Archive for April 2011

You da survivor! Yes, you! OK, I’ve got to stop cracking the same joke with “Youda” games. Youda games rarely disappoint.

Go back to the island where it all began and start a Time Management adventure that will change you… forever! Help your befriended tribe face your common nemeses, once again, and retrieve a sacred talisman that’s gone missing. Improve your skills to survive the transformed island and stop the danger that is lurking over the entire planet in Youda Survivor 2!

If you like Youda Survivor 2, you might like (you think?) Youda Survivor and Virtual Villagers.

Download and try Youda Survivor 2.

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PC and Mac Catch of the Week: Samantha Swift and the Fountains of Fate: When Samantha’s quest to follow the trail of Cortez is interrupted by the manipulative M’Alice, she embarks on a journey to reclaim the Emerald of Judgment. With the help of Dr. Butler and Adam, the archaeologist and adventurer soon discovers that the rare artifact she possesses may be the key to unlocking the Fountain of Youth! Travel the globe in Samantha Swift and the Fountains of Fate, a fun Hidden Object game.

Catch the deal for your PC! Use coupon code CATCH299

Catch the deal for your Mac! Use coupon code CATCH299.

This $2.99 Catch of the Week runs through Sunday, April 24, 2011, at 11:59pm.

Here are reviews of two other Samantha Swift games. It’s a good series.

• Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch
• Samantha Swift and the Roses of Athena

Remember Big Fish Games has a Daily Deal offering a different game for $2.99 every day. (Look to the right.)

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

When The Ten Commandments (Affiliate) appears all over the TV listings plus my sister’s and son’s birthdays arrive — it means it’s time for Passover. Indeed, Passover begins at sundown on Monday. It often falls on my sister’s birthday. Sometimes it lasts through my son’s birthday, but not this year.

I need to make this tweet from Rochelle Veturis my mantra: “Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.” ~Turner. My oldest went to college night last night, and of course, looked at out of state schools. The only school in Texas was a small private school. I’m telling myself it will work out. It’s her job and I just need to stay out of it unless she comes to me.

What do you know? I woke up to this message from Seth Godin about college debt. Agreed. Do you care where I went to college? I think the only people (outside of family) who cared were the ones who received my resume for my first after college job. Beyond that, no one cared. I know some companies post in their job listings that candidates should have degrees from top schools. They also know they need to look at the whole person, not just what’s on the diploma.

Despite this, I take pride in having attended TCU (one year — yes, the school that won the Rose Bowl this year!) and American U (graduate). Actually, having spent about 10 years in the school’s speech and hearing clinic when I was a kid, I went to TCU longer than most. AND my mom took classes there while pregnant with me

Brain food…

• It May Be Your Fault If Your Client Doesn’t Appreciate All That You Do: You do such a great job delivering what clients need. And because of this, they don’t realize what happens behind the scenes. Isn’t that the reason they hired you?
• 10 Home Office Time Savers: Wow. I do most of these, so these tips work!
• Top Five Mistakes Writers Make at Conferences: Here’s a past post on what to do after the conference and why I shy from conferences.
• Authors Sign eBooks Electronically: I had wondered what could replace autographed books. Here’s your answer, but it takes more time than the pen.
• A Scroll to the Editor: We Love to Read: Birch Lane Elementary School took issue with NY Times’ article on the downturn of picture books. I’m a grown up and I bought picture books before I became a mom. When my almost 8-year-old cleaned his bookshelf, I gave away most of the books — but kept some. Just had our school bookfair. Managed to walk away spending less than $100. Whew.
• 20 Must have Android apps for every user: Have some of these on my Android tablet, but disappointed it doesn’t have a vibrate feature. Turns out, this isn’t a common tablet feature. iPad 1 and 2 don’t have it. Samsung Galaxy has it.
• 25 Must Have Firefox 4 Compatible Add-ons: I still prefer Firefox to Google Chrome and the others. But I try to limit add-ons to must haves because Firefox has one big weakness: memory hog.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 10 Amazing Transparent Sculptures: Last set of links had a yarn car. This one has an cool car — literally.
• Bitter Borders Compilation: Sad and funny. At least, the staff has a sense of humor to get through this. [Link: Victoria Strauss]
• Google Exodus: Hilarious video. In honor of the upcoming Passover and another viewing of The Ten Commandments (Affiliate). Yes, I posted this last week. Worth posting again!

