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Audio slideshow: Moving forward with Halted

For almost 50 years, whenever Silicon Valley's budding entrepreneurs, engineers, and start-ups have needed parts for their latest electronics innovations, they've turned to the eclectic electronics surplus superstore, HSC Electronics--also known as Halted--to power their inventions.

Tech pioneers like Apple's Steve Wozniak, Atari's Nolan Bushnell, Intel's Ted Hoff, who helped develop the microprocessor, have all searched through Halted's vast inventory in search of the capacitors, inductors, wires, and transistors to bring their ideas to life.

Like the creative minds that have come here in search of success, the long shelves and deep boxes are … Read more

Widget brings Twitter to World of Warcraft and other PC games

Combining two of the most addictive things about the online universe--Twitter and World of Warcraft--seems like a good way to bring productivity in the Western world to a screeching halt.

If that happens, you can blame PlayXpert, a maker of various in-game widgets for PC gamers. The company today announced the PlayXpert Twitter Widget, adding Twitter functionality to the existing PlayXpert software, which works with WoW and other online PC games.

In-game widget engines such as PlayXpert (which bills itself as an "in-game operating system") run alongside PC games, offering voice chat, Web browsing, and other tools … Read more

Featured Freeware: SmartClose

It's deceptively simple, but this application quickly and cleanly closes all programs, and just as easily restores them. SmartClose's five-icon interface smartly uses tooltips to quickly and adequately explain program operation. Intermediate to advanced users should be able to install and use the program with no further instruction.

SmartClose's primary function leads the user through a wizard to close all programs except for critical Windows functions. Listed options are well-explained as the program advances. Before closing anything, the application takes a quick system snapshot; storing it to reset your computer to that same state at a later … Read more

Don't just close an app--SmartClose

It's deceptively simple, but this application quickly and cleanly closes all programs, and just as easily restores them. SmartClose's five-icon interface smartly uses tooltips to quickly and adequately explain program operation. Intermediate to advanced users will install and operate the program with no further instruction.

SmartClose's primary function leads the user through a wizard to close all programs except for critical Windows functions. Listed options are well explained as the program advances. Before closing anything, the application takes a quick system snapshot; storing it to reset your computer to that same state at a later date. During … Read more