MakeUseOf » party

Join The Party & Be A DJ At Rolling.FM

Ryan Dube — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:01:45 +0000

There are few things in life that can help you de-stress quite like music. How many times have you just decided to switch on Pandora Radio or turn on radio on your mobile after a long, hard day? It’s a sweet feeling to just sit back and listen to some tunes – no pressure, no deadlines, just music.

Well, one way to add a bit of excitement to that relaxing time is to make your music enjoyment a more social experience. Listening to good music is cool, but listening to good music with friends (or even strangers) is awesome. If you want to mix in socializing with your music listening experience, then you’ve got to check out Rolling.fm.

What’s Rolling? It’s a brilliant new social network based on music created by Tim Zhou, who worked for both Google and IBM. At Rolling, you’ll find lots of other music lovers with the same interest in music as yours. All you have to do is pick a room that is playing the theme of music you like, and join it. Don’t see a party room for your favorite music genre? Create your own!

Rock & Roll At Rolling

Rolling is one of those communities where you’ve got an avatar in a virtual environment. There isn’t a whole lot you can do to interact with things inside that environment, but that doesn’t really matter anyway because the entire focus is the music. Sign up is as simple as logging in with your Facebook account. Just like at a real party, you stand around with other visitors and nod your head to the beat as each person takes a turn as DJ.

Trying your hand at being a DJ is as easy as clicking on “Add Songs” on the main screen when you’re in any of the party rooms.

You can search for your favorite music by song title or artist name. Hit enter and scroll down the list to find the song you’re looking for. Once you select a song, it gets added to your playlist and will enter the lineup of songs to play in the party room.

On the right side of the party room, you’ll see the mixer control box where the DJ takes control of the party. In some room, DJ’s will line up on the stage. In other rooms, people just stand around and each person takes a turn at the mixing table. Everything is automated, but it’s really a blast. When each song comes on, people can vote whether the song is “Hot!” or “Weak”. If too many people vote “Weak”, the song is cancelled and the next DJ steps up.

If one room isn’t playing the type of music you like, just click “switch room” at the top of the screen.

I scrolled down and found a cool hip-hop room. The creator of the room had chosen a bathroom (complete with urinals) as the backdrop, which I thought was a riot. You could even spray graffiti on the wall and visitors could vote whether or not to keep the graffiti on the wall. When it’s your turn to DJ, you’ll see your avatar move behind the mixer and your controls will appear to either skip your song or stop DJing completely.

You can always change your appearance by clicking the drop-down arrow next to your profile and choosing to change your outfit or your display name.

The selections are somewhat limited – but you’re here for music, not for a fashion show, right? By taking part in the community (playing music for others and voting on songs), you’ll earn credits and can eventually choose from some of the locked clothes and accessories.

It really is a blast trying to choose songs that the people in the room will like. When you do, it’s a pretty good feeling to see people start voting up your song – a sign that you have good taste in music!

Beyond the music, the avatars and the voting system, there’s also an in-room chat system for every individual party room. So, while the music is playing, you can chat with everyone else in the room. It really does start to feel like you’re at a real party. All that’s missing are the drinks!

If you meet someone at the virtual party that you want to friend on Facebook, it’s as easy as clicking on the “who’s here” tab under the chatroom and adding them to your friends list.

There are plenty of music social networks out there, but Rolling is one of the few I’ve seen that really makes it feel like you’re actually at a party. You can chat, socialize, discover new songs, and share your love of music with others – all in an environment that’s a blast.

Try Rolling for yourself and see how quickly you meet others that share your love of music. Start your own music room and see how quickly people start to arrive for the fun. Share your experience at Rolling with us. Did you meet any new friends, and did they vote your songs up when you took your turn as a DJ? Share your experiences in the comments section below.

Image credits: Yamamoto Ortiz

Use Qype To Find Cool New Places To Party

Angela Alcorn — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 21:31:55 +0000

So you’re a hard-working kind of person with a little bit of spare money up your sleeve. You like to go out a bit, and you’re keen to know more about the best places nearby. Enter Qype, a directory of restaurant and leisure facility reviews which is entirely linked to Google Maps.

Using a computer or a handy smartphone application, Qype can let you very quickly browse venues nearby to you and read other people’s reviews. Qype is originally based in the UK, so there’s plenty of reviews for places all over English-speaking countries and Europe, plus a growing amount of reviews for other countries.

With Qype it’s all about the reviews. Users are encouraged to say a few words about any given place and rate it for future customers. This means the database is building some great data on venues all over the world. It’s great information for travellers or people new to a town.

