You know what I miss? Conventions. Things obviously ground to a halt last year as COVID made its rounds across the world, shutting down big events and huge gatherings of people. Many of the larger conventions like San Diego Comic Con, New York Comic Con, E3, and others, turned to an online format in order to try and salvage at least some of their events. It doesn't beat being there in person, but hey - at least it's something! Me at the Star Control: Origins booth, E3 2018 Now, thing...

WindowBlinds is one of our software products that has been around for quite a long time - longer than I've been at Stardock, at any rate! If you're unfamiliar with it, WindowBlinds allows you to customize the look and feel of your taskbar, window frames, and more. You can make your desktop look unique by choosing from several different styles and skins and adjusting them to suit your personal tastes. I think one of my absolute favorite features of WindowBlinds 10 is the randomization. If ...

Over the weekend, a friend shared an article discussing the new Amazon Sidewalk service that will be debuting as an experiment on June 8th. If you live in the U.S. and use Alexa, Echo, or any other Amazon device (this includes Ring doorbells, security cams, outdoor lights, motion sensors, etc.) you will be automatically enrolled in this service unless you manually opt out. This new wireless mesh service will share a small bit of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors who don't have c...

We’re all familiar with the idea of “comfort food,” right? For some people, that means a heaping plate full of homemade southern fried chicken, while for others it might be something as simple as tomato soup out of a can with some grilled cheese. Alternatively, some might not find food to be a comfort at all and may find some peace in other things. I think “comfort activities” covers the concept fairly well as a blanket term. In general, a comfort activit...

Twitch found themselves in some hot water (hah! See what I did there?) with their streaming community recently when they demonetized the channel of popular hot tub streamer Amouranth. Now, you may have the same question that I had when all of this first came to my attention: What the heck is a hot tub stream? Hot tub streams started as a way to adhere to (or circumvent, depending on your perspective) Twitch's terms of service regarding swimwear, which was only acceptable if the streamer wa...

DeskScapes 11 is currently in beta and although there are a lot of fantastic new features, one in particular is my personal favorite: playlists. In the newest version of our popular customization app, you can set different backgrounds - both animated and static - to a playlist that will cycle in and out at intervals of your choice. I have a lot of interests and things that I love, so sometimes choosing just one of something is tough for me. I usually will manually change out my deskt...

Twitch has announced a big change to their subscription prices for several countries outside of the U.S. In an effort to boost subscription rates for streamers, Twitch is adjusting to a localized price model starting with Turkey and Mexico on May 20th. Lower prices will mean less money for streamers at first, but Twitch seems to believe that they'll translate to more subscribers and higher earnings in the long run. In case you're unfamiliar with how Twitch works, streamers can accumulate both...

I’m really not much of an artist. To be frank, saying “not much of an artist” is being a little too kind to myself. I once drew a dog at the request of a 6 year old, who, upon me finishing my drawing, looked up at me and said, “I don’t know what that is, but that’s not a dog.” Kids and their brutal honesty! While I’m not good at making something out of nothing, if given the right tools I can occasionally create some fun visual things. Fo...

2020 was a challenging year for the console and PC industry, and it seems like 2021 isn't shaping up to be much different either. Worldwide shortages of parts, exacerbated by the Coronavirus pandemic, have made it difficult for many companies to keep up with demands for their products. Just as chip shortages have affected AMD and intel, similar shortages have impacted Sony and its PlayStation 5, which released last Christmas. A recent briefing with Hiroki Totoki, the Chief Financial Officer o...

Is Earth ready for a potentially catastrophic asteroid impact? Unfortunately, the answer appears to be no. An international exercise to simulate an asteroid striking Earth is finished, and with its fictitious impact concluded, things aren't looking so hot for the 185-mile stretch between Prague and Munich. It sounds like a game, but it's actually serious business. The exercise is being led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Center for Near Earth Object Studies and is meant to prepare sc...

If you had told me twenty years ago that the world would get to a point where thousands of people could tune in and watch people play a video game live just about anytime you want, I’d have called you crazy. And I definitely would have been wrong. When I pause to consider online streaming and all that it’s become, it really does just sort of leave me awestruck. I can’t believe how “on demand” things are now, from video and movie streaming services, ...

I haven't been looking into building a new computer or upgrading the one I have recently, but that doesn't mean I haven't been hearing the buzz about all of the hard-to-find CPUs that have hit the market over the last year or so. I know, for instance, that AMD's Ryzen 5000 series has been fairly impossible to find. A few of my friends have been looking and the only luck they've had locating it is with a pretty inflated price tag attached. These processors have been around for a little while n...

Everyone has preferences in gaming.   Some people prefer to play a game for some heart-pounding, fast-paced action. Others might enjoy something a little more serene, like a nice puzzle or “find it” game. Some play for the mechanics of the game itself, and others might play a game primarily for the story.   There are lots of reasons that I play games, but one of the things that compels me the most about them is the story. The gameplay could be incredible, an...

In an article from Bloomberg released last Saturday, Jason Schrier reports that Amazon's video game division canceled the development of an online MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) based on the fantasy series Lord of the Rings . Amazon announced the game back in 2019 to loads of fan excitement, but apparently one does not simply create a hit MMORPG.  A photo from Steve Jackson's Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring The developers at Amazon Game Studios...

I don’t worry too much about constantly tidying and organizing my PC - until it gets annoying, anyway. By then it’s too late, and I spend all sorts of time sorting icons and renaming folders. I’ll admit that I am pretty much the same way with my house - the idea of ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ has never really resonated with me. This creates a special sort of chaos, which is fine - until it isn’t. I know that if I had a syst...