Pinball!

This is what happens after I work on papers all day and need a break. :) I suppose I could do something else productive, like say update my blog or actually accumulate a halfway decent score, but oh-look I'm doing that now! (The blog post that is)

I've enjoyed playing pinball since I was tall enough to actually stand over the machine and reach the flippers. Something about breaking the high score present on the machine, realizing that this score is impossible to beat without years of training, and then settling to beat my own score has always been a favorite pastime of mine.

That and multiball. Oh yes, MULTIBALL. Because let's face it, nothing in life is more exciting than hitting the flippers over and over again and watching 3 pinballs zoom around the machine accumulating tons of points while the pinball machine goes crazy. A fascinating display of lights and sounds that only lasts for a few seconds before the balls all fall out of play because you hit the flippers over and over again instead of actually concentrating on hitting them properly.

But I'm not here to discuss pinball strategy. Just to pass along a few fun pinball games for the bored or nostalgic fans out there.

3d Space Cadet Pinball
















If you own a windows computer from within the last 15 years or so, then you are familiar with this game. If not, click on your games window and go play it now. It's waiting for you. Patiently. Space Cadet is a pretty simple pinball game with somewhat erratic physics, but there is no better way to get through a boring class or paper then refueling and accepting target practice training.

Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection
















A fun little trip in the wayback machine, the Williams Collection brings back several tables from Williams Electronics during the pinball loving 80's. That said, these tables contain fairly simple designs without all of that fancy video screen stuff you see in modern day tables. The game does faithfully recreate all of the rather silly sound effects which is nice though. It should be noted that these tables are quite tough (especially the one pictured above, Black Knight) as you have to remember that this was made in a time when pinball machines, like all good arcade devices, existed for the soul purpose of draining every last quarter in your worldly possession.

However, as simple as the machines may appear, most of them have the ability to trigger multiball, so naturally it's OK in my book. Also if you play the Wii version, you can activate tilt very easily by shaking the wiimote. Now you can actually pretend you are ripping the pinball machine to pieces when the pinball goes straight down between the flippers!

Zen Pinball (PS3)













This is not a philosophical look into skill shots. Rather Zen Pinball is a pretty cheap and fun downloadable title (11$ for 4 tables with additional downloadable tables just a few dollars each) for the PS3 that my parents picked up. I noticed this while I was taking a study break and suddenly 2 hours passed before I realized what happened.

While I generally dismiss downloadable games as cheap thrills, this one I'm willing to mark in the exception category. Each of the initial tables + one that was purchased (Excalibur) are extremely well-designed and contain realistic physics. Unlike Williams these tables are also not out to screw you. Seriously, some of the ball saves (the pity feature that brings your ball back into play one time if you lose it right after deployment) will last upwards of 20 seconds after launching if you're not playing well. They also contain lots of fun video effects that closely resemble modern day machines. If you want to relive the fun days of modern day pinball I highly recommend picking this one up.

Anyway, writing about pinball time is over. Now it is back to work time. Then multiball time. :)

Word Choice/Usage/Management?

An interesting discussion on word choice occurred during my editing class last night. Obviously a good writer should be mindful of each and every word that can go into a document. Despite this fact novice writers often misjudge the value of words that hold similar meanings.

Case in point, this was the first sentence that appeared on a draft for an actual guide for novice gardeners we were editing in class:

“There is more than one way to do a garden.”

The sentence as it appears is technically correct. Gardening is certainly not an exact science. Yet the reader might agree that there are better ways to phrase this sentence…specifically that troublesome “do” word. Our class quickly noted some possible replacements like plant or build. Yet despite our best efforts a single, perfect word eluded us.

The obstacle in coming up with the right replacement word revolves around several important factors for this little gardening guide: how formal do you want to be? What is the best way to reach out to the novice gardener?

Many words appear usable synonymously within a sentence. Yet specific word holds a major impact on the message the writer attempts to present. Should I say “build a garden” and treat the process like a construction project? Maybe it would be better to say “plant a garden” and go straight into a garden-based tone? Perhaps I want to appeal to fashionable sorts and say “design a garden” instead.

