Top 10 PC Games and Consoles of 2008

World of Warcraft, Tetris, and the PlayStation 2 make strange bedfellows, but they each topped Nielsen's 2008 year-end scan of popular media trends in the U.S. World of Warcraft's a no-brainer on the PC games chart. But what about Alexey Pajitnov's twenty-some-year-old Tetris for mobiles? And are people really still playing the PS2?
And then some, according to Nielsen. In fact the PS2's "usage minutes" -- 31.7% of total -- were actually double the number two console on the list. Surely the Wii, right? Think again: The Xbox 360 topped the Wii, 17.2% to 13.4%.
The PS2's lead (down from 42.2% in 2007) should surprise no one when you factor the console's mammoth install base and the increasingly vibrant secondary market for used games.

Curiouser: The old black-and-electric-green Xbox, which held 13.9% of Nielsen's console usage numbers in 2007, beat the PlayStation 3 in 2008, 9.7% to 7.3%. There's a splash of cold water to the face.
Tetris led third quarter mobile revenue shares with 7%, followed by Bejeweled (4%) and Guitar Hero III (3.6%). Nielsen didn't track mobile games in its annual 2007 report.

Bungie's original Halo beat The Sims and The Sims 2 for "average minutes played per week" in PC gaming, though Halo 2 dropped off the chart after tying its predecessor for 4th in 2007. I would've guessed Team Fortress 2 (first appearance this year), Counter-Strike, and Counter-Strike: Source (the latter were numbers 6 and 10 respectively in 2007) for top 10 contenders, but check out Blizzard's Diablo II blazing to life at number 7 after a 2007 absence. Blame Blizzard's Diablo III announcement in June?

The take away: Everyone thinks no one's playing the Wii. They're wrong. The 360 can claim the slightly higher usage-to-units ratio, but the Wii leapt from 5.5% in 2007 to 13.4% in 2008, a notably larger increase than the 360's 11.8% to 17.2%.
The PS3? It's usage increase (2.5% in 2007 to 7.3% in 2008) was actually commensurate with the 360's. Still, Sony's got a year to really get the lead out if it doesn't want to be this generation's GameCube (which, speaking of, was actually number six on Nielsen's console usage chart with 4.6% of total, so that's not necessarily a slam). The PS3's doing much better than the gloomy picture CNN and the Wall Street Journal misleadingly paint, but it's still well off analyst's original predictions.
Total time spent top 10 PC gaming in 2007 = 86 hours per week.
Total time spent top 10 PC gaming in 2008 = 62 hours per week.
Is that a downtrend in overall PC gaming? A downturn, to be sure, but as for trends, it's hard to say with just these numbers. 2008 was kind of a mediocre year for PC games -- all the biggest releases were either MMOs or multi-platform ports. With PC exclusives like Diablo III and Starcraft II on the horizon, 2009 looks tastier.
Also: While World of Warcraft topped the PC charts, its average minutes played per week dropped from 1023 in 2007 to 671 in 2008, or from about 17 hours per week to only 11. Sound significant? We'll see. We definitely need more data to gauge whether the juggernaut's peaking, subscriber base increases or no. (Note that Nielsen's numbers predate the Wrath of the Lich King expansion in November, which might've skewed everything more favorably.)

Googles Office

We already knew that working for Google had certain advantages, but, believe me, this giant of the search motor takes the welfare of its employees seriously. As shown by this visit to Google's European center in Zurich.



Decompression (stress) capsule that is impermeable to sound and light.



Moving around - A slide allows quick access from different floors. There are also poles available, they are similar to the ones used in fire stations.



Food - Employees can eat all they want from a vast choice of food and drink.



Work Station - Each employee has at least two large screens. There are 4-6 Zooglers per office.



Innovation - Large boards are available just about everywere because "ideas don't always come when seated in the office" says one of Googles managers.



Leisure - Pool tables, video games etc. are available in many areas.



Communication - On each floor, there are private cabin areas where employees can attend to personal affairs.



Technical Support - Problem with your computer ? No problem ... Bring it to this area where drinks are available while it is being fixed ...



Health - Professional masseurs (eusses) available.



Rest - This room provides massage chairs that you control ... while you view relaxing aquariums ... !!!




