Daily Bits

Sam

Anyone Else Addicted to Mafia Wars?

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The other day I was hanging around on Facebook and I received an invite to play the Mafia Wars game. I had heard about it, but had never tried. I decided to give it a shot.

Basically you need to do jobs here and there, with the objective of making money. Sounds simple, but it is really addicting. You can increase your level, and the ultimate objective is to grow your mafia clan. Social networks like Facebook represent a perfect platform for the game, because you can invite your friends to become part of the clan.

I also found a cool website where you can get a basic strategy guide for the game. It is called Mafia Wars Tips. There are some parts missing, but the basic information to get you on the right track is there.

The game takes place in New York, but once you achieve higher levels you will be able to travel to Cuba and Moscow. There are rumors that new places will be added in the future too.

If you play games online, this one is a must. The mob rules!

Give Some Cool Effects to Your Pictures

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I just found a site where you can make some really funny pictures, called Picjoke. Basically every day they add a new photo effect. To apply it to your pictures you just need to select it, upload the picture and bingo. After that you can either save the image to your computer or email it to friends.

The site started back in April, but they have already added 151 effects. You can browse for them month by month, and on each screen you will see a roundup of all the effects published that month.

For example, you can place your face (or the face of friends and family) on billboards, magazines, skyscrapers, movie posters, t-shirts, balloons, computers, stamps, you name it. It is like having an online photoshop for special effects.

Here are some pictures that we made with the DailyBits logo:

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Obviously the effects were made to be used with faces, but still we had some fun playing around with the logo. If you are looking to make some funny photos, check that site out. And make sure to bookmark it for those slow days at the office. If nothing else you will be able to put the face of your boss on the cover of Vanity Fair!

Comparing Web Hosting Plans

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If you have a website, you probably know how tough it is to find an affordable and reliable hosting plan. If you don’t have a website but are planning to, well, be warned.

One thing that can help in this decision is a web host rating website. It will allow you to compare different hosting plans side by side, including the features and prices offered by each. Good comparison sites will also have independent reviews written by the users, and this feedback can be very useful when choosing between a handful of companies that seem to offer similar plans.

Finally, here are some quick tips that might help you in the research process:

  1. Give preference to Linux based hosting plans, as they are more reliable and have more features.
  2. Don’t go with the cheapest plans. You will always get what you pay for.
  3. File a customer support ticket to test how fast they will answer it. Responsive customer support is a must.
  4. Don’t get seduced by huge disk space or bandwidth offers. It is very likely that your new site won’t consume even 10% of that.

Broadband Numbers Worldwide

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Recently I was browsing through broadband penetration reports and I found some interesting data. First of all, for the record, there are around 1,6 billion Internet users worldwide. That is about 25% of the world population.

Now that number obviously includes dial-up connections and even people who don’t have an Internet connection at home and use the Internet at work or on Internet cafes.

So have many broadband connections do we have? According to Point Topic, a research firm, by June of 2009 there were 444 million broadband subscribers around the world. If you want to get details about prices and bandwidth, however, you need to check local websites. One that we found useful is http://www.broadbandexpert.com.au/, which is dedicated to the Australian broadband market. If you visit the page with broadband plans you will find 44 offers compared. We did some calculations and found that in Australia the average monthly price for a broadband service is $63, and the average bandwidth speed is 16 Megabits per second. Not bad huh?

Again according to Point Topic, the 10 countries with the highest broadband penetration are:

  1. Monaco
  2. Luxembourg
  3. Iceland
  4. Denmark
  5. Switzerland
  6. Norway
  7. Australia
  8. Netherlands
  9. Malta
  10. Sweden

As you can see most of them are small countries, but Norway, Australia, Netherlands and Sweden perform well despite their larger size.

Finally, it is also interesting to see the rise of wireless Internet connections. Analyzing the numbers on the BroadbandExpert portal we can see that the average wireless broadband service in Australia costs around $30 and provides a speed of 3 Megabits.

What about in your country? How much do you need to pay for a broadband connection, and what kind of speed do you get in return?

Cool Photo Morphing Software

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morphingIf you take many photos, then you will probably want to add some special effects to them sooner or later. Morphing is one cool thing that you can do. It basically merges two different photos in one. If you mix the right photos, can results will be funny. For example, you could mix a photo of yourself with your kid to see how he will look like later in life. Or you could mix two celebrities together, like in the photo below:

I researched about photo morphing software, and one that I did like was called Morpheus. It does all the morphings on the fly and it comes with some useful features, including:

  • The option to output morphings in Flash or animated GIFs
  • A morph wizard to guide you in the process
  • The option to upload your photos online
  • Previewing
  • Share functionality to send your photos to family and friends

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The software is a paid one, but there is also a free trial version if you want to test it out first. Check it out if you would like to start morphing your photos.