sean.blog

Google Music Search

2009-10-30T06:54:00.000-05:00

I have been doing a search for Living on a Prayer each morning, waiting to try out the new Google music search OneBox. I finally got mine this morning, and I am a tad underwhelmed. I pretty much new what to expect, but I was really hoping that there would be a bit more. There isn't. Basically, when you search for a term that has a matching song or artist you will get a OneBox at the top of the search results which allows you to play or shop for that song(s). The service is powered by Lala, which is a service I highly recommend, and allows you to play the songs in a popup.

While this is cool, I am not sure that it is at all helpful. I did my search for Hungry Lucy. It returned results for Hungry Lucy. What I would like to see is an option for related artists or songs. Maybe a way to do a related genre search. Links to Wikipedia or Sound Unwound articles would be helpful also. I guess my big problem is that there is nothing here to help me discover new music.

Now if I type in the name of an artist I have just heard of this does give me a fast way to sample the songs, and I almost always go to Lala for that now. This is a bit helpful, I just wish that it went a couple of steps further.

Personal Thoughts on Climate Change and Species Extinction

2009-10-15T00:01:00.004-05:00

“ I like to move it, move. He likes to move it, move, we like to….MOVE IT!”

How sad would it be if the world lost the dancing lemurs of Madagascar? All attempts at humor aside, today is Blog Action Day 09 and this years topic is Climate Change. The hope of the project is to raise awareness of climate change and the impacts in can have on the Earth.

I am by no means an expert in climate change or the environmental impact changes can have, but I do try to read relevant articles when I find them. I tend to pay close attention to articles that discuss species extinction. This subject has become more important to me in recent years because Iain is so fond of animals. His favorite shows to watch on TV are nature documentaries, and of all of the documentaries he watches, his favorites are the Walking with series. He loves Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Monsters, but his number one is Walking with Prehistoric Beasts. I can imagine how excited he would be if he could see a real living Mammoth or Smilodon. His fascination is one of the primary reasons that I have an interest in this topic. We have talked about extinction in relation to the animals he see in those shows, and one of his comments relating to mammoths has been "but there are elephants, which are like mammoths".

Besides making my kid happy that his favorite animals won’t go the way of the dinosaurs, why is extinction important? Why does it matter if some tiny shrew from southeast Asia is wiped from the planet? According to an April 2009 article in Time Magazine one reason is:

“we're animals too, dependent on this planet like every other form of life. The more species living in an ecosystem, the healthier and more productive it is”

Beyond that, the article goes on to mention the many medical/drug discoveries that have been made by studying the various species of the world. There have been five previous mass extinctions on the planet which have caused various degrees of biodiversity chage. These extinctions have led us to today, with less that 1% of the species that have ever lived on our planet are still alive. Most people know about the extinction 65 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs and while this extinction means that humans will only walk with the dinosaurs in movies, it did clear the way for the evolution of mammals. Extinctions in the past have generally led to new species growing to dominance, which does not generally seem to be considered a bad thing.

However, not all mass extinctions are created equal. Some scientists believe that we are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction, but instead of being caused by gamma radiation bursts, volcanoes or asteroids this one is being caused by another species, us.

There is a lot of information about how climate change is affecting species. Much of the research I have read shows that even small changes in climate can have drastic effects on a species in a region. In Madagascar, even tiny changes in the amount of rainfall in a rain forest can have drastic effects on infant sifakas. In the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia new species are being discovered all the time, and many of them have very close ties to other species in the region. As climate changes, some of these species will not be able to adapt. If a species declines or becomes extinct due to these climate changes it could negatively impact further species.

Recently, I have been reading articles that discuss how targets that were set to reduce loss of biodiversity may not be met. The fear is that we are getting started so late, and not being forceful enough in our approaches to stem the tide of species extinction. Is it possible that with all we have done, it might be to late? Will we lose some of the species of Lemur found only in Madagascar to climate change? My hope is that this simple post in support of Blog Action Day will encourage a few people to take an interest in global climate change, and look closely at it's potential impact on all the living things on our planet. It is time to step up our efforts to make sure we have a livable world for all species living on earth, not just the 6+ billion humans.

A few resources that I follow that are related to the subject.

