Monthly Archives: July 2008

My new analog PDA

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At the start of July I challenged myself to use a Nintendo DS as a PDA organizer. The DS has almost all the capabilities of a PDA for basic organizing. It seemed logical to me to combine two of my favorite things: games and organizing, and I honestly put forth effort, taking myDS to work and using it in meetings for note taking and such. Here’s the proof. Technically, it did work but there was too much overhead to make organizing as efficient and transparent as I would have liked (and needs to be).

The DS had a nice note taking application that let me scribble notes. It also had a calendar, file manager, and all that good stuff. But since the DS is intended for gaming, it’s not a multi-task device. You can only run one program at a time, whether it be a game or an app, and therein lies the snag to my challenge. Sure, I had it open, on, and ready to take notes in a meeting but if I needed a date quickly or other organizing utility, I had to turn off the power, turn it back on, load the program, work, and then reverse to get back to my scribble pad. Multitasking is obviously where dedicated PDAs excel, too bad they don’t play games well. And too bad for the DS because it’s the perfect size to fit in my back pocket and it’s (somewhat) durable to do so. Thus the DS PDA challenge ended in failure. It sucks, but I’m not too surprised. Of course, this doesn’t stop me from carrying it around all the time…because you never know when you’ll get/need a gaming break.

The DS failed to help keep organized but I still needed something to help stay organized. I’m somewhat of an organization nerd. I’m not saying I’m really all that good at organizing, at least I don’t think so, but I love reading/studying/seeing how people organize information. And the more I work the more I find myself unorganized and unable to communicate with others how projects are coming along when asked. Not to mention I’m somewhat easily distracted by my own projects so I can quickly lose sight of more important needs if they’re not right in front of me.

In my organization travels I’ve read many times over about the Getting Things Done philosophy (GTD), which I like to talk about and promote but really only half ass myself. In short, GTD is about getting all your thoughts out of your head and categorizing them. The thinking is the less info that’s sitting in your head without a home, the less stressed you’ll be. I’ve been practicing my own bastard forms of GTD for a while, actually, by using various methods, charts, forms, logs, web services…you name it and I’ve probably tried to fit it into my routine. The trick to GTD is that you need to have the ability to empty your brain at any moment, which means you need to have something with you to store that information all the time.

Logically this is where a PDA fits in. You have a thought…bang, PDA to the rescue. Calendar date…bang, PDA. But since I’ve tried many times with technology before and it has somehow always failed (even way before the DS), I thought I’d give an old GTD trick a try – the Hipster PDA (hPDA). The hPDA is nothing more than a stack of index cards, typically held together with a binder clip. Stupid simple and crazy cheap – two things I also really enjoy. I got together some index cards and started thinking about how to best organize information on the cards when a trip to Meijer found a (possibly) happier solution: spiral bound index cards. One lonely dollar put a book of index cards into my hand and ready for organizing. And the damn thing fits perfectly in my back pocket, and it has perforated pages for easy share & toss.

Of course, blank pages in a stack of index cards is just a little too simple, right? So I had to improve on the model a tad by using some “genuine” hPDA materials. I went over to DIY Planner, a site I have used in the past for organization tips and tricks, and printed out some of the 3″x5″ core GTD pages. Those plus a glue stick turned my plain index cards into slightly less boring index cards with handy prefab organization templates.

I’ve split the book into a work section and home section, although they’ll probably blend together as this evolves. I’m still trying to figure out the best organization for cards and sections with this book. One advantage the binder clip hPDA has over this book is the freedom to reorganize index cards as you see fit, just unclip and go. A spiral notebook I can’t do that, so you have to fit your organizing within a somewhat linear pattern.

The last piece of the puzzle is training myself to keep the hPDA in my back pocket wherever I go. So far I’m doing pretty well with it and if I keep it up for a few more weeks it’ll be as natural as keeping my wallet on me, I’m sure. I’ve only been at this for a little over a week and it’s already made a big difference in home organization. When we’re out and about shopping and something pops in on conversation I just jot it down. Overhear a snappy quote? Just write and go. Need to remember something for October 10th? Just flip the calendar page and circle it.

On the work front it’s been pretty handy too. I’m not invited to all that many meetings, but when I do, having this has been awesome because I seemingly never have a paper/pencil handy at meetings. I either forget or the meeting happens before I get back to my office. The blank cards combined with the printed templates makes things even more valuable when people ask about something. No longer do I have to say, “let me check my calendar, ” or “I’ll have to see what I still need.” It’s all right there, quick and easy.

