.::REALITYRECALL::.

One of the primary features that kept me using Outlook’s calendar was the desktop notifications that popped up to remind me when it was time for another boring meeting. Now with Google Calendar and Chrome notifications, I’ll never miss the chance to sleep through another meeting.

Seriously, meetings are boring.

But more to the point, if you’re using Google Chrome there’s a built-in desktop notifications feature, and all you have to do is enable a Labs feature in Google Calendar to get it to start showing notifications on your desktop.

Make Sure Chrome Has Desktop Notifications Enabled

The first thing you’ll want to do is make sure that Chrome is set to allow desktop notifications. Head into Tools –> Options –> Under the Hood –> Content settings.

Next, select Notifications on the left-hand side, and then make sure the middle option for “Ask me when a site wants to show desktop notifications” is selected. You may want to click on the Exceptions button and make sure Google Calendar isn’t blocked in there.

Enable Desktop Notifications in Google Calendar

Now that we’ve made sure Chrome is configured properly, you’ll want to head into Google Calendar, open up the Settings link in the top right, and then go to the Labs section.

Find the “Gentle Reminders” item in the list, click the Enable button, and then Save at the bottom. If the option is already enabled but you aren’t getting desktop notifications, you should disable it, Save, and then Enable it again.

Once you’ve clicked the Save button you’ll see a bar show up across the top of the window, and you’ll need to click the Allow button.

As soon as you do, you’ll see a sample notification to show up on the bottom of the screen.

You’ll have to manually close out of the notifications, which is slightly annoying sometimes, but it’s probably a good thing so you won’t miss an important reminder.

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It pales in comparison to Sigbritt Löthberg's home internet connection, but it sure makes Comcast’s Extreme 105Mbps broadband package look downright sluggish. EPB Fiber Optics (Chattanooga’s municipally-owned fiber-to-the-premises network) and Alcatel-Lucent have teamed up to offer America’s “fastest” home broadband service — a service that brings 1Gbps (or 1000Mbps, if that strikes you better) directly to your PC. Best of all, the service is actually on sale starting today, and every single home and business within EPB’s 600 square-mile, nine-county service area will be able to access the network. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, this actually isn’t affiliated in any way with Google’s own proposed 1Gbps service, which likely means that this record will only sit in southeast Tennessee for a few months. Still, we hear this place is some kind of beautiful in the fall, but make sure you’re cool with a $350 monthly charge before pulling the trigger on a relocation.

Update: Tipster Jens notes that he can get a 1Gbps connection for 900 SEK per month in Stockholm, or around $126. Baby steps, we Americans are taking.

Continue reading Chattanooga becomes home to 1Gbps internet service, just $350 per month

Chattanooga becomes home to 1Gbps internet service, just $350 per month originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Sep 2010 11:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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On September 13, 1985, Super Mario Bros. was released in Japan, meaning the world’s most famous plumber’s most famous game is now 25 years old. Happy birthday! More »

When you’re dealing with an application that displays data in a set of columns, it’s often frustrating to have to resize each column separately—but today we’ve got a great trick for you that resizes all the columns with a single keystroke.

The secret keystroke to use is Ctrl and the Numpad’s + key, and it only works if you have a separate number pad on your PC—but we’ve also found a workaround for that as well. Keep reading.

Here’s How It Works

To better illustrate exactly how this trick works, we’ve put together a short video that shows the keyboard shortcut in action.

Resize All Columns with the Keyboard

In case you can’t load the video, here’s how it works—if you look at this example window, you’ll see how the columns are all bunched up, and you can’t see all of the data in them without resizing them, which can be frustrating.

Simply press the Ctrl key and the Numpad + key together, and you’ll see all of the columns instantly resized to fit the content:

Very useful in many situations!

Resize a Single Column the Quick Way

Sometimes you don’t want to resize all the columns, but you’d like to resize a single column to fit the content. All you need to do in this case is double-click on the separator between the columns, and it will instantly be resized to fit.

This trick works in just about every application that we’ve ever used.

Got a Laptop without a Number Pad? Use AutoHotkey to Remap!

And now we get to the good stuff, for all those of us who use a laptop and don’t have a number key pad—in fact, I had to pull out a dusty keyboard just to test out this trick. The simple solution for all of us is to simply setup an AutoHotkey key mapping to map another keystroke to send Ctrl+NumpadAdd instead.

For instance, I’ve assigned the shortcut key combination Alt + to resize the columns, but of course, you could assign anything to it:

!=::Send,{LCtrl down}{NumpadAdd}{LCtrl up}

All you’ll need to do is create a new AutoHotkey script, paste in that single line, and then double-click on it for it to work.

Thanks for pointing out the original tip goes to WinSuperSite

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If women playing games, especially pretty women, weren’t still such a rarity, it’d be a less interesting Google search. And even though, as a medium, video gaming is a lot more equal than it’s been in the past, it’s still a tall order to fire up Xbox Live and come across a player of the female gender. Plus for some reason, all women on Xbox Live have the exact same voice and sound like 12-year-old boys. I’m not sure what that’s about.

Anyway, girl gamers do exist, and there are plenty to drool over. For your convenience, we’ve stripped (get it?) the “wandering blindly through the plains of the Internet” portion of the process of finding them, and gone straight to the “staring at pictures” part.

14.

The Frag Dolls

A rotating group of Ubisoft-sponsored female pro-gamers. Let me reiterate: Rotating. Female. Pro. Gamers. The Frag Dolls show up on Xbox Live every Friday for your multiplayer enjoyment, and from the sounds of things, they splatter many of us amateur miscreants all over cyberspace. These aren’t just women who happen to know their way around a controller; these are women who know their way around rocket launchers. Tanks. Car theft. Gunslinger duels. Bare-knuckle boxing. Sounds like a great date – even if you’re losing.