Extinction Section on Science Daily
Climate Change Section on AllTop
Recent Climate Change and Extinction articles on Google News

Posterous for the Enterprise? Leveraging e-mail for content sharing

2009-10-11T10:37:00.000-05:00

Over the past week I have read, or been involved in, a number of articles and discussions about e-mail and knowledge management. As I have read these various articles I have been reminded to the recent rise in popularity of Posterous. I think that rise is in large part to people like Steve Rubel, who recently abandoned a long standing blog to begin working with Posterous.

For those you do not know, Posterous is a lifestreaming/blogging tool that does two things very well. First, it allows you to send e-mail messages containing text, pictures, and videos and they will be published, in a nicely formatted way, to your Posterous blog. When you include photos, it creates a nice photo album, and videos include a nice embedded player. The second thing that Posterous does well is to take the items that you have imported and send them to other sites. If you include pictures in your e-mail, Posterous can send them to your Flickr account. Why is this so cool? E-mail is everywhere, and e-mail is familiar. Everyone I know gets e-mail, only a few of my friends really get Twitter, and this makes e-mail a powerful choice for capturing and storing information.

This week a few things happened to make me think that the Posterous idea is something that could be useful for the enterprise. First, Andrew McAfee wrote an article entitled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Email". In the article, Andrew argues that e-mail is going to be with us for a long time, and that enterprise 2.0 proponents need to find a way to embrace it. The technology is not all bad, and has some strong benefits. Perhaps the biggest benefit is that it is used, especially by the decision/policy makers in the enterprise. It is the technology they know, and it is the technology that will be used. One key to getting enterprise 2.0 type solutions working is to get people to use them, is properly leveraging e-mail that key?

Earlier this week I had a short discussion on Twitter about capturing tacit knowledge with @LawyerKM, @jeffrey_brandt and @keithlipman where our discussion turned to the idea of capturing information for ourselves as a stepping stone to a shared KM environment. It was generally agreed that there is value in approaching knowledge management from a "what's in it for me" angle. In my opinion, what is lacking in the enterprise today is a consistent mechanism for the capture of content, regardless of it's type, that can be stored in a central location. While we are thinking "me" in the short term, we are hoping for "we" in the long term and centralized storage of all of this captured information is how we will turn these bits into the basis for an open KM system going forward. In our discussion Jeff asked, "But is personal KM (as U described) of value to the firm? If U cant share or promote collaboration, what is value?". I think there is value in the capture process for two reasons; it gets people into the mindset of capturing this information for later retrieval and, since it is captured centrally, it can be harvested by the firm. Patrick mentioned on Twitter that capture was the easy part. I think this is true to some extent, but the capture methodology needs to be consistent across all the software and devices you use. We need to enable capture everywhere, everyday.

It would take a lot of work to design a system that was like Posterous behind the firewall. Would need to design a way to parse the incoming messages in order to determine the sender and what to do with the message. A method to allow people to register non-firm addresses so they can capture from home as well as work would need to be built. Once we have the e-mail, and can parse it, we need a way to store the text content and any attachments. I think that having a blog type area with nicely formatted pictures, videos and documents is a great start. Having some sort of specific photo album function would also be nice. I can envision offering image indexing in the future (this is a function of some enterprise search tools). It is not beyond the realm of possibility to actually save e-mailed documents into the document management system for that person. Like I said this is a lot of work, especially for a small IT group, but it is something that could be developed in stages and could show value even at the very early stages.

I do not think that e-mail is a good tool for collaboration and discussion, but it does have value in it's ability to help with content capture. I am interested in this because I am getting a lot of requests for enterprise 2.0 type functionality at work. We talk a lot about knowledge management, and I hear from people that one of the issues we have to over come is getting people to participate on a daily basis. The comfort of e-mail might be a way to increase participation. Once we start to regularly capture information, we can build collaboration and discussion on top of this pool of data.

A few links to check out on recent e-mail discussions.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love E-mail by Andrew McAfee
The Man Who Should Have Used Lotus Connections — Collaborating Effectively through Wikis by Luis Suarez
Email - No surrender? by Chieftech

Modular Terrain Gaming Table

2009-10-05T08:52:00.001-05:00

As a parent, I often see the possibilities for gaming accessories in the toys the kids play with. Ever since Iain was a baby I have thought that the interlocking foam rubber playmats they have for kids would make an awesome, portable gaming surface. I am terrible with terrain, so I never made any, but I always thought that someone should. It turns out that someone has.

