TrailRunner

Ever wondered how far your weekly jog takes you? Or how long you walk during your journey to work each morning? Well wonder no more!

TrailRunner is a route planning application. It doesn't matter what for. Walking, Running, Biking, Hiking, Roller-blading, skiing, or even driving. The maps are loaded from Google

Maps, so you'll get coverage pretty much wherever you are. You can even plot routes through areas without roads, like fields and parks.

You can use TrailRunner to automatically create routes from a destination of your choice. Simply plot any paths near where you want your route, enter a desired length of workout, and TrailRunner will optimise a route for you. It will also tell you how long the route will take at different speeds.

TrailRunner is also compatible with iPhone GPS, Nike + iPod Sports Kit and Garmin Forerunner and Garmin Edge devices to take your running to the next level.

TrailRunner Website

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Vega Strike

I've covered a couple of games on here so far. They were both sit-down-for-a-few-minutes-and-play kinda games. Vega Strike is nothing of the sort.

Vega Strike is an Open Source 3D Action-Space-Simulator that lets you trade, fight and explore its vast universe. If I had to choose just one word to describe Vega Strike, it would be "Epic". Not in the "Epic FaiLZ!" kinda way, or the "EpIc WiNz!" way either. I mean epic as in The Lord of the Rings epic. The scope of this game is absolutely gigantic.

In Vega Strike, you play as the captain of a ship, and the main goal is to 'bring in the dough' in any way possible. You can trade commodities at the many planets and bases scattered about the galaxy, blow up enemy ships, or do missions.

Vega Strike has a pretty enormous learning curve. If you decide to just jump in there and give it a go (like me), you'll end up completely clueless and frustrated at your lack of space-faring abilities (Once again, like me). I strongly advise that you read the player's guide before starting.

The graphics aren't the best, but I suppose that's to be expected with an open source game which is still in development. Above all though, don't download this if you want a game you can dip in and out of every now and then, because this sure as hell isn't one of those, and you'll be a bit disappointed after downloading this 542Mb Disk Image. Although if you do download it, don't give up immediately if it seems too complicated. Like many other good things, this takes time.

Vega Strike Homepage

Vega Strike Wiki

Hunter Suite

It can be tough owning things. You forget exactly which things you own, you forget exactly where they're kept and, try as you may, you just can't seem to remember if a possession is yours, or if it belongs to one of your mates. But thankfully, a nice fella who goes by the name of JAres has come up with a simple, yet oh so effective solution for all these problems.

The Hunter Suite is a collection of three programmes. DVD Hunter, Game Hunter and Book Hunter. They help you keep track of your DVD, Game and Book libraries, and can each be downloaded individually.

The programmes themselves are very simple. On opening them, you are presented with a sidebar, and main section. The sidebar contains the titles of your lists. (The default lists given are Library, Borrowed and Wishlist, although these can all be changed, and you can create new ones too.) And in the main section, you are presented with the list of what you own, want or have borrowed.

When entering a new possession, you get given a little form to fill in. This includes all sorts of information. E.g. In Book Hunter, it asks you for the Author, Publisher, Language etc. You can choose to fill all this in yourself, but if like myself, you're of the lazy inclination, you'll be happy to hear that all you need to do is enter the title, click autocomplete, and all of the relevant details are fetched from the Amazon website.

The Hunter Suite Developer's Page

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Download Game Hunter Now

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Pac the Man

Pac Man is one of the most famous games ever, but sadly, you need a whopping great Arcade Machine to be able to play it.

If you can forgive the horrible name, Pac the Man will provide a good alternative to this. You can play with either one or two players, on any of the gigantic selection of 140 levels. You can even compare your scores to other people's over the internet.

Pac the Man Information Page
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Google Earth

Ever had the urge to see what your house looks like from 5 miles up in the sky? Or have a map of the night sky with all of the stars and galaxies labeled out for you? Well now you can.

Google Earth is a handy little app that allows you to view satellite images from all around the world. The images in major populated areas are fantastic, you can even make out individual people. As far as I know, the images cover the whole earth, but some places have a lower resolution than others. (So don't bother trying to pick out Lions in the African Savannah.) The resolutions vary from 15 metres in less populated areas, right up to 10cm in Prague!

As well as looking down on the Earth, you can also look up at the sky. It uses data from the Hubble Telescope to provide information, and is updated every 5 minutes.

One of my favourite features has got to be the flight simulator. It may be very basic, only allowing you two planes and about 10 airports, but you've gotta love that feeling of flying an F-16 fighter Jet above your hometown!

Google Earth Page

Sequoia

Sequoia is a very interesting (and addictive) new take on a tried and tested game. Tetris.

In Tetris, the aim is to make lines out of blocks falling from the top of the screen, whereas in Sequoia, the aim is to make 4x4 squares out of blocks coming in from all 4 edges of the screen. It’s a simple, but very involving game, which is fantastic for playing when you’ve got a few spare minutes to spend.

Sequoia Download & Information Page