Archive for September 2007

Those of you who read this blog through RSS readers — I apologize if you’re seeing a bunch of old blog entries resurface. I found a post that pointed to images in the right place, but because of a redirect — the images were broken. So I fixed some and still have more to do.

There are thousands of posts and files from this seven-year-old blog and over 10-years-old Web site… so things break over time. I’m sure plenty of things remain broken. Thanks for bearing with me.

• 100 undiscovered web sites [Thanks, Publishing Poynters]
• Lifehack’s 10 favorite presentation articles. I’m trying to convince my daughter not to fall in the trap of crowding slides with a ton of text. Does she listen to me? Of course not.
• 50 home office feng shui tips [Thanks, Andy]
• Kill the Apostrophe (has cuss words) and the opposite, The Apostrophe Protection Society [Thanks, Richard]
• PR Success Stories to inspire you and so you can model your own copy by.
• Dress Code Calculator — So the invitation says, “Dressy casual.” Sounds like an oxymoron. Get help from the calculator.

You go to an online tennis shoe store looking for mules (shoes you slide on as they have no back — see image). Without looking — what category do you expect to find these shoes? Or maybe this would be easier… what category would you NOT expect to find these shoes?

Running? Walking? Cross-training? Aerobics? Aqua? Casual?

I would think the first “NOT” category would be running. Try running in mules and you might find them flying off unless you position your toes to “hold on.”

According to Ryka, mules make great running shoes. [View larger image].

I bought my first portable mouse when it was on sale for very cheap. At first, I thought it was a bad investment because I didn’t use it for a long time. However, I started using my laptop for all work for a specific client and needed to use a regular mouse instead of the touchpad. The mouse has a lot of mileage.

I had the opportunity to try out the Logitech VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse pricey (69.99 list price / $49.99 Amazon price) ultra-portable mouse with a tiny receiver. Instantly, I liked the package when I saw the small size of the receiver — it looked like a USB plug. But then I realized, it would be easy to lose in a house full of kids.

Two AAA batteries powered the mouse and the package came with batteries (hope it didn’t drive up the price). When I opened the battery compartment, I saw the “Nano Receiver” label. When not using the receiver, you put it in the battery compartment next to the label to store it and close the battery compartment keeping it safe while on the move or not using the mouse. Innovative.

Although, it was no problem to keep the receiver plugged in even on the go since it barely protruded. It was a nice change not having to duck doorways to avoid hitting the two-inch long receiver from the old portable mouse. It had a few run-ins in its lifetime.

Plugged in the USB receiver, put batteries in mouse and the mouse went to work right away. It worked without the installing the included CD. However, the CD contained more features for taking advantage of side-to-side scrolling, Internet search, and button customization.

Have you noticed some mice have scroll wheels that click as you scroll and others don’t click (frictionless for long scrolling)? This one did both. Push the scroll wheel to toggle between the two modes. Click scrolling (friction) worked well for precise scrolling and frictionless scrolling performed best with long documents.

The box also included a carrying case and a USB extension stand for using the mouse with a desktop. These can stay tucked in one of the laptop’s smaller pockets out of the way.

My old portable mouse shut itself off unreasonably fast when idle. Moving the mouse wouldn’t wake it up — it called for either moving the scroll wheel or pushing the buttons on both the receiver and mouse to wake it up. This one required neither. It woke up every time I moved it. The receiver didn’t even have a button, so I only had to push the one on the mouse to make the first connection.

This high quality portable mouse wasn’t without a flaw — the size. My medium-sized hand missed the older and slightly larger sized portable mouse. But with time, it will adapt. The mouse felt snug and comfortable to the top part of my hand and fingers (the bottom of my palm dragged on the table more than usual). Oh, and it felt wonderfully light. I weighed it with the batteries and the scale showed 3.5 ounces.

Some might find the scroll wheel “too loose” — in other words, you can easily spin it. This feature is a matter of personal preference rather than a good or bad thing. Overall, Logitech VX Nano Cordless Laser Mouse is a great portable and cordless mouse if you’re willing to spend the money. The receiver alone can make it a worthy buy.

Pros: Tiny receiver, precise movements, lightweight, complete package (USB for desktop, receiver, mouse, carry case and batteries)

Cons: Price, mouse size is a little small for some

I look forward to reading Mary Roach’s humorous Reader Digest column in every issue. The column reflects on things she runs into in life that many of us can relate. In the June 2007, she shares her experience in calling tech support regarding the Windows setup CD. Her computer crashed and it needed the setup CD to repair itself.

