This year is a year for recuperation, an increase in productivity and for the development of constructive behaviour – after all, I have a dog now. There are a few articles I’m very much looking forward to writing and they’ll be ready when they’re done.

This weeks utility is a stunner, with a beautifully fast index and most important of all low resource usage – may I introduce “Everything.” The search allows for Boolean operators, regular expressions, masks, searches in specific paths and a good degree of customisation options – best of all, a hotkey setup (something I’m becoming increasingly fond of).

Get more information, and of course the download right.. here.

Enjoy.

Absolutely awesome, I can’t wait, shame of course that it’s been toned down for us Aussie players.

SlickRun is a free floating command line utility for Windows. SlickRun gives you almost instant access to any program or website. SlickRun allows you to create command aliases (known as MagicWords), so C:\Program Files\Outlook Express\msimn.exe becomes MAIL.

Enter a web URL into SlickRun and it will launch your browser and navigate to the specified address. Run multiple programs in a few keystrokes, jot a note, look up a definition… SlickRun is the most natural way to interact with your computer.

I modified it’s positioning and colour to make it look like it was embedded in the taskbar. This tiny program (496kb) has been so well designed that you can have it looking like, and doing anything you want, it’s quite simply the best time saving utility I’ve ever seen.

Here’s an example of how you can have it functioning – press a hot key, the utility jumps to the location of the mouse giving the cursor attention. When you type, the time, date, and CPU usage disappears and you can type a magic word. A magic word is a completely customisable command line function (don’t let the explanation scare you off) it’ll shave massive amounts of time off your everyday work.

In the morning I type “morning” and I get my feed reader opened, my email accounts, and my music player (foobar2000).

I can type “goto gametone wordpress” and the utility will utilise Google’s I’m feeling lucky function and send me here.

I can type”wiki charles darwin” and it will take me straight to, you guessed it, the Wikipedia page for Charles Darwin.

Get it right here.

Lewes.

Believe it or not Australia in the strictest country in the western world in terms of an adult rated content system, we have more banned games than; Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.

Despite research by the iGEA which claims that the average age of gamers is 28, games continue to be refused the R18+ classification within Australia. Clearly this shows us that the video game classification system in Australia needs to be overhauled to keep up with the ever-evolving demands of the Australian public.

Australian adult gamers are unable to play games deemed suitable for people aged 16+. Not only that, but the current classification system has created a situation resulting in children between the ages of 15-18 being exposed to R18+ themes within games, the same kind of themes and imagery contained within R18+ films. As such I would argue that parents and gamers alike are being mislead by the current classification system.

Currently only Michael Atkinson, South Australian Attorney-General opposes the R18+ classification introduction. Today I wrote a letter to both Commonwealth Attorney-General, Brendan O’Connor, and the New South Wales Attorney-General, Hon. John Hatzistergos MP in regard to the subject, and am drafting another letter to Mr. Atkinson, I will provide updates when I get a response. I would also encourage you all to do the same, if you need any assistance with formalities or the e-mail addresses for the attorney-general of another state please just ask in the comments, or check out this post by the guys over at R18games.com.au because they have all the details, and they’re awesome.

Michael Atkinson is actually suffering from a chronic case of ambulothanatophobia.

In what has been dubbed as the end of an era by many gaming enthusiasts, it’s with a rather small lump in my throat that I must inform you that both Garnett Lee and John Davison are leaving the Listen Up Podcast. Their final show is today 10/09/2009, and goes for a whopping 3 hours – but it should be an epic show. Even if your not a regular listener, you should really check it out. John Davision will be joining GamePro as “executive vice president of content for the company’s editorial initiatives.” Garnett will be joining GameFly media as editorial director, which includes Shacknews.

You can of course grab the episode here on the Listen Up mini site.

Well if you like the look of it why not join in the fun and try it yourself with this simple tweak.

Make sure you have cookies enabled for the google domain, then visit Google and paste this into your address bar:

javascript:void (document.cookie="PREF=ID=abac7a90f5a3784b:LD=en:NR=10:TM=1254990196:LM=1254990236:S=uB6F4jDnMP_DuxtT;path=/; domain=.google.com");

If your default google domain isn’t just google.com but say google.com.au, then change “domain=.google.com” to “domain=.google.com.au”

OK so the buttons are still there. I’m not sure if this is an official tweak or not, but it works.

TURBO from Jarrett Lee Conaway on Vimeo.

TURBO is a high adrenaline short film in the tradition of The Karate Kid and Tron. It tells the story of Hugo Park (Justin Chon, Twilight) a misspent youth whose only outlet for angst is a 4D fighting videogame called “Super Turbo Arena”. When Pharaoh King (Jocko Sims, Crash the Series), the Michael Jordan of cyber-sports, announces a tournament to determine who will join his pro-team, Hugo sets his eyes on the prize. But, Hugo isn’t the only gamer who wants fame and glory. If Hugo wants to win he’s going to have to beat Shamus (David Lehre, Epic Movie), the all time Turbo champ at the local Pandemonium arcade, and Ruse Kapri, a feisty prep girl that knows how to win. Realizing he can’t win on his skill alone, Hugo turns to his brother Tobias a former kick-boxer whose last match left him wheel-chair ridden. Together the two will mend old wounds and see if a washed up street fighter can teach a troubled teen how to become a virtual gladiator!

If you enjoyed the film then support indie developers and head over to turbothemovie.com and grab a copy on DVD!

Lewes.