Archive for August 2007

Thanks to the success of the Diner Dash series, the marketing folks decided to take advantage of the popular game and replace Flo with SpongeBob Squarepants to create another hit. SpongeBob’s version closely resembles Flo’s with one difference: You can change characters. In one level you can be the loveable sponge and in another play his best friend, Patrick.

In the first SpongeBob Diner Dash, his goal was to expand the chain of Krabby Patty restaurants. In SpongeBob Diner Dash 2, SpongeBob tries to save the restaurants from the greedy Sharkey Two-Times. Like other Diner games, the game comes with restaurant upgrades, power ups to make customers happier and two game modes: story and endless.

First, I loaded the game on a Vista-based laptop (let’s not start counting the ways we don’t like Vista — this is a game review not a Vista review), and I had to install it in an XP Pro laptop after playing the game for two seconds on the Vista laptop. A purple box appears with the mouse pointer, which drove me batty. I checked the forums for a fix, but nothing so far.

I finished Wedding Dash, but never finished Flo on the Go.  However, Flo was the first Dash game I had played and reviewed. Maybe I could win now after all this practice. Despite having played many Diner games, it didn’t take long for me to get trapped in SpongeBob where I had to repeatedly play a level. I finally made it through and got stuck again on the next level. The level of difficulty was almost identical to Flo on the Go.

One of the power ups was a podium so SpongeBob or Patrick can chat with waiting customers to prevent their happiness from taking a dive. But I was so busy serving and cleaning up after the seated customers that I could hardly reach the podium. When I did stop by, it hardly made a difference and I failed in my mission. I tried to more time than I normally would to reach the goal, but gave up after a warning from my cramping hand and arm. I made it to a second restaurant and served five different types of customers.

Customers include the Groupers, a family in which the baby needs a high chair and the family requests a mop for cleaning spills. The baby can get noisy and that bothers the Goldeyes big time. Goldeyes are quiet, patient and bookish types. Quillbacks and Whippersnappers don’t like noise, but not to the same degree as Goldeyes. The Rubberlip Seaperches are the best tippers of the group, but they’re also mucho noisy as they rudely talk on their phones. Assigning these picky customers and trying to keep them away from each other keeps players swimming in rough waters.

Anyone who loves Diner Dash or SpongeBob will jump into this one. SpongeBob Diner Dash 2 gives Diner Dash fans their fix as they wait for another release. If you can only play one or the other — just pick the one with the character you like better since the experience is the same except for the changing characters feature in SpongeBob. Families can enjoy SpongeBob together except that the younger ones might get mad when they can’t get past a level — but then again, we older folks do, too!

Try SpongeBob SquarePants Diner Dash 2

System Requirements: Windows

• Windows 2000/XP/Vista
• Pentium III, 700MHz or faster processor
• 128MB RAM
• 800×600 minimum screen resolution
• DirectX 7.0 or later
• 17 MB available hard disk space

System Requirements: Mac

• Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer
• G4 800 MHz or faster
• 50 MB available hard disk space
• 800×600 minimum screen resolution

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

Tom Johnson offers a great writing tip especially for tech writers and others who write instructions. This method also works well with Web content and forms. Watching people use a Web site, a product, a service — anything is a superb way to get insight on how others use the product or service.

Those involved in the creation of the product or service — whether a little or a lot — see too much and know how to find what they need. So where do you find this user especially if you’re a freelancer? Ask family and friends. While they might not be the target market, they have one important thing in common with the target market: They haven’t seen or used the product or service. It’s better than nothing.

In writing the Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook, the editors assumed the role of the users. While I didn’t watch them read over the chapters — they identified areas where the instructions or tips didn’t make sense. By the time the proofs came to me giving me fresh eyes, I could see why they had questions.

The Internet and business magazines contain plenty of anecdeotes on business that have succeeded with implementing community-based tools. Such tools connect businesses to people, clients, suspects, and prospects. These start conversations and build relationships.

Businesses, especially executives, love numbers that prove the success rate of a product, service or tool. So,I wanted to find statistics on businesses using community tools. Talk about impossible task! Well, not impossible, but too time consuming to get results without whiling away my day.

Sure, there’s a wiki listing Fortune 500 that have blogs, but its last update was October 2006 and it only focuses on the biggies. Plenty of sites show proof that businesses have accepted and incorporated blogging:

• Problogger list of business blogs
• PR Wiki corporate blog list
• Business podcast directory
• Wiki cuts one person’s time spent on projects by 25%

I’ve looked in blogging books and podcasting books. Nada. I’d love to create a poll that would help us all — but I fear that’s too ambitious for my schedule. Anyone know of any resources with numbers pertaining to businesses?

