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Macromedia Flash arrived in 1996, and was initially designed to add animation and interactivity to otherwise largely media free websites. However, it wasn’t long before developers began to realise the potential of the software, and added functionality became available with each iteration.

In the beginning, the focus was more on animation, as primitive scripting allowed little in the way of interactivity. However, with the introduction of ActionScript in version 5, Flash became a strong platform for developing simple web-based games. This transition from basic animation and user interaction to full-blown scripting was a huge step for developers, and allowed sophisticated web-based applications and interactive games possible.

By 2001, Flash games began appearing on websites everywhere, and whilst early attempts were primitive and tended to focus on remakes of arcade classics such as Asteroids and Tempest, they remained highly popular amongst the online community. Despite their initial popularity, Flash games were known as little more than addictive time-fillers, perfect to whittle away ten minutes at work.

However, even with the basic tools in place, developers were coming up with a wide variety of Flash based games. Platform remakes of favorites such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario Brothers were highly idn poker popular, and the improving graphic capabilities allowed for much more immersing game play. Although PC and console games had little to worry about in terms of competition, Flash games were already an integral part of many online communities. The integration of Flash arcades into popular forum software led to vast competition between members of small and large communities alike. It wasn’t a case of wasting five or ten minutes anymore, it was about coming top on the scoreboard!

There were still problems though, particularly with performance on lower specification machines. As Flash was not designed to run games in particular, it was inevitably not that quick or smooth running on some machines, which inhibited many action games. That was all set to change significantly with the next version.

With the release of Flash MX in 2004 came ActionScript 2.0, which allowed greater control over Flash applications, and featured improved data and media handling. Although most genres had already been explored, from arcade to first person shooters to racing games, the best was yet to come. The recent integration of improved data handling allowed many game developers to implement levels and scoreboards much more effectively, thus adding to the appeal.

Since 2004, Flash games have come on in leaps and bounds, and are hardly recognizable from the slow, blocky titles released just a few short years ago. The level of sophistication continues to develop, and whilst it will be a long while before something groundbreaking is released, there are already many classic Flash games already available on the web. Titles such as ‘Stick Cricket’, ‘Bejeweled’ and ‘Yeti Sports’ are all immensely popular, and attract thousands of visitors each day. The playability and execution of a simple idea make these Flash games some of the most popular ever released.

The sites that offer these free games are also changing; the public do not have to visit individual sites (such as the authors website) to find new games, instead developers are submitting their games to massive “flash games” websites sites that offer 1000’s of games for free one such example is www.itsall3.com a site with free games, and free funny videos for your mobile phones (3gp videos).

What are the benefits to developers submitting their games to such massive collections of games? These arcade sites receive 1000’s of visitors a day, so developers game get more hits there’s no bandwidth costs as the sites host the games, and there’s always a link in the game back to the developers website if needed.

These enthusiasts are not too dissimilar from the back bedroom programmers of the early 1990’s. Many young developers thrived upon the availability of programming languages such as BASIC, and the more recent arrival of Flash sparked the same levels of creativity and inspiration. Although Flash contains more scripting than actual programming, the underlying appeal of being able to create your own games (relatively) easily has been a major part of its success.

Perhaps Adobe/Macromedia will lean towards the game creation side in the future, or perhaps the focus will always be on animation and the development of web-based applications. Either way, there is no doubting that Flash games have become an integral part of the web and are set to stay for the foreseeable future. With the next version in the pipeline, it will be interesting to see what the next generation of Flash games have in store.

5 ways to ignite your PC’s performance without spending a cent

Is your PC slowing down? Or maybe it crashing more and more, Well if that’s the case it just might because your PC is suffering old age! Yes that’s right just like people PCs suffer from the aging process too.

But there’s good news

But unlike people you can actually turn back the aging process and bring your beloved PC back to life. All it takes is a couple of easy to follow tips to ignite your PC’s performance to full speed again.

