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Addressing the Canny Investor

10 Quick Tips for Online Poker Beginners

If you are just playing poker online for the first time, here are 10 easy tips to help you get started: 1. Do a little research before hand. There are a lot of websites you can play at. Visit a poker review site, and read their recommendations of where are the best places to play. The reviews will also give you ideas as to what level of players are on the site. 2. Take advantage of sign-up bonuses. Some poker sites will double whatever money you initially deposit into your account. (If you deposit $100, they will match your deposit and give you another $100). 3. Be prepared to set up a third party money account (like PayPal.Com) before you can play. Sometimes setting up one of these accounts can take a few days. Whichever website you decide to play on should have information and links to these sites for you. One of the most trusted names is Neteller.Com. 4. Pick a screen name that you like. If you’re a woman and you want to pick an anonymous name, go for it! Be aware that your screen name can say a lot about you play, so be careful. 5. Once you get set up, start playing with points (not money), so you can adjust to the pace of the game and the site’s features. It is truly a learning process–be patient with yourself. 6. Don’t develop bad habits…like multi-tasking while you play. Don’t eat, watch TV, read your mail, or talk on the phone while you play. Soon you’ll find yourself folding a great hand and raising with garbage. Focus on the game. 7. Don’t forget that you are playing with REAL MONEY! Just because you can’t see the cash coming off your credit card, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Online poker players make this mistake until they are bankrupt. Set limits and stick to them. 8. Read some books on playing poker online. You should never neglect a proper poker education. Even if you’ve read regular poker strategy books, online play is in a class by itself. You’ll want to study specific of online play. 9. Online poker, because of the quick pace of the game, will magnify your poker strengths and weaknesses. If you are impatient, too aggressive, or unable to fold on the river, this will end up running you over. 10. Take notes on your opponents. If you play long enough, you’ll see the same screen names over and over again. While we can easily recall faces, remembering how RicoSuave79 played 3 weeks ago can be more challenging. Keeping organized notes will also give you something to do during the game’s down time that isn’t distracting. GOOD LUCK!

Flash opens new windows and opportunities for game designers

Flash is an interactive platform that has a powerful design and animation tool along with a dynamic scripting engine, bitmap rendering, as well as advanced video and audio playback. There are three main aspects: the player, the file format, and the authoring tool/IDE. Flash games can be developed for websites, interactive TV, as well as handheld devices. There is no need to adopt multiple programming languages to build games.

It is the universal tool that permits the development of multimedia driven complex games. Games means fast, furious, efficient with rich graphics.

Flash enables developers to build the most popular games for online gamers. It just needs to support:

• Rich engaging graphics.
• Smooth download of files from the net.
• A playback device that can interpret downloads.

There are three main areas: design, development, and hosting.

The first step is creation of graphics. One must use Fireworks as well as Freehand for this aspect. The tools are compatible and fireworks allows the addition of Java script to images.

The game development will be done in Flash by importing graphics created in Freehand and Fireworks. The graphics are then placed in Director the parent tool of Flash.

The next part, hosting, uses a Web server. Dreamweaver MX is the tool that will create Web pages to host the game.

And, finally Action Script is used to provide enhanced functionality.

Advantages:

• Integrates almost all features needed for developing a game. It is a great interactive tool.
• Can be used anywhere does not need additional software or plug ins.
• It is Mac friendly.
• Permits conversion from a full game to web version and vice versa.
• Low cost and free to distribute. Licenses for decoders MP3 and Sorensen Spark are included.
• Artists that can use flash easily are in plenty.
• Flash delivers broadcast quality images over the Internet.
• Permits embedding of game in power point for use in presentations.
• Plenty of information as well as guidelines can be accessed as well as understood by all -tutorials, articles, as well as blogs.
• The size of the game file remains small as the vector graphics and sound files are compressed.
• Learning Flash language is easy.
• Permits copy-paste to test components

There are traps one must be wary of and a few cons. Know the system well to maximize its use. There are plenty of tutorials inline that can be used as guides. Flash interface is ideally suited to both designer as well as developer, you can have fun while creating the game.

Flash is simple to use and a game can be developed in a few hours in a packaged form that can run on a PC, Mac, or Linux. One can make use of a browser or run the game as a stand alone.

Paul Wilson is a freelance writer for www.1888FreeOnlineGames.com<www.1888FreeOnlineGames.com/>, the premier website to play thousands of free online games including arcade games, action games, card games, flash games, strategy games, puzzle games and more. He also freelances for www.1888SoftwareDownloads.com<www.1888SoftwareDownloads.com>.