If you’re handy with a laminator and some plastic tubs, these games could last a long while. And if they don’t, you can just print them again. No worries. Here’s some great printable games and sources to get you started.

BSG Express

BSG Express is a free non-profit print-and-play version of the extremely popular Battlestar Galactica game by Fantasy Flight Games. BSG Express is a much quicker game, but takes on many of the elements of the original game. Roll for skills, play action cards and accuse your friends of being toasters. There’s a bit of bluffing and deduction in there too, so it’s lots of fun.

Take-Back Toe

This Take-Back Toe game looks simple, is incredibly easy to learn and yet can be played repeatedly without getting boring. Take 40 poker chips, a 4×3 grid and a die, then prepare to work on your strategy.

Kolejka – Communist Poland

If educational games are your thing, why not teach your kids what it’s like to live in a communist country? Kolejka has you lining up at the doors of shops without knowing which shops are going to have a delivery that day. People use cards such as “Mother with a small child” to advance in the queue, then make deals with the merchants directly. It’s all in the name of getting home with a full bag of shopping.

Dr Who

Here’s a solitary adventure game based on Doctor Who. Whovians will love being able to take part in their own Dr Who story. Cards help you to gain allies, form enemies and take part in events and adventures. Basically, you’re writing your own Dr Who adventure, and what could be bad about that?

TimeLine

Sticking to the theme of time travel, TimeLine is another game you might like. Timeline has players combing history to buy important artifacts, then heading to the end of time to sell them.

Printing Games

All of these games are available for free to print, but if you’re really slack there are ways to get them printed professionally. Games such as TimeLine are already available to be printed at ArtsCow, while it’s also possible to get companies like ArtsCow to print any other printable card games you find online.

More Printable Games

If you’ve decided you like printable games, check out BoardGame Geek’s list of printable games and the list of free games at CheapAss. You’re bound to find some more games to enjoy.

More Printable Goodies

If you like printing useful things for free, check out these posts:

• 10 Websites to Make and Print Word Search Puzzles
• 3 Cool Sources For Free Printable Fill-In Puzzles
• Entertain Your Children With Printable Coloring Pages
• The Top 4 Sites To Find Free Printable Posters

Do you know of more great printable games? Add a link below!

The usual wisdom coming from salesmen and the “experts” among your friends is that Android or iPhone are the way to go, especially with the current decline of BlackBerry. However, a third choice is becoming more popular day by day: Windows Phone 7. But why should you ignore the endless screens of shortcuts and widgets on an iPhone or Android in favour of a platform that is centred on you, the user, rather than the apps?

10 Reasons To Choose Windows Phone 7

10: Slick User Interface

You can find it on Windows 8 and Xbox 360 but the original and best use of the Metro UI is here on Windows Phone, where it is ideal for finger-based interaction. There is more to Metro than tiles, incidentally – the type face, the convention of “hinting” at additional screens to the right and the simple switches to enable and disable features are all part of the deal.

9. Fast

When I purchased my first Windows Phone I was astonished at how fast particular tasks could be performed. By far and away the most impressive was the speed with which I could snap a photo and upload it to Facebook, but the speed of the keyboard was almost as astonishing, making it very easy to send emails and messages, leave notes to myself and update social networks.

8. Office Integration

It’s not for everyone but the integration with Microsoft Office on offer with Windows Phone is second to none. Exchange email accounts and SharePoint servers can both be accessed while Word documents, PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets created on your phone can be sent by email or uploaded to either SharePoint or Skydrive.

There are none of the compatibility issues that you will find with Android, BlackBerry or iPhone.

7. Social Networking

Key to the early interest in Windows Phone was its integration of Facebook into the contacts list and the latest release sees Twitter and LinkedIn added. You can disable this feature if preferred – standard apps are also available – but this is an excellent way to keep everything updated at once.

6. Nokia Music

The main Zune media player on Windows Phone is excellent and allows you to integrate third party media apps such as Last.fm (free on Windows Phone) but the whole idea of music on a WP7 device has taken on a new life thanks to Nokia Music. Available only on Nokia Lumia handsets this system allows you to stream music from the cloud to your phone and keep a number of your favourite tunes from the selection.

