Another game

Today I'll point you in the direction of another flash game. You might have guessed I am a fan of flash games, if you didn't, now you know. The games I'm talking about today is Sprout. Sprout is different from the other couple games I have recommended so far. I guess I would describe it as a puzzle game. As far as I can gather the point of the game is to get your seed from one end of the world to the other. I like this game because it is very different from what anything else out there. The graphics look hand drawn, making it look something like a child's storybook. This demonstrates once more the great number of cool things that are out on the internet. This might be a distraction for some people, like the other games were for me, but this game is more of an interesting find than a distraction tool. Definately worth a look.

Wow.

The website I came across this afternoon is nothing short of astounding. Thats saying something. The following image comes from Ghost Town , maintained by Elena Filatova.

All I can say is that this site is worth a read through. The author/photographer is a motorcycle enthusiast who lives near the contaminated zone that can be found around Chernobyl. The author travels through the zone, exploring and photographing the abandoned city of Prypiat and the surrounding villages. This website and the descriptions that go along with the author's explorations are fascinating. The pictures are eerie, it is easy to imagine what it would be like to actually be there. This demonstrates what is the best thing about the internet: anyone can put anything online and make it available to other people. This website is worth checking out, not just for people interested in science or history. The photos and opinions that are found at this site are fascinating.

Tilt 2

Today I found another game to distract myself from doing real work. It is called Tilt 2. Tilt 2 seems pretty simple at first, basically all you have to do is catch a bunch of these little balls on a board while balancing it. You are supposed to catch as many balls as you can. Sounds pretty simple, but it is actually fairly challenging. Every ball that is added makes the little thing go off balance, then you lose. Simple concept, and it does entertain. However, it gets a little repetitive. I recommend it because it is an interesting concept; definately something different from the other flash games I have come across in my explorations of the internet. Its not as fun as the other game I have previously recommended, but it is worth a look.

Firefox Security

I, like many people, use Firefox to do all my browsing. And I really enjoy it. One of the best features of firefox, in my opinion, is the customizability. Extentions allow you to add a lot to your internet experience, security one of the chief things amung these. Since this is a blog about the internet, I thought I would comment a little on internet security. In my wanderings I found a blog listing what that author considers the most useful security extentions.

http://www.mitchelaneous.com/2007/02/14/top-9-security-extensions-for-firefox/

He lists several which will make your browsing experience safer. One of these extensions is McAfee site advisor. It really is a useful addition to firefox, and easy to use. Mostly you just let it sit there, and if a problem page comes up it will turn yellow or red. It allows you the option of gathering more information from the site advisor website. For example, here is what it says about blogger. Contrast that to what it says about Kazaa. Well, take it from me, site advisor knows what it is talking about. I installed Kazaa the other day (ignoring the advice from siteadvisor) and it was a huge headache. It installed so much spy/adware that I spent three hours trying to get rid of it with various programs and even now I'm not sure I got it all. Great time, right? In the end I should have listened to siteadvisor. So to bring it back to my point, that list I linked to is a good one, and siteadvisor is particularly useful to use.

Good distraction.

So I'm a huge procrastinator. Actually - I don't procrastinate, I reschedule. So you might notice a lot of pages that can be distractions popping up on here. This is one of those.

Rag Doll Avalanche 2 is great. Its a really simple game that I happened upon in my quest for things to take me away from studying. It is, however, wickedly addicting. The point of the game is to use your arrow keys to move the little man around and avoid the falling spikes. Sounds simple, right? Well, he acts like a ragdoll. This means that little motions cause him to fly around like crazy, making it that much harder to miss the spikes. On top of this, the spikes can cut off parts of his arms and legs, and as far as I can tell, this unbalances him and makes his movement even more erratic. The goal is to survive as long as possible, and considering the above elements it is harder than you might think. A game doesn't last much more than a minute at most, and you will keep coming back for more. I highly recommend this for a simple, fun distraction. Don't plan on getting much done if you are playing around with this little app.

Pandora

So for my first site that I am taking a look at I chose Pandora. Pandora is a streaming music program that you can access with little difficulty. Plenty of place have this sort of streaming radio concept, such as Yahoo internet radio. However, Pandora stands above all others because of the concept that lies behind the site. You can create your own station. This doesn't sound so great, but this makes my life. You don't have to make a whole list of artists or songs for your station rather pandora does it for you. Just put an artist or song you like, and the program will tailor a station based around music similar to the artist/song you identified. It does so by looking at a list of criteria and matching up the criteria your song meets with other songs that meet the same criteria. You can further customize your station by rating wheter or not you like the current song. This rating does several things as explained by the helpful faq that can be found on the website:

* The very next set of songs for this station will be directly generated using the song which received the thumbs-up vote.

* Future sets of songs are more likely to have similar musical traits. Multiple "Thumbs Up" votes on this station for other similar songs will have a cumulative effect.

* All songs that have received a thumbs-up vote on this station will each become members of a new invisible starting point for this station.

Needless to say, I love this. I'm finding artists and songs I didn't even know exsited and it turns out I like them. The only downside is that you can't replay songs, nor can you rewind/fast forward within a song. But, overall its worth it.