The Ultimate Blogging Resource
Tag: Cool things
Get a free copy of Ubuntu Desktop Edition and Ubuntu Server Edition. Ubuntu is available free of charge and you can get the latest version (8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron)) with no extra cost, but the delivery may take up to ten weeks, so you should consider downloading the CD image if you have a fast Internet connection.
If interested you can request your copy here
Note : You have to register to their website before making any request. Click here to register yourself.
Eight fine newest xp visual style for your windows xp release in the first week of August. Just read more to check the eight visual style and download. Please leave some comments if you like the post and don’t forget to subscribe for newest visual style releases.
Simple cool looking xp desktop theme by meggert.
Glossy Black Xp visual style by golosiy.
Vista style xp themes by miek5.
Adapted xp theme of Vista Ultimate and nice work by rflfn.
Simple colororation and first xp theme by WiiLLii.
Another nice visual style by rflfn comes with styler toolbar and four start button.
This visual styles comes with 2 wallpaper, required fonts, mirande im skin and styler toolbar and created by deskplanet.
Simply different visual style among all by tivar.
Greasemonkey is Mozilla Firefox extension that allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. Here is an E-Book which helps you in creating user scripts.
This book contains topics on how to create userscripts, debugging userscripts and lots of other tips.
Download Instructions : Click here to download the E-Book.
Credits : www.diveintogreasemonkey.org
This is another, nice Update…
Thanks to this you can manage settings in your profile such that only those people whom you want, can Add you as a Friend…
To do this : Go to http://www.orkut.com/PrivacySettings.aspx
Now see This Screenshot
On choosing :
* people who know my email address
* friends of my friends
* people from the following countries and regions
So, Thanks to these setting now you can get less unwanted Invitations.. which means less Strangers in your Friend List.
It’s always such a boring to type http://, www. and .com whenever we want to visit a certain website. But being myself as a lazy person who is often looking for ways and means to make my task or job simpler, I simply use some simple tricks like, you can type in word like gedetbasumatary, and use shortcut keys to complete the url with a http://, www and a .com.
So guys there is a simple tricks on modern browsers, such as IE7 and Firefox, hitting Ctrl + Enter will automatically fill in the http://, www. and the .com part of the URL. Here’s an Example example. I type in gedetbasumatary
Now hit Ctrl + Enter together and it will automatically fill up the http://, www. and .com
Voila you have saved 15 keystrokes 
Here’s few more shortcut key combinations to complete a URL.
Ctrl + Enter – Auto-complete .com address
Shift + Enter – Auto-complete .net address
Ctrl + Shift + Enter – Auto-complete .org address
If you add Alt to any of this key combinations, it will auto-complete and open new address in a new tab as well. For example, Alt + Ctrl + Enter will auto-complete .com address in a new tab.
Note:– I have experiment this tricks in Firefox and IE 7 only and it works well. There is a possibility of working in other browser as well.
Additional Keyboard Shortcuts
Open links in a new tab in the background CTRL+click
Open links in a new tab in the foreground CTRL+SHIFT+click
Open a new tab in the foreground CTRL+T
Switch between tabs CTRL+TAB/CTRL+SHIFT+TAB
Switch to a specific tab number CTRL+n (n can be 1-8)
Switch to the last tab CTRL+9
Close current tab CTRL+W
Close all tabs ALT+F4
Close other tabs CTRL+ALT+F4
update1
- Pressing F3 will bring find in this page search bar.
- pressing F11 will expand your screen
- Pressing Ctr + r will reload your screen or say will refresh it.
So do you also have some tricks and want to share, just leave a message or contact me.
Everyone and their dog (yes, there are a few dogs out there with their own blogs) have started up a blog these days, but many people just aren’t taking the steps needed to optimize their blogs for both readers and search engines. While blogs can be business related (another blog about mesothelioma anyone?) they can also be personal where you talk about the great ham sandwich you had for lunch today or the crappy service you had at that trendy restaurant last night.
But whether your blog is business or personal, you should ensure that you are optimizing your blog for both your readers (after all, you want to keep those readers coming back) and the search engines. Unfortunately, optimization is an important step that far too many blogs seem to be skipping over, even those that have a broad appeal to surfers and have the potential to be monetizable.
