Freeware World

If you’ve dreamed of being Indiana Jones, but find the idea of learning about history and then organizing adventures to go one too complicated, never fear: I have a game that can help:

One Button Bob is a great little flash game that manages to be really inventive, funny and playable, despite only using one button. Take Bob on a treasure hunting adventure, full of killer spiders, monsters, perilous drops and leaps. All you need to play is one button - of course, in One Button Bob, that button will do different things, depending where you are, and that’s what make is so fun to play. The button might mean jump, reverse, or speed Bob up.

The game records how many clicks you make, and if you complete the game, that total will be your score. Can you get a lower score than me? Requires Flash.

Today sees the start of the 21st Winter Olympics, in Vancouver. If you’re thinking of following the Games on TV or, if you’re lucky enough in Whistler, then I can heartily recommend the official iPhone app. The 2010Guide – Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games application is the perfect companion for anyone who is dipping their toe in the icy waters of alpine sports for the first time.

Not only does the app provide a full calendar of events, but it offers concise and succinct guides to each discipline so you can tell your skeleton from your two-man bob. The great thing about the Winter Olympics app is that it allows you to add events to your favorites, building a schedule of all of the competitions you want to watch.

Once you start getting into the Games, you’ll find the Headlines section very handy. It allows you to view all of the latest news from Vancouver, as well as viewing medal tables and following the Games on Twitter.  The 2010Guide isn’t just about sport either, and the app also contains lots of information about all the off-piste activities that will take place over the course of the Games. You can view dates and descriptions of all the dance, comedy, music and arts that will take place.

Google Reader has already a handy feature to share interesting articles and blog posts in an easy way: the Share link that appears below each item. With this link, as we explained before, Google Reader marks those items as shared and puts them online on an automatically generated web page. However I tend to star items more than to share them - I just find it easier to manage starred articles later on when I want to read or reuse them for any purpose, like Favorites. And the good thing is that starred items can also be shared… even on Twitter! All you need is three user accounts (one for Google Reader, one for Twitter and one for Twitterfeed) and follow these simple steps:

1. The starred items feed is set to Private by default, so first of all you need to go to Settings > Folders and tags and mark it as “Public” from the drop-down menu.

2. Click the View public page link. This will open a website generated by Google Reader with all the items you’ve starred. Right click the Atom feed link and copy the URL.

3. Go to your Twitterfeed account and set up a new feed with the URL you just copied. Tweak settings according to your needs (update frequency, post prefix, number of posts to be published) but try not to take over your follower’s timeline with too many starred items.

4. Twitterfeed will take a while to check your feed and update it for the first time. From that moment on, all the items you star on Google Reader will be automatically published on Twitter.

This afternoon I claimed ownership of The Pentagon, Windsor Castle, and Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona. Don’t worry, I’m not part of some evil terrorist plot, I’m just playing the new Buzz graffiti game that’s sweeping the World*. The object of the game is to be the first to tag a famous building, government office or monument, using the new Google Buzz feature within Google Maps for Mobile.

Google’s new Buzz geo-tagging feature has today been added to the latest versions of Google Maps for iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and Symbian devices. It allows you to post details of where you are and what doing, for the whole World to see. Your phone will auto-detect your location and you can simply hit the ‘Add Buzz’ button to put your comment on the map.

More interestingly though, you can now search Google Maps for any company or famous building and get an option to ‘Buzz about this place’. And this is where the game comes in. According to the rules of Buzz graffiti, if no one has buzzed about it before, you can claim control of it simply by tagging it with a comment to the effect that you’re the new owner. OK, so go get the new Google Maps for your mobile and start tagging. I’m off to take over all the Starbucks in my town…

*Actually, I’m the only competitor in Buzz graffiti at the moment, but all the more reason for you to start playing, before I take over the planet - mwah hah hah hah!

Yesterday I got a rare chance to travel to Stockholm and meet the team behind the new film streaming app Voddler which is currently only available in Sweden. Next week, we’ll be publishing an exclusive interview with Voddler’s Mathias Tönnesson so watch this space for a fascinating look behind the scenes and for some answers to all of your questions about one of the most exciting applications of the year.

After the interview though, it struck me that Voddler are banking a hell of a lot of their hopes on people being willing to stream content rather than download it whether legally or illegally.

In Voddler’s case, the content is films and documentaries (and eventually TV shows) and the success of the project largely depends on users being happy to stream, rather than own content.

Fortunately for Voddler, the law is on their side in Sweden. It was pure coincidence for Voddler that it was launched last year just as the Pirate Bay trial deemed the P2P file sharing site illegal. Suddenly, Swedes were faced with either breaking the law to download films or turn to more legal methods and Voddler came along at just the right time to take advantage of this.

Technology is also on their side. Internet connections are getting faster and more widely available. Tönnensson explained to me how he’d already been given a preview of Sweden’s next generation 4G mobile network and it streamed Voddler films onto a laptop perfectly with no fixed internet connection. In theory, within a few years there will be little need to physically own films or video content available on Voddler because you will be able to watch them anywhere, anytime absolutely free.

