Archive for August 2008

• Is Updated Technology Important to Productive Work? Unless you’re a designer using resource demanding software, a software reviewer (then I recommend installing and using them on a secondary computer instead of your main one), or using a 10-year-old computer — then this sounds like another excuse from a procrastinator.
• DIY marketing is not always cheapest.
• Massive List of Killer Freelancing Tips.
• The Design Process Of Creating A $40,000 Creative Newspaper Advertisement: Love seeing Jacob’s thought process in action.
• Great explanation on Law of Attraction.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• The Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites: My client’s site, RadioTime, made the list.
• Thank you to Customized Engraving for the lovely keychain with my name on it.
• Kids, This Is What We Call “Scapegoating”: Hilarious. Moms and Dads — ya gotta see this one. Good or bad parenting… be danged… simply funny.
• Photoshop Disasters.

How many times did you complete a form only to push the “Clear” button instead of “Submit”? What about “OK” vs. “Cancel” on a popup window? (Raises both hands — one for each.)

Why does this happen? Do we expect one button on the left and the other on the right? Are they too close together?

Jakob Nielsen reports that Windows applications put OK first, Cancel second while Apple places OK last. In this case, he advises developers to design OK/Cancel based on the platform they design for. The above screen shot comes from Thunderbird in Windows. The below image comes from Microsoft Word.

For Web forms, I suggest using one button. Of course, circumstances may prevent that. For example, you’re completing an order and you’re on the last page. Ecommerce sites certainly don’t want to give you another button to cancel the order, but users need assurance that they’ve canceled the order by pressing “Cancel Order” rather than just closing the window.

From my experience, I tend to read popup windows and zip through Web-based forms. I always assume software developers don’t create their popup windows the same way. But online forms — that’s another story. Silly, isn’t it? We shouldn’t expect Web designers to create forms the same way either.

Here, Nielsen gives two guidelines that make sense:

• Name a button based on what it does. Instead of “OK,” consider “Yes” when the dialog box asks if you want to do something.
• Highlight the most often used button except in cases where the action is drastic (of course, I can’t think of an example at the moment).

I think one more guideline would help especially where Web-based forms come in:

• Avoid putting the buttons close together: This forces us to pay attention and lowers the incident of “mouse slippage” that causes us to accidentally select the wrong button.

Many of us hit “Enter” when we finish a form or to begin searching (after entering keywords). Take care to prevent the application from executing something big when someone presses “Enter.”

You have to give Microsoft credit for its Windows XP shut down dialog box as shown below. Three options appear (Stand By, Turn Off, Restart) and each in a different color (yellow, red, green respectively) plus a Cancel button in gray and away from the others.

As users, we should look closely these windows and form buttons. In our fast-paced and overloaded world, we forget. Hence, keeping buttons at a reasonable distance from each other can give us the visual cue to look at the buttons.

What works for you? What doesn’t work?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

I love the Olympics and look forward to them especially the summer Olympics. You can always count on the Olympics to bring out every feeling in the book. Sports also teach wonderful life lessons about endurance, perseverance, goodwill, respect, tragedy.

Tragedy: Sad to say, we’ve seen tragedy. A suicidal man stabbed and killed the father-in-law of U.S. volleyball coach whose wife was a former U.S. women’s Olympic volleyball player. Good news is the mother-in-law’s condition has been upgraded from critical to stable. The U.S. men’s volleyball team had a moment of silence before the match against Venezuela in which they won in five sets.

I had to deal with tragedy last year when my father had a stroke in April 2007 and passed away in December 2007. Freelancers can’t prepare for every situation, but they can adapt and accept. I let my clients know of my limited availability and they respected it.

Endurance: In the 400m relay, the U.S. swim team overcame a half-body deficit in the final leg against France’s strongest swimmer to win the race at impossible odds — or so people thought. The French swim team needs to work on sportsmanship. Apparently, they spat into the U.S. lane and trashed talked. The U.S. team stayed cool and let their swimming do the talking.

Freelancers may not deal with something that big, but they overcome illness and other unexpected events to make their deadlines and accomplish almost impossible tasks. For me, I lost two major clients during the dot com crash. At that point, it was either quit freelancing (it was a side career at the time) or forge ahead.

Perseverance: U.S. women’s gymnastics team started off unlucky. Samantha Peszek sprained her ankle in warm-ups leaving the team with four gymnasts for floor, vault, and balance beam. They couldn’t make mistakes. But they did. Two gymnasts fell on the uneven bars. Despite the disappointing start, the team still made the finals and players made it to individual event finals.

Lone freelancers must persevere often. They’re responsible for their own marketing, accounting, and other non-writing or non-freelancing tasks. If something comes up in their lives to interfere with their work, they push on to keep clients happy while taking care of personal business. My son’s medical program takes up much of my time forcing me to adjust my writing schedule. While stressful to deal with working and blogging less, I know this too shall pass and I’ll return to my groove.

What Olympic-like experiences have you encountered? Anything along the lines of respect, goodwill, or other adjectives?

