Key for Switch to Apple - 02

FINDER TIPS AND TRICKS

Here are few more things that should improve your relationship with the Finder:

No regrets. Cmd-z will undo whatever you just did in the Finder.

Move on up. Cmd-UpArrow will go take you to the folder one level up from the one you're currently in—that's called the "enclosing folder" or the "parent directory."

You are here. This one's beautiful: Cmd-clicking directly on the name of the folder (at the top of its window) will give you a navigable drop-down display of its path—meaning that you'll see what folder it's in, and what folder that's in, and so on, and you can click on any of the folder names to navigate directly there.

Better still, this trick also works for most documents: If you're working on a Word document and you have no idea what folder it's actually in, just Cmd-click on the document's name at the top of its window, and you'll be immediately oriented.

If you liked the Windows option of always displaying your path (the Address bar) as you navigated through folders, you can have the Finder do the same: Find the option under View; check Show Path Bar. For me, the most efficient way to use the Finder is to keep everything in List view (so that you can always see dates and file sizes) while keeping the Path Bar displayed at the bottom so that you can, say, move a file up to its enclosing folder.

Universal preview. The Quick Look feature lets you take, well, a quick look at the contents of a large number of files without bothering to open the applications associated with them. Just select the files' icons—as many files as you like—then press the spacebar. There may be a delay of a few seconds, but then you'll see the contents of the first selected file, and you can use the arrow keys to navigate among the rest. The Finder will even invoke little players for audio and video files.

Rename freely. Try renaming a file while it's open. Why? Because you can. The title bar of its window will update accordingly.

THE DOCK

The Dock—that cartoonish thing at the bottom of your display—does several valuable things and is pretty customizable. The Dock functions something like an amalgamation of Windows' Quick Launch bar and the taskbar.

Icons to the left. To the left of its vertical separator bar, the Dock displays icons for any applications you might want to launch quickly (with a single click). Don't settle for what Apple put there. If there's something you don't plan to use on the Dock, pull it up and out; it will vanish in a puff of animated smoke. Populate the Dock by dragging in icons for frequently used applications from the Applications folder. Drag them left or right to arrange them; and note the little marker under each application that's currently open.

Icons to the right. To the right of the vertical separator bar, you'll see icons for any windows you've minimized (as well as the garbage). By the way, you don't have to hit that tiny yellow button to minimize a window. Go to Apple | System Preferences | Appearance, and choose Minimize when double-clicking a window title bar. Now you can be a lot less precise with your pointer when you want to minimize a window. Alternatively, you can use the keyboard shortcut Cmd-m.

Set dock preference. Preferences for the Dock are available on the Apple menu. You can make it stand on its hind legs on the left-hand or right-hand side of your screen rather than lazing along the bottom; you can make it hide itself when you're not using it; you can make it stop animatedly arching its back when you run the pointer over it. There are third-party utilities that will tweak the Dock's appearance further, but such tools can stop working when Apple provides system updates—something that doesn't typically happen with Windows updates, and a good thing to keep in mind.

Find the Dock's special powers. Do a lot of Ctrl-clicking (or right-clicking) in the Dock. You'll get options such as closing an application without bothering to bring its open windows to the front, or aborting the launch of an application that you hadn't meant to open. (story Link)

Key for Switch to Apple - 01

Macs are elegant; Macs are powerful; Macs are, for the time being, remarkably safe from infection. But when people tell you that Macs are "intuitive," you're well within your rights to sneer. In my ten years of using Macs, I've found them no more intuitive than Windows PCs, perhaps even a little less so. If you're a recent or prospective switcher, you might avoid some trial and error by dipping into the following grab bag of factoids and advice.

FILE MANAGEMENT

Just like Windows, Mac OS X organizes information as files within directories. Beyond that, there are differences that may take a few seconds to puzzle out, and some that will be more frustrating—it largely depends on your computing style. If you like to use the keyboard more than the mouse or trackpad, and if you like to customize everything possible, these tips should save you a fair bit of time and annoyance.

Right-click. You probably already know that life with Windows is made easier by right-clicking wherever possible to view the context menu. Contextual options are just the ticket to learning more about what you can do in any particular situation. On a Mac, right-click is Ctrl-click. Depending on which Mac hardware you're using, you can also configure your mouse or trackpad to respond to actual right-clicking (you'll find that option under Apple | System Preferences). Whichever way you do it, do it constantly and you'll never stop learning.

