Great resource for entrepreneurs

I like Work Happy, it has a nice style and good content, and it feels like they're talking directly to me. That's the great thing about finding blogs that are aimed squarely at your niche, it's almost like finding a personal advisory board, or a little online helper monkey.

It looks like they update the site regularly enough, but not so much that you can't keep up with all the recommendations. Perfect. I'm not a big fan of link dumping, which they almost do with their Happy Links posts, but they do it in an acceptable non-lazy way, adding just enough descriptive content of their own so I can decide whether I'm interested.

JD posted the link over on the Joel on Software forums, so I haven't been following it for long, but it certainly seems worth a look.

Is gaming growing older with us?

Aging Gamer David Tolin over at eToychest has an interesting article about how the games industry is largely neglecting today's children. It discusses the current state of the industry from the perspective of a parent who is also a gamer. I think he has a great point when he says the industry is being swept along by the initial early-adopters, who are now 18-34 year old males.

I don't think he really acknowledges the possibility that games seemed more suitable for kids in the past because the technology forced them to be simpler, and that many of them might not have been any more satisfying than the latest Harry Potter or Disney tie-in. Also, I think he slightly underestimates the complexity of games that kids can handle, and what he says about Mario 64 being less intricate than Tomb Raider really doesn't fly with me, but overall it's a great read. I'm not a parent yet, but when I am I hope Nintendo will still be around.

Sticking with gaming, but from a business site, Jim Logan has added a mini arcade to his site. Simple old-school games, good fun... just what any aging gamer needs. I think you have to register to play the games, but Jim seems like a good guy. I'm sure your email address is safe with him and the marketing newsletter he sends echoes the high standards you would expect from his blog.

So head over there and wipe out my high scores!

Darkness, My Old Friend

Ah, The Onion... if I'd been blogging a few years ago I think every other post would have been a link to their site.

I hadn't been there for a while until yesterday, but it's still a great site, and if you've never seen it you really should. The reason for the sudden visit was the video games news photos, courtesy of Kotaku.

This led me to look for the Ghost of Christmas Future Playstation 5 article. It's passed into their archives (you need to pay for a premium subscription to go back more than 4 issues), but I did find this quote by googling:-

SOUTHFIELD, MI--Bored with scaring elderly misers, the Ghost of Christmas Future is spending the holiday season taunting modern children with visions of Christmas 2016's hottest toy: the Sony PlayStation 5, a 2,048-bit console featuring a 45-Ghz trinary processor, CineReal graphics booster with 2-gig biotexturing, and an RSP connector for 360-degree online-immersion play.

"You know how kids area year is an eternity to them,"the wraithlike specter said Monday during a visit to the Southfield home of 13-year-old Josh Kuehn. "So just imagine showing them something they'll have to wait 14 years for. Teasing them with a glimpse of the PS5 is the ultimate torture. They absolutely lose their minds. It's like saying, "Hey, kid, you'll be an old man before you ever get to touch this.""

The Ghost of Christmas Future said he has visited more than 125,000 homes since Thanksgiving, offering children an agonizing sneak peek at what they cannot have for another decade and a half. "I like to appear in the living room with a PS5 hooked up to 2016's most popular TV, the 4'x8' Hi-Def Sony Titania," the Ghost said. "Then, I'll say in my best spooky voice, "Jimmy! Behold what your kids will be playing while you're slaving away at an office job to support them!""

It's typical Onion, and they're still doing this every week.

There are also some great printed Onion books which you should be able to find in bookstores or online, I had a few of them under my ill-fated coffee table. I'd thoroughly recommend their 100 years of history book, Our Dumb Century (Amazon.com, there are some sample pages you can view too), it's a collection of mocked up newspaper front pages, each with a healthy dose of irreverence, satire and hindsight.

Touching is very, very good

I recently picked up a Nintendo DS, and felt it was about time I sent some love it's way.

The first thing that struck me when I first saw the DS was that it sure ain't pretty. Next to the sleek and shiny Sony PSP, or simply compared to an iPod, the Nintendo isn't even in the game. But flashy design was clearly not on the agenda here.

The Nintendo DS is all about delivering new gaming experiences through the touch screen interaction and dual screen display. This is it's real triumph, the games designed to take advantage of the new features don't feel like anything else. There's a pick up and play quality, and a sense of easy fun, that I haven't felt from console video games for a long time. That feeling you have playing Tetris, that you could give this game to everyone and they would be hooked... it's here in the DS. I feel like I could even give it to my technophobic parents and they would begin to understand what has been drawn me into these games for so many years.

