As a tablet OS, Windows 8 is pretty decent.  I don’t have a problem with the Start screen in theory.  But I spend 8+ hours a day in front of a PC doing real work and that means using a desktop OS.

Windows 8 includes the desktop but it relegates that to being a program you run from the Start screen.  What we really want is to get the good stuff in Windows 8 (faster performance, new Modern app support, etc.) without the negatives.  That’s where Object Desktop comes in!

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Did anyone else watch the Microsoft unveiling of the Xbox One? I was embarrassed for them.  Seriously, do they even have gamers involved anymore over there?

It’s like more and more decisions at Microsoft are being made by aging business fraternity people. 

The folks at Gameranx have put up their review of FE: Legendary Heroes and gave it a 9 out of 10!

“For fans of the genre, and for those with fond memories of Masters of Magic and Age of Wonders,Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is a fun, easy way to lose countless hours. All it takes is just one more turn.”

Read the full review here.

Disclaimer:

This is an example of a game of Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes. For my own personal enjoyment, I create my own backstories and motivations for what occurs in a given game.  In reality, Fallen Enchantress games are played in a “sandbox”. That is, the world is randomly generated and what happens changes from game to game.  This story is about one particular game. The world you see described here will never happen again nor will the events ever be repeated because e...

 

Flickr has expanded the free storage to 1 Terabyte. If you need or want more, that will require subscription. If you have a Yahoo or Flickr account, there’s nothing you have to do. You’ve already received your 1 Tb. If you create an account? No problem. You receive 1Tb. Well played, Flickr. Flickr Pro while being continued, is no longer being sold as such. If you have it, it’s being continued, for now.

Also, no 300 Mb/month limit anymore.

What hasn’t chang...

Putting aside the debate over whether the  I in Into is capitalized or not, the movie was terrific.

No spoilers in this post.

Having managed to avoid spoilers going into the theater I was surprised again and again as the movie progressed. It’s very much a character driven story.  Sure, there are some great special effects and some surprisingly detailed depictions of Earth in the 23rd century (more than I think we’ve ever gotten in a Star Trek film).

Because of the massi...

The full story of Legendary Heroes is a long one, but it started with a promise.  In November of 2010 War of Magic had shipped, it wasn't doing well and Brad promised to provide 2 free expansions to anyone who had purchased it.  This is a very unusual thing for a company to do, but as an outsider it impressed me that Stardock was that committed to their games and their customers.

So I went to Michigan to meet with Brad and I accepted a job at Stardock making video games for a li...

Many rumors have been going around as to the price, if any, of the upcoming Windows 8.1 (aka “Blue”) update.  Today we get a confirmation that “Blue” will be officially named Windows 8.1, and will be a free update to Windows 8 users.

Source: Mary Jo Foley/ZDnet

“Microsoft's Windows Chief Financial Officer Tami Reller, during an appearance at the May 14 JP Morgan Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, shared the pricing news. She noted that pr...

Understand, I love Starcraft.  But I finally got to the point where I can’t play it anymore and have fun.  I’m a low-level “Gold” league player.  And the problem (for me) is that at a certain point, it’s really about the micro of the units.  I managed to get to the level I was at because I’m pretty good at macro – I play as a virus that is always trying to spread across the map and unless you counter me consistently, it’ll eventually all be mine.

But at a certain point –...

Stardock's Brad Wardell is on the latest podcast from Geeks with Wives. Wide range of topics are discussed from gaming to comics, and it’s a great podcast to listen to.

 http://geekswithwives.com/geeks-with-wives-podcast-episode-83/

Our background orchard has an apriary. I lost most of my hives this past year. Some of it due to CCD and some of it due to kids with too much time on their hands who come over and knock over the beehives from time to time (and tear off the no trespassing signs).  I could probably write a lengthy article on the cultural rot of upper-middle class teenagers who don’t have jobs, have never had to do anything and have a lot of free time to get into trouble. But that’s a different topic..
...

3D Printing seems to have crossed a major mile stone in that a start-up, called Defense Distributed, has used a 3D printer to create a working gun. It’s still mostly a curiosity since the cost to make such a gun and that it isn’t yet very robust still keeps it firmly in the early adopter era.

So here’s what I’ve found out so far :

No matter which printer you get, the materials for it are currently over $100 a pound. To me, that makes it fairly impractical for most uses. I could imagine...

We knew it was only a matter of time before Adobe made the switch to cloud-only software, but I was quite surprised that they did it so soon.  The Creative Cloud was introduced about a year ago I believe, and yesterday at Adobe MAX, they announced new versions of their Creative Suite line is no more, and replaced by Creative Cloud.  They will still support Creative Suite 6 with fixes and limited updates, but no new features or anything like that.  If you want the latest and greate...

Start8 has shown to be very popular with Windows 8 users looking to get the Windows 8 start men and button back on their desktop. 

Not only does Start8 give you back the Start menu, it also gives you the ability to boot directly to the desktop, and other features like disabling desktop hot corners.  Another cool feature that sometimes isn’t mentioned is the ability to customize Start8 to look and feel how you want it to.

Purchase Start8 for only $4.99 today!One of the easi...

Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes is in TIME's "10 Games to Watch for Late Spring 2013"!  

"it’s rolling out an expansion dubbed Legendary Heroes that, as it sounds, is about digging down into the champion-building game (champions don’t show up randomly, you now have to work for them) and deep-tweaking everything else, including the leveling system, battle maps, bestiary, magic and visuals."

See it here - http://techland.time.com/2013/05/03/10-games-to-wat...