Archive for February 2009

Fabulous Finds, a hidden object game, has a few hidden gems to offer something a little different. Rather than being one big game with several mini-games, Fabulous Finds offers three-in-one as no one component dominates.

Great Aunt Beatrice left you her home in Carmel, California. The home needs a makeover, so you dig through the house for stuff to sell in the yard sale to collect the needed funds for redecorating. The three-in-one components include collecting items for the yard sale (hidden object), selling them in the yard (connecting customers with what they want), and decorating rooms (puzzle).

The hidden object portion contains no list of things to find. Instead, you read the newspaper to identify a trend and then search rooms for items fitting that trend. One trend is gardening. Click all items that have some association with gardening. This offers a creative twist, but it has flaws. I see a garden hose and click it. Nope. It’s not acceptable. This sort of thing happens at times.

Since you’re weeding through junk, some items have missing parts or need repairs. These have helper items, but those won’t show up on the list until you’ve picked up the original item. A high heel shoe, for example, has a missing heel. After you find the shoe, the missing heel appears on the helper list. Find the broken heel to reunite the two items.

After collecting everything for the theme from several rooms in the house, time to hold the yard sale. Items appear spread around the yard, on tables, on the porch, on the corners of the yard. The customers enter and notes show up describing the customer and what he/she needs. “The librarian wants to cook.” So you look for the stereotypical librarian who dresses impeccably and has her hair up. Then you need to find something that has to do with cooking — pots and pans, perhaps. Drag the librarian to the pots and pans.

Sometimes the clues can be obscure. It makes the game more challenging. Each customer has a happiness bar. The longer it takes you to find what they need, the shorter their happiness bar. So not only do you need to find the right customer, but also the item he/she needs. Kind of a mix between hidden objects and a puzzle (using content to figure out what you need).

When the sale ends (after all customers receive what they want), you can proceed to redecorate a room. Or you can start looking for items for the next yard sale. The game doesn’t care which order you take. The only thing that matters is that the yard sale can never come before finding the items for it — obviously.

In decorating a room, Fabulous Finds gives you clues as to how to decorate the room. The closer you match the clues, the higher score your room earns. Most of the time, this is too easy. At least, after you finish the game, you can decorate the rooms in any way you’d like.

The fabulous part about the game is its colorful and sharp graphics and creative approach to finding items. Fabulous Finds, however, needs to last longer and provide a little more challenge in room decorating. Or maybe turn it into a SIM environment where you can play in the room with characters. It also needs to avoid not accepting objects that fit in with the yard sale theme. Despite the few nigglings, Fabulous Finds deserves its name.

Download the PC game.

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• 90-10 Rule for Successful Twitter Networking
• How to Promote on Twitter without Pissing People Off [Link: Amy Derby]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• ZooBorn: Awww… Just like it sounds… zoo newborns.
• Adobe Cards: Amazing animation with decks of cards. After it loads, move the slider all the way to the right to play the entire show.
• Twittering with Ben Franklin, James Madison, Aaron Burr [Link: Brad Shorr].

Our life on Monday…

In Get in the Mood for Love, I mentioned that a book could explain how I managed to get my book love groove back. That book is One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer. This was the fourth book I read since reuniting with my books (I read five books in a couple of weeks). Because of this, I knew this process worked.

People try to exercise more often, stop a bad habit, practice writing or improve at something. Maurer says the answer isn’t jumping in or quitting cold turkey. That can lead to failure.

Instead, start small. Exercise for one minute. Smoke one less cigarette. Write 100 words a day adding another 10 or 100 words per day or per week. Whatever pace suits you.

That’s the idea behind kaizen. Kaizen is a Japanese word that means “improvement.”

Thus, I stumbled on this by accident in “returning to regular book reading.” Fried Green Tomatoes, although a good read, was a longer book and didn’t quite push me. The next three books all had fewer than 200 pages and those stimulated me to keep on reading.

I just finished Girl, Interrupted and started Ordinary People. A friend loaned me those books, so I wanted to finish those to return back to her. Next, I believe, will be Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich because I enjoyed reading a magazine story about Hill and his life. Plus, so many speak highly of this book that I want to see for myself.

After that, the plan is to read three books waiting for a book review. And I hope that reading groove sticks with me for a long time to come. Maybe I’ll get through more of my own purchased books.