I saw this morning on Tabletop Gaming News that The Terrain Guy has released thier EZ Terrain interlocking tiles terrain system. The system uses the same types of tiles that are available for kids to play on, but covered with flock. These look to be very nice, and are offered in both 1 x 1 and 2 x 2 foot sections, which is nice for people like me who prefer a smaller playing surface at times (for games like Song of Blades and Battleground Fantasy). At 4.95 for a 1 x 1 tile the price is not too bad, and this system has the benefit of being both lockable and flexible. I can make a rectangular or square board with equal ease. I think I might pick some of these up. Since the 2' and 1' tiles are compatible, I think I will get a mix.

EZ TERRAIN™ tiles are durable, versatile and portable. These interlocking tiles are made from high density foam rubber. Unlike traditional styrofoam terrain, these tiles will not break, chip or flake. They are so tough that you can stand on a tile without damaging it.

Waiting to catch the Wave

2009-09-30T11:45:00.004-05:00

Today is the day that the first batch of live Google Wave invites is going to be released. According to the Google Blog you have the following options for grabbing an invite today:

Developers who have been active in the developer preview we started back in June
The first users who signed up and offered to give feedback on wave.google.com
Select customers of Google Apps

There is also indications that people who are in the developer preview can nominate people to move to the front of the queue for today's invites and that those who receive invites today will have to option to nominate others to receive invites in th near future. It also looks like there will be a a few more than the 100,000 invites that Google has stated will be sent out. More is good.

I think I was pretty quick to get signed up back when Wave was first announced, but only time will tell if I get an invite today. It appears that the Wave invites will start to roll out in about 4 - 6 hours (about 5:00 pm CST in the US - just a guess). According to @twephanie on Twitter, on of the Wave developers, they are going to wait until morning in Sydney for support issues.

Invites will go out late in the day US time on Sept 30 - we are in Sydney and want to be awake to support you all!

While we all sit back and wait for the invites to start rolling out, there are a few good sources of information that you can check out. I suggest both Gina's article as well as the video for people who are not 100% familiar with what Wave is all about. I will update this article later when invites start to appear, and will be sure to announce if an invite appears in my inbox.

Google Wave First Look by Gina Trapani on Lifehacker
Google Wave Overview Video a short video covering the main topics of interest in Wave.
My collection of Wave links, which I plan to grow after the invites are released.

Update #1 I am reading now that the invites will be sent at about 10 am Sydney time. That would be about 7:00 pm here in Houston (CDT). I am also reading that this roll-out will include 5 Gmail style invites so that those who receive an invite will be able to invite 5 friends. That would make the initial pool of users much, much higher than we heard initially. I guess I will believe that one when we see it.

Update #2 8:00 PM CDT @twephanie just posted the following to Twitter. "Wave invites starting ... will take many many many many hours to get them all out! We are so very grateful for all the interest!!"

Update #3 7:27 AM CDT No Wave invite in my inbox this morning. Hopefully I can snag one over the next several weeks.

Diigo 4.0 Release

2009-09-28T08:53:00.006-05:00

I have been a nut for social bookmarking tools for quite some time. It started a long time back with Delicious and then moved to Ma.gnolia and recently has been on Diigo. The Diigo tool offers the additional feature of annotation, which really sets it apart from other services. Regardless, I have been storing my bookmarks online for a long time now, and I have used many services over the years.

For the past five or so months I have been working with the new Diigo 4.0 release in it’s alpha stage, and the work that the Diigo team has done on this new version is now publically available at http://www.diigo.com/. I wanted to record some videos to show off some of the new features and give people a glimpse of some of what is new in this release. I recorded 6 videos, each about 4-5 minutes long, covering some of the different aspects of this new release. I used Jing to capture the videos and Windows Movie Maker to do some minor edits. The audio was recorded through my Blue Snowball which I love. Hopefully the audio quality is good (I know I talk way too fast at times).

I will let the videos tell most of the story, but I wanted to make a couple general comments on this new Diigo release.