The Library

Create Linkbaits and increase traffic on your blog and website

There are many and many social bookmarking websites in the website pool in the present world that it becomes difficult to which one to stick to.So i will suggest you to try Vinnoite's Linkbait service. This service gives you a clean and fast interface to share and save the pages.The bloggers and webmasters bookmark their pages or even pages they like and other people can rate those pages to make them popular.Sign up form is easy and short and even adding a link/story is far more less time consuming than Digg or Readit or whatever services you earlier know.The bloggers and webmasters should surely make an account on this free of cost website to do some self publicity and seo and get some all so important inbound links.


SO CREATE A LinkBait Now!!

Lets spread firefox - Help us improve the firefox

Being Campus Rep for mozilla firefox its my duty to spread the word for firefox and encourage people to download it.But that doesn't mean Firefox is to be downloaded just for the sake of friend's/teacher's/cousin's etc etc request,but you should download it and use it after fully understanding why its better than other browsers and how much inputs Mozilla Firefox team pumping in to make your internet experience more and more safe,secure and swift.For that we need to take time to feedbacks from our worthy users.
So please take out some 5-10 minutes and fill up this really' usefull for us' survey to make Firefox the best.
We have aimed the questions primarily towards Firefox users, but if you are not currently using Firefox, we are still very interested in your feedback. We will be publishing the aggregate results, but will not hold or publish any personal information.


Take the survey now and make Firefox the best


Get Firefox 3!

A Note to Google Users on Net Neutrality

The Internet as we know it is facing a serious threat. There's a debate heating up in Washington, DC on something called "net neutrality" – and it's a debate that's so important Google is asking you to get involved. We're asking you to take action to protect Internet freedom.

In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.

Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can't pay.

Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight. Please call your representative (202-224-3121) and let your voice be heard.

Thanks for your time, your concern and your support.

Eric Schmidt

Taken from Google Help

Which is the cheap and best Webhosting in Market?

Its quite a burning question which webhosting to go for when you buying one and short on funding. So we did a good research on this issue...
We checked out all big names Godaddy,Yahoo,Indiatimes,Domain.com bla bla bla...but the service that impressed us is 2GBHosting.
ABout 2GBHOSTING:

2GB Hosting is an effort of HRNTIPL. To provide economic, fast and easy to hosting solution to novice and expert web and internet users of the world.

HRNTIPL is a ISO 9001:2000 Certified professional Information Technology organization with unique ideas and powerful solutions.

HRNTIPL has been in the business to providing solutions from past 15 years. With a perfect combination of strategy and cutting edge technologies, HRNTIPL provides quality products and services to clients in India and 120 other countries that includes USA, UK., Australia, France, UAE Japan Africa etc.

HRNTIPL is a venture of 17-year-old group having varied interests in IT & IT enable services i.e. Application development (Client-Server, Desktop and Web applications), Consultancy and Networking. The company launched its services across the country, with its partners in major countries including USA,UK, Australia, UAE & JAPAN etc.

What Extra You get??
Not only the cheapest prices but you get good support from 24 X 7Customer care , 15000 Web templates , 800 logo templates , 30000 ebooks , 10000 fonts , 90000 royality free graphics plus much more.
So what are you waiting for grab your webspace now.

End of Porn and illegal activites in Orkut?

Google signed an agreement with Brazilian public prosecutors to help combat child pornography on its social networking site Orkut. Google will be using filters to remove and prevent illegal content from orkut.

Google will be preserving six month access logs of users being investigated for illegal conduct. 90% of illegal internet content being investigated in Brazil involves orkut. Orkut out of the 60 million users, half of the users are from Brazil.

I still remember the days when orkut started when it was purely more professional and less spammy. Now a days its the biggest source of spam for marketers and people promoting website or some product. Porn is also another major area that is giving orkut a thumbs down. The amount of sleazy profiles and communities in orkut has gone in large numbers. Fake profiles,Defaming people are all part of this. Lets hope Orkut does some sorta move like this in India also to counter the Indian Spam and Porn posters.