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. Aug. 11th: 50% off on Kudos: Rock Legend

Tue. Aug. 12th: 75% off on Shelled! Online

Wed. Aug. 13th: 50% off on Urban Chopper Rescue

Thu. Aug. 14th: 50% off on Smugglers 3

Fri. Aug. 15th: 40% off on The Mystery of the Crystal Portal

Sat. Aug. 16th: 50% off on Nuclear Power Plant Simulator

Sun. Aug. 17th: 50% off on Lemonade Stand

W00t! I love 8/8/08. Too bad I couldn’t make anything special happen today. So I’ll have to settle for sharing great links instead!

Let the games begin!

• 21 Online Free Web-Based Applications
• The Real Problem with PowerPoint
• 24 Things to do When Stuck for a Topic to Blog about Blog Post Idea Farm…: Personally, best tip is to stock up on entries when you’re in that write frame of mind. I haven’t been in the write frame of mind due to personal commitments and can’t expand on any of the ideas I have piled up.
• Should you write to women differently than men? Admit it… women like emotional words while men like aggressive, matter of fact speak. I attended a conference made primarily of women and a speaker said that women are emotional. The men laughed, but we all admitted it’s true. Look, I believe in not treating pink stuff as girlie and blue stuff and boyish — but after having a girl and two boys (and the boys are different from each other), nature controls some things including gender preferences. I’ve seen many studies show how boys tend to talk with action and girls sit together facing each other while talking with many words.
• Ready for the Olympics? Get ready with 8 Attributes of an Olympic Mind Set — works for any career including writing.

For fun because we’re allowed…

• Smallest solar racing car: I LOVE remote controlled toys. It’s the only thing I consistently played with in my childhood (No dollies for me) and still play in my mamahood. My son received a remote control boat for his birthday and we love playing with it in the pool. Someday, I plan to get a helicopter — not a little one that flies in the house and you can barely control.
• Passive-aggressive (and just plain aggressive notes)
• Raising Small Souls’ “Animal School” teaches a valuable lesson. As I mentioned before, my son’s medical program takes up a lot of my time these days and this movie is exactly about what we’re trying to do for him.

And she cooks, too! When Cookie the Chef leaves Flo’s Diner to pursue a career on a popular cooking reality TV show, he creates a shortage of chefs in DinerTown by inviting them all to appear as guest stars. It’s up to Flo to pick up the slack with a whole new set of food service skills! Help Flo and Grandma Florence keep five DinerTown restaurants up and running…if you can stand the heat!

• Over 50 levels of game play
• Master the art of perfectly prepared meals in five different restaurants
• 3D rendered characters add dimension to the animation

Play Cooking Dash.

Working on a press release, I stumbled in my journey to find a fun expression to use in a paragraph. Hubby came along and asked what I was doing. I explained and he suggested using “A cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”

“Huh?”

I like to think I’m up on my slanguage, idioms, cliches, and I don’t know this one. But I like it and it makes sense. Even if it doesn’t, it makes you smile, doesn’t it? You may hear variations of this such “as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.” It means edgy, jumpy, or nervous. But take off the first part, and it could mean the cat feels overwhelmed by all the choices. In either case, it sounds funny.

Sometimes I’ll use, “Dagnabbit!” Sounds better and funnier than “Damn!” or “Darn!” It almost always makes me smile and feel better.

My grandmother, who had diabetes, would say, “Oh, sugar” when most people say “Damn it” or worse. Mom told me a story about my grandfather. While driving, he faced a rude driver. His face turned red and he dug his thoughts for something to say as he never cussed… “You… you… you, worm!” Mom said that was about the angriest he ever got that she remembered.

Steve Blow’s column in The Dallas Morning News (might require free registration) greeted me with more dying words and expressions.

Land o’Goshen, cattywampus, sakes alive (snakes alive)

Yonder, gumption, much obliged, picture show (movie), poetic of a mornin’ (evenin’) rat cheer

Wait. “Rat cheer?” I haven’t heard that one, but a professor at a local college wants to save that one. It takes searching to find this one — it sounds like and means “Right here.” A baseball game vendor could yell, “Getcha peanuts rat cheer!”

“Well, I swanee!” You can’t help but grin at that one, right? For me, it evokes memories of Al Jolson and Swanee River. “How I love ya, my dear old Swanee…” No, I’m not 93 years old, but I love Vaudeville.

What old phrases do you miss, still say, or still hear?

Cool summer savings at Handango: Get up to 25% off select apps to help you get through the summer. Use code: COOL20

Also, Handango is currently running a summer sweepstakes contest where customers can win up to $50,000 cash by participating in the contest.

Knowing how to balance a checkbook provides us with an important life skill. A person who can’t balance a checkbook (or these days, reconcile a credit card as few write checks) will struggle to ensure s/he has enough money to pay bills.

Not everyone needs to understand how a board works, the process for running board meetings, and the rules of order. However, the knowledge comes in handy throughout our lives whether as a volunteer who sits on a board, a parent who belongs to a school PTA, or an employee who attends meetings.

Let’s say a PTA dad joins the PTA and volunteers once a month. He receives the general meeting minutes and the budget. With a fresh eye and an accountant’s background, he catches an error. He cares about the school’s PTA and wants them to operate on sound principles, so he reports the error to the president or treasurer.

