Today I decided to deviate from my normal style of gaming video and created a screen cast for bloggers and those that read blogs.  Specifically, I discovered how to replace the default blog roll that most blog sites have, with one powered by "bundles" created from Google Reader.  I don't know how long the functionality has been in Google Reader, but it at least dates back to May of this year.  While the feature isn't brand new, its new to me.  If its new to you too, I have a video after the break showing how you can use it to improve your gaming site's blog roll.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Back in the day, if you wanted to talk online while getting your game on you needed to fire up Roger Wilco. Voice over IP options weren't very abundant back then, so you had few options. Fast forward a few years, and gamers have more voice over IP options than we had in those days. With so many to choose from, which is the best?

Today we're making a call out to anyone that's ever used voice over IP to weigh in and let us know which is the best. Whether you are a guild leader needing to berate your minions or just a casual goof off who likes to speak rather than type, let us know which voice solution you like the best and why. This post will kick off requests for submissions to see if we've left any worthwhile competitors out, and to gather your opinions on the ones listed here. In an upcoming post we'll tally the votes from comments and declare a winner along with the Editor's choice.

Let's meet the contestants:

Ventrilo - http://www.ventrilo.com/
Ventrilo is the venerable big daddy of VOIP for online gaming right now. In mmo circles it is the go to application for voice chat and often required by most raiding guilds. Blizzard has voice chat built into its game now, yet few use it because the quality of Ventrilo's voice chat is often superb by comparison. Ventrilo boasts one of the largest feature sets for voice, making it very flexible and considered to be the standard for voice chat by many. If you want solid voice chat that gives you full control, Ventrilo delivers.


Teamspeak - http://www.teamspeak.com/
Ventrilo users have often viewed Teamspeak as a red-headed stepchild. I haven't personally used it in a few years, so its likely much more improved. However many report what I found, that the voice quality wasn't up to snuff and it was all in the codecs. Like Ventrilo, its a powerful voice server and client that give you alot of control. I'm sure recent versions are probably on par with Ventrilo. Those of you with recent Teamspeak experience might be able to shed some light on its quality compared to Ventrilo, but TeamSpeak is still a power player in voip for gamers.


Roger Wilco - http://rogerwilco.gamespy.com/
Roger Wilco is the granddaddy of the group, at one time the premier (maybe because it was the only) tool for voice chat. Nowadays it lags far behind the competition in quality and features. It was purchased by Gamespy years ago and was incorporated into their gaming tools, and (unless I'm dead wrong) doesn't seem to be very up to date with features and quality.


Mumble - http://mumble.sourceforge.net/
Mumble can lay claim to the fact that it is the only open source competitor here. Like Ventrilo and Teamspeak, it is the standard client/server set up. This comparison actually put mumble ahead of Ventrilo, Teamspeak and Skype, which could make it the dark horse of the competition. Someone with experience with Mumble please let us know what its strengths and weaknesses are. Getting a good feature list for comparative purposes has been rather difficult.

Voon - http://voon.vivox.com/
Voon is an interesting entry to this list. Voon is the product of Vivox, the company behind in-game voice chat for games like EVE online, Fallen Earth and titles from SOE. Voon is a stand alone client with servers managed by Vivox, so there is currently no hosting to worry about. It is like Xfire and Skype in that you can place "calls" to single users as well as host chat rooms for multiple users. Voon has scheduling capability, so you can organize times for chats to happen. A few media outlets use Voon for this already.

Voxli - https://voxli.com/
This is the new kid on the block. Voxli is a web based client that requires a plug in to operate. Out of the group here, it is by far the easiest to use. That ease comes with a trade off however, as Voxli is light on features. I also don't know if it is because it is still in beta, but the voice quality seemed to be below that of Ventrilo or Teamspeak in our tests. Perhaps when the beta tag comes off we'll see more features and better quality, but for quick and easy to use voice chat Voxli delivers.

Xfire - http://www.xfire.com/
Xfire has already been talked about on this site ad nauseum, and is a pick for our Gamer's Toolbox. Even before considering voice capabilities, Xfire is a must have tool. With social media tools, game launching, in game browsing, chat and instant messaging, Xfire brings alot to the table already. In our tests the voice chat was easy to set up and use, but the quality did drop off at times (Xfire central voice servers are still in beta) with just a few users in the chat room. You are also limited to chatting with those only in your friends list, so you'll have to make sure your whole guild is signed up and running Xfire, and that everyone is in the friends list of the person starting the chat room. As I said, the Xfire voice servers are still in beta so it can improve, and I expect it will. If it can eventually deliver on Ventrilo like voice quality, it may wind up being the only utility running on my desktop while I'm gaming.

Steam - http://www. steampowered.com
I may be deranged, but I love Steam. I think its a great platform and it brings a ton of features to the table. Like Xfire, you get chat, in game browser, social tools, game launching, and more. Its voice capabilities are fairly limited to in my tests, the the quality of voice chat outside of its games was abysmal. Perhaps we have more to learn about Steam voice, to which I'm sure some knowledgeable reader out there can educate us.

