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Monthly Archives: May 2008

Agnostiphobia

1 CommentMay 28, 2008

Mike Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, talked recently about how they choose which books to publish. He reveals two key criteria: brand equity and competitive advantage. Brand equity asks, “Will people buy this book because they recognize the author?” Competitive advantage asks, “Will people buy this book because it has great writing and ideas?” [...]

Posted in books, games, writing

Sculpture Garden

1 CommentMay 28, 2008

Our family invented a new game this weekend. It’s fun and cheap so we thought we’d share it with you. We call it “Sculpture Garden.” It’s good for any number of players. Our 3-year old found it boring, but our 5- and 9-year olds loved it. It would probably work for 4s too, but we [...]

Posted in family, games

Mac Tips

1 CommentMay 24, 2008

Every PC user switching to a Mac should see Dan Rodney’s list of Mac-related symbols and keys, as well as LifeHacker’s superb guide to the Mac for PC immigrants. Particularly helpful tidbits: In Firefox for Mac, use Control+Tab/Control+Shift+Tab to toggle between tabs. This is similar to the inteface on the PC, except that the Mac [...]

Posted in Mac

Unsolved Problems in Digital Game Development

Leave a commentMay 23, 2008

I spoke on the subject of “Unsolved Problems in Digital Game Development” at a recent meeting of the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society in Dallas. The talk laid out the current state of game technology, then outlined some problems that remain unsolved. I focused on three problems: Atmospheric Rendering (i.e. fog), Realtime Radiosity (i.e. indirect lighting), [...]

Posted in games, technology

Slip Sliding Away

Leave a commentMay 23, 2008

I’m still in the honeymoon phase. I just discovered that I could add Phit as a widget in the Mac Dashboard and play it any old time just by touching a button. Now that’s good mashup. Last night I discovered what Apple means when it talks about an “always on” policy, and again it has [...]

Posted in Mac, games, iPhone, technology

Speech Impediment

Leave a commentMay 22, 2008

I just played my first round of chess on my new MacBook using only my voice. The Mac has amazing speech input support. I can make chess moves just by calling them out—”Computer, pawn at e2 to e4.” And I’m thinking, “Why have I never used speech input on my PC?” So I click the [...]

Posted in Mac, games, iPhone, technology

iPhit: Porting Phit to the iPhone

Leave a commentMay 22, 2008

This week I start a new project. I’m porting Phit to the iPhone. The FedEx man just dropped off my new MacBook—my first foray into Mac. Liam uses them at school, so he initiated me. He showed me the button on the bottom of the Mac that tells the battery life. He helped me figure [...]

Posted in Mac, Phit, games, iPhone, technology

Book Business

2 CommentsMay 3, 2008

Christian book publisher Thomas Nelson laid off a tenth of their work force this week. Their president and CEO, Mike Hyatt, has been blogging about the decision. His candor and openness are quite refreshing—not to mention educational for aspiring authors like me. He gives us an glimpse into the tough inner world of book publishing. [...]

Posted in books, faith, writing