DygiScape

Some people aren’t sure where to play online games for free, and I can’t blame them. With the amount of spyware and junk out there infecting people, its a major pain to play online games. I’m going to share my personal review of top-notch free online gaming websites, that don’t plague their users with spyware. Feel free to shoot me back feedbackif you’d like. Most sites for gaming will require the use of Sun Java Runtime Environment, so feel free to download it.

POGO

• Pros: Easy registration, seamless integration with AOL/AIM ScreenNames, large membership of users (~250,000 Players), user-friendly navigation. No annoying pop-ups, pop-unders or other frowned-upon techniques to get advertising views. Very clear and straightforward privacy policy.
• Cons: Ads are a little over the top for my taste. Segmented sections between free games, and premium “Club Pogo” selections. Only 257 games - between free, trial, and paid games.
• Overall: Pogo games are easy to use, free, and can definately satisfy the needs of the first-time Internet gamer.Considering the size and the amount of Pogo, they could ease up a bit on the adverising and offer more games.

YAHOO! GAMES

• Pros: Yahoo! Network integration, very clean layout, a healthy amount of users to play against (~108,000), less annoying ads. Servers appear to be a little bit speedier than others. Currently boasts 322 games to keep users busy for a while. No additional account setup, beyond the setup of Yahoo Mail.
• Cons: Not as many users as Pogo
• Overall: Yahoo! Games seems to attract users well due to its attractive Web 2.0 appeal, very clean, and tasteful amount of advertising. Any Yahoo user has access to the games, and requires no additional setup, just jump in and play games.

MSN GAMES

• Pros: If you use and like Internet Explorer and just love Active-X, call this home if you want to play games.
• Cons: Least amount of users (~101,000), site is not designed to accomodate other users using Firefox, Opera, or heck Safari. Convoluted registration with Microsoft Passport service. Again, if you like Internet Explorer, this is home for you. Least amount of games, a meager 153 games. Pushy ads, less content.
• Overall: Microsoft certainly doesn’t put the user first on their Gaming site. Its disappointing to access on Firefox, and simply it tells me “You’re not welcome” and I would certainly move on. I simply find this the lamest gaming site, especially from the internet king Microsoft, definitely needs improvement.

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I hope this helps users like yourself find an excellent area to relax and play games online. Basically comes down to a choice between Pogo or Yahoo myself. I prefer Yahoo for the sake of less blatant ads.[tags]Yahoo, Pogo, MSN, Microsoft, Gaming, Games, Online, Internet, Web 2.0, Entertainment, Java, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera[/tags]

Geeky

Phishers are getting so clever lately. The good news Phishing is on the decline. Phishers targetted Citibank when they had users login, and the did login with a Man-In-The-Middle attack, acting is a liason for the user collecting data.

Check out Citibank Phish Spoofs 2-Factor Authentication

[Tags]Business, Phishing, Citibank, Citi, Technology, Social Engineering, Security[/tags]

Geeky, Safety, Tech News

For those that don’t know, Tucson is dry as a bone. We apparently are now in Monsoon season. I left work, and almost had to swim home. Heres a picture of Rosemont and Speedway I snapped. This happened Friday afternoon.

[tags]Tucson, Arizona, Rain, Wet, Monsoons, Driving, Flooding[/tags]

Bragging Rights, Personal

Here is a bulletin regarding the MySpace lawsuit about how a 14yr old girl was sexually assaulted (cough:statutory:cough) due to Myspace. I’ve already discussed this on Netscape. I’ll regurgitate my view here:

Pardon my lack of empathy, I’m sorry, I dont see anywhere that MySpace guarantees the legitimacy of the users. I observe ‘SAFETY TIPS’ which is hyperlinked at the bottom of EVERY myspace page as the footer content.

I believe legally, MySpace is all clear. Although I do foresee that they will make the TOS a little more clear for younger kids to understand, perhaps multiple checkboxes. AIMPages has a very simple and straight-forward TOS by comparison.