However, optimizing a blog is a bit different than your standard website search engine optimization (SEO), particularly because most blogs run off standard blog platforms, or worse, run as a hosted blog on someone else’s domain name. And there are design issues that can be unique to blogs which can impact your rankings.
When you optimize your blog for the user experience, you make it easy for users to return and engage in your blog without dealing with any of the hassles that can cause them to abandon other sites or blog entries. Repeat visitors are the cream of your blog, so by following these tips you have given them the tools they need to return as well as the user experience that makes them want to come back.
Fortunately, if you are on the case to make your blog rank well while not hindering your visitor’s experience on your site, there are definitely things you can check – and fix – to prevent any indexing issues from occurring, and ensuring your blog a happy and healthy existence in the search engines.
So here is advice on how you can optimize that blog of yours for both users and search engines without alienating one or the other.
1) Dump The Default Template – Looks Count!
I cringe when I see a blog using the “out of the box?? WordPress or MovableType template. Hire a designer to create a unique look for your blog, or at the very least, take advantage of some of the free templates available and customize it a bit with a unique logo or a slight color upgrade.
2) Just Say No To Bad Color Schemes
While a hot pink with lime green color scheme might be your favorite, consider what your readers will be expecting. That color scheme might work perfectly on a teenage gossip site, but would look extremely out of place as the corporate blog for a men’s suit company. Likewise, gamers would think nothing of a black background on an Xbox 360 blog, but it would look horrendous on a parenting or pregnancy site. So while you should experiment with colors to find a good mix for your blog, keep in mind user experience and their expectations.
3) RSS Me!
Make sure you have RSS available. Many hosted blogging solutions don’t have RSS automatically available, so you will need to add it. And when you do add it, ensure you have those RSS links in an obvious spot. Don’t tuck them away at the very bottom of your index page after your most recent 20 entries, or hide them on a separate “About Us?? page. Place all those handy subscribe links in your sidebar, which is exactly where people will look for them. If you use Feedburner currently, have a look at their new MyBrand option which allows you to host your own feeds for a seamless user experience.
4) Offer RSS & Feed Subscription Buttons
Yes, when people want to subscribe to a blog, they will often look for that orange RSS logo as well as the logos of the standard aggregators such as Bloglines. So it is worth the time to add the most popular ones to your blog so visitors can easily do their one-click subscriptions to your feed without it require much effort on their part. If you make it hard to subscribe, most just won’t bother. FeedButton offers a service that allows you to offer multiple RSS aggregator and feed reader buttons with a single expanding rollover button.
5) Offer Posts Via Email
Some people just don’t get RSS. So cater to them by offering them an option to get your blog posts by email instead. The most popular service to do this automatically is FeedBlitz, although there are also many other tools available to do this.
6) Decide On Full Or Partial Feeds
Do you offer full feeds or partial feeds? This is a personal preference, and is often dependent on what market space you are blogging in. One option is to offer two feeds, one being an ad-supported full feed, with an RSS ad included, and the other being an ad-free snippet copy of the feed, where readers won’t see ads but will have to actually view your blog in order to read your full entry. But this will often come down to personal preference, and the preferences of your readers.
7) Write Compelling Snippets/Descriptions
If you do use snippets for your RSS feed, be sure to make them compelling or leave readers with a cliffhanger to encourage them to click and read the full entry. This will get you many more readers to your entries than just using the default option of including the first X number of words in the blog post as the snippet. Use your excerpts to generate interest and clicks.
8) Pay Attention to How You Write.
One of my favorite bloggers has the unfortunate habit of writing detailed long entries… without a single paragraph break and with the double whammy of also writing with a font size smaller than usual. If I look up for a moment, it is hard to find my place again in her 1000 word entries. As a result, I don’t read it as often as I would like to, simply because reading it is such a painful experience.
9) Spelling Counts
Spelling is also worth mentioning. Add one of the many spell checkers to your internet browser and run a quick spell check before you publish your entry. Every word doesn’t have to be perfect, and I am certainly guilty myself of letting on occasional typo slip through unnoticed. But I also get annoyed when I am reading typo after typo after typo in an entry. And yes, if it happens enough, I will unsubscribe out of sheer frustration.
