By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

I switched to Vista and basically yawned and got back to work. But a guy named “Felix8406″ has written up a pretty decent list of features and tips on Vista that got my attention.

1. How To Change the Way Pages Print from IE7
2. How To Easily Share Folders in Vista
3. How To Use Vista’s Speech Recognition Feature (or Talk to Your Computer)
4. How To Hide Messages You’ve Already Read in Windows Mail, Outlook Express, or Windows Live Mail
5. How To Use the People Near Me Feature
6. How to Use Windows Meeting Space for Collaboration Sessions
7. How To Select Which OS to Start If You Dual Boot
8. How To Independently Control Volume Levels for Each Application
9. How To Quickly Batch Rename Photo FileNames Using Windows Photo Gallery
10. How To Set Up Vista Parental Controls

More

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

Just when you thought you had seen every possible USB Flash drive comes the Ritek Yego. This interesting Y-shaped design let’s you plug in the drive and connect two more USB devices thanks to the integrated pass-through connectors. The best part is the colored LED indicator that runs down the center of the unit: it lights up to let you know which of the three hubs is in use. No word on when this will go on sale. Product Page via fareastgizmos.com

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

There’s no doubt there’s a craze over the iPhone, but a little … er. common sense, please … as they say, “there’s a sucker born every minute.”

Those 23 people bid on the much-ballyhooed Apple iPhone on eBay this week, and the high bidder paid $1,125 for one of the six phones the seller, rgonzales23455, had on auction. The problem is that the iPhone isn’t scheduled to ship until June. And when it does, it will have a retail price of $499 for a 4GB model and $599 for an 8GB model.

“Please note: I have 6 of these phones available for immediate shipping. I accept Paypal only for this auction. Free shipping via USPS Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation. Will ship immediately after payment clears Monday – Friday,” rgonzales23455 said in his auction listing. Source: ComputerWorld

We Say: Naturally, once informed of the auctions, eBay shut them down, and the seller did not respond to emails. On the other hand, the high bidder did, and he didn’t feel he was taking a chance, because of Paypal’s insurance, which covers up to $2000. He said “Besides, there are rumors of iPhones being shipped as early as early April, and there’s always a chance this seller managed to get one somehow.”

I suppose that’s possible, but even if you got one so early, it would a pre-production ROM, and likely perform poorly because of that. And you wouldn’t be able to get a ROM upgrade … and until they release a maintenance release, you’d have to scrounge for the released ROM as well.

Now, about that bridge …

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Stephen Hawking wants to go into space, and the first step is to experience weightlessness. On April 26th, he will take a flight operated by Zero Gravity Corporation, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based space tourism and entertainment company. If you’d like, you too can be part of history; you can join him by bidding on an auction currently on eBay. 100% of the auction proceeds will benefit the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation.

If you want a chance to bid on the auction, you have until March 26th. Bidding is currently at $25,000 at the time of this writing. It’s strange that I hadn’t heard anything about this in the news; I found out about it when I decided to try to find something on eBay.

The auction can be found here. Besides the flight, the winner will receive a three night stay at the JW Marriott Hotel Grande Lakes in Orlando, Florida, from April 24-April 27.

We Say: From the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation website: Starlight Starbright helps seriously ill children and their families cope with their pain, fear and isolation through entertainment, education and family activities.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

I wrestled long and hard with the XBox 360 vs. Playstation 3 decision and it basically came down to this: I’m not paying insane markup prices for a 1.0 release. True, the Xbox 360 still has issues, but at a fraction of the price, and with many many more great games, and a compelling online experience, I decided to save my green and go green and white for now.

Or you could let the gang in the Microsoft games marketing department say it better with this handy beer photo. In the end, it’s a tad heavy-handed, but the assessment is right on the money. Save your money! Source: joystiq

By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews

Online gaming bans are not uncommon, especially in gaming-crazy Asia. But what if you could get back “in the game” after a ban? Would you give blood to do it?

An online game operator has demanded that banned players donate blood to be allowed back into the game. Moliyo, which runs a 3D massively multiplayer online game in China, made the demand after banning 120,000 players who attempted to hack the game.

More than 100 players had already signed up to exchange half a litre (1 pint) of blood for game accounts. The company has also offered free accounts to ordinary players who give blood. Source: Weird Asia News

We Say: Interesting that they will give free accounts to regular players if they give blood. It doesn’t say, however, how long the accounts are free. Forever? Just the initial account? Or what? There’s a limit to what I’ll do for gaming … besides, I’ve given blood before … just to give it, for no other reason.

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

This must be the day for bizarre gadgets. We were innocently drawn to the name DRAM Sandal, thinking it had something to do with memory chips and footwear. Little did we know that the “DRAM” is more like a “dram of whiskey,” and that whiskey my friends is served straight from the shoe, or sandal to be exact. YUCK.

Favorite Features Include:
# Cap opens with included exclusive Reef church key/fin key
# Unique shaker icon molded Reef rubber outsole

We Say: being a tech site, we still take these things seriously. Two flaws - standing on your liquor spells leakage up ahead, and then there’s the hot feet/evaporation issue. $44.95 Product Page via Reef

By Alice Hill
RealTechNews

Let’s start with the bad news first: you can’t buy this product. It’s the brainchild of a geeky and obviously very sleepy modder named Roger Ibars who took an old light gun and devised a way for it to shoot an alarm clock to the off position each morning.

We say: Wake Up Roger and make this a reality. And one last question: if you miss, does it activate a snooze function? Source: Make via nerdapproved