Domain name rules may be relaxed

The net could see its biggest transformation in decades if plans to open up the address system are passed. The net's regulators will vote on Thursday to decide if the strict rules on so-called top level domain names, such as .com or .uk, can be relaxed. If approved, it could allow companies to turn their brands into domain names while individuals could also carve out their own corner of the net.The move could also see the launch of .xxx, after years of wrangling. Top level domains are currently limited to individual countries, such as .uk (UK) or .it (Italy), as well as to commerce, .com, and to institutional organisations, such as .net, or .org.
To get around the restrictions, some companies have used the current system to their own ends. For example, the Polynesia island nation Tuvalu, has leased the use of the .tv address to many television firms. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), which acts as a sort of regulator for the net as well as overseeing the domain name system, has been working towards opening up net addresses for the last three years
The plan would also allow for the new domain names to be internationalised, and so could be written in scripts for Asian and Arabic languages. Dr Paul Twomey, chief executive of Icann, told BBC News that the proposals would result in the biggest change to the way the internet worked in decades.
"The impact of this will be different in different parts of the world. But it will allow groups, communities and business to express their identities online.
"Like the United States in the 19th Century, we are in the process of opening up new real estate, new land, and people will go out and claim parts of that land and use it for various reasons they have.
"It's a massive increase in the geography of the real estate of the internet."
Icann says any string of letters can be registered as a domain, but there will be an independent arbitration process for people with grounds for objection. The openness of the new system could pave the way for a .xxx domain name, after more than half a decade of wrangling between its backers and Icann. The latest attempt to launch .xxx was rejected by Icann last year on the grounds that approval would put the agency into the position of a content regulator.
When asked about the possibility of a .xxx domain name, Dr Twomey repeated only that the new system would be "open to anyone". Dr Twomey said Icann was still working through how much the application fee to register a domain name will be, but it is expected to be at least several thousand dollars.

Google storing everything-Is it justified or not?

Google doubtlessly revolutionized the way we used the internet. It became the portal as well as the guide to almost anything on the internet.It's presence in the cyber world is immense; what more it actually became a verb in the dictionary. Called Backrub initially, Google didn't even get an encouraging response from the investors when founders Page and Brin tried their luck at a number of companies. From a mere search engine, Google today can boast of a number of services under its banner, whether acquired or created by its own engineers.
Till date, no company has ever come up with a search engine that could even come close to equal the secret algorithm that Google uses to rank the pages, based on a number of factors. The Search engine market, initially neglected by several online giants, today is a key to the revenue of Google. Google thrives on the online advertising income, and now has become a multi-billion dollar company. It is now venturing into several other domains, and is achieving great success in these areas as well.
There is no doubt that Google's growing success is a matter of grave concern for Microsoft, a company that was and probably still is so difficult to compete against that companies simply went bankrupt trying. There can be no better proof of the software giant's fright than it's attempt to purchase Internet giant YAHOO!, another revolutionary name of the world wide web, something which didn't materialize. Instead, we saw an alliance forge between Google and YAHOO!. Cannot blame Microsoft. Think of it this way : Google has already come up with its own online word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application that if perfected could even rival Microsoft office. This concept would start making all the sense with the age of virtual computers already upon us. And with blunders like Vista, Microsoft's area of expertise of OS might just lose credibility. They are surely far from losing out there, but with so much competition in the online arena, they seem to be doing things wrong already.
Our biggest issue against Google by far pertains to privacy concerns. Google stores all the activities performed on it by any user, and till now hasn't ever provided a clear explanation for this cataloguing of surfing history. Well that, and Google earth. Growth is a good thing, but not when you are growing at a rate that you may not be able to manage things properly. So far it hasn't happened, but we only hope not otherwise.

Facebook overtakes MySpace in visitor growth

MySpace might have felt the chill from competitor facebook again, and probably a good sign that it is overtaking the Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch owned site in the race to be the best in the social networking arena, in every aspect. This time a report suggests facebook has done it in the unique visitor growth.

Facebook has overtaken rival social network MySpace for the first time - provoking an angry outburst from the man who paid $580m for MySpace only three years ago.
Facebook had 123m unique visitors in May, an increase of 162% on May 2007, according to the latest Comscore figures.


By contrast, MySpace drew 114.6m uniques, with visitors growing by only 5% since May 2007.
It's the first time Facebook has managed a significant lead over its chief rival, after the pair were almost level-pegging in Comscore's April figures. The news hasn't gone down well with News Corp boss, Rupert Murdoch, whose company bought MySpace back in 2005. He claims Facebook has "done a great job of being flavour of the month the last six months of last year," but that Facebook isn't a real social network, claiming the site is "just a directory".

Murdoch has long been exasperated by the rise of Facebook. When asked last year whether sites such as MySpace were responsible for declining newspaper sales, he quipped: "I wish they were. They're all going to Facebook." Whether Facebook can turn its success into profit is the big question. The privately-held company doesn't report financial figures, although Microsoft's 1.6% stake in the company valued it at $15 billion last year.

