The Dojo's Cubed Addict - Multiplayer Real Time game for Android, Mac, PC and Linux.

As we meet with client’s the hardest thing for them to wrap their arms around is that on the web, your business is instantly global.  “Awesome, bring it on.”  “Yeah, so, no big deal.”  These are some of the common answers we hear from client’s.  It is then we sit them down and using their enthusiasm or lack thereof, we coach them on doing business in a global economy.  It’s not always easy with i18n (shorthand for internationalization) and l10n (shorthand for localization) and social networking and web 2.0 and e-commerce.

Now imagine adding mobile customers to the mix.  That is exactly the challenge David Kainer of The Dojo experienced.  Provide his customers a gaming platform globally that easily works for all mobile devices and Linux, Mac and Windows computers (<=computer download link, start playing today) based customers.  He also added in multi-player real-time , and to top it all off…it is all FREE.

Techlife sat down with David, who from his Sydney office, works with the London office to learn about The Dojo.  How?  Why? How hard?  It’s all in there, and we even cover why he chose Google’s Android first over Apple’s iPhone. 

Techlife: What is The Dojo?

David Kainer: The Dojo is a global platform for uniting game players in interactive gaming, irrespective of platform. It’s aim is to provide great multi-player experiences on mobile and online and really begin to blur the boundaries between the two. Best of all – it’s free.

T: How did you come with the idea for The Dojo?  Was it based on something?

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Techlife brings a special feature to our readers, Techlife Illustrated. We have put together a visual tutorial for installing Google Gears. I deem Google Gears, the company’s trojan horse, because it is the gift to us the users, that strikes at the underbelly of Microsoft. It provides Google a platform for working with a user who is offline, say on an airplane. They re-sync when they are back in range. This gives them a real foothold on the desktop market.

I can easily see Picasa, Google Desktop and a few other products being folded under Google Gears as time goes on and Google’s strategy become more focused. For now learn how to get Google Gears working for you and your work.

Many experienced internet users have made the switch to Firefox, a web browser built by the Mozilla open source group. I know a lot Techlife readers are less likely to just switch from Internet Explorer or AOL’s web browser, because “Why switch, this is so easy and all my bookmarks/favorites are in Internet Explorer or AOL?” Today, I am asking to you think about switching.

While many sites tout the new features, extensions or the browsing speed of Firefox compared to other browsers, I have found the most compelling feature to date. Restore a previous session. This simple feature understands that brownouts, blackouts, kids, dogs, cats, husbands, wives and even your foot is often the culprit in your computer restarting. Here’s the genius part…

1. You are surfing doing a big research project on your trip to London
2. You have 5 to 15 windows open with flight times, hotels, car rentals, places to visit, even a make-your-own-map of your itinerary
3. As you are dreaming about being knighted by the queen, your foot slips off the desk and hits the power button — restarting your computer
4. Quick before you say “Oh, no!” which browser were you using?
5. In Internet Explorer, I hope you took note of the sites you had open because all is lost otherwise
6. In Firefox, the restore the previous session feature when you reboot allows you with a single push of the button get back ALL the pages you had open previously.

Even writing this column, I have 25 windows open at a time. Restoring them has never been easier and even makes me wish other times in life had a restore button. So yes…it has happened to me that the PC crashed or I shut down or restarted and this little feature makes it so much less scary than before. Give Firefox a try and let me know what your favorite feature or extension is in the comments.

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Techlife recently posted about our invite to Joost, the free online video network currently in beta testing. We offered up an invite to people who commented in that thread. Then I ran into a snag installing and each person who requested an invite instead got a personal email from me. Basically stating, thanks for your interest but we couldn’t hand out anything until we got it working as the invites were in the software itself.

We got it working!

I plan on posting a review next week of by far one of the coolest applications I have seen in quite a long time. We also plan on providing a lucky winner the chance to try it out and tell us their thoughts. Watch for our review and our contest post.

Note: As of right now the contest has NOT started, so if you want to enter, check back or sign up for our feed. Comments in this thread will NOT enter you in the contest.

Note 2: We have never locked a thread before on Techlife, but the original Joost thread is going to be locked to avoid confusion. For our Techlife superfans who commented on the original post, an added bonus, one of those select few will ALSO get an invite to Joost from us.

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Joost contacted me today! Apparently the Beta has gone widespread. Want an invite? Make a comment here. I will report more as soon as I have more.

Note: Comments have closed for this article.  Please see our Techlife’s Joost Invite Contest article.

