Gunpoint on New Game Thursday

I'm hoping that this free indie game is actual available by now.  The YouTube trailer certainly looks cool:

Based on his website it looks like Tom Francis has put a lot of time into this project and that he has pulled content for the game from some great designers.

Sketching Apps

Clog Work was recently featured on Blogger's Blogs of Note section, which is great for the guy who runs. I hope to be that awesome some day.

Not crazy about the pose of the girl in yellow

I'll have to try and install these three apps.

I've Never Seen This Before

I think I broke Google just now:

I got this message after performing a search with conditional statements, not a no results found page.  Weird.

iPad 2 Eve!

Tomorrow my brand new iPad 2 will arrive!

I'm doing my best to stay calm until then.

One Week Until my iPad 2 Arrives!

I really getting geeked out about getting my new iPad 2 one week from today!


Unfortunately, I'm starting to have second thoughts about the  custom engraving I order for the back.  Since the engraving was included in the cost of the iPad, I decided to put something on there.  Unfortunately, instead of going with something sensible like "If found, please call xxx.xxx.xxxx, reward offered", I went with a line from a poem by virtually unknown Romantic era poet Thomas Lovell Beddoes:

"Tis cloven and cracked

and battered and hacked"

My thinking at the time was that it will be after I use it for a few months.


Perhaps someone out there can start a random iPad engraving blog and use mine as an example.  I'll post a photo of it one it arrives.


Here is the whole text of the poem from which the quote above originates:

Old Adam, the carrion crow,The old crow of Cairo;
He sat in the shower, and let it flow
Under his tail and over his crest;
And through every feather
Leak'd the wet weather;
And the bough swung under his nest;
For his beak it was heavy with marrow.
Is that the wind dying? O no;
It's only two devils, that blow,
Through a murderer's bones, to and fro,
In the ghosts' moonshine.
Ho! Eve, my grey carrion wife,
When we have supped on king's marrow,
Where shall we drink and make merry our life?
Our nest it is queen Cleopatra's skull,
'Tis cloven and crack'd,
And batter'd and hack'd,
But with tears of blue eyes it is full:
Let us drink then, my raven of Cairo!
Is that the wind dying? O no;
It's only two devils, that blow
Through a murderer's bones, to and fro,
In the ghosts' moonshine.

His suicide note read "I should have been a poet".

Lesson: Live your dreams, don't put them off.

If you know of a smart little girl who is going through an Edgar Allen Poe phase, introduce her to Beddoes.

Moleskine App for the iPad

Moleskine launched an iPad App!

Sexy!

Looks clean

The majority of the reviews I've read on this app have been extremely positive.  Apparently, with this app you can:

• Pick a Moleskine notebook paper style: plain, ruled, squared• Type in text notes• Sketch with your fingers • Insert and play with your personal images• Break down your notes into categories• Play with images provided by Moleskine (which should be fun for about two whole seconds)• Geo-tag each note created and create a virtual map of your memories• Share your notes with friends through email or social networks

DL: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moleskine/id429657255?mt=8


After you've tried it you can share your thoughts here:
http://www.moleskine.com/moleskine_world/moleskine_app/moleskine_iphone_app_sign-up.php

iPad 2 Apps to Try

Here are the apps that I will be downloading, using and reviewing on this blog.

Name: Dragon Dictation
Price: Free
Interest Level: Through the Roof
Description: If you're connected to the web you can use this app for voice transcription and the ability to share messages via e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter.

Name: Zinio
Price: Free (but I bet the mags inside cost money)
Interest Level: Meh
Description: Lets you view magazines.  Only useful to me if any of the magazines offered are free. 


Name: ABC Player
Price: Free
Interest Level: I'm not holding my breath

Description: Plays TV content from ABC.  I only watched Lost up through the end of Season 2 so I might get the rest of my fill here.  Being totally caught up on all the nerdy obscure pop culture references to every minute of this show sorta counts as being productive, right?  Does ABC have anything else to offer that is worth watching?

Name: AP Mobile
Price: Free
Interest Level: I'll give it a shot

Description: Text, pictures and video accounts of current news.  The ability to get really local news intrigues me.  I wonder what the New York Times has to offer for the iPad.