With $40 billion burning a whole in its pocket following the collapse of the Yahoo deal, Microsoft has been consistently linked with a takeover of Facebook, although CEO Steve Ballmer last week talked down the possibility of a deal. "People don't understand what they're talking about," he told The Financial Times. "At the end of the day, this is about the ad platform. This is not about just any one of the applications."



Well Mr Balmer, you really seem to be in a hurry to beat Google at advertising, but then to get there, you will have to do more than just call it a 'one time wonder'. Kudos on the MS share of facebook though. Might be one of the few things you can cherish apart from MS' vista 'success' !

Student Hacker faces upto 38 years in jail

A pair of US teens are looking at an extended spell behind bars over accusations they hacked into school computers to change their grades. Omar Khan, 18, a student at Tesoro High School in Orange County, California, allegedly changed failing grades to As for himself and others using the purloined login credentials of teachers. According to prosecutors, Khan planted spyware on teachers' computers in order to steal their passwords. Khan allegedly broke into school buildings either late or night or at the weekends to change his grades in a bid to gain an undeserved place at University.

School administrators called in the cops after noticing changes in Khan's previously mediocre grades. Another student, Tanvir Singh, 18, allegedly conspired with Khan in an abortive attempt to break into school and steal a test. The dynamic duo were caught by a school caretaker in the process of trying to log onto a teacher's computer. Prosecutors have thrown the book at Khan over his escapades, which recalls a similar incident in cult hacksploitation flick War Games, charging him with 69 offences including computer hacking, burglary, identity theft and receiving stolen property. If convicted on all counts Khan faces a possible maximum sentence of 38 years behind bars.
Singh has been charged with computer hacking, burglary and conspiracy offences punishable on conviction by up to three years inside. Police said the investigation into cheating at Tesoro High may lead to further arrests.Both the students, who were due to graduate on Wednesday, face hearings at Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach instead

Samsung Instinct, iPhone impostor ?

Samsung seems to have come up with what we call the 'cheap-ugly-lookalike' of the Apple's revolutionary phone. Samsung calls it Instinct. Surely Samsung's 'instinct' to convince the techie's isnt good enough, because when we studied this device carefully, the word lost all meaning, and in this case, FOR THE WORSE.



With its buttonless face and black monolithic look, the all-touchscreen Instinct is immediately familiar: It's virtually the same weight and size as the iPhone, only about two-tenths of an inch narrower. Most of the expected specs for any 2008 handset are here: 3G, GPS, 2-megapixel camera (with video recording), and full e-mail and web browsing features.


Of course, the real reason for the iPhone's success is its operating system, and here the Instinct is still playing catchup. While everything is intuitive and pretty zippy, it's still not quite as polished as Apple's version. The web browser shows some terribly rough patches, a crude zoom button stands in for the iPhone's sophisticated "pinch" system. As well, the narrower body trims nearly a half inch off the iPhone's screen size, which really cramps page size. Even typing on the Instinct can be rocky, as there's no pop-up indicator to show you what button you're actually hitting. I made so many mistakes in notes and web URLs that typing slowed to a painful crawl even by iPhone's slow standards. It got so bad I ended up using a fingernail to type instead of my fingertip.


Call quality is fair, not great, but music playback is considerably higher fidelity. Battery life is under five hours of talk time. That's not great for a smartphone, but we'll have to wait and see how it compares to the iPhone 3G in real-world testing.


The Instinct won't woo the Apple faithful from upgrading to the iPhone 3G, but it's definitely good enough to rank as a solid second-tier player in the smartphone space. If nothing else, if you have the misfortune to be locked into a long Sprint cellular plan from which you can't escape, pick up one immediately



The only thing that almost convinced us was the price tag of $130, but then being die hard iPhone enthusiasts, we obviously had to change back our minds. The iPhone in Gaufire's perspective, still is quite simply the Apple way of saying Hallelujah ..!!!

Ebay and Paypal gear up for Fraud Protection

It is common for people to be unsatisfied with the products they buy online from ebay, sometimes the you never get what you ordered, or may be what you get isn't what you think you had ordered. Whatever be the case, ebay is ready to refund all such customers who have made payments through PayPal.

For the first time, buyers who pay with PayPal will be protected on eligible transactions for 100 percent of an item's purchase price, with no cap on coverage. In addition, all U.S. eBay sellers will receive improved seller protection for eligible transactions when they are paid through PayPal


PayPal's improved seller protection covers sellers against claims, charge-backs and reversals due to an unauthorized payment or an item that was not received. Under this improved protection, sellers can ship to buyers in markets worldwide where PayPal is accepted and be eligible for protection. PayPal's seller protection is provided without any additional cost, and beginning later this year, PayPal will remove the annual coverage cap.