There's depth to the games too, many of the pick up and play games are puzzle games or mini-games, if you want a different challenge, there are plenty of options available. The future isn't all puzzle games either, the Metroid sampler that was bundled with the console shows the awesome potential of the new control system for first person shooting games. You just use the stylus on the touch screen to move the view around, as you would a mouse on a PC, and use the buttons to fire. It just works, it's perfect.

Skipping back to the design of the console, it's actually very practical. It feels solid enough, the clam shell design protects both screens when closed, alleviating any concerns about scratching when shoving it in a pocket or bag, and it's about the same size as the Sony. Still on the hardware side, DS to DS wireless communication is standard, with WiFi internet access due soon. If I could get a basic web browser, email, mp3 and a Skype client running on this, it would replace my laptop and my mobile phone 99% of the time I venture outdoors.

In short, I love my DS, it's renewed my interest in gaming on the go, and I'd recommend one to anyone.

Those High Notes

These days a new full length article from Joel Spolsky is a rare enough occurrence to be worth commenting on.

The latest is Hitting the High Notes, which attempts to prove the case that the best programmers produce the best software. As Joel says himself in the article, when you put it that simply, it doesn't seem like something that should need to be proven.

Well, it certainly seems to have created some controversy on the forums, I've never seen so many new threads appear so soon about a new article. It seems strange to me that developers would want to argue that they don't have to be good to produce good software. Actually, I'm just kidding, most of the negative points raised in the forums relate to some other aspect of the article, like Joel's assertion that the best developers all want to work on shrink-wrapped software.

Hopefully without sounding like a mindless drone, I have to say I didn't have a problem with anything in the article, and to me it completely ties in with most of Joel's other articles on things like core competencies and good working environments. I totally buy into Joel's general model and advice, and I think he's done a great job of starting a company and documenting some of the basic ideas he had and lessons he's learned to give the rest of us a head start.

Despite all this, I also know that (as with most advice from successful people) it won't work 100% of the time, and that Joel himself has had a lot to do with the success of his company. His position as a respected expert on software, and the host of some staggeringly popular articles and forums, has no doubt had a massive impact on the buzz and success which surrounds Fogcreek's products. It's also not easy to figure out who are the "best" programmers. It's not necessarily just the smartest person or the fastest that we're looking for, but the ones who hit the high notes (one of the examples was the design of the iPod). The best indicator of this is probably what they have done, and what they're working on right now, which for me leaves the best programmers = best software equation with a little bit of a chicken and egg edge. But it's a small edge- I still agree with the basic idea, and I think Joel's comparisons of programming to arts rather than engineering are valid, especially in the shrink-wrap environment. If you are going to hire programmers to design and develop software, it certainly makes sense to try to hire the best you can get, and to give them an environment where they can thrive (hopefully hitting those high notes), and where they will want to stay.

So, where does all of this leave me... do I hit the High Notes? I don't know, but if I haven't already, I'd like to think I will in the future. Our software has already come so far, but I know it can go so much further, and I already have a huge list of ideas to take it there. I have to focus on the most important goal a software company can have, delivering the most useful and satisfying user-experience imaginable. That will be the ultimate high note.

Commiserate with Mr Sugar

If, like me, you missed out on every good deal that Game posted yesterday, why not commiserate with some free browser gaming.

I found a link to Sugar Crash on Kotaku last week. It stuck with me more because of the characterization than the gameplay- I could swear someone has been studying me after I've had too much coffee and Krispy Kreme's. It's good fun for a few minutes though.

Wish I thought of it

Take a look at dotprodomains.com.

Sustainable? Who knows... Effective? Profitable? Genius? Probably.

Link courtesy of Seth Godin. From the same post I also found another stupidly simple idea I like to think I wish I'd had, but know in reality I would never have done anything with, Woot.com. Seems like it's been around for a while, can't believe I hadn't seen it before.

Doopidy Doo

We watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory last night.

