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Games are made to pass the time or for fun and relaxation. I guess the word relaxation should be removed, once you get hooked on Reflex games. The Reflex Arcade site (http://www.reflex.com/) has games that will both test your patience and your hand and eye coordination. The games here can be downloaded as an application to your computers, but wait, it’s not free. You have to pay for it and you will get the code to play it unlimitedly, although, you can also play some of the games online. For games that need to be bought to get played, you can still play it for free, for only sixty minutes, just to see how it goes.

Warning, this game is for the human calculators only! Kidding, anyone can play this game, as long as they have the patience and the math skills. This is another game available for the iPhone. On the screen you will find numbers in boxes and empty boxes in between them. You will have to fill the empty boxes in between the numbers with either a plus sign or a minus sign. The key here is to look at the number after the empty box or look at all the numbers in the rows and columns. Usually at the end of each column and row, there’s that goal that you have to reach, which is zero.

Maybe you are wondering I made a typo-error with the title; that I should replace the “Touch” with “Toe”? Why should I? I am a hundred percent right, this is a new game application suited for iPhones and iPod Touch. The two gadgets are used by putting your finger on the screen and you get things to work. Games are often part of the system, so one of the games are Tic-Tac-Touch. You can play this game either with a friend (thru Bluetooth system maybe?) or by yourself (you versus the computer). When playing against the computer, you can opt for beginner, intermediate and advanced. Now that’s what you call a computer sport!

Miniclip was launched in 2000 by Robert Small and is reported to have about 50 million unique visitors per month. Miniclip has several games users can play online either using Flash or Shockwave technology. Miniclip is claimed to have one of the widest selections of games on the internet and they even offer games in every category possible such as brain training, political, retro and even current events like the US Election 2008. Apart from gaming, they also provide cartoons and e-cards. Users can create their own characters to play the games with. The website has a clean-looking interface and is available in more than 10 languages. Most games can be played without having to register, but their most popular game, Club Penguin, requires people to sign up due to strong parental controls (since the game is meant for children).

Line Rider is an online game developed in September 2006 by a university student in Slovenia (and was originally released in deviantART) where players draw a track and then ride it with a sled. Players can draw a surface on the given interface for a little character on a sled to slide upon. Just click on the play button (triangle pointing to the right) after drawing the surface to watch the ride. Bosh, the little character on the sled, will ride down the tracks that were drawn using gravity. When the ride is too rough, he will fall off the track though he can also make jumps. There are three kinds of track, blue tracks are normal, red tracks accelerate the sled and green lines are for scenery. The objective of the game is to design creative tracks and share them with other users. No registration is needed to play this unique and fun webtoy.

NewsGator Online is a free web-based RSS newsreader service and is the latest product from NewsGator, an RSS company which offers products and services that lets users to synchronize data streams and news feeds across multiple websites. NewsGator Online users can browse a whole host of news feeds or subscribe manually to their favorite feeds by copying and pasting and RSS link from their favorite sites. Since NewsGator Online is a web-based newsreader, users can view all their favorite news and media feeds from anywhere with internet access. Registration only requires your name, a username and e-mail and you don’t even have to verify your e-mail before trying out this great web application.

Meebo is a free online application which offers instant messaging service to its users through multiple instant messaging platforms. Launched in September 2005, Meebo can be accessed anywhere either from a public computer or on a mobile phone. Users can connect from Meebo.com to AOL’s AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, and MSN Messenger. One distinct feature of Meebo is that it automatically saves all your message history so that you can still check your previous conversations even logging after a week. Meebo has a sleek interface and uses separate pop-up windows for chats. Other cool touches include a typing indicator and a time stamp. Though Meebo doesn’t require registration, being a registered user will get you some added functionality such as having single sign-on for all of your IM accounts, saving chat logs, storing conversations and adding personalized touches such as icons and skins to the application.

Amie Street is a social network service and, at the same time, an indie online music store created by Elliott Breece, Elias Roman, and Joshua Boltuch in 2006. Artists can upload tracks on the site for other users to purchase (although many of the songs on the website are also for free). Popularity sets the price of the song. The price of a track starts at zero upon upload but then increases based on demand and popularity (the maximum price any song will rise to is 98¢ and artists get 70% of the revenue Amie Street makes). In terms of social networking, users can connect with fellow users through the “friend” feature wherein “friends” are categorized according to musical interests.

Having launched in 2003 and being one of the older social networking sites in cyberspace, Linkedin is designed to be a social networking site for professionals and business people. It lets people keep in contact with colleagues and former workmates while collaborating with other people who are in the same industry as they are. With over 8.5 million users, Linkedin lets users write their profiles and also help them search other people’s profiles. It is different from Facebook or Myspace since its service is targeted to the business and professional market. In short, Linkedin is purely business that is why people often use it to scout for possible jobs or to search for other suitable professionals.

Introduced by 37 Signals in February 2004, Basecamp is an online project management software which lets users create, manage and communicate tasks, files and other to-do lists. A project can include To-Dos, Messages, Files, Milestones and People. Basecamp users can easily create a new project within minutes and those users who are currently working on a project will get an email notification once a new post is added to a project. First-time users will have no problems working with Basecamp since it’s one of the easiest project management tools to use. Users can try out the introductory plan for free (one project; no file uploads) while those who would want to continue using Basecamp can avail of different plans ranging from $19-$59 per month.