Chris Pirillo » Games

Windows 7 – Better for Gamers?

Chris — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:21:51 +0000

Windows 7 – Better for Gamers? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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During a live call session the other night, people were on the phone to gab about Windows 7. We talked about everything from security to aesthetics. This particular caller, Sonu, is a member of our live community on a regular basis. He is a gamer, and had something interesting to note in favor of Windows 7 that I hadn’t yet heard. I’m wondering if you are experiencing this, as well.

Sonu has been using Windows Vista for awhile now, and has only recently upgraded to Windows 7. He has the exact same hardware setup, and all of the same software installed now as he did with Vista. However, he’s noticed one very large – and very welcome – change: he is getting 10-15 frames-per-second (FPS) more than he did back when he used Vista.

Is this something you other gamers out there are noticing as well? I imagine that this absolutely is a very good upgrade for you if you are. Let’s hear from you gaming Geeks… are you getting more FPS now on Windows 7 than you did on other operating systems?

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An Insider’s Look at the New Game Aion

Chris — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:00:57 +0000

An Insider’s Look at the New Game Aion is a post from Chris Pirillo

XX0wnsXY (Becca) is a girl gamer geek. She’s hardcore, boys, and regularly beats out her male counterparts in various games she plays. She’s been a part of our community for quite awhile now, and has contributed insights and commentary in the past when we’ve talked about various games.

Becca emailed me today, with the below review/guide for her new favorite game Aion. She took the time to write a very comprehensive piece for all of you, so I wanted to post it in full. Credit for the below goes entirely to Becca!

This is my first MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role – Playing Game). (I used to be so against RPGs, but this one has swayed me). So, my review is submitted from a new user’s point of view. I would really like it if anyone with past MMORPG experience can reply and offer an experienced point of view on the game. I think the two contrasts would be interesting.

So the game is called Aion (”Eye-On”). It is, as I said, a MMO-RPG. It’s categorized as PvPvE (Player vs. Player vs. Environment). It’s been out in Korea for a year or more, and was released in the US a month ago.

The story line, in simple terms (although they go into great detail in multiple cut-scenes throughout the game, with awesome graphics):

A world of peace began to crumble after some of the race called “Draken” rebelled against the God “Aion”, and in turn, a huge battle broke out and the world was shattered in to three pieces. These events became known as “The Cataclysm” (Kat-a-Cliz-em) This created three races: “Elyos” (good) who live in “Elysea”, and Asmodians (Evil) who live in Asmodae, and Balaur -(The Draken renamed after their rebellion; not a playable race, NPC’s only, and are hostile against both Elyos and Asmodians, (which plays into the PvPvE.) who reside in the Abyss. The third piece, known as the “Abyss” is the space between Elysea and Asmodae, where both factions gain access at level 25 and begin the true PvP (Player vs. Player) aspect of the game.

You are able to choose which faction you would like to be at the start of your game. You begin your game by choosing one of the 4 classes, Male or Female; Warrior, Mage, Scout, or Priest. I, personally, chose to start as a Priest. You can customize your characters appearance greatly (from hair, skin, eye, and lip color, to extremety thickness, voice and much more).

You begin your journey in the “starter area”, which is different for each faction, of course. You level from 1-9 with simple quests that help you get acquainted with the various menu options and NPC’s. You also become acquainted with your current skills and abilities. Along with that, you become acquainted with the game’s travel systems, which are:

A Flight Transporter – Allows you to pay a fee to fly (on a winged animal of some sort, very cool looking) to your destination. The graphics are awesome during flight.

A Teleporter – You simply pay a fee and jump into a portal – and your game loads into your destination.

You can bring up your map by pressing “M”. It will give you a full overview of the area you are in, along with surrounding areas. You can press “N” and a smaller, more transparent version will appear, which is convenient while walking/flying and still needing to see where you are going. When you are grouped with other people in the same area, they will appear on the map as blue diamonds.

