We featured HexaLex as our daily app a little while back. It’s an excellent Scrabble alternative, and it mixes up the tried and true formula just enough that, if you and your friends are looking for something different to play, it’s worth checking out. And we’re here to make that easy for you. TUAW’s got 10 promo codes to give away to 10 lucky readers, so you can download a copy of HexaLex for free!
To enter the giveaway, leave us a comment telling us the highest word score you’ve ever earned in a word game (or make one up if you’ve never played before). Here are the official rules:
Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
To enter, leave a comment telling us the highest word score you’ve ever earned in a word game.
The comment must be left before midnight on Monday, August 2, 2010, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
You may enter only once.
Ten winners will be selected. All will receive one promo code for HexaLex, valued at .99 each.
Although little is known, MGS4 is being touted as the final installment in the Metal Gear Solid series.
Chameleon-like camouflage system, Octacamo, blends Snake into his surroundings.
Loads of characters from previous Metal Gear Solid installments will return in this final chapter.
Slated for simultaneous worldwide release in June 2008, Konami has released very few details about MGS4.
Built for the PS3, the game is expected to be the finest representation of the console’s graphics
Product Description Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3Amazon.com Product Description Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, is a next-gen experience complete with top-of-the-line graphics and surround sound designed f… More >>
This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.
Over the last couple of weeks, we introduced several new capabilities in Google Docs for documents and drawings, and added the ability for organizations to tailor Google Apps to meet the needs of different groups within their organizations. We also launched a new version of Google Apps to meet the security and policy needs of government agencies in the U.S.
Document translation and undo smartquotes in Google Docs On Tuesday we introduced automatic document translation to the new document editor in Google Docs. This allows you to instantly convert your document into any one of the 53 languages, powered by the technology behind Google Translate. And while we were at it, we added the ability for you to change smartquotes—angled quotation marks—back to straight quotation marks by pressing Ctrl-Z (Cmd-Z on a Mac).
Zoom and more in drawings Last Monday, we also made improvements to the drawing editor in Google Docs, too. You can zoom in several different ways now: with the toolbar zoom icon, by drawing a rectangle around the area to zoom, zoom options in the “View” menu and with zoom keyboard shortcuts. We also introduced several changes to the shape-drawing tools, including pie and arc drawing improvements, the ability to duplicate shapes while resizing and rotating, new line ending decoration controls and new style options for the corners of shapes.
User policy management One of the top requests from businesses, organizations and schools using Google Apps has been the ability to enable different applications for different groups within the organization. For example, a K-12 school may choose not to give Chat to students, but still allow faculty and staff to instant message with each other. Last Tuesday we launched user policy management, which lets administrators divide their users in to organizational units, and give each group access to different sets of services.
Google Apps for Government now available On Monday we announced Google Apps for Government, a new version of Google Apps specifically tailored to the policy and security needs of federal, state and local governments in the United States. In addition to the applications and administrative controls available in the business edition of Google Apps, the service for government agencies has received Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification and accreditation from the U.S. General Services Administration, the first such certification for any cloud computing messaging and collaboration suite.
Who’s gone Google? To go along with the launch of Google Apps for Government, we’re excited to share stories from two government organizations who are now using Google Apps. The U.S. Navy InRelief program is using Google Apps to improve coordination in disaster relief efforts, and the Berkeley Lab, a member of the National Laboratory system supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, is using Google Docs and Sites to support better collaboration among scientists and researchers.
We’re also thrilled to welcome another new crop of schools to Google Apps. Haverford College, Wayne County Community College District and Westwood College are all going Google!
I hope you’re making the most of these new features, whether you’re using Google Apps with friends, family, coworkers or classmates. For more details and updates from the Apps team, head on over to the Google Apps Blog.
Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager
Boy, if you had to choose one company (including Apple) that has really led the charge for Mac gaming recently, I’d have to say Valve takes the cake, and that’s no lie. Not only has the company brought an unprecedented set of quality titles to the Mac with Steam, but it’s now announced that it will be sharing some of its graphical code for the Mac with Steamworks developers. That graphics layer coding is apparently the “real hard work” in making a game for the Mac, and Valve is trying to make that as easy as possible for its partner developers.
Why? Because — and get this — games sell more when they’re on the Mac. Games that have added a Mac version since Steam went live on the Mac are seeing a 15 to 20% sales increase. That’s actually for both platforms — most Steam games available for the Mac share ownership on both Mac and PC, so they’re not really tracking sales of one platform or the other. Still, having a game available on the Mac is a big bonus, as not only does it make Mac players possible, but it drives attention for both platforms (as you may have even seen here on our site — when we post that a game has finally come to the Mac, even PC gamers consider going back to check it out).
Excellent news for developers already working with Steam, and also good news for those of us who enjoy running our favorite games from the dock rather than the start menu. Even Apple hasn’t put the kind of work into reviving Mac gaming that Valve has in just the past few months.
I guess when you’re the big guy in town, everybody paints a target on your back. First, Apple and AT&T were sued for the data plan change on the iPad, and now another class action lawsuit about the iPad is underway in California, claiming that the tablet overheats way too quickly when held or placed in warm sunlight. The lawsuit alleges that the iPad “does not live up to the reasonable consumer’s expectations created by Apple,” and that it “turns off, sometimes after just a few minutes of use,” when used in bright sunlight.
