Developers’ Selection

Cuil, which can be found on http://www.cuil.com, claims to be a refreshing wind in the land of search engines… A new way of searching, which should be more easy for users, because search listings are automatically categorized.

This all sounds very good, so we thought we’d give it a try… The Cuil-website looks very modern, and seems to be a little inspired by the Google page. The makers of Google always have chosen for a Spartan look for the landing page, trying to set as few links and words as possible on it. (Some weeks ago there was lot to do in the press about Google not willing to place an extra link on the landing page).

Cuil has about the same philosophy about that; displaying as less words and links as possible, the homepage is a black background with a logo and about 3 links. (of which the about-pages was actually not a link, because it didn’t work and showed us a 404-page).

But never mind, a search engine is meant to search, not to tell a fully illustrated history about itself. So we gave the search function a try…

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Last week we read on some news site’s that Google launched a new virtual reality environment called “Lively”. On Webwereld.nl they called it a combination of The Sims and Second Life, which is an appropriate description I think. We gave the beta version of Lively a first closer look.

After having logged in with our Google account, we could make an avatar. The basic avatars variate from cartoon-like figures to “normal” looking avatars. Once we had an avatar we began making a room…

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Normally, computer nerds (as people as me are labelled), only get a warm feeling looking at a brand new mother board that is again some not-noticable percents faster then the previous version. Mostly, the warm feeling in those cases is caused by the blush I get when I look back at the bill after having bought the motherboard in an impuls. This weekend however, a warm feeling was developed inside, not by a brand new silicon device, nor by looking at a bill…

I was at the Relay for Life event that was held June 19 and 20 in Second Life, and was simply amazed. I started at the sim Heroes 16, where one of my best “SL-friends” Talia (together with others) builded the archery range of Robin Hood. After having tried to aim but always missing the target, I joined her and some others at the side of the path that goes through all the sims of this event.

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Each year again, a huge number of people organizes several events in Second Life to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Every time again you’re amazed by how many people participate, and what they accomplish. One of the most “visible” events is the one the group “Heroes” organizes. They build an entire scenery, several sims large, in which events are held.

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Runescape… who doesn’t know it? The popular browser/java-based game, in which your avatar needs to complete quests in a magical/medieval environment. Although, that’s what the developers intended. Many players in Runescape don’t do any quests, but call themselves “skillers”. And that is probably the most successful way to become a rich man in Runescape, although it takes patience. But hey, that’s not what this post is all about :) (Maybe a future one will.. who knows)

We want to let you know that the High Definition version of Runescape has become available for all, and is out of beta. Now both free players and members can enjoy runescape on full screen, and in a wonderful interface. In my opinion, the game now finally has made the necessary step to attract lots and lots of players.

(Go to read more to see the Youtube movie)

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We started to rebuild the links and downloads section on this site. Therefore not all content that was previously available will be online the next few days. We try hard to get everything back online as soon as possible, and will keep you up-to-date here on the blog.

If you have any suggestions for the links and downloads, feel free to leave us a message!

…but a great step for virtual reality.

In my opinion, this is the best way to describe the result Linden Labs & IBM booked last week. Developers of Linden Labs and IBM managed to teleport succesfully an avatar from the Second Life grid to a grid of the open source community.

Only the avatar was teleported, the inventory, clothing or apparel weren’t. And it was only an experiment, “normal” users can’t use this feature yet. Why is this so important then?

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More than a month they were ahead of schedule when the Wordpress team launched version 2.6 today. Developers’ Selection works with Wordpress 2.6, and two new features in particular made us very happy.

First of all you can now select multiple options, by using the control key. This is easier than having to do them all one by one. Also the possibility to add a caption to an image is a nice new feature.

All new features are pointed out in this movie we found on the wordpress site:

Tribal Wars is a browser based game, in which you’re the leader of a small village. Your goal is to rule the world by expanding your village and joining a “tribe”.

On the forum of the Dutch Tribal Wars community, several times there was a request for a mobile version of the game. Each time the moderator-team answered this wasn’t a bad idea, but because of the minority of persons wanting to play the game on their mobile phone or PDA, there were always other, more urgent changes.

After some testing, I find a way to play the game on your mobile phone. This is how you do it…

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Hi all,

The past 6 months Developers’ Selection was visited by thousands of people, a result of which we are proud of.  However, because the website was growing, it was for us harder to keep the page up-to-date.

Therefore, we decided to change the page into a blog, using the Wordpress-system. In this way it will be easier for us to keep the page up-to-date. We have chosen the most basic design for the page available, in order to keep the page loading fast for everyone.

Another thing we planned but never came to, was making the page available for mobile devices. In that way again we could keep the page up-to-date in an easier way, as also our visitors could read our comments, reviews and previews at any time they want. We’re glad to announce that together with the new wordpress-system we installed, we also installed some plug-ins making the site available for mobile devices. So go ahead, and give it a try; www.developers-selection.nl should now also be readable in an easy way on your mobile phone or PDA. Depending on how frequently this is used by readers, we will look for a more accessible URL… :)

Also content will change a little; we will bring you a wider range of subjects, although everything will be related to the internet… :) We’re not planning on making reviews of hardware and such.

Thanks for you continuous visits to our website, and until next time!