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News: The Best Places to Play Scrabble Online

There's nothing better than playing a game of Scrabble, feeling the smooth wooden tiles in your hand and savoring the heavy fumes of cardboard, cheap wood and plastic as you rearrange the letters on your rack into the perfect word. You try to keep a straight face while you watch your opponent sweat, but you can't help but release that diabolical grin of self-admiration as you play the elusive triple-triple. The score's recorded and you feel sorry for your bitter rival, but then you remember y...

News: 3 Long Awaited Indie Games at PAX That Should Be Released Already!

The small size of most indie game development teams is a strength, but also a weakness. It allows them to take risks and explore revolutionary ideas that a larger company could never justify to its shareholders, but also means they must navigate the game development labyrinth with minimal help, taking much longer than those with big development teams. Some of the most exciting indie games currently in development have been so for years, or look like they will be.

News: Friday Not-So-Indie Game Review Roundup: Combat Racing

Deep in their heart of hearts, most Americans dream of having their car festooned with missile launchers and machine guns. Anyone who cuts them off or looks at them funny in traffic could be dispensed with quick and extreme justice, leaving a real-life James Bond and his passengers free to pursue their American dreams faster than everyone else. Racing games and shooting games are among the two most popular types of video games. So why aren't there more games where one can race cars and shoot ...

News: Are You Noob-Positive or Noob-Negative?

noob - Short for "newbie." Someone with little to no experience or skill. In some gaming communities, there is fierce debate over the distinction between "noob" and "newb"—one being derogatory while the other simply indicates being a novice. While some may argue the semantic differences, "noob" is the most common spelling seen around the internet, for both purposes.

News: Birds as the Ultimate DIY Architects

The widely used expression "free as a bird" intimates an enviable existence: delicate, yet mighty wings transporting to destinations no human could so breezily venture. But despite their fanciful, superhero ability, in truth, the avian race leads one of the most difficult existences in the animal kingdom. Yes, birds have existed for eons—they likely evolved from small dinosaurs of the Jurassic period—but for these creatures, life can be ruthless.

News: Enrique Iglesias - "Tonight (I'm Lovin' You)" review

Leave it to to channel lust into a dance hit all about f-ing. The Spanish singer just has this impossible-to-pinpoint, irresistible charm that excuses his chauvinistic qualities and makes him radio gold.But at least he knows he's a pig, and this is the second song where he implores a lady at a club to forgive his forwardness. His rumored girlfriend Anna Kournikova better watch out, with all these groupies at the clubs Iglesias is going after.

News: Ogilvy & Mather's Mattel SCRABBLE Prints

Aside from the popular television commercials Ogilvy & Mather did for Mattel's Scrabble back in 2000 and 2001, they also have a large history in print with Mattel. From 1998 until the present, they've been designing graceful, risible and salacious Scrabble and Junior Scrabble adverts, winning prizes for advertising prints at the Cristal Awards, Golden Hammer, Loerie Awards, Cannes Lions, Epica Awards and FIAP. Without further ado…

News: Seido and The Shadow

Not long ago in Rome during a Master’s Tennis Tournament something remarkable happened. In a tightly contested game, American Andy Roddick challenged a linesman’s call on a ball hit by his opponent. The remarkable thing about this incident was that Roddick argued against his own interest. He insisted that the opponent’s ball had landed inside the line and that he, Roddick, should NOT be awarded the point. Spectators applauded as if they’d witnessed a miracle. Imagine! Sportsmanship in a profe...

How To: Recover Lost Files and Images

You've had a massive hard disk failure.. ...in your PC or laptop and like a large number of people who think it will never happen to them...you did not have a backup of those 2000+ family pictures, those hundred of important Word documents, those family videos that you downloaded from the camera then erased from the cameras disk...the inevitable "I'm Screwed!'

How To: Play the Snake Game Online (YouTube, Gmail & Facebook)

It's 1976. The hottest arcade game on the market is Blockade (or Blokade), an 8-bit maze game for 2 players. You and your opponent must move your characters around the screen in 90-degree angles, leaving a solid line behind them. Whoever runs into one of the solid lines first, loses. But soon you'll be able to play this fascinating game from the comfort of your own home—

Books: Digital vs. Analog

Since the invention of the printing press, books have been a dominant and iconic paradigm in our culture and throughout the world. During my years in elementary and high school, the digital world was on the rise sparking the conversation: Are Books Obsolete. Over the last year (or 2 at the most) that the term "Book" has started to make the shift from a physical object to the concept of a written work.

How To: Things to Do on WonderHowTo (05/23 - 05/29)

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most popular communities. Users can join and participate in any World they're interested in, as well as start their own community.

How To: Create a PCB Etchant That Automatically Improves After Each Use

Etching your own circuit boards is tons of fun, but etching requires strong chemicals to dissolve the copper plating on blank circuit boards. The normal ferric chloride solution works well, but can be expensive and leaves permanent stains. Luckily, we can whip up our own etchant at home with everyday chemicals! Better yet, our new etchant will turn an eerie green color rather than the dull brown of ferric chloride.

How To: Create Practically Anything, Part 2: 3D Models in SketchUp

Creating any object you want is as simple as point and click if you have a 3D printer at home. If you don't have one handy, there are a few companies that offer printing services online. But to help services realize your design in extruded plastic, you have to make a 3D computer model for the printing machine. For beginners, the free Google SketchUp application is the best choice of software. Using only a few tool bar buttons and a scroll wheel computer mouse, you can model literally any obje...

How To: Things to Do on WonderHowTo (05/09 - 05/15)

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most popular communities. Users can join and participate in any World they're interested in, as well as start their own community.

How To: Things to Do on WonderHowTo (04/25 - 05/01)

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the most popular communities. Users can join and participate in any World they're interested in, as well as start their own community.

Dungeon Defenders: Heaven for Hardcore Gamers

Dungeon Defenders is the most exciting craft game on the Fall 2011 release schedule. I got a chance to play it at PAX in August and interviewed developers Trendy Entertainment last month. After more than a year of publishing difficulty and delay, the game finally came out on PSN, XBLA and Steam. I put about 20 hours into the XBLA version over the past weekend, beating all the campaign maps and racking up a huge pile of in-game money. It is not a perfect game. But it is a huge, challenging, an...

News: The Best Books for Mastering Your Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR

The manual that's included with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II is a great starting point for learning the camera, but it's definitely not the only place you should be getting your information from if you intend to master your 5D Mark II. If you don't have the manual, you can download a copy of it here from Canon's website. It's great for learning the basics of the camera, but sometimes it can be vague and hard to follow. In order to capture the full potential of the 5D Mark II, you need to go a lit...

Weasel Out of a Ticket & More: Life Lessons from the Creator of COPS

In 1988, John Langley created COPS for the fledgling FOX network. 23 years later, the show is still running. It is the Energizer bunny of prime time television. Since John has followed more police officers and witnessed more crime than any human being on earth (absolutely no question), I had to ask some advice for hypothetical unwanted encounters with the men in blue.