It's really difficult to write down exactly what I thought, but it somehow managed to be everything I hoped it would be. If I ever read the book I don't remember how it was, it's the old movie that has stuck in my head since childhood. This new movie has a very different approach to Wonka and the Oompah Lumpahs, along with a lot of cuts and plenty of new scenes. I really liked the addition of the back story and flash backs, but I wondered how some of the missing scenes might have gone, and felt the end of the factory tour came too soon. But it would always have been too soon for me...

In general, even though the story's the same, the two movies are very different. The new movie just feels like something completely new, and that's exactly what I wanted from it. Next time I see Gene Wilder's enigmatic Wonka, I won't feel like Johnny Depp's entertaining child-like oddball take on the character ruined anything. It's hard to know what to say about the new Oompah lumpahs... they're different, and still creepy, but sadly(?) I doubt they will be in any of today's kids nightmares in 30 years time.

It was also my first time in an IMAX theatre. It's a shame that widescreen movies don't seem to use the whole screen, but the improvement in the sound and picture quality and the increased screen size blew me away.

24/7 Shop-Fest

Apparently tomorrow is Internet Shopping day. I don't know if this is something that's widely supported (do countries with different date formats go for it too?), but UK games chain Game.net are promising a new deal every hour from 00:00 onwards.

I can't say in advance whether this link is worth anything, especially as some of their deals lately haven't been all that great, but I have seen good offers there in the past. The minimum I would expect is a good deal on some recent big titles, and even better deals on some slow sellers, maybe a good chance to pick up one of those great games that nobody buys. I've seen them do hardware deals too, I once just missed out on a great price for a Zelda SP bundle. Last time I checked they shipped internationally, but with the high UK prices and currency exchange rates, it's probably only UK shoppers who will end up feeling like we got a good price.

Update: Having looked closer at the offer, it looks like it's going to focus on Xbox games, which probably won't work outside the UK.

Update 2: The first offer was half price Xbox consoles. I don't know how many they had... it was only 10 mins past the hour when I checked, but they were all gone.

Barton who?

The exact details of the plot of the movie Barton Fink escape me, but I do know it focuses on a poor serious writer attempting to make it in Hollywood, and his frustration at having to write mediocre action movies. Actually, I also remember a deranged John Goodman, some inappropriate impromptu wrestling, a dead (possibly headless?) girl, and a fire.

Anyway, regardless of all of that, the one image that really stuck with me is of the poor guy sitting at his typewriter, suffocating under the oppressive LA heat. Today, I feel like I'm right there in the room with him- except the old-school typewriter has been replaced by my laptop. I've never experienced heat and humidity like this, and as it's still only July, I could be relieved to land back in the UK after all (See Not long to go).

All change

Jim Logan has been spring cleaning over on JSLogan.com. There's a completely new look and a promise of an improved community aspect.

Jim is one of my favorite bloggers, especially when I have my marketing hat on, so if you haven't been to his site yet, go take a look now. Or maybe wait a couple of days until he builds up some content on his sparkling new site. Either way, check it out.

Buying Digital Cameras

I've spent an unfortunate amount of my recent spare time trying to choose a digital camera, and find a good deal on one of the models I want. I'm probably the least gadget savvy geek out there... even though I know what all the words mean, I don't really pay too much attention to the market and hardly ever buy gadgets. My frugality and my geekiness fought a long and bitter battle over a number of years, but ultimately the bank account put it's foot down and frugality won through. When you work in IT, it's amazing how many people ask you questions about all kinds of little gadgets- for example, people seem to expect me to know from memory where to find any feature in any mobile phone. I can still find it faster than them, but half the time I haven't even known phones could do what they asked- I've had the same phone since the stone age.

But not having a digital camera has become too frustrating, and I'm finally joining the bandwagon.

I don't know if you've ever looked online for digital cameras, but like a lot of popular web keywords, it's a complete spam-fest. Finding sites with actual opinions and sample photos amongst all the sites full of recycled press releases and search engine garbage can be a needle vs haystack situation. You see where this is going, to save you the trouble, I'm going to provide links to all the useful sites I found:-

steves-digicams.com have a lot of reviews, they can feel a little boiler-plate in places, but it's definitely a helpful site, and they have great sample pictures and movies.

megapixel.net is another good source of reviews, less focus on the sample pictures, but they show good examples of different kind of shots and options.

Yesterday, I realised that dpreview.com also has a lot of great reviews. I really wish I'd found this one earlier, but I think I got linked through to a press release or two there and assumed they were one of the spam sites.

