Today Google announced their new search engine add-on, SearchWiki. It adds Digg-style functionality to search results, allowing you to promote the results you like and demote ones you don't. It also includes a comments field, so you can leave notes to other users about the result. It doesn't affect Google's page ranking either, just your personal results - provided you're signed into the big G.

There's something slightly odd about it though. I can get the SearchWiki to work in one of my Google accounts, but not the other. I'm not entirely sure why this is; I've had my oldest Google account since 2004, maybe it's too old. Or maybe Google just hate me.

The other bit of Google weirdness I've noticed is their homepages - sign in to google.co.uk/ig and you'll see a different page layout to google.com/ig. For a company that's supposedly uniting every single person in the world through the universal language of search algorithms, Google don't entirely convince.

This month I've spent a bit of time rediscovering one of my favourite games - Thief: Deadly Shadows - for a retrospective piece. I was happily taffing along, then this happened:

I love it when games break like this. I think it's the combination of his ultra-serious expression and gormless levitation that makes it hilarious. If only more games had glitches like these, as opposed to ones that quit to Windows and destroy all your saves.

Chances are you all already have this, but just in case, it's worth popping onto Steam and grabbing the classic Half-Life for the ludicrous price of... wait for it... 98c, or roughly 66p in English pennies.

Bargain we tell ya, bargain. Apparently it's in order to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the game (launched 10 years ago today no less). You can grab it here if you don't already have steam.

Originally I wanted to make my way to level 80 without any add-ons. Don't know why really, other than I know I'm getting old, and have a random want to do such things. There's something clean and refreshing about a vanilla WoW install, and with the game handling so many things directly anyway, so it's hardly like I need a lot of add-ons.

I've managed to get the achievement for getting all 150 quests in Borean Tundra without any add-ons (including tanking dungeons), so an add-on free life is great. Only that big 80 is really calling to me now, and while I love the writing in the game, I really can't be bothered to read every single word – which makes finding certain mobs or visiting specific places somewhat tricky and haphazard.

Time then for those add-ons that make questing that little bit easier. I've looked at two different options here, and both have there pluses and minuses. Carbonite is the most useful for finding mobs, as it colours in areas of the map to show you where creatures spawn/wander. It does get a little confuse about where dungeon mobs can be found, but is currently my favourite out of the two.

QuestHelper is much more about efficiently going about the whole quest thing, even telling you which flight points to take in order to complete your quests in the best order. It still tells you where you should go to find mobs/pick things up/speak to people, but because it's a single point instead of an area, you do find yourself reading the quest logs a bit more than you do with Carbonite – certainly not a bad thing.

Everyone hates the Man. No one is really sure who the Man is, but it's generally agreed that any big corp that stops you from getting free stuff probably ought to be the Man and everyone should hate them. Mention DRM these days and most veteran PC gamers will start churning up bile that can burn through steel bars. It's, therefore, a little surprising to see a big corp being nice and giving away free, full-length films online.

Admittedly, it's a different medium to gaming, and may not be a trick that's directly transferable to game distribution, but it appears that the likes of MGM, and other film studios, are exploiting unauthorised distribution for profit and effectively trying to kill piracy with kindness.

Instead of banning pirated videos, the studios are beginning to treat it as an opportunity to make some money. Both YouTube and MySpace have developed systems that allow content owners to either ban unauthorised distribution or to slot in some ad space.

The studios, it appears, have reasoned that trying to ban the world isn't going to work and are coming around to the idea of making ad revenue from pirated uploads of their content. Last October, YouTube did some dealing with CBS and now you can watch things like old Star Trek episodes or Beverly Hills 90210 (if only to relive a crush on Brendan's sister), and now it looks like full-length films are on the cards. MGM's struck a deal to release some of it's archive, including the superb reworking of Shichinin No Samurai, The Magnificent Seven.

The likes of EA haven't been making friends and influencing people with their approach to piracy recently, and it does make you wonder that if a lumbering beast like the film business can figure out ways to make money from piracy in Internet land, it's time game publishers got their thinking caps on.

