One More Blog

I’ll be in San Francisco and LA at the end of September. If you’re in the area shoot me an e-mail.

I get a lot of e-mails asking me how to disable the sound in Flash games. It can be annoying when in-game music or sound effects interfere with an MP3 you are listening to. Currently there is no perfect solution, but there are a few options:

• First check if the game has a built-in option to turn off sounds. Sometimes it’s hidden in the options menu, a small music note icon in the corner of the screen or occasionally simply pressing “M” might do the trick. Unfortunately it’s up to the game developer whether or not they include this option, and many games do not.
• If you are a Windows user there’s a freeware application called FlashMute. It works with IE and Firefox and allows you to quickly toggle Flash sounds on and off with a hotkey. This is probably the best solution currently available. Download FlashMute.
  
  
• A Firefox extension called Mute Flash. However it only works under XP and requires a restart of your browser every time you run it. The reason for the browser restart is the extension removes a Windows DLL file to disable Flash audio. You can also do this manually.

Hopefully Adobe will include an easy way to toggle audio in future versions of their Flash player. Until then we have to rely on developers embedding this functionality into their games… so send them a polite e-mail if they forget. :) Happy gaming!

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I’ll be in Seattle July 22nd to 26th attending Casual Connect. If you’re in the area and want to get lunch let me know!

If you read TechCrunch and Mashable as much as I do you know there is a lot of noise and hype to filter through to get to the quality startups. Here’s a few of my favourite sites that I think have bright futures and will be able to shake off those “beta” tags from their logos.

• Kongregate - Kongregate has done a great job setting up revenue sharing with developers and creating an addictive achievement system for players. Although they are my competitors, the founders, Jim & Emily Greer, are just too nice not give a plug to.

• Seesmic - Video comment responses. This will either prove to be incredibly useful or a troll’s dream come true. I’m hoping for useful but the latter will be hilarious if nothing else.

• I’m in Like With You - Flirting site turned multiplayer gaming. This website is 100% Flash based and very slick indeed. It makes OneMoreLevel look like a Geocities abomination that never escaped from 1998.

• Team Pages - Team and League Management app in a nice Web 2.0 package. Plus they are fellow Canadians so that instantly makes them cool.

• Friend Feed Feed - ” Aggregate all your social networking aggregator feeds into one aggregated feed of aggregator activity feeds!” I can’t start my day without first checking FFF to see what my friend feed feeds are up to.

Found any good sites? Share them in the comments!

I’ll be in SF June 10-15th for the Social Gaming Summit. If you’re in the area and want to get lunch let me know!

Adventure Quest, Fridge Magnets, Jelly Battle, Nonoba Racing and more have been added to the Multiplayer Games section! Also I fixed a size bug with Castle Wars so the multiplayer screen now displays properly. What games do you want added? Leave a comment.