I'm not into blood-and-gore games, but I do like the challenge of Tetris-like puzzles. Wherever I have an Internet connection, I can visit Neave Games to play online versions of classic games remarkably similar to Tetris and Space Invaders, lovingly re-created by site author and programmer Paul Neave using Macromedia's Flash animation. Or download Neave's games to play even when disconnected from the network umbilicus. None of the games cost you a dime; they do require Macromedia's free Flash player.
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Not all Flash games are trapped in the 1980s, however. Shockwave.com's site brims with action and sports games, word games, fast-paced puzzles such as the Equilibria matching game (see FIGURE 1
Figure 1: Try to match balls of the same color in Shockwave.com's free Flash-based Equilibria game.
), and strategy classics such as chess and mah-jongg. Many of the diversions are also free to download, although some have built-in time limits and advertisements, and others omit higher levels. The company's downloadable games (most priced from $10 to $25) and monthly subscriptions to the site's Gameblast.com service (from $10 a month to $60 a year) let you bypass these limitations. Still, you can play for days at Shockwave.com for free without running out of time or levels.
For sophisticated flash, try Metanet Software's free, downloadable ninja action caper called N. You guide a short-lived but spry little ninja through 60 levels where lethal hazards await. The people at Metanet take their Flash seriously, even offering free programming tutorials. And their effort shows in a game that's faster and more responsive than other Flash programs. My favorite Flash game is a guilty pleasure. In Wagenschencke's HomeRun game, your thankless and devilishly difficult job is to guide an inebriated Swiss partier down the strasse. The kids will love it. ("Daddy, why does the man keep falling down?")
To Manage Bookmarks: DIY
You almost certainly use bookmarks (called Favorites in Internet Explorer) to return to sites you visit often. All current browsers provide basic tools for bookmarking pages, and for deleting and organizing your list of bookmarked sites. But what are your options if you want to share bookmarks between two different browsers?
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A quick search of Google reveals various utilities and online services that promise to replicate your bookmarks. But you don't need to spend money or entrust your browsing predilections to others to get organized: Your browser already has import and export commands that let you grab another browser's bookmarks.
In Internet Explorer (the Windows XP SP2 version), choose File, Import and Export, click Next, and select Import Favorites. Click Browse to navigate to the location of your other browser's bookmarks file. Both Firefox and Mozilla store bookmarks in a file called "bookmarks.htm" that may reside in any of several locations on your hard disk; to locate it, choose Start, Search, enter the name in the text box, and press Enter.
Opera stores its bookmarks in a proprietary format that other programs can't import, but you can export bookmarks from it to an HTML file that the other browsers can read; choose File, Export, Bookmarks as HTML to do so. Internet Explorer lets you do the same thing with its Favorites: choose File, Import and Export, Next, Export Favorites, and click Next twice to export a bookmarks.htm file to the My Documents folder. To import bookmarks into Firefox, choose Bookmarks, Manage Bookmarks, File, Import (Tools, Import in Mozilla). To move your bookmarks into Opera, select File, Import, and then choose either Netscape bookmarks (for Firefox or for Mozilla/Netscape) or Internet Explorer favorites (for IE). Read care fully this article on internet tips. (internet tips)