Smart sites with online shopping carts provide customers with two options:

1. Register so you won’t have to fill in your information every time you shop on the site.

2. Skip registration and just provide the information to complete the order.

While first option makes it easier to avoid re-entering info every time you shop at the site, sometimes we know we’re not going to visit again and don’t want to have ALIROS (Another LogIn to Remember Or Save). But one site worded the second option so it defeated the purpose of “no registration,” although, we know what they meant to say. [Click image to view larger]

Thanks to Nick Finck for this find.

Many of us ask how we can find more time in our busy days or if we can add another hour to the 24 hour clock. Well, the 25 hour thing won’t happen anytime soon, so the best we can do is look at our current schedule and chop time there as Lifehack gives 21 ideas for adding more hours in the day. I won’t rehash the list and instead share my experiences. Three kids, a spouse, my business and volunteering forces a girl to be wise with her time.

1. TV – My TV viewing habits differ from my kids’, but they’re not learning from my actions. I don’t just watch whatever is on TV and whittle away my free time. I select shows I enjoy and tape them for viewing at my convenience, not the network’s. I still have shows from April that I’ve yet to watch. I usually watch them while doing laundry or exercising as both have to be done.

2. Internet – One thing I rarely do — get my news from the Internet. I read the newspaper every morning, which has a start and end point. Reading news on the Internet could go on and on. If something happens during the day, then I’ll look online.

3. Games – Thank goodness I have the opportunity to review games. I hardly ever played games because of my busy schedule. When Mark Wegner asked if I would review games for him — he created a monster as I review for Gamezebo, too. To avoid temptation of getting carried away with an addicting game, I load them on the laptop not my work computer. Now instead of cutting into my work time, games sometimes cut into my sleeping time.

4. E-mail – This is one of my worst habits. However, I’ll get wrapped up in a project and not think about checking e-mail for a while (which is more like an hour, not half a day).

5. Chores – Well, I’ve put organizing systems in place, but I run into a problem that’s hard to control — the rest of the household. No one cares about organization like I do — not even the spouse.

6. Listening to books – I wish I could do this as I think it’s a marvelous way to multitask while riding in the car or stuck in the waiting room. I carry a book or a PDA with me at all times, so I can read or use an application on the PDA that I’m reviewing whenever stuck someplace.

7. Prioritize – Focus on getting higher priority items or those with a nearing deadline done before the rest. Even those with a deadline about a month away — plan ahead for those. For example, I’m judging many PDA-based applications for Smartphone and Pocket PC Magazine awards for all of August. Prioritizing means looking at how much I need to review and the time left. It would be unwise to wait until a week before the deadline to start reviewing. If I do this, it’d require spending all of my time on reviewing when I still have to get client work done. So I planned ahead and do a little each day.

What do you do to help make the most of your time?

I admit it. I have a weakness for good pizza. I can easily pass on the golden arches and red and white bucket meals, but not when it comes to the delicious flat pie. I was afraid this game would make me crave pizza all the time. Thankfully, the pizza in Turbo Pizza looks simple and cartoonish — not enough to make a pizza freak’s mouth water.

Rebecca and Robert start their pizza shop in an abandoned castle. While it’s an odd location for selling pizza instead of medieval times-style food, the castle scenery creates an interesting and different experience. Rebecca does all the hustling and order fulfillment while Robert bakes the pies.

The first time I played Turbo Pizza, my arm and shoulder hurt and I had to quit. The game turns turbo very early. Since I play the games on my laptop (to avoid temptation of playing them on my desktop while I am working), I was using the laptop’s built in touchpad. After that first experience, I plugged in the portable wireless mouse and the experience improved.

But the game still went super turbo after climbing a few levels. The best way to play this game is a little at a time or else you might run into mouse hand cramps. I enjoy the variety of menu items that includes soda, desserts, popcorn, ice cream and coffee. As you make a profit, you can upgrade all items and machines so they’re faster or better quality. Upgrades also include décor and training so Rebecca and Robert become more efficient at their jobs. This helps them prepare for expanding to a second store at another unique location they discover while on vacation — no spoilers here!

After completing a set number of levels, a bonus mini-game comes up where players must make pizza that looks exactly like the ones on the screen. That’s not all — players grab ingredients from a conveyor belt – think Lucy Ricardo at the chocolate factory. Just like for Lucy, it didn’t take long for the conveyor belt to trip me up.

The game almost literally goes from 0 to 60 mph in a short time rather than steadily increasing in difficulty. Surprisingly, the game only comes in one mode, but I’m not a fan of endless mode because it’s tedious. You can select the level to start the game, but I wouldn’t go above level one with the game reaching crazy fast speeds early. When I finally get my second location, it didn’t take long before I had to repeatedly play a level that I can’t beat.

