In the early days of the internet, a genre of RPG soared in popularity due to its simplicity, lack of bandwidth requirements, and overall interactivity. A MUD, or multi-user dungeon, is a text-based role playing game style that uses words to describe areas and options other than images and graphics.

There were several baseline coding styles that fell into the MUD realm such as Diku, Mush, Moo, among others. Creating worlds in using these tools was often rather simple in that everything was somewhat modular and could be created on one server and ported into the live one with relative ease. Your creative writing talents were often put to the test as you built room after room, all the while having to maintain a sense of immersion among players.

As a player, you could interact with often well over one hundred people as you played games based around Dungeons and Dragons, Cyberpunk, Vampire the Masquerade, and other dice and paper games. Commands were given such as “west” “north” “east” “look” “loot corpse” “put potion bag”. These simple commands controlled your character’s actions in movement, response, battle, and exploration of the text environment.

MUDs are still around today, and in some cases quite popular. I recently visited an older MUD called Arctic and discovered over ninety people still typing away as they did well over ten years ago. There are several MUD clients out there such as Zmud and the open source Mud Magic. If you’re stuck traveling on a weak laptop, or own an Asus Eee and are looking for something to do while on the road, check out MUDs.

Matt Ryan

Tags: muds, mush, moo, diku, matt ryan, frugal geek

So you’ve considered hunting ghosts? Have you ever thought about the paranormal, or whether or not you could actually catch something supernatural? Ghost hunting is as controversial as it is intriguing. The idea that you could capture evidence of ghosts, spirits, energies, or other phenomenon on tape can be quite interesting to some technologists.

So, what types of tech do ghost hunters recommend using while out stirring up supernatural mischief?

A good digital or high-speed film camera is a great start. When choosing your camera, try to pick out one that has a quality processor, fast shutter speed, and high sensitivity settings. This is vital for night shots as a low quality camera will often leave you with a lot of artificial artifacts and film grain that can hamper positive results. Cameras with night vision have recently come under fire due to some inappropriate uses of the technology, and you may want to check with the legal aspects of owning that type of equipment.

A good EMF detector is a great way of picking up shifts in electro-magnetic fields. There is a theory that when a spirit is attempting to manifest itself, it will do so by drawing the energy from around the area to use it its manifestation. Getting an unusually high EMF reading in a small area is believed to be a sign of something supernatural to come. EMF Detectors are made by many companies like Lutron, Electrosensor, Alternative Technologies, Mannix, Cellsensor, and Tri-Field.

Infrared thermometers are used to measure variances in temperature. The theory is that when a ghost or spirit is attempting to manafest itself and draws energy from the area, the temperature will drop since heat is energy. These products are made by many companies like Mannix, Raytek, and Sper Scientific.

Another theory is called electronic voice phenomenon. The idea is that a spirit can communicate with the living through using energy to leave impressions on tape or digital recording devices. Often, a hunter will ask questions while recording in hopes of receiving answers later on. These devices are easily found and made by companies like Coby, Olympus, Sony, Panasonic, and more.

Video is one of the best ways to capture any phenomenon that may affect physical objects and environments. Many purists will state that only film should be used as digital can be unreliable for this type of recording, while others are impartial to the use of digital video cameras. As with still cameras, a good night sensor is extremely vital as hunting during the day is generally not practiced. Sony, Panasonic, Philips, and many other companies make quality video equipment.

Whatever your setup, if you believe or would like to experience ghost hunting, remember that your choices on equipment is just as important as any other part of the experience. Good equipment can yield solid results while faulty tools can give questionable evidence.

Matt Ryan

Tags: ghost, hunting, frugal geek, matt ryan

Today is turkey day in the states. For many that means checking bank accounts, planning routes, and clipping ads for their favorite deals come tomorrow. As noted in the last article, Black Friday is best spent at home, away from the angry mobs of shoppers sprinting to stacks of ten or so items market down a tiny bit more than usual.

I came across gotadeal.com and found a nicely organized Black Friday listing. Check it out.

Matt Ryan

Tags: black friday, frugal geek, matt ryan

Shoppers will be pouring in droves to their favorite stores Friday, in an effort to get the best deal on a limited quality item. This will usually mean a lot of running like a frantic madman while dodging flying limbs from their fellow shoppers trying to get their hands on the hot product of the year.