Unable to find the CD, she calls tech support. She reaches someone located in another country who is obviously a gatekeeper that routes calls. The gatekeeper asks her the same standard question that we all get when calling tech support (following the script, y’know?). Then the gatekeeper gives Roach the phone number to Microsoft.

She compares receiving a Microsoft phone number to a phone number for North America. Anyway, she calls the Redmond company where the technician reports she doesn’t need the CD because Windows comes installed on her computer. Oi!

Insert conversation here where they go back and forth and nothing happens. Finally, he walks her through using a different CD that will erase everything. To paraphrase her thoughts, “Gee, why don’t you drop a safe on my headache?”

She resolves her problem with a short trip to a nearby repair shop.

Situations like this make me grateful for the Internet, which provides us with the tools and resources to try to solve the problem on our own without making the dreaded support call. Here’s a recent example of how the Internet saved us.

Paul finally got around to installing the second dispenser in the sin that matched the new faucet and its accompanying dispenser. After he finished, the original dispenser would not pump soap and the new takes a lot of pumping to spew a pitiful amount of soap.

I went to the company’s Web site and found its troubleshooting (yes, the company uses this word even though it’s not a techie product) section. Within a few minutes, I ordered a replacement part. It arrived and it worked. This took maybe 10 minutes of my time. The other dispenser, however, took more effort as it didn’t appear in the list of products for troubleshooting.

After more research, I had to submit a customer service e-mail. The first e-mail said the company hoped it resolved my problem, but there was NO solution in the e-mail. I replied asking for the solution. The company said it sent a replacement part. Now we wait to see if it arrives. If it does and it works, I will have spent less time resolving this problem than it would take me to finally get to the right person in a relay phone call.

Update a few hours later: Of course, the replacement part arrived today after I posted this entry. Actually, I received the entire thing. Back to nagging Paul to get around to installing it. Let’s hope it works.

You may have seen these blogs. Their tagline says, “Just another Wordpress Blog…”, their unoriginal content comes from everywhere else, and it looks lonely as no author appears identified in the blog. Some of these blogs have RSS, XML, and robots doing much of the work.

These blogs often don’t have ads, so why bother? Why put energy into setting it up? What’s the catch? Drive up the search results — but why?

Many other blogs of a similar nature with inappropriate titles and tags do the same thing. These sites show up in your list of sites linking to you even though the articles and blog entries you write have nothing to do with X-rated topics.

What do the creators of these sites think they’ll get out of connecting to irrelevant articles? If someone searches for “writing” and ends up at one of these places, then these sites think they’ll hook a new reader. But what are the chances of that? It wastes bandwidth and they’re unlikely to have good results for non-X-rated keywords with so many high quality sites out there creating original content.

With so many solitaire games out there for computers and handhelds, you’d think, “Enough already!” Astraware didn’t let the thought of a crowded market stop them and it was a winning move as Astraware Solitaire hit a Blackjack.

The company earned my respect years ago and continued to keep it with its releasing high quality games for the small screen. Astraware Solitaire comes with 12 games, ranging from the easy to hard and from takes skill to relies on luck. Some take a long time to play while others are fast. So points awarded for variety.

If you’re not familiar with a game, the main screen lets you know the difficulty, chances of winning, time it takes to play, and whether it takes luck and/or skill. Games include the following:

Calculation, Canfield, Clock, Four Seasons, Freecell, Golf, Idiot’s Delight, Klondike, Pyramid, Spider, Sultan’s Harem, and Yukon.

Every game comes with customizable options such as how many calls to deal, how many redeals, and how to build fondations. If you don’t know what these means, tap “i” for more information. Astraware Solitaire offers plenty of help in explaining every game.

When you win games and do certain things, you also earn Trophy Cards (like badges). Trophys will eventually unlock additional backgrounds and deck card backgrounds. Go in the Trophy Room from the Main Menu to see the collected trophies and the uncollected trophies. When you complete a full Trophy Desk, it unlocks the deck for use in games. Very cool feature.

It looks like Astraware has every possible useful feature a solitaire card game can have including statistics. The statistics shows total time played, number of games, average time per game, wins, losses, longest winning and losing streaks, and current streak. Statistics are also available for each card game. With all these features, it’s amazing how fast the game runs.

Excellent solitaire package. It’s customizable, gives awards, and comes with unlockables. If you buy just one, you should be more than happy with this one. Astraware Solitaire is available for Pocket PCs, Smartphones and PalmOS PDAs.

