The Windows operating systems already comes with a useful collection of pre-installed programs and even some games. But one of the first things that people do is download a butt-load of new programs as soon as a brand new system is plugged in the wall and connected to the Internet. This article looks at some of the programs that are included with most new systems and then asks the reader to consider if they’re sufficient.

NotePad and WordPad. All Windows systems include the two text editors, “NotePad,” and “WordPad.” Notepad is a plain text editor while WordPad is a rich text editor. Both files are capable of opening plain text, however WordPad can open Windows Write files (an earlier version of WordPad) as well as rich text files. WordPad can also save documents as plain text, rich text, and MS Word documents. So with WordPad having the ability to read and create rich text; embed objects (sound, pictures, and video); and manipulate fonts, we have to wonder if other word processors, which do the same thing, are really necessary. Although WordPad is certainly no match for Microsoft Word’s internal spell and grammar checker or Word’s Internet linking capabilities, we believe it’s a great introduction to word processing in general for computer novices.

Address Book. There are hoards of advanced contact database programs floating around the Internet and on store shelves, but Windows provides a completely competent contact database of its own simply known as “Address Book.” This small compact utility allows users to organize contacts by name, location, group, or number and it give users ample space to fully describe each. Compared to Microsoft’s Access database program, its user-friendly Address Book is a Godsend to new computer users.

Calculator. Calculator has been a Windows accessory even from its first debut in Windows 1.0. For the life of us, we can’t figure out why anyone other than a rocket scientist would want to install a different version than this free one that comes pre-installed. Windows calculator has two interfaces: an easy one, and a scientific one. So perhaps a rocket scientist could fare well with Windows Calculator after all!

Paint. Windows’ Paint program allows users to make changes to existing graphics, or create brand new ones at no additional cost. Interestingly, we can count at least ten different graphics packages that are more popular and widely used than this free one. While it doesn’t offer as many editing tools, it does provide the essentials and it can open/save graphics in .bmp, .gif, and.jpg format (the latter two being the most commonly format used for Internet eye candy).

Media Player. Real Player and QuickTime are the first programs we think of when we think about multimedia. But Windows Media Player, also free and pre-installed, does a fine job at transmitting Internet-bound sound and video. With this application, you can easily listen to .wav files, .midi files, and even tune into a little Internet radio if you like.

System Tools. Although there are too many to list here, Windows provides more than a handful of useful utilities that will monitor system resources, organize files, repair damaged disks, and more. Yet and still, you can easily find similar tools for sale at computer outlets and download libraries.

What’s going on here?

The truth of the matter is that the programs pre-installed are great tools for the beginning computer user. At some point down the road, usage will dictate a need for more powerful applications. We may need a word processor that can convert a document into an HTML page or PDF document. We may need a calculator that solves geometric problems. Or we may need a multimedia tool that lets us create our own videos as well as watch them. These capabilities aren’t included with new systems, but there’s no reason why we can’t exploit the tools that we’re given to their fullest.

Computer games have come a long way since electronic checkers and the like. Today, we’ve got computer games that would put some 21st century movies to shame and interest in online gaming is catching on like some kind of crazy fever. Once dominated by males aged 25 and older, today’s gaming generation includes mom, sis, aunt, even grandma and grandpa! If you think you’ve caught the online gaming bug, and you’re thinking about becoming a participant, don’t even think you can join in on this online fun using a dial up Internet connection!

Part of the fascination with online gaming lies in its speed. During play, online gaming becomes a virtual world and in order to project a sense of reality into the mix, its games are fast, its movements are smooth, and its sounds are as realistic as we hear them in the natural world. Sitting in front of an online game, and actively participating in one puts the player in another world - a world that’s so different, so cool, and so real.

No, we’re not talking about a super-fancy version of checkers or backgammon. We’re not talking about a visually rich game of tic-tac-toe. We’re talking about full-fledged networked or multiplayer gaming that allows anyone to entertain themselves and hoards of others across the world at the same time. Multiplayer games play over online but trust us when we say any old Internet connection won’t do.

If you want to get in on this craze, you’re going to have to ditch the old dial up connection that you might have and get into broad band. A broadband Internet connection will give you the ability to send and receive highly detailed and realistic imagery at an appropriate speed. It will give you the means to watch videos in real time, and it will allow you to experience speech as if each and every other player were speaking to you directly.