You will also become acquainted with Soul Healing and resurrection. Should you die along the way (and you will, believe me), you will be given the option to return to the place where you last bound your soul (You bind your soul to obelisk’s in major cities), or you can choose to wait (up to 30 minutes) and ask for someone to come resurrect you. Chanters and Clerics have the ability to resurrect. There are also resurrection stones that can be bought and acquired during quests that can be used on another player.

If you are not resurrected, you return to your bind point, and beside you will be a Soul Healer. For a fee, you will be healed of soul sickness (this makes your movement slow and you are unable to fly/glide) and you will recover your experience that you lost. The amount of experience lost depends on your level. The price of soul healing goes up the more times you die, and becomes very expensive over time, so you must be careful. You don’t have to worry about soul healing when it comes to PvP. If you are killed by the opposite faction, soul healing only costs 1 gold and you do not lose any experience. You do, however, lose Abyss Points (discussed later).

At level 9, you receive an “ascension” quest, which will allow you to become a “Daeva” (advanced humans who have tapped into the power of the Aether to gain new abilities and strengths that put them far beyond the power levels of any mortal human) and choose your subclass. The subclasses are:

For Warrior – Gladiator or Templar.

For Scout – Assassin or Ranger

For Priest – Chanter or Cleric

For Mage – Sorcerer or Spirit Master

I started as a Priest, so I chose to evolve into a Chanter. I won’t go into too much detail about the classes/subclasses, as that would take entirely too much time, but each one has its positives and negatives. I like being a Chanter, because we can adapt to pretty much any situation (I.E – we can heal, have buffs, have decent DPS – Damage per Second, and are needed in many group situations).

Shortly after you have completed your ascension quest, you receive a quest to earn your wings. Yes, you can fly in this game, which is something I hear is much different from any MMO out there. The flight ability in this game is so much fun and adds a new and interesting aspect to PvP. You will find that pre-abyss (lvls 1-24), you will use your wings mostly to glide down long hills to make your trips a little faster. There are a few designated areas where you are free to fly, otherwise you can only glide.

If you are interested in PvP before level 25, there are opportunities for this. There are temporary openings from one world to another (Elysea to Asmodae and vice versa) that allow you to go to the opposite factions world and hunt the enemy. These are known as Rifts. However, you have little chance to stay alive, unless you are grouped with other people. I found this annoying at times, because I would be trying to complete a quest in my world, and out of nowhere, comes a group of enemies and of course, I get killed. When the shoe is on the other foot however, it’s fun. Yeah Yeah, I can dish it but can’t take it. Enemies of the opposing faction show up on your radar as red diamonds. You will have to worry more about this in the Abyss.

The good thing is that rifts close after a certain number of people enter them, so they do not last forever. There are even spy quests that you can acquire that require you to go to the enemy’s world and complete a mission. They are very hard, but offer great rewards. I have yet to complete them… like I said, very hard.

Throughout your leveling experience, you will occasionally need to learn new skills/abilities. These are learned from your class trainer, and are in designated areas in the game. As you level, the price of learning your abilities goes up and can become quite costly. (At level 28 I paid over 70,000 gold for my new abilities).

Once you have bought your skill manual, it will appear as a book in your inventory (Hit I to access your inventory). Double click the book, and that skill will be learned. You can then press the letter K on your keyboard, and it will bring up a list of all of your skills. You can find your new skills and drag and drop them into your skill bar at the bottom of your screen:

Don’t worry, gold is plentiful in this game, and easily acquired. If you manage your gold right, you will have no trouble. If you do find yourself needing more, there are options to receive gold through the in-game mailing system. All you have to do is ask a friend for gold and they can attach it to mail and send it to your in-game mailbox (found at most major cities, in game). Gold is not hard to acquire through Grinding (Killing NPC enemies), either. There are also other options like selling items you have acquired via the Trade Broker (also found in major cities), or general goods merchants.

Like with many other games of this type, you can learn professions. Along with the professions, you can also Gather, which eventually evolves into Extraction. You begin gathering different plants/herbs. As you level, you receive the ability to extract the essence of an item, rather than the item itself, called Extract Vitality. After that comes Aether extraction, which is extracting from the sky (you must fly and risk falling to your death if you are not careful). I suggest leveling these things as you go. Many people say that it is not important, so I did not bother with it at first. When I reached level 20 I realized that many of the NPC’s gave quests to gather/extract an item and bring it to them. I skipped many quests and they add up! I spent many hours going back to level my gathering/extraction. Major setback, but I’m glad I did it. Definitely do this as you go.

Leveling solo is very do-able until level 20+. You will begin receiving quests that require a group. They will have the [group] prefix, letting you know to not even attempt to do the quest without more people to help. These are the most fun for me. You get to interact with other players and become an important part of the other players success. Very few of the quests you acquire are [group] quests, however they offer such great rewards, that they can’t afford to be skipped. Aion offers a LFG (Looking for Group) chat channel, which makes it easy to find people to group with.

Grouping is used for [Group] quests and instances. You can join the “LFG” Chat channel and ask for more people to help with your quest. Usually typed in this format: “Level 31 Chanter LFG Legendary Amethysts. PST (please send tell, which is just a whisper.). You will hopefully get some responses and from there, can invite people to your group (right click their name and select “invite to group”).. rinse and repeat.

One of the most menacing problems for MMO’s are the gold spammers (Those who want to sell you gold – it’s illegal, but people do buy so it keeps the gold spammers running rampant). They spam the chat with their links and make it hard for you to read any conversation going on between your legion or group. One easy fix to this is to create a new chat tab, and customize the options to allow only chat from your legion or group. To do this, open chat and right click on one of the tabs. From there you can choose “Add Tab”. Name it, and customize tab options. Voila!

At level 20. you can acquire “Stigmas”, which are basically extra abilities that you can receive that can separate one of the same class from the other. There are many stigmas that one class can choose, and that’s what makes me (one chanter) different from another. You must complete a quest to enable you to equip stigmas, but after that as you level, you will acquire more stigma slots. To view your current stigma slots, press “P” and select the Stigma tab.

Stigmas can be acquired from quests, NPC drops, or bought from the trade broker. Some are more rare than others. Each stigma requires stigma shards (can be acquired in the abyss from NPC enemies) to equip, and can only be equipped by a stigma master.

The next milestone is level 25. This is when you receive your “Abyss Entry Quest”, which is quite long, but very easy. Once you complete this quest, you gain entry access into the Abyss – the main PvP area. During the quest, you have to pick which area of your world you will access the Abyss from. Once you pick, you can enter the abyss by flying to the portal in the sky only in that area.

The Abyss offers many things, and has beautiful graphics. It offers many high experience/pay/item reward quests, and of course, it offers PvP. The Abyss can be very overwhelming at first. When you enter the Abyss, you are in a safe zone. There is an Aetheric Field around this area that prevents any enemy from penetrating. Once you venture out, you can collect quests, grind abyss enemies for high experience and abyss points (Points collected in the Abyss that when enough are acquired, you can get special items), and PvP.

Venturing out into the abyss requires flight. You can teleport to some areas, but you will have to fly a lot. There are flight rings that you will find between certain areas that you can fly through to gain flight time. You can refer to the bar at the bottom right of your screen to monitor your flight time drain. If you strafe through the rings, you can refill your bar quickly. There are also potions that increase flight time, along with equipment perks.

The ultimate goal of the Abyss is to capture fortresses from the opposing faction. I have no experience in this, but a month into the game, people are already doing it. You can see which fortresses are owned by which faction by pressing “M” to bring up the map and refer to the color key.