10) Fontography Counts
Make the font easy to read. Some bloggers think it is cool to have their handwriting turned into a customized font, or use a trendy font that would be better suited to a scrapbook layout. But not everyone has those wild and weird fonts installed, which means that those people will see a standard font such as Times New Roman, and it can really kill the look of your blog. So instead design the text of your blog entries to use a standard font in a standard size.
11) Don’t Forget Navigation
Is this blog part of a larger site, such as a corporate blog on a site for a major company? Don’t just link to the main page of the blog. Syndicate your recent headlines in the sidebar to encourage visitors on the main site to check out the blog too.
12) How Fast is Your Host?
Another one of my favorite blogs has such a slow response time when I click from the snippet in my RSS to the full blog entry that I only actually end up waiting around for it to load about 10% of the time. Don’t lose readers because your hosting company thinks 30 seconds is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to load up a page.
13) Avoid Widget Overload!
Yes, there are definitely some cool widgets you can add to your blog, such as MyBlogLog or a Flickr photo box tied to your photo gallery. But be aware that having a large number of javascripts can slow down your site. So don’t sacrifice timely loading time for nice-but-not-all-that-necessary widgets.
14) Have Descriptive Titles
Some blog software actually makes your entry titles seem pretty repetitious in the search engine result pages, and can result in a lower click through than you might have had otherwise with highly optimized titles. If your title’s say something like “Jason’s Tech Industry Rants & Ramblings Blog >> New Xbox 360 title announced for April release?? you should change it to “New Xbox 360 title announced for April release??. Unless you are well known as an authority blog in that market, the blog name is simply wasting crucial space at the beginning of the title tag and causing the rest of the entry title to end up getting truncated in the search results. And make sure your titles actually enhance the entry and don’t leave the reader wondering what on earth the blog entry could be about. Ensuring you have great titles when you have a small readership and are depending on search engines to send you readers is one of the first steps you should take to optimize your blog.
15) Look at your Cascading Style Sheets.
Most blogs use a tremendous amount of CSS to create that custom look. And while most of the “out of the box?? designs that come standard with the installed template include all CSS in an external file, there definitely are some blog designers who will put their CSS on the individual template pages rather than placing it all in an external CSS file. And when you don’t place CSS in an external file, it can clutter up your pages and result in the most important part of the page – the entry text – being much further down in the HTML code when it has to go after the masses of CSS coding lines.
16) Post Often
The more frequently you post, the more likely Googlebot and other bots will stop by on a more regular basis. If you only post once in a blue moon, expect that it might take a while for Google to stop by and see that you actually have updated again. Google loves updated fresh sites, so it make sense to feed the bot what it wants.
17) Spread the Link Love
If you are blogging about a story, link up the original story as well as other’s commentary on the same topic. When you do so, you will often make those bloggers aware of your blog’s existence (if they weren’t already) when people click from your blog to theirs. And it also increases the odds that they will either link to you on that story or on something you blog about in the future.
18) Be Aware of Your Anchor Text
When you link to someone’s blog entry, or even a previous blog entry on your own site, make sure you link well. This means instead of linking to someone’s blog entry with the anchor text “click here??, you link to them using anchor text related to the blog entry, such as “Jason’s scoop on the new Widget Xbox 360 game??.
19) Create Unique Stories
Bloggers love to link to other bloggers. When you write original blog entries, rather than just rehashing something someone else has already said, you increase the odds that someone will find yours interesting enough to link to and talk about. And a reader of that blogger’s blog might read the entry and decide to write something about what you said as well, meaning yet another link as well. And if you are fortunate, it will go viral, meaning suddenly it seems like every blogger in your market space is talking about what you wrote. Rinse and repeat as often as possible for maximum exposure and link juice.
20) Use a Related Posts Plugin
Not only does this make sense to keep readers around for other articles on your site that are related to your current post, but it also allows you to deeplink from a current page on your blog to older entries. Often, older entries get buried several pages deep on an archive page, and this allows you to showcase entries written months or years previously and give those “oldies but goodies?? an extra little kick in the search engines. There are several related post plugins available depending on which blog platform you use.