A dial up Internet connection just can’t handle this kind of fun, but you can get a broad band connection just as easily. For the techies out there, broadband is a type of data transmission in which a single medium (wire) can carry several channels at once. 1 For the rest of us, broadband is an Internet connection that allows several people to send and receive data at the same time. A dial up connection doesn’t do that. A dial up connection can either send or receive - but it certainly can’t do both. Let’s talk about Broadband ISDN for a minute.

ISDN stands for integrated services digital network and it can transmit transmitting voice, video and data over fiber optic telephone lines at about 64 Kbps (64,000 bits per second).
Most ISDN lines offered by telephone companies give you two lines at once, called B channels. You can use one line for voice and the other for data, or you can use both lines for data to give you data rates of 128 Kbps, three times the data rate provided by today’s fastest modems.2

Broadband ISDN - a combination of regular broadband and ISDN can transmit voice, video and data over fiber optic telephone lines at about 1.5 million bits per second (bps). It’s a much faster connection than either broadband or ISDN alone! If your ISP offers Broadband ISDN, ask for it - your online gaming adventure will be the better for it.

If you haven’t looked at the cost of new computer or video games and gaming systems as a whole recently, you might be in for a shock. Today’s games and gaming systems can run from a meager $30 all the way to a whopping four hundred dollars or more. To a loving mother of a game obsessed teenager, the costs can be astronomical and nothing short of frightening. Fortunately the cost of buying quality computer or video games (including the systems that they run on) can be significantly reduced once you know what to do and where to look.

One alternative to funding a gaming pursuit with a second mortgage is to “go old.” By “going old,” we mean buying last month’s or year’s games and game systems. If you could admit the one truth that we all know, but never readily face, you could literally save hundreds of dollars in an instant. This truth is that unless you’re a millionaire, none of us can afford to buy the latest toy on the market. The ugly fact behind that truth is that within a relatively short amount of time (say, 60-90 days?), that latest toy will be replaced with a new and improved system, which consequently, grants access to what was wanted in the first place - at half the price! So go old and have a little patience. Within about three to four months, you will have made a tremendous saving.

When it comes to computer gaming, you could also come out better by upgrading games rather then an entire computer. It can take anywhere from a year or more for a gaming company to release a new version and chances are, the upgrade doesn’t require new hardware - it just requires a new payment. Remember, the gaming industry can’t really keep up with the computer industry either (no one can), so there’s no reason to panic or worry. Concentrate on keeping your game current rather than your system. Only in rare instances, such as if your computer is archaic to begin with, will you need to upgrade your hardware. Shop wisely and you can catch a new soundcard, joystick, or graphics card on sale. But if you have a high gigahertz processor and Direct X 9 installed, you’ll do fine for quite a while.

Here’s a whopper of an idea and one that probably won’t take as much of an effort to convince younglings to do as you might think. But to curb the costs of gaming, perhaps a group of families could pitch in and share the finances together. Depending on the number in a group, the cost of a new gaming system - and 5 or 6 of the most popular games - could diminish to 20% or more of their original costs.

And since gaming consoles are getting smaller and smaller, there’s no reason why a group of families couldn’t band together and trade gaming space within their homes every week or two. This way the kids in the neighborhood can enjoy one or two of the new systems on the market that they could never otherwise afford, and they can enjoy them without their parents having to shoulder the burden of funding them alone.

Seeing that kids generally play games together anyway, a group effort of this sort satisfies game cravings at a significantly reduced cost and it keeps everyone happy.

Creating video games is an art, no doubt. The problem is that it isn’t easy to come up with ideas for video games. And even when we do get an idea, it doesn’t seem as fresh or exciting as we want it to be. The following offers a few ways you can generate some creative ideas to keep your video game as fun to play from beginning to end.

18. Don’t finish developing the game. Wouldn’t that be a hoot! Instead of developing a video game that has a beginning and an end, design a game that continuously loops with challenges (levels) that increase with difficulty on every round. Winning a game like this would be a matter of racking up points and to satisfy game play, you could have the game post the name of the player with the highest points to a community website. (Hey, it’s a thought!)