P.S. Of course, I want you to have fun. Since I had so much brain food this week, I figured I’ll limit the fun links to avoid overwhelming you.

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First up — Spring Fever Sale: Good through Sunday, April 17th, 2011. Use coupon code: SPRINGFEVER to get any game for $4.99 (excludes Collector’s Editions).

One minute Lisa is signing a contract to be the star of a new show, and the next she’s knee-deep in chores as she starts taping the first episode of My Farm Life! Plant and harvest crops, milk cows and shear sheep, and purchase equipment to produce the goods Lisa’s customers want, all while smiling for the cameras. With the help of a local merchant and three super-powered assistants, Lisa should have no trouble meeting her goals in this fun Time Management game!

Download and try My Farm Life.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

These brain training games were coming out of the woodwork. It quited down and then dummies brought it back with Brain Training for Dummies. Of course, you’re no dummy. But sometimes we need to exercise our brains between activities. Braining (brain+training) does a brain good while milk does the body good.

Boost your Brain power! Sharpen your intellect with fun, challenging, brain-building games that can help increase your reaction time and improve your memory. Play games to strengthen your brain power! Progress through multiple difficulty levels.

Test for six skill sets:

• Math
• Language
• Spatial
• Logic
• Reflexes
• Memory

Download and try Brain Training for Dummies. If this is your first game from Big Fish Games, use coupon code NEW50 to get any game for $4.99 (excluding Collector’s Editions).

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

No, this isn’t yet another reality TV show on the already crowded reality TV genre. The Hidden Object Show 2 (game review) is a carnival of sorts that does hidden objects in a creative way.

PC and Mac Catch of the Week: The Hidden Object Show 2: Do you think you have what it takes to compete in this season of The Hidden Object Show? Test your skills of observation in this dizzying whirlwind tour of a wacky amusement park. Compete for your chance to win loads of carnival prizes as well as our biggest grand prize yet. So, ya think you can do it?! Come for a ride!

Catch the deal for your PC! Use coupon code CATCH299

Catch the deal for your Mac! Use coupon code CATCH299.

This $2.99 Catch of the Week runs through Sunday, April 17 at 11:59pm.

Here’s The Hidden Object Show, if you’d like to check it out.

Remember Big Fish Games has a Daily Deal offering a different game for $2.99 every day. (Look to the right.)

My older sister aka Aunt E celebrated her birthday this week. Here’s to many more happy and healthy ones.

This week is the third year in a row that my sons will attend the Dallas Auto Show. My older son loves, loves cars. The younger one likes cars, but nothing like big brother. Part of it probably comes from his wanting to be like big brother. Older son loves Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches. Uh oh. I can’t resist this upcoming cliché. You’ve been warned… “Oh, my.”

Bet we’ll have a couple of more model cars coming home to join the collection.

Struggling to make Springpad or Evernote seamlessly work with my process so I can stop relying on Gmail drafts and contacts for notes. Now that I have a tablet, I’ve been looking into this. Springpad requires having the web site open to edit or read notes. Evernote isn’t free. I have Gmail open all the time, so it’s easy to access drafts and contacts (I have notes in contacts). Downside is that you can’t view drafts on other devices. How do you organize your notes?

Brain food…

• What do newspapers pay? WordCount talks newspaper pay rates and shares resources.
• Emotionally intelligent signage on a box: Talk about thinking outside of the box. Brilliant.
• QR Code Generator: Other than the obvious, who’d use this? How?
• Top 100 Social Media Colleges: I love reading about colleges and checking out their programs… that is, until now. Oldest starting the college search thing. That takes the fun out of it. [Link: Mazi]

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• Yarn Ferrari: Patience in action.
• Cover Letters from Hell: Love the side comments from the editor, too. [Link: Deb Ng]
• Star Wars If Dr. Seuss Had Created It: Guess who would say, “This body is old, but it’s all I’ve got. When 900 you, reach, look so good, you will not!”
• 8 Actors Who Look Exactly the Same on Every Movie Poster: Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan, Will Smith, Jet Li, Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise.
• Google Exodus: Hilarious video. In honor of the upcoming Passover and another viewing of The Ten Commandments (Affiliate).