As usual, you may try before you buy. Trial users may play up to 20 new games in any combination of the different solitaire types on offer. Additionally, unlockables (card/background graphics/trophies) may be unlocked, but aren’t available for use until the user has registered.

I received an .odt file for posting on an organization’s Web site. Open Office’s word processor uses this file format. I didn’t want to download and install Open Office even though it cost nothing. And going back to the sender wasn’t a good idea because she would either not know how to convert it or she wasn’t the one who created the file.

Considering the popularity of Open Office, I took a chance and searched the Internet to see if there were converters or a Web-based application that could read .odt files. I struck gold at Media Convert, a no cost Web-based application — so I didn’t need to install anything. It did the job beautifully. All you have to do is locate the file, select the input format and select the output format.

The service doesn’t include Publisher, but you can convert it at PDF Online. At least, everyone can view PDF files and you don’t have to ask anyone to save the Publisher file into another format. Between the two Web-based applications, you should be covered.

Updated: A friend of mine uses PrimoPDF, free downloadable software.

Jill Evans returns! Hard to believe it’s been almost a year since we’ve met Jill (no relation) in Cake Mania and helped her bakery. She comes back to help her friends who have problems with their bakeries. The game introduces a “choose your own adventure” style feature where you decide which friend of Jill’s to help along with other scenarios. Other than that, Cake Mania 2 doesn’t introduce anything truly new.

Nonetheless, it’s a delight to discover new locales and new types of customers. When starting the game, choose to help Risha, Jill’s friend from college, or Jack, an old flame. Risha has a classy rooftop bakery while Jack’s problematic place is in an underwater theme park in the ocean. Jill can also work in four other bakeries each with a different theme and layout.

The bakery’s layout changes every time Jill moves to a new locale. This adds to the challenge as you have to re-learn where everything is in the bakery. The change causes interesting mistakes and mix-ups. The ovens also change shapes. You might have a fish, star, square and circle in one locale and then another locale’s ovens contain moons, flowers, hearts, and triangles.

Jill deals with 18 different customers including punks, spoiled children, the cat lady, celebrities, high society, and secret agents. What’s odd is that some of the customers don’t belong in certain locations, but they show up. With this many customers, the game could do a better job matching the customers and locations.

This time customers may enter in pairs, so that means fulfilling two orders. Between that and taking care of customers, I make mistakes where I accidentally choose the wrong cake topper or icing color. No problem, leave the accidental cake on the display plate and redo the order.

But the annoying mistake comes when I put a cake down to pick up another only to find I stuck them together and can’t take them apart. While the challenge comes in getting the orders straight, I take issue with errors like this. However, I’m not sure having the ability to break apart two or three cakes would be wise. Would that make the game too easy? It works out because customers see the mistake cakes and buy them. Thank you, impulse buys!

You can buy upgrades after successfully completing a level, if you have enough money. This one comes with 50 upgrades and lasts the whole game. In fact, I don’t get to use them all by the time I finish. I also earn a trophy! Apparently, there are six trophies, but we don’t know what they are. Levels, by the way, last for a month. It’s a nice change and less stressful to go through the days of the month instead of racing the clock.

Jill has let success go to her head a little as we see her ego pop out when celebrities and high society show up. But other than that, she’s still adorable. Her commentaries that appear between levels are fun, sometimes humorous reads. Some games display long and useless comments or back story, but not this one — it’s the right length. You can skip them and still benefit from the game.

The “choose your own adventure” compels players to replay Cake Mania 2 as there are six possible endings and over 200 levels. The game also comes with the requisite endless mode, but I never play these because they make me insane!

For game strategies, check out Sandlot’s Tips and Tricks. If you haven’t played the original, you won’t miss anything by diving into Cake Mania 2. It comes with the usual tutorials and the story doesn’t feel like it’s missing something if you haven’t played the first one. Overall, Cake Mania 2 is a tasty game that falls short of the five-star award.

System Requirements: Windows

• Windows ME/98SE/2000/XP
• 500 MHz Pentium 2 or faster processor
• 128 MB RAM
• DirectX 7.0 or later
• 3D Video Card with 16 MB Video RAM

System Requirements: Windows Vista

• 800 MHz Pentium 2 or faster processor
• 512 MB RAM
• Graphics processor that is DirectX 9 capable

Flo returns to her hometown to find it needs rescuing. She ventures around the town helping revive the restaurants. The game also introduces a multi-player component and the ability to build your own diner. It’ll be interesting to see how fans like the ability to compete or team with other gamers. After all, the market is full of interactive online games.