compared

The soul-selling industry used to be fraught with shady underground deals involving facing crossroads and meeting demons in dark alleys. A new site called Soul Compare is looking to bring the soul market out of the shadows.

Before you can sell your soul, however, you need to have a good idea of its worth. Soul Compare uses your Facebook presence to weigh your value. It looks at your friendships, photos, comments, and how many "Likes" you've spread around.

All your Facebook information is then translated into gigaMorgans. One gigaMorgan is equal to the value of television host Piers Morgan's soul. I ran the numbers and came in at 25.3 gigaMorgans. I'm guessing I should feel pretty good that I haven't sunk into negative gigaMorgans.… Read more

Keeping multiple copies of critical files and folders is good practice, but it's usually not very long before small differences begin to creep in. If you don't keep them synced, the differences will pile up until there are too many to mess with. Whatever the reasons you might have for wanting to view the differences between two folders, Compare Advance from BauerApps makes the job easy. This free tool analyzes two folders for differences in content and color-codes the results for easy identification. It can also synchronize and back up your folders. It's customizable and also integrates … Read more

So important is Microsoft Excel to the world's data that the smallest difference between datasets can have consequences that ripple outward like a stone thrown in a calm pond. DiffEngineX is a powerful tool that identifies the differences between two Excel workbooks or individual worksheets, even thousands at a time. But unlike standard difference analysis, it takes into account any new or blank rows, cells, and columns. It's not something you can just fire up and run, but the payoff for a little prep is accurate identification of actual differences in huge amounts of data in minutes or … Read more

Allway Sync is a free tool that analyzes the contents of two folders simultaneously and updates both based on the latest content. Its bidirectional algorithm analyzes both folders for actual changes and synchronizes both based on your choice. An easy-to-master interface hides an extensive range of settings and options for manually and automatically synchronizing folders. Allway Sync works in 32-bit versions of Windows 2000 to 7; a 64-bit version is available, too.

Allway Sync's colorful interface displays source and destination folders in separate, identical fields. The program can access files and folders on removable drives, online sources, and other … Read more

It was the first thing that came to mind while I was sitting down at Sony's press conference last week. For me, the most shocking news to come out of E3 2011 was the price of the PlayStation Vita: $250 for the Wi-Fi-only version.

A portable console that has the graphical chops to be compared to its living-room cousin is certainly impressive, but the fact that it'll go for the same price that the Nintendo 3DS is currently being sold at is worth a double take.

I've already compared the two portables side by side in terms of specs, but now having played on the PS Vita, I'm even more curious about how the public will react when it goes on sale at the end of 2011.

In terms of overall experience, the PS Vita easily trumps the 3DS in graphics, horsepower, and even areas where Nintendo originally dominated--not to mention both of the 3DS' screens pale in comparison with the Vita's 5-inch OLED monster. The 3DS wowed us with its first-to-market augmented reality games and cards, but I found the Vita's AR interface to be much smoother and robust. When trying it out last week with the Vita launch game Little Deviants, I was told the camera-enabled augmented reality demo was running at 60 frames per second. I don't have the hard numbers on the 3DS, but I'd be shocked if it runs at more than half that.… Read more

With the PlayStation Vita now officially unveiled, we're putting it side by side with the Nintendo 3DS. As they're priced the same, we're curious which system provides the best overall value. For your $250, which portable console will you buy?

By now we've come to terms with the fact that the Sony Ericson Xperia Play is not the PSP Phone that we were all wishing for, but we still think it's worth comparing it against the game-centric Sony NGP, announced just a few short weeks ago.

The Xperia Play is the first PlayStation-certified smartphone on the market, which means it will be capable of downloading content from the PlayStation Store. Its 1Ghz Snapdragon processor promises 60-frames-per-second performance without wiping out the battery.

We're not sure if the Xperia Play can satisfy the gamer who wants the latest and greatest from the portable gaming scene, but the Xperia Play will probably offer the closest approximation to it of any smartphone around. The real question is whether consumers will find the need to own an Xperia Play in addition to a portable system like the NGP or 3DS.

For a head-to-head look at the Xperia Play and NGP, consult our spreadsheet below.

… Read more

It can be a challenge to maintain a pristine music collection once you've migrated to a digital library. With all the moving, copying, downloading, ripping, and transferring files that sometimes goes on, many of us are bound to end up with some duplicate tracks scattered around our hard drives. If you want to get things all nice and tidy again--not to mention clear up some space on your computer--Similarity is here to help. This fairly basic utility scans your system for music files and helps you locate and delete dupes.

Similarity is a quick and light app, with limited … Read more

Medal of Honor marks the reboot of a franchise that found a handful of success on the original PlayStation and PC. Eleven years after its original release, developer Danger Close has teamed up with EA for the self-titled Medal of Honor on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This time, the events are all too familiar--directly dealing with the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.

The game isn't without its share of controversy; over the summer, Medal of Honor made headlines when it was learned that the multiplayer mode would have players assuming two team roles, one of which was to be called the Taliban. Though EA stood by the decision for a while, the Taliban was ultimately renamed to "Opposing Force" right before the game was released.

The big question, though, is whether Medal of Honor will be able to weather the inevitable Call of Duty: Black Ops storm that will hit on November 9. Will this month head start be enough for the title to be a legitimate contender?

Jeff: A fair amount of hype has been laid upon the shoulders of Medal of Honor, namely because it's Call of Duty: Black Op's biggest competition this holiday season. There aren't too many drastic departures from Call of Duty's formula, but the campaign in Medal of Honor gives much more realistic and gritty insight to actual infantry combat. The decision to consult with members of the U.S. military has proved beneficial, thus making it a superior single-player experience on many levels.

Medal of Honor gets the atmosphere right, arguably the title's strongest feature. There is a comforting conversational interaction with the nonplayable characters you'll team up with--both in-person and over the radio--that completely humanizes the soldiers.

Gamers will undoubtedly befriend Dusty, with his "NYPD" backward hat and sunglasses, a character who helps represent the new-found American patriotism immediately after 9/11. Since Medal of Honor takes place during the current war in Afghanistan, there are a few educational moments scattered throughout. If anything, Medal of Honor successfully portrays soldiers as more down-to-earth, further emphasizing the real tragedy of war.… Read more