Free Music Streams: LastFM

The website LastFM is allowing you to stream music legally for free. Every time you play a track royalties are paid to the artist so you have no reason to feel guilty. Advertising is used on the website to fund these payments. Not all full tracks are available though, and those that are you can only play three times before you are prompted to buy the track.

You can however listen for as many times as you like if you access your 'temporary internet files' folder and remove all cookies with reference to LastFM. The website Spiral Frog also provides a similar music service to people in the US and Canada however the advertising is more extensive there with users having to watch a video advertisement before playing a track.

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Updating Your Drivers

Updating your drivers in Microsoft Windows is crucial to keeping your system up-to-date and running smoothly. If you're a gamer it is particularly important as games now make use of the latest innovations in technology which hardware has to keep up with in oder to run these games.

So how do you go about updating your drivers? Unfortunately it's not always an easy process and it varies depending on the manufacturer of your computer components. I'll walk you through the steps for a typical driver update and provide a few hints along the way.

A driver allows a device or a piece of hardware in your PC to interact with your operating system, e.g. windows, or with another piece of software, e.g a game. The component I will be updating the driver for is the graphics processor installed in my laptop. I have Windows Vista installed on my laptop but you can apply the steps used in this guide to updating your drivers in Windows XP as well.

Firstly you need to access the Device Manager, to do this click on start then type in device manager into the search box at the bottom. In device manager you will find a list of the devices installed in your PC. The drivers you will update most frequently are the ones for 'Display Adapters', 'Sound, video and game controllers' and possibly 'Network Adapters'. I am updating the graphics processor so I open up Display Adapters.

If you do not know the name of the device you are supposed to be updating then you can use Direct X Diagnostics. Click on start and in the search box type dxdiag. The diagnostics provide information about your PC including the names of the display and sound devices currently being used.

Back to the device manager; I find the graphics processor listed under display adapters, the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M. To update its driver I simply right-click on its name and select Update Driver Software.... In the window that appears you want to choose Search automatically for updated driver software, Windows will start looking for the latest driver for this device on the internet and install it when its found it.

That's it, ocassionally you will need a restart for the new settings to be applied but that is the basics to updating your device drivers. Now I will recommend to you a free tool that can make this process even easier. Gameshadow scans your system for the drivers you have installed and informs you when they are out of date. Even better it will let you download the driver you need directly from them so it really becomes a one-click task. Gameshadow is also useful for a gamer as it will scan all your games and let you know when you need to 'patch' them.

For easy reference, updating your drivers:

- Go to Device Manager
- Find the device you want to update (Use Direct X Diagnostics if you do not know its name)
- Right-click on the device and select Update Driver Software...

Alternatively use Gameshadow.

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Macbook Air Unveiled

Head of Apple Steve Jobs has unveiled a super thin laptop called the 'Macbook Air' at the annual Macworld event. At less than an inch thick you could fit it into an envelope. To save space the laptop doesn't have any optical drives, Apple instead are concentrating on making it a wireless device and with a lot of software now becoming available for download over the internet the lack of a CD or DVD drive might not be a huge disadvantage. But with the price starting at £1,199 you still have to question its value.

The other big announcement to come out of Macworld is that Apple is to start renting films over the internet, admittedly a US only service, however Jobs has said he is "dying to make this international as well".

Some of the low profile announcements at the event include a new software update for Maps on the iPod that will plot the position of the phone's owner. This year's Macworld certainly didn't create as much excitement as last year's announcement of the iPhone but Mac fans should still have a few things to look forward to.

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Pandora Stops UK Service

UK subscribers to Pandora's free internet radio will no longer have access to the service after 15th January because of music licensing issues. An email sent to UK listeners from Tim Westergren apologised for the sudden end to the service stating that "This is an email I hoped I would never have to send" and blaming "totally unworkable licence rates" for the switch off.

Listeners have already responded to this in the UK with a 'Save Net Radio' petition created on the Downing Stree E-Petition website. Around 400 signatures have currently been signed with the statement reading:

'We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to investigate the current music licensing fees for Internet music services to ensure that the UK benefits financially and culturally from this growth industry.'

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'The Simpsons Game' DS

This is the latest Simpsons game out with similar versions released for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii. Looking back at past Simpsons games theres not much worth shouting about; the majority of them are basically cash-ins which you shouldn't take a second look at. The most notable were 'Simpsons Road Rage' allowing you to free-roam around Springfield, and 'Simpsons, Hit & Run' which was similar to Road Rage but with new features and gameplay improvements. Looking at the present 'The Simpsons Game' for the DS you might think it's followed the path of its predecessors, but this is far from the case.

If there is just one reason why you should buy the game it is because of the gags. It is filled with one-liners that won't get old. If you're a big fan of the Simpsons TV series then you could stop reading this review now and buy yourself a copy of the game safe in the knowledge that you've made a good investment because you'll greatly appreciate the humour in this game. Otherwise read on, there are plenty more reasons why you should get your hands on this game.

The graphics and animation aren't drawn up by a game developer who knows nothing about the Simpsons, its clear that the Simpsons cartoonists have contributed a lot to the game with brilliantly drawn, simpsons-style backgrounds, characters, objects and cutscenes. The animation is also superb with the characters moving the way you would expect them to and you will hear the original Simpsons voices all of which contribute to the feeling that you are in a real simpsons cartoon.

The gameplay isn't as simple as it has been in past games. You will play as each member of the simpsons family who have special abilities for example Homer can transform into a round-shaped obese version of himself allowing him to roll over enemies and break barriers. More than often you will have to use each family member's special abilities to assist each other's progress through the level. In one case you might have Bart fly across a ravine using his bartman ability to press a button that will form a bridge for homer to walk across.

The game's storyline is also very good; you will be taken to several interesting locations including 'Chocalate Land' and the 'Game Engine Word'. In addition, you will come across situations you've seen in the series such as the dolphin invasion. And finally, playing though the whole of the game is definetely worth doing as there is a great ending to look forward to. There are some extras that add longetivity such as collecting beer bottles and coupons to be rewarded with cards at the Android's Dungeon and a 'Pet Homer' mode where you can use the stylus to manipulate objects and use them on Homer.

In all, The Simpsons Game on the DS is a great game to waste some time with and at £25 is good value so you have every reason to buy a copy.

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Netscape Bites the Dust

The browser Netscape Navigator has fallen to the popularity of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. The browser will no longer be supported after February 1st 2008 bringing to an end one of the first widely used web browsers.


Netscape blamed the decline of its browser on Microsoft's bundling of its IE with its operating systems which it deemed anti-competitive. AOL bought Netscape in 1998 and decided to halt development of Netscape Navigator after seeing the percentage of web surfers to use the browser fall below 1%.


Personally I use IE and Firefox, some sites just work better on either one. However, should Microsoft not bundle IE with Windows it would only be another annoyance. Either way Firefox can still compete effectively with IE as can be seen by its fair share of web users and this competition will help bring better browsers to end users.

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