So if you struggle to meet a goal or make changes — start small. In the case of reading, it meant starting with shorter books. The tricky part is finding short books that captivate enough to motivate you to keep reading.

This process works beautifully for companies. Too often, employees think they need to come up with ways to save thousands of dollars and do something big. No … no … start small. Those little steps can and do turn into giant steps.

Don’t worry about reading a Jane Austen or tackling a literary classic. Just find books with no more than 200 pages with a topic of interest or ask for recommendations. My spark started with Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking — hardly the book I typically read.

What small changes have you made that led to bigger changes? How can you make a change beginning with small steps? What small books do you recommend and why?

Photo credit Katie Tegtmeyer

Married couples often hit a dry spell especially after children come along. They find less time to spend together alone and in the bedroom.

I ran into problems of my own in the bedroom. Between my hand injury and doing many game reviews, I had a dry reading spell. How I missed ending my day cuddled in bed with a book. Goodness knows, many books sit on shelves waiting for me to caress them and feel the love in exchange for giving me knowledge.

A hand injury preventing me from reading? Indeed. No matter what I did, the pain made me grimace. I tried a few tricks so I wouldn’t have to use the injured hand to hold the book. However, the hand hurt constantly causing me not to pay attention to the contents of the book.

It took one book. One small one to get my reading groove back. The book only had 176 pages — officially. A few pages didn’t count because of photos and the line spacing went wider than the average book. So the book was more like 100 pages. It made me laugh, too, an important aspect of a happy relationship.

The book? Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher. Hardly the kind of book I typically read. Before we get into that, let me back up.

I finally worked up the nerve to watching Fried Green Tomatoes based on the book by Fannie Flagg. I heard about a young boy’s death in the movie and didn’t know if I could handle it. Oh, sure, I’ve seen sadder movies. All the movie recommendation sites said I would like the movie. When it appeared on cable, I recorded it.

I liked it. I hated the boy’s death. Nevertheless, it was necessary as it kick-started a friendship in the movie. It didn’t happen the same way in the book, but the death’s impact was important in the development of a character. After the movie, I picked up the book from the library.

In this case, watching the movie before reading the book did no harm. You can do it either way. I also liked the book. Despite this, it didn’t kick start my reading habit. It took a couple of weeks to finish it since I read it during physical therapy while my thumb sat in the sauna (heating pad).

Back on a dry spell until last week. While sitting in the waiting room for over an hour, I found Carrie Fisher’s book. The gal I had been chatting with in the waiting room every Friday told me she left it there for others to read saying it was a fast and funny read. I took her up on it reading all but the last 20 pages when my son finished his meeting. I took it home and finished it that night. Yes, I returned the book to the waiting room.

The topic of Jonathan Livingston Seagull came up in a conversation with my mom. How? I don’t remember, but she encouraged me to read it. Saying it was a short and powerful read. Went to the library to check it out and finished it that night.

I could feel the craving for books returning. In reading a weekly email newsletter, the writer mentioned that she received a book and was embarrassed she took so long to read this little book. I happened to have that book and pulled it from the shelf. Almost done with it, too.

Ironically, the lesson in this book could very well explain how I got my yearn to read books again. What book? That’ll be another post.

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. February 23rd: 60% off on Cy-Clone

Tue. February 24th: 50% off on Cannon Blast!

Wed. February 25th: 50% off on MinuteMatch

Thu. February 26th: 50% off on Fab Fashion

Fri. February 27th: 50% off on Spuds

Sat. February 28th: 40% off on Arctic Rush

Sun. March 1st: 50% off on Spider Wizard

• TweepSearch, PeopleBrowsr: Twitter tools for finding folks by name or keyword [Link: WebWorkerDaily]
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• Why I Can’t Afford Cheap and Upgrade Me: Most of us watch what we buy and look for deals. But cheaper doesn’t mean it’s a good deal. It could mean buying the cheaper item three times to a pricier item’s one time. [Link: Disassociated]
• PR 2.0: Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals
• SearchMe: Visual search.
• Why one business choose one business over another? 70% departed because they didn’t like the human side of doing business with the prior provider of the product or service! Stat from Guerrilla Marketing Blog. Not only does a competitive advantage matter, but also connecting and building relationships with clients.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 50 Best Web Sites 2008 according to Time and the list all of them by most popular. Yes, some of the below come from Time. Great stuff.
• I like totally love it: “The site allows users to publish and share products with the broader public which they find cool, innovative, exceptionally beautiful, or just weird.”
• Nymbler: Enter six names you like to get ideas for more names you might like.
• Ffffound! Image bookmarking — sharing beautiful images.
• Lookybook: Look through children’s books before buying them. YES!

