ReviewsTech

Second Life

Virtual environments are an interesting concept and recently the number of software/games which create such environments have increases Second Life is an online game. Second Life’s currency is the Linden Dollar and is exchangeable for US dollars in a marketplace consisting of residents, Linden Lab and real life companies. The exchange rate fluctuates, but generally L$ 265 are exchangeable for 1 USD. Records indicate that a small percentage of players derive net incomes from this economy, ranging from a few hundred to several thousand USD per month, while a larger percentage derive a gross income large enough to offset most of their expenditures in L$. While this game might attract people to earn money, there is also a group of players that spend money playing this game – if they do not earn enough money to offset the expenses they will lose real money.
The popularity of virtual worlds like Second Life is growing, and some universities like San Jose State University have even built a virtual campus in Second Life. This campus spans 16 virtual acres and is being visited by students who are on a quest for knowledge. The staff is trying to simulate real world experiences, and they hope that this will enable students to have an interesting experience. Among other things Second Life is used to face the terror of public speaking. It will be interesting to observe whether more institutions will build their virtual property in such worlds.
You might be wondering whether I would recommend playing Second Life in order to earn some additional income. Well, I would probably not, but it might be worth a try, especially for people who have interest in playing online games, or who spend a lot of time chatting online. What do you think, will such opportunities become more and more popular in the future?

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Beware of Free Downloads

If you have been careful during your history lessons at school, you probably remember the story about the Trojan Horse. Trojan Horse, a horse of wood, was elevated during the Trojan War and served as an ambush with people inside it. The analogy to the Trojan Horse is quite good. It is an innocently looking horse at the first glance, but this horse hides something dangerous inside it. Very often, on the Internet, you will come across well looking programs that will look useful etc. It is only after downloading them that you will realize your mistake. Instead of a useful program, you will get a malware that can cause a lot of damage to your computer. It is better to beware of all free programs and proceed with caution anytime you want to download any of them. It might also be a good idea to ask somebody if the software you are downloading is a virus or not. You will find many places on the Internet, like forums and discussions groups, where people are willing to share with others their experiences with many different downloads. If a software was a virus, people are very likely to complain about it somewhere on the forums.

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Age of Conan

Age of Conan is a computer game, which offers multiplayer gameplay with people all over the world. The game was released on May 20th, 2008, so the game is still quite new, as it wasn’t released that long ago. The question what I want to ask is whether the game is such a massive hit, as the fans expected it to be. Those who are familiar with the Massive Multiplayer Online Game universe know that there hasn’t been a lot of innovation recently in online games. One of the main reasons for lack of innovations was World of Warcraft which achieved a financial success, sold millions of copies, and unfortunately, influenced the market to make clones of itself. I don’t find Age of Conan very innovative either, but I have to give it credit for gaining PvP levels, high quality graphics, adult universe, guild cities and siege fights. Those are the qualities which make this game unique, and in these regards it is different than World of Warcraft. It is a quite successful game, but it didn’t achieve a financial success as some thought it would. As a matter of fact, the CEO of the company sold most of his shares of stock, which proved that he was worried about the financial situation. Later on, the Producer and Game Director Gaute Godager has resigned his post.

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The Phenomenon of Bookmarking

There are a lot of websites on the Internet, and some of them have very good content, whereas some of them are written quite poorly, and may not offer a lot of benefits to its visitors. With so many websites on the internet of different quality the bookmarking sites have developed. The idea behind bookmarking is that you create an account on one of the bookmarking sites, and are given an option to categorize the sites of your choice according to your liking. What do you do with it once you have your bookmarks ready? You share it with your friends that you met through one of those bookmarking sites. They also mark their favorites and are willing to share their discoveries with you. This way websites that have something valuable to offer are being recommended, and consequently visited by a higher number of people. It doesn’t mean that less valuable sites are not going to be visited at all, but it simply means that those websites which has proven to be really useful will get acknowledged. Many webmasters bookmark their own sites in order to boost their popularity, and there is nothing wrong with it, as long as a person does not abuse it. Overall, I believe that bookmarking made the experience of surfing the web a lot better.

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Blind Person on the Internet?

Have you ever wondered how hard it must to be blind and not have access to the Internet? Being blind, however, will not make you completely deprived of the use of the Internet, if you know how to do it and have enough motivation to do it. First of all, every person, even a blind person, can learn to type. Even though it might not be easy, it can be done. Secondly, there are programs available on the Internetnet which read what is written on a website that a person is currently visiting. Obviously, a blind person will not be able to see the images placed on a website, but he will be able to get familiar with a website’s content. This technology is still developing, and I expect that in the coming years, we will see it getting better and better. Blind Internet users should not be deprived of the Internet as the valuable source of information, fun and entertainment. They also deserve to be able to have their hobbies just like any other person. The Internet is a great place to have fun with. I think that currently a blind person cannot play games on the Internet yet, but I strongly believe that it will be possible in the future.

