[Download Squad] 7 New Entries: PETA mashes up Cooking Mama and Stephen King for gruesome holiday fun

PETA mashes up Cooking Mama and Stephen King for gruesome holiday fun

Filed under: Games, Internet

'Tis the season to go on a murderous rampage, according to PETA. Once again proving hostile to cavemen but friendly to animals, PETA has re-created Cooking Mama in a Flash version (downloadable on Macs and PC's through the magic of Adobe AIR).

Unlike the soothing "Better than Mama!" you're used to on the Wii, this Mama is more akin to Sweeney Todd. PETA is calling their creation, "Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals." I think I just heard the Lawyermobile at Majesco pulling out of the garage.

Killing turkeys, ripping out their guts and stuffing them with Atkins-unfriendly carbs is the name of this game. PETA tries to drive home the point that cleaning and cooking a turkey is a messy, horrible affair. Unfortunately, I had too much fun with the cartoonish game to truly grasp the horror of the situation. Luckily, after two rounds -- and regardless of whether you "win" -- you're treated to a "bonus" video describing and illustrating the sad lives commercially-raised turkeys are forced to endure. It ain't pretty.

Still, I give the idea two big thumbs-up for creativity; PETA has always been a creative bunch. But I doubt the Southern gents I know would be dissuaded in the least by this game. It's tricky to preach through videogames, and trickier still to illustrate terror when making something so cute and fun. All the same, I look forward to "Hello Kitty: Shelter Edition" if they ever pick up the idea.

Check out the screenshots... if you dare. Oh, and if you check out the game I recommend you turn your speakers down. There's some screaming and loud music involved. Enjoy!

Gallery: Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals

[Via Planetsave]

PETA mashes up Cooking Mama and Stephen King for gruesome holiday fun originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lorem2: for the discerning lorem ipsum aficionado

Filed under: Design, Text, Productivity

Designers know the words "lorem ipsum" all too well. If you've mocked up a layout for anything with chunks of text in it, you've probably run across the infamous Latin paragraphs that commonly show up as filler. Where do you get your lorem ipsum, though, and how do you make sure it's the right fit for your design? Lorem2 is one great way to do it.

Lorem2 is a nicely laid-out collection of lorem ipsum paragraphs and bullet points, both short and long. If you're the kind of person who keeps a text file full of this stuff, you might be better off filling it up with the whole contents of Lorem2. You'll never have to give a second thought to avoiding repeated text that detracts from your layouts, because the solution will be close at hand.

Lorem2: for the discerning lorem ipsum aficionado originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mobile voice, IM app Fring announces embedded ad trials

Filed under: Internet, Text, Freeware, VoIP

Fring is a fantastic mobile application, allowing mobile users access to voice and text chat via Skype, MSN, GTalk, and more on their mobile handset or iPod Touch.

On their official blog yesterday, they announced the introduction of embedded ads on a trial basis. No specifics were given, only the reassurance that revenues would be used to sustain development and bring even more great features to Fring.

Ads will appear only for "a small number of randomly selected Fringsters each day." They continue, reassuring users that their Fring experience won't be affected.

While I don't own a device capable of running the app, I have used it on a friend's iPod touch. I'm not generally a fan of adware, Fring is certainly a good enough app to deal with the minor annoyance of a few banners - provided they're kept to a reasonable level.

If you're a Fring user, what do you think about this news?

[ via Symbian Freak ]

Mobile voice, IM app Fring announces embedded ad trials originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BareSite tries to improve the mobile browsing experience

Filed under: Utilities, Browsers, Mobile

I recently wrote about Intersquash, a service that generates code to optimize your site for iPhone browsing. BareSite is the flipside of that: it allows mobile browsers to access a "bare" mobile version of any site, based on the RSS feed. The results aren't as pretty as what you'd see from a natively mobile site, but sometimes you don't have that choice. On the other hand, a decent mobile browser and RSS reader can achieve the same results.

So, does BareSite work? I actually had some trouble with it. It seems to be confused by RSS feeds without a pubDate element -- like, currently, Download Squad's. This definitely detracts from the BareSite's usefulness, especially considering that decent RSS readers already exist on several mobile platforms. The Google search function on BareSite is also useful, but kind of unnecessary, as Google has mobile versions of its sites, and some mobile browsers build a Google search function in already.

BareSite tries to improve the mobile browsing experience originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fashion Your Firefox offers easier browser customization

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Mozilla, Browsers

Mozilla has launched a new service called Fashion Your Firefox. The aim of the project is to make the browser customization simpler for the average user.

When you visit the page, you'll be presented with a number of options that target specific browsing "personalities," like Finder and Seeker, Shutterbug, News Junkie, and others. Select a profile, and FYF displays a selection of the most popular relevant addons.

The Finder and Seeker, for example, offers Stumbleupon, Interclue, and the Mini Map Sidebar. News Junkies can select Wizz RSS, Morning Coffe, ReadItLater, and ForecastFox.

The installation process has also been streamlined. You don't have to add extensions one at a time - place a checkbox in each one that interests you and click the install my addons button when you're done. Firefox will process your queue en masse.

FYF is incredibly simple to use, its suggestions are right on the money, and it works well. Perhaps one day we'll be able to tag our preferred extensions and easily add them to new Firefox installs using a system like this.

Fashion Your Firefox offers easier browser customization originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gyroball - Time Waster

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Freeware, Time-Wasters, Web

Remember the classic arcade game Marble Madness? If you enjoyed the frustration that is trying to guide a ball along a 3D course using an isometric view, without falling off the arbitrary edges, just like in Marble Madness, you'll probably enjoy Gyroball.

As you might be able to tell, I find Gyroball frustrating. The first few levels are fairly straightforward, but on the third or fourth level, I was completely stymied. It started driving me nuts. I'm sure many of you long-time timewaster players will cruise right through that level without a second look, but for whatever reason I just couldn't get the right combination of direction, momentum and control.

The game controls are dead simple - use your direction arrows to push the ball in various directions. Of course, because the game is presented in an isometric 3D display, the arrow keys do not correspond with the direction that your ball will typically be traveling; the ball is mostly going in diagonals, requiring multiple button presses at the same time, or very quickly alternating between two.

If your frustration tolerance is high, this game could be played for an extended period. Otherwise, it makes a nice, short time waster between tasks.

Gyroball - Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Help! I need a free app to convert DAA and UIF files!

Filed under: Utilities, Windows, Commercial, Freeware, Troubleshooting

Download Squad reader David contacted us, asking for a solution to his problem and it's one I've dealt with myself: fighting with the proprietary disc image formats of MagicISO and UltraISO.

"I've been looking through the web for some free program to do this for me and I haven't had any luck. UltraISO and MagicISO are great programs, but I just don't have the money to dish 30 bucks on each [one]."

First off, let's be honest. If you're dealing with a UIF or DAA, it's very likely a disc image of a program or game you torrented (this may or may not have been my own experience). If you're extracting, mounting, or burning something like that, you may as well just torrent MagicISO or UltraISO too and be done with it. I'm certainly not going to judge anyone for doing that.

Continue reading Help! I need a free app to convert DAA and UIF files!

Help! I need a free app to convert DAA and UIF files! originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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