[mca] February 2004 Newsletter
- From: "Mean Drake" <meandrake@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mca@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 02:41:28 +0530
February 2004 Newsletter
M
y newsletter has got delayed due to a particularly addicting online game
that I plan to review in this newsletter. I do not think I have so far in
all my newsletters ever reviewed a game. Because I am not particularly a
gamer, though I used to (when I had a lot of time) go and play Pool at the
club. Since I saw this game, I am drawn back again to those days and have
been spending hours online playing. I would suggest you try this at your own
risk!!!
Game review--Carom3D
by Mean Drake
For those fond of games of the pool genre, Carom3D comes as a perfect game
to play not only on your PC but also online with thousands of users all over
the world. It is a three dimensional pool game emulator with a number of
games that you can play. Games currently possible to play are 8 Ball, 9
Ball, Snooker, Rotation Ball, Three Cushion, 4 Ball and 6 Ball. For those
who like the quick games the first two are ideal and those who want a longer
game with a little more emphasis on skill snooker is available. For people
who would rather work on their cue ball control rather than pot balls, the
last three games are perfect. Best of all its all free. The download, the
game as well as online play. Everything is free. Let me mention a little
about the game now.
Graphics:
Graphic design is very good and you get a nice three dimensional view of the
table where you can zoom in and out as well as change the height from which
you are looking at the table. There are various 'rooms' with different
surroundings and different coloured tables to play on.
Music:
There is a standard MP3 file that keeps playing in the background as you
play (you can silence it). You can add your own MP3s to the MP3 folder of
the game and these will then play at random or better yet keep a playlist
file (.m3u) like one which Winamp makes in the folder and have the game play
songs at random from the playlist.
Game play:
Game play is engrossing and the aiming and shooting the cue ball is done
with the mouse. Side to side movements of the mouse get you the aim and when
you press the Ctrl key and move the mouse back and then forward you hit the
cue ball. The Shift key lets you adjust aiming finely and the Tab key lets
you toggle to TOP view. Its very simple and even a kid can learn it in one
day. Of course it needs a lot of skill and initially it might be frustrating
to pot a ball!!! Luckily for those with Dialup connections, the game does
not need too much bandwidth at all and even a normal 56kbps dialup
connection is adequate to play this game online.
Registration:
Setting up an ID is inbuilt and you can sign up and play all from within the
game. Of course before this you must go into practice mode to get the feel
of it before you play online. I found the process very simple.
Negative points:
well there are not many negative points once you get used to the game but
there are small improvements that are possible.
1. The joining of rooms to play is a little cumbersome as the rooms move
around in the window and you sometimes enter a wrong room. But this is a
trivial inconvenience.
2. The system requirements are a little heavy. A good graphics card
(GeForce2 minimum) and the latest DirectX drivers are recommended. On slower
systems it might seem a little sluggish.
All in all I fully recommend this game for Pool lovers.
Screenshot:
Get the most out of Google
While Google has now literally become one of the most used search engines,
many a times you will find that the search results that are thrown up are
not quite what you wanted. In order to get the best out of Google, there are
a few tips that one should be aware of.
Advanced searches:
If you really need to narrow down your search, you need to click the
Advanced search link. In fact there are three links Advanced search,
Preferences and Language tools just to the right of where you enter the text
phrase which are of great use for frequent googlers.
In the advanced search page you can select criteria like:
1. Language selection.
2. File format. Like pdf, word file, excel file, rtf format etc.
3. Date selection about how old or new the page need be.
4. Domain specific searches will only search a particular domain for the
keywords.
5. The words you are looking for may be asked to be searched for only in the
title of the page, or in links or anywhere on the page.
You can also select how many results to display on a page.
These help to get more specific search results.
If you are a regular googler, you should head over to preferences to set
your defaults. This enables you to set the language interface, search
language, filtering of results for explicit sexual content, number of
results on a page and whether search results should open in new window.
Keywords:
If you need to search for a combination of keywords, the following table
will help you greatly:
Google Keywords and Operators
Keyword Symbol
Usage
Action
[+]
Free+Email
Looks for pages containing both free and Email
[-]
Free-Email
Results will contain free but not Email.
[~]
~Electrode
Results will have the terms Electrode as well as its synonyms
OR
Honda OR Toyota
Results will have either Honda or Toyota
Cache:
Cache:http://www.meandrake.tk
Gives results from Google's cached pages.
define:
define: hacking
Gives the definition of hacking
site:
Software Site: http://www.meandrake.tk
Will search meandrake.tk for the word Software
related:
related www.hotmail.com
Will get sites related to Hotmail
info:
info: www.meandrake.tk
Gives what info google has about this site.
Happy Googling.
Till next time
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