19. Exaggerate, Exaggerate, Exaggerate. One way to generate ideas for a video game is to exaggerate the characters, scenes, plots, and strategies that you already have down. This is how ‘nice” turns into ‘cool’ and how ‘cool’ turns into ‘awesome.’ The trick is to know when you’re crossing the line and going from “possible” to “impossible.” You always want to keep a sense of possible reality in a game, however on the same token, you don’t want to make the game so possible that it’s predictable. There’s a delicate balance and as a game developer who wants to stand out from the crowd, you’ve got to know how far you can stretch this balance without being offensive, silly, or stupid.

The basic point that we want to stress throughout this guide is that your game development doesn’t have to follow the status quo. If you stick to what’s been done before or what’s been played before, you’ll find that your games will collect dust on the shelves and that all your time and efforts will have been for naught.

Break established customs or doctrines and you’ll get noticed. Get noticed and you’ll gain a reputation for developing the most outstanding games around. Being able to get good ideas for your video games ideas is a gift - especially since good ideas can be hard to come by. But stop and think about what you have so far. Is it the best? Could it be better? Would a different approach help you obtain the fame that you crave?

Take a look at each strategy we’ve introduced in this article and see if you can’t implement just one or two of them. Implementing ALL of them would certainly be a challenge, but so would the end result: your game.

Today’s gamer craves the unknown, he craves something new, different, and original. If you’re suffering from the “blank page syndrome,” just pull up our article and consider each strategy as the answer. Expand your current ideas to the point where they excite even you - the developer.

And always remember that your video game is an extension of you. It deals with self-expression, creativity and communication. Don’t underestimate yourself or your capabilities to do the unthinkable. And whatever you do - don’t underestimate your players. The advantages of following our suggestions far outweigh any doubts you may have because once you step out of the realm of expectations, you make a wonderful contribution to the world.

Creating video games is an art, no doubt. The problem is that it isn’t easy to come up with ideas for video games. And even when we do get an idea, it doesn’t seem as fresh or exciting as we want it to be. The following offers a few ways you can generate some creative ideas to keep your video game as fun to play from beginning to end.

1. Make it funny. Humor has a wonderful way of transforming the seemingly dreadful boring into something that’s not only tolerable, but engaging as well. And if boredom is an illness, laughter is its cure. If you can inject jokes, funny imagery, or goofy characters into your game, your players will relax and associate your game with good feelings - a definite formula for success.

2. Let your mind wander off the beaten path. Since much of our thinking is associative anyway, there’s no reason why you couldn’t manifest this association into your video game. When one idea makes you think of another, include it as part of a video game no matter how illogical the connection is (at first). Remember that video games are your platform for creativity. It’s time to be a little wild and a little unconventional. Without this free-form thinking, we surely wouldn’t have the creative gems that we have today. You can always restore a sense of logic back into the game at an appropriate time.

3. Make your dreams come true. Literally, turn your dreams into video game scenarios. Had a nightmare lately? Include the scary thing in the game. Had a ridiculously stupid dream lately? Include it in the game as a detour or distraction. Sometimes dreams can be more interesting as life, and as a video game developer, you want your games to be the same. Keep a dream journal and write down those bizarre experiences you have at night. Your gamers will thank you for it.

4. Copy nature. Let’s be honest - Nature is pretty weird. We have bees flying around and pollinating plants. We have water evaporating into the sky and then falling down from clouds as rain. Childbirth is a strange phenomenon itself, and germs - the smallest thing on the planet can bring down a herd of elephants. If you could emulate some of this crazy stuff in your own video games, you will have done what every man secretly wishes he could do himself. And that’s take nature into your own hands and shape it into the reality you want! But don’t copy nature faithfully. Twist it around. For example, instead of bees flying around and pollinating plants, your video game could have 3-inch aliens flying around and pollinating brainwashed FBI agents. Starting to get the idea?

5. Dig into History. Another good resource for video game material is our own history - but not the boring stuff. We’re talking about the good stuff. The embarrassing stuff. Look for odd and weird news online and include the asinine things that people have done in the past as part of your game’s plot. Your players won’t believe what they’re seeing!

6. Go Metaphor Happy. Metaphors are figures of speech in which expressions are used to refer to something that it does not literally denote. It simply suggests a similarity. We’re not sure, but we’re pretty convinced that a lot of the space ships in video games are based on what we call the “nuts and bolts” metaphor. If you look closely at the designs of some of these vehicles, and then look at some of the tools you have in your toolbox, you’ll start to see a similarity among the two like we did. You can do the same in your video games to come up with some really unique imagery and situations.