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And here’s a Myspace bulletin that I support:

Anybody happen to catch Nightline last night on ABC? In case you didn’t, one of the hot topics discussed was MySpace. It is no secret to anyone who reads the newspaper or watches the 6 o’clock news that MySpace has been in the limelight because of “sexual predators” trying to “abduct and corrupt” the youth of the world. To this I say bullshit! I see dozens of profiles a day showing 14 year old girls dressed like sluts, wearing four inches of make up and 32 layers of eyeliner, displaying their age as 18 years old and profile lines stating “Oh, I’m So Sexy” or “Hey There, Wanna Check Up On It?” Come on! The youth of today’s world are already corrupt enough due to the undying need to be “older” than they really are. I seriously doubt there are tons of people on MySpace stalking “innocent young girls” who just happen to have tramped up profiles and ages 4 years greater than their own.

On Nightline, there was a story of a 12 year old girl who was a drug-addict and attributed it all to MySpace. She claims that Myspace allowed her to easily find drug dealers in her area, as well as older men to have sex with her. Now, at the age of 14, she has been checked into a drug-rehabilitation clinic and has been away from her family for 5 months. Her parents would rather place the blame squarely on the shoulders of MySpace instead of their daughter, who even admitted that at the age of 12, had already tried weed, crack, X, and had slept with numerous guys older than herself…but of course, it wasn’t her fault, it was all because of MySpace.

One again, COME ON! When are parents and children going to stop passing the blame and grow up enough to take responsibility for their actions and the actions of their children.. Parent;s, monitor your children online, take some responsibility for YOUR children. Children, if a profile name sounds like something that comes out of a cheap horror movie, like “DARK ANGEL OF DEATH WHO EATS THE BRAINS OF GIRLS”…chances are you DO NOT WANT TO ADD THEM AS A FRIEND. Apparently there is new legislation in Congress now to block MySpace in all public schools and public libraries across the United States. All because little girls want to act grown and don’t want to accept the consequences and parents don’t want to accept the fact that their “innocent little girls” are posing as 18 year old crack whores trying to buy drugs.

Eventually, if this continues, MySpace could be totally outlawed from the Internet. Restrictions will be put in place in order to make MySpace “safer”. I don’t know about you, but I use MySpace to keep in touch with my family and friends, use it for messages, and just to have a space that is my own. Just because some children want to act grown, does that mean I may have to eventually give up my MySpace? If you feel the same way I do, please, repost this in your blogs or bulletins, or both as “STOP BLAMING MYSPACE”. If enough people post this and spread the word, maybe people will get the picture and stop blaming MySpace for every little thing that their children do wrong. As user of MySpace, we should all repost this and take some sort of action. This is not a chain letter, and nothing will happen to you if you don’t repost this in 321654987 seconds. However, of all bulletins you will read today, I am sure that this one is the only one that actually has a point to it.

A 14 year old girl, and her mother have filed a law suit against Myspace.com(what?) because she was sexually assaulted by another user. She said he lied by saying he was on the high School football team, and THAT gained her trust. Obvisiously if thats all it took to gain her trust, she easily trust pretty much anybody and anyone. She’s suing Myspace.com for $30 million because she believes myspace has poor security. WHAT A CROC! Myspace is not a babysitting service, take responsiblity for your own actions!!! What happened to her is a terrible thing and should never happen to anyone period. Where were her parents? Why are they not held responsible for what thier daughter does in thier own home? Myspace has many many ways of blocking out/screening people, some are: you have to ACCEPT the person you may or may not know as well as deny people you do or do not know, you can have certain sercurity measures added like asking for last name and email address, you can block a person, you can only associate with people you ALREADY know or simply you can NOT be on MySpace if you lack common sense.

Pass this on if you support Tom, and Myspace.com. It’s about time adults take responsibility for their own children, instead of blaming it on someone else.

[tags]Myspace, Social Networking, Law, Legal, Responsibility, Parenting, Victim[/tags]

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