The one hour free trial should be enough to figure out if it’s too much or not. While Turbo Pizza doesn’t stray much from the Diner Dash-style games, it has great graphics and a nice variety in customers, upgrades and products to keep things popping.

Try the Game
System Requirements: Windows

• Windows XP/Vista
• 800MHz or faster processor
• 256MB RAM
• 175MB hard drive space
• 32MB RAM or better graphics card
• DirectX 8.0

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

The above the fold myth says not to worry about content above the fold (the screen before scrolling) and when the fold matters. I disagree.

Above the fold matters. Great example of the problem with not watching the above the fold just happened this week. My tennis team’s captain sent a link to a Web page that showed a tank shirt along with its description as the below image shows (click to view larger).

A lot of teammates didn’t notice the scroll bar because they were focused on the content. This looks like the end of the page (aside from the navigation). And that’s what most of the team thought.

They thought we only needed to order a shirt. When the captain talked about the other options — they were perplexed. Turned out they didn’t scroll. Here is what was below the fold. This happens often. Don’t take scrolling for granted — content can trick the eyes into thinking nothing appears below the fold.

Also more sites are getting in the bad habit of using large banners / headers on their home page. This pushes content below the fold. Again, scrolling is not a big deal — but people who surf from site to site (and many of us do that) wants to see the content right there as soon as they land.

Wish I could remember where I recently read about content should come before the design, not fit to the design. The above the fold problem is one reason. The other reason — recently I worked on content for a new Web site (not up yet) and the design put emphasis on the wrong content. But it was too late to make design changes to fit with the content.

WorldMate 2006 Professional Edition is the “Swiss Army Knife” of travel as it contains 14 travel-related tools in one neat little package. The subscription-based application wirelessly provides updates to weather reports, world times, flight schedules and statuses, currency rates and satellite maps.

Itinerary

The itinerary holds all the information regarding your flight, car rental, hotel, cruise info, train and even meetings. Since services can e-mail you the itineraries, it might be easier to copy and paste the information into your device than to go through the Itinerary tool. [Click image to view larger]

Area Codes

When people give you a phone number, they might not include the area code or dialing prefixes assuming that you know them. The Area Codes tool provides GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), US and Canada area codes, and international dialing prefixes. Search for codes by entering the first letter of the city or country to jump to it. However, if you want to do a reverse lookup (i.e. enter the area code to find out where the call came from), you’ll need to rely on the Internet or another tool as this one doesn’t do reverse lookups.

Map

View the world day / night map to quickly see where it’s day and night around the world. Tap any spot on the map to identify the city or select the city from the list to see its exact location. A nice tool that would be nicer if we could zoom in.

Measurement and Currency

Someone tells you that where you want to go is 16 kilometers away. Americans continue to hold out on converting to the metric system, so enter the distance into the measurement calculator to find out that the destination is 10 miles. It also converts areas, length, speeds, volumes, weights and temperatures. Currency calculator works similarly where you can select three currencies for converting. Since currency rates change, the tool stays updated through the subscription service.

Packing List

Instead of starting a packing list from scratch, use the checklist in WorldMate’s Packing List. Check the items you need to pack, and they appear on “My List” so you only see what you need to take instead of all the items you’re not taking. Packing List also sorts items in categories for easier finding.

Tipping/Tax Calculator

Not all countries operate the same in terms of taxes and tipping. The Tip, Tax Calculator lets you select the country and service (restaurant, bar/pub, hotel porter, taxi, concierge, deliveries, airport and general) so you can figure out what you will owe. The calculator also gives you the option of adding the tip, tax or both amounts into the calculation on top of the bill amount.

Clothing

Business trip or not, you might want to shop for surprises and clothes for yourself. But the sizing in Europe, UK and Japan might not be the same as home. Instead of picking out three different sizes of shoes that look about your size — use the Clothing chart to look up your shoe size and find the right size. If you’re a female size 8, you’re a size 40 in Europe, 6.5 in England, and 25.5 in Japan. The application advises using the chart as a guideline.

WorldMate Professional supports many handheld devices, smartphones and cell phones. It’s a worthy investment for frequent travelers so they can stay updated on all important travel-related information. Mobimate also has a standard edition, which offers fewer services for a lower subscription rate.

Those who rarely travel won’t need something as powerful as WorldMate. Other applications exist that don’t require a subscription. However, this means you’ll need to enter the currency rates yourself for calculating and it won’t be updated unless you regularly check the rates. Weather applications that don’t rely on over-the-air updates can be updated when connecting the device to the PC through the cradle or USB cable.

WorldMate is available for just about every mobile device. Even a 2007 edition is available as well as a standard edition. Here are links to get you started and figure out what you’d be interested in.