The UI for Diigo is much cleaner now. I feel that it is easier to find things, especially for new people to Diigo. Experienced users may find it difficult to find things initially, but I am sure that will pass.
Diigo has made huge strides in terms of search speed and accuracy. This is perhaps the most noticeable thing after the UI changes.

Without further delay, lets get on with the videos. You can also check out some Diigo recorded videos on Vimeo.

Video #1 – Diigo 4.0 Introduction
This video looks at the new My Library bookmarks UI, the snapshot view and the new meta view.

Video #2 – Diigo 4.0 My Network
This is perhaps my favorite new feature of Diigo. This is Diigo’s social sharing and discovery tool and if you can build the right network of people it can be a great way to find new content.

Video #3 – Diigo 4.0 Groups UI
The groups UI is perhaps the area of Diigo where the change to the UI will have the most impact. They made the right choice combining the discussions and the bookmarks into a single river of information.

Video #4 – Diigo 4.0 Other Stuff
This video highlights some of the minor changes at Diigo to tagging, lists and the friend function.

Video #5 – Diigo 4.0 Bookmarking with Google Chrome
This video walks through a sample bookmarking exercise using Google Chrome and the Diigolet. I will be posting a more indepth review of the Diigo toolbar in Firefox later this week.

Video #6 – Diigo 4.0 Search
As I mentioned above, searching is much nicer in Diigo 4.0. I walk through some of the changes in this video.

I will be following up with a few more posts, and a couple of additional videos through the week.

Google Sites Liberation

2009-09-24T21:45:00.001-05:00

Finally!!! A way to back up Google Sites content. Thanks to the new Google Sites API (http://code.google.com/apis/sites/), this tool has been created to backup Google Sites data. This is long over due. The one thing that has kept me from really pouring a lot of effort into sites has been the inability to make a backup, now I don't have any excuses.

in reference to: google-sites-liberation - Project Hosting on Google Code (view on Google Sidewiki)

A Whole New Warhammer

2009-08-13T08:20:00.001-05:00

I read the press release from Fantasy Flight Games this morning about a new version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The game has languished a bit since they picked it up from Black Industries, and their have been a lot of rumors that a new version was imminent.

"We're proud to re-introduce the Warhammer world to role-playing with this revolutionary approach,” said Christian T. Petersen, CEO of FFG. “It is one that harnesses the flavor of prior WFRP editions, but brings about that experience in a more evocative, tactile, and visual way than the past," he continued. "We’ve worked long and hard to to publish a game that we hope will represent a positive paradigm shift in roleplaying game design, production, and play experience. This is not another re-tread of the traditional RPG approach, this is something new, something exciting. Something that existing RPG fans will want to test for themselves."

A new version in and of itself is not something that scares me, but this new version does a little bit. Rather than recount everything that has changed I will point you to the press release, new mini site, and game description.

I have a few thoughts on what I have read:

The game sounds interesting enough to buy, as it looks to be a very fast play sort of game.
The price point of $99.00 is way to high for a pen and paper RPG. I wonder if FFG will classify this as a new style of RPG?
The description of the game reminds me a lot of the Descent Road to Legend game. Especially with the pouches that you store your character sheet and dice in between sessions.
Custom Dice? Of what I read this is the only really, really disappointing part. Custom Dice are a pain in the ass. I just don’t see what they could bring to the game.
The comparison with board games will likely be common, and the official forums are already filled with lots of discussion (most of it negative).
A sealed box set that contains the core rules makes it a bit difficult for people to browse the game, most RPG’ers prefer to browse the rules before buying. I hope FFG comes up with a way around this.

With all things it is best to wait and see the game play before making a final judgement. There will be some demo’s this week at GenCon, and hopefully we will get a good look at the game and game play. I started playing Warhammer Fantasy back in 1988, and have been hooked ever since. The first edition of the game lasted a very, very long time, and the 2nd edition of the game made changes but kept the core of the game the same. Looks like the 3rd edition will really shake things up, but only time will tell if that is a good thing.

Monster Builder – The Vile Crypt Ghoul

2009-07-30T13:17:00.001-05:00

Yes…I spent my lunch hour today playing with the monster builder like all good GM’s should. And yes, I created a quick monster…a ghoul. Oh, and yes I really could not think of a better power name than Crypt Juice for his little disgusting burst.