To use Qype, all you do is choose the type of place you’re after and it will find venues within a specified radius for you. Then you can browse the reviews and see if the place is worth checking out and bookmark it for later.

If you’re keen to go there straight away, Qype will link directly to the location on Google Maps. You can even easily use something like Layar to help guide you there, since Qype is a suggested map on Layar.

When you’re there, it’s easy to share your whereabouts with your friends (which then goes to RSS, Facebook or Twitter if you want it to). Add a review and a rating with a few simple clicks, plus upload pictures of the venue or the food to help future customers know what to expect. The more information we put in, the more useful information there is to get out.

If the place you’re visiting isn’t listed on Qype, it’s quite easy to add it to the database.

Qype also allow users to create guides, meaning you can link together a number of local venues for a miniature tour of your town. Very handy for tourists!

Another great perk for tourists is that you can nominate all of the languages in which you want to read reviews.

Qype also keeps track of events, so if you’re in a new town you can quickly find something interesting to do for the evening. Handy!

In a way, Qype is a little like Foursquare since you can check into the venue. This could work against Qype, due to the popularity of Foursquare. However, the focus in Qype is really to deliver the reviews. Qype are so keen to get quality reviews that they offer you the option of posting your Qype reviews directly to your blog, encouraging lengthier reviews and pictures.

For instance, it means if you’re out and about and want to have a little rant about how good or bad the restaurant you chose for dinner was, if you do it through Qype and have it set to automatically go to your blog too you might choose to write a slightly longer and well-written rant. Smart thinking, Qype.

In the end, Qype makes it tempting to write decent reviews. However, even if review-writing isn’t your thing, you can still make use of Qype’s database by using the smartphone app or something that hooks into it, like Layar. What’s not to love?

Here’s some other articles you’ll probably also love:

Let us know what you think of Qype compared to other review-based sites in the comments!

7 Websites To Help Inspire and Make The Best Halloween Costumes

Tim Brookes — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 01:30:08 +0000

Halloween is nearly here, and that means pumpkins, excessive sugar consumption and the best costumes you’re likely to see all year. If you’re short on inspiration, money or simply recognise that the best costumes are the ones you make yourself, the Internet is home to some great ideas.

So whether you’re off to a party, still young enough to go trick’r treating or simply want to terrify the children in your neighbourhood, there’s bound to be something here that ticks the box.

Instructables Halloween

The web’s best make-it-yourself website launches a dedicated Halloween section every year to walk you through some of the most complex costumes, props and decorations. Instructables is free to use, allowing you to spend your money on materials to make your halloween costume creations.

Some of my favourites include this Lego man, an incredibly detailed Big Daddy from Bioshock and Ron Burgundy from Anchorman.

There are 7 categories of Halloween Instructables, with 65 prizes up for grabs for the best of the bunch. If you’ve come up with your own idea, it’s probably worth sharing it with everyone else for the chance to win top of the range tools, sewing machines and tech. You’ve got until the 7^th of November if you want to enter.

Costumzee

Not strictly a Halloween costume website (but I bet their bandwidth usage spikes at this time of year) Costumzee has literally thousands of ideas to inspire you. The website has a Top 100 list of the most popular costumes right now, and this means you can either pick from the best or choose what to avoid so you don’t look like everyone else.

There are a fair few adverts for costumes for sale, but there’s more than enough how-to articles to help you make an impressive halloween costume.

They’ve even got a Jersey Shore section, but you’re going to need buckets of fake-tan if you want to imitate your favourite guido or guidette. Be sure to check out the printable masks section too if you prefer the cheap and cheerful option.

Vintage Computing & Gaming’s Halloween Ideas

Who said Halloween has to be scary? There’s some hilarious costume ideas here, some of which are genuine and others just for laughs. Take the Peter Molyneux costume for example (he’s the genius behind Theme Park, Black and White and the Fable games) ““ leopard print underwear anyone?

They update the list every year, so it’s probably worth checking out the archives too: 2008, 2007, 2006 video game edition and 2006 computer edition.

Robin’s FYI Homemade Halloween Costume Ideas

Ok, so the webdesign isn’t exactly cutting edge but the ideas are there! Somewhat of a wall-of-text, Robin’s FYI has a ton of tried-and-tested ideas, as well as a few you just might never think of.

What I really liked about this one were the ideas for disabled users who have to use a wheelchair. A king or queen on a throne and a jack in the box are ideas to experiment with.