5. Nokia Drive

Again courtesy of Nokia and their joint partnership with Microsoft, Nokia Drive is a sat-nav application that uses cellular positioning and GPS to instruct you along the correct route to your destination. Nokia Drive offers a good alternative to the sat-nav apps available in the Windows Market as well as those on other platforms.

4. Xbox Live Integration

If you have the urge to unlock gaming achievements while at work or on the train, what better way to do so than with your existing Xbox Live Gamertag? Top titles such as Angry Birds, Assassin’s Creed and PES 2011, are available, and there are many non-Xbox Live games available from the Market.

3. Fast Growing App Store

In fact the Market is one of the crown jewels of Windows Phone, reaching 10,000 apps faster than any other mobile phone marketplace and reaching 50,000 apps quicker than all of the competition except iPhone. Best of all, the vast majority of apps in the Market are free.

2. Email & Internet

Naturally Windows Phones offer the ability to connect to any type of email account. Meanwhile the phone features what is probably the best iteration of the Internet Explorer browser, which features such fascinating innovations as placing the address bar at the foot of the screen in the so-called “dead space” area.

1. Skype

The popular voice over IP, cam and text chat service has been purchased by Microsoft and is set to arrive on Windows Phone in the next few months. If none of the other reasons for buying a WP7 device have tempted you so far then surely the presence of the Internet’s primary multi-function messaging service will.

Need More Reasons?

Actually, there is an 11th reason why you should buy a Windows Phone, specifically the Nokia Lumia 800. By doing so, you get the opportunity to be there at the start, be an early(ish) adopter and grab a stylish new mobile phone running the most stunning and efficient mobile phone platform currently available.

Make no mistake; while the phone isn’t set to be released in the USA until later in 2012, the Nokia Lumia 800 adds the necessary physical hardware style to Microsoft’s mobile platform. It’s already become the top selling phone in the UK and the pattern is set to be repeated around the world. Remember when everyone started buying iPhones? This is one of those moments.

Let us know what you think in the comments.  Is Windows Phone set to become the next big thing?

Image Credits : Windows Phone Newsroom

An artisan is a craftsman who is a master of their field. Here is a collection of some of the most interesting and mesmerizing videos of artisans who take immense pride in their work and strive to be the best at what they do.

Tea Server

I’ve been to a good number of restaurants in my day and I’ve seen waiters and servers with enough balance and dexterity to put trained acrobats to shame. But I’ve never been as impressed with a waiter as I was when I first saw this video.

As if the balancing act wasn’t enough, he pours hot liquid into the cups without dropping or flinching – twice!

Fish Filet

When a skilled man falls into a rhythm with their work, mechanically repeating their actions with robotic perfection, I become enthralled. Perhaps this is commonplace in the fishing industry, but seeing this man filet his fish in record time without leaving anything leftover has left me impressed.

Shoe Shiner Duo

Shoe shining may or may not have a slight stigma surrounding it, specifically that it is a job relegated to those of lower socioeconomic status. But these two men, in shining a pair of shoes, have injected a new sort of life into their occupation. It’s obvious that they take pride in their work and enjoy what they do, and that just makes it more awesome.

The King’s Dessert

Now, there’s nothing particularly difficult with what this man is doing. He’s essentially just pulling and twisting strands of frozen honey. However, you can definitely feel the enjoyment and pride he has in his work when you take in his charisma and charm. Plus, he’s funny. Funny is always good.

Ironing a Shirt

What if I told you that you could be entranced by something as simple as a man ironing a shirt? Most people, men in particular, would scoff at the idea of ironing a shirt. It’s nothing more than a chore, right? Well, this man seems to disagree. Passion can make the most mundane tasks interesting.

There’s a certain fluidity and confidence that this man possesses, and it absolutely shows in his work. You can tell that he has years of experience under his belt.

Santalum Shoes

(Warning: Silence until 0:25. Don’t foolishly pump up your speakers like I did…)

Santalum makes some pretty darn good quality shoes, but they’re hand-made and only available in Indonesia. That’s too bad because I’m sure there are plenty of fashion-heads all around the world who would love to grab a pair of these for themselves. Just watch the video and you’ll see the amount of skill, energy, and passion that is put into every shoe.

Ink Maker

In this video, Peter Welfare of the Printing Ink Company describes his love for the ink making process and what goes into the creation of said ink. Not only is this video highly informative, and not only does it showcase Welfare’s artisanship, but the video is just well made – high production values and fantastic editing.

Every time I start this video up, I can’t help but watch it to its end.

Perfect Cappuccino

If you love coffee and all things coffee-related, forget about Starbucks and pay attention to this guy from Intelligentsia Coffee. His knowledge precedes his passion, and he speaks in a way that just makes the whole topic so interesting. For most of you, this won’t be more than a simple video of someone making a cup of coffee. I’m hoping that the rest of you will be able to see the beauty of it.

Do you have any artisan videos of your own that you’ve enjoyed? Share them with us in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

In the tech world, some of the most useful books available are from the O’Reilly collection. So, what could be better for your ebook collection than getting some of these great O’Reilly ebooks for free? Not a lot, really.

Today we’ve decided to showcase a few of the best O’Reilly ebooks you can pick up for free. Many of these are out of print and offered online specifically to keep the works accessible to you all, so you don’t need to feel bad about getting it for free. And if you do feel bad, just go buy a new O’Reilly book to keep the money going towards more of these projects. Note that some of these are available in ePub or PDF formats, while others are only available as HTML.

Linux Network Administrator’s Guide

Olaf Kirch & Terry Dawson, ISBN 1565924002

This book explains all the basic software and protocols you need to understand in order to begin network administration under Linux. It also talks a little about hardware needs. It doesn’t focus on Samba as there’s another free O’Reilly eBook dedicated to Samba.

Readers of this book may also appreciate Linux Device Drivers and Learning Debian GNU/Linux, which are also available to read for free.

Producing Open Source Software

Karl Fogel, ISBN 0596007590

This is a book to guide readers through the process of creating open source software. Primarily, it’s for the developers and managers of the open source project, but it’s also useful information for people who plan to participate in open source projects. Essentially, it discusses the human side of the process and how to make your project succeed.

Creating Applications With Mozilla

David Boswell, ISBN 0596000529

You may have heard of a number of excellent Mozilla-based projects, such as Songbird, the Flickr Uploader and Postbox. If you want to create a Mozilla application or work on one of the established applications, then this book is a great place to start.

CouchDB: The Definitive Guide

J. Chris Anderson, Noah Slater, Jan Lehnardt, ISBN 0596155891

CouchDB is perfect for creators of web applications that need a reliable, scalable, fast database manager. Written by three of the creators of CouchDB, this book is intended to be all you need to know about the document-oriented database.

We The Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People

Dan Gillmor, ISBN 0596102275

We The Media is something a little lighter for anyone who’s interested in citizen journalism, either as a movement or as a new participant. If you want a glimpse into how online journalism will change journalism as a whole forever, this book will deliver.

Don’t forget that O’Reilly have a current list of their open books here. Which O’Reilly eBooks are your favourites?  If they are online, let us know the links to them so we can check them out.

So, today we’ve pulled together this list of blogs and websites for fun toddler activities for you. Some sites made the list because of how fun and usable their content is, while others have made the list by having a good variety of content for toddlers on hand. This list should have something for you, whether you’re looking for educational fun, outdoor activities, printable pages, crafts or recipes.

1. Quirky Momma Kids Activities Blog

The Quirky Momma Kids Activities blog is a vibrant, interesting blog of kids activities and they make sure to dedicate sections of the blog to showcasing the best activities for each age group, making it easy to find things for your toddler to do.

These writers know exactly how to make up activities designed for the precise needs of growing kids. The toddler games focus on sensory activities, fine motor control, discovery, sorting games and building toys.

2. Play Based Learning

Play Based Learning is written by an Australian duo of early childhood educators, hoping to inspire parents and preschool teachers alike. Their colourful site is full of great ideas for toddler play which can be used by families or groups with more resources.

3. Today Is Fun

Two dads have come together to create Today Is Fun, making the site easy to search or browse by age so it’s easy to find something for your toddler or their older siblings to do. The activity ideas are quite creative and educational and they are colourfully displayed. It’s also possible to browse by handy categories such as “No Props Needed” and “Good For Bathtime”.

4. The Crafty Crow

The Crafty Crow is an aggregator site of children’s crafts with browsable categorising and a decent amount of toddler ideas. They feature and link to great ideas by smaller bloggers. While aggregators have a little less personality than a dedicated blog, they are certainly good at delivering exposure to numerous bloggers and ideas that may otherwise have not been seen by the reader.

5. Filth Wizardry

Filth Wizardry is a one-writer blog, so will never compete with the bigger blogs on the number or frequency of posts, yet it has a lot to give in quality. The charm of this blog is in the belief that kids are messy and that messy fun is great. There are some lovely art and craft ideas and ways to get involved with nature in this blog and it’s possible to browse by useful labels such as “at the kitchen table”.

More Reading For Toddler Fun

These articles might also come in handy for your children:

• 8 Awesome Android Apps To Keep Your Kids Entertained
• Preschool Online Games That Are Fun For Children
• 5 Best Computer Games for Toddlers
• ToddlerKeys Makes Your Windows Computer Baby Friendly!

These websites will offer you a wealth of fun activities for toddlers between them, ensuring you’ve always got a few easy, educational ideas for play up your sleeve. Have fun!

Since there are a great many fantastic blogs and websites for toddler activities out there, we do encourage you to link to your favourites in the comments and tell us why they are the best.

(Stats were compiled from a combination of number of comments and total social share counts)

• How to Enable Facebook’s New Timeline Profile Before Anyone Else: Mark was quick on the case with this quick and dirty little hack that involved signing up as a developer  - now officially rolled out to everyone.
• 4 Things To Do When Your Facebook Account is Hacked: Keep Tina’s tips bookmarked in case it ever happens to you.
• Add Nyan Cat To Your Progress Bars: Also taking the award for the most useless tutorial published on MakeUseOf, Justin showed us all how the cute rainbow poptart feline (with accompanying soundtrack) could be embedded into the very core of Windows.

• How to Check if Someone Else Is Accessing Your Facebook Account: It’s another Facebook security article, with this simple way to check if you’re being hacked! Thanks Steve!
• 8 Free Tools To Visualize Information on Twitter: Nancy knows that a long list of tweets isn’t always the best way to look at Twitter, so check out some of these tools to really understand what’s going on. Or don’t, because Twitter’s mostly noise anyway, according to me.
• Facebook’s New Way of Using You As Free Advertising (And How to Stop It): Tim isn’t a fan of Facebook advertising, especially now that things you’ve liked will be paired to advertisers and shown to your friends.
• 9 Easy Ways to Never Get a Virus: Some of us just never get viruses, and don’t waste money and computing resources on virus scanners either – and it’s down to these 9 easy preventative steps.

• 5 Cool Twitter Search Tricks to Monitor What People are Saying About You: While I severely doubt anyone is talking about me on Twitter, if you have a brand or company like Nancy does and want to keep track of social opinion and reactions, you’d be well advised to try these awesome tips out.
• 5 Things You Need to Stop Posting on Facebook:in which Joshua makes a case for not wanting to see your holiday snaps, vague messages about unspecified people, chain letters, or location updates.
• 55 Geeky One Line Jokes: Tina has scoured the Internet so you could get 15 minutes of laughter geeky laughter. Featuring such classics as “Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO is the answer.”
• 5 Apps That Let You Video Chat With Facebook Friends: Steve is a Facebook pioneer it seems, and was on top of Facebook video chat well before they officially integrated Skype into Facebook.
• 10 Ways to Update Facebook and Twitter Simultaneously: Though this would be at the top of my own list of things to not post on Facebook, Nancy shows us exactly how to spam your status updates to both Twitter and Facebook!
• Facebook Finally Offers Encrypted Sessions: Did you know anyone on the same network as you (such as public wifi) can easily grab your Facebook password and username? Well, not anymore if you enable Secure HTTP – Tim shows you how.
• 10 Most Disliked YouTube Videos of All Time: Though Facebook has been resolute in not giving us a well needed dislike button, YouTube has had it for ages. Check out Steve’s list of what made YouTube users cry out in pain.

