EA to pull down servers with older online game titles

Gamers still logging onto older versions of Madden, FIFA, Tiger Woods, and others don't have much more time until EA suspends all online gaming features for dozens of titles.

The massive online service shut down will take place in two phases. On September 1, EA will scrap multiplayer capabilities for all 2006 and previous entries in itss FIFA, Madden NFL, Nascar, NBA Live, NCAA Football, NCAA March Madness, NHL, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour franchises.

Additionally, Arena Football, Fight Night Round 3 (excludes PS2 and next-gen), Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, MVP 07, and NFL Head Coach will all be cut off from the online world on 9/1.

No PS3 games will be affected by the move, but FIFA Soccer 06, Madden NFL 06, NBA Live 06, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 are all Xbox 360 titles that will be part of the online cut-off. The rest of the titles only affect the Xbox, PS2, PC, and PSP versions.

A second service cut-off will happen on November 1 for Burnout Revenge (Xbox, PS2), Need For Speed Underground (PS2, PC), and Need For Speed Most Wanted (PSP, Xbox).
Post Taken from D.J Tech

Skype Vs Vonage

n a way, the Internet is a paradox. Getting access to it in your home almost always requires you to spend some money. But once you have that access, you can use the Internet to save money. You can shop around for lower prices on everything from electronics to airline tickets. You can also send e-mail messages, pictures, music and videos without paying for any type of postage. With Voice over IP (VoIP) services, you can make phone calls -- even long distance or international ones -- for free.

Currently, there are several VoIP services on the market. The two most well-known ones are Skype and Vonage. Although both of these services use VoIP technology, they're quite different from one another. In this article, we'll explore how each of these services works, and we'll give you the information you need to decide if one of them is right for you.

Skype and Vonage are similar in that they're both VoIP services. When you make a VoIP call, you use your computer's built-in microphone and speakers, a headset, an IP phone or a phone plugged into an analog telephone adapter in place of an ordinary phone. This equipment and your computer translate the analog signal of your voice into a digital signal. The digital signal travels over the Internet. Once it reaches its destination, the telephone or computer that answers the call translates it back into analog sound. Check out How Voice over IP Works to learn about this process and how it's different from plain old telephone service (POTS).

Voice over IP uses a technique called packet switching to send a call over the Internet.

Skype and Vonage are also similar in that they can be significantly less expensive than traditional phone service. This is especially true if you make a lot of long-distance calls. Depending on how you use it, Skype can even be completely free. But the two services have more differences than similarities, starting with the steps you need to take to open an account.

To start an account with Skype, all you have to do is go to the Skype homepage and click "Download Now" to download a free program. This program is the Skype soft phone client, which includes an on-screen keypad you can use to make calls.Click here to read more

Build Website in minutes with Synthasite

Few days back i had a chance to test Synthasite, a new web based WYSIWYG editor. With Synthasite one can create web pages in minutes.The site is currently in private beta and has some basic features but it looks impressive, when they add full set of features it becomes killer application. Synthasite tool uses AJAX for drag and drop elements and it is easy to use.

One can easily create web pages with drag and drop text boxes, image place holders, pre-made templates, buttons. In addition to these you can also embed Youtube videos and Flickr Photos.

When you open the tool you will have a tool box on the right side of the screen, select the components like image, text box, media from the tool box menu and drag and drop on to the page. After that double click on the component you just added to the page, now you can change parameters for media types or enter text for text boxes.

Overall it looks like a cool application with nice design and some interesting features. Synthasite has a long list of features coming, checkout the roadmap for a complete list. The new features expected includes Template library, social/collaborative site building, hosting, file management etc.

Synthasite has some invitations left for trying the software, check out if you want to test the application.

Create your own social networking site

PHPizabi Alicia is a social networking script from Reality Medias, this can be used to builddating or a social networking sites. PHPizabi is a professional well designed script, considering the range of features it offers one can easily jumpstart to create a social networking portal with out any knowledge of the complex programming languages. The script is open source, so you have full control over the code to modify or to add new features etc.

It is written in PHP, backend powered by MySQl and has a clean template management system. The script developed in modular structure so that new features can be added as modules to the existing core. PHPizabi has tons of features and can be compared to commercial scripts, i will list some of the features here,

Features

Multilanguage support
Registration captcha
Mass mail support
Online / Offline status
Activity notification
Customizable genders
Email address confirmation
Automatic / Manual approval
Personal Gallery
Personal Blog
User settings panel
Ignore / Block users
Recent profile views
Newsletter
Profile / pictures rating
Profile views
Private photo gallery
Video Gallery

for a complete list of features go here

Software Requirements
PHP 4.2.x or above
MySQL 3.23.x or above
Apache 1.13.19 or above OR IIS 5.1 or above
GD2 (Image Processor)

Installation

Installation of the script is very easy, its a web based installation. First download the package from PHPizabi site and upload to your server using a ftp client. After uploading point to the folder you uploaded in your browser, the installation will start, it will take you through the steps; It will check the permissions of the file system, you may have to change some file permissions to 0777 or 0666, after changing the file permissions you need to enter the database information in the fields. If you haven’t created the database before it will attempt to create the database. Once it is finished you are ready to see your website, now you can login with your admin password (which you will create in the installation process) and start changing site name and other details etc.

Administration of the site very well designed, clean and simple. It is easy to maintain the site from the admin interface, as an administrator you will have full control over the features and you can control the access of users and a lot of other functions.

Basic features like Blog, Photo Galleries, messages, SMS, and Chatrooms will come with the core package, if you want additional features like Videos they can be added by downloading third party modules. Sometimes you may have to pay for some modules.

Overall the script is very handy for people who dont have a lot of resources to start a social networking site and who doesnt know programming to create this kind of site.

See the demo here
PHPizabi site & Download

Windows Live Folders and Windows Live Gallery

Microsoft announced today the availability of windows live folders beta and windows live gallery beta.

Windows Live Folders:

Windows live folders is a file storage service for users, currently 500Mb of space is available for storing files. Documents, Photos and Music can be uploaded to folders. Upload is through a form, you can login to the service at folders.live.com with your live ID and start uploading. Microsoft says that this beta is for testing and to get feedback on the service to better integrate in the future. According to them the service is available is US, but i could login to the with out any problem.

Windows Live Gallery:

Windows Live Photo Gallery is a stand-alone service that upgrades Windows Vista’s Windows Photo Gallery. Windows Live Gallery is freely downloadable and offers both Vista and XP SP2 users to share, edit and organize photos and videos. Windows Live Photo Gallery beta is available today in nine markets around the world so far (including the United States (English and Spanish), China, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Japan, and Spain), with more to come.

VeohTV

Recently i got a chance to check VeohTV, for those who don’t know about VeohTV it is a desktop application that lets you watch, upload and download video from popular video sites.

VeohTV is a killer application in the internet TV space. Like Joost and Babelgum it lets you watch TV over PC, you can search all the popular video sharing sites, you can also watch TV programs from ABC, CBS, FOX, MTV and a lot more. VeohTV also has a Youtube channel where you can recently popular, most viewed today and top rated videos.

It allows you to add video RSS feeds, download videos, organize your favorite collection with tags from the desktop client.

When you open the application you will see four tabs, Channels, Search, Interact and Library. You can browse all the channels available from the Channels tab. From the search tab you can search the video web with keywords, this took some time for me to get results this may be because of my connection speed. Interact tab allows you to watch the videos and here you can add web content in the form of yourminis.com widgets. From the library tab you can see all your videos including downloaded ones.

So far the VeohTV experience is great, search functionality takes little time. Since the content is pulled from various sites and it depends on their video quality.