Agar.io is another great online massively multiplayer browser game/app utilizing socket.io. You start out on a large square grid as a cell around 38-45 mass (It seems that sometimes you spawn on top of mass particles, so you can get a little bonus right from the start if you are lucky). There are little hexagonal particles of mass that spawn randomly on the map, and you gain mass by gobbling up these small bits of mass. It’s sort of like Pacman meets Odell lake. You can also gain mass by eating smaller cells, so when you start the game you are on the very bottom of the food chain!

Agar.io Beginners Guide

Objective – In FFA the object is to gain mass until you reach the leaderboard to show off your massiveness! There are also daily missions which give you coins and “DNA” if completed. In Rush mode the object is to be the largest cell when the timer expires.

Viruses – Viruses are the green spiked circles, and spawn at random around the map. A virus can be a safe haven for a cell of smaller mass. For cells larger than the virus, running into a virus will cause the cell to split up into 16 different pieces. This can be a good if you are able to keep all your cells because when you are in 16 parts you can eat viruses, but more commonly this can be your downfall. When nearby cells spot a cell being split by a virus, a frenzy of sorts begins. Cells from all over the map will risk there little cell lives just to try and get a piece of you, often times at their own peril.

Cell bursting on virus – Agar.io

Mass Ejection – Press ‘W’ on the keyboard to eject mass in the direction you are traveling. There are many reasons to eject mass, but most commonly it is used to transfer mass from one cell to another. If you see two opposing cells doing “feeding” each other in FFA, watch out, this is most likely a team! (Teams dominate FFA, go figure).

Split Mass – Press ‘Space’ on your keyboard to split your cell in half, ejecting one half in the direction you are traveling. The most common reason one would opt to split in half is to “eat” another cell. Make sure you are more than twice the mass of the cell you are trying to eat, or it will fail and you will either not be able to eat the cell you targeted, or if you overestimated your mass by too much, the cell you target can even eat you! Another common use for this function is to avoid being eaten entirely! When being hunted by larger cells a well timed split will insure that only half of you is eaten, and you will live to see another day! If your cell is smaller than 38 mass, you will not be able to split).

Strategies – There is one strategy that works fantastic for me most of the time. This method involves spending about 5 minutes or so farming mass particles and avoiding all larger cells, and maintaining a friendly relationship with cells in your size range (chasing a slightly smaller cell is usually fruitless, and will likely get you both killed!). Also it’s wise to keep in mind that when you are a small cell, you are a huge target! Trust no one! In the video below I’ll show you how to use this strategy to make it onto the leaderboard in about 10 minutes.

Of course one of the most popular strategies is the social game in Agar.io. Feed the right cell and you might have made a friend for life (of your cell)! But watch out, there are those who will eat you even if you do feed them. A good sign that a cell is willing to cooperate is if they eject some mass back at you in exchange. Also beware of traders though! About 50% of the cells that try to make friends, do so only to eat cannibalize their friends! This is a strategy that I don’t really recommend, as it may be a quick boost, but generally you will make an enemy for life by doing so, and getting revenge is one of the sweetest things to do in Agar.io!

With a good teammate it’s easy to dominate the map!

Hacks/Cheats – It’s likely that some bad hacks exist for this game, but I’m not going to be covering any hacks of that sort. There are “legal” hacks that I will focus on instead. The most common being using your name field to communicate to other cells with language or symbols. A popular use of this is for teams to use a “tag” on the beginning of their username, so that they can easily be identified as a teammate no matter what skin the cell is using. For example a couple popular groups are “MK” and “FBI”, and when they play they generally have a large team working together to easily dominate the entire map for hours on end! Another popular use is to mention teams in your name. Usually a cell with the name “team” is willing to cooperate, but still watch out for the predators, not every cell named team is actually friendly!

Another simple hack is to log on every hour and collect 20 free coins. When you want to play, if you have a couple hundred coins you can pick up a nice boost that lasts for an hour, which can be very helpful!

Now to the good stuff! If you want a real edge over the competition, you might decide that using ‘W’ and ‘Space’ are not the easiest keys to use. Sometimes you really have to mash that ‘W’, and sometimes you have to be very precise! Using a programmable input emulator we can change those keys to whatever keys we like! I am using GlovePIE, an old but still working PIE utility. FreePie is another one. There are others out there, let us know in the comments if you know of any other good PIE’s! The script I like to use is making the left mouse button work as ‘W’ in addition to ‘W’. If you need to eject some mass quickly, you can mash both the ‘W’ key and the ‘LMB’ and eject an incredible amount of mass very quickly! Download the Agar.io GlovePIE script.

Pro Tips – Now that you know the basics, here are a few pro tips to remember:

• The longer you hold down Space to split your cell, the further you will eject half your mass. This is helpful for reaching cells that are far off.
• You probably shouldn’t trust anyone unless you know them personally. Agar.io players are treacherous!
• If a cell that is slightly larger than you has almost encapsulated you, don’t split, don’t eject mass, just stay on course and try to direct your cell into the particles in your path. Your opponent will be unable to collect any particles while following you, so after collecting enough particles, you will grow bigger than the cell chasing you. My my, how the tables have turned! This is also generally a sign that you are up against a newb, most vets know that the smaller cell is faster!
• When you are small, sometimes you can find a giant cell and use it as parasitic host of sorts. Most large cells won’t risk trying to come too near to a giant cell so it can be a safe haven at times.

