One of the better Firefox addons developer out there, Chris Finke recently tried a "freemium" experiment with URL Fixer to see if the users of that popular addon can be enticed to part with some dosh for extra features.

his conclusions from this experiment make an interesting reading..

• http://www.chrisfink...mium-browser-add-on/

I've gotten these emails as well and wondered where they came from..

In the past few months, we've received the occasional message in response to our newsletter which begins "Delete This Account! I Am A Forum Spammer!", and have been signed by Random Digilante.   This person has been kind enough to oblige us with an interview.   Random Digilante has been taking over email accounts which were set up exclusively for the purpose of spamming forums, disabling them, and setting automatic responses to any emails sent stating clearly that the account was made for malicious reasons, and should be removed.  In every case where we've received these emails, our own investigation has shown that they were indeed set up for malicious purposes.

http://freeinternetp.../story.php?sid=27215

The guys at Mozilla Labs launched yesterday the Game On competition, geared at kickstarting development of web games based on open technologies, including the nascent WebGL^w. As you may know, Flash is the cornerstone of nearly every game available on the net today, with more complex games like Quake Live opting for proprietary plugins not compatible with all browsers, and others like Minecraft preferring to use the ubiquitous Java plugin.

https://gaming.mozillalabs.com/

But recent advancements in HTML standards, plus the furious race to develop much faster JavaScript engines, have made possible for developers to finally leave plugins behind and code games to run directly in any browser that supports the latest standards, an excellent example being Biolab Disaster. With almost all browsers now capable of running these games, and Mozilla encouraging further development, true web games will begin to be the rule, rather than the exception.

Further information is available at the site linked above. Naturally, all games must run on Firefox 4 (which this competition also helps promoting), but apart from that, the rules are pretty relaxed, as expected from Mozilla. The deadline is on January, 11th 2011, though some people have been working on a concept for some weeks now, and I hope they share something with us

Ludum Dare is a tri-annual challenge to program a game (essentially from scratch) in 48 hours.

Ludum Dare Competition rules are stricter than the Jam rules. This is to encourage a fairer playing field for participants. The core rules are:

• You must work alone (solo).
• All game code and content must be created within the 48 hours. **
• Games must be based on the theme.
• All libraries, middleware, content creation, and development tools are allowed.
• Source code must be included.

Special Competition Exemptions **

• Base code and personal code libraries are allowed, but should be declared and shared with the community prior to beginning your entry. To do this, make a blog post.
• Photos and recordings you make of people or things are acceptable content, just you must acquire them during the competition.
• Fonts, drum loops, drum samples, and sampled instruments are allowed IF you have the legal right to use them.
• Content generators are allowed. In fact, you are encouraged to create them and share them with the community. sfxr, the extremely popular sound effect generator was originally created for Ludum Dare. It has since gone on to be used in many indie and commercial games.
• A logo/intro screen you use on all your works is allowed (e.g. “by Super-Great Productions”).
• By special request, post Ludum Dare 18, we will allow the use of the Wilhelm Scream, one of the oldest memes in television, movies and games. Sound files can be found on Archive.org. *NEW*
• Porting (especially to Windows) can happen after the initial 48 hours. The longer you wait though, the less of a chance other participants will have to play your game.

-http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/rules/

There is also "The Jam" which is a more relaxed version of the Challenge.

In October, however, a friendly challenge from one member to the others in the IRC channel takes things to the next level. The goal is simple: Make a game, take it to market, and sell at least 1 copy by the end of October to succeed.


More details on the October challenge.

Where "software" was once fun, interesting, and useful, now it's retreating into fenced-in arenas governed by Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, et al. Software has morphed into browser apps and extensions, most of which seems intent on connecting us to -- and fencing us into -- distinct corporate portals built solely for their profit by making my internet experience is limited by the products they want to sell me. And mind you, corporations do not share my views of liberty, but instead are intent on restricting what search terms I can enter, what search results I will get, what words I can use according to their almost religious Terms of Service "agreements," and on top of it all, they get to view, share, sell, or lock me out of my online data at their pleasure. As a result, it's 2010 and I'm bored (and boring, I know). I have dozens of sites I visit daily, but most of them evoke a "meh" at best.

Any help on chooseing which open source/free license to use is a good thing:

First of course, you’ll need to decide what sort of license will fit both your project and your intentions for how you want to release it.

This used to be more complex, because there were so many competing options, but it’s gotten much simpler because a few free-licenses have become extremely dominant, leaving most of the rest as historical footnotes. I’ll present this as a flow chart and as a series of questions to answer about your project in case you’re uncomfortable with reading flow charts.

http://www.freesoftw..._and_aesthetic_works