• 5 Tips and Tricks For Avoiding Facebook Phishing Scams: Nancy shows you how to avoid the new scourge of phishing scams, this time targeting your Facebook data.
• How to Turn Off the Photo Viewer in Facebook: If the lightbox style photo viewer isn’t to your fancy, Nancy has you covered with these 5 methods to deal with it.
• How To Create an iPhone or Android App Without Any Coding Skills: Bakari shows us a few fantastic tools to turn your app ideas into a reality. What are you waiting for?
• 5 Xbox Kinect Hacks That’ll Blow Your Mind: A year ago I highlighted some of of the fantastic projects that people have hacked together on the Kinect platform.
• 8 Reasons Why I Switched to A Mac: Possibly the most controversial post of the year, in which I outline why the Mac is now my primary computing platform.
• The 5 Most Annoying Things People Do On Twitter: It’s not just Facebook that’s full of rubbish you know, so here’s Dave letting off some steam about what Tweets he just can’t stand.

• 3 Unique and Creative Uses for Dropbox Accounts: Nancy outlines how you can use Dropbox to listen to music, create a portfolio, or even host an entire website. Amazing!
• How To Root Your Android Phone With Super One Click: An essential first step for any new Android owners, Ryan showed you a nice and easy rooting method, though you do need to install a SDK too.
• Install the Release Build of iOS5: though it did mean your iPhone could no longer make phone calls, clearly a lot of people were interested in the latest and greatest iOS. Dave tried his best to help you through your upgrade problems in the comments.
• The 7 Best Powerful Netbook Applications That Don’t Chug System Resources: in which Matt shows exactly how to get the most functionality from an underpowered netbook – but advice that could really be applied to any PC.
• 8 Spectacularly Wrong Predictions About Computer and The Internet: While I’m not adverse to making predictions of my own, Tina finishes off the list by examining some of the more hilariously off-target computing predictions from the last few decades – like this little gem “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons” – Popular Mechanics, 1949.

That’s all folks! I’d like to take this moment to thank all my fellow writers for making me feel welcome since I joined in December 2010, and for continuing to publish fantastic and useful articles week after week – as well as to all our readers for sticking with us, MakingUseOf our tutorials, and generally being awesome! Stay tuned for ever more fantastic articles, and do let us know in the comments if you had a particular favourite article of 2011!

But simply having one of these notebooks won’t be enough to spark your productivity and get your steam pumping towards optimal efficiency. Here are a few ways you can elevate your Moleskine from “just another notebook” to “I can’t live without this anymore.”

1. Stay Productive With Circle To-Do Lists

The most basic to-do list is often no more than a list of shoddy descriptions of tasks that are crossed out when completed. While this simplicity may be enough for simple tasks that are either “done” or “not done,” you may need a more elegant system for longer-term tasks.

In steps the Circle Method. Basically, this method starts each list item with an empty circle beside it and gradually fills those circles with marks depending on the tasks’ completion levels.

• New Item: To start a new item in the list, draw an empty circle.
• Next Item: To distinguish the next task you want to tackle, place a dot in the center.
• Item Started: To mark a task that you’ve started, cross the circle with a diagonal slash.
• Item Cancelled: To mark a task as trashed, cross the circle with an opposite slash.
• Halfway Complete: When you’re halfway through a task, fill in half of the circle.
• Fully Complete: When a task is completely finished, fill it in all the way.

The method is smart and extremely versatile, allowing you to change the status of a task if necessary.

2. Organize Using The Quadrant Technique

If your notes require a lot of internal referencing, then the Quadrant Technique will be a lifesaver for you. The only downside is that it requires an initial time investment to set up the notebook.

Set up your notebook by dividing each page in half – draw a line through the center, separating the top from the bottom. This will create four quadrants: the top-left quadrant is A, the bottom-left quadrant is B, the top-right quadrant is C, and the bottom-right quadrant is D.

Each group of four quadrants is called a block. Now go through and number each block, starting with 1. I like to place the number in quadrant A, but feel free to put it wherever you like.

That’s it for set up. Now, if you’re writing notes in quadrant 38C (block 38, quadrant C) and need to reference something in block 12, quadrant A, just insert a parenthesis: (12A). Done.

3. Create An Index In The Back

Set aside the last 10 pages of your Moleskine notebook and use them to create a system of indexing. This is extremely useful if you have notes on various topics and intend to reference them over and over again.