Try WorldMate

Freelance Folder affirms my belief that freelancers need to work hard to earn repeat business. Repeat business is cheaper than marketing to new clients. I’ve been lucky that over 90% of my business has come from repeat business. One way I do this is to have friendly conversations with them by e-mail. I don’t like the stiff and formal e-mails as they just feel cold and unfriendly — which goes against my Texan nature.

One client hadn’t paid the invoice, and I sent him a friendly follow up e-mail about a month or so after sending the original invoice. I left it alone for a while and then I knew I had to send another e-mail. Like I said, I don’t like sending formal e-mails that sound cold, but I had to do it. Here’s a sample:

Dear [name],

Hope all is going well for you. [Something about the business -- and how services helped].

We still have an invoice outstanding for $[], invoice #[] we sent to you
on [date]. The invoice covered the following work: [work description]. We believe we’ve performed to your satisfaction, but if not, please contact me and let’s discuss it. While we’re no longer involved in providing you with writing services, we would like to have that final invoice paid – unless you feel there is some reason that it shouldn’t be paid.

We normally don’t send such a formal e-mail because our clients understand their obligation in the client-provider relationship.

Hope we see your payment soon.

Regards,
Meryl

The client responded immediately and apologized. It turned out the business changed direction. Everything’s cool and he even provided a recommendation / testimonial.

One time I e-mailed a client on a weekend as I had the opportunity to work on their content. The client replied asking what I was doing working on a Saturday (or maybe a holiday). I responded saying I’m devoted to meeting her needs 24/7 and then explained why I was working. It was tongue-in-cheek humor with a friendly explanation.

I’ve also sent clients gift baskets when they had surgery or a long illness. I work to stay in touch with current and past clients through e-mail, social networking sites, a holiday card. When I drop a line to a past client with whom I haven’t talked to in a long time — I simply ask how things are going and what’s been going on. I don’t ask for business. I care about them and their business, and take an interest in their successes.

Anyone needing a change of pace from the standard casual games and repeated play will find a treasure in Azada. The game mixes a little adventure with a variety of puzzles and a powerful story. A book has trapped Titus into a painting in a room resembling an office. Titus beckons you to search for the book’s missing pages by solving puzzles.

Each chapter contains eight pages, or rather eight puzzles. Upon completing all eight puzzles, you gain another page of Titus’ story. The adventure part appears a couple of times in each chapter. On these pages, the game provides you with an inventory of items to collect to figure out the page’s puzzle. These puzzles resemble a standard adventure game in that you pick up the pieces and study the room to make something happen to reveal another missing page. These puzzles are, by far, my favorite part of Azada.

I’d love to see a game composed entirely of these types of puzzles. Of course, they take more effort since there is no repetition. To give you an idea of how these puzzles work

The games in between the “adventure” puzzles vary. The following lists some of the games:

• Sudoku with shapes instead of numbers.
• Matchstick puzzles where you rearrange matchsticks to add another square or take away a triangle.
• Dot game with a grid of dots and players take turns adding a line to close as many boxes as possible.
• Match three game where you find three connected items to clear the board (unlike most match three games, you cannot move the items).
• Memory game where you find matching pairs.
• Simon-like game where you must copy the sequence (I don’t like these).
• Peg solitaire (Also not a favorite) that is like playing checkers solitaire.
• Sliding puzzle game that isn’t missing a box (thank goodness, I despise these) where you put the pieces in the right place.
• Mastermind with colored ink calls for breaking the code by figuring out what color appears in what order.

The game occasionally rewards players with an orb that you can use to skip a puzzle. I saved these for the puzzles I didn’t like doing. Games that incorporate a variety of puzzles are bound to have a couple that any individual player may not like — an unavoidable problem of such games. If you love a puzzle, you can go back and play that anytime (after you’ve completed it).

The replay value is just moderate because once you solve some of the puzzles, it’s easy to do them again. However, some do change such as the tangram puzzle where you fit all available shapes into an object that looks like a bunny or some other animal or thing. This feature lets you play the puzzles you like without getting stuck doing the ones you don’t like. If you want to progress in the story, you either have to do the puzzle or give up an orb — and these don’t come by often.

Azada provides a delightful change of pace from the average casual game. The story, the puzzles where you find items to make something happen, the sharp-dressed graphics and fitting music turn Azada into an addicting and pleasurable game. I played the game as much as time allowed until I finished — that’s the true test of) a captivating game.

Download Azada from your favorite site:

• BigFishGames [Mac]
• Reflexive [Mac]

System Requirements: Windows

• Windows ME/2000/XP/Vista
• 6700MHz or faster processor
• 128MB RAM

System Requirements: Mac

• Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer
• G3 400 MHz or faster
• 128MB RAM