Quick and easy is the key. Low mental overhead. No matter what technology happens, nothing will be as easy and practical as an analog solution like pencil and paper. Sure, I can’t check e-mail or call up YouTube with my index cards, but honestly, so what? I really have no need to be that connected.

Oh, and speaking of pencil and paper…that’s another problem I always had when trying these paper-based methods in the past – I never had a pen/pencil handy. Even if I could find a scrap of paper, I didn’t have anything to write with. After I found the index card book at Meijer, I sauntered over to the marker aisle and found myself some mini Sharpie markers with a built-in keychain ring! It’s short and fine-tipped, and since I rarely (can) go anywhere without my keys, my tools are always available.

I don’t know if this revisit down the “I need to get organized” highway will stick, but I’ll give it another go. So far, so good, however, and I haven’t really found any downsides to the process yet. This is a project that will certainly evolve. You can see more photos of the process over on the Flickr page.

Photos galore

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I’ve found Flickr to be a great service for sharing photos. I’ve been using it for years now under the free account service, which limits you to 200 active photos. At first I thought that’d be more than enough but I quickly found it just isn’t, so I bit the bullet and forked over the $25. I know, I know…it’s only $25 but hey…it’s me.

And it seems I did so at the right time because with the upgrade I got an extra three months free. So I’m set for over a year and can now upload unlimited photos to Flickr (and videos too, apparently).

Not that there’s any new photos in there yet, but with this upgrade I’ll certainly be posting a lot more photos to the pool, many of which I’ll probably be using in posts here.

The one catch to the whole plan was bridging the gap between Picasa and Flickr. Picasa is a photo manager I’ve been using since I got a digital camera and have found it very nice and handy for organize and for touch-up. But Picasa is Google’s product and, of course, Google has their own on-line photo service so it doesn’t natively play well with Flickr.

But, naturally, someone figured out how to fix that problem. A quick look found the Picasa2Flickr plugin. And it works as advertised. It’s nothing fancy and doesn’t integrate with Picasa the way you might think, but it saves me the trouble of going into Picasa, finding the photos I want, then marking/copying them, then going to Flickr and uploading. So if the Picasa gap has hindered your Flickr-ing, no worries.

If you’re in the mood, stop by The Morning Toast on Flickr and peruse. During my own perusing I’ve found there are a lot of crappy pictures up there! Hopefully I can fix that real soon!

Bringing video games to work

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My passion for video games will probably never be in question. And like anyone else, I like to share my passions with other people. It doesn’t really matter if that person doesn’t care about video games…I’ll still talk about them and I’ll still sound excited when I do talk about them. It’s never boring to listen to passionate people, even when you don’t really care. And passionate people can be very convincing.

In many ways I know that I’m responsible for at least four people buying the Guitar Hero video game. I didn’t just say, “you should by the game because its good,” that rarely works. I just talked about how much fun I have playing the game. I talked about how I play, the songs I love in the game, and how much fun it is playing with other people – I talked about the experience. I like to think that my own excitement can be seen and they then choose to get the game because they want to have the same experience. Will they? I dunno…some do some don’t. (I think I’m three for four so far)

Guitar Hero is the most recent video game that I have devoted a lot of time, effort, and passion towards. It’s a great game that’s fun to play and I want others to have that fun too. But even with a plastic guitar slung over my shoulder, the root of my passion lies in good ol’ Nintendo – the 80s version. I’ve talked extensively here about my quest for Nintendo items, games, and my experience with it otherwise. Not only did it make up a large part of my childhood, it laid the foundation for quality home video games and the culture that followed (Atari be damned). And, naturally, I want to share this passion with others.

The proof that passion can only go so far, is the fact that most of my closest friends didn’t join me on my classic Nintendo love boat. And let’s face it, we all know it’s a lot more fun to have some other people along for the ride. So with my first attempt falling upon weak hearts, I set my sights on the next set of people I see everyday, my co-workers.

I’m fortunate enough to work at a small radio station made up of mostly 30-somethings, many of which also long for the days before on-line play and fancy 3D graphics. With a small core group of folks looking for some classic gaming action, I had to find a way to get Nintendo into the work place and this week I did just that.

We have a small committee at the station dubbed the “Quality of Life committee,” which is basically nothing more a small team that thinks up fun activities to host in the office. Essentially they’re team-building and morale type events, like ice cream day, cook-outs, raffles, etc. Well, being the co-chair of the station’s QOL team, I proposed a video game day to The Boss and he graciously agreed to let it happen. I was pretty surprised he was so into the idea. I was honestly expecting a little fight about why it would be good, fun, and how it would benefit the company, but I got the idea passed without a hiccup. It’s always nice to find a boss that sees and knows the value of employee morale.