21) Ping Other Sites
When you add a new blog entry, you might want to ping site such as Technorati and FeedBurner to let them know you have a brand new blog entry on your site. You can also now ping Google’s Blog Search as well for faster indexing in their blog search engine at blogsearch.google.com. Automatic pinging is an option in the control panel of most blog platforms including WordPress and MovableType. And Ping-o-Matic offers a service that allows you to quickly pick and chose what to ping.
22) Buy Your Own Domain Name
Don’t always think your free blog hosting company will be around forever. What will you do if you build up a loyal readership then one day you discover yourblogname.examplebloghost.com no longer works because examplebloghost.com has gone out of business? You want to make sure the search engines have a URL they will always find your blog at, rather than have to worry about them re-indexing your previously well-ranked blog on am entirely new domain… that is if you are lucky enough to get your blog posts from your free hosting company. Both Google’s Blogger & WordPress allow you to use their hosted blog service while displaying it on your own domain instead of their own branded one.
23) Manage Your Trackback & Comment Spam
You don’t want Google or Yahoo to find masses of spammy links on your site to all manner of less-than-quality sites submitted to your blog by a blog spammer. Use one of the many tools on the market for your blog platform to manage both comment and trackback spam.
24) Use a Good URL Structure
Don’t use “permalinks?? such as www.yourblogsite.com/?p=123 . Instead, use www.yourblogsite.com/2007/01/01/blog_entry_title_here. Most blogging platforms allow you to change from the standard numbered permalinks to this style of search engine friendly ones. And just in case the blog platform you use has funky dynamic URLs for each entry, you will want to ensure that the bots can crawl them easily or use a mod rewrite to create a good structure such as in the example.
25) Use Great Categories
When you write a post, place it in 1 to 3 different categories related to the post. For example, and article on the television show Grey’s Anatomy could go under “Grey’s Anatomy” and “ABC”. Avoid the temptation to add it to ten different categories though, such as including “drama,” “hospital,” “interns” and “Seattle” because that is just overkill. But if you wrote something great on Grey’s Anatomy, you have made it easy for your reader to find all your posts on Grey’s Anatomy because they simply have to click on the category link at the top or bottom of the entry.
While some bloggers insist that search engine rankings will come naturally to those who wait, who really wants to wait for Google? A blogger can run into several unique challenges when it comes to optimizing for search engines, and it makes sense to get the jump on it now than simply hoping that if you write it, the bots will come. It is far easier to ensure you have a well optimized blog now than trying to figure out what the issue is 6 months down the road when only your blog’s index page is found in Google!
Happy Blogging !!!!
When people come to your Blog via a Search engine.. you just get maximum 10 seconds to hold their attention. If thats not enough to Load your Blog , then you are gone….
A good web host is essential, although, ensuring your blog not wasting valuable bandwidth on poorly optimized images, and unnecessary scripts and widgets is also important. So how do you optimize your Blog for the best performance? Here are some key tips:
I think having attractive images in your articles is a key part of blogging, but I also think you need to optimize images so that they not any larger than they need to be. If you are lucky enough to have a copy of Photoshop, it is ideal for this task. A few rules which will help you out are:
If you are saving for the Internet you should use “Save for web”. The aim is to get the final file size as small as possible without wrecking the appearance of the image.
PNG & Gif (indexed): Set the total amount of color to the lowest value possible without effecting appearance of the product. You can play with dither, for some images it will help remove artifacts, by adding a bit of noise. Raise the value of Web snap as high as you can go without making the final product look ugly.
Jpg (RGB): Lower the quality to as low as possible without making the final product look ugly, and without adding too many artifacts, you can also add some blur which may remove so ugly artifacts, but don’t get too carried away.
Make sure that if you are resizing images that you set the mode to RGB. Indexed images don’t resize well.You should ensure that images are cropped to remove any unnecessary parts, and resized to the correct final size. Don’t waste valuable bandwidth by using html code to resize an image.
Attractive graphics and excessive use of plug-ins in your theme can add to the file size of your site, and raise your loading time. So selecting a minimalist theme is a great way to reduce the size of your Blog.