PvP is the most exciting feature for some MMO players. I like a little bit of both PvP and PvE. As I said before, when venturing out into the Abyss, you will run into an enemy from the opposing faction. They will appear on your radar as red diamonds, and when you are close enough to them to actually see them, their name will appear in red. They will have a rank (ie Rank 7 soldier), which is in reference to their abyss points. The lower their rank the more abyss experience they have, so beware of going against anyone too much lower than you. You are also unable to see the opposing faction’s level. Some like it this way, some don’t. Personally, I think it adds an interesting twist and requires a bit more strategy when approaching an enemy. To view your Abyss points/ranking press “P” and hit the “Abyss” tab:

As I continue to level, I learn more and more about the game. I do not have anything to compare the game to (first RPG), but I not only experience nothing but good things, I also hear good things, for the most part. The graphics are probably the best part of this game. They are absolutely beautiful. The storyline is interesting to follow, and it isn’t a total grind-fest to level. The pace is good, and the Abyss is fun.

Aion, like any other MMO (from what I’m told) has it’s problems. There are gold spammers and bots. The game has been out for a month in the US, and so far the development team has been working hard to keep them at bay. I’m not sure they will ever be totally rid of them, but I look forward to seeing what they come up with.

There are many guides for Aion out there, all of this content was written by me. All screen shots were taken in – game by me. Some sources were used for the storyline.

Very, VERY well-written and detailed guide, Becca! Thanks so much for sending this in. I have a feeling several of our gamer Geeks are now salivating to get their hands on Aion!

Mega64 Invades PAX

Chris — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:21:43 +0000

Mega64 Invades PAX is a post from Chris Pirillo

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While I was at PAX recently, I ran into the gang from Mega64. If you haven’t heard about them yet, you definitely need to look them up. They produce short films that re-create video games in real life! I cannot even begin to rival the way the site describes themselves. Their “about me” section is just too awesome not to use here:

In the not too distant future, a former videogame programmer and mad scientist Dr. Poque grows weary of the world’s games. Shunned from society, he invents the most powerful videogame console ever created- The Mega64; A machine powerful enough to download old videogames into users’ brains, making them embarrassingly real. To prove himself to the reluctant public, he captures ordinary teenagers to beta test the machine 24/7 and document their progress within his secret compound… beneath his apartment building. Lead by the brave duo of Rocko and Derek, this kidnapped crew must endure the digital insanity and learn why video games and the real world should never mix.

See what I mean? Even I am not as creative as that! I’ve spent quite a bit of time checking out Mega64 since I ran into the crew at PAX. The site really is excellent. There is a lot of creative genius at work there, absolutely.

If you enjoy short films, video games, or even just creative content – be sure to check them out.

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Dell Home Coupons

coupons — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:28:33 +0000

Dell Home Coupons is a post from Chris Pirillo

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Is This the Ultimate Game Controller?

Chris — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:36:00 +0000

Is This the Ultimate Game Controller? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I met up with Cyrus while I was at PAX recently. He demonstrated for me (and all of you) what could possibly be the coolest, most uber-ultimate game controller ever! Imagine never having to pick up and hold a controller again, or mash keys on your poor, overworked keyboard. Imagine, if you will, that all you have to do is slip on a glove.

The Peregrine Glove gives you the power to control your game with the touch of a finger – literally. There’s no need to have to look down at a keyboard, or fumble for the correct keystrokes. Your game is now a part of you.

You can perform over 30 unique actions simply by touching your fingers, your palm or your thumb. Cyrus claims that it’s not as difficult to get used to as you would think. He demonstrated the Peregrine Glove while playing a game he’s been running for about four years. He said after probably 20 minutes, he had the basic hang of things. And, in under two hours he was playing like a pro using only the Peregrine Glove!

Free yourself from the constraints of cumbersome mice and keyboards when you’re playing your favorite game. Get rid of mis-strokes during a battle. Just touch your fingers together, and you’ll be wondering how you ever lived without this in your life.

Essential Reality P5 Gaming Glove

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What’s in Your Gamer DNA?

