Web Game Review: absOrb HD

Today, I'm reviewing absOrb HD from EffectGames.com.

In absOrb, you use your cursor and hover over the falling orbs of the same color as your ring(or cursor).  You use the keyboard keys to change the color of your ring to get corrisponding circles. The keyboard keys that you press to change the ring color are the 1-4 numerial keys.  If you find a falling Google Chrome orb, just hover over that and for a few seconds you can hover over circles of any color.

I really like how the game is laid out.  It is very addicting and fun to play at the same time.  I've spent lots of time playing it and find it very fun to play.  Another reason I like it is the wonderful graphics.  The graphics are good quality and very vivid.  It gives the game a great look and feel all around.  It's also completely HTML5 which I like that as well because it makes it very fast and modern.

You can play it here and be sure to check out EffectGames for other web games as well!  It is also available in the Chrome Web Store here.

My Rating: 9.5/10

SuperPC

Cool Use of HTML5

This post was originally published at http://www.tylersmiller.com.  Enjoy!

This has been passed around the Internet the past week, but I wanted to touch on it here.  If you visit the website The Wilderness Downtown using a browser other than Chrome, you are prompted that your experience might be limited on the website.  That being said, you might want to download Chrome JUST for this website.  Let's talk about it in a nutshell.

You go the the site, type in your address and hit Search. Yep, very straightforward.  What you might not realize is that it is then pulling Google Map data for the location you specified.  After a few seconds your video is ready.  It plays a music video, using HTML5 and pops up windows that continue the story line.  Your address is then converted to Google Map data and is shown in some of these windows.  It showcases your address from a satellite standpoint and from a streetview standpoint.  In some cases, you might have to pick a well known place, like the TWiT Cottage in California, to get this to work.  I live in small town Iowa, and of course my house was not on Streetview.  So, I chose to enter in the TWiT Cottage.  (8 Keller Street, Petaluma, CA) The video was amazing.  Me talking about it does not give the site justice, you have to check it out!

So, go get Chrome.  Open Chrome, and type in http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com and type in your address or an address that you are certain is on Streetview.

Let me know what your thoughts are on this project and HTML5 as well.

Website

My History of Website Solutions

I first started out on the internet back in 2007. As I learned more about the internet and decided to share my knowledge about computers, I opened up a website, jonnyscomputershow.co.nr. Of course, I didn't know about domains and hosting packages back then, so I decided to go with a free domain and a web host, which I found on the net and of course it was free. This website was run on a static html page, which displayed my live stream and WyldRyde chatroom.

As I become more a part of the net, I opened JonnyisGeek.com, which is still owned by me to this day, in 2008. At first, I run it on the not so popular now Freewebs platform for around 6 months until December 2008. On December 21, I then purchased a hosting package with my domain registrar, GoDaddy. It was cheap at just over £3 per month. I hosted my website with GoDaddy for quite sometime, until I switched around many webhosts with similar content management systems (CMS). These all included Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal and the list goes on. I stuck with Wordpress, as it was easy to use, themes were free and it had some really useful tools.

In July 2009, I found David (thecreativeone) who's blog I write on now, was using SquareSpace (and still is!). I decided to give SquareSpace a shot, and at that time, SquareSpace were launching their version 5 platform. I was amazed on how SquareSpace combined the static html service I was using a year ago with a CMS. I imported all of my Wordpress content into the new system and I designed my site within a few hours, as it took some getting used to. After a month had passed, I decided to switch back to Wordpress as my income didn't cover the SquareSpace costs and I couldn't cope with other things like going out and seeing friends. I felt bad about it, but it needed to be done. 

In October 2009, I purchased the domain, JonnyRowntree.com, which is my blog and will always be my domain. I used Wordpress for about 4 months on Phirefast and GoDaddy hosting packages before again, switching to SquareSpace as I could afford it again, seeing as I had enough cash to pay for it. I used David's coupon code (thecreativeone) to save 10% and I'm still setting up my site, but it's done for the most part. 

I have no idea how I remembered all of the switches and times, but I most submit 2 important points to this post.

1. Purchase your domain and select a web host. SquareSpace is the best, since it is very reliable.

2. Stick to that webhost for good.

Thanks for reading this long post and follow me on Twitter!

3 Softwares: Web Development/Design

When most people think of web development or design, they usually consider Adobe's Dreamweaver to be the perfect choice. In this article, I am going to show you some other software that can help you learn more, and save some of your savings. 

Remember: All applications shown here are for the Mac platform. 

Coda - After Dreamweaver, most people know about Coda. Coda is a web development tool that is both designed well and packed full of features including a Preview pane, color-highlighted code, auto-fill, and able to connect and edit files on a remote server. Currently, Coda is priced at $99 .

TextMate - Known as the the "Missing Editor for Mac OSX", TextMate is known for its powerful text editing structure and its low price point. Features-wise, this is an ordinary text editor with basic color-highlighted code but where TextMate really stands out is when you are actually writing the code. Unlike Coda which happens to have an annoying auto-close tag feature, TextMate allows you the option to manually do it by a shortcut. For those who would like a powerful text editor at a low price, TextMate is the one for you priced at around $60. 

NetBeans - Many of you developers out there who need a highly powerful, all in one, cheap software for any operating system that can fit all your programming needs, NetBeans is for you. Giving you the option to download different versions of the software to fit which language you use, NetBeans makes it great for those programmers to program without to much hassle. And the best part of NetBeans, its free!

So here are a few applications that are great for you web designers/developers out there and most are not that expensive (compared to Dreamweaver). If you have any more for the Mac platform, feel free to comment below. Thanks for reading!

Road To Becoming a Web Designer

Hi,

So you wanna become a web designer huh? Well before you get into the coding, you should get first have an order in which you want to learn each language. Well, here is the order for you:

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HTML - This is the base language that is used in mostly any website. It is also one of the simplest languages to learn for web designing. So be sure to learn it well. 

CSS - Once you have HTML down, you have to deal with CSS. This language gives you the style of the website you want. Use HTML and CSS together and you can make your website look like any website. For a tutorial, check out my video series on My Youtube Channel.

CONGRATULATE - Good job! You have already gotten through two languages. Also it is a time to take a break and test out your skills, for now the harder language comes. 

PHP/SQL - These languages are a bit more complicated for the reason that it does not deal with the interface but more of the background functions. You may want to check out there own websites for some details. 

JAVASCRIPT - Once you have finished with the basic layout of a webpage, you obviously want to have some fun right? Where that is where this language comes in. Javascript is the fun of the coding languages, for it allows you to add some animation, alert boxes and all of that good stuff! 

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Good job! You can now consider yourself a web designer! But now you put your skills to the test and design a webpage that puts all of these coding languages together. But don't think that you know all of the languages because there are many more and it is your turn to venture and find them.

Cheers,

*Note: The order in which I put these languages is based on what I think people should learn first.