In order to use an index, you’ll need to number your pages from start to end. If you’re using the Quadrant Technique, you can use that as your reference instead.

Indexing itself is simple. If you have a page of notes comparing different laptops, flip back to the index and write on a new line, Laptop Comparison, page 38. Now, if you need to reference that comparison, you can find it easily. Instead of flipping through the entire notebook, you only need to flip through the 10 or so pages in the index.

The indexing system grows more useful as your notebook grows more packed with information.

4. Divide The Notebook With Plastic Tabs

Bump up your notebook’s organization by using plastic divider tabs, especially if you use your Moleskine for more than one purpose.

If you’re using the previously mentioned quadrant technique and indexing system, you might feel tempted to just fill out your notebook as you go. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it certainly isn’t optimal. Wouldn’t it be easier on your mind to split up the notebook in chunks and assign each chunk to a topic?

The plastic tabs, then, are a great way to visualize the different sections. Combine this with the other organizational techniques, and you’ll soon find your Moleskine becoming an integral part of your life.

5. Choose the Right Pen

Believe it or not, you can boost your Moleskine notebook to the next level simply by switching to a different pen. Which pen should you switch to? That’s entirely up to you. However, there are a few guidelines for which pens work well with the Moleskine.

• Choose a pen that doesn’t bleed. Using a pen that bleeds through the pages can be disastrous. At best, you’ll render clean pages unusable. At worst, you’ll render past work illegible. Mostly, you’ll just turn your notebook into a mess of ink spots, and that might keep you from wanting to use it anymore.
• Choose a pen that doesn’t smear. Similar to the bleeding problem, a wet pen that smears easily will result in notes that can no longer be read. Even if you’re careful as you write, the ink will smear as soon as you close the notebook. Avoid smearing pens unless you want to wait for the ink to dry every time you jot down a note.
• Choose a pen that feels comfortable in your hand. It’s amazing how holding the right pen can make you want to write more. Pen comfort is individual, so you’ll need to find one that fits your hand well. It doesn’t matter if you need a thin pen, fat pen, long pen, short pen, or one with rubber grips – get one that you enjoy writing with.

If you need a recommendation, try using the Pilot G2 pen. It won’t break the bank, it doesn’t smear or bleed, and it writes smoothly.

Conclusion

If you don’t use your Moleskine all that often, then you probably won’t gain much benefit from applying these tricks to your routine. However, if you use your Moleskine enough that you carry it around with you everywhere, then these tricks can heighten your notebook to the next level.  Let us know in the comments what tricks you use.

Even several of the following movies aren’t of the highest caliber, but they’re the best of an average bunch, so us gamers will have to make do. Issues often arise when filmmakers try to stick too closely to the plot, which is why many of the movies listed below are merely based on elements of video games. It’s a much safer bet to lift characters or certain ideas from a game or franchise and explore that in greater depth.

The Top 10 Video Game Movies Of All Time

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Angelina Jolie was the perfect choice to play the movie version of Lara Croft. And the planets aligned to mean this was a movie worth making. Lara Croft is still an iconic character, but in 2001 she was at the peak of her powers.

Tomb Raider is one of those video game movies that benefited from gamers wanting to see their favorite title brought to life.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Absolutely gorgeous CG visuals make Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within worth watching. It’s probably my favorite film of this entire list. It benefits from its lack of needing to stick to a plot from an existing game, merely borrowing elements from the Final Fantasy series.

Recent Hollywood efforts have lessened the visual impact but it still looks sumptuous and has an interesting storyline to boot.

Mortal Kombat

The first Mortal Kombat hasn’t aged well. But then neither has the game series. This movie takes the literal approach to adaptation, and suffers as a result. With characters which work on a 2D level but fail when fleshed out. However, it has its fans, and has become something of a cult classic.

Avoid the sequel at all costs. Unless you enjoy ‘fatalities’ to the point you’d like to die from watching a terrible film.

Resident Evil

The first Resident Evil movie is a pretty classy affair. Milla Jovovich adds an especially beautiful element to the engaging storyline and rage-filled action sequences. Elements from the game are liberally sprinkled in amongst new plot devices which stop the whole thing grinding to a halt.