The suit, filed in Oakland, seeks “unspecified damages,” and as far as I can tell, it’s still in the earliest preliminary stages. All of Apple’s devices tend to overheat to a certain extent when used to their full potential, and anyone who’s left an iPhone or an iPod in a hot car knows that there’s a limit on what these things can take. But at the same time, even when I’ve had my iPhone overheat on me, it usually just takes a few minutes of sleep or standby to bring it back to normal — hardly an inconvenience worth suing over. We’ll have to wait and see what happens with this one.
Bending, walking, breathing, hearing, seeing and sleeping are simple things that are often taken for granted, as are thinking, learning, and communicating.
Twenty years ago today, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law. This milestone legislation bans persons or companies from discriminating against anyone with limited abilities. It’s hard to imagine a world in which the right to participate in activities commonly enjoyed by the bulk of the population are denied or inadequately accommodated, but that was the case before ADA.
The efforts of the advocates who came to Washington two decades ago to rally for their civil rights has transformed so much of the modern world around us. As someone who’s worn hearing aids since I was 13, for example, I very much appreciate that most television programs and DVDs or Blu-Ray disks are captioned. On my way home, I might pass through a door that I know is wide enough for a wheelchair — because the ADA set the building codes that require it. I see service animals on the DC Metro, accessible checkout aisles at my grocery store, ramps on sidewalks, and designated parking in movie theater lots: all there because of the important provisions included in the ADA.
Whereas the ADA set legal standards for ensuring equal rights for Americans with disabilities, Google is keenly aware that technology can help all users better enjoy the world around them. From opening millions of titles of printed content to persons with visual impairments through Google Book Search, to providing ready and easy-to-use captions on YouTube, to including a built-in screenreader and text-to-speech engine in Android, to introducing new extensions on Chrome to make online text easier to read, we’re serious about honoring our mission to make the world’s information universally accessible and useful. You can keep up with our progress at google.com/accessibility.
Congratulations to all those who work to make the ADA a living, breathing reality. For all the years I’ve been working on policy in Washington, it’s still rare to see a law that has had as positive and fundamental an influence on our lives as this Act. There still is work to be done to meet the goals of ADA, and we are committed to doing our part.
CNET’s Crave blog compiled a great list last week of twenty great, free comic books to read on your iPad. For me, more than anything else, the iPad seems perfect for a visual, interactive medium like comics. Movies are better on my big screen, and books can be read on a Kindle (or just on paper — weird, I know), but for the iPad, having the ability to zoom in on a great piece of comic art or download new comics straight to the device to be read on that big, colorful screen seems perfect.
Enter this list, which has some great free samples from both the DC and Marvel comics apps, or a few other free Comics reader apps available on the store. There’s some really good stuff out there for the low price of absolutely nothing, from some classic books that are hard to find in print to some newer promo books for current series or comics that have been made into movies.
Man cannot live on free alone — if you’re really into comics, you’ll probably want to buy a few from their official apps (though it’s a shame that pricing and selection isn’t quite there yet, but hopefully Marvel and DC will eventually figure that out). And this article doesn’t even mention the tons of great single-app books you can find on the App Store, for both the iPhone and the iPad. The iPad was designed for consuming media, and comic books are one of my favorite media around.
I was first introduced to the wonders of the mobile Wi-Fi hotspot at Macworld earlier this year — our own Mike Rose was carrying one around, and it was like magic. A Wi-Fi connection for up to five people anywhere you go? Yes please. I don’t think the charges make it necessarily feasible for someone on a budget (say, a humble blogger like yours truly) to carry around every day, but it’s certainly handy to have around, especially if you’re traveling.
And now Sprint is apparently looking to piggyback one of these devices on Apple’s iPod touch. Macrumors reports on new filings to the FCC that show a device that’s almost a case; it’s designed to be attached to the back of Apple’s handheld, providing local Wi-Fi service anywhere you happen to be. It’s called The Peel, and it doesn’t connect to the iPod touch at all except physically — it’s just a case that wraps around and sets up a Wi-Fi spot whenever it’s hooked up.
It’s worth nothing that this isn’t the first time Sprint has tried to pair up their 4G service with an Apple device — you might remember the iPad 4G case that came out a while back. Makes a lot of sense — Apple’s devices need a connection, and Sprint has a much better chance of making you get one if you’ve already got a device to use it with. We’ll keep an eye out for an official release of The Peel.
Last November, we added legal opinions to Google Scholar. Legal opinions consider serious issues and help refine the laws that govern our country—but they can also be surprisingly entertaining. We’ve shared some of these for your summer reading pleasure on the Google Scholar blog.
You lousy kids, with your iPhones and iPads and iGadgets! Back in my day, we worked on real computers, with real keyboards, and mice with one button, and we liked it! BBEdit is a relative relic of that age — when text ruled the Earth, BBEdit ruled text. And the old Mac app is still being updated. The latest version 9.5.1, adds in a couple of dozen fixes, and reverts some of the capitalization rules to the way it worked in a previous version. There are still some die-hards who swear by BBEdit for coding or editing text, and because of its power and versatility, it’s 5 for an initial purchase. The upgrade to 9.5.1 by current users is, of course, free.
Nowadays, you’ve got your drag-and-drop and your touchscreens and your gestural controls, but BBEdit is one of the best apps that does what your computer used to be best at: editing text quickly and well.
We featured HexaLex as our daily app a little while back. It’s an excellent Scrabble alternative, and it mixes up the tried and true formula just enough that, if you and your friends are looking for something different to play, it’s worth checking out. And we’re here to make that easy for you. TUAW’s got 10 promo codes to give away to 10 lucky readers, so you can download a copy of HexaLex for free!
CNET’s Crave blog compiled a great list last week of 
