“Shut up and let me go! HEY!”

How can you make an awkward phone call easy? Surely an application can’t stop you feeling guilty for calling in sick just because your best mate has tickets to see The Ting Tings live at Newcastle Academy. Oh, but it can! 

Thanks to the mobile phone application “Slydial”, you can actually bypass the call and go straight to voicemail, leave your message and turn your phone on silent. So when your boss tries ringing and you don’t answer, you can simply claim you were too busy re-tasting that Spicy Mexican Pizza you had the night before which just wasn’t cooked right.

You can also use the program for REAL events as well, like when you know someone’s at work, so rather than waiting for voicemail to come up anyway, you can leave the message for when they finish, thus saving you a good 20 seconds. It doesn’t sound like much, but it does drag on and on. As far as I know, the application is only available for smartphones such as the iPhone, G1 or the Blackberry Storm.

For more information, simply visit Slydial.com

It’s getting to that stage, moral is low, businesses are going bankrupt and money is nowhere to be found. Everybody is struggling to make ends meet financially, from businesses to the public. Everybody that is, except for Google - Who recently announced that their third quarter brought in a magnificent £778m. I’m sorry, let me say that again… £778,000,000. Look at all those zeros!

They also announced that even though they are being realistic about the financial crisis we’re all suffering from, they aim to invest more and more into “Future areas of growth.” This of course, is a massive story when you think about it. Google is known for designing software to their best capability, and generally doing better than most who they compete against - And now, they’re even tackling the slowing economy better than us.

I suppose a low of the reasoning for their success is because of the economy when I think about it. Smaller businesses are losing money, meaning spending money on advertising is a great idea for bringing in the punters. Meanwhile, Google sits there and gets paid all of this lovely, hard earned cash without even parting with a product.

Google are definitely going to be around for a long, long time. Let’s just hope they’ll be able to sort out this Vista-crisis we’re all having…

You would assume, that with all of this going around us, and not just in our country, but America is facing the same problems too, that Apple would be in serious danger. Considering the prices of their machines, which tend to over shadow those of standard Dell and HP (Hewlett-Packard.) Especially when you think about their other products too, such as the iPhone, and iPod being top quality items of their kind. Above all, it seems that Apple are out of the game, charging amounts people can’t afford.

Paul Kedrosky believes that the company is in serious danger and must consider new ways of making money in order to survive the slowing economy. As I’m sure he agrees, it was written on Yahoo’s Tech Ticker Blog:

Apple’s products are “aspirational,” consumers can do without them and opt instead for cheaper alternatives from others, or bypass electronics purchases altogether.

- The Kauffman Foundation senior.

Of course, like always, there is a twist to this article. Apple may seem in danger, but figures gathered from all kinds of experts have pretty much guaranteed Apple a safe summer. As most people have forgotten about those people who don’t have to worry so much about the economy state we are in - Students. You’d be surprised at the amount of students who are simply taking this disaster in their stride and getting on with their lives, because they are not hit as hard as anyone else. Student Grants, ALG, EMA, Leaner Support, On-Site accommodation - All of this adds up and creates an easy living space for a generation completely overlooked by the technology market.

Because of smaller purchases, such as the iPod and iPhone, where people could afford them only a few years back, many students have began to learn the Apple way, and love the idea of it. This has led to a huge response in Apples favour towards the amount of students who intend to spend their share of Learning Grants on Apple technology. Millions have literally said they will be buying a MacBook when they get their first payment for learning, as most students prefer notebooks to desktops, because they can be taken to lectures, classes or the local library.

Ironically, this means that the reason Apple have a huge chance of survival, and maybe even a large chance of expanding is because of the crisis. Our taxes pay the government, who then pay students to learn - Who spend their money on Apple software - Could it have gone any better for them?

The mod is definitely one of the best I’ve seen. Not for use, or even technical rewiring. Simply because of how it looks. Take a look at this:

The remote is a wooden effect, which helps give that authentic, Vintage look. It’s not exactly an amazing idea, or a productive experiment - But i would certainly be proud to “shake my wood” in front of my friends. I would even let them have a go for a while.

The truth is, no matter how much time you have spare, there is always something you can do, and what many people seem to overlook is the fact that sometimes - going greener - can actually save you money. I’m not talking hundreds and thousands of pounds, but still, every penny counts - Especially when it comes to rise in tax towards petrol, alcohol and even cigarettes.

You may be sat there thinking that going green would be a good thing, but maybe you just don’t know where to start? Well, start with this program. It’s called Edison and it’s designed to help you on your way to reducing your carbon footprint. The way it works is simple, it tweaks your power settings to the right performance for what you use it for.

Go greener and see how much you save!

This may not sound like much, and the truth is, it’s not - so many programs like this have been written and they are all basically the same, except for the fact that this one can produce so much more information than any others. Not only does it tell you the performance, temperature, yearly savings, how much energy you’ve saved and also, how much CO2 emissions you are producing.

Edison is a free piece of software available for Windows, but requires .NET 2.0, and Email (for registration) and a spare 45Mb memory to run the program. 45Mb may seem a lot, but if you want to go green…

When plugging in your portable thumb drive, inserting a floppy disk or even a Compact Disk with a load of back-up data, it’s always been a pet hate of mine to have to go back to My Computer every time you wish to load these pieces of hardware. In my opinion, the less amount of mouse-clicks you need to go through to get to where you want to be, the better your computing experience. For this reason, I have decided to show you this program, it’s called Desktop Media and basically, it allows you to place all of your removable drives on your desktop, allowing you to access the information you need without the use of My Computer.

Download Desktop Media for free!

Apple says that “by misappropriating Apple’s proprietary software and intellectual property for its own use, Psystar’s actions harm consumers by selling to them a poor product that is advertised and promoted in a manner that falsely and unfairly implies an affiliation with Apple.”

The majority of the problem Apple are having seems to be based around certain features that are missing in the Hackintosh which no system running MAC OS X should be without. These programs include Bluetooth, iLife and IR Receiver, but Apple have also mentioned how loud the machines actually are.

Not surprisingly, Apples suit have not only demanded an immediate holt to the retail of the Hackintosh, but also a full recall of all the machines sold, as well as monetary damages plus attorney’s fees.

Turn off Indexing by following these simple steps:

1. Open “My Computer” from the Start menu.
2. Right-click on your hard drive and click “Properties.”
3. Uncheck the box at the bottom of the window labelled “Allow Indexing Service to index this disk for fast file searching”
4. Click “OK.” The process may take several minutes, but will allow your computer to run at a nice, higher speed than before.