Chris — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:41:36 +0000

What’s in Your Gamer DNA? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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While I was at PAX recently, I had a chance to talk with Stephen. He’s been a gamer all of his life, basically. He and a friend of his started a site called 360Voice. This is an online gaming community with a very unique twist… one that lets you track your Xbox 360 gamer DNA without doing anything more than playing your favorite games.

The data from your Xbox Live account is transformed from a snapshot into a history of your gaming life. It’s then told in blog format, only not from your perspective – it’s told from that of your Xbox! The posts will contain information about your daily game achievements and things like your most played games, and daily scores. Also, users can interact by leaving comments on your “posts”, compete in challenges to beat your scores, and even get badges for cross-game accomplishments.

The site has been around for about three years, and now they’ve branched out into gamerDNA. This is more of a social networking site for gamers of all types. Creating a profile for yourself on gamerDNA will give you a homepage that is your “dashboard” of everything you list on the site. From here, you can see what all of the gamers and games you follow are talking about, and even see what games your friends are playing at any given moment. This is an excellent place to see what’s going on in your gaming world, and even make new friends. Heck, you might even discover new games!

Bus Gamer: 1999-2001 The Pilot Edition (BUS GAMER THE PILOT [ZERO-SUM]) (in Japanese)

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Girl Geeks Love PopChix at PAX

Chris — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:30:09 +0000

Girl Geeks Love PopChix at PAX is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I ran into Drea during PAX recently, and she had a very exciting announcement. She and several friends have now launched a site aimed at all of you Geeky gals, called PopChix!

PopChix is a site run in conjunction with GamerchiX, which is a social group for women who play video games. Their gender – and love of games – brought them together. What keeps them together is their commitment to their Manifesta. The gist is… “NO DRAMA”. They respect themselves and all women. They don’t gossip or hate on each other, and they don’t judge each other’s choices and lives. It’s like a sorority without the elitism.

PopChix plays off of the idea behind GamerchiX, and builds from there. You will find writings on everything from fashion to music to comic books – and everything you can think of in between. They have a talented group of writers already contributing, writing about what they know and love, where their passions lie. However, they’re always looking for more! So if you’re a girl Geek full of passion for something, why not write about it for them?

One of Drea’s areas of expertise is in fashion. Believe it or not… I’m rockin’ my style according to her. Take that, Brad Pitt.

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PAX – Are You a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?

Chris — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:58:56 +0000

PAX – Are You a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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The Teenager Mutant Ninja Turtles are celebrating their 25th anniversary! During PAX, I got to preview the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash-Up game, which isn’t even available yet!

The game is a four-player free-for-all fighting game that features the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as well as their friends and enemies. Players can choose from their favorite classic heroes and villains, as well as a whole slew of new characters. Each character, old and new alike, has their own unique set of weapons, skills and ninja moves to make the game more fun.

It’s going to be available on the Wii and the PS3 both, and has been in development for more than a year. The first TMNT comic books came out 25 years ago, back in 1984! And yes – I was a fan growing up. My favorite growing up was Donatello, and I even dressed up like him for Halloween one year!

If you were ever a Turtle fan, you’re going to want to keep your eye open for this game to appear on the market. It looks like a load of fun, and will bring back a lot of memories… while helping you make new ones.

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How to Make Your Own Video Game

Chris — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:55:33 +0000

How to Make Your Own Video Game is a post from Chris Pirillo

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Do you want to create the next Super Mario Brothers? Good luck with that, seriously! Even if you aren’t a great programmer or designer, you may still have a passion for games. Heck, you might even have a great idea for a new game! So, how can you get your idea created?

Sploder is where games come true. It’s the online game software that allows people to create cool games and publish them on the web. Sploder even lets you put Flash games on your site – without having to learn Flash.

Even if you aren’t interested in making a game of your own, you can go there and check out what others have created. Play their games, rate them, and comment on them. There are actually tons of really neat games already there, so you’ll be lost on the site for hours on end.

You don’t have to create an account. However, if you want your game to be saved and have others check out what you’ve done… you’ll need to create an account. It’s free, and it’s fun. So what do you have to lose?