Name: Barnes and Nobel Nook for the iPad
Price: Free (but I bet the content inside cost money)
Interest Level: Worth trying at least

Description: If there are free offerings that are easy to find I'm sure to do some reading with this app.  Unfortunately, I'm betting that they will try to sell me works in the public domain.

Name: NPR for the iPad
Price: Free
Interest Level: Worth trying at least
Description: I don't really get my news from NPR right now so I'm not overly excited about getting it from them on my new iPad.  Still, I'll try it.

Name: Reuters News Pro
Price: Free
Interest Level: Meh

Description: I really rely on the New York Times to keep me informed so I'm not sure how much I will use this app.

Name: Photoshop Express
Price: Free
Interest Level: High as an elephant's eye

Description: As a heavy Photoshop user I'm guessing that I will be disappointed in the lack of features offered in this software.  Still this might become my bread and butter app for making minor tweaks to photos I take on my iPad that I don't want to bother sending to my workstation computer.

Name: Pandora Radio
Price: Free
Interest Level: Would have been higher in 2008

Description: I'm not thrilled with the lack of depth in the Pandora pond.  I've gone swimming in their waters several times before and I keep coming face to face with the same fish.  OK, enough figurative language- what I mean is that Pandora doesn't have a lot of songs in their library.  I've found a handful of new songs that I like from them but never have I heard a new artist that is similar to the music styles I enjoy enough to start following that artist.  Pandora has so much promise as a means of helping me to discover musicians that are new to me because of the great job they do of categorizing music but so far it hasn't worked.

I know that when I put on a playlist in iTunes that I've created that I won't have to skip any songs.  This would allow me to put my iPad on the dock, press play once and wander around my room doing things while listening to my music.  With Pandora I find myself hitting the "I don't like this song" button a lot, which works when you're sitting at your computer using Pandora but not as well when using it in the setting I just described.

Having said all of that I do enjoy creating random playlists on Pandora so I will download their iPad app.  Some of my favorites random playlists have come from seeding the list with 80s bands/ artists and letting it do its thing.

Moving on...

Name: Evernote
Price: Free
Interest Level: Riding a rocket straight to the moon

Description: I love Evernote and the ability to combine the camera on the iPad with this service thrills me almost sexually.  My "smart" phone can't display the notes I've previously taken in Evernote and the ability to sort and do something about the notes I've taken in the past while I'm running around town is something I'm looking forward to trying.  I guess I'll have to fill my Evernote account with even more goodies now so that I'll have something to access when my iPad arrives.

Name: Marvel Comics
Price: Free (but the content inside costs money, I'm sure)
Interest Level: Ehh

Description: I'm not really a comic book reader right now so I don't think this will be an app I spend a lot of time with.  I will give it a shot.  If there is content inside that is free, I'll probably read it.

Name: Dropbox for iPad
Price: Free
Interest Level: Right up there with Evernote

Description: I have a number of documents that I keep inside of Dropbox which would be cool to access on the fly.  I'm looking forward to having all of these things at my fingertips.

Name: Twitter for iPad
Price: Free
Interest Level: Meh

Description: Based on PC Magazine's review I will be using this instead of TweetDeck.  Kinda makes me wonder why they included TweetDeck before this app on their list since their description for this app lists it this way: "Editors' Choice award-winning Twitter for iPad is the best mobile Twitter client around, hands-down".  Weird, thinks I.

Name: Truphone
Price: Free
Interest Level: Meh

Description: I might try this app but will most likely stick to using my cellphone for phone calls.

Name: Kindle
Price: Free (but I bet the content inside cost money)
Interest Level: Eh
Description: Will the Nook or this software win their courtship for my readership?  Stay tuned.

This probably has the Nook beaten imo.  I'm guessing that Amazon knows a little more about delivering content over the internet than their brick and mortar bookselling rival.

Name: Epicurious
Price: Free
Interest Level: I'm getting hungry
Description: Based on the review this sounds like it might make me bring my iPad into the kitchen (with protective covering on it, of course). 

Name: Wikipanion
Price: Free
Interest Level: Looking forward to adding this to my digital toolbox
Description: Sure I could just point the iPad's browser to the wikipedia website but apparently this app takes does all the work of resizing and zooming and just makes the content on Wikipedia look right on the iPad.  Now I can start forgetting everything I ever learned in school and just let this app do all my remembering for me.  That is of course if I'm in a WiFi hotspot.