For PowerSellers, eBay announced a discount program rewarding sellers who consistently provide the best customer experiences, as measured by eBay's Detailed Seller Rating. DSRs are a scorecard that buyers use to rate sellers on a 0-5 scale (five being highest) across four key metrics.


Sellers with DSRs of at least 4.9 across all four categories will receive 20 percent off their final value fees, the commission eBay charges sellers for sold items. Sixteen percent of PowerSellers immediately qualify for the discount, which will appear on July invoices.

Microsoft's secret of success

The story ofBill Gates is a very inspiring one, considering to have started with zilch and now the brain behind a multi-billion dollar company.



He may well have been dethroned as the richest man in the world by his good friend Warren Buffet, but his fame as the man who revolutionised the OS on our computer systems cannot be, in any way be lessened. As Bill Gates prepares to end his full-time work at Microsoft, he tells the BBC in an interview that it wasn't just what Microsoft did, but what his rivals didn't do that let Microsoft get ahead.



"Most of our competitors were very poorly run," he tells Fiona Bruce, for The Money Programme.
"They did not understand how to bring in people with business experience and people with engineering experience and put them together. They did not understand how to go around the world."

Sir Alan Sugar, one of Britain's computer pioneers with his Amstrad range, testifies to Microsoft's global mobility even as a comparatively small company in the 1980s.
Amstrad, in Brentwood, Essex, was visited by a Microsoft salesman - or "mid-Atlantic smoothie" as Sir Alan describes him - who came to sell Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system.

Sir Alan declined, telling the salesman he was quite happy with the rival DR-DOS system from Digital Research for his new computer, explaining that "we're a consumer electronics manufacturer here, we're not a bunch of geeks, we don't give a sh**".

But the Microsoft man wouldn't take no for an answer, and "was constantly coming back each day" to the Amstrad offices, Sir Alan says, until a deal was done

YAHOO! to add 2 more domains for email service

Well, a few YAHOO! engineers leaving the company hasn't stopped it from making all the users of it's web based email service from being cyber-happy. Yahoo!’s free online email service is to grow new tentacles with the company planning to add two domains alongside its existing “@yahoo.com” addresses. The struggling internet firm said it is to introduce “@ymail.com” and “@rocketmail.com” to give people who use its service a better choice of Yahoo! email address options. According to industry stats, the company has about 266 million peeps across the globe with a Yahoo! email address, making it the most popular web-based email in the world, ahead of Microsoft’s Hotmail and Google’s Gmail.

"We recognise that people want an email address that reflects who they are," Yahoo! Mail vice president John Kremer told Agence France-Presse. "We have a lot of user IDs out there and it is pretty crowded. We want to remedy that and make sure users get the ID they want." Free web-based mail addresses are typically dished out on a first-come, first-served basis, so the likelihood of the John Smiths of this world getting their first choice from the likes of Yahoo! or Hotmail is, well, unlikely.

"This adds millions and millions of new Yahoo accounts out there for users," Kremer said. "Effectively, we are tripling the size of the Yahoo name space."
Yahoo!’s decision to offer up alternative domain names in what is a clear grab for more users of its email service comes in a week when the firm’s CEO Jerry Yang has been attempting to steer his company through choppy waters. Sliding revenues, a public spat with rebel investor Carl Icahn and the termination of takeover talks with rival Microsoft has proved too much for some Yahoo! execs in what has proved a testing week for Yang as well as the company’s shareholders.
Kremer, however, didn’t mention Yahoo!’s bottom line and instead preferred a little bit of navel gazing when describing the logic behind adding the new domains.

Dell will charge for XP downgrade

Dell is to stop selling new computers with Windows XP from today unless buyers spend an extra $50 to downgrade their operating system.


Customers looking to buy models from the company's Vostro line will be offered Vista Business, but Dell will downgrade the system for an extra $50.


Some of the company's XPS gaming systems will also carry a charge for the downgrade.
The move will raise eyebrows, since Dell may be seen as trying to cash in on the unpopularity of Microsoft's latest operating system.


Dell was one of the first companies to offer a free downgrade service to customers, primarily aimed at small businesses reluctant to make the move to Vista.


Microsoft has said that it will stop selling XP licences and boxed software on 30 June, although it has already extended the lifespan of the operating system.