I say, we as geeks should never find ourselves in this situation. There are plenty of Black Friday deals going on in the much safer spaces known as the internet. In order to avoid advertising for sites I may or may not agree with, I will not list any of these deals here, though keep in mind that in the world of retail, the internet always wins the price war.

Have a safe and happy holiday fellow geeks. To those of you outside the US, be thankful you don’t have to deal with the madness that is Black Friday should you need to run to the store for any essentials.

Matt Ryan of The Daily PWN

It seems the world of tech is making a big deal out of the new trend surrounding sub $500.00 notebooks and laptops. These machines feature baseline components, low cost or no cost operating systems, and a low price point. Why is the tech industry so excited about what would otherwise be viewed as a simple redestribution of old standard technology?

The answer is in the habits of the modern user. There’s no secret that every day we are inching further and further into a life in the cloud. Our email has gone from programs like Thunderbird and Outlook to online interfaces such as Gmail and Yahoo. Our office applications are slowly making their way into services like Google Docs. Calendars and scheduling is done online now, as is financial planning, entertainment, and even storage. We’re heading into an age where our computer will not be judged so much by its sheer processing speed, as its portability and ability to access the ever-present cloud.

So will the XO and the Asus Eee PC re-define our technology in modern regions? Not quite yet, but you can expect it to be a good step for users that don’t mind living less on their hard drive and more in the web.  The technology and price point is certainly attractive, especially when considering the ideas behind the design. The one laptop per child program has resulted in several interesting innovations that I believe will improve not only the less technological areas of the world, but even the most modern.

Matt Ryan of The Daily PWN 

Tags: the frugal geek, matt ryan, notebook, asus eee, xo, one laptop

Do you Twitter? Perhaps you Jaiku about writing your Facebook page while maintaining your Myspace, Pownce, Tumblr, Hulu, Friendster, Flickr and other numerous social networking accounts.

Do you feel lonely without a day full of reading tweets and posts by your ever growing list of online friends? It can be hard sometimes to try to keep up with the social network to which you have set yourself. Many people, including some notable technologists find productivity can be hampered by constantly updating your Twitter, and blogging about the goings on in your organization or schedule. You can easily find yourself having to schedule updating your schedule in order to avoid hampering your other tasks.

Services like Profile Linker,  Snix, and the Open Social projects allow users to control multiple social networks with one single application. These appear on the surface to be quite interesting and worth taking a look at. I know Google has been pushing Open Social pretty hard lately, hoping to create something of an industry standard out of the project. I for one quite enjoy the idea of a standard API across a majority of the social networks. If you’re interested in the topic, keep an eye on Google’s Open Social.

Tags: the frugal geek, matt ryan, social network, snix, profilelinker, flickr, jaiku, pownce, myspace, facebook, friendster

I read and viewed reports this morning that CBS news writers have voted in favor of joining the writer’s strike taking place currently. This strike has caused an industry-wide blackout on new content, leaving many searching elsewhere for their much needed entertainment. Could this strike end up backfiring on the writers as they return to work only to discover that a large part of their audience has discovered new mediums for their content? Will YouTube gain a higher market share of people’s attention?

In any case, there is no denying that now more than ever news and entertainment created by independent contributors for release online is posing a real threat to the established industry. This is a very good thing, as it is forcing the industry to rethink their positions and find more modern approaches to distribution. Many network television stations have put their content online for free viewing to counter the commercial-less downloading epidemic they claim is taking their profits away. The major market content itself has improved arguably to appeal to a new generation of consumers and keep their interest on the archaic media.

And now, with the threat of at least one major news network losing their writer staff temporarily to a strike, the question of independent news sources finally stepping up and replacing the overwhelming corporate empire. If even one network loses ten percent of their viewer base to independent media, what impact would that have on news as we see it?

Let’s face it, here in America, we’ve been force-fed our beliefs and opinions with an electronic spoon. All the while, we’ve sat through countless numbers of advertisements telling us we can’t live without seeing the next season of 24, we can’t be cool unless we buy the Old Navy flannel zip up vest, or that we are in need of twenty different types of medication so that we can accomplish the task of para sailing through wheat fields with a grin on our face the size of Kansas. I don’t know if things are the same around the world, but in this nation with which I reside, the idea that bloggers might be able to gain the attention of a small portion of the community away from this overwhelming machine is enough to make me smile.

Matt Ryan of The Daily PWN

Tags: advertising, blogging, frugal geek, matt ryan, media, news, strike, writers