Eve is one of those games. You know, the sort of game that you either don't have time for, or that you shouldn't have time for. It's a time sink for people that don't need a time sink. It's easy to knock (cited as a pretty front-end to Excel for instance), but there are enough cool stories, that many of us keep an eye on it it... just in case... you know, just in case.

Besides, I already play WoW. I don't have time for anything else. Well, not much else. I'm reliably informed though, that when I grew up, I should play Eve. It's a proper grown up game. No Orcs, Elves or any of that nonsense. Just pure gaming.

So, what's the point of this whole ramble on Eve? Surely its been out for years and there's nothing new about to happen? Well, try this for size – Atari has teamed up with CCP to distribute the boxed copies of EVE Online from March next year. The boxed copy will include the client and 60-day subscription time and also includes “Exclusive Extras”.

It seems like a strange time to push a game that is already incredibly popular, but it could be just what's needed to take it to the next level.

We had to check that it wasn't the April 1st when we read the latest press release from SanDisk. The memory specialist has announced a new flash memory management interface that improves SSD performance and reliability. Apparently by freeing the SSD from the more traditional method of writing to drives, some write operations are up to 100 times faster. More detail info here.

Sounds good.

So why did we check the date? Rather unfortunately SanDisk has decided to name up this new technology ExtremeFFS. Apparently the FFS in this instance stands for Flash File System, although anyone that has played a multiplayer game or visited a chat channel or forum lately will know this is a vulgar exclamation of resignation (For F*ck's Sake). To be fair to SanDisk FFS is a term it has been using for a while (since PureFFS appeared in 1994), but even so, the more common use of the TLA (Three Letter Acronym) would have us looking for a different name.

We look forward to follow technologies such as ExtremeLOL and it's more jocular alternative ExtremeROFLCOPTER.

Last week I took a bit of time off to go back to my folks' and "chill". It turned out "chilling" involved helping my dad sort out the chimney and hacking through the cardboard box-jungle of my childhood. But, my heart lept with joy when, upon journeying through my home town of Barnstaple, I noticed a new pub. A new pub called Monkey Island, no less.

We drove on, and I contemplated the delights that surely awaited me in the Monkey Island pub. Would they be serving Grog? Would there be witty, word-based insult fights? Will there be an inexplicably useful rubber chicken with a pully in the middle? My mind drifted into the wonderful world of VGA point n click games, and I hoped to enter to a scene akin to this:

Later in the week, me and a friend went out for a couple of drinks. Wanting a change of scene from the ubiquitous Wetherspoons, we excitedly headed to the Monkey Island pub. At the very least I expected the owner to be a fan of the games. We tentatively approached the pub, glanced into the window and, by the nape(s) of a three-headed monkey, it looked like somewhere even Trainspotting's Begby wouldn't dare tread. Sparsely decorated and full of skinheaded lager louts, we were too frightened to enter, and quickly moved along.

Talking to my parents later, it turned out that Monkey Island referred to an old trading area of Barnstaple, adjacent to the pub. It didn't feature monkeys. And it wasn't even an island. As I heavily-heartedly headed homewards, I secretly hoped to myself that those skinheads were, in fact, avid fans of the series.

Next month: Henry visits Club Black Mesa in Ilfracombe.

Asus made waves at the end of 2007 with the initial release of the Eee PC and the birth of what we now commonly call the netbook. This cheap, solid and reliable form of computing caught every other manufacturer with their pants down. These days they are all over the place, and poor old Asus no longer rules the roost.

Next year however may be another story, as they plan to release a sub $200 edition of the Eee. Though we will have to wait and see as the first gen of the Eee failed to come under the promised $200 mark too! Currently there are no news of what tech specs we can can expect to see from this new unit.

Stuck in the office, it's cold outside and payday is still a week off! So what the hell do you do with that 60 minutes of lunchtime boredom. You could suck down your sandwiches and pretend your Facebook friends actually care about your sorry ass.

I prefer to dress up as a female and hang out in the ladies toilets but the injunction is still in force so now spend my time performing l33t stunts and breaking bones in this triple ace Flash game.  www.teagames.com/games/tgmotocross3/play.php