Forgive me for using this word… AWESOME!!!

The Wizard of Oz meets L.A. Confidential. Emerald City Confidential brings the world of film noir detective mysteries into the world of Oz along with a sordid tale of love, scandal, betrayal, and corruption. If you don’t read further, then know this point and click adventure has it all: Characters with unique personalities, strong story line that doesn’t lose you, smashing graphics and animation, humor, and long play time.

Dorothy may have had a happily ever after ending, but things have changed big time in Oz. Lion is a lawyer. Scarecrow is the former ruler of Emerald City and now advisor. Tin Man is the mayor of a town on the outskirts of Oz. Dorothy isn’t the sweet innocent girl we remember. No Auntie Em, but Toto does more than just run around and look cute.

Lots and lots of dialogue occurs that it might tire some gamers, but it tells a gripping and funny story with a few good one-liners. You can listen to the dialogue, read it, or both. Petra, that would be the main character and detective, has flaws. She looks angry all the time, but we learn why as we unwrap her own story.

Dee enters Petra’s detective agency asking for help in finding her love. Of course, the story goes much deeper than that sending Petra on an adventure that affects the future of Emerald City. Don’t expect any predictability in Emerald City Confidential. Like Wicked, the musical, it reveals surprises of its own introducing new perspectives.

Petra travels around Oz on the Gump Transit System. Taxi stands appear in most scenes, so travel never becomes a pain with no waiting. She receives quests as she works her case. Upon solving a quest, Petra gains a jewel on her progress bar. Reaching the end of the progress bar means the story is nearing the end.

Players receive dialogue choices – sort of like Choose Your Own Adventure, except you might eventually use all of the dialogues or you might not. Scenes and characters hold objects that help Petra in her adventures including magic spells.

Emerald City Confidential brings a new world complete with culture, rules and procedures to complete the picture. Scenes contain things that aren’t critical to the story that if you skipped them, it won’t hold you back. However, this makes exploring more fun knowing that not everything has a part in the mystery.

The options allow you to adjust the sound for music, sound, and voice as well as mute. It also comes with a walking speed adjustment to push Petra faster. Speeding her can make some folks dizzy. She moves at a comfortable pace that won’t have you tapping fingers waiting for her to move it.

You win medals whenever you complete a chapter and complete a few milestones. The medals feel like an afterthought. They’re not noticeable and don’t feel special. The game offers plenty without the need to tack on more stuff.

This almost perfect game contains a few pests. For one, typos show up in the dialogue at times. “Discrete” should be “discreet, “than” should be “then,” “greatful” is “grateful,” and “Won’t unlock unless I wish it too” doesn’t use the right “to.” Considering the many lines in the story, I forgive a few typos – but it annoys some folks.

You collect buttons and objects from the scenes. A color sparkle hints a button hides there. While in the middle of a dialogue, I try to pick up the button to ensure I don’t miss it. Instead, I sped up the dialogue and missed part of it. So the interaction between the dialogue and scene has quirks. While Petra takes notes in her journal, it doesn’t hold all of the dialogue including the introduction. It would help to have the complete dialogue in a separate part of the journal.

The journal holds clues, sketches, and pill information. Here you can get hints when stuck. The hints remind you of dialogue or clues. You can request a few hints for the same quest from the journal, but it won’t go on forever. The hints provide enough to help you along without giving anything away. If the hint isn’t enough, click for another one. Emerald City Confidential offers a nice hint system that lets players receive a little assistance without all the details.

Another problem shows up in exiting the game (we need sleep, too!) and returning to it doesn’t quite return to the last scene. It requires replaying a scene before catching up.

