How would you like to be able to control your temperature of your PC to avoid over-heating? SpeedFan is freeware program that allows user to monitor fan speeds, temperatures and even voltages in computers, equipped with hardware monitoring chips. In addition, SpeedFan also could access S.M.A.R.T. information on the hard disks (provided they supports this feature) to display its temperatures too.

Although SpeedFan is a hardware monitoring application, the most fascinating part is that it could allow you to control the speed of the fans (depending on the type of sensor chip used), in relative to the temperature inside your PC, thereby reducing noise and power consumption.

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You know the scene. The phone rings and that computationally challenged friend / relative / coworker is in trouble. They’ve bought something, installed it and now the screen is asking them all kinds of funny questions. They clicked “yes” to something and all kinds of strange things are happening.

Oh, and they’re 1/2 hours drive away and they have something urgent to do tomorrow and could you please help them out?

Well now you can! Copilot is a very nice implementation of desktop remote control software. It’s based on VNC which is nothing new in itself but their implementation manages to get around things like firewalls so that you can just connect remotely to their PC and have a look for yourself.
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If you are a gamer playing at the highest level, you will definitely not want to miss this. The Logitech MX518 Gaming-Grade Optical Mouse will provide you with the extra cutting-edge between an endless winning spree and a runner-up position. Equipped with ultra-high resolution of 1600-dpi Logitech MX Optical Engine, the mouse delivers a lightning-fast response and mirror-smooth tracking function. In addition, you get instantaneous on-the-fly adjustment that allows effortless switching from pixel-precise targeting to fast-twitch acceleration without any software intervention. Designed with a contoured grip, the Logitech MX518 ensures peak performance and comfort, even during the most intensified gaming sessions.

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Intellext has announced to launch Watson 2.0 on Friday. Recognised to work as a sidebar, Watson 2.0 is designed to artificially understand the content of the text that any Personal Computer (PC) user is reading or creating, and automatically offers relevant news articles, Word documents, and other Web- or PC-based information for the user. Unlike Google’s Desktop (Sidebar) service as databases were occasionally exchanging with Google servers, Watson 2.0 offers its service without compromising PC user’s privacy, as nothing gets sent to their servers.

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Forget the usual “Media boxes” made by the likes of Pinnacle, D-link, Linksys etc. They’re not that cheap, they have a very restricted set of connection options (who, in this day and age, connects a TV up with the composite video cable?) and most importantly they don’t play back half the file formats that I have lying around on my system.

No, what you need to do is pick up an Xbox, then get a mod chip installed which enables it to execute arbitrary code (i.e not games).

Then you need to find a copy of the Xbox media center, which can be found from what is euphemistically termed “the usual places” (Microsoft’s licensing terms make it technically illegal to distibute binaries)

Why do I recommend a vanilla xbox when the 360 is just around the corner? Read on…
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A RSS reader for Microsoft Outlook. Attensa for Outlook is one of the few RSS news reader and news aggregator to provide integration of RSS capability into Microsoft Outlook, that brings up-to-date news and content from website, blogs, and Podcast sites, directly into Microsoft Outlook.

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Is this a gadget? Not really, but it is cool so at least it’s halfway there!

Moonpig is an online greetings card company with a difference - they will personalise the text of the card for you. On the surface that may not seem like anything special but the nice thing about these guys is that the cards are exactly the same as the ones you can buy over the counter, but with the generic names and messages replaced with something more personal.

For example you’ve probably seen the “Muriel was having a bad day…” type of birthday cards. Well now you can be much more specific with your insults!

Having used them last year I can say that card quality is excellent and for a small extra fee they’ll also take care of posting the card as well so it makes the whole thing about as hassle-free as it gets.

They’re a UK service but they will post internationally, although at $2.50 postage per card you may want to be selective about who gets the special attention!

Two posts on the trot without an image, I must be slipping. Google have just expanded their impressive range of search services by releasing Google Blog Search and as with most Google products it’s in Beta.

With Google’s purchase of Blogger it seemed inevitable that that they would combine their existing search technology with blogs, though I am surprised it took this long.

The search isn’t just limited to blogger blogs, they also index any blogs with an available feed, so us WordPress users will be in there too :).

Indexing works differently than the standard web search. Blogs are indexed via their RSS feeds, which should provide more near real time indexing. They only started indexing in June this year so all earier posts will not be indexed though I’m sure big G will find a way around that.

Check it out here.