However, old habits may be harder for Voddler change. We’re used to owning data, especially music and films on our iPods, hard drives and even simply for aesthetic reasons around the home. There’s something very satisfying about physically browsing through a DVD or CD collection.

I for one am happy to stream, though. For example, I’ve come to depend on Spotify for most of my music needs and if I had an Android device or iPhone, I’d be willing to pay the subscription fee to use it on the move. But this is only because Spotify offers me almost all of the music I want. As happy as I am to watch streamed movies and videos, it will be very much dependent on Voddler providing the same exhaustive and comprehensive choice of films.

I see no reason to clog-up my hard drive or bookshelves with films and music I’ll probably never watch again. I’m proud to say I’m a swanky streamer and not a downloading dinosaur. What are you?

Windows: Do you find yourself writing the same bits of text all the time, day after day? Then you need PhraseExpress, a highly configurable tool that helps you insert frequently used text automatically on any Windows app. PhraseExpress works with keyboard shortcuts and is very easy to configure and use. A handy tool that will save you loads of time!

iPhone: TweetDeck is one of the most popular desktop Twitter clients out there - and at long last an iPhone version of the app has arrived. It hasn’t half bad either. TweetDeck displays everything that’s going on on Twitter in a highly organized way. As with the PC and Mac versions, TweetDeck for iPhone uses a system of columns to make it easy for you to track who’s doing what.

Mac: EyeConnect (now updated to version 1.6.5) is a media server application. By scanning your network for UPnP AV digital media devices, it can detect any available device to which it can serve multimedia content, and thus share all your Mac’s video, TV, music and photo content with your TV or stereo. EyeConnect is compatible with pretty much any media content including DivX, Xvid, WMV, JPG, iTunes library etc.

If you’d like to get a feel for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Google Earth is a great resource. Google have added 3D models of the city and the nine venues, and you can go on a flying tour of them all.

If you haven’t got it installed, download it here - it’s fantastic. Open the program then click Layers and check 3D Buildings, which will allow you to see all 3D models around the world. To See the Winter Olympic buildings, you can search for them yourself, or download this file which automatically opens Google Earth and takes you on a tour of the venues.

Google Earth relies on your internet connection to load images and you may find 3D models take a few moments to appear - click the pause button to give them a chance to appear. The tour is cool but it misses the newest addition, the Bobsled course - to fly there download this small KML file. It’s one of the best looking models on Google Earth I’ve seen, and it’s a shame there’s not a virtual sled to ride the course!

[Via: Google Earth Blog]

If you’d like to get a feel for the Vancouver Winter Olympics, Google Earth is a great resource. Google have added 3D models of the city and the nine venues, and you can go on a flying tour of them all.

If you haven’t got it installed, download it here - it’s fantastic. Open the program then click Layers and check 3D Buildings, which will allow you to see all 3D models around the world. To See the Winter Olympic buildings, you can search for them yourself, or download this file which automatically opens Google Earth and takes you on a tour of the venues.

Google Earth relies on your internet connection to load images and you may find 3D models take a few moments to appear - click the pause button to give them a chance to appear. The tour is cool but it misses the newest addition, the Bobsled course - to fly there download this small KML file. It’s one of the best looking models on Google Earth I’ve seen, and it’s a shame there’s not a virtual sled to ride the course!

[Via: Google Earth Blog]

Windows: Tired of your old media player? Looking for something else? Then you should give JetAudio Basic a try. This awesome app has recently been updated to version 8.0.4 and features everything you could expect from a media player. Plus you’ll also find a series of extra tools to rip audio CD, burn your own disks and convert files from one format to another, among others.

iPhone:  Doodle Jump has been one of the most popular games in the app store for some time - and it’s easy to see why. It has what I like to call the ‘just one more game’ factor, in the sense that it’s very difficult to put down. Doodle Jump casts you as a little green man in a cartoon sketchpad world. The object of the game is to get as high as you can up the scrolling screen by bouncing on platforms. Just don’t fall down!

Mac:Mass Effect 2 could be the game of the decade, and it’s only just begun! This is a selection of 24 official wallpapers for your desktop. Set in 2183, just after the end of the first Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 is a huge game, which sends players all over the universe involved in a real space-opera of a story that is just as dramatic as it is action packed.

Windows: Tired of your old media player? Looking for something else? Then you should give JetAudio Basic a try. This awesome app has recently been updated to version 8.0.4 and features everything you could expect from a media player. Plus you’ll also find a series of extra tools to rip audio CD, burn your own disks and convert files from one format to another, among others.

iPhone:  Doodle Jump has been one of the most popular games in the app store for some time - and it’s easy to see why. It has what I like to call the ‘just one more game’ factor, in the sense that it’s very difficult to put down. Doodle Jump casts you as a little green man in a cartoon sketchpad world. The object of the game is to get as high as you can up the scrolling screen by bouncing on platforms. Just don’t fall down!

Mac:Mass Effect 2 could be the game of the decade, and it’s only just begun! This is a selection of 24 official wallpapers for your desktop. Set in 2183, just after the end of the first Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 is a huge game, which sends players all over the universe involved in a real space-opera of a story that is just as dramatic as it is action packed.