If you like this guide please subscribe to my blog! See you on Agar.io!

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Save money by getting the maximum cash back from your credit card purchases!

Does your credit card(s) have cash back rewards? If you have more than one cash back reward perhaps you find it difficult at times to recall which credit card corresponds with which cash back rewards? With Cash Back Reminder you can simply open the app and find your credit card that gives cash back in the category you require enabling you to utilize the maximum amount of cash back for every purchase!

For example, let’s say that Credit Card A has 1% cash back on every purchase, and Credit Card B has 3% cash back at the grocery store and Credit Card C has 2% cash back at the gas station. It might be easy to mix up or forget where to use what card. Before you use your card, open the Cash Back Reminder app to make sure you are using the card with the most cash back rewards potentially saving you hundreds!

Let’s do some simple calculations on how we can come up with an estimated savings. The average family in the USA spends around $302 per month on groceries. Let’s say that you have a credit card that you regularly use, Credit Card A, because it is commonly accepted and has great rates. Now let’s say your “backup” card, Credit Card B, has a cash back reward for 5% at the grocery store, and another “backup” card, Credit Card C, gives you 5% back at the drug store. Usually you do not use Credit Card B at the grocery store because you can’t remember if it is Credit Card B or C with the 5% cash back reward at the grocery store, so it’s easier just to use Credit Card A, or you might even take a guess and mistakenly use Credit Card C, and you receive no cash back rewards. With Cash Back Reminder, you can simply open the app, check whether it was card B or C that rewards you for purchases at the grocery store, and voila, you save 5%. $302 x .05 = $15.10; $15.10 x 12 = $181.20. You would now be able to save $181.20 a year! That’s not counting your drug store purchases for the year which would likely add another $100 your yearly savings! That’s nearly $300 a year an average family can save by using this app!

Alpha testing group now open for registration

If you are interested in alpha/beta testing the unreleased version of the Cash Back Reminder app for Android you can apply to join the closed alpha testing group now by following this link https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.arvrcade.cashbackreminder

To send or report any bugs, errors, questions, comments, and/or suggestions follow the instructions in the link above.

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Recently I have been developing an abundance of Cardboard and Gear VR apps for clients. I am commonly asked “How do I install a Gear VR apk?” or “How to install a Cardboard apk?”. Installing a GearVR .apk or Cardboard .apk (an apk is the file type for an Android application) on your Samsung s6, s7 or note 5 without downloading it from the Samsung Store or Play Store using a PC takes just a few easy steps.

You will need:

1. Compatible Samsung Phone
2. PC
3. Micro USB cable (like the one pictured below)
   
4. a Gear VR or Cardboard to use App
5. If you are installing an apk for Gear VR, you will need to make sure that your developer adds your osig to the app.

Enable developer mode on your phone by opening the settings and tapping “About”. Then locate the section called “Build Number” and tap it 7 times. (See image below)

Go to Samsung’s website and download the USB drivers for your specific phone (See image below). Install these drivers.

This is a screenshot of Samsung’s website as of May 2016

Plug your phone into your PC with your micro USB cable. If the Samsung USB drivers were successfully downloaded and installed, your computer will recognize that your device has been plugged in and your phone will ask to give permission for access. Tap allow Your phone will now show up as a removable storage drive on your computer..

Open windows explorer and navigate to your phones drive. Create a folder inside your phone called “My Apps” or anything you want. Drag your .apk file from your computer into the folder you just created on your phones drive.

Open the file explorer app (default file explorer is called “My Files”) on your phone and navigate to Device Storage > My Apps. You should see your apk listed. Tap this and then select “Install”. After installation you can open this app any time just like any app you downloaded from the store!

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an old processor, continuous gameplay that is heavy on resources, dropped it too many times and something is about to blow? So recently the battery in one of my old test phones, a Droid 3, went bad and I have to constantly plug this phone in to keep it charged. Since I don’t use this phone for anything other than testing apps I was hard pressed to drop $8 on a new battery knowing that I can probably get away with using this old battery for another year as long as I don’t mind keeping it on the charger like a heroin addict on methadone. The only issue that I was having now though is the phone battery overheating during charge times (I hope it doesn’t blow up, but this is a distinct possibility so disclaimer: don’t use bad batteries) getting so hot that it could probably leave a 2nd degree burn if applied for long enough.

Recycle, Reduce, Reuse kids!

One day, while scrapping a motherboard I pulled off a little heat sink and got a brilliant idea. Why not stick this little guy on the back of my phone? So I grabbed some thermal paste and voila!

Items Required:

• Phone
• Heat Sink
• Thermal Paste
• Razor Blade
• Plastic Phone Case

Used Motherboard Heatsink Attached to Smart Phone

I have noticed a significant increase in performance while plugged in indicating that this is indeed dissipating the heat as intended. I don’t have any high quality infrared thermometers so it’s hard to say exactly how much difference it makes, but if I had to guess I would estimate 20-30% more heat dissipation. I didn’t weigh the heatsink before I stuck it on there but this heatsink like most, is made from aluminum and the weight is pretty insignificant. For all you Android/iOS gamers out there who could use a boost in FPS due to your phone overheating, this is definitely something you might want to give a shot!

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