You can see the image based output of the monster stat block below. I added a lot of different features to him just to see how the software worked. My initial impression is that the software is easy to use, but does require quite a bit of imagination get the right feel. I really like that you can drag powers in from other sources and edit them. Both the claw and the quick bite power are borrowed (from the Ghoul and one of the Gnoll powers).

A few things took me a minute to figure out. On the Quick Bite it was not immediately apparent that I could type the extra text after free. There are a lot of description and info boxes in the powers area, and you kinda have to type in each one to see where it displays in the power. I also was not sure how to get the image file of the stat block (you need to right click in the monster list). Otherwise, so far so good.

All in all this is a nice looking beta product and a welcome addition to the DDI offerings. Wizards seems to be moving in the right direction with the tools for 4th edition D&D.

DDI Monster Builder Beta Tomorrow

2009-07-29T21:57:00.001-05:00

Wizards of the Coast will be releasing the Monster Builder beta to all DDI subscribers sometime tomorrow. We got to see some nice pictures of the software a few weeks back, and it appears that tomorrow is the day we get to try it out first hand.

I had a chat with some fellow gamers tonight, one of which has been using the software as a tester, and it sounds like this is going to be a really amazing tool for DM’s. Hopefully, players will appreciate all of the new creations that come their way.

Personally, I am most interested in borrowing powers from one creature to use in another. I like this because I understand that the program will automatically scale the power based on the level of the new creature. Easy to take your favorite level 30 power and throw it on your level 1 minion and have it scale out correctly. Yet another tool that makes the job of the DM in 4th edition D&D that much easier.

I am sure downloads will be busy (and slow) tomorrow. Hopefully it releases while I am still at work and can take advantage of the big bandwidth.

Savage Worlds Rippers – Facebook Style

2009-07-29T21:34:00.001-05:00

I am not one to play many (any) of the games on Facebook typically, but I heard about a game based on the Rippers RPG from Pinnacle Entertainment and just had to give it a go.

Rippers is a monster hunting game set in Victorian times. Players are part of secret monster hunting societies that keep people safe from the evil the lurks in the dark shadows.

The RPG uses the Savage Worlds rule set which is certainly one of my favorites.

I am just getting into the game, but it looks to be pretty well done. I have high hopes, something to check out if you are a gamer on Facebook.

Rippers on Facebook

40K Space Marines

2009-07-27T22:42:00.001-05:00

Update: I have had some time to think about this, and I am going to make some changes. I think that the TacSquads are going to stay at 10 man and swap to Rhino’s. Also I am going to drop the flamer in favor of a meltagun. Sgt in each squad will also swap for a Power Fist and some sort of ranged weapon (combi most likely). Just need to re-do the points.

With Dark Heresy up for so many Ennie awards this year, I went back and read through a bunch of the main rulebook last week. While I was at it, I looked through Necropolis 2350 for Savage Worlds again. These two settings have some similarities, and throughout the time I was reading them my mind kept drifting to Warhammer 40K. Eventually my mind drifted far enough that I started reading about the 5th edition of the rules online and some of the changes to the Space Marine codex. One thing led to another and I stopped by Montag’s (my FLGS) to pick up a copy of the new SM codex. I read through it this weekend and, well here we are….

I am considering throwing together a SM army, most likely 1750 points, that I could use vs. the old Necron force that I kept from when I used to play (3rd edition). I am looking for some opinions on the army I am considering.

HQ

Chaplain with Terminator Armour & Melta Bombs

Troops

TacSquad #1 10 Marines, Flamer, Lascannon Sgt. Power Weapon w/ Razorback

TacSquad #2 10 Marines, Flamer, Lascannon, Sgt Power Weapon w/ Razorback

TacSquad #3 10 Marines, Meltagun, Hvy Bolter, Sgt Chainsword w/ Rhino

Elites

Terminator Assualt (5) w/ Lightning Claws w/ Land Raider +storm bolter dedicated
(Chaplain joins this unit)

Dreadnought twin-linked Autocannon

Heavy

2x Vindicators ~~w/ HK Missile~~

Predator w/ sponson bolters + storm bolter.