You can compress Javascript and the Stylesheet used in your theme. To compress Javascript you can use a Javascript compressor. For the CSS files, you can remove the comments, and remove blank lines and spaces using your favorite text editor. This will optimize your set up a small amount.
PlanetEnjoy writes about the importance of reducing HTTP requests:
Every HTTP request, or loading each item on your website, has an average round-trip latency of 0.2 seconds. So if your site is loading 20 items, regardless of whether they are stylesheets, images or scripts, that equates to 4 seconds in latency alone (on your average broadband connection).
So it is important to ensure that you are not including an unnecessary amount of HTTP requests.
If you are loading content from other web sites it is going to slow your loading time. For example both the widgets at the bottom of this page load from other servers, Blogrush and Blogcatlog. If either of these servers are having bad days the widgets can take an age to load. This is part of the reason why I have them in the footer, so any lag doesn’t stop any other content from loading. Ad networks, badges, widgets, images, scripts may all be loading content from other servers. For optimal performance you need to rely as little as possible on other servers.
This is THE Collection of some of the best Arcade. Why buy Nintendo games or pay a monthly subscription fee, When a free version of any good game can be found here. These are my favourite timepass, and I enjoy playing them a lot… you should give it a try…
Mysteriez
Play. Find hidden numbers in the pictures.
Brain trains: attention to detail, cognitive control, processing speed
Set Online
Play. Set Online is based on Set, The Card Game, first brought to my attention by Cory Doctorow here. Basically, you have to make sets of three based on facets of color, shape, shading, and number. Each facet must be all the same or all different. Tutorial here. This game has the ability to rewire your brain.
Brain trains: cognitive control, processing time, permutations
Red Team Game
Play. Control two characters at the same time.
Brain trains: coordination, multitasking, spatial intelligence,
Triangles
Here. Play two avoidance games simultaneously. One with your left hand. The other with your right hand.
Brain trains: coordination, cognitive control, peripheral vision
Building Houses 2
Play. Make the shape on the left using cubes. Sounds easy, but challengingly difficult.
Brain trains: spatial intelligence, strategy, visualization
Jumble Word Vault
Play. New twist on an old favorite. Jumble requires you to make words and unscramble. This time around, you must fill quotas and race against time.
Brain trains: verbal reasoning, processing speed, permutations
Word Drop
Play. Make words with letter tiles. Make it on the hi-score list.
Brain trains: verbal reasoning, permutations, peripheral vision
IQ
Here. A really good brain workout which consists of a whole bunch of IQ puzzles.
Brain trains: logic, spatial intelligence, permutations, visualization
How Much Time Has Passed?
Here. You’re given 2 times and you have to indicate how much time has passed. A little like the Brainage game.
Brain trains: math, processing speed, concentration, brainage
Numbers
Play. Click on the numbered tiles so that they add up to the target number.
Brain trains: math, processing speed, big picture
Fun Game
Play. Kind of like solitaire meets Tetris where you have to combine blocks of 4.
Count The Cubes
Play. You’re shown a bunch of cubes. Count how many there are.
Brain trains: perspective, processing speed, spatial intelligence
Find People
Here. Like Where’s Waldo?, but made into an online game. Spot the selected person in the crowd. Lots of fun.
Brain trains: concentration, processing speed, attention to detail
Connect 2
Play. Connect pairs of tiles and clear the board.
Brain trains: perspective, processing speed, concentration
Rings
Play. Copy the pattern you’re shown. Do it quick or else the pattern will disappear. Very good brain game.
Brain trains: processing speed, visualization, memory
Mouse Speed
Here. Very challenging game where you must click on numbers as quickly as possible.
Brain trains: cognitive control, reaction time, peripheral vision
Dupligon
Play. Like the drawing game in Brainage, you are briefly shown a shape and then you have to draw it based on memory.
Braintrains: memory, visualization, concentration
Colour Word 2
Play. A stroop test game that is very well polished. You’re shown a word in a certain colour and you have to click on the colour of the word and not the name of the word.
Brain trains: cognitive control, reaction time, processing speed
25 Boxes
Play. Find the target letter(s) on one side, but click their corresponding box (es) on the other side.