Considering that this is the introduction to a novice-level guide to gardening, these sorts of word choices are rather important. They set the tone for the rest of your guide. A sloppy writer would introduce gardening like a carefully planned construction project and then maneuver the language to indirectly suggest that appearance is everything.

The important thing to consider is that similar words often have different meanings. Don’t say ‘plethora’ in place of ‘a lot’ for example. While plethora often implies a large number, the point of the word is to express overabundance, or too much.

Just a little something to consider the next time you read a famous work. What logic did the author follow in word choice? Why is it that the Man In Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed? Why was it the best of times? Why was it the worst of times? Deep stuff, word choice.

Resident Evil: Afterlife Review

A wise man once said "Do not reinvent the wheel, for it is round and round is good." Of course, he then proceeded to get eaten by a zombie, but hey them the breaks. Resident Evil: Afterlife follows this non-changing wheel philosophy and delivers a wonderful 100 minutes of horror/action goodness.

Afterlife picks up more or less where the previous movie left off. Alice has an army of elite-super clones and she's not afraid to use them against that evil Umbrella Corporation. Incidentally, the go-to guy for Umbrella Corporation's "I'm the big bad leader dude" in this incarnation of Resident Evil is apparently played by Agent Smith, but more on that in a sec.

After some pointless symbolism involving umbrellas and rain motifs we get right into the promise of super amazing clone action against the Tokyo branch of Umbrella Coporation for no other reason than the fact that it gives the movie an excuse to use subtitles. This leads into one awesome display of Alice clone carnage as the entire base of over-confident guards quickly learns that although one Milla Jovovich is bad enough, 30+ of them becomes the following:

• See Alice run.
• Run Alice run.
• See Alice shoot.
• Shoot Alice shoot.
• See Alice slice up baddies with swords before switching to throwing stars and then shooting them with various guns and finally unleashing random psychic bursts of energy all over creation.
• ...you get the idea, but like I said, multiply it by 30. And this is all in the first 20 minutes.
  

Unfortunately clone fun doesn't last long. Let's just say the bag of spilling trope applies full force here.

The rest of the movie then proceeds to relapse into the plot of the previous movie, in which Alice looks around for her friends who well...quickly find out that messages of hope in Alaska can have multiple interpretations. At least there's a lot more action this time, and significantly less downtime. It does dip a bit more into horror territory like the first one did and the third one abandoned, but not that much. The action/horror ratio is rather similar to the second one.

Speaking of action, I'll just sum it up simply and say that Resident Evil pretty much shamelessly copies off of the Matrix, right down to a big bad who clearly read the book on looks and fighting from Agent Smith. Let me be clear though...this is not a bad thing. Like I said in the beginning, there is no need to reinvent a round wheel, and the Matrix-style action in this movie certainly delivers. It delivers so well that it decides to stop bothering with logic and just start doing things because its just plain cool. For example:

• What was the point of the mechanical spiders latchers?
  
• Why was there a super crazy zombie thing running around with a giant meat tenderizer/halberd?
  
• Zombie dog things that show up out of nowhere?

Who cares? It was COOL. By the way, speaking of cool monsters, fans of the Resident Evil games will once again find much to enjoy with homages to some of the classic monsters. Especially if you've played #4.

I don't want to say too much more in this review for risk of spoilers and the fact that I want to grab dinner before my evening class starts, but suffice to say that Resident Evil: Afterlife is an action packed good time with just the right does of horror jumpiness. :)

PRWR628: Website Progress Report 7/24/10

The end is in sight! Although I think my website is coming along nicely, the peer review examinations gave me a number of excellent things to consider as I put the finishing touches on the project. Things that I never would have thought of due to my deep relationship with the Patapsco organization. I also completed one usability test yesterday evening with a friend that has volunteered with the organization on multiple occasions and knows the organization well from a volunteer angle. Although I am pretty much finished with the website now, I will be conducting one more usability test tomorrow with one of the board members for last-minute ideas/notes.