There aren’t any pictures or detailed how-to articles, so you’re going to need a little foresight and some personal touches to get your costume finished.

Trendhunter’s Costume Ideas

Mostly pictures to impress and inspire, Trendhunter brings you 57 unique and impressive costumes. Each picture has a link to more pictures, and it’s really too easy to spend way too much time here (especially when you’re trying to write an article).

Again, inspiration is key and there aren’t any instructions but if you’re interested in dressing your baby up like a pumpkin or you’re wondering whether it’s possible to create a Boba Fett costume out of Lego then you’re in the right spot.

Some pictures are slightly NSFW (but nothing too steamy) so postpone your Halloween research till you leave the office.

Costume Idea Zone

This site pretty much has all the usual ideas covered, and offers a brief outline on how to create each outfit. The site itself is split into several sections, covering traditional costumes, ideas for couples and groups as well as unique dress-ups and quick last-minute ideas for anyone who’s feeling lazy.

There’s also a fair few tips on how to save money when creating your costume, so if you’re budget-conscious this year then you’ll probably want to check it out.

Anyone with their own ideas not already listed can submit, so if you’ve thought of something short but sweet this year then share it with the rest of the world!

eBay

Ok so this one’s not an ideas site at all, but it’s worth a mention anyway. There’s an endless amount of costumes available for sale on eBay, and you don’t necessarily need to buy them to benefit.

If you’ve got an idea in mind and wonder how to go about it, a quick search on eBay is bound to bring up something you can attempt to replicate yourself, for a fraction of the price. It doesn’t have to look perfect after all.

Conclusion

If you’re after some more do-it-yourself Halloween ideas then you might want to check out this article from last year. There’s also a special MakeUseOf Halloween podcast-from-the-past.

Happy Halloween from all of us here at MakeUseOf!

Image credit: Shutterstock

Top 10 YouTube Dance Lessons To Learn Cool Dance Moves

Saikat Basu — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:30:05 +0000

This post is written by a guy with two left feet. With a yearning to learn some cool dance moves, but too shy to go for a dance class. Sound familiar? I bet there are many of my kind with a similar social phobia when it comes to a bit of hop, shimmy, and jig.

The good news is that closet dancers now can hold on to their dreams of becoming the next Astaire. Me, I would love to move like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever.

YouTube is the dance class we can “˜enroll’ in. We have seen how YouTube videos can be tapped as a great source for learning skills like card tricks, speak English, play games, and throw a knockout punch.

So, there should be something on dancing too”¦ and there is. Here are ten free YouTube dance lessons you can sample. There are of course, so many dance forms than you can shake a leg with. If you find that your favorite jive isn’t here, a simple YouTube search should do it.

In the meantime, cut the rug with these ten YouTube videos and learn some cool dance moves.

Moonwalk Like Michael Jackson

If this one of a kind dance move has been in your wish list, learn how to moonwalk from this 2 minute long clip. Also, check out the video suggestions on the side for more cool Michael Jackson signature dance moves.

Breakdance

If someone remembers the early years when Thriller hit us, this is what we have been trying and more often failing to do. Now, it has got back its original term of “˜B-Boying’ but the basics remain the same. To check what they are, go and click on any of the 107 uploads in this dance channel on YouTube. You can start off by learning how to do the robot dance but it’s more difficult than it looks. Most of the videos are taken from the channel author’s official DVD.

Addicted2Salsa

The YouTube channel teaches you the basic of salsa with the help of nearly 100 videos. You can start with the lessons for beginners and then graduate upwards. Though salsa has a few solo moves, it is mostly a dance form which requires a partner. So, motivate someone to join you and fall into the rhythm of this electric dance style.

Step Up with Hip Hop

I borrowed the title from a movie that showcased the hip-hop style superbly. The videos that teach you how to hip-hop are showcased by Expert Village (now, eHow). The playlist strip at the bottom of the screen will take you to other videos too that teach you at least 13 moves of this freestyle street dancing form. Even if you don’t get all the moves right, it’s a fun way to lose the flab.

Do the Tango

Tango is one of the most passionate dance forms out there. Argentine Tango is its most original form. Get some of the basics from the 21 videos hosted on this channel. The videos haven’t been updated for quite some time, but the video guides that are available serve as an introduction to this dance form.

Club Dance Moves

Clubs are the ultimate frontier for guys or gals who are petrified of dancing. You can either park yourself on the barstools or jump under the strobe lights with some of the lessons here. Most of the lessons follow the hip-hop style.

