Archive for January 2009

• How much should you get paid to blog: Good article even though it includes a quote from me.
• Going full-time: Four things you’ll miss from the day job
• 5 Steps to Going Viral on Twitter
• Live Blogging: Getting Organized: See one person getting organized in action. Danged paper cuts!
• The One About Trains, Tweets & Lying Down in Public: Retain your sanity in this world of too much information.
• Tracks: Do you have yours figured out?

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Get ready to say good-bye to these car models especially the gas guzzling Hummer H2 [Link: Tumblemoose]
• Human records: Guinness gone crazy
• This Is Sand: Play with sand of all colors. Hint: Click on dot in upper left-hand corner for instructions.
• How to Clean Stuff: Start cleaning no matter the season.
• Damn Interesting: Trust me — interesting facts that I can’t begin to explain.

Whether you like twitter or not, it can be a valuable tool if you make the most out of it. Standing by and watching conversations go by won’t work. Anyway, plenty of other posts about twitter use on this blog — this focuses on what it can do for writers.

Thanks to the superb Phil Baumann’s health care uses for twitter for the idea.

1. Post story ideas for comments and quotes.
2. Ask questions related to a story you’re working on. I did that for this one.
3. Request experts for a topic.
4. Link to your stories (don’t overdo this!). And say something more than “Check out my new post…” Instead “Get writer tips for using twitter…”
5. Participate in group chats (#journchat, for example) for new ideas and insights.
6. Identify trends.
7. Network: I am deaf and prefer online networking because I’m on equal ground and no one judges me as my deaf accent doesn’t come through. I also don’t have to worry about misunderstandings.
8. Practice writing effective and short sentences, which can improve your writing.
9. Converse with readers. It makes you accessible.
10. Share articles of interest to writers: I discover many useful articles that help me improve on a professional basis and share my finds.
11. Help clients: I get involved in twitter conversations surrounding my clients’ topics and sometimes find an opportunity to refer a prospect to a client.
12. Report news: I first learned about the US Air crash in the Hudson through twitter.
13. Post urgent queries for faster responses. @skydiver can help here, too.
14. Support from other writers: Sometimes we get stuck in a rut and need water cooler talk and motivation. Just saw a link to a writer’s block article and another on what to do during an economic downturn.
15. Use alert tools to track keywords and topics. Twilerts and Tweetbeep.
16. Ask for input from other writers. Someone needed resources for a writer workshop and received a fast reply.
17. Receive feedback on published content. Become a better writer.
18. Look for gigs and job postings.
19. Discover great quotes about writing. Dr Seuss: “So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.”
20. Search Twitter: Use the search tool when you need experts on a topic, quotes, anything you’d search for through a search engine except use this one for twitter.
21. Learn from other writers: “It allowed me to connect with other writers and find out what they’re doing,” says Deborah Woehr (and I met her on twitter)
22. Issue story updates: You might not want to write another article or post on a story you previously published. Instead, post updates in twitter for those curious “What happened to…” or “How did it turn out?”
23. Report site problems: For example, writers working for a major site can report when it experiences problems. I reported a problem with a site’s design to a friend. Sometimes code just goes bonkers. I don’t like to look at my own site, so I appreciate the feedback!
24. Discuss grammar and language: I had a fun discussion on UK English terms with Brad and Joanna.
25. Be playful: “It’s made me more playful,” Joanna Young. This stirs creativity and imagination.
26. Find discounts: Could be books, courses, software and other useful writing tools.
27. Find guest bloggers: When I had my blog’s 8th birthday, I found a couple of guest bloggers through twitter and others found me.
28. Get prize donations: I found prize sponsors and sponsored prizes through twitter connections.
29. Meet local writers: Great folks to know for discussing weather, local stuff, etc. and…
30. Set up in person meetings: Many writers have met for lunch when they live close by or set up a meeting at a conference.
31. Laugh: Hey, it’s healthy and writers tell jokes and stories about the writing life or not.
32. Share writing and twittering tips.
33. Talk health benefits.
34. Share work-life balance tips. It’s too easy to keep working after 5pm especially with many working from a home office.
35. Stay connected: When I injured my hand and had surgery, I couldn’t write articles — but I could tweet. Twitter kept me in the loop and in touch.
36. Post pictures of funny signs.
37. Tweet conferences: Many conferences have tidbits posted all over twitter usually followed with a hashtag such as #sxsw (for south by southwest).
38. Talk about writer organizations.
39. Reach goals: Post your goals for the world to see and it pressures you to meet them.
40. Start your day: Twitter can be a good place to warm up your writing for the day and get you in the right mood for writing.
41. Get referrals: I’ve been lucky some people tweeted that I am a good writer. I doubt that would’ve happened if I hadn’t been on twitter to stay fresh in their minds, which brings …
42. Stay fresh in other people’s minds: Like newsletters help companies stay in the minds of prospects of clients, twitter does the same for freelancers and individuals.
43. Ask about other locales: A friend was thinking of moving to Texas and asked me questions. Writers can live almost anywhere and take working vacations, so ask about great places to stay in a foreign country.
44. Discover new songs and artists: It’s hard for me to learn new ones and I got a great suggestion from a twitter friend. Some writers work well with music playing.
45. Post links to free downloads.
46. Connect through social networks: I’ve met folks on Facebook and found them on twitter and vice versa. A well-rounded social network can make a difference. For instance, you might not use Facebook much and stay in touch better in twitter or the other way around.
47. Discuss books: Writing books, good vs. bad.
48. Discuss agents: Need or not? Good vs. bad.
49. Discuss publishers. Good vs. bad, types, print on demand, etc.
50. Discuss magazine opportunities.
51. Discuss legal-related topics for writers.
52. Ask about online sites: Find out their reputation and if it’s worth looking into for writing opportunities.
53. Reminder to check blogs without having to look up URLs. Twitter makes it easier for me to catch up with people while reading their blogs at the same time.
54. “Have plain old fun” Everyone needs a break, especially writers,” Jamie of How Not to Write.
55. “See what’s out there in real time,” Tumblemoose.
56. “Quick connect” with my community,” Tumblemoose.
    

What else?

Updated: January 28, 2009

Talk about cheering up a gal who couldn’t do much while recovering from hand surgery! I had no idea another Mystery Case Files (MCF) game was coming out. It doesn’t feel so long ago since we had the pleasure of seeing Mystery Case Files: Madame Fate. Then I discover it’s a follow up to Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst. I had mixed feelings because the original’s ending disappointed me. However, the game had a strong story and intriguing puzzles.

Wow! MCF: Return to Ravenhearst surpassed all expectations and blew away all previous Mystery Case File games. I believe that this one truly takes the Mystery Case Files franchise and hidden object to a full-fledged adventure where hidden objects take a back seat rather than rule the game.

Most hidden object games give you two or three scenes you can roam, one at a time, from a map. This one reminds me of the first adventure games from Sierra that I played on my Apple ][+ as a kid. Of course, the overall production transcends those old adventures.

Navigate around MCF: Return to Ravenhearst by clicking the sides of the screen when you see an arrow pointing indicating you can go in that direction. As you move your mouse around the screen, the cursor turns into a magnifying glass or a white sparkle showing there’s more to that item.

The casebook plays a big role as who can remember everything s/he reads (aside from those with photographic memory). You could write it down, but you may not remember or realize the significance of a note that appears in the casebook.

Other games with a similar casebook just rehash the story. This one provides useful details. Review the casebook as it contains clues and information that will come to play later.

Good news — if you haven’t played any of the Mystery Case Files, it won’t affect playing this one. There’s little reference to the previous games.

The game picks up from the previous after the release of Emma Ravenhearst’s soul. But Charles Dalimar — the villain of both stories — continues to torture other souls. He was also responsible for the strange goings-on at the carnival in MCF: Madame Fate. We must help free the tortured souls so they may rest in peace.

We’re seeing an influx of adventure games (yeah!), but some come too easy. Not MCF: Return to Ravenhearst. I got stuck in a few places and had to walk all over the house a few times before I figured them out. Gamers who feel games are too easy shouldn’t find that a problem here. The nice thing about getting stuck is that you don’t have to figure it out right then to move forward.

Big Fish Games, publisher of the series, has also released a separate sound track. Why? The music was annoying that I turned off the sound early on.

Some objects are nearly impossible to find. One was hidden behind a toy in a glass case. Even with the hint, I couldn’t see it. There’s no limit on the hints, but you do have to wait for the meter to refill after use.

Another negative was the game’s snarky comments when you make a useless move. I’d think, “Gee, thanks for the insult.”

Nonetheless, these little peeves hardly interfere with the experience of playing the almost perfect game.

I thought the hype surrounding MCF: Madame Fate was overdone, but not for MCF: Return to Ravenhearst. It never let me down. The game also relies on some video and they fit beautifully with the story and scenes. I generally don’t like videos because they lack captions, but that’s not an issue here as they come with subtitles. Yeah!

What will MCF bring next? When? I hope it continues to build upon the superb MCF: Return to Ravenhearst.

I share today’s birthday with many friends. Having a inaugurabirthday makes it easier to remember special days like today. My fondest memory comes from 1981 when we watched the inauguration in social studies class. A TV in the classroom was an occasion in itself.

We saw the hostages freed from Iran and exiting the plane. We watched Reagan take oath with Mrs. Reagan looking on.

While we didn’t see many babies named Ron or Nancy, it wouldn’t surprise me if the following comic comes true in a classroom in 2014 (click to view larger).

I love that many parents take their heritage in consideration when they name their kids these days. It adds to the diversity that’s America.

My hope for this year is that thing economy turns around for the better and see more efforts to make peace and green our world.

Why do we “get a feeling or craving” for something at a certain time of year? It’s Pavlov at work. These become habits and with habits come expectations.

Not everyone can succeed in working in a home office. The temptation to procrastinate and do non-work stuff is too great. Lone workers don’t have to worry about people watching over their shoulders or Alt-Tab to switch away from the improper web site.

Turn “forcing yourself” to get things done into “habits that make it easy” to get things done in six steps:

1. Create a general schedule: This depends on what you do for work. As a writer, my activities are: communications (emails), writing, editing, research, administrative, and interactions. Assign blocks of time for the activities for the day.
2. Stick to schedule: I’ve made it a habit to start the day with an email, followed by a blog post (when I do one), and then article writing for the morning. The afternoon is for the tedious, less creative work and social networking (reading blogs, tweets, etc.). I know I don’t function as well in the afternoon as in the morning. I also exercise mid-day.
3. Give it time: You won’t have that “feeling it’s time to do something” overnight. It takes 21 days to form a new habit. It works, I promise. When I got into habit of not working due to hand surgery, I thought I’d never get back into work. I did. Just had to push myself to do #2 and it fell into place.
4. Work from the same place: If possible, set aside a space for work. I have two places: my little home office and my bed with a laptop (I had back problems plus that’s where I play games for reviewing).
5. Handle guilt: You might feel guilty about household chores and other personal activities that we must do, but don’t want to do. Set aside 30 to 60 minutes a day for such activities and do them then. That gets rid of the feelings of guilt and carries you through the day.
6. Take a break: Don’t let yourself get carried away with working at your computer all day and eating lunch at your desk. You may feel like you’re on a roll and not tired, but a break revives you. Make this personal chores time, if need be. The physical break gets you moving and your eyes away from the screen. I have a dog, so unless I want her to do her business in my house — I must take a break to walk her. We don’t have a backyard and she refuses to go before walking at least half a block.

Think about the different times of the year. Do you find you crave something or expect something? For example, my family can’t help but crave cake in January with three of us having birthdays this month and one in early February.

I used to play tennis on Saturday and Sunday before I got hurt. It’s going to take time to get back in the mood for it after a long time off plus the cold weather. So I’ll start with one of those days and build back up.

If my routines don’t convince you, maybe these people in Daily Routines will.

Habits can work on an hourly, daily, monthly, and yearly basis. It’s what you make of it. Steps 1 through 4 work for most habits. Pick one thing to turn into a habit and try it.

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. January 19th: 50% off on Pyramid Solitaire

Tue. January 20th: 50% off on New Star Soccer 4

Wed. January 21st: 50% off on Supernova 2: Spacewar

Thu. January 22nd: 50% off on Jools

Fri. January 23rd: 50% off on Depths of Peril

Sat. January 24th: 50% off on Baroness Solitaire

Sun. January 25th: 40% off on Arcade Race – Crash!

• Simply Scripts: Read screenplays, movie scripts, and more.
• Twitter Tips: Twitter tips in 140 characters or more.
• Daily Routines: It sounds boring, but having a daily routine helps successful people get things done. I’ve made it a habit to read emails first thing and follow that with my biggest writing work of the day. I save the tedious work for the afternoon when I am not as effective. It takes 21 days to create a new habit — so pick one and stick with it for three weeks.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Inaugural Preparations: W.O.W.
• Long Exposure Photography: W.O.W. #2.
• Wii Fail: Why you should keep the remote strap around your wrist.
• Reflections: Photographer captures scenes through puddles.
• The Dullest Blog in the World: So dull that it’s so funny. It gets LOTS of comments… does that mean mine is more boring?

