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If your ISP has strict bandwidth limits, or if you’re simply curious about how much Internet traffic you use, you might have considered installing a program that can monitor how much you upload/download.

I hunted around a while trying to find a decent program that could properly monitor my usage from day to day and overall. Finally, I found one — NetLimiter Monitor. And it’s free! Keep reading »

Many future college students will buy a new computer in the summer before they leave for college. These days, a computer is an invaluable tool for students, so buying the best one for you is essential. Although computers are expensive, luckily these days prices have dropped significantly, so even if you’re on a small budget, you should still be able to get a great computer for about $600 or less.

This is a guide to finding the absolute best laptop for you to use in college. I strongly recommend buying a laptop over a desktop computer, as laptops are far more portable and useful in a college setting. This guide is written assuming you’re buying a laptop, though most things hold true for both.

If you’re buying a computer soon, you might want to wait a bit.

I definitely recommend customizing a computer to your needs. Most computer brand will have an option to “Customize this computer”, where you can take each part in a computer and specify what you want. Decide what you’ll be using your computer for mainly and what you’d like to store on it, and then make the decisions of where to upgrade parts according to what you want. Luckily, if you’re not a heavy gamer, many upgrades will be cheap and powerful.

So, let’s begin! Keep reading »

If you’re going to be buying a new computer for college (or even just in general), it may be in your best interest to hold off until July 1st.

Microsoft is releasing its newest operating system, Windows 7, pretty soon. Although still in release candidate state, Windows 7 so far seems very highly regarded as a definite improvement to Windows Vista. Windows 7 is smaller, faster, and more powerful than its predecessor.

Microsoft has said that all new computers purchased after July 1st will be able to upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows Vista for free.

So, if you wait until July 1st to buy a computer, you’ll be able to upgrade your operating system at no charge!

If you’re going to be buying a new computer for college, you’re going to be faced immediately with the choice of what kind of computer to get. Do you buy a portable laptop, or a powerful desktop?

Laptops

In general, if you can afford it, you’re going to want some kind of laptop for college. Laptops give you the freedom of portability, meaning you can take it to class to take notes, you can take it to the library to study, you can easily bring it with you when you go home for the weekend, and you can bring it just about everywhere else. At home you may not have needed a portable computer, but a laptop at college is pretty essential these days. Keep reading »

Next Tuesday, April 21st, there will supposedly be a significant Left 4 Dead update for both PC and 360 gamers. This update will expand much on the game in ways that are very much needed.

I’ve been trying to read up a bit to find out just what will be included in this update, but I’ve had some

What we can count on

• Dead Air and Death Toll become Versus maps. Currently, only No Mercy and Blood Harvest are available for Versus mode, but Dead Air and Death Toll will finally be properly finished and released.
• Survivor Mode. A third mode will be released, called Survivor Mode. In Survival Mode, you pick one of 16 areas to defend (15 are based on current levels, the 16th will be a new one, a lighthouse) and you survive as long as you can against an endless onslaught of zombies.

What we might see

I’ve heard a few rumors, but none of this is confirmed at all.

• Two new campaigns. One campaign is supposedly going to be a mall (I’ve heard rumors it will be based on the mall in the Dawn of the Dead movie), the other one will be the lighthouse from Survivor Mode.
• A release of the SDK. Once the SDK is released, it will become far easier for people to create custom L4D maps and mods, meaning a massive explosion of new campaigns and other cool features.

I’m pretty excited — any one of these four will be worth it! Have fun killing zombies!

If you buy a new computer or experience some serious hard drive issues, you may need to transfer your music from your iPod to your computer. However, iTunes only allows you to transfers songs you’ve purchased from the iTunes store, making it pretty tough to restore your music library.

However, there’s a surprisingly quick and easy solution: WinAmp.

If you didn’t know, WinAmp is actually capable of managing your iPod (and other MP3 players), though it may not have quite the functionality you enjoy with iTunes.

Whether or not you use WinAmp as your media player of choice, it’s still a great tool to use to rip music from your iPod. Keep reading »

Here’s a fun and useful FireFox tip: You can search websites from the location bar too!

If you’re a power user, you make frequent trips to the search bar and the location bar in FireFox. The search bar is useful, but if you regularly search many different sites, this quick trick will save you untold amounts of time by allowing you to use the location bar to run search queries in this form:

<specified keyword> <specified search query>

After this simple tutorial, you’ll know how to run a Google search for “bananas” by typing this in your location bar:

google bananas

Here’s how to do it:

Keep reading »

Versus mode in Left 4 Dead can be pretty unforgiving at first. Since there’s no single player to help you learn the basics, your first experience with Versus is an online game with 3 other people depending on you. Moreso than campaign, Versus relies on solid teamwork (both as Survivors and as Infected). If you’re new to the game, your team is going to have to cope with your inexperience.

Left 4 Dead's versus mode is very unforgiving to newcomers

Since campaign doesn’t offer any opportunities to play as Infected, you won’t be used to the controls of the Infected when you play your first Versus game. Since some of the controls take a bit of getting used to (especially the Hunter), it would be really nice if you could learn the basics of Versus mode without actually playing in a real game.

Even though the game doesn’t offer a one-player Versus, through the use of the console you can actually practice on your own! Here’s how… Keep reading »