Despite the little annoyances, Emerald City Confidential entertains for hours compared to many of today’s games especially point and click adventures, which tend to be short. The game’s wonderfulness will have people clamoring for more especially if the story takes place in a different world with different characters. Emerald City Confidential is a beautiful original with heart, brains and power (couldn’t use fear to represent lion).

P.S. This point and click truly brings back the adventure games like the old ones from the ’80s. Thus, it compels the need for a new category here called “Adventure Games.”

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Meryl Evans

Well, my dear, they come from many places. If you go to the library known as Freelance Folder, you’ll see people sharing how they find their clients.

When a freelancer and a client meet, they check out each other to ensure they are a fit. It may take some bio and web site reading to get familiar with each other. After making it pass the test phase, they come together and a product or service is born. No storks involved.

But how do freelancers and clients meet in the first place? Believe it or not, Mommy never relies on cold calling. Isn’t she lucky? Imagine how many bad phone calls I’ve had trying to contact strangers through the relay service. Blind dates just don’t work well here.

All of the following ways work because Mommy met at least one client each way.

• Referrals: Mom has clients from everywhere. Only one client has an office in Dallas. Yet, Mom found him through a colleague based out of Seattle. I helped teach a thesis related course for a few years plus created the bibliography guidelines for the school. Professors refer students to me for editing help. I love thesis editing because I learn new things like the impact of gentrification on cities.
• Social network profile: Just last week, someone who found me on LinkedIn sent me a query to do web content for his business.
• Existing clients: It’s important to keep current clients happy. It’s easier and cheaper to keep clients than to find new ones. A current client emailed me a project for another client.
• Plain ol’ reply to ads: A lot of people think this doesn’t work anymore, sweetie. With many people out of jobs, we all think every opening receives hundreds of applications. I replied to a call for writers and landed the gig.
• Twitter: I don’t think Mom has gotten any gigs directly from twitter. But it keeps her name out there as she tries to help others solve problems and link them to valuable and fun resources.
• Networking: Another client got to know me through his site’s forums and a couple of email exchanges. Networking involves many places including twitter, blogs, Facebook.
• Web site: A web site with all of its contents add to a person’s credibility. Well, if it’s done right. Too many business sites have no About page, photos, bios or anything to put a friendly face behind the company. Add a newsletter along with an email subscription box and you start building relationships.
• Existing work: A client liked several articles your mom wrote and contacted her. Another client and I worked for the same web site.
• Interviewees, editors and resources: I can think of at least three people I interviewed for an article or book chapter who eventually hired me.
• Volunteer work: I encourage new freelancers to build their portfolio through volunteer work. Besides that, you do something good. People will notice your work and refer you or hire you.
• Former students: I suppose this could count as existing work. I assisted many professors in NYU’s online graduate program. The students got to know me through online classes.

I’ve bought ads for directories with local non-profit organizations. I knew it was more for helping out the organization than advertising. As you know, I have only one local client and he found me through an online search.

So there you have it, darling. That’s where Mommy’s clients come from. And in not one instance did I rely on protection in the form of advertising or blind dates from cold calling.

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. February 16th: 40% off on Funny Chewer

Tue. February 17th: 50% off on Freecell Wizard

Wed. February 18th: 50% off on Pet Vet 3D Animal Hospital

Thu. February 19th: 50% off on Crazy Machines 1.5

Fri. February 20th: 50% off on Pet Vet 3D Wild Animal Hospital

Sat. February 21st: 50% off on Engineer 2

Sun. February 22nd: 50% off on Solitaire Wizard

• Wordle: Create word clouds.
• 10 Harsh Truths about Corporate Web Sites [Link: Laura Carlson]
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• 7 Important Lessons Freelance Writers Can Learn from Working in Fast Food
• Salted Spring Fever and Hot Wax Zombies: Where Twitter and Old Posts Meet
• Get Your Money: Best Invoicing Practices for Freelancers: Only had two clients who were difficult about payment, but they were also unresponsive when the project team sent them work to review.
• Social Media Case Studies SUPERLIST- 20 Extensive Lists of Organizations Using Social Media
• The End of Marketing and PR?

And for fun and love because we’re allowed…

• Beautiful love story by Karen Swim, my friend.
• What I Learned from Love entries from Robert Hruzek’s Middle Musings.
• About Haiku Day on Twitter and the #LittleLove results.