Finally, I found a great forum at photocamel.com, which is shockingly busy, considering they only started a day or two ago. They already have 30 times more users than I've managed to get on my forums in 3 months...

By the way, I've pretty much settled on a Sony W5 or 7. I really wanted a Canon S2 IS, not least because of Chris Prillo's recommendation, but it's pricey and the size makes it impractical in probably 80% of the situations I'd want to use it in. Shame though, I would have loved to play with that 12x zoom and those cool image effects. I'm happy with the compromise of the Sony though, it's the first model I've been able to think about getting for a few days without changing my mind. It has a really nice hefty but compact build, the photos look great and the price is just an acceptably small amount more than I originally wanted to spend! The only downside is the memory stick format, I have an SD reader in my laptop that I was hoping to use.

Information overload

I've always had a thirst for knowledge. Some people would probably list this as a strength, Jim Logan certainly thinks so, but as with most things, execution is everything. The pursuit of knowledge has always manifested itself in me as a weakness I have to overcome if I am to acheive anything.

When I let it take over me, I want to know everything... and I want to know it now. I find I can't concentrate on the information I'm looking at because I'm already looking forward, planning the next book or subject, and that just leads me into a circle of frustration in which I learn nothing. In the days before the internet, this was naturally constrained by the availability of the subject matter, I at least had to work with what I had in the house. Now I have a whole world of information at my disposal, and someone has taken the time to index it all, and stuff it full of interesting relevant and completely irrelevant links. The irrelevant ones are always the best ones, opening up a completely new avenue of thought, taking me somewhere I never expected to be when I started reading, but they also walk me right into my weakness's hands.

I guess I need to work on my self-discipline. Steve Pavlina suggests that I get up early, and just do whatever it is I'm supposed to do, ignoring all other distractions. He's right, that does work when I do it. He also suggests small steps, building up to your ultimate goal rather than shooting for the moon on the first day. He's right about that too, I still get the same level of satisfaction, and I see sustained acheivement for a longer period of time.

But sometimes it's just fun to let the web take you wherever it wants to take you, it's amazing how few clicks you can be away from something completely unexpected. Yesterday, checking out Brandon Doyle's blog link over on the JoS forums led me to some guy's financial history and forecast in blog form. Then, after noting Michael Pollock's new and improved site design, I checked out some of the sites he used for inspiration. This led me to a world where not having an iPod, not knowing the available iPod models, pretending you have an iPod, and using iPod earphones when you don't have an iPod, is a serious crime against your community.

Around that point I started to wonder how I ever got anything done, and the idea for this post was born.

Making the connection

Recently I followed this discussion over on the Joel on Software forums.

The topic was whether it was okay to ask customers to register their information before downloading trial software. I'm firmly in the "NO" camp here- we used to have a registration page for our staff scheduling software, Oriador Rota, but I always wanted to let anyone who wanted the software have it. We didn't validate email addresses, then we offered a prominent link to an anonymous download, and eventually we just removed the registration page altogether.

Now, back when we originally set up the registration page, we were very naive. For one thing, we thought that feedback was going to be very easy to get once our software was out there being downloaded by hundreds of people each week. I thought that if someone registered for our download and I sent an email asking them about our software, they would a) reply, b) have completed the download, c) have tried the software, and d) tell us what they think. I understand now how far off-base I was, but the months over which I came to this understanding were very disheartening. I think our response rate was maybe 1-5%, with probably a similar percentage of those having completed the download, tried the software and taken the time to tell us what they thought. I think our sales conversion rate was much higher than our feedback conversion rate.

Fast forward to today, I'm much happier that we're not turning away potential customers with a registration form, but the problem of making a connection with potential customers is still there. From the feedback we do get, we know we have a great product, but if you'd told me this time last year that it would take me longer than a year to find out what other people don't like about it, I'd have thought you were just trying to scare me!

In the forum thread that prompted all this, I think it was Bob Walsh who first raised the point that when you ask people to register, you're asking them for something they value (their contact details), in exchange for something that they don't yet value (our software). This, and a few other suggestions over the discussion, prompted me to offer downloaders an opportunity to register their interest while they wait, in exchange for a discount on their eventual purchase. It suffers from a lot of the same problems, but is less obtrusive, clearly optional, and at least offers some incentive to show we appreciate their time.

I don't know if it will work in the long term, but so far the signs aren't good. We've had our first taker, but the rate is already much less than 1%, and it didn't lead to any feedback.

Not long to go

In one more month we'll be back in the UK. The time here has really flown by, and despite my longing to be back in our home, I'm not looking forward to having to leave California. It's still going to be months before we can move back into our home, and we have a lot of important personal things to deal with as soon as we get back.

It's been great taking some time out to try to recharge, we certainly needed it, and Bea had been missing her family and friends for much too long. But as we get closer to the return date, the reality of the various obstacles we have ahead of us are all too clear, especially having spent so much of the last week calling various departments of our insurance company, and having so many similarly pointless conversations.

So, we have another month, but we still have plenty of things we want to do and plenty of people we still need to catch up with or spend more time with before we leave. Hopefully it won't fly by too fast.

It's all just a game really

A new article from Eric Sink points out the similarities between software market competition and various sports and games.

The game is afoot

It's a long article, but doesn't seem like it thanks to Eric's usual slightly rebellious, slightly irreverant style. When I read his articles they always give me a mental image of him as the geek who has ventured into the real world and understood some of its rules, but who still comes back to try to help the rest of us do the same. He always seems to nail complex issues and make them seem very simple.

Like several other readers over on the Business of Software forum that Eric moderates, I wanted to read more.

On a lighter note

Moving away from the bleak tone that my blog adopted this weekend, I was linked into Eyemaze.com by a post on the 4 color rebellion forums.

This is exactly the kind of game site I like to find- quick, no download flash games with simple concepts and great implementations. I've only played Grow, but I had a lot of fun beating it. It's a great little puzzle game, and I'm sure I'll be back on their site trying their other games next time I have 15 minutes to kill.

But, today is all about spending some time with my amazing wife, Bea, so now I've caught up on all my email and web stuff, I'm checking out for the day.

Not alone

It seems that the flooding is still taking it's toll on many victims six months on. I think I'm holding up pretty well under the circumstances, although I'm starting to think my last two rants might convince readers otherwise.

Locked-in by incompetence

Following on from yesterday's rant, our insurance renewal situation seems to be out of our hands. Talk about kicking us when we're down... and there's nothing we can do about it.

Because the people appointed to help us by our insurance company have taken so long to do anything, our claim is still ongoing, and looks likely to be ongoing for the next six months. Unfortunately, no other insurance company will give us an insurance quote while we have an ongoing case with another company.

So we're stuck with them, they can hike up our premium to almost double (they have), and they can set us a ridiculously high excess for flood damage (they have), and we still have no freedom to choose- they have a complete monopoly on our insurance.

We were a little under-insured on our contents, no-ones fault but my own, so I was relieved when we found we would get enough cash to replace 50-75% of the important things we lost. Now, thanks to the premium hike and excess, I'm going to have to reserve almost half of that money to cover rebuilding in the event of further flooding. So we can probably afford to replace less than a third of our stuff.

Fortunately, once our claim is settled, we'll be able to look for another insurance company, hopefully one with some compassion (none of the other insurance companies we called proposed a significant increase in our premium, or any additional excesses, they just couldn't take our business because of the ongoing claim). At that point, as long as our house hasn't flooded again, we'll be able to use that reserved money to replace some more of our belongings.

Do you suppose they care that they're losing a customer? I've had my credit cards with them for years, almost as long as they've been in business, I had actually just signed up for another one in a bright new color. I always looked to their site first when I needed any insurance or financial products. I recommended them many times to others.

Not anymore. They probably don't care, and I don't suppose it will make a big difference to them that I stop doing business with them now and in the future, or that I bad-mouth them to everyone I know, or that my first thought now whenever I hear them mentioned is going to be an angry unprintable one. But leaving them at the earliest opportunity, and possibly sending other people elsewhere is certainly going to make me feel a little better.

Maybe I'm over-reacting, maybe they're just following standard policies... But why haven't those policies been applied to my neighbours, who I'm going to watch moving back into their freshly made-over houses over the next month or two. That's right, my neighbours are going to be moving in while I try to get one of their people to call me back or to do something, all from my room with whichever set of in-laws I happen to be with at the time.

