Archive for the ‘Software Reviews’ Category

First Person Online Games

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

We talked about MMORPGs in our earlier post, but there are also online games that are played in the first person. Instead of having you role play with an avatar representing you, the adventure unfolds from your own point of view. On the large end of the scale you’ll find MMOFPS or Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter games. If you don’t want to play against twenty or more people at a time, there are smaller combat groups as well, like six versus six or “6v6”.   

GameBattles.com is one place to find opponents who want the same kind of experience that you do. Their website explains:

“GameBattles is the largest online destination for competitive console and PC gaming. Featuring tournaments, ladders, forums and more for all the latest and hot titles, GameBattles is home to over 3 million gamers worldwide, and over 800,000 teams looking to compete in their favorite Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS and Sony PSP games. Recognized as a world leader in online gaming competition, GameBattles also hosts over 500,000 gamer profiles, heavily trafficked forums with over 22 million posts, video game news, reviews, previews and media with a focus on online multi-player games and community based content.”

A site called MMO Hut.com has a bunch of free games and offered up a list of  the Top 10 Best MMOFPS Shooters.

So there you have it!  If you want to shoot imaginary people with your friends in other locations connected with internet speed, we’ve given you just enough information to get started!

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Inexpensive Holiday Calls

Friday, December 25th, 2009

If you’ve got friends and family around the world that you’d like to call on Christmas Day, or perhaps to wish a happy new year, you’ll want to look into some calling options that utilize internet speed.

Skype  is a favorite of people all across the globe.  Download their free software and enjoy free calls, video calls and instant messaging over the internet. Plus great value calls to phones anywhere in the world. If you are calling someone who also has Skype on their computer, the call is free. If you’ve got webcams connected with your Skype account, you can see each other for free!  Calling to phones is inexpensive, and you can even use the software from some mobile phones.  This blogger has found Skype to be consistently reliable and a great way to keep in touch with loved ones the world over. You can download it now and be making calls within minutes!

Another way to make inexpensive calls over the internet is by using Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. Sites like MyVoIPprovider.com have reviews of a number of service providers.  There is a small piece of hardware to buy, but once it’s done, you can make inexpensive calls over the internet—often using a real phone rather than your computer’s microphone or headset.  That being said, Skype also offers a Skype phone and other hardware if this is something that interests you.

Vonage is a well-known VoIP service provider.  For a reasonable monthly fee you can make phone calls from a phone using your internet connection for much less than a standard phone line would cost. This is especially true of long distance calls. And now they’re offering unlimited international calling using your smartphone over your cellular or WiFi connection to over 60 countries!

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Saving Money Online

Monday, September 7th, 2009

Britain’s BBC News program about technology called “Click” has an website that keeps you up to date on their stories.  One we thought might be useful in these challenging economic times is their article called “A hi-tech guide to saving money”. 

The article explains that there is lots of free software available online, offering many alternatives to paid programs. It is possible to find free anti-virus (avg.com), collaboration tools (mindmeister.com), project management (nozbe), file-transfer (Filezilla), blogging (wordpress) and media players (videolan).

We at Speedplexer know that Mozilla offers lots of free, open source programs that offer alternatives for internet browsers, e-mail  and the standard office-style programs.

The BBC Click article also says on the subject of software that can save you money, that you can use your high-speed internet connection to speak to people on the other side of the planet rather than via the old-fashioned phone. The technology in question is called Voice Over IP (VoIP) - the “IP” stands for Internet Protocol. Many of the services that use it are free if users call another person on that service. That can save quite a bit of money if you regularly have long conversations with friends or family abroad.

We at Speedplexer have used Skype and have found it to be quite useful, since you can also have video webcam chats with friends and family, and it’s just as free. 

And of course, the internet can always help you save money by giving you the means to research and do cost comparisons on items you need. Knowledge is power, and it’s available to you with internet speed!

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Integrating Your Social Networks

Monday, June 1st, 2009

Some of your friends are on Facebook, but others use Twitter. Some like to IM on Yahoo and others on Windows. Some only use LinkedIn and there are still some who just prefer good old e-mail.  Now you can access all of them at once and not miss out on anything.

There are a few programs that do this, but one seems to offer the most, and that’s Digsby.  

After the free download, Digsby lets you manage all of your e-mail, social networking and instant messaging accounts in one place.  Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP, and POP accounts can be accessed as soon as they arrive. You can reply or perform actions like “Mark as Read” or “Report Spam” right from the email InfoBox.

For your social networking, you can stay up to date with everything happening on your Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn accounts. You’ll receive alerts of events such as new friend requests, messages, group invites, etc., and the social network InfoBox gives you a real time NewsFeed of what your friends are up to. And you can even set your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn status right from Digsby.

Then for your Instant Messages, one combined buddy list gives you access to all your AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, and Facebook Chat Accounts. You’ll be able to manage multiple conversations and if one of your friends has more than one IM account you can combine them into a single merged contact to eliminate duplicate buddies. You’ll even be able to send your friends SMS messages right from the IM window.

Now you’ll be up on all of it, with internet speed!

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