Pick Up Dance

If the above videos seem too challenging, check out a few simpler ones here. This channel seems to have stuttered and stopped, but the videos on sidesteps and how to turn a girl should stand in you in good stead.

Cheerleading Jumps and Kicks

There are some who may scoff at cheerleading as a serious dance form and take it more as a sport. But you need a dancer’s grace to do it just right. The basic cheerleading video from Expert Village introduces you to some of the simpler toe touching stuff. Then you can move on to handsprings, tumbles, and more advanced stunts.

Ballroom Dancing for Beginners

Ballroom dancing skills will come real handy when you have to do a jig at your wedding. The 30 odd videos in the playlist from Expert Village cover the basics well. The dance steps are demonstrated by professional dance coaches.

Dancing

The 378 videos should keep you occupied for at least a year. This is one of the more comprehensive dancing channels on YouTube. You get to work on hip-hop, salsa, waltz, ballet, belly dancing, pole dancing, and even dirty “˜n sexy dancing among others. There are some videos that teach kids simple dance steps. And I learnt about a dance form called the Bachata dance, I didn’t know anything about earlier.

Check out the videos, add your own favorite ones in the comments, and don’t forget to dance like no one’s watching.

Image: Shutterstock

Create A Professional DJ Party Mix With OTS Turntables

Ryan Dube — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:31:50 +0000

Whether you’re trying to create a mix of audio tracks to burn to CD as a gift for someone, or you want to put together a cool stream of awesome songs with professional DJ fading, scratches and other effects, it isn’t always easy to find high quality DJ mixing software for free.

Jeffry described how you can put together a party iTunes playlist with DJ Song Lists, and Angelina reviewed a couple of cool free apps that you can use to mix up tunes. All of these apps are great, but they don’t provide that DJ look and feel – wouldn’t it be cool to download a virtual DJ studio you can run on your laptop that gives you a couple of turntables and lets you perform realtime effects on the music as it plays?

Enter OTS Turntables, a very cool, free DJ app that not only gives you the ability to create a playlist of music with professional fading and effects, but it lets you have a little fun with the music as it plays, rotating the turntable for that track and scratching it up a bit – or performing a variety of other effects that would keep the party fluid and high-energy.

Your Own DJ Turntables

The best part of this application is the awesome design. The skin makes it feel like you’ve got your own personal mixing board right in front of you – complete with two turntables, an equalizer, processor, digital effects and much more. It offers the level of mixing features that you’d only expect with paid software.

The bottom of the window is where you load in all of your tracks in the order that you would want them to play. They won’t necessarily play automatically unless you enable the Auto DJ feature. Otherwise, you can drag any of the tracks in this window onto one of the two turntables. Then, you can play one or both of those tracks, adding effects as they play if you want to.

You can load in tracks from anywhere, whether it’s a folder or an audio CD. Once you’ve loaded the track onto your turntable, you can use any of the effects on the turntable to alter just that track, while the other turntable remains unaffected by those changes. These include changing the pitch, tempo or the direction of play (yes, you can play the track in reverse at high speed if you want to).

In the center of the turntables, you’ll find the volume controls where you can perform any form of fading that you like.

When you click on the “FX” button under the turntable, you’ll find different ways that you can alter the playback of that track. Most of the effects are different scratch techniques that you can record and then utilize for any track that you’re playing.

When you click on the devices that make up your DJ mixer board, a pop-up window opens so that you can modify your overall output sound however you like. Another cool feature of OTS Turntables is the fact that there are preset settings for different “themes” you may be looking for.

For example, click on “Bass Boost” and the Equalizer automatically configures to maximize the low frequency end of the range for each channel.

The same goes for the “Dynamics Processor,” where you can alter each of the settings to get just the sound that you’re looking for. Or click on one of the theme buttons at the bottom, such as DJ, Lounge or Party – and the settings all adjust to the levels that you need.

Best of all, you aren’t tied down to performing your amazing feats of special music effects during the party itself. If you want to perform your magic and record it for the fun later, you can do so by clicking on the program icon in the upper right corner and clicking on “Output Configuration.”

Here, you can set up any output device that you may want to feed your music to (such as an amp or some other hardware), or you can feed the entire mix that you’re creating to an output wave file, which you can then burn to an audio CD, or convert to an MP3 and post it online (just be careful with copyrights!).

Overall, OTS Turntables is one of the most functional and high quality free DJ mixing apps that I’ve seen yet. So download a virtual DJ studio for yourself, give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments section below!