Somewhere in the middle of this rant (normal service will resume soon, I'm just in a ranting mood right now), I was reminded of a post on the power of good and bad publicity and blogs from smallbusinessbranding.com:-

Bloggers Powerful Source of Advertising and Badvertising

Even so, I'm not sure that naming my insurance company would make much of a difference, and the way things have been going so far, it would probably somehow make our situation even worse. Remind me in six months or so and I'll tell you who it was...

Homesick Blues

Six months ago today, I was awakened by the distant ringing of my mobile phone. Not too uncommon, I often left it downstairs, and I often slept late on weekends. It didn't feel that late, but at the time I was too sleepy to think anything of it. I dragged myself out of bed and headed downstairs quickly for the usual frantic attempt to find the phone before it stopped ringing.

It was only when I stepped off the final stair that my brain started to process the environment and tell me something slightly different was happening. My brain seemed to work in slow motion for the next second or two, it started with that strange sensation coming from my foot- what is that? Is it wet? How could that be? Why is it so dark and quiet? I think you need to wake up and panic... shout up to Bea, tell her something is happening... look out of the window... I'm pretty sure there wasn't a river there before.

I was up to speed. I was standing in water because our house was flooding, the river that used to be the street out front looked much deeper than the couple of inches I felt below my feet, and that could only be bad news. My wife, Bea, was standing on the stairs, probably going through a similar thought process as I just had. I don't know how long this whole process had taken, I clearly remember it happening in stages like that, but it must have been less than a few seconds because my phone was still ringing and hadn't transfered to voicemail.

We were on auto-pilot now, I went straight to my PC, which I knew was sitting on the floor, and which I knew had a very low hard disk placement (you didn't think of that one, did you Dell!). I noted as I stepped on floating rugs & carpets that the water level was already higher than I had initially thought. I just quickly grabbed the PC, yanking out any cables, watching the water pour out of the tower unit as I carried it, ran back to front room and put it on the highest stair I could reach. Bea had done the same thing, grabbing papers, wallets, passports. I made a list in my head, figuring I could get the things under the coffee table, then maybe the things on top, then the things higher up like the TV.

We made a couple of trips back and forth, mostly carrying paperwork, and anything else we had thought to pick up. I was already wading in water well above the knee, the coffee table had gone and I realised there was little hope of rescuing anything now. My legs were already hurting from the cold water so I took a moment to dry them, told Bea to stop going in the water, and tried putting on a pair of dry trousers... I don't really know what I expected that to acheive, they just slowed me down, and the water was still rising. We looked at each other and at the small pile of belongings we had managed to save, not really knowing what to do next. I think we just quietly took them upstairs to safety. Bea took a couple of photos, which I've already uploaded for earlier posts:-

Lessons learned
How deep was it

Bea had found and answered the phone that woke us, it was a message from my mum telling me our house was flooded. My brother lives two doors away on the same street, and he had called home when the sound of water bubbling under his front door woke him up- he had slept on the sofa, for as yet undisclosed reasons! The land lines were all dead, and if we hadn't woken up and answered my mobile phone then, it was probably only 15-30 minutes away from drowning. If not for that phone call we could have got up a couple of hours later and looked down the stairs to see 6 foot of thick, muddy water. We would have had no way of contacting anyone, and we wouldn't have been able to save a single thing. I feel very lucky everytime I think of that.

That was six months ago. As I write this, our house is still not dry, the drying company removed their equipment too soon and the insurance company are yet to agree on a contractor to carry out the eventual renovations. I've already written a little about our experience with the insurance company here. Bear in mind that my brother is expected to move back into his house over the next month, and that he has the same insurance company and loss-adjuster. Our reward for relaxing and not trying to hustle anyone looks likely to be a massive premium hike and an enormous flood damage excess on our imminent insurance renewal. Neither of these conditions was applied when my brother renewed his policy a couple of months ago. The last time I phoned home, my mum gave me more great news, that plans are being circulated in our home town to regenerate the city and help it recover from the flood by forcing us to sell our house and demolishing the whole area. Thanks guys, it's really going to help us recover from this experience if after waiting almost a year to get on with our lives and get back in our house, you decide to kick us out and knock it down. Fortunately, I don't really believe that will happen, so I'm just pushing it to the back of my mind and hoping for the best.