In a time where ethics fell by the wayside, we need to educate ourselves on board practices. The Perfect Board helps the reader who has never been on a board, a member of an organization that wants the organization to function effectively, the chair who needs to understand the process, and the freshman politician stepping into the walking on eggshells world of politics.

People become afraid of making change to ensure the board and organization stay on track. Understanding official guidelines will support a person in any efforts to steer things back on course.

The Perfect Board begins with meeting a newly appointed board member, Rebecca Mayfield, who doesn’t know what to expect. She receives a referral to meet with EJ, a man who knows about boards. The start and end of the book uses a fictional story to ease the reader into the book and make it a fast read at about 100 pages. A fast reader could read the book in 20 or 30 minutes.

Rebecca makes herself comfortable and reads EJ’s The Perfect Board notebook, which starts a new page for every topic presented in a logical order covering the basics from quorum and bylaws to reimbursement and audit committee. Each section contains an overview of the topic without weighing the reader with cumbersome details.

The book follows up with Rebecca after settling in her job and establish new policies based on what she learned in reading EJ’s The Perfect Board notes. This short ‘n sweet lesson teaches the critical action a board member should take to ensure the organization functions well.

The title would serve better as “The New Board Member’s Guide” or something along those lines because the book covers the topic at a high level and doesn’t dive into details to help experienced members build better boards.

The Perfect Board would make a perfect gift for Incoming presidents and board members especially first-timers. Considering many who join a board have other roles and responsibilities (parenting, full-time jobs, etc.), the book’s easy and fast read gives readers what they need to know without feeling bogged down by technical details found in policies and rules of order.

• Title: The Perfect Board, second edition
• Author: Calvin K. Clemons
• Publisher: Ovation Books
• ISBN: 097902756X
• Date: 2008
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 110
• Cover Price: USD: $16.95

Agatha Christie (Miss Marple, Hercules Poirot, and Tommy and Tuppence). James Patterson (Women’s Murder Club). Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew). Open Mystery of Unicorn Castle to transport yourself into the hidden object world of your favorite mystery writer.

You play Jane Morion, a young woman who receives a letter from an unheard of relative to come to the family castle in England regarding an inheritance. Arriving in England, she meets others who also received the mysterious letter from Lord Morion.

Guests view a video from Lord Morion (Sound familiar? Family, inheritance, video from rich and dead person) who says that whomever can discover the secret heart of the castle will be the one to inherit it. To make things creepier, the family has a curse that causes some to go insane or their spirits can’t ever leave the castle.

Find hidden objects in one of five ways:

1. Standard list of objects.
2. Compare scenes to find their differences.
3. Silhouettes of objects.
4. Find object pairs.
5. Clean a room of objects that don’t belong.

Sometimes you’ll need to open a cabinet, a drawer, or a box to reach an object. Before you can peek in, you must conquer a mini-game. Mystery of Unicorn Castle contains NO memory game. Thank you. It gets old finding one in almost every casual game. Mini-games include:

• Gears: Pick the right size gear and put it in the right place until all the gears turn to unlock the door.
• Match three: Keep making matches of three or more of the same object until you fill the bar.
• Jigsaw puzzle: Connect pieces together.
• Path: Turn squares until you make a clear path from every key to every lock to open the locks.

Some think the game contains too many of these mini-games, but the original beta had much more. I believe the hidden object to mini-game balance works. Also nice is how the mini-games all tie in with the story and objects. They have a purpose.

Experienced hidden object games players run into dark scenes many times where they only have a flash light to help them find objects. This one adds a twist. Instead, find three candles and three matches to light up three areas on the scene. Much easier on the eyes after all that hidden object hunting.

Hints. The game provides unlimited hints, but players must wait for the magnifying glass to refill before using it again. Fairies fly around the scene, so catch one to fill the hint meter a little more.

Mystery of Unicorn Castle contains decent graphics quality. Not the best. Another weak spot in the game comes in clearing out of place objects from a room. The game deems some objects as not belonging in a room when they could or doesn’t recognize some objects as belonging to a category such as toys.

Scenes take a little longer than usual to load plus the dialogue boxes use a slow fade in effect that needlessly slows the game. While the story intrigues, some players want to skip the dialogue and the game offers no way to do it. The game doesn’t last as long as the average hidden object game. However, unlike most hidden object games, this one doesn’t repeat scenes and objects as much as others.

Mystery of Unicorn Castle may not be appropriate for children because of its few cuss words and spooky music (it even scared me that I had to turn off the music). Players most likely won’t feel compelled to replay the game especially since it comes with one mode.

The story ties up with a nice bow. Many casual games tend to leave players handing with an unclear ending, but not Mystery of Unicorn Castle. Whether beginners or experienced hidden object players will like this one is hit or miss. Try the free trial and judge for yourself. Personally, it intrigued me enough to play all the way to the end without feeling tortured (as a game reviewer, I play the game to the end… unless it’s impossible or horrible).

Download Mystery of Unicorn Castle.