Happy New Year from PCToolbox!

What an eventful year it’s been!…but how much can you remember?

Test your memory of 2009 with the Quiz of 2009 from Guardian.co.uk!

There are endless events to look forward to over 2010 including the Fifa Football World Cup in South Africa and the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver!

And on the IT side of things…with the success of Windows 7 we expect to see companies begin to make the move from XP to W7!

We hope 2010 is a good year for all our readers!

A South African Pigeon….faster than broadband!?  In this day an age nobody would place their bet on a pigeon being faster than a broadband connection.  But in this case nature beat technology in delivering a 4GB memory stick!

Well done Winston the pigeon! (pictured right)

Want to find out more?…Read the BBC article

Recently a client had a bizarre discovery about PCToolbox. They typed the URL address into the address bar as normal, however they found the website was blocked by the school Internet filter.  They then looked further down the page to find that they website was classified as ‘Match Making’! (Click on image to enlarge)

Maybe it’s time for the West Sussex Grid for Learning to review their school Internet filtering service!?

The team at PcToolbox would love to wish all our visitors

Merry Christmas!

Have a fantastic day!

And enjoy this song from Love Actually!!

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me….something bizarre and funny from IWantOneOfThose.com!  IWOOT.com is a great place to get all those fun, silly and random presents for friends and family.  It really is one of the best places to get loved ones a present which is very different!

Heard this from your IT Support before?

Wondering why it takes so long for IT Support to answer the phone?

Ok, so for the whole of December we thought we would scrap the quick tips and instead post amusing YouTube videos that had some link to computers! So to start us off we have a couple of videos for PC verses Mac…PC’s response to the Mac Ad’s earlier this year!

Enjoy!

Sat Nav is becoming a way of life and map reading a thing of the past, but for some (including myself) I have yet to cough up for a Sat Nav! Instead I tend to look up where I am going on Google Earth & Google Maps and then make my way Ok so you don’t have someone telling you that you have gone wrong and need to make a U-turn as soon as possible. But you do get a rough idea of what your destination looks like

Google Earth is a free download from earth.google.com and Google maps can be accessed from www.google.co.uk/maps, with Google maps you can also use it to calculate your route and print it off, much like the RAC and AA websites

So there we go…a poor mans Sat Nav! Not Ideal but it is good fun and a great time-waster using google earth to whizz around the tourist attractions of Singapore, Paris, NY, Rome….

You can really tell when it is Christmas with sites like this appearing! Elf Yourself…the site allows you to upload photos of 4 friends/family or colleagues and position them correctly so they are the face of an Elf and then once you are finished you can watch your friends dance!!   It is quite good fun!  If you are feeling really adventurous then you can add a voice message to your dancing elves too!

Checkout the Brandstar Elf Yourself and have a go!

Have Fun!

So Christmas is near and playing solitaire is becoming more and more frequent as you think about the Christmas shopping you should be doing on Amazon How about an alternative to Solitaire? A game that has been around for years is Elf Bowling and it is very addictive. Version 1 saw Santa bowling at Elves who shouted various insults when Santa missed! That version is still around and still as addictive. Check out Elf Bowling 1. The best bit is the cost…Free!

Elf Bowling 2 saw Santa bowling (more catapulting) an elf off a wooden runway with Sharks at the end. The close you got to the end the better the points you were awarded. Playing against Dingle who could also knock your previously thrown elves off! This version I could have sworn was free (maybe they changed it) but now you have to pay..but you do get 60minutes free to try it out

So…a challenge…my first score with Elf Bowling 1 today was 152! Can you beat it? On your FIRST go only

Discalimer: As tempting as this is to play we have to point out that it should be played out of office ours or during your lunch break. We don’t want managers chasing us because all their teams are competing for the best score

For a list of more games by NStorm take a look at the full list of games!