viewing 3D TV such as dizziness, nausea and headaches. If you experience any such symptom, stop viewing 3D TV, remove 3D Active Glasses and rest. A responsible adult should frequently check on children who are using the 3D function. If there are any reports of tired eyes, headaches, dizziness, or nausea, have the child stop viewing 3D TV and rest”.

It has also been learned that watching 3D for some people can even lead to Photosensitive and Epileptic seizure. While a list of other possible side effects associated with watching 3D for a long period of time include:

Eye or muscle twitching, headache, vomiting, nausea, cramps, disorientation, loss of awareness and sleeplessness. Among the horde of large corporations cashing in with 3D technology, Samsung has indeed made a brave and praise worthy move of warning people regarding possible health hazards of watching 3D TV.

As we get swept away by the wonders of watching mind blowing 3D imagery in cinemas and now at home, it is worth asking the question about the nature of problems that it may bring along with it. On a personal basis I find the idea of 3D to be quite discomforting as there is no telling what effect it might have on the human brain itself when it is exposed in a state of self inflicted “ecstasy” of imagery. One question that I have not seen anyone ask as yet is the effect of such technology on people with mental illnesses and the possibility of ending up the same road due to 3D addiction. I don’t mean to jump to conclusions, however, I believe that there is extensive research necessary into the effects of this technology before we start embracing it freely and allowing vulnerable minds of our children to be exposed to it.

What do you think? Does 3D harm you any how?

The application usage is simple, all it requires you is to specify the IP address to find and map the IP location. From toolbar, click Add button and enter the IP you want to track. The application takes some time while locating the IP, information retrieved will be shown at the bottom of the window.

During testing, we found some interface-related glitches and problems with whois server integrated functionality, otherwise it is a fine little app. Testing was done on Windows 7 x64 system while it supports Windows XP/Vista/7.

Download IP Locator

Not only can these image files be burned to a new disc, they can also be opened or “mounted” as a “virtual drive”. When you mount an ISO or similar file, it can be found as a new drive letter on your computer. This is handy, especially if you want to find out what’s in a disc image before you burn it, or if you don’t have a CD/DVD drive on your computer.

In order to mount a disc image, you’ll normally need to install virtual drive software on your PC. My favorite mounting software is Virtual Clone Drive. Once installed, it’s easy to use. You only need to double click an ISO to mount it as a new drive.

Here’s one I recently ran into. It’s called WinCDEmu. It’s available as a normal install, and also as a portable program (single EXE file). I have a special love for portable applications and gave WinCDEmu a try.

I downloaded the portable version. It’s a small download, at about 235k. When you first launch it, you’ll be prompted to let it install it’s driver.

Click the “Yes” button to continue. After that, you’ll be able to mount ISO and other disc images by clicking the “Mount another image” button.

As you can see above, you’ll be able to see the drive letters for your new virtual drives as you add them. That’s as complicated as it gets …

Downloads

Download WinCDEmu from SourceForge (portable and installed versions)

Download WinCDEmu from Download.com (portable)

Download WinCDEmu from Download.com (installed)

Here are some more things that might interest you

• Free ISO Burner & Burn ISO Files to CD/DVD Free tool – Using these tools you can easily burn a ISO file to a CD or DVD.
• Create ISO Files from any Folder – Want to create your own ISO files? Use this handy tool to create them.
• Find Which Programs Can open Unknown File Types – Have you ever come across files that you are not aware of or have never seen before? Use this excellent free utility to find which application can open that file.
• For more information related to ISO, please visit the ISO section on Techie Buzz

WinCDEmu has several things going for it. It’s free, open-source, small, and has a portable version. As I’ve shown, the portable version is simple to use, and the installed version is even easier, since it allows you to mount images by double clicking on them.

Orange recently announced the launch of Samsung’s first tablet device, the Samsung Galaxy Tab in the U.K. This powerful device is available immediately for purchase through selected Orange retail shops and Orange telesales. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is available on one month and 12 month price plans from Orange.

“The Galaxy Tab is the perfect complement to our smartphone and mobile broadband device portfolio, and we’re giving our existing customers the best value packages on offer. We believe that with Christmas fast approaching, and these great offers, the Galaxy Tab will prove popular with UK consumers,” said, Pippa Dunn, VP of Propositions for Orange.

Samsung Galaxy Tab comes with a 7 inch TFT-LCD touchscreen display, 1024×600 pixels resolution, Android 2.2 (FroYo) OS, TouchWIZ 3.0 UI, 1GHz processor, 3.2 megapixel camera with HD (720p) video recording and playback, 1.3 megapixel front facing camera, Wi-Fi, 3G Connectivity, 512MB RAM, 16GB of internal memory, 32GB expandable memory, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS and 4000mAH battery.

Galaxy Tab is priced at £529 for one month plans, and at £499 for 12 months options. On select Dolphin price plans, customers will receive an additional 1GB “quiet time” data allowance (from midnight until 4pm), and have the option of unlimited data through BT OpenZone public WiFi. Samsung Galaxy Tab is also being sold by Vodafone, Orange, O2, Talkmobile, Carphone Warehouse and Amazon in U.K.

