Browser Based (Online) Multiplayer Games

Gaia Online Gaia is a web browser based online world in which you can create your own character. The possibilities are endless, become a miner, fisher, warrior. Or just have a chat with the other online players!

Trickster Online Trickster online is a free to play realtime mmorpg in which you can create your own character and join a huge online world.

Mini Golf Crush the competition with this multiplayer mini golf simulator with 36 holes to play. You can meet and challenge other players in the online lobby. The game itself is colorfull, easy to use and offers online chat to keep in touch with your opponent.

Bomberman Online A topdown action game where you have to blow up the bricks and ofcourse your opponents. This bomberman version supports up to 4 players and can be played over the internet! yes, against real people like you! Pick up special powerups to enhance your bombs.

Graal Online This is the online version of Graal Online. With its classis topdown view it looks a bit like Zelda. In this multiplayer world you can meet other online players, talk with them or adventure together. You can use the bottom text bar to chat with the other online players.

Tank Ball Tank ball is a realtime 3D tank battle where you can fight against people all over the world. The tank will be viewed in tail view with hover-over names of you and the other players. Important note: type your name in the box and press play to start the game.

Pasi World Pasi world is a friendly chatroom where you can meet and challenge other players to play the following mini games: tic tac too, battleships, minigolf, checkers, Othello and Memory. You will be playing against other people, from all over the world.

Honey Switch Use the cursor to switch two blocks. Remove the blocks by aligning three or more matching blocks.

Multiplayer Stickman Multiplayer stickman is an 24/7 online battle that you could be joining now, find a weapon and eliminate the other online players. The game has a topdown view and many types of weapons such as swords, shotguns, machineguns and even bazookas.

Zwok Multiplayer Battle against other people on the internet. Zwok is an online multiplayer flash game where you battle with zwoks. The multiplayer game ‘zwok’ has a central chat lobby where you can meet and chat other multi players on the internet, once you found a challenge prepare for a zwok multiplayer game!

Endless Online Join the 2d isometric online world Endless Online, and meet many other people from all over the world.

Tanx fodPC(‘Tanx’) 75 online players from all over the world are waiting for you to join.

8-Ball Pool fodPC(‘8Ball’) 1067 online players from all over the world are waiting for you to join.

Club Penguin A funny multiuser chat game where you control a penguin in a interactive world, you can earn coins, chat with the other online penguins, play mini games etc. Unfortunatly you need to a subscription to spend your hard earned coins. Still, this game is very funny and hours of fun.

Honorable Mention: globulos.com

PDFMeNot Offers Flash-based Online Viewing

When people think about the most irritating apps on their computer, Adobe Reader usually shows up on the list. Our readers tend to think the alternatives (like Foxit) are the way to go, and I couldn’t agree more.

That’s why I decided to give PDFMeNot’s web app a try. I’m a Foxit user, but I really don’t use PDF files that often. If PDFMeNot works well, that’s one more app I can leave off my flash drive. Also, I enjoy the irony of thinking that I’m getting away from Adobe, when really I’m just choosing Flash over Reader.

Damn it. You win again, Adobe.

I did a quick Google search and located an unclassified Air Force finance report, and dropped in the URL. It took a little bit (about three minutes or so, but it was a 728-page report) for the document to be displayed, but once it was up it worked nicely.

The developers are nice enough to offer a tools page, where you’ll find a bookmarklet, Firefox extension, and even code to embed the viewer on your own page.

Since it only functions as a viewer and I can’t print from it, I’ll be sticking with Foxit portable. I will, however, keep PDFMeNot filed away for days when I forget my flash drive somewhere.

24 Killer Portable Apps For Your USB Flash Drive

My flash drive works pretty hard, so I’ve spent a lot of time gathering a reliable, powerful set of portable tools that allow me to work hard and play hard, even if I can’t do it on my own PC. Here are two dozen apps that I always have at the ready.

Encryption

Truecrypt – Why is TrueCrypt first on the list? Simple. A multi-gig, easy-to-lose, unencrypted drive with your data on it is a terrible security risk. Truecrypt helps me keep all my private stuff locked down. Read the “traveller mode” documentation for help setting it up.

Web and Internet

Operator – I’m not an Opera fanboy by any stretch, but if I’ve got to surf on a public computer, I’m using Operator. It’s got Tor anonymous browsing built in to keep you safe. You can read more about it in my previous post. If I’m on a trusted computer, I’ll go for Portable Firefox.

Pidgin – I don’t usually need to IM from a client’s site, but just in case I need to stay in touch I bring Pidgin with me. For portable multi-network chat, it’s the best option out there. Add the encryption plugin to keep it secure.

Filezilla – Half the time I need Notepad++, it’s because I’m editing files on my FTP server from the road. Filezilla portable keeps all my sites accesible from wherever I am.

Peer-to-Peer

μTorrent – Yet another recurring frustration is not being able to find a torrent client on a PC when I need it. I run μTorrent on all my PCs anyways, so it’s got a home on my flash drive as well.

Frostwire – What’s worse than getting a song stuck in your head and not being able to hear it? Take Frostwire with you and make sure that doesn’t happen.

Maintenance and Support

CCleaner – A lot of the computers I work on look like they’ve never had a single file deleted from them. CCleaner makes short work of dumping gigs of trash files from them, and it tidies up the registry, too.