Creating video games is an art, no doubt. The problem is that it isn’t easy to come up with ideas for video games. And even when we do get an idea, it doesn’t seem as fresh or exciting as we want it to be. The following offers a few ways you can generate some creative ideas to keep your video game as fun to play from beginning to end.

7. Play the video game before it has begun development. That sounds crazy, but it can be done and it’s an excellent way to get the plot down. To make this work, relax yourself and visually imagine that you’re playing the game from start to finish. Let your mind suggest scenes, characters, plots, and strategies. Write down the game as its being played before your mind, and then repeat for each twist that you’d like to see implemented in the actual game.

8. Throw the plot into the mixer. There could probably be nothing more challenging in a video game than plot twists. As long as it’s not too confusing to the point where players complain and quit playing, rearranging its plot could lend to some fun mind-bending twists that no one would ever predict. Try putting the game’s beginning in the middle, or introduce all the subplots in the beginning of the game and have it all start to make sense toward the end (Think, “Pulp Fiction”).

9. Look at the game with someone else’s eyes. You may already know how you want your game to play, but so may everyone else. To inject some real creativity into your video game, design it as if it were presented from the eyes of a child, a lizard, or an inanimate object like a television. This exercise will not only keep the game intriguing for it’s players, it will also keep its development challenging and interesting for you! Don’t be surprised if your newfound view changes the game throughout its development. A new perspective has an interesting habit of creating new purposes and new solutions.

10. Challenge the rules. Try to remember that most advances in anything (not just video games) came about from challenging the rules. To make this work, think of the rules imposed on video game developers in the past and just break them! Do the opposite. Where they say you can’t or you shouldn’t - go on and do it. As long as your rule-breaking spree causes no harm and doesn’t jeopardize the integrity of the game, try it!

11. Don’t call your project a video game. Sometimes when you change the name of something, you start to view it differently. This is because different words move a line of thought into a different direction - a different direction that sparks new ideas.

12. Combine ideas. We’re often told to ditch the first, second, or even third idea that we come up with for a project in favor for a much stronger idea. But instead of ditching these ideas, why not combined them into one. Combining ideas is one of the easiest ways to come up with new ideas and you can do the with your game. You could combine life forms, scenery, and all kinds of things. The end result would be nothing short of amazing and all the while, your players will wonder, “How did they come up with this stuff?!”

1. Working as a Video Game Clerk. Working at video game store or rental place - either permanently or temporarily - has got to be a teen gamer’s dream. In a single place, employees have access to the first games and game systems hot off the market and they’re privy to peek inside magazines hot off the press before anyone else. If that wasn’t enough, gaming clerks get a discount on what would otherwise be too expensive (games, game systems, and game accessories) to even think about buying. Sweet!

2. Working as a Game Tester. Before a game hits the market, it has to go through extensive testing and if you think the programmers behind the game test their own material, think again. The gaming industry is extremely sensitive about what it puts out into the public. In an effort to remain competitive, it must make absolutely sure that the games it produces work as intended. This is where testers enter the picture. But it isn’t easy to become a game tester. Becoming a game tester requires a little inside help but once you’re in there, you’ll not only have access to games that no one else knows about, you’ll also have an opportunity to shape the game into an experience that you and your comrades prefer.

3. Working as a Game Designer. Do you have good artistic skills? Can you whip out a character faster than you can say, “I drew that”? If so, you may be able to get a career designing video games. Today’s video games exude some of the most beautiful graphics ever seen and if you have a good imagination, are able to use some of the most advanced graphics software programs available, and can follow instructions, you could see your own artwork in the next popular video game.

4. Working as a Game Critic. The gaming industry is always looking for good content and if you have a flair for writing combined with a love for games, you could write for game magazines like Game Informer or you could write content for a highly popular gaming website.

5. Working as a Game Programmer. Not a career for everyone, a good game programmer is always in demand. As player preferences change and new technology is developed, someone with the right programming skills has to be there to fill the gap between what players want, and what the gaming industry can supply. Becoming a game programmer requires extensive training in several different development languages - so if you don’t have a clue as to what we just said, skip this profession and look into some of the others.

The great news about all of this is that the gaming industry shows no sign of disappearing any time soon. Even colleges are getting in on the gaming craze as they fill their course books with game programming classes and game design curriculums. There will always be an opportunity for you to blend your love for games with a steady paycheck as long as you remain dedicated to looking for these opportunities, and you make an effort to stay abreast of what’s happening in the gaming world.

Check the employment section of your local paper for more, or visit the nearest college to find out what classes and training are available.

Who would have ever thought that video games - a form of entertainment - could improve the minds of those that play them! The truth is that amid all the cool graphics, the fantastic music, and the intriguing plots, educational opportunities are abound - and to find them, one only needs to look at them a little closer.

1. Video games improve strategic thinking. Rare is the video game that doesn’t require its player to make a decision two or three steps ahead of a current situation. With constant play, players quickly learn the advantage of strategic thinking and they start to apply it to actual world opportunities.

2. Video games improve problem solving. Although the same could be said about any game, video games have proven in study after study to improve problem-solving skills. This is because most (if not all) games are centered around a problem and then challenge the player to solve it. In just one game, a player may solve anywhere from three to a hundred or more different problems.

3. Video games improve hand and eye coordination. If you find this hard to believe, pick up a game controller and try to maneuver around the game. Manipulating a game controller demands the same skills that it takes to maneuver a mouse around a computer screen.

4. Video games facilitate quick decision-making. One quality of video games that lends to quick decision making is its impromptu situations. The element of surprise is always around the corner and it’s what makes games exciting to play. To win however, players must be able to make smart decisions within a very short amount of time.

5. Video games feed the imagination. We don’t really understand the argument against things like television, videos, and gaming where people use the lack of imagination to support their part of the debate. Some people claim that video games take away from the imagination because games supply the mind with things instead of encouraging the mind to come up with these things on their own. Bear in mind that these are the same people who say a stack of blocks is sufficient to grow a child’s imagination. Of course we couldn’t disagree more. The imagery in video games only fuels the imagination and gives it a spring board to form new possibilities that might not have occurred otherwise.

6. Video games encourage exploration. In role-playing games, players must venture off the beaten path and explore the unknown. They have to open doors without knowing what’s behind them. They have to enter areas of the game without knowing the consequence. And they have to interact with characters that they’ve never met before. Inside these particular kinds of games, the opportunity to gather up the courage to explorer unknown territory isn’t just available, it’s required.

7. Video games enforce memorization. Another feature of video games is its strong influence on memorization. The terrain portrayed inside some of these games is huge, yet accessing the maps can be cumbersome and disruptive to the game. To compensate, gamers will not only memorize a large portion of the terrain, they’ll remember the tasks required to get to specific areas.

8. Video games teach consequence. All computer and video games operate off of an “action - reaction” principle. Do something, and the game will react. This is a great opportunity to learn about consequence - whether this opportunity is experienced from a gamer’s point of view or a programmer’s point of view.

9. Video games teach patience, dedication, and endurance. No great game can be conquered in a day. In fact, some of the best and most popular games take weeks or months to finish.

These are just some of the educational opportunities hidden inside video and computer games. After closer investigation, we’re sure you can find more in addition to hours of fun and amazement.

Between taking care of the household, the kids, the pets, and the district PTA, computer care is probably one of the last things that you think of doing on a regular basis. Without a regular maintenance schedule however, you could find out (the hard way) that a neglected computer is an energy hog - one that works harder than it needs to and one that could be a financial burden to replace.

Let’s talk about maintaining hardware. So much emphasis is put on maintaining a computer’s operating system that we sometimes forget how important it is to maintain a computer’s hardware components. Since there can be quite a few components to take care of, let’s talk about the most important one.

The most important component of a computer’s hardware system is its fan. The fan is located on the computer’s CPU unit and when that thing gets clogged with dirt and dust, it can run down a computer faster than you can say, “Something’s wrong with my computer and I don’t know what it is!” In short, the fan is responsible for keeping a computer’s motor cool and this motor is what keeps the computer’s hard drive and peripherals functioning the way you need them to, which translates to “fast.”

A dirty fan doesn’t rotate fast enough to keep that motor cool and a completely clogged fan just stops rotating altogether. This causes the computer’s motor to work harder - and a harder working motor can raise the electric bill! Worst case scenario: the motor can overheat and stop working as well. No motor equals no computer.