Find the Finder. The Finder—Apple's rough equivalent of Windows Explorer—is what lets you navigate files and folders on your Mac. (People have strong opinions on the relative merits of the two interfaces; I'll keep mine to myself and just mention a few differences.) You'll know you're in the Finder, as opposed to another application, because the word Finder will appear on the top left corner of the screen. After that, pressing Cmd-n (don't press Shift to make it a capital or it'll be a different command) will open a folder-navigation window. If you prefer, you can do this in one step by clicking on the little blue smiley at the far-left side of the Dock. Just like Windows Explorer, Finder is always open, even if there's no Finder window open. As you navigate through the window (say, by double-clicking on a folder to show its contents), you're using the Finder. You're also using the Finder when you perform basic housekeeping functions such as dragging a file from one folder to another.

Open files in various ways. As in Windows, you can double-click on a file or application icon to open it. If you're slow of mouse-thumb, other options are to press Cmd-o or Cmd-DownArrow. Just don't expect to open a file by pressing Enter! In Windows this opens a file; in OS X, it lets you edit the filename.

Customize the Finder view. You can set preferences in the Finder, but—in a prime example of what isn't intuitive about a Mac—most of these preferences are not in the Finder's Preferences menu. Instead, they're hidden under the View | Show View Options menu—and the options here will differ in accordance with how you're currently displaying files (as icons, as a list, or in columns). Take some time to explore the settings here; they can make a big difference in your everyday interactions with the Mac.

Choose your sidebar. One thing I recommend, for convenience, is to customize what appears in the left-hand sidebar of folder-navigation windows. You can do some of this under Finder | Preferences | Sidebar, and you can also drag elements (such as folder icons) directly into the sidebar, or pull them off. This is a good way to make your commonly used folders more quickly available to you.

Display extensions. Another thing I recommend, for the sake of avoiding surprises or confusion, is to go into Finder | Preferences and check Show all file extensions.

Understand a key difference: extensions. Speaking of file extensions, Macs do use them the same way Windows PCs do—to determine which application should open a file—but this is a relatively recent development, and it continues to coexist with the Mac's older way of doing things: Some files are stored with a property called creator, which, if present, can override the effect of the filename extension. You'll probably never need to view or change a file's creator (though there are third-party utilities that let you do so); I mention this mostly so that you'll know why your Mac can sometimes open a file whose name has no extension. The Save dialogs in some Mac applications will give you the choice to use extensions or not. Definitely use extensions if you plan to send files to your Windows-using friends. Your Mac might know that MyWordFile should open in Word, but Windows won't—the file needs to be called MyWordFile.doc.

Customize file associations. And speaking of determining which application opens a file, there are at least two ways you can customize that.

1. To open a file with a particular application just once, Ctrl-click on the file's icon and choose Open with….

2. To make a choice that your Mac will remember, Get Info on the file (select the file, then press Cmd-i), go into the window that will pop up, and set the Open with option. You'll have the option of applying your choice to all such files (for example, you can choose to have every JPEG open with Photoshop instead of Preview).

3. Here's a quick-and-dirty third way that will never occur to the average Windows user: Just change the extension. For example, a plain-text file that ends in .txt will normally open in the Mac's TextEdit utility, but if you change its extension to .doc, it will open in Word.

Change icons. Now that you know how to "get info" on a file or folder (Cmd-i), you also know how to change its icon. Just drag and drop (or paste) an image onto the icon that appears in the upper left-hand corner of its Get Info window. The image should be approximately 128 by 128 pixels. (story Link)

Assassin’s Creed 2 : Behind the Pictures (wallpaper)

We were able to retrieve all the images of Assassin's Creed 2 published by Game Informer magazine, some are the same as those seen in our previous news, but better quality, others are unpublished. We see new environments, enemies that Ezio meet during the adventure and also an interesting photo comparison that highlights the way the developers are playing, a very faithful to the real counterparts, some of the most striking features of the city of Venice.

(for hq assassin's creed ii wallpapers click here)

so, don't forget to Bookmark this Blog.
the Pictures are Bigger than they appear.

so, don't forget to Bookmark this Blog.
the Pictures are Bigger than they appear.

Video Game Review : Monsters vs. Aliens

Most videogames based on movies don't come close to replicating the action and fun of the film. Games based on animated films have a built-in advantage, of course, but even those tend to look like afterthoughts — like someone figured the game had to have a movie tie-in but couldn't be bothered to spend the time and energy making it good on its own.