I think this comes out to 1750 exactly. My goal is to make this a stand and grab army. It seems that missions with objectives are pretty key in 5th edition. TacSquad #1 & #2 are broken into combat squads. The Lascannon and 4 marines stay back to shoot and protect the Vindicators while the flamer/meltagun guys head off in the Razorback with the sgt and the remaining marines.The Razorback & crews will start in reserve as they are intended to grab objectives. TacSquad #3 uses the Rhino to keep the whole squad together and they are there from the get go to grab and hold key objectives.

Landraider with the Termies and Chappy are meant to be a really big speed bump. They cruise off to intercept whatever looks to be getting too close. It’s a 600 point speed bump which could be an issue…hopefully they will tear things up pretty well.

The tanks are meant to light things up from afar. I am focusing on doing as much general damage as I can with the tanks, leaving all the Lascannons in the hands of the Marine units. Vindicators are placed to cover objectives where they can stay put and, hopefully, in some cover to just pelt any enemies that decide to snag an objective early (also useful for pinning down approaching troops). As I thought about this more clearly I remembered that the attacker chooses which weapon is destroyed opens up 20 more points to play with elsewhere. ~~HK missiles are there mostly to soak a weapon destroyed roll~~. Dreadnought’s goal is to shoot or smash anything that gets too close to the tanks, plus use the Autocannon to weaken units from a distance.

So 40k players, how does this sound for a “fun” army? I doubt I would ever play this in a tournament. I am planning to write up my own detail on a chapter and provide my own color scheme. I don’t do well trying to copy the look of an existing chapter.

All constructive comments welcome.

Google Docs Templates for 4e

2009-07-26T21:03:00.001-05:00

I am not the worlds greatest designer, but I have been working on a few templates for 4th Edition D&D DM’s. I have two created thus far and would love any comments or suggestions.

The first template is my Encounter Planner. It is a simple form that I typically copy into my Google Sites based GM’s notebook. The template is designed to have monster cards copied in from the compendium.

The second template is a simple combat matrix that I use to track damage and conditions for the monsters and NPC’s in my encounters. I link to the matrix for a particular encounter in the Encounter Planner document. It uses some simple conditional formatting to highlight status’s and bloodied monsters.

Google Docs allows people to share templates with others now, and you can find my two templates in the Docs template gallery.

D&D Monster Builder

2009-07-13T19:32:00.001-05:00

Wizards gave a little screen shot preview today of what the Monster Builder will look like. The Monster Builder is the first of a set of tools in the Adventure Tools series. These tools will be available as part of the Dungeons & Dragons Insider subscription.

image © Wizards of the Coast.

The UI looks a bit cluttered, but it would appear that you can easily search for monsters, edit what you find, and create brand new creatures. You can also build new creatures and “if you saw a power you liked on another monster, you can drag and drop it into your monster.” One of my hardest things is coming up with new powers, and I would much rather borrow and edit.

The product looks promising, cannot wait to get my hands on it. I don’t see any indication of a release date, only that more previews will be coming as the release gets closer.

RPG Character Compendium

2009-07-11T21:09:00.001-05:00

I was playing around with Google Sites today. They have certainly made it easy to create sites by combining text, basic layout and gadgets. It is the gadgets that really make the site shine because they allow you to add data from all over the place.

I made a few new sites today, but the one I worked on the most is a simple site for me to store and showcase some of the characters I have made for 4th edition D&D, Savage Worlds and other game systems. I was surprised by how quickly I could post the data up that I wanted to include.

I have used two gadgets thus far, a Google Docs gadget to bring in my character background documents and the gadgets from iplay4e which embed a character sheet for 4E into the site. Worked out pretty well I think.

I have only uploaded three 4e characters thus far, but I am planning to get all of my characters uploaded in the next few weeks.

Sean’s RPG Character Compendium

Kindle on the Cheap?

2009-07-09T08:03:00.000-05:00

Image via CrunchBase

Amazon lowered the price on the 6" Kindle 2 yesterday from $359.00 down to $299.00. I love my Kindle as I think it is a great enabler for people who want to read. There have been some discussions (here) over the past week about whether or not reading books is dying out, especially among techie types. My answer is definitly no! I attribute that answer 100% to the Kindle. The Kindle makes it so easy to look up a book you are reading about or maybe just saw in a store and buy it right then and there.