Brain trains: peripheral vision, coordination, processing speed
Memry
Play. An interesting twist on the classic game of Concentration. In Memry (that’s not a typo), you flip over two cards at a time and try to match picture pairs. The picture pairs, however, are taken from random Flickr photos. You can specify a tag which will determine the pictures that will appear in your game.
Brain trains: concentration, memory, visualization
Anagrammatic
Play. Given 9 random letters, try to find the longest word. Play against opponents from around the world. Very fun.
Brain trains: verbal reasoning, processing speed, concentration
Pipe Mania
Play. Fit the pieces of pipe on the game board so the water can get to the drain. Oh and there’s a time limit.
Brain trains: visualization, processing speed, strategy
Pirate Chains
Play. Get the key to the lock by removing tiles standing in the way. Remove by creating non-diagonal patterns of three or more tiles . Oh and there’s a time limit and move limit.
Brain trains: big picture, pattern, processing speed
Arithmetiles
Play. A special number is shown. Click on two other numbers that either add, subtract, multiply, or divide to equal that number.
Brain trains: math, processing speed, concentration
Digit Span Memory Test
Here. Try to remember a sequence of numbers that get longer and longer.
Brain trains: memory, visualization, concentration
Spot The Difference
Here. Polished flash version of a classic brain trainer. Within a limited time, spot the five differences in the two pictures.
Brain trains: concentration, processing speed, visualization
Stroop Test
Here. You are shown a box and presented with two words, one of which identifies the color of the box. Press the left or right arrow key to select the correct word.
Brain trains: cognitive control, processing time, reaction time
Word List Recall
Here. You’ll be shown a list of words one word at a time. Afterwards, you’ll be asked to write down as many as you remember.
Brain trains: memory, visualization, verbal reasoning
Parachute
Here. Did you play Bandai handheld games as a kid? They were the DS’s and PSP’s of my generation. This one is a classic. Using the left and right direction key, catch the falling parachuters or else they’ll be eaten by the shark. Thank you Aaron for porting them to Java.
Brain trains: spatial intelligence, strategy, coordination
Test Your Reaction Speed
Here. Stare at a red dot. Mouse click when it turns yellow. Your average time is calculated after 5 tries. Addictive.
Brain trains: reaction time, concentration, processing speed
Dr. Mario
Here. Don’t know how long it will be before this site is taken down, but while it’s available, brain train with Dr. Mario, a classic Nintendo game. IMHO, it’s better than Tetris, but that’s just me. Place the two-unit pills in such a way that you complete 4 units of the same color.
Brain trains: pattern, processing speed, visualization
CodeWord
Here. Like Mastermind, but with words. Guess the word. The computer will give you feedback about which letters were correct so you can fine tune your next guess.
Brain trains: verbal reasoning, permutations, processing speed
Colour Connect
Here. Click on the circles to get rid of them. You can only get rid of a circle if it matches colour with the circle before it.
Brain trains: strategy, big picture, pattern
MemoTST
Play. You are shown piano keys with different colors. The colors disappear. Do you remember the color of a certain key? Exceptionally well-designed game.
Brain trains: memory, visualization, concentration
Mastermind
Play. Guess the four colors and the order which they appear. Classic logic game.
Brain trains: logic, permutations, memory
Words In A Word
Play. Try to make as many new words as possible in the time given. One of the best Boggle-themed games because of the level of competition.
Brain trains: verbal reasoning, permutations, processing time
Wordz
Play. Click on two white letters to swap them in order to make the right words.
Brain trains: verbal reasoning, permutations, processing speed
Letter Rip
Play. Make words from the letters on the playing field. Each letter of a word must be adjacent to one another. Click on the last letter to submit.
Brain trains: big picture, verbal reasoning, pattern
Brain Age 2
Play. Click on either plus, minus, times, or divide to make the math statement true. Do it as fast as you can. Once finished, the game will display your brain age.
Brain trains: math, processing speed, reaction time, brainage
Wii Picross
Play. Use the clue numbers on the side of the playing field to mark out a hidden picture. Like Sudoku meets Minefield meets Mastermind.
Brain trains: concentration, logic, multitasking
Nblox aka Tetris
Play the best Tetris clone available. Use left and right arrow keys to move the shape. The up key to rotate.