• No Recession for Me links: “Stop freaking, start reading.”
• Benefits of Twitter for Writers: my tweetID is merylkevans.
• StateStats: Enter keyword(s) to get state stats.
• B2B Email Marketing interview
• Write or Die: Dr. Wicked’s Writing Lab – Super duper motivational writing tool. Scary stuff if you pick the hard core options. It erases your text if you take too long! [Link: Daphne Gray-Grant]
• Brands That Tweet: Companies and executives on twitter.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Letter to the Editor: The Biggest Loser – Indeed the casual games industry needs to get along and compromise.
• Man spends 26 years solving Rubik’s Cube: Loser or incredibly patient who didn’t give up?
• The Dial Up Kid: Reliving my modem days… even I could recognize these awful sounds.
• Far Side Reenactments: Comic strip turned real life. Hubby had this original one posted in his first job.
• Sleeping Chinese: My dad would’ve loved this. He could fall asleep anywhere.
• FAIL Blog: Nation fail and Extra Fresh Fail. Need all the laughs we can get! The grocer needs to watch abbreviations!
• New Alltop Topics: Art, Museums, Books, History, and Board Games

I’m hooked on As Time Goes By, a British TV show starring the Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer. I’m also getting into British-based Prime Suspect with Helen Mirrin.

Not only do I enjoy the repartee between Dench and Palmer, but also hearing the British accents. While I may not have good hearing, I can see and recognize the differences between British and American English.

I watch these shows with closed-captions or English subtitles. An interesting thing to note is that the captions use the American English spelling rather than British. For example, if a character says “color,” the captions also says “color” rather than “colour.”

Now why would a British TV show use American spelling? Because the DVD, a BBC America production, targets the American audience. This confirms Jakob Nielsen’s belief that web content need to use the correct variant of English and stick with it throughout the web site.

I love learning the differences in our languages including sounds, terms (football instead of soccer; Earth instead of dirt; loo instead of bathroom), and slang.

What amazes me is the shows make many American references. As an American, I might notice this more. However, I don’t think I’ve seen references to other countries and their cultures except in reference to an event such as Palmer’s character’s time spent in Korea.

Back to English and content. As much as I love the British culture and language (UK is one of the first places I want to travel whenever I get to the other side of the world), I use American English on this web site.

After all, most readers and clients hail from the US plus it’s where I live. Now, if I had an audience of 75% from the UK, then it could be a different story. However, it wouldn’t be a straight-out easy answer of using British English.

As much as I have picked up British slang, concepts, and terms, I will probably make mistakes. So is it better to stick with what I know best and stay consistent, or take a risk to devote thhe site  to British English and make a bad impression when I make honest mistakes?

Experts says to “speak in the audience’s language.” But does US and UK variation English count? In either case, we’re speaking English. For credibility’s sake, I’d probably need to stick with American English.

One of the more important rules regarding web content is “consistency.” That means deciding whether you use American English or Queen’s English, web site or website, Internet or internet.

Mike and Isabel of The Nightshift Code return in Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye, an adventure that mixes hidden objects with a variety of puzzles.

Game developers have a challenge in telling a good story, providing the right amount of story updates between scenes and puzzles, and tying the story with the game. Not an easy balance to achieve.

While Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye comes with a heavy-duty story, the story gets lost and confusing along the way. I love a good story in a game, but this one had too much going on and didn’t flow well between scenes and puzzles. It may make more sense if I took the time to read the stories.

I like most of the mini-games, which aren’t standard fare. The anagram game requires moving letters around to form words. Great game, but tedious to play because it involves more mouse work than necessary to move the letters.

The time line mini-game is a great idea that needs better execution. Boxes appear above pictures. Each picture provides a clue so you can move it into the right box. The earliest event goes into the first box while the last event goes into the last box. The clues are too hard.

One of the beautiful things about the casual games industry is that most games come with a way to play at your own pace. Forget about that here. Time plays a big nasty role. You have to start the WHOLE level over if you run out of time during mini-games. That means finding the hidden objects again before returning to the almost impossible mini-game.

Logic is my favorite mini-game. As a kid, I enjoyed doing logical puzzles where you read a story and solve the puzzle using logic. Maybe we’ll see logic show up in more games. So much can be done with logic puzzles without ever feeling repetitive.

The mini-games steal the show in Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye. The hidden objects portion involves finding objects that work together in multiple scenes. Speaking of multiple scenes, the game never makes it clear I need to look elsewhere for more objects. In some scenes, the list of objects is everything you need to find in the scene.

However, in others, the list of objects cover multiple scenes rather than just one. I had to figure this out the hard way. So if time stops, that means you found all the objects in the current scene and need to go to another scene for the rest.

It penalizes you for incorrect clicks and some of my clicks were correct. I admit I had to replay a few levels because I ran out of time.

The do overs go fast because the object locations don’t change, so you won’t likely want to replay the game unless you want to figure out the puzzles that had you relying on the hints to solve it. It’s OK if you need to use lots of hints, you’re not the only one.

Download the game from Big Fish Games.