13.

Image Source

Morgan Webb

TV host, columnist – Morgan Webb plays a lot of video games and could probably kick your ass at many of them. She co-hosts X-Play on G4, which hit 1,000 episodes this year, and reviews enough games to put on episodes three times a week. She also hosts G4 Underground.

12.

Michele Boyd

If being an actress (she plays Riley on The Guild) and snowboarder weren’t enough, Michele is crazy smart. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior from the University of California – Davis, which means she knows more about your brain than you do. Michele games, watches stuff like Battlestar Galactica, and probably understands the science behind Warp drive and those worms that crawl in your ear in Wrath of Kahn. Is it getting hot in here?

11.

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Zooey Daschanel

Indie queen Zooey’s position on nerd love lists has never been exactly low. She even took the starring role in the formerly SciFi Channel’s miniseries “Tinman,” an update of the Wizard of Oz that was…well, somewhat dreadful. Turns out, though, in addition to leading her own band, taking on cool indie film roles, and generally being a super-cool girl next door, Zooey is a huge fan of – wait for it – The Legend of Zelda. And not just any Zelda: the SNES sequel A Link to the Past, arguably THE BEST Zelda. I don’t know about you, but for me, potential 16-bit makeout music would raise any woman’s stock.

10.

Milynn Sarley

Spreading her love of games and nerd culture throughout the Internet via her YouTube channel is what landed Milynn (pronounced My Lynn, not “your Lynn”) her a gig  hosting for EA TV. Clearly you know what you’re talking about when the gaming industry calls you for a job. Also, if you needed more evidence of her awesomeness, Milynn is working on her black belt in Shotokan – so she can hand you your ass both digitally and in real life.

9.

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Jessica Chobot

Not only does Jessica share your affinity for video games, she writes for and does hosting at IGN.com – so she’s knowledgeable. She’s like having a hot player’s guide, or a hot new release calendar. Here’s a woman who not only will play games with you and talk games with you – she can teach you a few things as well. And maybe not just about games. (She writes a blog for Maxim. Totally what I meant.)

8.

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Mila Kunis

What’s cooler than starring in the lackluster Mark Wahlberg adaptation of Max Payne? Well, lots of things – but having some digital street cred at least is cool. Mila earns hers setting people on fire in World of Warcraft. In addition to hilarious turns on That 70′s Show and Family Guy, she spends her time vanquishing monsters as a mage in the MMO. Cue about 900 thinly veiled innuendos about magic missiles.

7.

Felicia Day

A woman so deeply entrenched in the MMO culture, she was able to write, direct, produce and star in a hugely successful web show about it called The Guild. And she’s a redhead. And she’s hilarious. And she’ll dress up with you when you go to Comic Con. Or for other special occasions, like every Wednesday night.

6.

Clare Grant

Having Seth Green for a husband gives Clare a ton of nerd cred at the outset – she’s married to Scott Evil, people – so when she says video games are her hobby, it’s probably fair to say she can rock an energy sword as well as a zergling rush. She’s an actress who has appeared in Black Snake Moan and Walk the Line, but Clare’s coolest role must be producing and starring in Saber, an award-winning Star Wars fan film along with…

5.

Rileah Vanderbilt

…who also wields a lightsaber with more skill than both Kenobi and Vader in A New Hope. Rileah also is an actress who has appeared in movies such as Hatchet and Hatchet 2 and Frozen, which was a Sundance 2010 selection, and she’s into comics, video games and Star Wars (obviously). Really, that video linked in Clare’s profile should be plenty, but if not, know that Rileah is also one-fourth of the mysterious Team Unicorn, along with Clare, Michele and Milynn.

4.

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Jenny McCarthy

She shows up in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 and Your Shape on Wii – and she’s been playing games since Pac-Man. And apparently in addition to acting in Command and Conquer, Jenny’s an avid player. So she’s funny, sexy and an adept military strategist. Sounds ideal for the inevitable zombie apocalypse – and you’d have someone to play games with, too.

3.

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Megan Fox

Imagine a digital femme fatale who could rip off her face and set you aflame with her fire breath as “Finish Him!” echoes in your ears – that’s Megan, a devout Mortal Kombat fan. Before she was appearing in perpetual sunset as robots wail on each other care of Michael Bay, she was playing games – her first system was the Super Nintendo.

2.

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Grace Park

She’s the sexy science fiction icon best known for her turn as the killer Cylon robot model Number Eight, who was also a fighter pilot, in the 2003 Battlestar Galactica update. Even better(!) – she’s an old-school gamer. Grace is into Donkey Kong and the all-time most-likely-to-lead-to-things date game, Super Mario Kart. It doesn’t get much hotter than that.

1.

Your Girlfriend, Idiot

Especially if she’s in the room right now, looking over your shoulder, your girlfriend is the hottest woman gamer there is. And that’s what you should tell her. Specifically if she plays with you, and can stand you. Seriously – she’s real, and that’s a pretty big boon. Don’t have a girlfriend? You should get on that. Hop on Xbox Live on Friday nights and try to impress a Frag Doll. (Note: You may have to practice your abilities, and charms, beforehand.)

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With a gold master OS, plenty of devices raring to show themselves, and a more or less obvious October launch window, it’s clear that Windows Phone 7 is right around the corner. Pocket-lint is reporting today that its sources, “senior figures within the industry,” are pegging October 11 as the special day, with a New York launch event to make it all official. The handsets will then be available later that month, according to one of those sources. It sounds like everybody is ready for Microsoft to start fighting back in the world of phones, the question is: are you?

Microsoft launching Windows Phone 7 on October 11th? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 12:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some parents want Wi-Fi removed from schools, saying wireless networks are unsafe for students.