I haven't posted any pictures for a while, so here's a look at how our front room looks right now (the picture was taken back in May while we were still in England, but I've been reliably informed that nothing has changed there since):-


So, as the title of the post implies, I'm homesick. I don't really miss being in England, or in my home town, and I'm having a great time here in LA, but I really miss our home. I had hoped that when our time here in the US was over, we'd be going back to oversee the last few weeks of the renovations, but it looks like we'll just be going back to a few more months with my parents. The way things look right now we'll feel lucky if we're home by the end of the year.

The Adsense experiment

I put some Adsense objects on my blog pages last night. For anyone considering it, it was very easy to set up. What's not so easy is deciding where to put it, and getting it to show useful information- for some reason my Adsense seems to focus on ice cream. I think with a little bit of adjustment I will have them as low profile as I wanted.

But I'm just going through the motions, none of this seems important today... I almost ended yesterday's post by congratulating London on hosting the Olympic games, I really don't know what to say today.

Update: The Guardian newspaper's games blog linked me to this first hand account of the London tube attacks. If your internet access is filtered or monitored by language, it could be unsuitable.

Games Blitz!

After posting a Lumines Clone a couple of days ago, I wasn't planning to post any more games links for a while, but three new tips from 4 color rebellion have changed my mind. Note, none of these games are browser based, so you do need to download them to play.

First up, and my immediate favorite of the bunch, is Eets. Anyone who ever played Lemmings should be right at home, you have to guide the character to the exit point by giving him different abilities and manipulating obstacles. The production quality is incredibly high, with clear menus and great characters.

At the complete opposite end of the pace scale, Gunroar is a crazy psychedelic shooter. I really need to try this with a gamepad or joystick but it certain seems to be worth playing. A word of warning: when I played this on my laptop my screen resolution didn't switch back to normal, I had to fiddle a bit to restore it.

Finally, Cave Story will only appeal to certain people, but they will love it. It's a very old-school platform adventure. And by old-school, I mean NES, not the first Playstation! Note: The files you need are Game (Japanese) and English Translation. You will have to extract the game files into a directory, then run the English translation (if you don't already have a copy of WinRAR, I recommend it whole-heartedly, I use it for all my compression needs).

A few weeks ago, Joel Spolsky was talking on his blog about declaring email bankruptcy. I think I'm in the same position when it comes to games. I have no chance of ever playing all the games I already have, never mind new games coming out, or existing games I still want to buy.

You really know how to celebrate

Wow, my first "July 4th" was a real eye-opener. My wife had told me there would be a lot of fireworks everywhere, but I clearly didn't understand what she meant by a lot or everywhere. I hope any US readers had a great time, and that it's not too many years before I see another one.

One year on

I just realised that one year ago today we launched the very first version of our shift scheduling software, Oriador Rota. It was in development for a couple of years before that, so it was a great feeling to see it out in the wild. The software has matured a lot in the last year, and I can't wait to see it develop further in the coming years.

Can I break this pattern?

The pattern of my blogging is completely clear to me. I keep seeing it repeat, telling myself I'm going to fix it, or that it's just a fluke, but nothing changes. I have a day when I'll think of a couple of ideas for quick posts, which then become big posts, and each of those splits into a couple of smaller posts, which also become big posts. I end up with a handful of posts spread over a day or two, which is probably okay, but over the next few days or weeks I find I'm blogged out and either can't buy an idea, or can't motivate myself to write.

Maybe this can be changed, maybe not, maybe that's just the kind of blogger I am. I personally prefer reading drip feed style blogs, where I see regular posting of varying lengths, but usually not too much at any one time.

Hosting Resources

A post over on the Joel on Software forums, just linked me into a couple of great web hosting resources:-

http://www.webhostingtalk.com, an extremely busy looking forum on the subject.
http://whreviews.com, a more focused site with honest reviews and recommendations.

The links were posted by William Rayer, whose software, Ubercode, looks like a great option for anyone interested in getting started in software development. It looks like it might also be useful for prototyping, or just putting together an application quickly.

The web hosts we use, Exahost and ISQSolutions, have both given us great service at a great price. I must add though, that our needs are unlikely to have taxed either, so I wouldn't blame you if you looked for a more qualified recommendation.

One service I'm happy to plug is Statcounter, I found them a few months ago when I wanted to quickly compile some stats on a page, but I've kept using their free service ever since. It's very useful if you have some free or basic web site and want to track some statistics, and they have premium accounts for more advanced needs. They've also recently stopped using pop-up ads on free accounts, a very welcome move.

