Friday, November 16, 2007

Five Favorite Puzzle Games

I'll continue with my Friday Fun theme. I don't want to neglect this blog, so expect me to write more often, from now on. There is never an end to online discoveries that are worth sharing. It's my pleasure to post on Everyday Web Finds. I hope you enjoy my finds.

I was thrilled to discover the online puzzle game... Patchworkz on wellgames.com. It is one of the most enjoyable games I've played. You are given various sizes and shapes of patches. Your task is to complete a quilt-like pattern using those patches. Your opponent will try to complete the level before you do. Each level has a new pattern. There are 250 different patterns. It is definitely addictive. Once I start putting together the puzzles, I don't want to stop.


Wellgames.com has lots of other exciting games. The games all put a new spin on old favorites. Beadz is a match three type game, but it doesn't get boring. It's not the same old, same old. Glassez!2 is a fill in the shape puzzle. It has over 180 levels that will keep you occupied for hours. Fitz is a fresh take on the match three genre. Linkz is a strategy game. Move the colorful marbles around the board to remove polygons of the corresponding colors. The graphics of these games are beautiful and it's fun to compete with others. Have fun and tell your friends about this wonderful website.

I like word games. Every evening I play the Chihuahua Daily Online Word Puzzle. You are given nine letters and the aim is to make as many words as you can. Your words must be at least four letters long and there will be one or more nine letter words. The letter in the middle of the letter grid must be used in every word. For more information, check out the Help page. This is a multi-player game. You can see how many words the other players have formed and where you are in the standings. You can also play random games on your own. If you like Text Twist, you will probably like this game.


Rush Hour is another challenging puzzle game. You need to free the red car from grid lock. Drag the other cars and trucks out of the way. Try to make as few moves as possible. There are eighty different games of various degrees of difficulty. Below is a screen shot of Level 1, Card Set 1...the easiest puzzle!


Fulfillment is a speedy block fitting game. You have to hurry and put the puzzle pieces together into a square. The levels become progressively harder. This is a fine solo game for puzzle enthusiasts. Good Experience Games has a long list of quality online games.

Futoshiki is a logic puzzle game from Japan. The puzzle is played on a square grid, such as 5 x 5. The objective is to place the numbers 1 to 5 (or whatever the dimensions are) in each row, ensuring that each column also only contains the digits 1 to 5. Some digits may be given at the start. In addition, inequality constraints are also initially specified between some of the squares, such that one must be higher or lower than its neighbor. These constraints must be honored as the grid is filled out. My favorite site to play Futoshiki is Justplayfreegames.com. You can choose your difficulty level and keep track of possible numbers for each square. The Help page gives clear directions. My spell checker didn't know what to do with the word Futoshiki. It suggested the alternative word Photoshock. ; )

Did I suggest enough games to keep you busy this weekend? I hope you like these. For more puzzle games, check out the Passion for Puzzles blog.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Free Blog Post Editors

Back in February, Giveaway of the Day offered Post2Blog as a download. It was free if installed and activated within a 24 hour giveaway period. Post2Blog is a handy WYSIWYG blog editor which is compatible with Blogger, WordPress, Movable Type, Typepad, and other blog platforms. It has lots of great features. Now, you can download the newest version, Post2Blog 3, for free. It is being offered as freeware by ByteScout. Instructions for using Post2Blog can be found here.


Another blog editor that I like is Blog Desk. "BlogDesk is totally free of charge and optimized for the blog systems WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, Serendipity, and ExpressionEngine as well as the blog hosters Blogg.de and Twoday.net." It has an image wizard which lets you edit your images and easily insert them in your posts. You can use its notebook feature to work with and save text, before you use it in a weblog entry. Other features of the program are listed here.

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Another Excellent Website Guide

Another excellent library website guide is Internet Resources Newsletter. I should have included it in my last post. It is a free electronic newsletter, edited by the staff of Heriot-Watt University Library. You can subscribe to the email newsletter, subscribe via RSS, or visit the website and archives.

The Internet Resources Newsletter includes an A-Z guide to new and notable web sites. The Nice Website section focuses on one or more websites which are especially deserving of recognition. The Nice Website archive is also available. Another section, Blogorama, lists resources about blogs and RSS feeds. It links to a good selection of blogs and feeds. Most of the sites listed in the newsletter are academic in nature, but several sites promote leisure time activities. You're sure to find something of interest.

Saturday, March 3, 2007

Librarians' Web Finds

Librarians are dedicated to the service of sharing information with their patrons. They are passionate about books and comfortable with "magazines, newspapers, audio and video recordings, maps, photographs, archives, databases, and the internet in general." When the internet became popular, librarians were among the first to jump on the bandwagon. They work to provide high quality and up-to-date answers to library users and those who do research online. This is why some of my favorite websites are authored by librarians.