If you don't already have a Kindle, but have been considering one, now is a good time to jump at the opportunity with the reduced price point.

Google OS for Netbooks

2009-07-09T07:49:00.001-05:00

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Google announced that they are building a new computer operating system. The Google Chrome OS is a lightweight OS designed on the Linux kernel that is intended to be used on Netbooks and other computers where users want to use primarily web applications. The Google blog article reads:

Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

As a huge Google fan I am very excited about this news, and 2010 cannot get here soon enough so I can try this new OS out on either my EEE PC or perhaps a new netbook from one of the vendors that have already been announced as working with Google.

As I have thought about this new Google OS a few things have come to mind:

My biggest disappointment with the Chrome browser is the lack of integration with Google stuff. Google Reader for RSS and Google Bookmarks for bookmarks would have been very obvious integration bits. I really hope Google includes lots of Integration with the OS. Since Joshua Schachter joined Google, I have been waiting for a way cool new version of Google Bookmarks. Perhaps that integration will come with Chrome OS?
Jungle Disk, Live Mesh and Pogoplug are my local links to cloud storage. With these three applications I am either replicating data (Mesh), backing things up (Jungle Disk/S3), or simply making most of my data available anywhere (Pogoplug). I hope that Google realizes that getting to this data is important, and either works to provide access to some of these types of cloud services or offers a compelling service of their own (the fabled gDrive). I am storing a few hundred gigabytes on the three services I mentioned, so any gDrive will have to allow that at a price point close to what I am paying now to make me even consider it.
My EEE PC is awesome, but part of that awesomeness comes from my ability to connect to the Internet from anywhere. I tether my Blackberry using VZAccess to grab a 3G connection on the go. I almost always tether via Bluetooth. If the Chrome OS does not offer me the ability to use VZAcess and tether my BB it will be much less useful and I would likely just keep what I have and use Windows 7.

I think Google has a real opportunity for the netbook market with Chrome OS. Windows 7 works so well that I am not 100% sure that this OS would have much effect on Windows sales for anything other than netbooks. I certainly don't see anything in what I have read that would make me consider abandoning Windows at the office. I guess there is nothing to do now but wait and see what Google does.

Gaming and Google

2009-07-03T09:28:00.000-05:00

Image via CrunchBase

I doubt it is much of a secret to anyone who games with me that I am a big fan using the various tools the Google offers to plan, note and record my game sessions. I also use Google for pretty much every thing else I do online as well.

The Dice of Life blog seems to have the same addiction, and has been writing up a series of posts covering how to spice up your gamer life with a dash of Google. Well worth the read, especially if you are not 100% familiar with how these online tools work.

While many of the Google tools work perfectly together, I am always wishing that things like Google Groups and Google Sites would work better together. Google seems to be relying on gadgets for their different tools to allow them to be embedded into each other, but that does not work so well where Groups and Sites are concerned.

The software I really miss from Google is Google Notebook, which they no longer support. It is actually still available, but I don't think I would put any data into it. Notebook was great for recording small snippets of information and random thoughts. I am starting to use Evernote for this purpose, but I am not 100% sold that this is the route I want to go.

You can find my campaigns Google Site page here.

4e Iron Kingdoms

2009-06-30T19:39:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

Very nice post with links to resources for gaming in the Iron Kingdoms (IK). For those not familiar with the Iron Kingdoms, it is the setting for the Warmachine and Hordes games by Privateer Press. The setting started out as a RPG setting for the d20 system, and has grown by leaps and bounds since that time. The world itself is a fantasy steampunk mix with both magic and blackpowder. This is one of my favorite settings, mostly due to the amazing World Guide that Privateer Press published. It is a huge reference to everything in the world. Anyway, the post below is a great summary of links to porting the IK world over to the 4th edition of D&D.

Iron Kingdoms 4e Resources

RPG Blog Carnival

[link to original | source: 1001 Bobs | published: 18 hours ago | shared via feedly]

Facebook v Google

2009-06-29T12:48:00.001-05:00

http://bit.ly/13bsnF Some interesting history here I was not aware of. I still use Google for almost everything, but I can see a day them I will turn to Facebook for more. I certainly turn to FB for more personal interactions.

