Play the Piano, While Playing a Video Game

I’m a big fan of multitasking while playing a computer game. For example, if I am cutting logs in a mmorpg game, I will fletch them into bows, and sell them to the store. That way I am working on my wood cutting and fletching skills at the same time, and making a little money.

In this game, based on Space Invaders, you use your keyboard like a piano. To shoot the Valkyrie vessels coming at you, you hit the right key. The keys you hit, if you hit them correctly, will play songs like “Happy Birthday to You”.



To download the game, go to: http://www.free-music-games.net/valkyrie-invaders.html

Computer Mods

Computer modifications are cool. I like to see the result of someone modifying the looks of their PC or video game cases. Here are some sites on the web I found.

EnVaDoR's Computer Case Creations

He has made computer cases look like a dashboard, guitar, pumpkin, etc.

http://www.envador.com/

XBox 360 Case Mods

Here’s a site with pictures of people’s mods to their Xbox 360 cases.

http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2007/01/xbox-360-case-mods.html

Xbox 360 Laptop

Ben Heck has turned his Xbox 360 into a laptop. He includes instructions on how to make one yourself, if you have the ability. If I tried, I would just break it. :)

http://benheck.com/04-17-2007/xbox-360-laptop-the-second

Want a cheap PC?

So, you say you want a cheap PC. Maybe not for you, but maybe one of your friends needs a PC to access the Internet, and send email. If that is all you need the PC for, read on.

Free Geek, located in Portland, Oregon, takes old PCs and rebuilds them. If you are dropping off a PC, or PC components, then they ask for a donation to cover their costs. They take the old PCs, repair the ones that are still useable, and install free software on them.

The software that Free Geek installs is a version of the Linux Ubuntu operating system, with the Gnome desktop environment. If you have used Windows before, the basics of Gnome should not be hard to figure out. You can see screenshots of it here: http://www.gnome.org/start/2.0/screenshots/

To get a cheap PC, you can volunteer to work at Free Geek. If you do volunteer work for 24 hours, they will give you a free PC. They will also train you how to use your new software.

So, where is Free Geek? It is in the following cities.

Portland, Oregon

Chicago, Illinois

Columbus, Ohio

Fayetteville, Arkansas

Michigan / Indiana

Tennessee

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Internationally, there are other sites that recycle old PCs. You can find a list of them on Free Geek’s site at:

http://freegeek.org/recyclelink.php

Cool! Slacker Personalized Radio

I found this on the web. There is a new radio site, at http://www.slacker.com. For now, you can specify on their website the kind of music you like to listen to, and it makes up a custom station with music that similar is style to what you picked. For example, I selected The Doors, and this is what slacker came up with:



Along with The Doors, it picked bands I have heard of, like Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead, and bands I have not heard of, like Love and The Pretty Things. A good way to find new music.

Soon, there will be a Slacker Portable Player, so you can listen to your music anywhere. My understanding is that it will use wi-fi to download music to your player. But for now, check out the web player.