Most of the changes I made to the website were cosmetic. I adjusted header colors to allow for increased scannability throughout the site. I also condensed/combined several of the longer lists as recommended by both of the peer reviews I received and simplified language in multiple locations. I was reminded by the usability test I performed that the EditMe "add a comment" button was still showing up on some of the newer pages I made which I removed. I also added several links throughout to help direct users within the website.

Both the usability test and peer reviews noticed a lack of easily obtainable contact information. It occurred to me that a contact page would make a good navbar/top-level link so I created one with some basic contact information. This lead to one too many links for my liking on the navbar though it was easily solved by moving the "accomplishments" link to a child link of the "about" section. It occurred to me that the accomplishments link felt too specialized to be a main link anyway, so I don't feel that any major problems are brought up by this. I also moved the "membership" link to the "about" section from the "volunteer" section as it felt like a better fit.

Second usability test aside, I only have two more things that I have planned for the website:

• Fixing the banner so that "Friends of" shows up in the title. Also moving/altering the awkward blue-colored tagline.
• Altering the language/simplifying the information in the newly renamed "Historical Restoration" (renamed based on comments from peer reviews) and "Management Plan" section. I'm waiting for my second usability test for that though, as I want to go over some of the specifics with a person that is more familiar with the information.
  

Blog Topic: Search Engine Optimization

While creating an effective website is important, most website creators will also want to generate as many visits as possible. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in.

SEO involves making minute adjustments to your website in order to give it an improved presence on popular search engines such as Google or Yahoo. Used properly a website can show up higher on a search engine, vastly improving traffic to the website.

SEO Methods

Keywords

Keywords are words and phrases that define your website. Search engines track keywords when determining the page rank, a variable that determines how high up your website will appear on search engines, of your website. Significant consideration must be taken in determining what keywords will be effective for your website.

Make a list of keywords. Consider a couple of important words or phrases that define your site. Use words that people will search for when looking for your website. Single out a few keywords that you think will work best to place on your website. For example my website for this class is a local environmental group, so “environmental cause” or “Maryland environmental group” are two keyword possibilities.

If you are uncertain if people will use your keyword to search for your website, several keyword tools exist online to give you a detailed report of how often your selected keyword is used. Google’s Keyword Tool is one such example, giving a comprehensive breakdown of monthly hits along with other notable trends.

Place these keywords in your website. There are several locations where your keywords can go. These include:

• Page Title – One of the biggest sections search engines will evaluate to determine what is on the web page.
• Meta Data – Although not as frequently today, meta-tags help some search engines categorize websites. Meta tags are inserted into the HTML of a website and are not typically visible to the viewer. Fortunately several website editors (including EditMe) will take care of this for you if you give them your keywords.
• H1 Header Text – The H1 header is the biggest header and is commonly used for titles and other critical information. As such, search engines like to analyze it.
• Page Content – The main page content should include your keywords. Although it helps to use the keyword multiple times within your page, you should not go out of your way to include it. Unnatural keyword placement results in keyword stuffing and can hurt your visibility on search engines.

Be patient. Search engines won’t instantly pick up on your keywords overnight. It will take a couple of days for engines to register the keywords and integrate them.

Page Linking

Good website navigation does more than just help your user navigate your website; it also helps search engines access your webpage. Search engines use web crawlers to explore your website and pull out searchable information like keywords. Good keyword placement is useless if the search engine cannot access your pages.

Homepage navigation is key. Crawlers will start at the homepage and progress from there to other sections of your website. Pages that are not linked from the homepage or pages immediately linked to the homepage can be easily missed.

Consider linking to similar websites. Known as reciprocal linking, two mutual websites that link to each other will boost rankings on search engines for both websites. This also has the practical effect of increasing traffic to your website from users to the website you link to.

Fun fact: Avid blog readers may be familiar with spam comments, artificially-generated comments from bots with a link to a website that you are…usually better off not visiting. This is a variation of page linking, albeit a rather unethical one.

