Ive been busy with other things than writing the blog lately and haven’t been posting much. Sorry there hasn’t been much new. I’ve been really active on Bookmooch and have been reading a lot. I completed my project to convert all my CDs to MP3s that I mentioned a while back. I’ve also been downloading from iTunes and listening to a lot of new artists that I’ve found by way of Pandora. A couple times when I couldn’t download a song I liked (like Ryan Auffenberg’s Things You Say, But You Don’t Mean) I’ve bought the CD through Amazon.com‘s sellers market. I like Amazon’s partnerships with small dealers because it benefits both the mom-and-pop corner book or music store as well as internet businesses run out of someone’s basement and give the consumer more avenues to make a safe, online purchase of used, rare, or obscure items.  I’ve also been using the Mac alot more lately. I built a dozen Macmail stationery templates for Maggie to use. I’m thinking of putting together a package and selling them, but for now she has the exclusive.  I have been keeping track of different topics, sites, etc. to post and will start going through my list and posting a lot more frequently to catch up.

Netdisaster.com is goofy site that bills itself as an “absolutely useless” site that “simulates the destruction of the target-site by a disaster.” The methods of “disaster” range from spilled coffee to worm infestation, and even paintball gun attacks. Just enter the URL of the site to view, select the method of distruction and have at it. If you select the auto mode, you can still click on the hyperlinks on the displayed site and enable the method of attack on command by pointing to it. Any options including the URL can be changed in the filter frame at the top of the web page at any time and the help sections are detailed and well written.  Note that blog engines use the same kind of filter frame and will most likely conflict and disable Netdisaster, but there is an alternate viewing method that will work in some instances (use the Alt button or read the FAQ information specifically about this kind of problem).

http://www.netdisaster.com/

I checked out Playwithyourmind.com tonight, a neat site with flash games, puzzles, and IQ tests. They boast over 100 mind games including intelligence tests like color or pattern recognition, numbers, multitasking, logic puzzles, and even card games. The site is arranged cleanly and simply and doesn’t bog down with advertisements. It’s really well organized.

Whenever I come across one of these kinds of sites, I always have to test my typing skills. My typing method is kind of a hybrid style between touch typing and mashing the keyboard. My fingers tend to hover in the traditional home position, but after years of coding, I’ve become accustomed to various home positions depending on the task at hand: over the numeric keypad, over the numeric keys, over the arrows, or over the WASDX keys. Sometimes, I preoccupy my left hand with handling Control, Shift, and Alt while the right has to do the work of two. Plus, I strike keys with the heel of the palm, side of the thumb, and the side of the hand in ways that I don’t think you’ll learn in the Mavis Beacon typing course. I use whatever is most convenient to the key. I also get into grooves when coding, especially if I’m doing a lot of code cleanup, where I sort of roll the keys and listen to the clicks to tell if I’ve made a typo.

I fly when I’m coding. It’s not the same as secretarial skills in typing because the vocabulary is significantly curtailed and you’re typing your own thoughts and not transcribing the thoughts of others. Even still, I’m also pretty quick typing letters.  So, I like to test myself every once in a while and see how I do in these tests.  PlayWithYourMind.com has a couple typing games so I went directly to the most obvious of them, The Typing Test.  In the practice game I scored 136,781 with 0 typos and 18 seconds left. I thought that was pretty good, so I went on to the next game, the first being only a practice. Unfortunately the game then reports an error and only after digging around the typing section could I manually select the other games and find that it requires me to register and compete for the real games to load fully. It’s a bit disappointing and not obvious from the outset, but the registration requirement isn’t really out of line. Although I didn’t register myself, I can still recommend the site as something worth checking out. If you find something you like here and register, post a comment and let me know your experience. At least it didn’t just close out my browser window like another typing site did.

There’s no doubt that today’s games have the ability to be far better than those we grew up with.  The graphics are smoother, the sound is clearer, the budgets are higher, and the greatly expanded computer processing power gives them the ability to render it all on a scale that could never have been imagined before.  However, often beneath that slick surface are game concepts we’ve seen so many times before.  For example, no matter how great Gears of War may be, it’s still just a simple run-and-gun game.  Since the games of yesteryear couldn’t rely on their outward appearances to sell games, they had to strive to invent something new almost every time.  The games had to be simple to understand but difficult to master.  And they had to have replayability often bordering on addiction.  Neave.com host several of these addictive games of the past in shockwave flash format.  You don’t need a special arcade translator to play them; just click and play.

http://www.neave.com/games/