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Searching for Music Using Search Engines

There are thousands or even millions of free mp3 files/songs that you can find over the internet, but this often isn’t easy, as you would have to visit each website separately. Did you know that you can search for music using Google? To do this you first have to decide which files are we going to search for. One of the most popular file types are mp3, wma, ogg and wav. That is why we are going to search for the files I listed. Secondly, we have to search webpages/folders for music and to do this we are going to search for html, htm and download. Now, let’s put it all together:
”parent directory” mp3 OR wma OR ogg OR wav jingle bells -html -htm -download.
Copy the above line and paste it in Google, and this will search for “jingle bells”. You can search for other songs or artists just by replacing “jingle bells” with anything you want. You will be able to find quite a lot of songs this way, if you use the guidelines specified above. Please make sure that the music you download is not copyrighted, as you don’t want to get into any trouble. Enjoy!

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Where to Store Your Backup Data

I could start by explaining the importance of doing regular backups. However, I believe that almost everybody knows how important it is to store some data, and how crucial it is to back it up from time to time. There are a few places where you can store it:
• Online. By this I not only mean your email account, but also services of companies that allow you to store your data on their disks. Often a certain fee might be associated with it, so it is up to you, whether you want to pay for this kind of services.
• External hard drives. Those usually have a large capacity and thus make it the cheapest and the most effective way to store data. I would recommend them for most people.
• You can also have additional hard drives inside your PC. Just by installing additional drive in your PC, you will have more space to store your precious data. Take into account that your energy bill might grow because of it, as you will have two hard drives constantly operational.
• CDs and DVDs. Although those do not contain that much free space, their prices are not that high, and you can fully rely on them.

I am not going to recommend a specific method for every type of user, but remember that it is important to back up your data.

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Games Based on Movies

Both games and movies are one of the most popular forms of entertainment. Additionally, they don’t necessarily appeal to a different audience, so it would be a wise decision for movie and gaming studios to try to make money based on that. One of the best ways to accomplish that is to make games based on movies, and movies based on games. For example, Lost was one of the most popular drama shows recently. It follows the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island. The plot and the storytelling was engaging to many people which resulted in many industry awards, including Emmy and Golden Globe. No wonder that programmers decided to create a video game based on the show. The game is available for PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 and the price ranges from $30 to $60 depending on which system to plan to play this game. The game features many flashbacks, a parallel storyline, many voices from actors, occasional fast-paced arcade-style chases and a large are to explore. Anyway, the game is not really rated very well, which means that it might not appeal to everyone, but on the other hand, I am sure that the fans will get a blast by playing this. For me it is really interesting to see that there are more and more games based on movies.

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Cleaning Your Monitor

Monitors need our care when it comes to keeping them clean. You will notice that your monitor needs cleaning if you start having problems like, for example, seeing dirt on the screen, or if it starts being covered with dust.
1. Unplug your monitor before you start cleaning it. You don’t want to damage it while cleaning.
2. Use the compressed air to clean it from the back to the front. Never open any covers of the monitor. Compressed air in general is great when it comes to cleaning computer components.
3. When it comes to the back side of your monitor, use dampened cloth and paper towels to dry it. Don’t sue too much water.
4. Do not use any liquids near the ventilation hole of your monitor. Humidity is quite harmful, but actual liquid could deal some serious damage.
5. The monitor screen should always be cleaned with soft cloth. That way you will avoid any unnecessary scratching.

I hope the advice given above will be useful to you. After all, you want to keep your monitors in good shape for many years. Even if you will decide to replace your monitor for a newer model, you will be able to fetch a higher price if the monitor was taken care of properly. In the long run this can save you a lot of money.

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Wii, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3

The console market is quite interesting to observe. Among the biggest players we have Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox360 and Sony Playstation 3. It can be clearly seen that all of the consoles are backed up by large corporations, which have years of experience in selling games and consoles. Both Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 have games with very good graphics thanks to the technical specification of the consoles, while Wii stays a bit behind. Remarkably, Nintendo Wii sales are growing and they outsell the other two more technologically advanced consoles. While it might seem that it is hard to know why the market is behaving in such a way, I think that it is quite clear to the trained eye. There are three main reasons behind this:
• Wii has very entertaining controls, which require people to move their hands and swing their arms like never before. Wii has even its own use in physical therapy. Because of the innovative controls, Wii games are very original.
• There are a lot of fun games on Wii. It might be due to Nintendo signing deals with many gaming studios.
• Wii also appeals to a younger audience, which might explain its popularity.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that Nintendo Wii is vastly superior compared to other consoles. It may simpy, mean that it caters to a slightly different market.

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