Name: Flipboard
Price: Free (but I bet the content inside cost money)
Interest Level: Eh
Description: I don't really get the description of what the hell this is but it sounds vaguely like it takes links from Facebook and Twitter and transforms them into some kind of cutting edge RSS feed / magazine hybrid. I like things that look pretty.  Will try.

Name: Friendly
Price: Free
Interest Level: Not high but I'll probably use it
Description: Why does Facebook have an official iPad app yet?  Zuck spending too much time having sex on top of his money pile while his employees are busy dropping the ball?

Name: iMovie
Price: $5
Interest Level: Looking forward to this
Description: I would like to be able to edit video on the fly.  I bet I buy this fairly quickly after receiving my iPad.

Name: Remote
Price: Free
Interest Level: Up there
Description: Turning my iPad into a fancy remote control for iTunes?  Let the laziness begin!

Name: TED for iPad
Price: Free
Interest Level: Inside the house with the old guy and fat kid from UP.
Description: I'm excited about this app.

Name: StreamToMe

Price: $3
Interest Level: Knee high

Description: I'm already psyching myself up for the fact that the iPad will only display video that plays nicely with iTunes (mp4 files).  This software installs on both your iPad on your main computer.  When you let it work its magic on your main computer it reformats any video you want for display on the iPad.  Interesting but can't I just watch on my main computer?  There are still plenty of other sources of video for the iPad, right?

Name: Google Earth

Price: Free
Interest Level: Ankle high

Description: I'm always hearing about how cool Google Earth is.  Every once and awhile I use it just long enough to remember that I can get driving directions on at maps.Google.com.  Still Gizmodo says that "You haven't experienced Google Earth until you've experienced it on the iPad. Seamless swishing, flicking, pinching, and zooming."  I'll have to see if they're right.

Name: Time Warner TV

Price: Free
Interest Level: Elephant's eye

Description:I have Time Warner Cable at home.  The ability to put my iPad next to my main computer and use it as an additional TV appeals to me.  Typically, I spend the rest of my time at home sitting in front of the TV already.

Name: Reeder

Price: $5
Interest Level: Up there

Description: Gizmodo recommends this RSS software.  Are there free alternatives that rival the quality of this product?

Name: Zite

Price: Free
Interest Level: Ankle high

Description:There are a LOT of services that have popped up recently that offer to provide you with new content based on your interests in current content.  I haven't heard of any that are so well done that they are worth using.  Still the price is right and I might try this.

Name: SimpleNote

Price: Free
Interest Level: Toe high

Description: I would even list this except that Gizmodo recommended it.  I already have Evernote, Dropbox, email and other apps that let me store and retrieve text, right?


Name: Pulse

Price: Free
Interest Level: I can't jump that high, but I almost can

Description: An RSS reader that pulls content for me?  Interesting.

Name: Nightstand HD

Price: $2
Interest Level: Under foot

Description: I'm starting to wonder why Apple didn't write some of this software themselves and bundle it in with the purchase of the iPad.  The entire screen of the Blackberry Storm I got in December of 2008 turns into a full screen clock with built in alarm functionality whenever I plug it its power cord.  This makes so much sense because I typically plug it in when I'm getting ready to go to sleep at the end of the day.  In fact my phone has replaced my previous alarm clock entirely.  I guess I'll keep using my cellphone as my alarm clock.

Name: New York Times for iPad

Price: Free for now
Interest Level: Thigh high

Description: I get the majority of my news these days from the New York Times so I'm looking forward to trying this app.

Name: Yelp

Price: Free
Interest Level: Toe high

Description: I haven't had trouble finding food in my life yet so I don't know how much this will help.  Will try.

Name: IMDB

Price: Free
Interest Level: Toe high

Description: Trailers and all the information on movies ever?  I'm in.

Round Up and Review of Free Adventure Games on Free Game Thursday

Today I'm going to discuss the games mentioned in this YouTube video:

8. A Tale of Two Kingdoms - Haven't played this yet but I will add it to my list of games to try

7. Earl Mansin: The Breakout - Looks a little bizarre but someday I'll give it a try

6. Broken Sword 2.5: The Return of the Templars - I installed this game on a machine running Windows XP several months ago but it appeared shifted to the right on my screen.  The left half of my monitor was solid black and on the left half of the game appeared on the right side of my monitor.  Without being able to see half of the screen I couldn't make it through the opening video before giving up on this game.  Perhaps I'll give it another try on a different machine but I'm not holding my breath about it working.