I'm very pleased to say that Monsters vs. Aliens: The Videogame for the Wii is an exception. It's not only good, but actually better than the movie! Now, I'll admit I didn't think much of the movie: My kids liked it a lot, which is great, but I thought it wasn't much more than a few funny scenes pulled together by a mediocre plot and thin characterization. I did like the animation and the voice acting in the movie, though, so it was great to see that the videogame replicated both very well.

The game doesn't closely follow the plot of the movie, which I consider a plus, because so much of the movie is taken up with scenes of Susan's transformation and its effects, and the President's efforts to communicate with the giant robot, and so forth. Those are important scenes for the movie, but really wouldn't translate well to a game. Instead, the game allows you to play Susan/Ginormica, B.O.B. and The Missing Link on missions, each monster's missions having their own unique style. Susan roller skates (using cars as skates, of course) around laser beams, robots and various other obstacles. B.O.B. oozes around, swallowing various things and spitting them out. And The Missing Link does more typical videogame stuff like beat up robots and generally try to destroy everything he can find.

I'm particularly fond of the B.O.B. missions, because they're the most innovative I've come across recently. B.O.B. can ooze through grates, but only if he's not carrying something inside him. He can swallow guards and thus go through doors that respond to the guards' transponders. And he can stick to walls and ceilings, giving the puzzles he needs to solve an added dimension. All of the missions have Doctor Cockroach's voice giving you advice, both on the game controls and on how to solve puzzles (you can disable the advice if you want). And the collaborative feature allows a second player to help out by firing lasers and tractor beams at anything on the screen.

I enjoyed this a great deal, because it's a perfect way for little kids to play the game: helping out an older kid or grownup who's better able to solve the puzzles and do the fine manipulations necessary to solve them. I'd like to see more designers take a cue from this game on that score, because I'm tired of having my kids get frustrated at puzzles they can't solve and simply giving up on the game entirely — this allows them to have fun and help out, but not have to be responsible for anything too complex for them.

The three primary monsters are voiced by the same actors as in the movie, which really adds a lot to the game, especially because you can "buy" commentaries from the monsters on the scenes you've already played: Hearing Seth Rogen's empty-headed B.O.B. humor, for example, really adds another level to things. I was a bit disappointed that Hugh Laurie didn't do Doctor Cockroach's voice in the game, but the actor who did it instead (James Horan) did an admirable job. And the art is absolutely outstanding, especially for a Wii game, and not just in the cut scenes. They even allow you to "buy" concept art and animation, so you can see some of the process as well.

Monsters vs. Aliens: The Videogame for the Wii retails for $50. I highly recommend it, both for adults and kids. I have had a lot of fun playing it both by myself and with my kids, and like it much more than the movie.

Wired: Great gameplay, animation and voice talent. An exceedingly well thought-out game all around.

Tired: Monster "challenges" required in order to get certain character upgrades are mostly just replays of the same levels you've just done, only with time limits. It's not altogether bad, but repetitive after a while. (story Link)

Operation Flashpoint 2 Interview

VideoGamer.com: The game is being developed in-house. Who is actually developing it? Is it being developed here at Codemasters?

Clive Lindop: Yeah, it's on site. The team was actually upstairs, above you (during previous game demonstration).

VideoGamer.com: It's a first-person shooter from Codemasters. What are the team's credentials in that genre?

CL: The original team, and I was one of the first people to start, so I've been here almost four years, almost every single team member is a new recruit, was a new recruit. They came from loads of different studios, in the UK industry and the American industry. There's a good hundred and something people from all over the world, all from different studios. They went out and found people, they went out and just went, right we need guys with experience with this, this and this, and pulled that expertise in-house, which is the only smart way of doing it. It's proven to be the right choice, because not only do you need people who have some experience in that genre, but it's a relatively unique technological situation as well. You're effectively developing technology at the same time. A developer can go through his entire career and only ever work on a complete middleware engine, never have to deal with any new technology development or new system writing. That was a pretty tough call because you've got to find people that are not only willing to take on just about the most complex FPS you can build, but build it on an evolving technology. That was pretty interesting. We got a fantastic mix of guys in the team, with a lot of different experience. Guys who are specialists in vehicle physics and mechanics, guys who are specialists in AI and all that kind of stuff. It's a good team of people. Hard working as well!

VideoGamer.com: The game strikes me as something that's pulling away in a completely different direction to current trends, in that it sticks a finger up at casual gamers and accessible gaming.

CL: Well I don't think casual gamers exist. They are a marketing demographic. There are players, and players like different types of games. There is a place for that kind of casual gameplay. I love Team Fortress 2. (full Story)