Brain trains: pattern, perspective, reaction time
Curveball
Play. In first person view, paddle a ball back and forth against the computer.
Brain trains: spatial intelligence, coordination, reaction time.
Day Of The Bobteds
Play: Decide the ideal position to place a shiny metal ball(s) and watch it will drop/bounce on intended target(s).
Brain trains: prediction, spatial intelligence, strategy
Green And Black
Play. Flip a column or a row. When you flip, greens becomes black and vice versa. The goal is to get everything green within 10 seconds.
Brain trains: processing speed, strategy, perspective
Shift
Play. A very fun platformer with a Paper Mario-type twist. Press the shift key to shift your world view so that you play as black or upside down as white depending on the problem at hand. This dynamic forces your brain to simultaneously think right-side up and upside down.
Brain trains: strategy, coordination, perspective
Lamb Chop Drop
Play. You’re a falling lamb and you must steer yourself into the path of colorful stars flying upwards. This game trains your spatial awareness because you’re given a three-dimensional view instead of 2D. Finally, the more stars you get, the more money donated to a worthy cause – much like freerice.com.
Brain trains: spatial intelligence, prediction, perspective
Brain Age 1
Play. You’re shown a bunch of numbers scattered about the screen. The screen goes blank. Next, you’re shown placeholders where the numbers were and you have to click on the placeholders in order from least to greatest by the numbers they represented. Your brain age score is calculated after ten rounds.
Brain trains: memory, concentration, visualization, brainage
Spin The Black Circle Game
Play. Only the left and right arrow keys are used to rotate the entire screen in order to move the ball to its destination. While it sounds easy, the reality of ball physics will make this an addictive brain trainer.
Brain trains: reaction time, spatial intelligence, coordination
Fruit Smash
Play. A good Bejeweled clone. For those who don’t know what Bejeweled is, you click on a fruit and then another either to north, east, west, or south of it. This causes the two fruits to swap in the hopes of making lines containing three or more of the same fruit. The completed lines are removed and surrounding fruit move to fill in the void. It gets really fun when combos happen.
Brain trains: processing speed, pattern, big picture
Three Glasses
Play. A modern take on the classic math logic problem where you’re given pails of different volume capacities and you must use them to measure out a specified amount of water.
Brain trains: strategy, permutations, logic
Lilly Hop
Play. You control a frog that must hop from lily pad to lily pad. You must touch every lily pad, but you cannot retrace your steps.
Brain trains: strategy, permutations, logic
Phit
Play. Take the odd shapes in the white area above and place them so the entire yellow area below is covered. It’s like tangrams meet Tetris.
Brain trains: permutations, spatial intelligence, visualization
Blue
Play. You’re required to make all the tiles light up. This is done by moving the sphere. Whenever the sphere is over a tile, the four adjacent tiles to the north, east, west, and south of it are toggled to their opposite: dark tiles are lit, lit tiles are turned off.
Brain trains: permutations, prediction, visualization
Do 100 Arithmetic Questions In 5 Minutes
Do. Try to do 100 arithmetic problems in 5 minutes. Great Brain Age replacement to train mental math skills. Did them in under 2 and half minutes. Try to pwn me.
Brain trains: processing speed, math, reaction time
Troyis
Play. For those who play chess, you know how the knight/horse moves in an L shaped pattern? Use that type of movement to turn all the white squares purple. The blue square are off limits.
Brain trains: permutations, reaction time, big picture
8 Letters
Play. You’re given 8 letters and you have to make as many new words from them as possible (think Text Twist). Get extra points if you can unscramble the letters and find the 8 letter word before the time runs out. The idea isn’t new, but the presentation is flawless.
Brain trains: processing speed, permutations, verbal reasoning
Reverse
Play. Using your mouse, move the object through the maze, to the goal. Oh, one more thing. If your mouse moves left, the cursor moves right, and vice versa. You have to will your brain to do the opposite of what it’s been conditioned to do.
Brain trains: concentration, cognitive control, coordination
Squiz
Play. Get points for clicking on four icons of the same type in such a way that they represent the four corners of a square or rectangle. The bigger the square/rectangle, the more points you get.