So now every Friday is Video Game Day where my co-workers can play NES games for 15-minutes or so during lunch. I took my NES deck to work along with my ROM Power Pak, so we have just about every game at our disposal, which should hopefully make playing more accessible. To help kick things off we’re even having a Tecmo Super Bowl tournament. I’m not sure if enough people will sign-up, but I figure it’s worth a shot – after all, the AM radio station is a sports talk station, so everyone one that side is excited for Tecmo Bowl, Blades of Steel, and other sports classics.

This is a case where I did nothing more than express my passion for gaming and found others with that same passion. Together that was enough to get the ball rolling and get the Nintendo inside the office. I’m not sure if it is something to be proud of, but I am pretty proud of my efforts and that it has seemed to have paid off. I’ve managed to spread my video game love to just about every facet of my life, both personal and professional. The way I figure it, if you can have fun everywhere you go, you don’t mind going there – whether that be at home or at work. Plus, I spend more time at work than I do at home, so I feel my place of work should be just as fun, exciting, and inviting as my home. And it’s no secret that happy people work better and produce better results.

Of course, this next week is the first Video Game Friday, so it could all fall apart if no one shows up to play, but at least I tried and made progress towards having some (more) fun at work. Eitherway, The Boss knows the Nintendo is in the house and won’t be shocked or angry when he sees it being played, even if it’s just me.

The best yard sale sign ever

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A long time ago I wrote about effective garage sale signs and just this week I found the best yard sale sign I’ve ever seen strapped the street sign on my corner. It made me happy. It makes me happy to see successful design for unimportant things like a yard sale sign. You wouldn’t think it’d be hard to make a good sign for such a simple event, but time after time I see signs that are way too hard to read.

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That’s it. The best yard sale sign ever. It’s easy to read from a distance. It’s wonderful lettering, frankly (impressive for hand-written). And it tells me where to go, “that way.” I don’t need any more information. The sign itself is even cut to form a shallow arrow, subtle yet effective as well.

This sign actually blows away my own “guidelines” for a good garage sale sign. Back then I suggested the sign include times and street name. Not necessary if you’re proactive in your yard sale marketing. If you use multiple signs and take down signs in a timely manner, then you don’t need any other information than the event (yard sale) and direction people need to head.

This is certainly the best thing I’ve been seen in my front yard that I didn’t put there. Thank you, neighbor. Thanks for a good design and thanks for minding your sign. Just don’t forget to take the damn thing off my corner when your sale is over.

Bonus: While writing this article and looking at the corner for the original sign, I found a new sign. This sign is written on the back of a “for sale” house sign. White chalk on black in sloppy handwriting. Take a minute and compare.

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Which sign is easier to read? Which one can you actually see doing 40 MPH past my house? The second sign, shy of it being mostly illegible, tries to put too much info on the sign. My favorite bit is the upper-right corner where it says “kids stuff, VHS, DVD, etc” — because putting that info on the sign will bring traffic to a screeching halt.

It’s that time again

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Time for something new. While working on this new theme I found that about this same time last year was when I switched the theme before, into the Big Blue version. It seems I can only tolerate my selected designs for a year. Oh well, keeps things interesting and (sometimes) re-motivates me to write. Your thoughts and feedback is appreciated.

More tales from Counselor’s Corner

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As if finding one of the former Nintendo Game Counselors that helped me back in the day wasn’t treat enough, this time they found me! If you missed the first article about my lost Nintendo Power letters, go check it out, and then continue on with my interview with Kirk Starr, the ex-GPC that I happened to find while doing research for the first article. This time another ex-GPC, Kasey Curtis, found me and left a comment on the article. Kasey, like Kirk, also wrote me back when I was still young and playing and his letter is included in the Lost Letters collection. And you know I couldn’t let Kasey get away without asking him about his experience at the Big N too. Continue reading →

My Wii regret builds

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I made my choice to go with the Nintendo Wii because I had reached a point in my gaming “career” where I was looking for something different. I wanted more than the same old sit-and-mash games. And some games delivered on that promise and are actually fun to play – Wii Sports, Guitar Hero, Olympics. Unfortunately, many of the Wii games just don’t deliver and fail in the gaming-to-value comparison.