These are just a few examples of using SEO to increase your search engine presence. The week 9 reading on SEO provides a more comprehensive look at SEO techniques including more specific information on the ones listed in this blog post. There are also a number of books dedicated to the topic.

Perfectly optimizing your website to meet SEO standards can take a significant amount of work. Agencies exist that are dedicated solely to assist organizations and other individuals in making a website SEO-compatible. In addition, consultants serve as search-engine optimizers. If you are a business attempting to construct a high-ranking website, hiring a specialist will make the process much easier. Google offers some useful tips on what to look for in a search engine optimizer.

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PRWR628: Website Progress Report 7/17/10

The website is finally beginning to take form and finish up. I have a few more tweaks and edits that I will be performing tonight and tomorrow. By Monday I hope to have the finished website ready to go in time for the final assignments.

The GoToMeeting with Timothy went well. There were no real technical issues and we were both able to deliver effective presentations in preparation for the video tour assignment. The assignment has given me some additional guidance in some ideas on making my website more scannable as I put the finishing touches on it.

PRWR628: Website Progress Report 7/10/10

Although both the menu and scannability tests revealed a number of potential issues with my blog, I have not yet gotten a chance to correct the errors these tests have revealed. I wanted to wait until I finished developing content for my website before I worked on tweaking it. By doing so, I would be able to avoid needless backtracking.

Now that the content is just about finished, I can focus on both cosmetic updates and addressing issues raised by the tests. Although my website is slowly becoming functional, there are a number of minor edits I need to make to the website in order for it to follow the guidelines set by Reddish and Krug. I will start these edits tomorrow in order to prepare for the upcoming peer reviews.

PRWR628: Website Progress Report 7/03/10

This week had me focusing on content addition. With most of my work involving adding actual content to the pages, holes in the website are beginning to fill in nicely. Although some pages are not complete, and many pages would benefit from some pictures, I am starting to establish the actual look and feel of the website. Comments that I received from _ helped greatly in guiding my content addition, especially in regards to the homepage. I do still need to find a good way of implementing the tagline on the banner however.

Completing the menu report has proven to be quite the eye opener. I thought that my navigation was fairly solid, but the report revealed a number of errors that I will need to correct before I begin to edit and shape the content that I have on the website. Although I have started to address some of the issues brought up by the report, my initial task in the week to come will be to fix the menus before I continue on with the content. I hope to have these issues resolved by the end of the holiday weekend so that I do not fall behind in the main task of reaching 75% content completion.

PRWR628: Website Progress Report 6/27/10

The major objective for this week was the completion of the skeleton site. It was nice to actually begin the practical work for the website. Now that I have the outline and pages posted, I feel like I am really beginning to make significant progress in completing the website.

In regards to major changes, I did not deviate too greatly from the outline that I presented last week. I may end up removing a few of the sublinks next week as I begin to start writing out the content. However on an overall level I think I am on track to continue following the plans and schedule that I posted in my outline.

PRWR628: Website Progress Report 6/19/10

I spent this week creating the outline and carefully started laying the foundation down for my website. Through the completion of the website planning document I was able to organize my thoughts and begin setting up a plan for how I will redesign the website. Over the next seven days I will begin the practical work, mainly in the form of the home page. I want to have the home page established along with a few of the links by the end of next week. This should put me on track to accomplishing 50% website content completion on time.

My website planning document can be accessed here.

PRWR628: Website Progress Report 6/12/10

I'm still in the early phases of my project in terms of design and general direction. The major obstacle I am facing in regards to designing the website is organization. The website I am working with has an extraordinary amount of texts and links, and my main objective at the moment is attempting to design a diagram in which I can reduce both the number of texts and links on the website.

I discussed some potential options with the people I work with at Friend's of Patapsco, and they recommended focusing on creating links that can help general groups of visitors find information relevant to their needs. For example, a link leading to a page for volunteers that are coming to the site specifically stating what is needed of them. Another page for potential donors that illustrates the importance and significance of the group, and so on.