Posted via email from Mostly Insane Ramblings

Mini Mario on DSi

2009-06-28T11:40:00.001-05:00

I downloaded the new Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! from the DSi Ware store a couple days back and have been playing the game. I had not played, or even heard of, the similar titles that came before this one. The game is basically a puzzle game, you have a bunch of wind up mini Mario’s that you need to get through the level, a room, before time runs out. You need to open doors, collect coins, kill or avoid bad guys, and lots of other typical Mario type things.

The game is fun, and can be a bit challenging. Once you reach the end of a level you need to defeat Donkey Kong by shooting mini Marios at him. I am finding these to be the most difficult part, and I guess that’s why the reserve these for the boss challenge. :) It would be a little bit better game if it made use of both screens for game play. That is my only issue thus far.

You can build, share and download levels over WiFi Connect which is a pretty cool way to keep the game fresh. I think the game is well worth the 800 points I paid for it, especially since I was able to just snag it while laying in bed one night.

My Firefox Collection

2009-06-28T00:50:00.001-05:00

Image via CrunchBase

I am not using Firefox to much recently as Chrome has become my default browser, but I do still like to use some extensions which keeps Firefox installed on most of my computers. I don't use too many, and they typically are installed to help me either collect or consume information better. I put together my current set of extensions using the new Firefox Collections tool. Noting terribly shocking in the collection, but I think this is a good set if you want to keep your extensions to a minimum. I supplement these extensions with a few bookmarklets.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/editors_picks

Bit.ly Sidebar - Which makes it easy to send links to Twitter, Facebook or via Gmail.
Note in Reader - This is mostly replaced by Feedly, but sometimes I use it when I am having issues with the Feedly minibar.
Amazon Wish List - I use Amazon to track the things I want to buy for myself and others.
Facebook - Sometimes I post directly to Facebook.
Posterous - I am playing with Posterous to make posting to my blogs and various services easier.

Music Downloads

2009-06-28T00:02:00.001-05:00

New music time, and this month I kept to my usual grabbing more downtempo music, and keeping to female fronted bands. I am sure I am missing out on some amazing stuff...

I finished off Elsiane's Hybrid album, I had three tracks left on the album after last month. By the way, I REALLY like this album It is one of the best I have downloaded in recent months. I also grabbed Akasha by Isobella and Different Shade of Beauty by Tearwave.

Tearwave Different Shade of Beauty Elsiane Hybrid

I have been slowly collecting links to some of my favorite female front bands. Most of these fall into the downtempo/electronica genre.

Posted via email from Mostly Insane Ramblings

4E from One Year In | A Butterfly Dreaming

2009-06-26T10:44:00.001-05:00

via abutterflydreaming.com

100% agree on this whole article. Especially where it discusses the accessibility to new GM's. I remember trying to customize things in 3.5, and I was very put off of DM'ing. I have no such troubles in 4e. I modify almost every enemy I use, and I have been changing rules and some of the pre-published modules for every session. The best thing I can say is that from an accessibility standpoint the rules in the DM Guide just work.

This is a great write up.

Posted via web from Mostly Insane Ramblings

Working in the Cloud?

2009-06-12T22:25:00.001-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

How much software do you use to work in the cloud?

I am just wrapping up the install and configuration of a brand new computer for work, and I was kinda surprised at how many applications I am running locally now to feed my cloud computing addiction.

I installed the Pogoplug client, Jungle Disk, and Live Mesh to control my various backup and file access needs. I installed Offisync to give MS Office access to my Google Docs. It seems like a lot of software to install just to feed my cloud computing needs.

I install most of this software on my EEE PC as well, where I typically try to go very light on software. The EEE typically just gets Pogoplug and Jungle Disk. I have stopped installing Mesh.

Do we need this much software to be effective in the cloud? I am using both Pogoplug and Jungle Disk for backups, and Pogoplug also serves as extended storage. Mesh I am using to synchronization, and perhaps most importantly, for remote access. Offisync just makes working with my documents so much easier as I can use the full Office suite when needed.

I guess we are not quite to the point of ridding ourselves of client side software.