5. What Makes You Tick? - I really enjoyed playing this great looking adventure and I highly recommend it to fans of the point-and-click style adventure game.  The artwork is fantastic, the settings are dark and mysterious, the game play did leave me a bit confused on a few occasions but only twice did I have to resort to a walkthru to get me past things I never would have done without cheating.  Oh and the characters were intriguing and well written.

4. Fate by Numbers - This is a really cool use of live action video in the adventure genre that shows the way forward for future adventure game makers.  Unfortunately, I and several other players have noted that the game comes to abrupt halt right in the middle of the action when you simply can't move on to the next part.  I'm hoping that a patch or better yet an updated version is released soon.

3. The White Chamber - I played part of this game and found it sort of overwhelming in terms of the size of the area in which you as the player can explore.  Right about the time I thought I was getting the hang of playing (although I was still sort of lost in terms of where the hell I was in reference to where I started the adventure) I opened a door and was sucked out into space.  This game has a lot going for it but I'm not sure I want to make the time commitment necessary to finish this game.

2. Nelly Cootalot: Spoonbeaks Ahoy! - The style of the graphics in this game just don't do it for me.  I don't think I can take this seriously.

1. Dirty Split - I'm still in the middle of playing this game.  At the moment, I'm stuck in the police station.  

Two Weeks Until My iPad 2 Arrives!

I'm getting really excited about receiving my new iPad.  According to Apple it should be shipping on the 22nd and will arrive on the 27th of April, which is two weeks from today!

The commercials aren't helping with the wait at all.  See what I mean?

It feels like how I remember early December when I was a little kid.

Dock for My iPad 2 Shipped Today

For whatever reason Apple choose to ship the dock for my new iPad separately from the actual iPad.  What a tease.

Yes, another piece of plastic to add to my collection. 

 

Anyway, I guess I'm excited that my $30 piece of plastic and metal will be arriving on the 15th via FedEx but it's only going to serve as a visual reminder of desire for it to be the 27th of April already.

Round Up of Tutorials on Photoshop Mondays

The people (or person?) at creativefan.com compiled a listing of 100 of the best Photoshop tutorials available right now.  I've seen some of these and even followed a few of them before but it's certainly nice to have links to 100 of them available in one place.  Below are some of the final products these tutorials will produce.

What I like about following tutorials in Photoshop is that often as I'm following along I will find new techniques for using the tools inside of Photoshop in creative ways.  Also, after I've finished following along with a tutorial once I find myself thinking I bet I could get a better effect by starting with this image or this texture, etc.  These provide a good starting point for a number of my Photoshop creations.

Here is the link to 100 recently published Photoshop tutorials.

If you're into following Photoshop tutorials like I am this should keep you busy for the next few weeks at least.

Black Mirror 3 Free Demo on New Game Thursdays

It's Thursday and that means that it's time for me to share a new game with you.

As a huge fan of all things dark, mysterious, and macabre I'm excited about Black Mirror III, a new game from a German developer which looks like a fantastic dark adventure.  There are some good reviews of this game floating around the internet already.  You can judge for yourself based on this YouTube trailer and the screenshots that follow:

Come for the beer, stay because of the roofies.

The obligatory castle as seen on a dark and stormy night

Umm, why are there heads in that display case?

 Blood splatter, creepy models and chains hanging from the ceiling-  can I move in?

Here is the link to the main site for the game.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to download and try this game yet myself.  I'll let you know which of the following links works best when I do.

You might try this link to get the torrent for the English version of the game.

Here is the link to the download page on the main site.

As always, I plan on publishing information on new games on Thursday so that you can wet your appetite for a weekend of gaming.

Order Placed

I ordered my iPad 2 today!1!  I chose the basic 16 GB WiFi only model in black to match the color of my other electronics and most of the things I own.  I have WiFi at home, of course, and it's even available at IHOP these days for goodness sake so I'm not too worried about being outside of a hotspot for very long (I don't spend a lot of time at IHOP or anything, just making a point).  I also splurged and bought the $29 dock for this until so that I can have a place to display it in my room.  The fact that the dock will give me a place to set the iPad to charge and that the dock can be connected to a set of speakers makes it all the more worth it in my mind.  I didn't buy the fancy new cover because i don't like the color options for the $39 polyurethane covers and I don't want to have to take out a loan for the $69 leather covers.  Seriously, for 70 bucks it better have a vibrate mode (hehe).