Image Credit: Jannes Glas

5 Fun Mobile Apps To Entertain Your Party Guests [Android]

Ryan Dube — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:31:03 +0000

There are always those gatherings that seem a little slow. Whether it’s a family barbecue or a party at a friend’s house, sometimes everyone just needs an activity or some kind of ice-breaker to get people laughing and to lighten up the mood. There are a lot of awesome things you can do with your mobile phone, and if you have an Android, you have access to the rapidly expanding Android market of applications to choose your party apps from.

Here at MakeUseOf, we’ve always tried to help you put together a good party, with cool apps like David’s review of Anyvite, and Abhigyan’s review of SongVote, a neat app where your guests can choose the music playlist.

In this article, I’d like to present 5 very simple party apps that will come in handy during your next party.

Most of these are a little cheesy as standalone apps, but at a party they can actually come in very handy. No one brought the dice? No problem – you’ve got digital dice in your pocket. Pass around digital fortune cookies. Better yet, enjoy a nice tall glass of digital beer and watch your friends’ expressions.

So, let’s take a look at what the Android market has to offer to get people talking and laughing at your next party. All of these are available on the Android Market for free.

Bring Your Own Android Beer

Picture it – there you are at the beginning of a party. Everyone is sitting around, not sure what to do or say. The mood is kind of somber and quiet, and you’re desperately looking for a way to break the ice and get people laughing and having fun. So you pull out your Android, enable the Virtual Beer App and loudly comment, “Well, I think it’s time for a cold beer.” Then, turning to the side, you hold up your Android phone, which you’ve just transformed into a cold glass of frothy beer.

Hold your Android in the upright position for a few seconds (for dramatic effect), then place your lips at the edge of your phone and tip it back just like you’re drinking a real beer. This is what everyone will see:

The graphics are very realistic, and the visual effect of seeing someone “tip back a cold one” straight out of their Android phone is hilarious. You’ll certainly get a few chuckles at the very least. And best of all, everyone will want to know what other cool apps you have on that nifty Android of yours. Alas – this is the moment you’ve been waiting for, time to get the party started with your phone!

But before you get rolling with the party games, don’t forget to fire up the music with your remote control media center…you’ve already set up Gmote on your Android to do this, right?

Open Virtual Fortune Cookies

Want a fun conversation starter? Let everyone open his or her own virtual fortune cookie. The Fortune Cookie for Android lets you virtually crack the cookie (by shaking the phone).

Once you do, the cookie cracks in half and the fortune is revealed. The fortunes are fairly well written (about as well written as fortune cookie fortunes can be). They aren’t too corny, and some of them might actually trigger some interesting or funny conversation. As far as I can tell, there are a fair number of fortunes stored with the app, but I’m sure if you spend an hour or so cracking virtual fortune cookies, you’re bound to hit a duplicate fortune.

Relive Your Childhood With Sketch-a-Etch

Another very fun Android app that quickly brought me back to my childhood is the Sketch-a-Etch app. Yes, this is the same as the toy that you grew up playing with called Etch-a-Sketch – complete with the two annoying knobs that you kept forgetting how to draw with. When you turn the right one right do you go up or down? Can you remember, or will you completely mess up your drawing?

One warning, when you hand someone your phone so they can try this app, you will have a difficult time getting your phone back – this app is very addictive! And a hint – don’t try to “turn” the knobs, just rub your finger left or right over the knob in order to “turn” it left or right. Before long, you’ll get the hang of it.

Play Spin the Bottle With Your Android

Now, this next app will only be useful at certain “types” of parties…or maybe after everyone has had a few drinks. When there’s plenty of laughter and folks are a bit “tipsy,” pull out your Android and propose playing the age old game “spin the bottle.”

While this app is very simple, it’s actually pretty cool just due to the graphics and the realistic action of the bottle itself. When you place your finger on the bottle, it tracks the movement of your finger. Give your finger a little flick – and off the bottle goes, spinning until it gradually comes to a complete stop…pointing at someone. Sure, you could use a real bottle, but where’s the fun in that?

Never Forget the Dice Again

The next app is aptly named, “Dice.” Basically, if everyone wants to play a game that requires dice and there aren’t any handy, just pull out your trusty Android, run this app and set it up with the required number of die that you would like. You can have up to six on the screen at once.

Add or remove die by pressing the plus or minus at the bottom of the screen. People can “throw” the dice by simply shaking the phone. It’s a lot of fun and it gives a realistic simulation of actually throwing dice on the table. There are a lot of games out there that you can play with just dice, or dice and cars – so this app opens up a whole list of opportunities for different games and activities. Everyone will thank you for bringing the virtual dice to the party!

