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UPDATE, September 17: The promotion is officially back on, now that EA's servers have recovered. You can head here to pick up your copy of Red Alert 2 . Original story: After nearly six months of stinkers ( Ultima 8 and Zuma’s Revenge ), EA’s On-the-House program is back in peak form. Starting right now as soon as EA's servers stop dying, you can pick up a copy of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 for free through Origin, along with the expansion Yuri’s Revenge . The question of “What’s the best Command & Conquer ?” is about as controversial as “Nvidia or AMD?” or “Do you let the toilet paper hang over or under?” ( Over—Ed. ) so don’t expect to get a straight answer. Still, a vast amount of people would name Red Alert 2 ’s alt-history Soviet/USA conflict as their favorite of the long-running RTS series—and lead designer Dustin Browder went on to lead StarCraft II . Also, you can make dolphins part of your navy. It’s a pretty great game. Unfortunately it...

 Windows 10 Professional isn’t just for cubicle dwellers who have no choice in the matter. While users who own a ‘professional’ PC like the Surface Pro 3 will automatically be upgraded to this higher-end version of the OS, smaller businesses and PC enthusiasts, as well as contractors and sole proprietors, may also weigh the benefits of the Pro version vs. Windows 10 Home.  Windows 10 Professional doesn’t take anything away from Home users; it simply adds more sophisticated features. It’s a costly choice, though: $99 for a Windows 10 Pro Pack that takes you from a licensed copy of Windows 10 Home to the Professional version. This applies to Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, or Windows 8.1 users, who are only eligible for Windows 10 Home.   Microsoft created a useful webpage for comparing the different Windows 10 versions, breaking down the reasons to upgrade to Windows Pro into four categories: ...

 Microsoft just keeps on truckin’ with its “Windows as a service” vision for Windows 10. After relaunching the Windows Insider program one month ago and quickly following up with a build that reshuffled menus and borked Chrome, the latest Windows 10 preview landed for Insiders on the Fast Ring on Friday. Windows 10 preview build 10547 adds some new features for the Start menu, Tablet Mode, Cortana, and more, but comes with a few rough edges of its own. Perhaps the most notable—but still fairly subtle change—is the newfound ability for the Start menu to support four columns of medium-sized Live Tiles in its default view, rather than the three columns available today. “We heard feedback from many Insiders who wanted the ability to have a 4th column as well, so they could have two wide or large sized tiles side by side in a group,” Microsoft’s Gabe Aul said in the blog post announcing availability of the new build. The four-column width isn’t the new default...

 One of the best parts of Windows 10 is its deep integration with Cortana, Microsoft’s helpful digital assistant. To really make Cortana work for you, however, it helps to have the voice activation feature up and running. That way your next file search, weather check, or command to open an app is just a “Hey, Cortana” away. To get started, click on the Cortana icon/search box in the taskbar. Then click the notebook icon in Cortana’s left-hand navigation panel—it’s right under the home icon. (If you haven’t activated Cortana yet, you’ll have to follow the steps that appear to turn it on before you’ll see the standard Cortana interface.) Cortana’s Settings panel. On the notebook screen, click Settings, then in the Settings panel, turn the slider to On under the “Hey Cortana” heading. Once you’ve done that a new option will appear called “Respond best.” Here you have the option to allow Cortana to respond to anyone or only your voice. If you choose th...

Get ready for some goodies from Google. The company sent out invitations on Friday for a press event that will take place September 29th in San Francisco.  Android Police published a screenshot of the invitation, and it reads, “Join us for some tasty new treats and much s’more.” The s’mores reference is a clear tip of the cap to Android Marshmallow, the next major release of Google’s mobile OS, and strongly suggests that we’ll hear about Marshmallow’s public release at the event. Google announced Android Lollipop’s release last October, so the timing works out for an annual release cycle. Google isn’t providing any other details about what the event will cover, but there are at least a couple other possibilities. Google often releases new Nexus devices alongside new versions of Android, so it isn’t too unrealistic to expect to see revamped Nexus phones at the event. In fact, a report from earlier this month pointed toward new Nexus devices toward the end of S...

If you use Google Chrome, you’ll want to watch out for this bug: According to VentureBeat, a specific character string of text could bring your browser crashing to the ground. According to VentureBeat, merely appending “%%30%30” to the end of a URL will cause Chrome to hang and crash. The cruelest twist? You don’t even have to open a malformed URL to cause the crash–merely mousing over the link is enough to bring down Chrome. (In other words, don't add the above string to URLs unless you like cussing at your computer. Don't say we didn't warn you.) Security researcher Andris Atteka originally discovered the bug by entering a URL with the added characters tacked on (a total of 26 characters), but VentureBeat noted that it takes even fewer characters—only 16 in total—to crash the browser. Atteka says this is “only a DOS vulnerability”—that is, a crash-causing bug—so it isn’t a security flaw in the truest sense of the word. Still, this bug has the potenti...

 One of the simplest hardware upgrades you can do to make your computer feel snappier is to upgrade your memory. Over the years, operating systems like Windows, software like Photoshop, and now even web browsers like Chrome, have built reputations for being unabashed memory hogs. Older PCs, meanwhile, often have between 2GB and 4GB of memory. Loading too many tabs in Chrome or keeping to many programs open on your desktop could use up all of the memory your system has to offer, slowing your system to a crawl. If your PC’s feeling pokey when you have a lot going on, consider upgrading your RAM. A mere 4GB could work if you’re sticking to light tasks and not using Chrome, but 8GB is really the minimum we would recommend for a modern desktop PC. To future-proof your system, 16GB is the best option—the downside being increased cost, of course. RAM buying considerations There are different types of RAM. Most PCs use DDR3 memory, but older system may require DDR...