Sure, the Wii is cheaper than the XBox and Playstation by a good $100, but time has proven that the quality (value) of gaming on the other systems if much, much higher. More bang for your buck…even if those games are less active than some Wii titles. But I stood by my decision with only a few times regretting my Wii ownership and that was mostly when it game to downloadable content for games (namely Guitar Hero). Myself and other Wii owners have been waiting for some good, solid games that don’t revolve around mini-games and the likes, but it seems the upcoming list of releases for the Wii ill only make the sour tastes in our mouths worse.

Over at Wii Fanboy is a list of upcoming titles as announced at E3. This is a four page list but less than five of the games on the list are even worth raising an eyebrow. Let’s just say a bulk of the titles on the list include the likes of “Party Babyz,” “Ten Pin Alley 2,” “Build-A-Bear Workshop,” and “Safecracker.” As one commenter put it, these are titles that sound more like Leap Frog games than Nintendo games.

Now I know Nintendo is pushing the family friendly and fun aspect of the Wii, which is great – I’m all for that – but when the shelves get saturated with complete childish crap it doesn’t really say “family” or “fun,” it just says “crap.” Women have become a big target for Nintendo but the game makers are missing the mark just a tad as I believe by “women” they want actual women, not just pre-teen girls looking for a virtual koala bear. Every console has hits and misses but the outlook here squarely puts more misses on the scale than hits.

Wii started off with a good balance of challenging games that were fun but were accessible to everyone. Most of these were Nintendo’s own games and that won’t change in the future. But it seems the Wii is becoming a compost pile for shotty “original” games and less-than-wonderful ports of other games. I know the wireless remote can act like a computer mouse, but it’s not a mouse and it’s unfortunate that the makers think games made for the PC will translate well into the Wii. The Wii remote isn’t a mouse. It’s not held like a mouse, you can’t control it like a mouse, and it doesn’t response like a mouse – so converting the click-and-play PC games into Wii games just tosses more logs on the file.

If all I have to look forward too in the next year is Guitar Hero 4, Wii Music, and the next Mario title then I officially have Wii Regret Syndrome. Thankfully our Nintendo DSes have kept us both very entertained and gets far more use than our Wii (talk about bang for your buck). The Wii has almost become nothing more than the Guitar Hero machine with occasional time outs for Mario Kart and whatever WiiWare sounds good for the week. I’m bummed, I must admit. I had a lot of hope in the Wii and it’s too bad folks don’t know how to capitalize off of it.

Thankfully the Xbox360 is getting some price cuts and thus might find it’s way into my home. I can’t buy into the PS3 and from what I’ve seen and read, the Xbox is where it’s all happening. Curse your Microsoft, curse you.

My DS PDA challenge

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After I got my wife a Nintendo DS for her birthday and experienced first hand how nicely it plays and works, I needed one of my own. With the DS’ touch screen and flash cart tools, I saw that it was entirely possible to use the DS as a PDA as well as a gaming machine. I’ve typically shunned PDAs because they seemed a hassle and never offered much use in my daily life, but I have a hunch the DS could change my outlook.

I’ve had my share of PDAs in the past. I had a classic Palm back in the day, an HP PDA, and several Nextels with WindowsCE. All of them had calendars, calculators, internet, address books…and of course, solitaire. Every time I got a PDA/phone I made an attempt to use it as an organizer and every time it failed. It failed because when I got home the device ended up on the kitchen table or on the dresser. I had no reason to use it at home as well as at work. The only time I used the devices beyond their phone abilities was in the bathroom. Hey, it passed the time nicely.

092307-1409-nintendodsl13.jpg The Nintendo DS lite is a handheld designed to play games. It can do almost everything your standard PDA can except be a phone, but I don’t need a phone anyway. Plus, you can use the DS touch screen as a note-taking tool, something many smartphones don’t offer (yet). I’ve longed for something to come along and replace my system of post-it style note taking for quite some time. My first hope was a digital tracking pen, now called the ZPen, and while it looks promising, it’s expensive for a single-purple tool and I have my doubts about how well it actually works. Then there are tablet PCs, but those are really just laptops and don’t exactly fit in your pocket. And none those things can play games very well, and I like my games.

Because the DS plays games I’ll be more motivated to carry the DS around with me wherever I go, even when I’m just sitting around at home. The gaming is the hook that got me. I’ll carry the DS around because of the games and then by default I’ll have my notes, calendars, and everything else right there. Games first, organizing second. That’s the key, but the challenge is keeping it up.

My challenge: To use the DS at work for organizing and note taking, and at home for all the same plus games.