Just follow these easy to follow steps:

System configuration utility

Even when your computer’s sat there doing nothing it could be running at least 50 programs! These are programs that a munching away at your poor old CPU and not to mention having a right good go at your memory as well. The reason for this is because over time the more stuff you install the more crap that builds up and even if you don’t even use that program, there’s a damn good chance that it’s running in the background.

To see what I mean hit CTRL ALT DELETE then press the processes tab. It will show you how many processes that are running in the background.

1. To solve this little dilemma just go the Start or Run for XP owners, and type MSCONFIG.

2. The System configuration will appear and from in there go to the STARTUP tab.

3. Once you’ve selected the STARTUP tab you’ll be presented all the programs that are running in the background of your PC. What I would recommend is turning everything off apart from idn poker your anti virus.

If you do see anything what you do want on for example MSN massager by all means keep it on but the more you have running in the background the more it’ll sap your PC’s performance and will also affect you’re your Boot times as well.

System configuration utility part 2

Now still hanging around in the System Configuration Utility, go to the second tab called SERVICES and go to and untick the HIDE ALL MICROSOFT SERVICES. We’ve got to do this (unless you’re a bit more experienced) because if you go and turn one of Microsoft’s services you could just mess your entire PC up and we don’t want that do we.

Once you’ve unticked the box you should be just left with all the non Microsoft services.

once again I would recommend to turn them all off but the anti viruses services. Once you’ve decided what and what not gets the chop click apply and you’re done.

Performance Options

Depending on which OS (operating system) your using, this could make or brake it. If your using Windows Vista? I would recommend turning some the visual effects of especially on the lower end systems. However if your using XP, the performance will be less impressive but I believe every ounce of performance is crucial. Besides, you won’t even notice half of these switched of anyway.

Now as much as I would love to tell you how to get to these options, the ways to get there are very different when compared to Vista and XP. So a way around this (and probably a cop out as well) I’ll just tell the vista owners to type in PERFORMANCE into the search bar, select PERFORMANCE INFORMATION AND TOOLS and click ADJUST VISUAL EFFECTS and you’ll find your way there.

For XP owners read on:

1. Go to Start, Control Panel and select PERFORMANCE AND MAINTENANCE.

2. Then ADJUST VISUAL EFFECTS you should find yourself there.

Now I would recommend turning them all off barring the last one. The last one keeps the modern Windows feel which I personally like but hay, everyone’s different.

Uninstalling

A fast Hardrive is a empty hardrive. So if you’ve got an hardrive full to the brim, delete the programs and games you don’t need to speed up your Hardrive and watch those boot times fly!

Tip: If you’re a gamer (like me) What you can do is save the save game file and uninstall the full game. This way you can get the wanted gigs of space back but not lose your place on Crysis. Cool eh.

Defragging

Now there’s hundreds of other tips I wanted to share with you but I wanted to keep this article as short as possible to prevent you been bord to death. but the ver last thing I would do to my PC once I finish optimizing it is to defrag it.

Now your probably thinking that yes I already know that James. But what I would recommend doing is using a different defragger especially if your using the dreaded Vista defragged.

Now as you’ve probably gathered, I can’t stand Vista’s defragger, I think it’s actually a step backwards, not a step forward. But what really annoys me about it is that you have no idea how long it will takes and how defragmented your hardrive is.

But don’t worry, because I’m going to show you to download a much better one that Vista’s own shoddy attempt. Auslogics Disk defragger is its name and I think you’ll find it quick and easy to use and it seems to do quite a good job as well.

And another thing.. It’s completely free to download as well. Just Google “Auslogics Disk defragger” and you should find it in no time.

The Barrows is a very popular, challenging and dangerous minigame in the massive online game called RuneScape. Many players make big money at the Barrows, but many – even the experienced Barrowers like myself – risk loosing millions worth of items due to bad luck or not being alert.

I am Barrowing a lot to get my mage and range levels to 99 (currently range 96, mage 97, combat 91). Barrowing is great mage training as the loots from the chest often provide me with the necessary runes to cast Magic Dart of Slayer (slayer lvl 55 required). idnpoker I have so far done well over 100 runs in the Barrows, and have acquired more than 3000 boltracks and blood runes and about 8k chaos runes. I don’t keep count of gp or mind runes, but I am never out of stock of needed runes.