Hello Dave,

The waiting’s over! Since we received your application to join the Joost
beta test program, we’ve been very busy fine-tuning it for you.

So here’s some good news: we’re now ready to expand our beta test
program, and we’re delighted to invite you to join us.

You can download the Joost software right away, by clicking on the link
below. You’ll find instructions for installing and running the software
on our download pages.

Get Joost here: {sorry had to erase this}
Before you can watch Joost for the first time, you need to choose a user
name and password. We’ve provided instructions for doing this on the
screens you’ll see the first time you run the software. So hurry – this
is still beta software and it’s not available to the general public yet,
so this is your opportunity to get the user name you want ahead of the
crowd!

Thanks for your patience in waiting for Joost. We hope you’ll enjoy
using it as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it.

Cheers,

The Joost team

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Getting your computer ready for a software install can often make the process a lot less painless.  And I am all about making things a bit easier.

I visited the Windows Installation Guide for True Combat: Elite.  As I mentioned I am not a real gamer, but I know enough that if your machine isn’t powerful, you can’t run the games.  So looked over the “Preparation” section carefully.

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As we jump in with two feet today, I felt it would be cool to use another immersive metaphor, first person shooter (FPS) games and this one is FREE!  For those unfamiliar, this a game where your on-screen view matches the perspective your character is seeing the world.  An example:

A trailer for a free video game.  Gotta love the dedication.

You hear a noise above you, you actually need to make your character look up to see it, from the first person view.  The shooter part should be pretty self explanatory.

So I found a really neat game, True Combat: Elite, a free FPS based on another free game called Wolfenstein – Enemy Territory (both downloadable at the True Combat site). 

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Love the LifePoster  
Click. Click. Click.  Snapping digital photos has never been easier.  Sharing them is getting pretty boring these days, with all the websites allowing a hum-drum interface that is basically the same.  TechLife is always looking for new ways to spice up photo sharing, and today we have great entry, in the free Postcard Viewer!

People love their digital cameras.  They love them as low-end phones, high-end DSLRs, and handy point and click models.  Readers of TechLife also love our Picasa LifePoster article.   It still gets comments.  I think people enjoy finding unique ways to use their digital photos other than printing them out one at a time.  This article is considered “graduate level” and assumes the reader has read the previous LifePoster article and the first Picasa article from TechLife. 

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MacGyver’s Notebook
To any origami master, a crisp, single sheet of paper can be turned into a beautiful creation with just a few folds.  The Japanese art of taking a simple object and turning it into something beautiful is just that, artistic.  In TechLife, “the useful” is much more my area of expertise.  Television’s poster-child of usability was MacGyver, who seemingly every week used duct tape and a paperclip to defeat the bad guys.  One utility item MacGyver always carried was his Swiss Army knife, a multi-utility tool about the size of a cigarette lighter.

While there doesn’t appear to be a revival of the television show, the idea of a utility tool in all areas of life is always appealing.  I have a special treat for you today, something I call MacGyver’s notebook, also known as a PocketMod.

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Good Karma

We all have had the experience (I hope), you do something nice for someone and you feel good inside.  Good Karma.  That is what makes this article special, it’s full of good karma.  I have two software toys that I want to give you as gifts, and here’s some even better karma, they are free.  With names like Electric Sheep and Stellarium TechLife readers are in for a treat.  

More after the jump…

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Happy 1 year Birthday Life Poster
The holidayà-?s are over. (sigh) The gifts have been opened. (sigh) You have mountains of digital photos (with your new camera) from Thanksgiving through New Yearà-?s totaling 100 shots? 1000 shots? 5000 shots? (sigh)

Not a problem if you recall TechLifeà-?s November 2005 article about Picasa; an easy to use and free of charge tool to organize digital images. While Picasa is great for digital organization, it also has a few hidden tricks; one of them is a Life Poster. A Life Poster is a collection of photos grouped together in a single image. Usually they focus around a specific subject. The best part is they are easy to make, and Picasa makes them even easier.

More after the jump. (more…)

Photo Logic
Your phone is ringing; it’s your editor. They just got a call from Oprah, she loves the advance copy of your book and wants you on the show. They just need a few things. Your editor says not to worry; they will send Oprah over the packet of information. Your editor then asks for the book’s last few digital images, a headshot, and maybe some family shots. “Can we get them all in 30 minutes?” Are they kidding? How will you find it all? More after the jump (more…)

Most of us are thousandaires. Millionaires you know who you are. Billionaires we all know who you are. But trillionaires? Financially, there is no one even close to this level of net worth. But you can be a trillianaire.

More after the jump (more…)