The application will also come useful when you are using multiple external hard drives with your system, it can assign a separate indicator for each hard disk connected with the system. On launching the application, it will automatically populate the list with all the drives (internal & external), CPU cores, while offering options to monitor RAM usage, NIC (Network Identification Cards) units, and Virtual memory usage. Just enable the Drive(s), Ram unit, NIC options from the list and click Apply to monitor specified elements’ activities in system tray.

Under Unit Options, there are two options – Show in tray, which enables you to toggle system tray indicator on/off, and the Output to parallel port option refers to selecting number of data lines on the parallel port to be set high on Read/Write operations.  Under Global options, you can manipulate the pause time between refresh rate and indicators interval.  You can also let it start with Windows logon and delay the indicators to set them in system tray adjacently.

Application was tested on Windows 7 x86 system while it supports Windows XP/Vista/7.

Download DriveGLEAM

Handy Start Menu groups all programs into popular well-known categories. Instead of browsing a large pile of random folders and applications, this organized approach makes it much easier to find a certain application.

Simply launch the tool and it will automatically group the applications and folders into their respective categories. There are a total of 10 categories – Office, Utilities, Fun and Games, Internet, For Developers, Graphics and Design, Security, Music and Video, Miscellaneous, and Without Category.

Handy Start Menu sits in the system tray and can be disable in one click by either using the right-click menu or from it’s main interface.

You will find many applications and folders without any category. To organize them into their respective categories, you need to manually specify the category for them. First select the application or folder from the left pane and then select the category from the right pane.

Once all programs have been assigned to their category, click OK. Simple as that!

Overall, we found it to be a very useful and highly productive tool which greatly helps in finding the applications faster and reduces the time it takes to search for them.

It has been developed exclusively for Windows 7, we tested it on both 32-bit and 64-bit OS.

Download The Handy Start Menu

The solution is a registry hack or software launcher software that can delay the startup of my broadband network connection.

Delaying a service has many uses – from improving boot efficiency to troubleshooting. Windows has several manual options for specifying the sequence of startup programs and a delay between them. You can use a batch file and place it in the startup folder or get into the registry and add entries under a registry key.

But for absolute ease of use there are a few software launcher options too. Let’s look into three of them.

Startup Delayer

Startup Delayer (v2.5.138) is a 980KB free download. The latest version is more than a year old, but it works just fine on Windows 2000/XP/XP64/Vista systems. The app lists all the applications that load with Windows. You can double click on each application and edit its Launch Type and set the Delay.

Alternatively, you can drag ‘n drop the application onto the Time Chart that’s below the application list. Then, you can then drag and drop it around the Time Chart to rearrange the apps and change the delay. You can delete selected programs from the list and in case you change your mind, simply start over. The delay information is displayed on the status bar.

LaunchLater

LaunchLater (v1.3) Beta does the same job of delaying the startup time of applications. The 1.145MB freeware does require that you have .NET Framework (ver.4.0) installed.

LaunchLater is very simple: you add the applications you want to delay and specify the delay in seconds. But the simplicity also entails a bit of work, because you have to manually browse to the executable of the application you want to delay the launch for.

WinPatrol

Startup program delay is just one of the roles of this well rounded security app, WinPatrol (ver.18.1). WinPatrol’s overall role is to monitor your computer for any changes and issue alerts. Scotty, the system watchdog, sits on the taskbar and watches out for threats. Malicious software, harmful ActiveX controls, suspected key loggers, spyware etc can be kept at bay using WinPatrol. WinPatrol does not scan but takes a system snapshot as the basis for its heuristic monitoring of the system.

WinPatrol has a startup monitor that lists all the programs that load with Windows. You can simply right click on the program(s) and move it to the Delayed Start list.

Next, on the Delayed Start list, you can right click on the program and set the delay time for the program.

WinPatrol (Free) is a 1MB download and is supported on all Windows OS including Windows 7

To begin, all you need is to create a VB script file to make use of Windows 7 narrator. First, create a new text file and open it in Notepad. Now insert the following lines of code. In the second line, you can enter any phrase or a sentence that is to be narrated, within the double quotation marks.

Dim speaks, speech
speaks=”Usman, Welcome to AddictiveTips”
Set speech=CreateObject(“sapi.spvoice”)
speech.Speak speaks

Save the changes made and close the file. Now rename the file extension to .VBS, as shown in the screenshot below.

In the last step, all that is required is to place this newly created script into Windows Startup folder. In Windows 7, you can directly navigate to Startup folder using the following address.

C:\Users\<<Username>>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\

Or click All Programs in Startup menu and scroll down to find Startup folder.

If you are a Windows XP user, you will find Startup folder here;

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\

Once you’ve placed the script into Startup folder, disable default Windows logon sound, then reboot your system and listen to the welcome message on Windows logon. We successfully tested this script on our Windows 7 x86 system.