Keep your computer’s fan clean by preventing the fan from getting dirty or dusty in the first place. Use the computer in a dust-free environment and never smoke around it. Nicotine and tar mean certain death when it comes to computer fans, however should you find a need to clean the fan, do so with extreme care.

It’s quite easy to cause more damage from cleaning so if you’re not comfortable with cleaning your PC yourself, take it to a shop for servicing. Otherwise, you can unplug and disassemble the computer to do it yourself.

You’ll need a can of compressed air and an anti-static rag to remove stubborn clumps of dust. Hold the can perfectly vertical and spray the fan being careful not to spray the dust off the fan onto other sensitive parts of the computer like circuit boards or inside the motor casing. Wipe up remaining dust with your anti-static rag and then reassemble the computer.

One thing that you certainly don’t want to use to remove computer dust is a vacuum cleaner. Although using a vacuum cleaner seems to make more sense, the strong suction of a vacuum cleaner can actually spark damaging static electricity or dislodge loose cables. You also don’t want to use oil-based cleaners. Although Pledge may dust your wooden tables and cabinets to a perfect shine, the oil inside a cleaner like this will erode sensitive computer parts. Stick to a liquid-free dusting method and your dusting routine will be safe enough to repeat as often as you need.

As previously mentioned, preventing dust from entering the computer is extremely important and will reduce the need to open and dust your system in the first place. The severity of outside elements (smoking, humidity, pets, etc.) will ultimately determine how often you’ll need to de-dust your machine. But as an average, you shouldn’t need to perform this procedure any more than once or twice a year.

The entire exercise should take no more than twenty minutes tops and once complete, you’ll immediately see and hear the difference in your machine. The computer’s keyboard and mouse will run more smoothly, hardware won’t take as long to connect, and the entire machine won’t be as loud as one that’s corroded with ugly dust bunnies.

The following article is meant for parents of a teen who might be obsessed with video and/or computer games. While in some of our other articles we may sound as though we encourage obsession, we share a concern over teens who tend to shun other interests in life in favor for gaming activities to the point where they withdraw from society. We would never encourage this kind of behavior, and that’s why we’ve taken time to describe some of the signs of game obsession and offer some advice on how to deal with it.

Recognizing the signs of teen game obsession isn’t as easy as one thinks. It always starts off as first, an interest, and it then starts to grow into an addition. The problem with identifying the beginning stages of game obsession begins with the teen. By the time our children are 15 and up, they’ve learned some rather impressive debating skills. So when we question their motivations for repetitive game play, they may rebut our concerns with logic and even make it a point to question our own flaws as parents.

Since no parent ever really wants to admit a flaw, we can sometimes cave in and convince ourselves that maybe 4 hours in front of a video game isn’t that bad. After all, we spend that much time at the computer, on the phone, or transmitting data back and forth between our Palms, Blackberries, and Cingular cell phones.

Be careful not to fall prey to the logical teen. Video games can be addictive and if the time spent playing them is not carefully monitored, they’ll consume everything that a teen used to care about.

The moment you notice your teen’s grades falling, homework missing, or social life starting to drop off, nip that game time in the bud. If you wait too late to restrict game time, you may experience pre-adult temper tantrums that you aren’t prepared to handle correctly (cursing, breaking things, stealing, running away from home, etc.). At this point, the child is obsessed and will do anything to get his or her hands on a game controller.

Another sign of obsession is a behavioral change. A child obsessed with gaming will lose patience with things and with others, be quick to anger, and react to situations without fully thinking of the consequences. If you’ve paid any attention to video and/or computer games, you’ll notice that they require this kind of behavior to win or to advance to a higher level.

It’s unfortunate, but a teen obsessed with this kind of violent gaming is literally being trained to react in the manner described above. That’s why it’s pertinent that as an adult, you restrict access to this kind of entertainment and replace it with activities that slow thinking (such as art, music, theater, etc.) and expose your child to other non-violent pleasures (swimming, dance, skating, etc.).

There are a lot of debates circulating around about the impact that video games have on today’s youth and some of it might warrant paying closer attention to. As a mother or father of a teen, you will do well with your teen’s desire to “get his game on” by keeping a close eye out for undesirable changes.