Free On-Line Strategy Games Part I

Among the genres of online games that play best on the internet especially for those using slower connections such as dial-up is Strategy games. They vary from being turn based or real-time with the former being very tolerant of slower connections with high lag. Here's a compilation of the better strategy games thats available online without costing any of your moolah's to enjoy them....Game Away...

1. OGame - Yes a very odd name for any game, but this is a colony building strategy game based in space, very similar to one of my favorite games with a similar theme (Overload aka Supremacy), the added bonus is of course you'll be playing against another human and thats alot more entertaining that playing against a computer. Check it out at OGame.

2. Quantum Legecy - Prefer something with an Real Time Strategy flavor? then check out Quantum Legecy. A very polished RTS with both a single and multiplayer option and its free. You can check out a demo of the game via your browser but its a pretty heavy download. Check it out at Quantum Legecy.

3. Unification Wars - A MMMO Strategy based game with a theme of space conquest which can be accomplished via diplomacy or brute force. Graphics are very polished and the most important thing is that there are alot of players online when i last check it out (250+). Give it a spin at Unification Wars

4. Tribal Wars - If you prefer something more down to earth and with a more medival feel to it, then you need to try this, there are a couple of online medival strategy games I've tried previously, most of them had pretty badly done graphics but this is not bad (dont expect Crysis level graphics). Tribal Wars.


More to come.....

Wireless...Here to replace Wires? 802.11n is here to stay

Today has been a fruitful day, even with the more than usual daily hub bub taking place, I managed to take some time out of the day to do some research on wireless technologies. Yeah father, mother, aunty, uncle and even the neighbors dog has a wireless network running. Most of them a secured now a days but there are still the odd few that still believe in charity and leave their wireless networks unsecured ala Starbucks. Kudo's to you charitable people.

Well everyone has heard about the present 802.11 standards, which includes the "b" , "a" and "g" standards. The latest and greatest that will soon hit our doorsteps will be the 802.11n standard which will provide a theoretical throughput of, get ready for this...300 to 400mbps. To put this figure into perspective, the normal desktop at the office is connected to the network at only 100mbps, and the present fastest wireless technology is based on the "g" and "a" standards which clock in at 54mbps, heck most enterprise switches are connected to the network core with 100mbps ethernet uplinks.

Well what does this bode for us mere mortals? Well....

1. You can probably drop by the shops to bag yourself one of these babies soon (3Com AirConnect's) and start running your own small Video Streaming Service to your neighbors and local community.

(The PCI NIC's for Desktop PC's and USB Adapters are ready for shipping)


(802.11n Access Points)

2. It will just be a matter of time before someone fabricates a directional antenna for these babies and there you go, long range wide area networks at ethernet speeds. It would probably not replace the expensive WAN solution offerings on the market now but heck for those low budget operations its worth the idea.

(DIY Directional Antenna made from a can of Pringles)

(One of the many Directional Antenna's from Cisco)

Wireless is here to stay and with the optimizations put into the 802.11n standard such as MIMO, Channel Bonding and MAC Optimization it pushing the bandwidth threshold ever higher. The only thing we need now is a better ISP....at least for us poor souls in Malaysia.

I've been AWOL.....

Its been at least a month, to be honest I've almost forgot about this blog, I guess thats human...or at least its me. Start with gusto then trickle off into the sunset. Its a good thing that my secondary school friend Nasri or better know as Nash suddenly MSN'ed me and asked me about something i posted on my blog a couple of weeks back. A couple of days back another friend (whom incidently has a bun in the oven) also asked me when I was going to update my blog. So......

in these kind of difficult situations, there is only one mature and responsible thing to do....blame it on the work....but truth be told, the pace at work has been manageable the past couple of weeks, I wont say there all i do is sit down and watch grass grown (which coincidently is a pretty interesting pass time) but issues that crop up are usually dispatched quickly and with ruthless efficiency. Lol'ed.

Well I guess life in the IT industry especially in the vendor world has its quiet and busy periods, and now i would reckon its a moderate period. Which is a good thing, gives me some thing to think about other things. So back to blogging then....