Also check out this feature break down (shout in the comments if you have trouble accessing that spreadsheet) which has a compiled list of features to compare from one voip app to the next. Let us know if there are things missing or incorrect in that file.

So there you have it. Which do you use? Which is the best? Leave a comment telling us which you use, which you like, and any other information you have to contribute. Obviously, let us know if you disagree with our base assessments of the tools and if there are great features we didn't mention. We'll tally the votes for best voice app for gamers and will announce the gamer's choice and the editor's choice of best tools in a future article.

Sound off in the comments below!

Here's a new one to keep an eye on. Voxli voice chat is marketing itself to gamers and offers drop dead simple browser based voice chat. Its currently in beta and lacks features of its well established counterparts, but can't be beat for simplicity. I was alone in the room I made, so I have no idea what the voice quality was like.

Apparently all you need to do is a make a room with a unique url and you can send that link to anyone you want to join the voice chat. Password protected rooms are something to come later, no doubt once the product comes out of beta and they begin charging for the service, which they claim will be a fraction of the cost of competitors.

I like the ease of use, but it will be the best thing since sliced bread to gamers? Will it fall into the voip graveyard like so much other software (like WoW's built in voice chat) has before it? Only time will tell. Give us a shout in the comments section if you have any experience with it and let us know!

One password to rule them all
In this long overdue installment of the gamer's toolbox, I'm highlighting a great utility called KeePass (see KeePassX for Mac). It was the LifeHacker HiFive winner for best password manager, and I agree with the choice. KeePass is a program that runs in your system tray and stores all your passwords. All of them, not just your passwords for your web accounts. For mmo gamers this means that if you play a game that requires a login, KeePass can store that for you too, and you can copy and paste it right out of KeePass into your game for that extra level of security. By not typing the password on your keyboard, you can avoid most keylogging programs and avoid getting your favorite mmo game account from being hacked because a keylogging program recorded your typed password.

Nearly bullet proof
Keep in mind that using this utility does not make it impossible to hack your accounts, it just gives a really good layer of security that you may not be using currently. For WoW players, I suggest using the Blizzard authenticator (US/EU), as that is probably the best means of security for that game. KeePass has an on screen keyboard to prevent keylogging of your master password, and it has protection against your clipboard from being read and passwords stolen from there. It won't make your system bulletproof, but it will get you very close. You might even try keeping your password database stored on a USB drive that you remove from the system when not playing, which could further decrease your vulnerability. While home alarms don't stop all burlaries, they sure do prevent a ton of them, and that's what using KeePass to store your game login accounts can do for you.

Feature packed and priced right
KeePass has a ton of great features. It is open source (read: free) and is updated regularly. There are plugins to import FireFox passwords and IE integration, it can run on a usb drive if you want to take your passwords with you, or you can use another great tool like DropBox to sync your passwords between multiple computers. You can also use the on screen keyboard for entering your master password so that keyloggers can't read that one either. All in all, its a great tool that I recommend using if you want to deploy a free and easy to use tool for adding a simple layer of security over your online gaming.

Do eeet!
I'm no PC/Mac security guru by any stretch of the imagination, so don't feel like you've earned a free pass to flame me if you use this tool and you still get hacked. If that happens, you probably have bigger issues than password security can handle. Regardless, this is a recommended tool not only for storing your mmo account info, but for your guild web site and forums, your email account...even your bank account info. Its a versatile, free and easy solution that makes it my pick for the gamer's toolbox.

I've known about Xfire for quite a while now. I've had an older version installed on my previous machine for quite some time now, but never used it. I never really had a big network of gaming friends that I really wanted to keep in touch with, and the ones I did have weren't using Xfire. Back then, Xfire wasn't what it is today. It's no longer just an advanced instant messenger. Things have changed, and I recently became an xfire user as you can see from my mini-profile below:



So what changed my mind and got me using xfire now? Things have changed about me, the online friends I have, and the games I play. But more important than that, xfire has improved in many ways. The xfire site itself has become a social gaming network on its own, just like sites like gamerDNA, Raptr, and Rupture are. I can't fully compare Xfire to those sites as it wouldn't be fair since I don't know the full feature sets those companies bring to the table. But Xfire goes way beyond a snazzy social gaming web site, because of its client that you install on your machine.

The Xfire client has an amazing feature set, and I was blown away to find out that the Xfire client does so much. These things might not be new to you, but as a recent Xfire convert I was very impressed with all it can do above and beyond instant messaging across different games:

Friend Tracker
I have more online friends that are spread out across more different types of games than ever before. Its pretty cool to see if they are online, what they are playing and be able to join them really quickly. They can even IM me and say "Hey, log out of World of Warcraft you nub! We need some keep defense in Warhammer!" or something to that effect. You get the point I'm sure. It goes a step further, by incorporating the social network aspect of showing what friends of your friends are playing too. Now, if I can just get my all friends to use it...