This is a survival horror film which lives up to the considerable hype afforded it.

Silent Hill

The movie isn’t as scary as the game it’s based on. But that would have been impossible to pull off. Silent Hill the game is a creepy, atmospheric affair, and Silent Hill the movie is very similar in style and scope. This is a film which shows up the biggest problem with video game movies: the lack of interaction.

Still, watch Silent Hill in a dark room in the middle of the night and be prepared to sense something is creeping up behind you once or twice.

DOA: Dead or Alive

If you dare to watch DOA: Dead or Alive then you may well lose a few braincells. This is not a movie for brainiacs, but then the game was hardly one for the purists, with the biggest draw being the animated bouncing of a certain body part. Yes, gamers are that easy to please sometimes. And so, it seems, are movie buffs, because this is one of the highest rated films on the list.

DOA: Dead or Alive is fun. No more, no less.

Max Payne

Max Payne was never going to be an easy adaptation. And the result of this attempt is a bit of a mess. It’s saved by the cinematography, which evokes an atmosphere very reminiscent of the film noir-styled game. Try to look past Mark Wahlberg’s woeful performance as the titular character.

This barely made it onto the list, only doing so due to the dearth of great flicks there are to choose from in this genre.

Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time

Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time was an attempt by Hollywood to make a big-budget video game movie adaptation that worked. The film retains enough of the plot of the game to please fans while not sticking so stringently to it to make it unwatchable. The special effects of the Sands Of Time of the title are stunning to watch, somewhat making up for the lack of a cohesive storyline.

Worth watching for Gemma Arterton’s bare midriff alone.

Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

Final Fantasy VII is a pure gaming experience. Newer RPGs such as Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim are genius, but Final Fantasy VII remains many people’s favorite game of all time. The plot of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children will confuse those who have never played the game.

Advent Children is a lusciously animated epic showing what happened to the beloved characters after the game ended. And it was a bestseller on DVD and UMD as a result.

Professor Layton and the Eternal Diva

Professor Layton is a phenomenon. And with good reason. Mocked by hardcore gamers, the storylines are involving, the puzzles cleverly constructed and difficult to break. The movie could have easily sucked, but the characters are present, the storyline is bizarre-yet-charming, and there are even a few puzzles thrown in to the mix.

Enjoy this film for the simple pleasures it affords.

Conclusion

Compiling a list of the worst video game movies of all time would have been easier, because this isn’t a genre bursting with gems. A desire to be positive, however, means I have recommended films that some people will abhor.

Do you agree or disagree with this list? Which videogames would you like to see turned into films from here on in? Uncharted and Halo are surely musts.

Image Credit: Ben Brown

A lot of these toys come from offbeat and novelty shops such as Vat19, ThinkGeek, and others, all of which always present their products with ultra-witty descriptions and videos (especially Vat19). Let’s check out what pieces made it to this round of gift ideas.

Magic 16 Magnetic Puzzle Ball [$11.99 on Vat19.com; ages 3+]

Think of this puzzle ball as 3D Tetris around a sphere, where the purpose is to arrange the 16 colored magnetic pieces around the ball so they’ll completely cover the inner green ball and form a shell.

There are 4 solutions that are printed in a sheet inside the package in case your child has tried his or her best in solving the puzzle. The coolest part is that all the pieces fit inside the green ball for easy storage and portability.

IcoSoKu [$19.99 on Vat19.com; ages 7+]

Here’s another 3D brainteaser that uses a 20-faced shape with equilateral triangles. Your child must first insert the numbered yellow buttons on the many holes of the plastic icosahedron. After that, he or she shall stick the white plates so that the sum of dots matches the yellow buttons.

Since the yellow buttons can alternate randomly, there are numerous configurations and thus, unique ways to solve the puzzle.

Strange Attractor Magnetic Thinking Putty [$14.99 on Vat19; ages 14+]

Silly putty of this caliber is not like regular silly putty. This putty is infused with magnetic particles that will make it stick to paper clips, other magnets, and more. As if that wasn’t versatile enough, your teen can also manipulate it, bounce it, mold it, etc. and handle it like there’s no tomorrow.

The putty is available in black or silver.