I subscribe to Marylaine Block's weekly website review, Neat New Stuff on the Net. Marylaine, a librarian, spends about four hours each week searching through new websites to find the gems. She picks sites that serve a wide audience..."children, men, dog-lovers, businessmen, stay-at-home moms, people of other cultures and religions." She finds this one of the most enjoyable acts of public service she has ever done. You can go directly to her website, Neat New Stuff..., or subscribe to the email version.

I also subscribe to El Dorado County Library's website guide, What's Hot on the Internet This Week. This newsletter describes a good variety of sites and I usually find at least a couple to bookmark for future investigation. I'm searching high and low for the "subscribe to" form for your convenience, but I haven't found it. You can go directly to the website and maybe you'll have more luck than I. Don't miss the "Hot List" archive. It includes links to four months worth of pages.

For more "websites you can trust", head on over to the Librarian's Internet Index. Every Thursday morning they send out their free newsletter, New This Week. It features carefully selected websites which are described and organized by a team of librarians. The main index has over 20,000 entries, organized into 14 main topics and nearly 300 related topics. You can subscribe to the newsletter via email or RSS. Or you can read it on the web.
"Librarians are not just good at internet searching because we understand how to play word games. We're good because we know where we need to go and the quickest routes for getting there; we are equipped not just with compasses, but with mental maps of the information landscape." Marylaine Block

Friday, February 23, 2007

Friday Fun:Week Two

I'm planning on writing more often than once a week. This blog will include my favorite software, web sites, photos, tips, and online books...my favorite web finds. Lots of blogs exist with the same theme. They each offer something that distinguishes them from the rest: the author's tone of voice, his/her area of expertise, the design of the blog, unique links, or distinctive writing style. I enjoy them all and can never read too many. I hope I write something that adds to your enjoyment of the Web.

A few weeks ago, I downloaded a free Patience game, written by David Mayne. It includes more than 200 versions of Solitaire. You can choose from multiple card sets, create your own card sets, or keep high score statistics. The game has unlimited undo/redo. Instructions are easy to follow. The download is only 3.66 mb. I highly recommend this software. It is a must have for any solitaire enthusiast.


Friday, February 16, 2007

Friday Fun: Week One

Who doesn't need to take a break and have some fun? On Fridays, I will post about fun things I have found online. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do. They may be games, videos, books, puzzles, quizzes, fun for kids, and fun for grownups.

Good things come in small packages. A year or two ago, I downloaded several small puzzle games from Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection page. I see that several puzzles have been added since then. The game called Solo is the same as Sudoku. You can play an easy Solo game or an extremely difficult Solo game. You can customize the size of the grid, use pencil marks, and save a game in progress. All Simon Tatham's puzzles are customizable and lots of fun. Even if you download the whole set, you will use only a small amount of computer resources. The games run on Unix, on Windows, and on Mac OS X. They are free of charge.

My favorite game of the bunch, Pattern, is similar to Paint by numbers , a Japanese logic puzzle. Griddlers.net is a good online source of these challenging puzzles. There are thousands of puzzles to choose from, with more being created daily. You can register to save your games in progress and join the Griddlers.net community. You might even become addicted.

Sudoku puzzles are easy to find online. Braingle is one possible starting place. You can choose your difficulty level and play as many games as you want. Braingle can be added to your Google Homepage. Fiendish Sudoku posts five new puzzles every day and offers an archive with hundreds of puzzles. The puzzles are hand created and are easy, moderate, hard, evil, or fiendish. Give them a try. Samurai Sudoku puzzles consist of five overlapping grids. They can be easy to "fiendish". This site has a daily puzzle and a large archive. If you want to pit your Sudoku solving skills against others, try the online speed challenge at Sudoku Fun. You might make it onto the leader board.

This is an image of a Nonomino Sudoku, also known as a Jigsaw Sudoku (and at least a dozen other names.) You can download PDF files of Nonominos at boldts.net. Each file contains 100 puzzles, so there's enough to keep you busy for a long time. I hope I get a printer soon, so I can download, print, and solve all these puzzles.

Take a break today.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

All Your Notes in One Place With EverNote

If you are looking for a good note-taking tool, I highly recommend EverNote. It is both beautiful and practical. Save any kind of notes, including to-do lists, web or email clips, text notes, notes with images, shopping lists, or anything you can think of. EverNote comes with useful templates which cover many note categories. You can email your notes or send notes via IM. Here is a link to the product features page. You can download EverNote for free or pay for the Plus version. I have the free version, which has all the features listed above and many more. The users' manual can be downloaded from this page. Update: The online EverNote userguide can be found at this link. The guide is just one section of the EverNote forum.

Multiple Note Formats

Intelligent, Multiple Categories

Powerful Smart Search

Web & Email Clipper

To Dos and Note Templates

Emailing and Printing...much more