The most treasured loot I’ve gotten so far from The Barrows is:

* Torags Platebody

* 2 Guthans Helms (sold for 3.35 mill gp each =))

* Veracs Helm

* Veracs Brassard

* Veracs Plateskirt

* Karils Skirt.

Not to mention all the half keys – at least 4.

Most people pray Protection against melee attacks and thus don’t have to hide and run like I do, they just activate prayer and let their character autoattack with a magic spell they have set. So these players spend a lot of prayer potions to finish off the brothers in the crypts. When you enter one of the crypts (spade needed) your prayer will be drained by approximately 10 every 10 seconds or so. Without the sip of a prayer pot Barrows would be impossible to do except for those very high levelled accounts.

My way of barrowing is very risky but it saves me expenses on prayer potions. I have a moderately high combat lvl with 70 defense, but I only mage and range at Barrows as I have quit training melee altogether. Here is a simple description of how I do the Barrow runs.

I stock up with runes for entangle spells (79 magic required) and magic dart spells (55 slayer required). I don’t use pray on the melee brothers at all – I simply search their tomb and instantly entangle the brother that emerges. Then I run off a couple of squares and attack with magic dart. The tangle spell holds my foe to the spot for 15 seconds, enough time to cast 4 magic darts. Before the tangle spell breaks I run behind the tomb and waits 5 seconds before I repeat with a new entangle. After a hold spell has been cast and worn off, your enemy will be immune to any hold spells for 5 seconds! Therefore it is important to keep your distance from physical contact with the melee brothers if your prayer is off – their “embraces” aren’t exactly like the ones you get in momma’s arms =p

Finishing off the Melee brothers like I do is very risky. You must know how to hide behind the tombs the proper way. I use a technique that is similar to “side-stepping”, two of the corners of each tomb give this possibility. Side stepping is used by high levels that fight close up with the brothers – when they need to eat and regroup they have positioned themselves at a corner of the chest such that when they just move a step off from their foe which will be stuck on the corner of the tomb.

I keep getting questions and comments on why I don’t use Melee Prayer like everyone else. My initial thought was to save on prayer pots so I started using ancient magick. Again without praying melee. With my high magic level I can use Ice barrage – it holds the enemy for 20 seconds and deals massive damage. Ancient Magick turns out to be is very expensive, so I would start with an Ice Barrage and then continue my attacks with Ice Bursts. I made profit anyway (guess I was lucky with my lootings) – but I’d rather use my blood runes for some proper pk’ing.

After some experiments and testing I decided to continue with Modern Magic instead, and haven’t regretted since. The risk has increased, but it only makes it more entertaning. If I should die and loose my Ahrims mage outfit or Guthan helm – well I hope the finder will be happy =p. So far I have been lucky – yesterday I got Veracs Plateskirt! Now I only need Veracs Flail for a full Verac set.

Aaaa! – the satisfaction of picking up free stuff! This happened on the same day as I got Veracs Skirt!

I was in Dharoks tomb preparing to take him down – as always with butterflies in my stomach – killing Dharok without melee prayer on is VERY DANGEROUS (that guy can deal at least 58 damage in one hit when his health bar is close to zero).

Suddenly I see a player getting massive blows to his character, it happens so quick that he has no chance to escape. And voila! On the ground is the remains of this poor player – and what riches he dropped! I picked up: Obsidian Shield, Black mystic top and bottom, 200 rune arrows, Berserker helm, black ranger set and so on. My inventory was full of lobs and I unfortunately had to see some of the things this poor player dropped being picked up by others as I couldn’t gobble up them lobbies fast enough.

With a newly “looted” obby shield and a fresh Verac Plateskirt in inventory I decided to teleport to closest bank and have a break from the game. No need to test my luck further =P

Anyway – Dharok is still waiting for me at the Barrows.