Revo Uninstaller – Phase two in the purging of filth from client machines is ridding them of unwanted apps. Revo is way better than add/remove programs, and the “hunter mode” uproots stubborn apps.

Nirsoft Apps – I have to group these, because they’d eat up half my list otherwise. Dialupass, Mailpassview, Currports, Netresview, and several other of their apps are must-haves for any technician.

Treesize Free – To find where all of someone’s drive space is going in a hurry, fire up Treesize. It makes drive cleanup a snap.

Teamviewer – Zero config remote control that’s portable? Yes, I’ll have that. Teamviewer kicks so much ass that it was an easy sell to my boss, who makes Mr. Crabs look like a big spender.

Multimedia

CDBurner XP – Customer’s don’t always have good – or any – burning software installed. CD Burner XP solves that problem. I switched from InfraRecorder, but it’s a good option as well.

Screamer – I tried screamer out a while ago for a post on DLS, and it’s earned a spot on my drive. For quick access to tons of internet radio streams, you can’t beat it.

Faststone Capture – Whether I need a screencap for a blog post or to prove something to someone, Faststone is my app of choice. The included editing features are great, and mean that I don’t need a photo editor for quick jobs. The link is to the last free version (at Portable Freeware Collection), as Faststone is now trialware.

VDownloader – You never know when you’re going to stumble across a YouTube video that you just have to save. VDownloader will save in a number of video formats, or the audio only as MP3.

Irfanview – For image viewing and basic edits (crop, rotate, resize, etc.) , it’s Irfanview all the way. The homepage is here, but the portable version is over at Smithtech.

VLC – Videolan wins as my portable media player because it supports so many formats and doesn’t require outside codecs. Can 100 million downloaders really be wrong? Ok, sure they can. But I still love VLC.

Document Handlers

Notepad++ – It never hurts to have a good text editor at your disposal, and portable Notepad++ is an excellent option. Tons of great features, like macro recording, syntax highlighting, tabbed interface, and much, much more.

Abiword – Some may opt for OpenOffice, but I choose Abiword because I’ve got Zoho and Google Docs accounts for out-of-office chores that require heavy lifting. Abiword is small, fast, compatible, and has all the features I need for quick document production. The portable version is here.

Foxit PDF Reader – I hate trying to open a manual on a customer’s PC only to learn they don’t have an Acrobat viewer installed. Foxit is my reader of choice, so I take it with me.

File Management

Total Commander – Not only is Total Commander a rockin’ dual-pane, tabbed Explorer replacement, but it also handles all kinds of archive files. That eliminates the need for two more apps just to handle syncs and file extraction. Until someone resurrects Google browser sync or Mozilla Weave handles all my Firefox settings and customizations I’ll just let TC do it for me. Yes, it also has an FTP client and text editor, but FileZilla and Notepad++ are better.

Portable Launcher

PStart – It’s nice to have quick access to the tools on your flash drive, and PStart gives you that by adding an icon/menu in the system tray. It’s searchable, and there’s even a tab to store quick notes for yourself.

There’s my list. Would my flash drive cut the mustard for you, or did I miss your favorite app?

Vyew My PC easy online desktop sharing for anyone

Vyew My PC is a flash-based instant desktop sharing product with a lot of fun features.

Basically, go to the Vyew My PC web page and click start sharing my desktop. You will be given a unique, unguessable URL. You can then share that URL with anyone you’d like to share your desktop with. There are some features you need an account to use, but the basics are usable by anyone.

You can upload files to be shown on the Vyew My PC desktop, use the whiteboard features, chat and with registration, use audio/video features. You cannot however, view anything outside the Vyew My PC desktop area. So, if you want to switch to a new window and show a web page you are viewing, it’s not going to show up unless you take screenshots and present those.

It moves smoothly and all the features seem to work. Now, I didn’t go in and have a full-fledged sales presentation to a CEO or anything but I did show a powerpoint to two of my friends who logged in from two seperate locations.

My main concern was about security. Showing a powerpoint to my friends is quite a bit different than important company information. So, this is what I found out; the packet data for your session is not encrypted but the URLs seem to be unique enough that someone wouldn’t just stumble into your meeting without being invited. SSL encryption is not offered publicly but could be a possibility for some clients.

The privacy policy is similar to one you would find on Google Docs as far as information shared during meetings.

The application is not open source but it can be used for free and enterprises can can license the technology and run it on their own infrastructure.

The only negative? Other users could manipulate the information I was presenting by using some of the whiteboard tools. I suppose if you were sharing with more mature people that could be a positive because they could add information if needed.

Fun With Physics? Fantastic Contraption FTW! – Time Waster

I suffered through two years of physics in high school, and it’s not really a subject that most people would consider an exciting way to waste time on a Friday afternoon. Well, slap me silly, Fantastic Contraption proves that physics can indeed be fun!

The goal is simple: assemble your contraption in the work area (the light blue box) and propel the pink wheel into the pink box. You’re provided only a handful of simplistic components with which to build – wheels, a water-drive rod, and sticks. Assemble them like a caveman MacGuyver to reach the goal, and move on to the next level! The physics is surprisingly realistic, and the game can get quite challenging.

Registering allows you to create and save levels, and you’re given given a url that links directly to your creation so you can frustrate your friends. Unfortunately, playing other user’s saved games requires a $10 registration fee, but you’ll have plenty of fun playing the free levels.