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How to Play Quake Online

Chris — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:17:43 +0000

How to Play Quake Online is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I bet I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re probably wondering why you’re watching this video, instead of pwning noobs on Quake right from within your browser. Oh – you didn’t know you could play Quake this way? Well now you do!

When you go to Quake Live, you’ll need to install a browser plugin. And then – play the game. Seriously, I’m not kidding. QUAKE LIVE is a new and multiplayer game experience that offers game players of all skill levels a totally free and easily accessible multiplayer game and community through a single website.

I played this prior to recording the video. I was able to pwn people – but only because I had it on the easiest settings. I’m just not a very good gamer, I know. But that’s ok, it’s still a lot of fun. There’s tons of different game settings, including changing your music and video options. It runs right from within your web browser… you don’t have to install an actual game. Because of this, it works on any operating system.

If you have an Internet connection and a web browser, you can play Quake online and get an excellent gaming experience.

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What’s Better than Ventrilo for Voice Chat?

Chris — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:26:52 +0000

What’s Better than Ventrilo for Voice Chat? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I used to rely on Ventrilo to communicate with the moderators from WyldRyde who help keep control in my chat room. It was kind of difficult to use, so we eventually just stopped connecting. However, I’ve found something much better that we can try!

Voxli is a free voice chat that anyone can use – anywhere, anytime! It’s great to use when gaming, as you can have up to 200 people at any one time chatting! Voxli runs right from within your browser (although it works best in Firefox, it works in any!) and you can enable push-to-talk so you aren’t taken away from your game.

Set up your Voxli chat and send the unique URL to up to 199 other people. It really is that easy. There’s nothing to download, and it works on both OS X and Windows!

Voxli allows you to add and change an avatar, or simply listen in on conversations other people are having! Once you install the plugin for Firefox, you don’t have to even ever sign in again!

Come on – you don’t need to keep downloading and connecting to programs like Ventrilo, Teamspeak or Skype. Those can all be resource hogs, and have problems and bugs all their own. Check out Voxli and you won’t be sorry!

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What is the Ultimate Portable Console Emulator?

Chris — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 22:12:35 +0000

What is the Ultimate Portable Console Emulator? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I’ve done videos about the Nintendo DS, the Sony PSP, and even the iPhone. I’m not a gamer, even though I like to play games. I also love gadgets and gizmos as you know. I have here a portable device that allows you to play games, record your voice, watch video and even comes with a calendar! I bet you’re wondering now what it is, aren’t you?

The Wiz lets you run Atari ST games, Commodore 64, NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, NeoGeo, Flash Games and more too numerous to mention. The Wiz can do a host of other useful things besides gaming. It can play video files including MPEG4, Xvid and DIVX. You even get a built-in e-book reader!

The Wiz does not come with any emulator software or game roms pre-installed. When you first unbox the Wiz, you can play the built-in Flash games, but that’s all. You have to download the free emulator for the console or system you want to emulate. Then you have to unzip the software for it and copy it to an SD card. Don’t forget to include some game roms, or you’ll have nothing to play!

If you want bragging rights, let your friends pull out their PSP or DS. You can whip out a Wiz and play something that is totally over the top. You know you want one! You have to have it!!

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Where to Play Augmented Reality Games

Chris — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 19:48:52 +0000

Where to Play Augmented Reality Games is a post from Chris Pirillo

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It’s time for me to play with my balls – my cannon balls, that is. I was playing Cannonballz the game. There’s no need to register or log in, but you can connect it to your Facebook account! It will snap your picture and upload it right to your Facebook page, so everyone can see how well – or badly – you did!

Cannonballz is the first ever Augmented Reality game using ZugMo Motion Capture Technology, Flash and Facebook to make both you and your friends the stars of the game. Think fast and move faster as you dodge pirate cannonballs while saving your Facebook friends to become a legend on the leaderboard. No proprietary plug-ins to play! All you need is the latest version of Flash and a webcam and you’re good to go!