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

I don’t know why, but reading about this game made me think of Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussycat” story that I had. First thing that came to mind, “The own and the pussy cat went to sea in a pea green boat.” Strange what the mind conjures from what the eyes see.

Empress of the Deep 2: Song of the Blue Whale Collector’s Edition: Anna awakens on a mysterious tiny island after escaping the destruction of her underwater kingdom. She must find her way to a mystical floating cloud city in the sky, seek out the four Children of Light and save them from the twisted clutches of the Evil Empress Pandora. Along the way she must rescue and heal enchanted animal slaves in this fantastic Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game!

Here’s the original Empress of the Deep: The Darkest Secret.

Download and try Empress of the Deep 2: Song of the Blue Whale Collector’s Edition.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

If you do or plan to accept guest posts, it helps to have guidelines before you start reviewing requests. Too many folks have abused guest posting privileges. Besides that, guidelines help you ensure your blog retains its quality, integrity and relevancy also known as “keer” or QIR. OK, I made that up.

Photo by sxc.hu user linder6580

These guidelines will be updated as needed.

Posting Guidelines

• Read the blog before you contact me. The most unbelievable guest post request email came from someone who explained “guest post” to me. This happened within a week after I wrote the Dark Side of Guest Posts article.
• Will there be a similar post out there? I had one guest blogger who had a very similar post published the same day as it ran on my blog. My blog is not the place for rewritten articles. It’s not just about my credibility — but you and your site’s too. A guest blogger said she planned to publish the article on her site a few months later. I had no problem with that as long as it wasn’t word for word.
• The article must have substance. Not just be a list of the top X whatever. One list type post described each item, but used very generic terms. The article turned out 75 percent edited. It took very little to expand on each one, so obviously the guest didn’t invest more than a few minutes putting it together.
• Agree to let me edit as I see fit. Ensure silky smooth writing, fix typos, limit keyword links, verify substance, etc.
• Targets writers, freelancers and business owners. Not very narrow, is it? Really, this is the audience I tend to interact with the most.
• Teaches at least one new valuable thing. I’ve seen guest posts that fly at 30,000 feet sharing stuff everyone already knows like the sun is the closest star.
• 400 to 800 words. Any longer and most of us will tune out. It’d have to take something special to justify 800+ word posts. One guest submitted a 1300-word post. We turned it into a two-parter.
• Solid bio. Yes, we’ll include a link back to your site / blog, but it also must include sentences about the author. (Many of the spammy sites take the people out of the site and anything associated with it.)
• Discuss topics before writing. Why waste your time on topics that won’t fit the blog? The sooner we nail it, the fewer edits the article will need — saving time for everyone.

Feel free to steal them and modify them for your needs. Please don’t copy and paste them into your blog and turn it into a blog entry. It hurts both of our sites when people do this.

What other items would you add to the guidelines?

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When I saw this title, the first thing I recalled was The Fool’s Errand, a game I loved playing in the late ’80s. Here’s a strange coincident. I searched for the game so I could share a link with you, in case you wanted to learn more about it. Well, it looks like a sequel is coming out this year called The Fool and His Money! However, the game’s design looks like it’s stuck in the late ’80s. I hope I’m wrong.

The Fool isn’t related to aforementioned games. Who said that only brave knights on white stallions can become Heroes? Help The Fool become a hero and save the beautiful princess Catherine from the jaws of a terrible dragon! Travel across the kingdom and explore different locations as you set off on an epic journey in this fun Hidden Object Puzzle Adventure game. Discover that a Hero lives in every one of us in The Fool!

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans