Donate to help Marc’s family. We’re going to miss you, Marc.
Chumby has been shipping for a while now and people seem to love it! I love that hacked Chumbies are already starting to roll in!!
Congrats, Bunnie!
More Photos At Flickr
The Nintendo DS version of Geometry Wars: Galaxies shipped yesterday. I picked up mine at GameStop along with Petz Wild Animals: Dolphinz (for Samantha). I don’t know if the dolphins game is any good, but Galaxies is incredible.
Some quick thoughts:
- It uses the same control scheme that my homebrew game, Extreme Onslaught uses, but they’ve made it much more intuitive by using aiming graphics in the top screen.
- The full Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved game (the XBox 360 Live Arcade version) is included. That was a nice surprise and a wonderful fallback if you decide you don’t like the Galaxies game.
- Galaxies is fun, with a lot of variations on the normal Geometry Wars rules.
- The drones (independent ships that fly next to you and have their own weapons and powers) really add to the variety and are a blast, especially for an RType/Gradius fan like myself.
- To unlock new drones, planets and solar systems, you need to collect geoms (enemy wreckage) during normal gameplay. I don’t like that aspect of Everyday Shooter, so I was surprised that I actually enjoy doing so in Galaxies.
- I’m looking forward to trying the multi-player game types.
At Homestead, we’ve been working with Intuit for years in various capacities. We share a lot of the same values and there is a lot of overlap between our customers. Both of us count small businesses as critical to our success and we’d like to think that those businesses can find success using our products.
Today, we announced that Intuit is buying Homestead. This relationship is really something special. To understand how special, read Justin’s (Homestead’s CEO) post on the subject, specifically these lines:
A suitable acquiring company for Homestead has to be a place that we all can feel as strongly about as we do about Homestead. It has to have a set of core values that matches the Homestead Creed. It has to have a hiring policy similar to our “no jerks, no idiots” rule. It has to believe in giving back to the community. It really helps if we can keep our brand, our offices, our wacky traditions, our identity. And we absolutely have to keep all of our people, and be able to maintain the sense of ownership and pride that we all feel today.
I’m happy to report that Intuit passed all of these tests with flying colors.
We will continue to be Homestead (great products, customer focused, quick release cycles, killer talent, quirky culture) while having the support of a large company that shares our values and motivations and has resources we’ve only been able to dream of.
On a personal note: I’ve been working with several Intuit team members on and off over the past several months and they are great people, passionate about their customers! Here’s to a healthy future together!
More commentary: Thai (my boss), Gordon, Andrew, and others.
Gordon posted a new HDR photo and it looks great. Meanwhile, he also found an app that utilizes the content aware image resizing concept that was demonstrated a few months ago.
3 more days until it is released!
I bought a Kindle on Monday (see Amazon, CNet). It arrived on Tuesday. Here are my impressions.
- At $400, it is more expensive than the Sony EReader, but the Kindle has wireless (free EVDO) access to the Amazon store so you can buy books while you are away from your computer and start reading them in a few minutes.
- You can send email to your kindle with attachments. In my experience, so far, the experimental PDF conversion (10 cents per document) works really well and even keeps links.
- As expected, the electronic ink is much more relaxing to gaze at than a computer screen.
- The delay caused by refreshing the screen when you turn pages is not too much of a disruption if you are reading every word. However, it makes skimming impossible. For this reason, I don’t think I’ll be able to read my RSS feeds on the Kindle, only articles, books, etc.
- It is oddly shaped, yes, but it’s light and comfortable to hold.
- I’ve only read a portion of a book so far, but I’ll report back here when I’ve completed it. So far, it’s great.
- I haven’t used the clipping, annotating and highlighting features, yet, but I’m glad they are there.
- You can download samples of any book in the Kindle store (90,000+). This is great for reading the first chapter of books you are interested in at your leisure (not at a book store). If you choose to purchase, you can do so while reading the sample and have the full book in a couple of minutes.
- I’ve already used the browser with Wikipedia several times. I think that’s going to be a hit with a lot of people.
- I do wish that more text could fit on the screen and that the screen itself had a frontlight for reading in the dark.
I spent some time this morning trying various free and inexpensive OS X image editors. I tried the GIMP, but it lagged a lot and then crashed. I tried ImageWell (which seems great), but it didn’t have the kind of selection tool I wanted. I tried Live Quartz and enjoyed it, but it also did not have the selection tool I was looking for.
Finally, I tried Seashore. Seashore is a custom build of the GIMP with a Cocoa front end and a smaller set of functionality. It had the selection tool I was looking for and works great!
Using Seashore, I made a silhouette of Doctor Who’s TARDIS for my blog header.
TabletBlog is running a contest: The best response to ThoughtFix’s video will win one of Nokia’s new N810 Internet Tablets. Entries are due by 11/16, so HURRY! Reggie, Jonathan, ThoughtFix and I will be judging.
Work has been extremely busy, causing me to be extremely quiet on the blogging and email fronts. Here’s a quick catch-up:
Family
Charlie and Samantha are taking swimming classes and Samantha is playing Volleyball now! Beth and I took the family on two (short) trips this summer - the Grand Canyon+Sedona first and then a trip to Disneyland. Both a lot of fun! OH, and Kyria, my older sister, made me an excellent scarf (patterned after the one worn by Tom Baker in season 12 of Doctor Who) - it’s awesome!!
Homestead
We’re working on several cool projects at Homestead and we’ve recently brought a lot of great new talent on board. Our customers are happier than ever and they have a lot to look forward to later this year and next.
Games
I played and finished Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Portal. Very fun, fairly short games. Portal exceeded my expectations and delivered a unique experience that I’ll never forget. Bravo!
Gadgets
I’m jazzed to see the new Nokia n810. I’ve been a believer in the internet tablets (770, n800) for a while now, but recently I’ve been bugged that they don’t fit in your pocket. The n810 fixes all that by being just a little bigger than an iPhone. Imagine a Nintendo DS Lite MINUS the top screen/speaker assembly - that’s the size of the new n810. Wifi, 800×480, GPS, Slide-out-Keyboard, smooth youtube - IN YOUR POCKET. It’s unbelievable. Looks like Nokia really found the sweet spot with the new device. More from ThoughtFix and Atmasphere. Specs at Engadget.
Software
OS X Leopard looks GREAT, particularly the Time Machine versioned backup system. Nine more days! And the (better-late-than-never) iPhone SDK is coming in February. I’m really enjoying Apple’s products lately.
TV
Kitchen Nightmares is the only series I’m really attached to right now. Heroes has a lot to make up for after last season’s disappointing finale. Probably won’t be very excited about TV until the next seasons of Lost, Doctor Who, Life on Mars and Battlestar Galactica arrive.
ThoughtFix gets the Nokia scoop AGAIN. Nice move!
Update: Bought a Sidewinder this weekend and it is wonderful! I find myself actually using thumb buttons for once. Also, the mouse is wide and comfortable. It’s nice to see that the container for the weights and alternative feet holds the cord really well. The cord holding feature was clearly not just an afterthought - the holder has a substantial amount of additional heft beyond the mouse weights.
I’m looking forward to the new Microsoft Sidewinder mouse. Not just for gaming, but because of the optimal placement of the thumb buttons. Most mice put the thumb buttons ‘out of the way’, forcing you to reach to press them. The Sidewinder thumb buttons are positioned at your thumb’s resting position, similar to how the left and right buttons are positioned under your fingers.
I’m also looking forward to the competition this represents for logitech. I’m a huge fan of the logitech mice (I own several, including the mx510, the vx nano, and the mx revolution), but I’d love to see even more innovation.
Diginfo has a new video of the Sony Rolly (due later this month). I’m still shocked that noone has built a homebrew version of the Rolly, yet, with Lego Mindstorms.
$350 US, available only in Japan (9/29/07).
Engadget’s notes here. Videos here. Original post and commercial here. Update: Akihabara News has a hands on video.
1GB of audio storage and can stream from bluetooth devices which support A2DP. Clever UI - hold the Rolly vertically, twist the top wheel to change the song. Twist the bottom wheel to change the volume. Moves, spins, moves its flippers to the music. Can be choreographed.
It does not seem to be programmable. However, if it can be controlled at a very granular level in real time via bluetooth, it may not need to be in order to be a basic robotics platform. Time will tell.
When I first read about the Rolly, I started pricing out how to builid something comparable using a Nintendo DS, a Palm TX or a Nokia Internet Tablet as the guts. All seem doable, for less than the cost of the Rolly (if you already have one of those devices), but they will be bigger, uglier and less durable than the Rolly. Still, a solution based on one of those devices would be much more programmable and would have a wifi connection.
