You’ve probably heard about EA’s latest RPG “Mass Effect” for Xbox360, but did you know it’s coming out for PC very soon too?

Ok, but did you also know that you’ll need to activate the game in order to play it? Oh yes, Mass Effect (PC version) is using SecuROM, which requires online activation.

But it doesn’t stop here, 10 days after the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check the CD-key. If the key isn’t private, the game stops working. It does this every 10 calendar days.
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Last week I asked Adam Ostrow from Mashable and Readburner to show me his desktop. This week it’s Amber MacArthur’s (aka Amber Mac) turn.

Amber is co-founder of MGI Media, but you might know her from G4TechTV’s “Call For Help”, Webnation, commandN or net@night podcast, which is hosted by Amber and Leo Laporte. It runs on Leo Laporte’s own netcast network known as TWiT.tv (This Week in Tech). Net@night (previously “Inside The Net”) is published every Thursday. The topics range from Amber’s links to Web 2.0 entrepreneurs.
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Do you ever consider the environment when you buy a new gadget? I tend to forget and pick gadgets with lots of features, nice design and geek status.

However eco-friendly gadgets are also a competitive parameter. The gadgets manufacturers has found out that consumers are interested in green products.

So which gadget should you buy if you want to be green?
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I’m a big fan of XMBC, the great open source media center for Xboxs. But, I stopped using it over the last 12 months because my needs had out-stripped the capabilities of the Xbox, which can’t support native HD content. Because of this, I now use PCs running Windows Vista Media Center for my media needs, with all my content held on a Windows Home Server.

I was thus pleasantly pleased to learn that two teams of developers are working on porting XBMC to OS X and Linux, providing much needed HD support. Previously the XBMC had worked miracles in terms of squeezing as much functionality as possible out of the power-challenged Xbox. I can’t wait to see what they can achieve if they are given more powerful hardware to play with.

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I’ve decided to build a proper home server as at the moment my files are scattered between different machines (pics of my home setup as requested below) and I want to centralise them, as well as creating a proper remote access solution. I’m not sure yet if Windows Home Server is the right OS yet, so I’ve just ordered a copy of the 120 day Evaluation Kit to mess around with to see if it’s the right platform for my needs.

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