Using Adsense

I've never been able to decide 100% whether or not to use Adsense on my blog. There are many good reasons to use it, but I was a little worried about what it might do to a visitor's perception of my site or my intentions.

Well, nothing much has changed, I'm still not 100% sure, but I'm going to give it a try (as long as they accept me!). The primary function of this blog is to document, publicise and put a human face on our software developments, ie, it is a business venture. If Adsense can provide an additional source of revenue, along with some useful related links and a search box, it would be irresponsible of me to ignore it.

I think it's the human side that makes me hesitant, I seem to write mostly about my personal life (that could just be down to the crazy year I'm having) and now that I've started I like to think I'd continue to have a pretty similar blog even if it wasn't for this software company, despite what the title might suggest. I can't quite put it into words, but there's something inside me that feels like Adsense and affiliate links on my blog is wrong.

Maybe I'm succumbing to the dark-side of the web, but I prefer to think that I'm just choosing to overcome some kind of crazy inhibition about being openly in business... some kind of embarrassment I feel I might find in profiting from my activities. I shouldn't try to hide the fact that running this company is my full time 24/7 job, and that I owe it to my family, my partners and myself to make it successful.

I'm sure I'm overthinking this, anyone who knows me would tell you I do that a lot. Pending acceptance into the Adsense program, I'll be introducing (hopefully) low profile context sensitive ads and a search option in the next few days. If you feel strongly either way about this, please feel free to comment.

Google indexes the world

These might be common knowledge by now, but I just found Google Print and Google Video, two more mind boggling Google beta services for me to watch. My previous wow services, Maps and Suggest, have been around for a while now, so it's about time I started looking around the web for something new. Gmail (if anyone still needs invites, I have plenty) didn't really blow me away, I liked it better than any other webmail I've seen, but I'm for client-side email software all the way.

Google Print seems destined to become a complete searchable online library of everything that was ever written down. Video doesn't have a lot of content, and you need to download a viewer to see the video they do have, but it's quick and easy. I'm sure that if they keep increasing the content and the percentage of content that is actually viewable, it will become insanely useful to a lot of people.

Whenever I see new services from Google and the privacy statements and implications that go with them, I often wonder how the world might have reacted if Microsoft did exactly the same thing. It must be nice to be thought of as the good one. Of course, I might be completely out of touch, maybe Microsoft have similar services, maybe Google are no longer "good"... the world moves much too fast for me to know one way or the other!

Local flavour and a glimpse of home

Yesterday we stopped into a tasting event at our local Coldstone Creamery. This was one of my favorite snack places last time I was in LA, and I haven't changed my mind this time around. They make some of the best ice cream I've ever had, and the way they mash everything into a smooth blend when you order really heightens the anticipation and enjoyment. None of us won the year of free ice cream that was on offer at the unveiling of their new flavours, but at least our waist lines won't have to suffer. Actually, the year of free ice cream turned out to be just a set of coupons for two free ice creams each month for a year, which is probably for the best!

I think the way they work is that these new flavours run for a month, and then they switch to some others, although I'm sure they'll keep any successful ones around for longer. This months real treats are the Black Licorice flavour- it will turn your mouth black, but it tastes great- and the Oatmeal Cookie batter flavour. If you do pass by one of these stores in the next month, you should call in and ask to try the Wasabi Ginger flavour, just for the experience. I've never tasted anything quite like that before, but remember that unique + interesting != good.

I also managed to catch the end of the women's Wimbledon tennis final, I think the first live game I saw from this year's championship. Wimbledon is difficult to avoid in the UK at this time of year, with almost constant news and media coverage and constant live TV coverage, often on two of the 5 broadcast channels, so it was strange to be in a different timezone and have the whole thing just pass me by. I guess it was fitting then that the only part I saw was also one of the few competitive Wimbledon finals I remember ever seeing. It was also great to see such unbridled joy from a professional athlete, I'm sure that's how they feel when they first get into their chosen sport and start to see some success, and that's the kind of reaction you often see in die-hard fans, so why does it seem like such a rare sight?

Sadly, as I had feared, the men's final had passed into history by the time I dragged myself out of bed to the TV. I felt sorry for poor Andy Roddick, having to face that after playing only yesterday, but who knows whether it would have been any closer if the weather hadn't played it's part.