Playing Machinarium with my five year old
Posted on February 7th, 2010 @ 11:47 pm
Josh with his newly opened robot computer game, Machinarium
This Christmas, one of the gifts I got last minute for Josh, my five year old, was Machinarium, which I’ve blogged about before. It’s a game with fantastic artwork and robots as the main characters.
Naturally, it came as a download. But as smart as Josh is, I was pretty sure software without some physical representation. So while in Dallas for Christmas, I used my dad’s printer that will print on CD’s, and made a decent CD and case for it.
Josh opened the gift Christmas Eve, and he seemed happy enough to get it. Later I found out there was some confusion, and he thought it was his three year old brother Jackson’s game. He was even happier once that was cleared up.
I decided to use the game as a father-son bonding activity. So I told Josh that as long as he behaved, we would play it every Sunday afternoon for an hour or two.
The first Sunday we played, I did feel my patience being tested a bit, as I let him guide me in what to do. I did give him suggestions, but let him decide how to play the game. The game had some hint options built in, which I was fine with using. I did try to get Josh to actually figure things out before we resorted to the hints.
On the sixth Sunday we were playing the game, we beat it. Josh went ahead and gave some feedback on what he thought about the game.
Overall, the experience was fun for both of us. It was nice to bond over a game that you actually had to think to play. I was fairly impressed with how well Josh did. If you’re a father, I would highly recommend playing through a point and click game like Machinarium with your five year old.
First copy of Blogify Your Business (sort of)
Posted on February 1st, 2010 @ 5:41 pm
When I worked on my last book, Webifiable, one of the things I did was order a physical mock-up of the final book from Lulu.com, with Lorem ipsum text in the place of the real text. I call it my motivational copy, as seeing a physical book helps motivate me to finish the actual book.
Well, Emily finished the cover design (first draft) for my next book, Blogify Your Business, and she ordered a motivational copy last week. It showed up today.
Didn’t she do an awesome job? Thanks, Emily!
P.S. Yes, that is an affiliate link to my own book. I’m nothing if not shameless.
Tags: blog, blogify, blogify your business, book, motivation, writing
Saving Facebook pics on iPhone
Posted on January 28th, 2010 @ 12:59 am
Recently I was checking out my wife’s Facebook pictures in the iPhone app. I found one of my son, Josh, that I thought would make a great wallpaper for my phone. Imagine my chagrin when I discovered the app had no built in way to save the picture.
Fortunately, there’s a way around this with a feature that works in all iPhone apps. By holding down the power button for a second and pushing down the home button at the same time, I took a screen shot that was sent to my camera roll. A quick trip to my settings and Josh was on my wallpaper.
OC’s network restricted to gullible Mac users
Posted on January 26th, 2010 @ 12:46 pm
We had a Oklahoma City Wordpress User’s Group meetup last night. We’ve been meeting monthly for several months now in Oklahoma Christian University’s PEC building. I was presenting on the WP sIFR plugin. Little did I know what awaited…
When I got there, everyone was having problems connecting to the internet. Everyone on a Mac, that is. Turns out OC now has a standard hotel-like agreement you have to go through to connect to their network.
No big deal, right?
Wrong. Part of their process includes downloading an application that checks for antivirus software. Yes, even on a Mac. And if you don’t have any installed, you can’t connect to the internet.
What kind of a person buys antivirus software for their Mac?
I’m glad you asked! The type of person who buys and installs anti virus on their Mac is also likely to purchase:
- A Best Buy extended warranty
- Rain insurance
- A zebra coloring book
- A USB pet rock
- Antivirus for Linux
Anywho, naturally all of the technologically inclined people in the meeting were running Macs (with one exception) and were therefore unable to connect. Fortunately, I had preloaded all my tabs in Chrome and could therefore still give my presentation, as long as I didn’t click on anything.
P.S. To clarify, the network is actually restricted to anyone with an OC issued computer, gullible Mac users and “normal” Windows users.
P.P.S. Thanks to Wesley Fryer for his blog post with a screenshot of the travesty and excellent notes on the Wordpress meetup.
Tags: anti-virus, antivirus, gullible, mac
Two cool products for CSS coders
Posted on December 29th, 2009 @ 8:43 am
Found a couple of products on Zazzle.com that I thought were funny. If you code CSS, you may (or may not) enjoy these.
Available for purchase here:
Dave Barry comments on August’s Twitter outage
Posted on December 28th, 2009 @ 3:27 pm
I’m not normally a reader of Dave Barry, but when I ran across his recent 2009 in Review, I couldn’t resist reposting this excerpt from the section on August about Twitter’s outage.
In an alarming technological development, hackers shut down Twitter, leaving a desperate and suddenly vulnerable America with no way to find out what the Kardashian sisters are having for lunch. The Federal Emergency Management Agency urges the nation to “remain calm” and “use Facebook if you can.” Twitter service is eventually restored, but most of the estimated 875 million thoughts that went untweeted during the outage will never be recovered, making it the nation’s worst social-networking disaster ever.
Disastrous Starcraft chest bump
Posted on December 23rd, 2009 @ 3:33 am
The two people who read my blog who are also Starcraft fans should enjoy this. The rest of you should skip ignore this post, as it won’t make any sense and is extremely geeky.
Amazing Robot Game
Posted on December 22nd, 2009 @ 10:48 am
This games looks awesome. It definitely has amazing artwork, plus robots are always cool. I’m going to have to buy it sometime soon. Looks like it’s on sale on the Machinarium website right now.
Mentor: The Kid & The CEO
Posted on December 17th, 2009 @ 6:41 pm
Several months back, I was introduced to Tom Pace, the author of Mentor: The Kid & The CEO (shameless affiliate link). Soon after meeting him, I picked up a copy of his book.
I actually sat down to read it one night while Leann was watching Dr. Quinn. I figured I’d read until she finished the episode she’d just started, then watch a show myself. But by the time her episode was done, I was half done with the book, so I just spent another hour and read the whole thing. So it’s definitely a quick read, along with books like The Go-Giver.
The book had a great story, which is based on the real life experiences of Tom Pace. The story was entertaining and compelling, a definite page-turner. The book tells the story of a CEO mentoring a young man in prison, something Tom himself actually does on a regular basis. The events in the book of the CEO influencing the young man, then the young man helping the CEO through a rough patch in his business, really do parallel the experiences Tom himself has had. And the story was very compelling, with each chapter ending in a cliffhanger of sorts.
One of the great things for myself as a reader was the extensive list of other books to read as well. There were a few books listed throughout the story, then the end had a much longer list of recommended books for people looking to improve themselves.
I do recommend the book as a quick read, and it’s definitely a good start if you’re looking to begin building up a library of books on how to improve yourself. And it’s a great book to buy larger quantities of for high school age students, which is something they’re actually trying to promote. You can buy large quantities directly from Mentor Hope, the publisher.
Tags: book review, quick read, Tom Pace
The best (Muppets) YouTube video
Posted on November 24th, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
This Muppets video is awesome. Super-awesome.
Tags: bohemian rhapsody, muppets, video