The idea is to move around to avoid getting whapped in the head with a cannon ball! It’s actually pretty fun, and not as easy as you would think. It’s augmented reality. It’s like I’m IN the game. It’s based on motion, so you might want to get your butt out of your chair for once!

You’ll have hours of fun playing this game, trust me. I could totally forget to work, and just spend all night dodging the balls.

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16 Tech Things in My House

Chris — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 22:05:04 +0000

16 Tech Things in My House is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I was challenged by Lamarr Wilson to showcase 16 “tech things” in my house. Of course, I opted for the most portable items. How many of these do you have (or want)? Here, in order, are the items that I used:

If you’re inclined to record your own showcase, leave it as a video response to Lamarr’s original video, not mine.

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Where to Play Tetris Online for Free

Chris — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:42:24 +0000

Where to Play Tetris Online for Free is a post from Chris Pirillo

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Tetris is my favorite game of all time. I still love buying new versions to play on just about any platform. I recently discovered that Tetris is finally online – in an official capacity! Tetris Friends is a website that allows you to play your favorite game – and mine! – for free.

You don’t have to register to play, but registering gives you a lot more benefits, such as being able to earn Tokens. Use Tokens to unlock more Tetris games and accessories. Most accessories are little enhancements to your playing experience, such as new Mino and Ghost designs.

There are several different game modes, both of the single and multi-player variety. Each game offers a fresh twist to the world’s most popular puzzle video game. You can create a profile for yourself if you choose, share your scores with others, and even have a chance to land yourself on the site Leaderboard.

I still remember the first night I played Tetris on the old Nintendo NES. I was Tetrisized. That’s what they called it! It’s where you close your eyes, and can still see the game. I was hooked from day one – all those years ago.

Tetris Friends is totally worth it… SO AWESOME! I will be playing Tetris until the day I die. Actually, I hope I’m playing Tetris when I die! I love it that much.

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How to Handle Remote Tech Support

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:30:00 GMT

Using GoToAssist is the easiest way to view and control another person's computer online. Use it to provide instant technical support to family, friends and customers. Start a session with just one click, and instantly connect with the other party.

Network Tools for Windows

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

You need these network tools, no matter which operating systems and networks you have to support. SolarWinds ipMonitor: Affordable Network Monitoring for SMBs. Get turnkey network, server and application availability monitoring with SolarWinds ipMonitor v9.0. This easy-to-use, reliable solution for SMBs delivers out-of-the-box availability monitoring so you always know exactly what's up with Active Directory, DNS, Exchange, FTP, Web, IMAP, MS SQL Server, and SMTP. Download your free trial today. Or, try their totally free tools! And, through 2/29, save 20% when you purchase ipMonitor 9.0.

Get Your Own Web Site

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

Starting at just $3.99/month, web hosting from GoDaddy includes 99.9% uptime, 24/7 support and free access to GoDaddy Hosting Connection, THE place to install over 30 FREE applications sure to help you get the most from your hosting plan and Web site. Enter code CP2 at checkout, and save an additional 10% on any order.

Plus, as a friend of Chris Pirillo, enter code CHRIS7, that's C-H-R-I-S and the number 7, when you check out, and save an additional 10% on any order. Get your piece of the internet at GoDaddy.com.

VMware and Parallels for Virtual Machines

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

It doesn't matter if you're running on Windows or Mac OS X - every power user needs either Parallels or VMware (or both). There's never been an easier way to test software without destroying your primary operating system's stability. Think of how many times you wish you could press a 'reverse' button on your computer. Plus, there's no easier way to try new Linux distributions - see what all the fuss is about. Run Windows in OS X, run Linux in Windows, but the best way to do either is with VMware and/or Parallels.

Coupons for Online Shopping

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:56:13 GMT

This feed is fueled by Lockergnome Online Shopping and Coupon Codes

Before you shop next time, see if we have a coupon first.