With Christmas a little less then two weeks away, it’s crunch time for those of you waiting until the last minute, especially those looking for those impossibly hard to find video games for their kids and adult kids(geek husbands). The folks over at TwitchGuru.com have compiled a list of The 10 Best Games for Your Money this Holiday Season. Here is how they’ve complied this list:

We’re in the thick of the holiday season, so rather than come up with a silly “Best of 2006″ list, I instead whipped up a list of 10 games that I believe would be sound and virtuous purchases. I tried to come up with titles that covered a range of platforms, genres and, most importantly, prices.

I pulled the suggested retail prices from major retailers, though better deals can be had online.

They’ve compiled this list into different groups that include current and past games. I myself have organized they’re groups below for a much more easy to read list. Please refer to their site if you want more details on the games themselves.

The $5 Milkshakes (Defined: Not sure if they’re worth the money, but their are pretty darn good!!!)

So Last Year, But So Very Good(Defined: Were Hits in 2005 and still may cost a few extra $$$, but all worth the money)

Bonus Bargains(Defined: Two titles that breaks down bang for the buck)

Again, the full article is HERE.

Being a Desktop Support Technician, there are many times where one is forced to have one it’s remote users boot up into safe mode. This can be quite difficult with the little time you have to press F8 during boot-up, which is the place where most think is the only place you can boot into Safe Mode. This is untrue with both Windows XP Home and Professional. Here is the other ways:

Go to Start>Run:

Type MSCONFIG:

Click on the BOOT.ini Tab:

Now choose one of the many options:(Below the screenshot is a description of the many options)

Google’s web based e-mail client, better known as “GMail” is fast becoming the most popular free web based client in the world. They were the first mainstream company to start dishing out massive amounts of storage(Currently closing in on 3GigaBytes) to each and every e-mail account created. And now with rumors spreading that it’s finally opening it’s doors to everyone, including non-cell phone users, it can only get bigger.

I absolutely love the application, which not only integrates e-mail, but also combines all of your other Google account systems as well, including Calendar, Spreadsheets and Docs, Photos and Groups. With all web based clients there are some typical annoyances, such as the inability to get real time e-mail. This is where the Firefox Extensions gurus come swooping into the rescue. Although Google does give you the ability to see your real time e-mail in your system tray via GMail Notifier, some prefer to just have it running in their browser window, where most of us spend our time anyway, these days.

Below are the Big 3 Firefox Extensions which all take full advantage of what Google gives you:

GMail Notifier
Is basically a clone of Google’s GMail notifier, that runs in your Firefox Browser.

GMail Manager
GMail Manager is GMail Notifier on steroids. It gives you the ability to manage multiple GMail accounts, show snippets of incoming e-mails, only show unread message of certain filters and many visual enhacements and changes.

GMail Space
The last and quite possibly coolest extension worth noticing, is the GMail Space extension. This Firefox add-on gives one the ability to take full advantage of all the space that Google provides for you. It essentially works as an FTP server for transferring any and all file types, from your local system to the server. It definitely comes in handy when forced to work from home and office on a regular basis.

One big negative of being a desktop specialist can be the daunting task for browsing through multiple directorys and/or shortcuts to find many of the consistently used adminstratives apps, such as Device Manager, Event Viewer or Services. Well, Windows XP does make it much easier for someone to access many of these internal applications by using run line commands.(Start>Run)

Below is a list of all of the integrated Windows XP applications that have the ability to be run from the run line. For example, in order to access the services currently running in Windows, you just go to START>RUN>and type “services.msc”.

All of these commands have the capability of working in both Windows XP Home AND Professional…with a majority having the ability to work in Windows 2000 as well.

