Tag Archives | online

3 Easy Ways to Make Your Own Game

Actually inspired by one of my nephews, who really wants to learn how to make his own video games, I started searching the Web to see if I could find some easy to use web sites that would allow anybody to create their own game.  I found more than a few, however these are the three best ones thus far.

PlayCrafter

This web site is pretty complicated when it comes to the number of things going on, on the screen – however it does have a lot of tools to use to create your own games (or play the games others have created).  You can either start from scratch or go with one of the templates they provide, such as action game, golf game, ninja game, jumping game and more.

Make Your Own Flash Game in Playcrafter

Sploder

With Sploder, you are given the option of creating either a platformer game or a shooter game.  Also giving you the options of sharing your creation, I liked Sploder because it was a little more on the simple side.  So, if you want to show this off to a kid – it might be a lot easier for them to wrap their minds around. 

Make Your Own Flash Game in Sploder

Mockingbird

Mockingbird is the last pick on my list.  They too give you a lot to work with, but instead of simply building one kind of game – they offer several kits (or the ability to build your own kit) with programmable sounds, actions and more.  If you wanted to get somebody into the mindset of programming a game – this would be the one I would have them play with.  Why?  Well, with having to set, for example, a bomb to be able to jump and assign the farting noise when he does so – gives a much better cause and effect result I think anybody from any age group could understand.

Make Your Own Flash Game using Mockingbird

Although none of these games will have you programming your own games, each site delivers a unique way of getting a younger child, nephew, or sibling interested in the idea of game development.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Become an Electric Piano Keyboard Player

play and record your own keyboard music

I have a great love for useless web sites, and this one might rank up there as one of the most fun useless ones out there, (sorry InstantRimshot.com).  KissTunes.com lets you become a grand piano, acoustic guitar or electric piano player right from the comfort of your own keyboard. 

The interface here is pretty simple.  You can use your keyboard or the mouse to click the buttons, and play that specific note.  You also can record your little ditty once your done, play it back, save it or load another.  Who wouldn’t want to play and record tunes online using your computer’s keyboard? 

Although it is a little slow right now (probably going to be getting really popular soon) be sure to keep KissTunes.com handy next time you feel like composing your next keyboard tune of your own.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

A Popular List for Just About Anything

Create a List with ListCamp

Are you one of those people who are just more interested in posts and articles on web sites if they are in list form?  If so, ListCamp wants you!  This new resource promises to be a new way to discover and share resources from anywhere in lists.

There is no real science here, it is a web site with lists.  Lists such as:

Another nice features include the ability to vote a choice up and down, and also the ability to sign in using your Google account.  If you feel the itch to create a list (or just read one), visit ListCamp.com.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Convert Any File Online, for Free!

logo

Convert Files promises to give you the ability to convert just about any file format to any other similar file format, for free.  All you have to do is upload the file (or give them your file URL), select your input format, your output format and your e-mail address and they will e-mail you a link to the converted file. 

Some of the file formats they will convert over include:

Archives – RAR to TAR, ZIP, TGZ, TAR.GZ

Documents – DOCX to DOC, ODT, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP

Presentations – PPT to ODP, PDF, SWF

Images – JPG to GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, PDF

Audio – MP3 to WAV, OGG, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR

Video – FLV to 3GP, AVI, MP4, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V

That is just barely scratching the surface on what this great online tool can do.  After converting, the file will stay on their servers for up to a week before it is deleted.  Also, as far as size goes, you can convert a file that is 100 MB in size or less. 

For anybody looking for an easy way to convert a file from one format to the next, but don’t want to download any special scripts or software to do so, Convert Files is a perfect converting companion.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Easier Posting to Twitter, Ping.fm or Identi.ca

Pingvine is a neat new application that takes an Atom or RSS feed from your web site or blog, and publishes it to a few of the other “lifestreaming” sites out there. Currently it works with Ping.fm, Identi.ca and Twitter.

Pingvine in Action

All you do is give it your login information for one of those three choices, give them your blog’s RSS feed and tell them how often they should look for an update to tell the world about.  Personally, I have been using Ping.fm a lot – to put my own work out there on all the various social networks I belong to.  This could save me the trouble of having to do so manually through Ping.fm’s web site.

You can sign up for free on Pingvine.com

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Make Your Own Super Hero

Scottish TerrierPersonally, I am more of a fan of DC comics, however the Marvel web site does have a new cool toy I can play with.  What does it do?  It allows me to finally make the super hero of my dreams. Think of this as super powers and funny costumes meet digital paper dolls.

Here is one I just whipped up… 

What, you don’t fear the Scottish Terrier?!  Here are a few more “Make a Hero” online tools.

Hopefully, this will come in handy.  Never know when you might need a hero! *cue the music*

Oh Johnny 5, where are you when we need you the most?

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

9 More Time Saving Apps

Better Time ManagementMaybe the problem is not that we do not have enough time, it is we don’t know how to manage it better.  Here are nine more applications, both free and paid, that will help you with your time management problems so that you can start the new year off right.

RescueTime – It is a web-based time management and analytic tool for knowledge workers who want to be more productive.