One-Click Join
This is not such a big deal for mmo players, we usually have 1 server we ever use on a daily basis. But, this rocks for the few times I'll fire up Team Fortress 2. It should reduce the number of times I'll hear on ventrilo, "Hey what's that server named again that you are on? I don't see it listed...".

Server Browser
Again, the server browser comes more into play with non-mmorpg's, but still excellent to have.

Xfire In-Game (IM While You Play)
Being a new user, I don't have many Xfire friends since I haven't yet convinced any of my existing online friends to use it. However, it looks pretty simple...you IM someone and they get a screen overlay on whatever game they are playing that will allow them to reply.

Voice Chat
I have more questions than opinion on this feature, unfortunately. I've definately not tested this, nor seen it work, nor heard or read much about it. Anyone know if it works? How well? Is it a viable replacement for Ventrilo? More research must be done! Inquiring minds want to know.

File & Patch Downloads
It uses P2P for patch downloads. My assumption is that this might just be faster than the way some companies choose to serve up huge patches. If anyone has experience with this, let me know if it is worthwhile to get your patches through Xfire or not.

Profiles with Automatic Stats
Well, just look above at the mini-profile. You can embed that in your forum signatures, on your blog, anywhere that takes HTML or BB code. As you can see, my Warhammer guild is probably gonna be pissed that I've been playing WoW about 3-4 times as much!

Over 1000 Games Supported
Chances are it works with your game. I've had it running with both WoW and WAR and its been flawless. I do however need to test it more with WAR, as that game is newer and has been known to have crashing issues. I wonder if the IM overlay might freak it out and make it crash? Someone send me a tell tonite when I'm in WAR and lets see!

So that's the official feature list. All good stuff imo, however 1 important feature wasn't shown on the home page that I could see. Xfire gives you the ability to capture screenshots and video from whatever game you are playing and makes it trivial to upload it to the Xfire site. You can point it to any folder on your hard drive and it will capture videos and save the raw video there (so you can upload them to multiple places if you wish) and will upload them from that folder (after compression of course) to the Xfire site with ease. I have captured a few videos with it and I must say it is fantastic. It gives a great overlay on screen to show you critical information and has all (or most) of the features that Fraps has. This feature was the kicker for me, since you may know that I tend to throw together a gameplay video every now and then.

I still have some more testing to do with all the features, but I have done enough to know that Xfire is going to be a permanent item in my gamer toolbox. Do you like Xfire? Is it worth using to you? Holla back.

I have a feed reader buzzing all day with things I'm interested in, and articles are popping up for me to read all day long. I usually read a ton of gaming and technology articles daily because of that. I've been in the technology field professionally for 9 years now. I've been a gamer for at least 25 years. Staying informed as to what is currently going on in the world of technology, specifically with web technologies, is a big part of what I do. If I say that I'm an experienced technologist and a gamer, take confidence that I'm not trying to brag. Its nothing to brag about, many people are tech saavy gamers, the two often go hand in hand. I'm just saying that I've been around the block, and I feel that I have a tried and true list of tools for your toolbox as a gamer.

There are things that I've found to be useful in my life as a gamer, specifically to an adult with a job and a family, who is trying to juggle all these things and keep some sort of balance to it all. I just recently took a step back and realized that I use a bunch of these tools and that they do have some practical uses for gamers as well as for various other tasks, so I think that qualifies them for mentioning on this site. Without further delay, I bring you the first post in this new column, The Gamer's Toolbox:

LogMeIn, www.logmein.com. Free and pro versions available.



LogMeIn is basically remote control software. It was voted best remote desktop software at LifeHacker. You install the client on any machine you want to control. Then, you go to the LogMeIn web site from any machine...anywhere...and log in to your account. From there, you can pick which machine you want to control. After launching "remote control" for the selected machine, you'll be prompted to enter the code you set up for that machine (the one you entered when you installed the client) and log in. Finally, you'll be seeing an real time view of the machine and you'll have full remote control over it. You can copy and paste text and url's since the software synchronizes the clipboard on your local machine with the one you are controling. There are many, many other features as well. You can upgrade to the pro version and do even more.

So, how is this useful to a gamer? There are many reasons that using this software can be useful to a gamer, but I'll give you a very specific example. MMO games often require huuuge patches that can take long times to download right? I've come home before, anxious to log into my favorite mmo only to realize that today is patch day and I have to wait 30 minutes to an hour to update my game. Well, with LogMeIn I can take remote control of my computer from work (during lunch time of course ;p ) and start the patch process. When I get home I can jump right in and play! I can start long downloads for betas or demos, and have them downloaded and ready for me when I get home. Before I leave for work I can fire up the client and try to log in to see if there is a queue. If there is a 30 minute wait, I can just get in line and be in the game by the time I get home. Now that is time efficient gaming folks! Anyway, give this tool a try and you might just want to keep it as a permanent part of your gaming toolbox too.