 

"Cause I'm back in black!"

I was really debating this purchase for a long time because of the price.  I know that I could get even more computing power in terms of RAM, hard drive space, a physical keyboard, etc. if I went with a much cheaper netbook. What pushed me over the edge is that I had gift cards from the Apple store totally $200 that have been collecting dust waiting in my room for almost two years now.  I keep telling myself that I should wait for the next great thing to come out.  I obsessively checked the refurbished Mac goodies to see if anything dropped so low in price that I just couldn't live without it.  I debated the $850 white MacBook.  I thought about a more expensive iMac with a bigger screen and 4GB of RAM, which dropped to $999 at one point. Alas, nothing on the Apple website ever got to the point where I said to myself that I absolutely must have this.  Even with the gift card it was all a little too expensive to justify purchasing.  Finally, I gave in and chose to buy the iPad 2 because the reviews are great, their advertising finally got to me, the gift cards made it vaguely justifiable in terms of price and just the idea of using a touch screen tablet style computer intrigues me greatly.

I made a promise to myself when I made this purchase that I would not use my iPad for games.  I enjoy gaming but I don't like the idea of dropping so much money on a portable video game system.  I've played my share of Plants vs. Zombies and while it's incredibly entertaining, it's also a huge waste of time.  I don't think anyone is going to remember my name years or decades from now because I'm handy with the threepeater and the cherry bomb.

 

I know that there are all kinds of other games out there but I don't want to spend time and money just playing games.  I have things to accomplish after all!  Plus, I'm not made of money so I want to avoid draining my bank account a few dollars at a time downloading the latest and greatest way for me to waste time.

What I do want to use my iPad for is productivity.  I like the fact that it has a camcorder built-in that shots video in 720p.  I'm excited about the possibility of shooting video in HD and uploading it to YouTube as I'm out and about. I'm excited about watching tutorials and how to guides using my new iPad on topics that interest me on YouTube.  I'll post links to good ones later on this blog.

Also, only on rare occasion will I use my new iPad for evil and only if someone or something really deserves it- joking, of course! 

All of this is good news for your reader because it means that I will be posting information here about free software for the iPad 2.  If any of you own the latest iPad or are thinking of purchasing one you should find useful information here in later posts.

Unfortunately, my new toy/ tool of productivity won't even be shipping until the end of this month.  Now, sadly, it's time for me to play the waiting game.

Amanita Design's Latest on New Game Thursday

Amanita Design, the delightfully disturbed mind behind the incredibly cool Samorost, Samorost 2 and Machinarium, has come out with new content.  I can't really call this a game, it's more of an interactive experience.

I'd suggest letting your substance of choice take effect before you visit this website and check it out for yourself.

Alex Stoddard's Self Portraits are Incredible!

I am officially jealous of Alex Stoddard's artistic ability.  These self-portraits of his are imo incredible:

I love nerdy boys!

Peaceful- like exhaling a cloud

Here is the link to his photostream on Flickr.

Steampunk Meets Legos

When Steampunk meet Lego, I'm in.  Here is a pic of this incredible set:

Here is the link to the Flickr page where you can see more of this set, which was put up for auction.  Sadly, I believe this set has already been sold.

Pop Culture Graffiti

It would make my day to see something similar to these while walking around my city.

Found him!

I like the use of the existing metal border around the

concrete- very creative

All the credit goes to Eugene for collecting 15 of these types of images and posting them here.

Create Your Own Background for Open Office Writer

Custom backgrounds for your Word documents are really cool imo.  If you do a lot of typing on your computer, you will benefit from breaking up the mundane white background on your documents.  

• 
  
• Under Open Office Writer, you can put an image in the background of your text, zone:
• Open your Open Office Writer document, right-click the page you want to put a background, select Page
• Go to the Background tab, then type, select image.
• Click on Browse to fetch the image on your hard drive or external media.
• Select your image and click open
• Select the type of filling the page with the image, then click on ok.
• You now have your background image.