FreshBooks – One of the best tools to easily and quickly track your time and invoice your clients.

Cashboard – Time tracking, invoicing, estimates, and online payments done your way. Cashboard does it all, and does it for free.

Motismo – a simple time tracking solution for creative professionals.

LiveTimer – This is a flexible and easy to use online time tracking service. It can be used by anyone on the Internet to track time for billing purposes or to improve accountability and productivity.

TrackMyPeople -This system is entirely web based meaning you can access your teams data everywhere in the world allowing you to easily track your employees time spent on a project or just analyze a graph for optimization.

Torch – This application allows you to communicate simply with your colleagues, clients and suppliers.

FreeTimeManager – FreeTime was conceived and developed by a team of designers who were looking for a simple yet logical real-time management solution.

BubbleTimer – A personal time management solution that helps you spend your time on what’s most important to you.

If you are looking for more time saving solutions, be sure to check out the previous list of ten application to help you get more time back.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Better Way to Serve a PDF

Easier PDF Viewing Online for Free!

For some reason, PDFs remain a popular file format.  Created back in 1993 by Adobe Systems, PDF (the Portable Document Format) makes it easy to share a document with text, specific fonts, 2-D vector graphics and images.  Instead of downloading the PDF to view (as most of us do) I want to introduce you to a new way of dealing with these files without the need of any download.

PDFMeNot.com is a free Online PDF viewer. All you do is give them the URL to the PDF in question, and they will make it viewable for you using their online tools.  They also allow for you to upload a PDF too.

If you like the service, you might be intersted in the fact that you can use it in a number of different ways too.  From Firefox extensions to bookmarklets, they have many ways you can take advantage of the service.

The easiest way to use it would be to include “http://pdfmenot.com/view/” before your PDF link.  As an example, try this link out:

http://pdfmenot.com/view/http://www.webhostingshow.com/includes/HostingGuideEbook.pdf

So add PDFMeNot into your web developer’s toolkit.  This is one of those services that you might not need everyday, but you will be happy to have it when you do need it.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Top Web Apps Mitch Actually Uses

lilcoloredmitch I am like a kid in a candy store when it comes to new tools and applications out there.  I love to try them all.  When push comes to shove though, only a few survive the cut as far as making it to the list of applications I actually use day to day.

Google Calendar – It might not be the prettiest girl at the dance, but boy does she know how to get down with her bad self.  Google Calendar has never won points for beauty, but is more functional than anything else out there today.  I use this one for just about every date reminder there is, from invoice due dates to birthdays.

MooURL – I probably could close my eyes and pick a link shortener out of a hat and come out with a winner.  I won’t lie, I like MooURL.com just because the name makes me giggle.

Gmail – My e-mail situation is kind of oddly setup.  I have all my external POP3 e-mail accounts plugged into Gmail, and then connect from Gmail to Thunderbird via IMAP.  This way I can easily access my mail via the web or desktop, and a few other perks such as double spam filtering (counting what the server side Spam Assassin does, then put Gmail’s spam filtering on top of that).

Google Docs – Google Docs is one thing I just started using again, not too long ago.  I needed to have a few documents easily accessible to me, no mater where I was – and Google Docs made that an easy thing to do.

Instapaper – This awesome site replaced my “read later” bookmark folder in Firefox.  Using a simple bookmarklet, you can save any link to read later and the site itself gives you a neat list of links and the ability to “skip” (mark it read) or to mark the link unread.  Very simple, and because of that, very effective.

Ping.fm – I use this web site to socialize myself.  I can post a message out to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and every other social network under the sun in one go.  Great for promoting your work, or just to say hello on all the social networking sites  out there.

Google Notebook – This I use a little differently than most.  I store a lot of the information from work on this site, such as FAQ’s and hard to find information.  That way I have it all in one spot (and it is searchable).

Google Reader – Boy, this is turning into an “I love Google” list, isn’t it?  The reason I use Google Reader for all my RSS reading is due to the fact that I can make it “wide view” very easily, and all I need to do to browse the news is scroll down.  Don’t need much else for news reading.

I’m always looking for something new to add to the list.  I think the major problem is there isn’t anybody doing anything drastically new or different.  It is just the different spin on the same idea (no mater what that idea might be).  However, I could just be a picky person.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }

Make Your Own Flash Game with Fyrebug

fyrebug_logo Fyrebug is a web site (new to me) that I have been playing with a lot lately.  The idea here is simple, create, play and share your own original games with the world.  There are several basic game “templates” to choose from – and you can fill in the blanks to create your own original masterpiece.

You can check out the creator here:  http://www.fyrebug.com/create/

On this page you can select what type of game you wish to create, and then edit each feature as you see fit.  You have shoot ‘em ups, arcade clones, word search, action games, fighting games and more.    Once you are done creating you can play or share you game with others.  Take for example, this game where I am a bouncing Harrison Ford head.


Click here to make your own Fyrebug game

This is one of those web sites that is fun to spend some time with when there is nothing else to do.  Therefor, I put it in my time wasting hall of fame – right next to Friv.

Read full story · Comments { 0 }