I’m not sure how it will turn out, but right now I think using the DS as a PDA has a better chance of working with me than if I had a full blown PDA. And if it doesn’t end up working, well, then I still have a nice portable gaming system, and we all know I won’t let a video game go to waste.

And to help me improve as I go, I’ll be logging my DS PDA Challenge experience over in the forum. I’ll talk about what software/programs I use and will do my best to post images of notes and other things. I’ll also use it as a link dump for things I find on-line may help the cause.

Let the challenge begin.

Saving killed the video game star

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Spend a little time around The Toast and you’ll quickly find I’m somewhat of a retro gaming nerd. Specifically the classic NES from the 80s. I grew up on that system and thus it holds a special place in my heart. I’ve done my best to keep up with gaming through past 20 years and have seen and experienced the leaps and bounds of game technology and design…and it’s all been great. But a recent reader letter in GameInformer magazine got me thinking.

The gist of the letter is that today’s games are too easy. The writer is obviously an old school gamer because he mentions the challenge of games from back in “the NES glory days.” He asks of today’s games, “where’s the challenge?” The response from GameInformer was this.

“It’s not that games aren’t difficult anymore; they’re just difficult in different ways…imagine if you had to start Super Mario Galaxy over from the beginning every time you put it in your Wii. Or let’s say that you had to play Call of Duty 4 with only three lives…” And they continue, “You may not get the same bragging rights for beating a game, but you also aren’t putting up with garbage like memorizing an entire speeder bike obstacle course in Battletoads.”

That response brings up a point that I’ve never really thought about before – the ability to save your progress in a game single handedly ruined video games.

I remember leaving my NES on for days, sometimes weeks, because I had gotten far in a game and didn’t want to start at the beginning again. But I also remember getting far in games only to run out of continues and had no choice but to start over again. It’s no question that saving your progress was a wonderful invention for gaming. It opened up the doors to the marathon games we have today…the Metal Gears, the Final Fantasies, etc. But in that same stroke it took the prestige and distinction out of gaming.

Because, Mr. GameInformer, you know what would happen if you did have to start Super Mario Galaxy over each time you wanted to play? You’d get really f’n good at it, that’s what. And believe you me, back then I totally rocked that Battletoads bike course because I had no choice but to memorize it, and that made me good at it. I’d rather have to memorize levels and have bragging rights, than finish a game over a single weekend and have it not count for anything.

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There’s a reason why I can still play the original Super Mario Brothers and know exactly where to go and what to do…because I had to start over every time I played. I, like many of that time, knew that game better than I knew the Star Spangled Banner. And maybe if games today made us play over and over we wouldn’t feel like we were getting ripped off paying $60 for a game.

I’ve been a fan of the Metal Gear series since the NES, but things really kicked in for that series on the Playstation. The game played out like a movie, complete with cinematics and cut scenes. It let me save my progress and after 25+ hours of play I finished the game. I was happy and it felt good to finish the game, but just because I beat the game didn’t mean I was good at the game. Because I was able to start from where I left off each time, it didn’t necessary mean I was good at the game. Sometimes it did, but sometimes it just meant I was lucky and mashed the right buttons at the right time. Point being, I never had to play a section of the game more than once. And if I’m not asked to repeat my accomplishment and succeed, how good can I really be?

Before game saves, if you got to level 7 or 8 or whatever everyone knew you were good because you had to be good just to get there. Going out today and saying, “hey, I beat Metal Gear,” doesn’t mean crap because everyone beats Metal Gear eventually. There’s no good measurement for games anymore. The only measures for game greatness seem to be high scores and low times, both of which are rarely put to use these days. But this is why games like Guitar Hero have become so appealing to me (and many others). Not only are they fun, but they actually require my skill and that has a direct effect on my actual (and perceived) greatness. I’ll put fighting games in this class too because it’s repetitive without much outside influence.

Of course, then you ask, “why do I want to play a game that is repetitive?” A valid question and in that question lies the challenge to game makers: How do you make a game that is challenging and fun but not frustrating? Guitar Hero does it. Pac-man did it. Mario Brothers did it. Space Invaders did it. And that list can go on…

So yes, games are still difficult but only in chunks. Simply finishing a game doesn’t count for squat these days, and in order to be recognized as being a great player at any game means one thing and one thing only: consistently doing well over and over and over again.

(And if you need more proof, just look at real life sports. Let’s say I go out and make a hole-in-one at golf. Does that make me a great golfer? No. It was a one time shot. But now look at someone like Tiger Woods. Why is he great and I’m not?)