Give Your Friends The Dummy Test

This next app called “FunnyTest” is fantastic for a good laugh. Some people call it the Dummy Test or Idiot Test. Think you’re smart? Go ahead and take the test. Or hand your phone to a friend and tell them that the application will test their IQ based on how many levels they can get through. Just the first step is a riot – the instructions are simple enough, just press the buttons in the right order.

When you start, the colors quickly change…and you’ve failed on step 1. Each screen has a little twist to it, so if you try to fly through the test without thinking, you’ll fail. It’s a lot of fun, but beware the urge to slam your phone on the ground each time the test outsmarts you!

Do you know of any other fun Android apps that are great for parties or family gatherings? Share your own discoveries in the comments section below.

Use Songvote To Prepare Party Music Playlist With Your Guests

Abhigyan — Mon, 17 May 2010 18:31:11 +0000

Songvote is a cool new free service where you can easily get an idea of what your party music playlist should sound like based on guests choosing the music. The main premise behind Songvote is that the invitees of a party/event should have a say in what music is played at the party.

Guests choosing music is an interesting idea, and Songvote actually does a good job of it. So without much ado, let’s get down to songvoting.

First of all, as with any new service, you have to go through the customary sign-up. Luckily for you, Songvote has a very pleasant (read short) sign-up experience. Once through with the sign-up confirm your identity by clicking on the activation email in your inbox.

Once you are done with verifying who you are, it’s time to let the fun flow. Go ahead and click the big, green “Start A Contest” button. As you can probably tell, a “Contest” is a means by which your invitees can tell you what they want to hear. You will now get to the following screen.

Enter the details which Songvote wants from you. Here’s a small description of each:

Contest Name: This is what your contest will be known as.
Contest End Date: This is the deadline by which all your invitees should have cast their votes. You can pick from a small pop-up calendar.
Description: A big text box where you tell people what the event is all about.
Event Date: The date of the event. You can pick from a small pop-up calendar.
Votes Per Person: No one wants to listen to just one song, right? This is where you grant your guests the power to cast multiple votes.

Next to these options you will see some more options to customize your contest. These are shown below and are pretty self-explanatory. I filled in the form with something like “What Should Play At The Fictitious MUO Team Party?“, and entered corresponding details for the same. I also set the “Votes Per Person” to 3, so that people could have some flexibility with the voting.

Thereafter, I nominated songs for the party which people could vote upon. Fill in an artist and a song, and click the arrow icon to search for songs from their database. Select your song from the results that show up. Once you are through with all the songs you want to add, add your invitees’ email addresses in the form on the left side.

Finally, click the big “Start Contest” button to finish creating your contest. An email will be sent to all those whose email addresses you put in. You will be redirected to your homepage from where you can check the status of your contest.

Every time you check the status of a particular contest, you will be shown information about the contest, as well as the track in the lead. At the end of the contest, you should have a fair idea of what to play and what not to play at your party. The best part is that your guests would have nothing to complain about as it’s all a democratic selection!

So go ahead and plan your next party playlist the social, democratic way!

Image Credit : Flickr.

LAN Party Tips: How To Organize an Awesome LAN Party

Jack Cola — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:00:00 +0000

If you are a serious gamer, then you do not want to skip this post. Who doesn’t love a little clan war during a LAN party? If not properly organized, a night of fun can easily turn into a nightmare. Hours of scheduled fun can turn into hours of troubleshooting hell. No connectivity, not the right sockets or plugs, lack of space and food, uninvited guests – these are just a few of the setbacks that can and will happen.

If you are planning to host your own LAN party, then here are some LAN party tips on how to go about it to make your night a hassle-free and enjoyable one.

1. Planning the Event

This is something that you want to get right before you begin sending out your invites to your friends. Planning is crucial. There is a quote by George Hewell, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail”, and I know that you don’t want to embarrass yourself with all your mates over at your house. So here are some LAN party tips to help with your planning.

Determine who is coming

If you live in a small apartment, you don’t want to be overcrowded, so carefully select who you invite. Try not to do what Australian Corey Worthington did. Carefully select who you want game with, and make sure you don’t invite your mates that may worry you.

What equipment is required?

One thing that you don’t want to happen on the night is to invite 20 people over when you only have 10 computers. What will the other 10 people do? If people come for a night of gaming, they expect that they will play until the early morning light. They surely don’t want to be sitting around watching chick flicks on TV if there is nothing else on. So make sure you have enough computers set up, and make sure you have enough LAN ports and desk space for the people bringing their own computers.

The basic equipment that you need are:

1 x modem/router ““ this is so you can surf the internet or game online
1 x Switch ““ make sure you have a network switch that has enough ports to cater for the amount of computers you are going to have
Ethernet Cables ““ if this is your first time hosting a LAN Party, make sure you have enough Ethernet cables so you can connect everyone’s desktop computers for faster gaming. Remember, you need 1 per computer. Also try and have a few spare, just in case. If you are short on these, get your friends to bring some with them, and tell them how their night might be if the don’t.Try not to use wireless as this might slow down the game for everyone, and we don’t really want a slow game.
Game Software ““ Make sure everybody has a copy of the game, and make sure you have a few copies to install on everyone’s PCs.
2 x Fuse ““ Having a lot of computers on the same power circuit may overload it and blow a fuse. So make sure you have some spare and someone with the knowledge to change one.

Tell your neighbours about your night

A lot of people = a lot of noise and loud music. So be courteous to the people your neighbours and tell them that there might be a bit of noise at night. Try your best to keep the volume down and shut the windows and doors to insulate the noise.

2. Setting Up A LAN Party

Here are a few LAN party tips for properly setting up for the event.

Location

It is best to try and keep everyone in the same room, but this may not be possible. Just make sure everyone is close together and the distance between the two rooms are close together. This to make sure the mess doesn’t spread around your house.

Power

This is very important as you do not want to overload your power circuit or break fuses. So make sure that you don’t connect a lot of computers on the same circuit in your house. Use extension cords from different power circuits of your home. DO NOT use double adapters, or connect two or more powerboards together. DO USE powerboards that have inbuilt surge protectors, just in case something goes wrong. Remember to look around for the powerboards that you use as some may warranty of up $100,000 in damages if they fail and destroy your computer.

Connectivity

If people are bringing their laptops, make sure you have wireless. It might be a hassle to give your encryption key to everyone, but what you can do is temporarily change your key so everybody can connect to it. Then after the party, change it back so they can’t hide outside your house at night and download movies while you’re sleeping. If you want to restrict access to certain people as (word of mouth of the wireless key can spread) then remove it and enable MAC filtering on your Router or Access Point. This allows you to control individually which computers have access to your network.

Make sure that cables are out of the way, bundled or under rugs. We don’t want anyone to trip over the power cables and cut half the people of their game.

Also ensure that you have enough Internet bandwidth remaining on your account so that you don’t get shaped during the night, making the nights online gaming experience hell, and portraying yourself as a bad host.

Securing your computer

If you are a bit like me, you might have shared folders on your home network that is available to everyone. Before your guests arrive make sure you disable the sharing of folders on your computer so no one can access them. Also remember to password-protect your computer on that night, or make another user account so people can’t snoop around your files.

3. Running the Night

Food and Drinks

Remember to be very careful with the drinks. Very expensive equipment can be instantly ruined if someone spills a drink over a computer. Since the night has already costed some money, ask your friends to bring some food and drinks along with them. Maybe put BYO on their invite. Advice them to bring along finger foods such as, chips, biscuits, dips. As for drinks, make sure you supply water and softdrinks. Stay away from alcohol (as you can probably see why). Also, have a big table with all the food available so people can take food for themselves and you’re not forced to be anyone’s servant. Maybe charge money for this if you want. Turn the night into profit.

Have Sessions

Just like laserforce, have sessions and make sure you break them up with some other activity. Have a variety of games to play as well, in different sessions. This is also to make sure you don’t get square eyes (or rectangle eyes which are more likely now)

Have a recovery action plan

Not everything goes as planned, so make sure you have a backup plan in case something happens such as the internet or the power going out. You don’t want to waste all this planning and organisation if a fuse blows as soon as you start playing. Having nothing to do will make you a bad host and people may not come to your party nights anymore. If all else fails and you are still in the mood for gaming, why don’t you go to back to the olden day style of gaming and grab the Monopoly, Guess Who or Scrabble?

Turn the aircon on

Make sure that you keep the computers cool by having the aircon on. Nothing is worse than frying your computer as it overheats.

Well I hope that these tips help you to have a successful night. And good luck with your LAN party, you’ll need it.

If you have any other tips for a successful gaming occasion, please do share them with us.

Plan Your Next Party & Invite Your Guests With Anyvite

David Pierce — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 19:01:06 +0000

Thanks to the Web, planning a party’s never been easier. You can get all the things you need, invite all your friends, and get your party rolling easily using the Web. For the invite section, most people still seem to use Evite.

No longer. Evite, while improving, isn’t nearly the best at what it does. That title, in my humble opinion, rests squarely in the hands of Anyvite.

Anyvite is a simple, but feature-rich, way to create invitations and bring all your friends together. Anyvite helps you through every step of the event planning, from finding a venue to deciding whether or not your friends can bring friends (and how many). It’s an incredibly detailed application, that you can ignore entirely if all you want to do is send out a simple invitation.

The first thing you do with Anyvite is create your event: give it a name, a location, a date, and some information. You can style your invitation with one of Anyvite’s many themes, or create your own.

Then, start sending out the invitations. You can send the invitations by entering their email addresses, or you can import your address book from your Email or Evite account. You can see who’s RSVP’ed, and even export your guest list to other applications for easier managing. If you want to create an event for anyone and everyone, Anyvite gives you a link to share with people so they can sign up to attend without having to receive an email.

You get to change just about every option of the invite: do you want there to be a “maybe” option? How many attendees are you capping your party at? Want to remind your guests again before the party? You can do all that and more through Anyvite.

If you’re on the receiving end of an invitation, you’ve got tons of options as well. You can receive invitations, updates and reminders by email, text message, or over any Jabber IM (like Google Talk). You can RSVP by texting or IMing “RSVP y” or “RSVP n”, or even text a comment about the event or invitation. There’s even a mobile site ( m.anyvite.com ) that lets you create, manage and view invitations from your cell phone.

There’s a widget that you can embed on your website or blog ““ a cool feature if you’re hosting or attending relevant events. Your events can also be imported directly into your Google or Outlook calendar, making sure you never forget about that sweet party coming up tonight.

Anyvite, believe it or not, is even useful after your party is over. Anyvite provides you with a code that you put in the tags of a Flickr picture or a YouTube video, and anything with that tag shows up on the event page. It’s like its own scrapbook for your parties.

Anyvite is great because you can create an event in 10 seconds or an hour, depending on how specific and complex you want it to be. It’s incredibly simple to use, and great for planning events. The text-messaging integration also makes it perfect for last-second changes and needs for your party.

Next time you’re planning an event, do yourself and your guests a favor: ditch Evite, and stick with Anyvite for all your planning needs.

How do you use the Web to plan things?

Photo Credit : jemsweb

Organize Your Party Online with Atomeet

Matt Brian — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 21:01:17 +0000

Everyone loves a good party, but organising one can be quite problematic. Atomeet is a tool that tries to simplify the party planning process, allowing you to organize party online and keep on top of who is coming, and confirm that people know where to go.

Before we look further into this tool, this article does take into consideration that Facebook does in fact have a built in Events manager. The aim of this article therefore is to highlight the alternatives to Facebook.

Creating An Event

You obviously want to advertise and highlight your party but firstly you must create your event on the Atomeet website. Part of Atomeet’s appeal is that it simplifies creating an event using intelligent suggestions and has a very aesthetic feel to it’s site.

To create your event, enter the name of your event, be as specific as possible with its location and then select the time you want it to start. Once you have agreed with the terms and conditions, clicking “Create My Party” will take you through to your party page.

Atomeet will immediately ask you to associate an email address with your party page, so that you can be alerted to any changes on your page and also to receive the unique URL to share with your friends.

By clicking the small panel on the left of your avatar, you can change the look and feel of your site. Atomeet have many different presets for you to choose from, whether it’s a Christmas or New Year party or just a drink down the pub, you have designs to reflect this.

You are encouraged to write a description detailing the finer points that you aren’t able to articulate anywhere else (dress codes, entry fee, etc). Entering a website address of the location and a contact number allows you to give a bit more security to the people who might be hovering on attendance to your party.

Once you have set up all the details of your event, you will obviously want to invite your friends. Atomeet automates this process by allowing you to import your contacts from your Gmail, Windows Live or Yahoo email account.

Now all that is left is to see if people will RSVP and actually want to come to your event! There is a wall that allows people to leave messages for the party organiser, to iron out any potential problems or to answer any questions attendees may have. As people respond they will be added to a realtime guest list on your party page.

Do you use any other party planning software or websites to organise your parties? Maybe one of the mobile or online event planners that were already profiled on MakeUseOf. If you do, please leave a suggestion in the comments.