RemainInPlay Offers 20 Years of Free Retro Games

Lifehacker has a post on RemainInPlay, which Offers 20 Years of Free Retro Games.

RemainInPlay has many past versions of great games for free.  (If you like the old versions, maybe you’ll buy the latest, is the manufacturers’ thinking.)

Alien Arena the Free FPS Game

The How-to Geek has a post on Geek Fun: Play Alien Arena the Free FPS Game :: Mysticgeek’s Realm.

A free game to download and play.

Friv: Best Free Online PC Games In One Place

Gizmo Richards at TechSupport Alert has a post on 250 Best Free Online PC Games In One Place.

He recommends Friv as a site with 250 free online games.

FlightGear Flight Simulator

Time for some fun…

FlightGear Flight Simulator is a free open source flight simulator — fly various types of aircraft in a computerized simulation.

12 Ways of Spicing Up Your Desktop

MakeUseOf has a post on 12 Great Ways of Spicing Up Your Windows Desktop.

• Yahoo Widgets, formerly known as Konfabulator
• Google Desktop/Gadgets
• Klipfolio
• Samurize
• Rainmeter
• Real Desktop
• Dream Scene for XP
• Animated Desktop for Vista (or XP)
• Desktoptopia
• John’s Background Switcher
• Wallpaper Shifter
• 360 Desktop
• DeskHedron

PiZap: Editing Pictures For Funny results

MakeUseOf has a post on PiZap, for when you don’t want to spend more than a couple of minutes and want to edit a photo to be more “funny” or “amusing”, PiZap is the way to go. Using PiZap is very simple and quick since they don’t require to register. Just upload your photo and start editing pictures for fun.

PiZap allows you to:

* Put text in your photos.
* Put stickers in your photo.
* Use effects like Sepia, Black & White, Blur, Emboss.
* Paint over a part of your photo with any color and brush size.
* Download your edited photos and also submit it to the PiZap public gallery.
* One-Click drag and drop editing.
* Ability to embed the edited image on any website.
* Send edited image as an e-card or share it on any of the major social networks.
* Buy a print of your image on mugs, t-shirts or any of the other 20 products.

Textorizer: Create Arty SVG Images Made of Words

MakeUseOf posts about an interesting online service called Textorizer: take words of your choice — say, from your blog or life story or whatever – and use them to create a graphic based on a photo or graphic you provide.

Abandon (almost) all hope, ye games who enter here…

Abandonia is a site for games that have been “abandoned” by their creators, left without being supported or updated.

They might still be playable, however.  Use at your own risk, but you might find a classic or two in here.

CanYouRunIt for games

MakeUseOf has a review for CanYouRunIt which provides an online check of your computer to see if you can run whatever game you list.

Use at your own risk, of course.

Tongue-tied? Just fill in the blanks…

MakeUseOf has a post on the Bureau of Communication, which offers one of the more unusual services on the Web.

They present a set of fill-in-the-blank forms for everyday communication.

Somewhat similar to those phone message pads with things like “While you were out some idiot called”, these forms cover a variety of situations:

• Unsolicited Feedback
• Declaration of Romantic Intent
• Formal Apology

and a number of others.  They definitely have the topics covered!

beFunky animates your photos, videos

Anybody see the movie “A Scanner Darkly”? Where everybody was turned into a realistic animated version of themselves (well, except during the hallucinations…)?

Try it yourself with beFunky and ‘cartoonize’ your photo or video.

• Turn your photos into digital paintings and comic style animated cartoons.
• Convert videos into cartoons.
• Create and enhance cartoonized avatars: Choose between different background scenes, clothes and accessories, hairstyles, etc.
• Warp tool: push and pull any area of an image (enlarge lips, reduce nose size, etc.).
• Get a black and white pencil drawing of any photo.
• Embed your beFunky stuff on your blog or profile pages.

Recommended by MakeUseOf.

WARNING: read the user agreement.  Using this site gives them the right to use your image and information for their own purposes (promotion of their service, for example).  If you are not comfortable with that, don’t use it.

Freeware games – the lists

[updated 2008/6/3]

Freeware Genius has a list of freeware games available.

Wikipedia has a list of commercial games which have been released as freeware.

Free games legally!

The Free PC Gaming Blog has a list of 100 of the best legal free full version games you can download online.

“Over time I have found many fully functioning games that are free to download in various places across the web. Here are 100 of these great full games that are free to download online. They range from independent games, to games that were once commercial but are now free, free to play MMO games (some of the MMOs do have the option of purchasing in game items, etc.), free action games, 3rd person games, games designed by hobbyists, and many more!”

TV viewing sites

[last updated 2008/10/6]

Here’s a list of some of the sites and software that provide legal viewing of television programs (this post may be updated over time):

anytvplayer.com Watch local TV, world TV, Live TV, satellite TV from countries of all world in different languages on your PC with anyTV not just at home, but at the OFFICE , work or wireless. Watch 2630+ Online TV, 6910+ Video clips. Listen to 4750+ Online Radio. Using anyTV means you can watch numerous of international TVs without a television, TV Tuner Card or a satellite receiver. Watch anywhere you have your internet Online. No additional equipments required. anyTV is a completely FREE Software. It contains absolutely NO ADWARE, NO SPYWARE, NO REGISTRATION, NO POPUPS, NO MALWARE or other unwanted software. The channels are constantly updated to bring you up-to-date channel list. You can filter channels by genre, country, bitrate or content. Set up a favorites list for quick access to your favorite Radio/TV/Video channels online. Watch in regular or full-screen mode. anyTV supports both Windows Media & RealVideo. Channels from more than 100 countries.”

hulu.com “Hulu’s ambitious and never-ending mission is to help you find and enjoy the world’s premium content when, where and how you want it. We hope to provide you with the web’s most comprehensive selection from more than 50 content providers including FOX, NBC, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, and more to deliver premium programming across all genres and formats, television shows, feature films, and clips. Watch full-length episodes of current primetime TV shows such as The Simpsons and The Office the morning after they air, classics like Miami Vice and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and clips from Saturday Night Live, Nip/Tuck, and others. Hulu also offers full-length feature films like The Usual Suspects, Ice Age, Three Amigos!, and The Big Lebowski as well as clips from films such as Napoleon Dynamite, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Devil Wears Prada and many more. Hulu is free and ad-supported — available anytime in the U.S.”

OVGuide offers “Free online movies: Free DivX movies with very good quality & full length” and a number of TV shows. This seems to be a portal for a number of other sites with the actual content.

SurftheChannel just has links to sites.  Since they don’t actually host any videos on their own site, this transfers the responsibility for copyright to the site in the link.

All My Faves link to the best on the web

All My Faves has links to what it considers the top 10% of every site on the web (in English, anyway).

They have weekly update sites, search engines, shopping sites, children’s sites, sports, weather, cellular, on and on and on and….

They have a lot of good sites listed.

Logon / Startup Windows in a new way

Tired of the same old logon and/or Windows startup screens? The following were tested by Smart Computing magazine.

• LivenUp (freeware)
• Bootskin (freeware)
• Logon Studio (freeware)
• Belchfire these are free but will also need some other software (links on site) to substitute them.