Micellaneous executable files used throughout Windows
ACCWIZ.EXE - Accessibility Wizard
BCKGZM.EXE - Backgammon
CALC.EXE - Calculator
CHARMAP.EXE - Character Map
CHKRZM.EXE - Checkers
CLEANMGR.EXE - Disk Space Cleanup Manager
CLICONFG.EXE - SQL Client Configuration Utility
CLIPBRD.EXE - Clipbook Viewer
CLSPACK.EXE - Class Package Export Tool
CMD.EXE - Command Line
CMSTP.EXE - Connection Manager Profile Installer
CONF.EXE - NetMeeting
CONTROL.EXE - Control Panel
DCOMCNFG.EXE - Component Services
DDESHARE.EXE - DDE Share
DIALER.EXE - Phone Dialer
DRWATSON.EXE - Doctor Watson v1.00b
DRWTSN32.EXE - Doctor Watson Settings
DVDPLAY.EXE - DVD Player
DXDIAG.EXE - DirectX Diagnostics
EUDCEDIT.EXE - Private Character Editor
EVENTVWR.EXE - Event Viewer
EXPLORER.EXE - Windows Explorer
FREECELL.EXE - Free Cell
FXSCLNT.EXE - Fax Console
FXSCOVER.EXE - Fax Cover Page Editor
FXSEND.EXE - MS Fax Send Note Utility
HELPCTR.EXE - Help and Support
HRTZZM.EXE - Internet Hearts
HYPERTRM.EXE - HyperTerminal
ICWCONN1.EXE - Internet Connection Wizard
IEXPLORE.EXE - Internet Explorer
IEXPRESS.EXE - IExpress 2.0
INETWIZ.EXE - Setup Your Internet Connection
INSTALL.EXE - User’s Folder
LOGOFF.EXE - System Logoff
MAGNIFY.EXE - Microsoft Magnifier
MIGWIZ.EXE - File and Settings Transfer Wizard
MMC.EXE - Microsoft Management Console
MOBSYNC.EXE - Microsoft Synchronization Manager
MOVIEMK.EXE - Windows Movie Maker
MPLAY32.EXE - Windows Media Player version 5.1
MPLAYER2.EXE - Windows Media Player Version 6.4.09.1120
MSCONFIG.EXE - System Configuration Utility
MSHEARTS.EXE - Hearts
MSIMN.EXE - Outlook Express
MSINFO32.EXE - System Information
MSMSGS.EXE - Windows Messenger
MSN6.EXE - MSN Explorer
MSPAINT.EXE - Paint
MSTSC.EXE - Remote Desktop Connection
NARRATOR.EXE - Microsoft Narrator
NETSETUP.EXE - Network Setup Wizard
NOTEPAD.EXE - Notepad
NSLOOKUP.EXE - NSLookup Application
NTSD.EXE - Symbolic Debugger for Windows 2000
ODBCAD32.EXE - ODBC Data Source Administrator
OSK.EXE - On Screen Keyboard
OSUNINST.EXE - Windows Uninstall Utility
PACKAGER.EXE - Object Packager
PBRUSH.EXE - Paint
PERFMON.EXE - Performance Monitor
PINBALL.EXE - Pinball
PROGMAN.EXE - Program Manager
RASPHONE.EXE - Remote Access Phonebook
REGEDIT.EXE - Registry Editor
REGEDT32.EXE - Registry Editor
RESET.EXE - Resets Session
RSTRUI.EXE - System Restore
RTCSHARE.EXE - RTC Application Sharing
RVSEZM.EXE - Reversi
SFC.EXE - System File Checker
SHRPUBW.EXE - Create Shared Folder
SHUTDOWN.EXE - System Shutdown
SHVLZM.EXE - Spades
SIGVERIF.EXE - File Signature Verification
SNDREC32.EXE - Sound Recorder
SNDVOL32.EXE - Sound Volume
SOL.EXE - Solitaire
SPIDER.EXE - Spider Solitaire
SYNCAPP.EXE - Create A Briefcase
SYSEDIT.EXE - System Configuration Editor
SYSKEY.EXE - SAM Lock Tool
TABLE30.EXE - User’s Folder
TASKMGR.EXE - Task Manager
TELNET.EXE - MS Telnet Client
TOURSTART.EXE - Windows Tour Launcher
TSSHUTDN.EXE - System Shutdown
USERINIT.EXE - My Documents
UTILMAN.EXE - System Utility Manager
VERIFIER.EXE - Driver Verifier Manager
WAB.EXE - Windows Address Book
WABMIG.EXE - Address Book Import Tool
WIAACMGR.EXE - Scanner and Camera Wizard
WINCHAT.EXE - Windows for Workgroups Chat
WINHELP.EXE - Windows Help Engine
WINHLP32.EXE - Help
WINMINE.EXE - Minesweeper
WINNT32.EXE - User’s Folder
WINVER.EXE - Windows Version Information
WMPLAYER.EXE - Windows Media Player
WRITE.EXE - Wordpad
WRITE.EXE - WordPad
WSCRIPT.EXE - Windows Script Host Settings
WUPDMGR.EXE - Windows Update

The big three search engines have decided to team up and make it as simple as possible for web indexing. The program that all have simply defined as sitemaster, will make it as simple as possible for users to get their sites into the search engines as quickly as possible and indexed thoroughly. According to Tim Mayer of Yahoo Product Management at Yahoo…

“In the first joint and open initiative to improve the Web crawl process for search engines, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft today announced support for Sitemaps 0.90, a free and easy way for webmasters to notify search engines about their websites and be indexed more comprehensively and efficiently, resulting in better representation in search indices,” a joint news release said. “For users, Sitemaps enables higher quality, fresher search results.”

After years of annoying slow, annoying search engine submission, they are all finally joining up to make it as simple as possible. It came as a surprise to see all of them teaming up, but it sounds as though the feeling as mutual and I doubt webmasters really are going to be disappointed.

Source: CNET News