Magical Growing Christmas Tree [$4.99 on Vat19]

Now your child can have his or her own mini Christmas tree! Not only that, they can actually see this tree grow to 6’’! That’s right, a few pieces of cardboard will transform into a bushy Christmas tree that your child can then decorate.

The magic lies in a special liquid that your child will pour on the plate where the cardboard pieces are stationed. The miniature tree will come to life in 6 hours. Pretty neat, eh?

The Original Slush Mug [$9.99 on Vat19]

Have a child that refuses to drink some healthy juice? This slush mug turns your child’s naturally-sweetened beverage into a Slushee in 6 minutes.

This doesn’t even have to be an exclusive gift for kids – It’s suitable for individuals of any age.

LEGO Digital Camera [$59.99 on ThinkGeek, shipping only within US; ages 7+]

Does your child absolutely love LEGO blocks? Here’s something different: A fully functional 3 MP digicam that sports a 1.5” LCD screen and offers 128MB of internal memory storage. Oh, and it’s made with red, blue, yellow and green LEGO bricks! Your child can even transfer photos to a computer via USB cable.

LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 [$229.99 on Amazon; ages 10+]

Some middle and high schools actually have Robotics teams where children and pre-teens can build MINDSTORMS robots, learn about teamwork and prepare for district- and state-wide competitions. If your child’s not in in one of these schools, these LEGO Mindstorms might be a good idea (though admittedly expensive) as they help unleash a child’s logic thinking and creative skills.

The LEGO MINDSTORMS consists of a microcontroller brick and programming software to help your child build a robot that can move, complete tasks with its sensors and do anything else that your kid programs it to. You could say it’s sort of like proprietary Arduino for kids. The cool thing is that many of the children that join the Robotics teams or build MINDSTORMS robots not only develop their analytical skills, they also get exposed to science and engineering basics at a young age.

You can see additional MINDSTORMS robot models on the official website.

What cool gifts for kids have you found online? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Gorilla – Shutterstock

Here are three very different but extremely useful methods for downloading photos from Flickr. FlickAndShare is designed with simplicity and sharing in mind, DownThemAll is a neat way to download using Firefox, while Bulkr is an Adobe Air application with some powerful, easy-to-use features.

1. FlickAndShare [Web]

FlickAndShare is the latest in excellent online Flickr downloading tools. All you do is go to the FlickAndShare site, authenticate your Flickr account and choose the set of photos you wish to share or download. FlickAndShare generates a link to download all of the full-sized photos in that set, which you can then use yourself or share with friends.

So you can easily send your friends and family links to the photos you took of their kids or at weddings or parties. It certainly beats explaining that they can go to “all sizes” and download the ones they like individually.

FlickAndShare is by far the simplest, most useful Flickr downloading tool available today.

2. DownThemAll! [Firefox]

This method from Lifehacker allows you to use Greasemonkey with a script called “Flickr – Link Original Image” to get access to the original images of any Flickr set. Then you simply use the Firefox extension DownThemAll! to grab all of the original photos and download them to your computer.

In DownThemAll, you need to change to the links tab so you can see all of the original photo links selected and then start the download. Note that the original photo links will end in something like _o.jpg.

DownThemAll also comes with a feature called dTa which lets you do the same operation several times over without having to redefine everything. This means you can easily set up several sets of photo downloading and save your time for something else.

3. Bulkr [Adobe Air]

Bulkr is a Flickr-recommended Adobe Air application for Mac or Windows. Bulkr lets you download up to 500 photos per batch, which can be from your own collection or images from an individual or group who have allowed downloads. You can download any size of photo and the titles, tags and descriptions will be stored in the EXIF information. You can even download your whole photo collection with one click!

Check out Bulkr’s promo video.

More Flickr Tools

Flickr lovers might also enjoy reading the following articles:

• 5 Little Mac Apps That Flickr Will Thank You For
• 8 Simple Ways To Use Flickr For Your Wallpaper Downloads
• Download Photos from Flickr with FlickrDown
• Backup And Download Flickr Photos in Bulk (Windows)

Are you glad to finally be able to share original-sized Flickr photos with your friends? Or are you just happy to find an easy way to download batches of photos from Flickr? What will you use these tools for?