Brain trains: visualization, pattern, big picture
Matter / Tangrams
Play. Assemble various smaller shapes into a predefined big shape.
Brain trains: visualization, pattern, big picture
Planarity
Play. Move the nodes around until no strings overlap.
Brain trains: strategy, prediction, visualization
Squares
Play. You’re a black square. Gain points by touching any other black object in the game. Black squares give you more points and black circles give you bonuses. Stay away from red things. Red squares kill you and red circles curse you.
Brain trains: concentration, processing speed, reaction time
Reflex
Play. Guide the constantly moving ball to the exit. The only way to steer the ball is by toggling the panels to guide its direction.
Brain trains: strategy, permutations, prediction
Nucleus
Play. Using only left mouse click, move the charge (as represented by the light blue ring) inwards until it reaches the nucleus. Movement of the charge is possible only when the two revolving electrons are close to one another.
Brain trains: concentration, reaction time, prediction
Picto
Play. Click on the icon which was the newest addition to the screen. Sounds easy, but once the screen starts filling up, you’re forced to keep track of what came before.
Brain trains: memory, concentration, visualization
Ray Ray’s Parade
Play. You control a formation of cute, chubby babies. Your job is to get them all to stand up by clicking on them. When you click a baby, any other baby to the north, east, west, or south of it is affected. If the other(s) baby is crouching, it will stand. If it is already standing, it will crouch. Cute way to train you brain.
Brain trains: permutations, logic, big picture
Nodes
Play.The red nodes are connected to one another by lasers. Drag the red nodes so the lasers pass through each and every blue node.
Brain trains: strategy, multitasking, visualization
Mass Attack
Play. Your job is to balance the scales by creating balls with different masses to offset the computer-generated load. The difficulty lies in the fact that you only have a limited number of tries.
Brain trains: math, prediction, visualization
Spa Cat
Play. Given a screen full of multi-colored, multi-sized numbers, you must click them in order from least to greatest before the time runs out.
Brain trains: concentration, reaction time, big picture
Keyway
Play. Press the corresponding arrow key when you’re shown it, and press space bar when you’re shown a square. That’s all there is to it. Oh and every mistake you make, you lose 5 seconds. Every round you pass, you gain 10 seconds. Try to get as much points as you can before time runs out. Simple, yet elegant with a hypnotic soundtrack.
Brain trains: concentration, reaction time, coordination
Eskiv
Play. A simple concept, but powerfully addictive. You’re a big dot that gets around the screen using the arrow keys. Touch as many squares as possible. Avoid small dots. The catch is: for every square you touch, another small dot appears. Try to get 135 points. That’s my high score.
Brain trains: concentration, cognitive control, visualization
Excit
Play. Really fun game that uses an excel spreadsheet as its backdrop (sorry if your boss walks by, it looks like you’re doing work). Using the arrow keys, the object is to guide the ball to the green ex(c)it. Once it starts moving, the ball won’t stop so you have to steer its path using immovable objects randomly placed on the game screen.
Brain trains: strategy, permutations, visualization
Cube Field
Play. Using the left and right arrow keys, steer clear of objects coming at you at what seems to be a million miles per hour.
Brain trains: concentration, reaction time, spatial intelligence
Cell
Play. Frustrating, but in a good way type of game where your left hand controls the gray block and your right hand controls the fence around the gray block. Move both to the goal. This game works because it demands us to coordinate both hemispheres of the brain.
Brain trains: concentration, multitasking, coordination
Chat Noir
Play. Turn-based game (you and the computer take turns making a move) where you must keep the cat from escaping the play area by clicking light green circles to make them dark. The cat cannot step on dark green circles.
Brain trains: strategy, permutations, logic
Binary Game
Play. Interesting game created by Cisco Systems to train their own techs. The game involves converting bytes into whole numbers or the other way around. Has a Tetris-like feel because if you’re slow and the bytes get too high, game over.
Thanks to Jessica Bridges, for informing that the cisco link is broken and giving an working alternative link.
Brain trains: math, concentration, processing speed
Bloxorz
Play. Very well-made puzzle game which involves moving a brick into a hole.
