Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

Pipes posts

Filed under: Fun, Games, Kids, Freeware, Time-Wasters, Web

Colourshift - Pipes-like TimeWaster

ColourshiftIf you've ever played the classic game Pipes, then Colourshift will probably feel pretty familiar to you. In Colourshift you are presented with an invisible grid of squares that may contain various pieces. the idea is to pipe the correct colors from their color source (the colored squares) to their lights (the colored circles) of the same color.

Though the game is conceptually very simple, gameplay can get very complex very quickly. For example, there are times where you'll need to mix different colors into the same circuit to create new colors - for example, blue and red combining to make magenta to light a magenta light.

Making matters worse is that on later levels the concept of wrapping through the edges of the screen and dummy pieces (ones that don't need to be used at all) combine to make solving the puzzle even more confusing.

Colourshift is a nice take on a tried-and-true game concept that you can use to give your brain a little workout.

Filed under: Business, Fun, Internet, Web services, Yahoo!, Search, web 2.0

Yahoo's top 5 web services

Yahoo's top 5 web servicesYahoo is the original Internet location. Back in the early days everyone had their Hotmail email address, and had Yahoo search directory set as their start page in Netscape Navigator. Things have changed drastically since then. Google is in the spotlight for search, and Yahoo has branched out to offer some important services for todays internet users, (insert Mozilla fan boy comment now) and we should all be using Firefox.

Taking a queue from Richard MacManus' post on the Top 10 Yahoo! Properties, we would like to highlight some of Yahoo's services that are making a difference in our lives in this Web 2.0 landscape.

Read more →

Filed under: Developer, Internet, Blogging, Web services, Yahoo!, How-Tos, Social Software

Aggregating myself with Yahoo! Pipes


Yesterday I wrote a bit about taming the RSS feeds generated by the myriad Web 2.0 services to which you're subscribed. It occurred to me that Emily Chang's original quest to pull together all of the feeds she creates into a single meta-feed was a perfect project for Yahoo! Pipes.

I sat down to take all the data I spew at places like my own blog, del.icio.us, Twitter, and Flickr into one aggregated bowl of RSS love. The result of my feed union isn't an hour by hour diary of my day, but does create an ephemeral stream of things that are undeniably me. The same techniques could easily be tweaked to document your day to near pinpoint perfection, if you're so inclined.

Read more →

Filed under: Utilities, Web services, Yahoo!

Yahoo Pipes launches--but what is it?

yahoo pipesThere has been lots of buzz around Yahoo and their newly launched Pipes beta. So what is it? Plain and simple, it's an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Pipes can be used to create RSS feeds that are a lot more useful and powerful than any other feed reader. Pipes is a Yahoo!-hosted service that enables the user to remix feeds that create data mashups with a visual approach. The Pipes tool allows users that have basically no skills or technical experience with web data to combine sources and develop new web services that they can share with others. With the tool, users connect pipe segments, like Yahoo! searches, Flickr feeds, and Google Base items, creating a complex application within minutes. Tutorials on how to use Pipes are currently not online, but are expected to be in a few days. There is a Yahoo! discussion forum open to users that wish to discuss Pipes with other early adopters. TechCrunch, GigaOM, and John Battelle all have blurbs about the service that you can check out.

Featured Time Waster

The World's Hardest Game 2.0 - Time Waster

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio