tech+info+resources underground

As a bit of a movie buff I recently discovered that the best way to rent movies and games these days is online using one of the Online DVD and Game Rental Services.

If you’re into renting movies or games these services simply can’t be beat for their time saving convenience and value.

The two biggest and probably most well known services are Netflix and Blockbuster.

Though they both work essentially the same way Netflix seems to be the largest of the online DVD rental services. Currently boasting over 3 million members.

For a very reasonable monthly fee I believe either one of these services will more than meet your DVD and Game Renting needs.

Some of the great benefits offered include:

- No late fees. Just do the math on this one alone and I think you’ll see the value of using either one of these online services.

- Over 40,000 Movie Titles to choose from. Everything from the newest of the new releases to all of the classics.

- Free shipping both ways. To you and also on the return.

- Speaking of shipping, how about very fast delivery directly to your door. I get my movies within 1 or 2 business days.

- No long term contracts required. You’ll like this one because you’re free to cancel your membership anytime you choose.

- You get to keep each DVD or Game as long as you like. This is good because you have the freedom to watch your movies at your own pace. No more feeling like you have to watch it because it’s due back on a certain date.

- For a very reasonable monthly fee you can rent up to 3 DVDs at a time as often as you like.

Both of these top tier service providers have done a great job of keeping the process simple. You simply sign up providing very basic information and make a list of the movies you want to see. Your movies will then begin to arrive postage paid in your mailbox in one or two business days. Like I said, crazy simple!

Once your movies arrive you have the opportunity to watch them at your leisure.

I don’t know about you but too often I would end up paying more in late fees than I did for the actual movie. And when renting from my local store there just never seemed to be a good time to take them back.

These two major issues are completely gone when renting online.

Neither Netflix or Blockbuster charges a late fee of any kind. For me that alone makes renting online superior to the old way.

It gets even better though. When you’re ready to send your DVDs and/or Games back you simply drop them into the pre-paid envelope you received with your delivery and mail them back.

As you may have gathered I’m sold on Online DVD Rental.

As long as the rental service providers keep things simple, as they certainly have so far, if you rent movies or games at all I don’t see where there is anything not to like about this new way of renting them online.

You can try Blockbuster Online free now by going to Blockbuster-DVD-Rental.com

Clyde Dennis, a.k.a. “Mr. How-To”, is Editor at EASYHow-To Publications and has been contributing articles that help people make their lives better since 1999. At his web site, The “How To” Library, you’ll find a collection of the latest How To Articles, Tips and Tools to help you get things done. For more information visit The How To Library @ EASYHow-To.com

For some reason, Pocket PC game sexual content is starting to creep into our PDA downloads.

I can certainly understand why. A study on Handheld Computer Use in a Psychiatric Outreach Program found that PDA users were likely to be male physicians under 35 than to be female or older physician.

If these statistics apply to the population at large, I’m willing to bet that there may be some merit to it.

I mean, I’m smack in the middle of this age range myself. It figures that PDA game developers will target whatever demographic their market surveys happen to target.

Targeted, niche-based marketing in gaming is where it’s at, my brutha. I mean, chances are, you’re male.

That’s not to say that my entire Pocket PC game readership is made of solely of males. Females seem to have a proclivity toward non-thumb injuring games.

My wife loves my site, is an avid PDA gamer and is also an extremely zealous Bejeweled 2 Pocket PC puzzle gamer.

By the way, Jessie, hats off to you for your 23,142 Classic mode and 1,294,750 Action mode scores. She simply won’t admit that she’s been following the tips that I’ve posted on my site.

Kudos if I can put you squarely in the PDA puzzle game clique– iPAQ thumb from excessive button mashing can be painful at times. The joint of my thumb aches when I press down at an angle.

This was compounded by s-video based desktop PC gaming which is performed with the same Logitech wireless controller that I described in my September 19th blog entry.

My extended, fairly incessant Pocket PC gaming may also be attributed to this.

My latest site update involved an article detailing the brand spanking new Ultimate Bowling Fighter release. Not that there’s spanking involved, but there may as well be for the skimpy outfits some of those female pro bowlers wear.

Add a picture-in-picture screen with bouncy women holding up “Strike!” signs and low riding pants, and you’ve got a most unique PDA sports game download with some degree of sexual content.

Does this mean that we’re on the cusp of a sexual Pocket PC gaming revolution? Only time will tell.

________________________________________________________________

Damian Julien is a Pocket PC gaming authority and long time general gaming hobbyist and reviewer.

He is an IT specialist by trade and has posted numerous articles on Pocket PC emulators, gaming and trends in the industry.

http://www.pdagameguide.com

The massively multiplayer online genre is relatively new. Games such as World of Warcraft offer things that players could previously only dream of. The game’s scope, complexity, and variety of options dwarf everything that has come before. The monthly fee based structure gives companies the financial base to continue development, expanding existing games with more content, higher levels, and added complexity. Keeping these games fresh is the greatest challenge faced by mmorpg designers.

When a new mmorpg comes out, the sheer volume of content in front of a player can seem overwhelming. Time invested leads to incremental gains in resources, represented generally by improvements in various abilities and the quality of available gear. Players will progress through content at varying rates, depending on how much time they spend and what parts of the game they enjoy. Eventually, generally after several months of play, a significant portion of the player base will begin to exhaust the content of a game. This often coincides with the release of newer games that compete for player’s attention. Given that most players can only find the time and/or money to support one mmorpg habit, this can lead to attrition of your highest involvement players. It is somewhat of a contradiction that the intensity with which a player approaches a game also determines how quickly he will exhaust available content.

We pause here a moment to discuss the fallacy of the “casual” player. Much is made of this type on various message boards, particularly how they are underserved by the designers of one mmorpg or another in favor of “hardcore” players. The reality is, as always, much more complex. First, there are not two separate but equal camps of gamer. Like any social phenomenon intensity of play exists on a continuum. One player may log on for a few hours one night a week while another does little else. The majority of players, however, are somewhere in between. Think of a bell curve (perhaps one slanted somewhat toward the plays too much end, but that’s a topic for another week.) Secondly, even if there were a large audience of casual players at the extreme low end of the continuum they wouldn’t need additional content. By their very definition, they can never hope to move through a game with the scope of any modern mmorpg at its inception, much less move on to additional areas afterward. Development, then, is rightly focused on providing content to those players who are most, if not all, of the way done with everything previously released.

The basis for competition between mmorpgs is both feature based and experiential. Every mmorpg has a customer base they wish to keep. They would also like to acquire some number of customers from other mmorpgs as well as a share of new customers. Competition for new customers is basically like normal game competition. Gamers compare games based on graphical and audio features, playability, and thematic considerations. Competing with other games for your own customers, however, is markedly different. A player likely has a large amount of time and money invested in their game of choice and may have built up a significant social base within the game world. This represents a significant competitive advantage, almost to the degree that the features of other games don’t matter as much as satisfaction with the current game. If players can be convinced that there will continue to be new interesting things to do, particularly things that are meaningfully different from previous content, then they will stay simply because of the cost of switching.

Steve is a member of GrandMatrix. They provide a wide range of games, puzzles,
and articles. Read more articles, download and play PC games for free, plus
enjoy thousands of user submitted puzzles, quizzes and word games at target="_new" href="http://www.grandmatrix.com" rel="nofollow">Free Online Games and Downloads