I want to create a website that provides simplistic navigation for each group, yet at the same time I want to be careful not to provide overlapping or repeating information. I want something that can be accessed by both everyone, while at the same time easily catering to their specific needs without boring them with unnecessary details that don't interest them. This layout task is my major challenge right now.

My sample persona and scenario can be accessed here.

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Movie Review

Note: This movie review contains minor spoilers, though if you’ve already seen the original Nightmare on Elm Street I’m not spoiling much.

In this day and age of modern cinema there are two things we can always count on: Another (often increasingly obscure) comic book hero movie is always around the corner, and scriptwriters are clearly running out of original movie ideas. For an example of the former note that Jonah Hex is around the corner. In regards to the latter, remakes are IN. Sometimes this means we are treated to a remake of an obscure late 70’s piranha movie (now in 3D! Joy!) or something a little more recognizable…like say Nightmare on Elm Street.

…at least it was not in 3D.

I did not come into Nightmare with high expectations for two reasons. First, this is a modern day remake of a classic movie franchise. This tends to be a death sentence for me before I even start watching the movie. I really liked the original Nightmare, and I always go into a remake of a classic movie fearing that modern day theatrics will mess up the spirit of the original with fancy computers CGI and all that jazz. Do not get me wrong, there is a way to make a modern day remake work. At the same time, there are also many ways through which it can and will fail. This holds especially true for Horror movies that aren’t named “The Decent” (which really should have kept the original untrimmed ending in North America, but I’m rambling)

I had one hope for this movie, one aspect that I wanted to be perfect beyond everything else. I really wanted to see Jackie Haley pull off one astonishing Freddy Kruger. This may seem like an obvious point, but I must point out that I am a huge fan of Haley after seeing Watchmen, a movie I largely enjoyed for the sole reason of seeing Haley running around as Rorschach (everything else was hit or miss about that movie for me). Haley had the potential to pull off an amazing Freddy, he had the voice, the posture, a perfect man to put on the claw glove. I could have cared less if everything else about the movie sucked if Haley did a good job.

Sadly everything that made Haley awesome in Watchmen was not present in this movie. Instead, viewers are treated to a subpar performance by not only Haley, but pretty much everyone else in the movie. I’ll give Haley props for trying, he was close and looked menacing enough, but whenever he spoke the veil of a creepy evil dream stalker was removed from my vision. Instead of a Rorshach voice, we get something that sounds like Christopher Nolan’s Batman. Now when I think of Freddy, I half expect him to appear in one of the kid’s dreams, grab them by the neck, and shout WHERE IS HE?!?

Freddy to me is not a vigilante seeking justice; he is an evil vengeful bastard that takes pleasure in killing people and listening to their final screams of terror. Having only watched the original Nightmare and subsequent remake I won’t attempt to analyze the motives that drive Freddy, but Haley as Freddy to me felt too driven by revenge, killing the children as revenge against the parents that hunted him down. While this is good, the actual horror aspect, the pleasure that Freddy gets from playing his little cat and mouse game of hunting down the victim before pouncing on them brutally and killing them is completely lost here. Nightmare is a horror movie franchise; this remake was a supernatural revenge movie starring evil Batman. Freddy still shows up, states his trademark line before appearing and killing the victim after a witty one-liner, but it all felt soulless here, and not at all menacing. I dare say it: Haley mostly ended up sleepwalking through his acting role.

If Haley was sleepwalking through this movie, than clearly the teen protagonists never got out of bed. No one really seemed to have their heart in this movie. Truthfully, the direction is more to blame for this. The movie builds itself on the shock value to the point where it relies on the jump way too much. In order for a shock to work, you need both a startling audio cue and a visual reaction on screen. The audio was there, oh boy it was there, but the kids definitely did not have that “oh crap the killer is behind me” reaction that you would suspect. The momentum fades instantly leaving a bunch of teenage kids acting like their stoned…though to be fair it wouldn’t surprise me if Quentin really was. I’d pass on that date promise Nancy.

As for building suspense…well suffice to say this movie does not try to be clever in offering any true surprises. You will see every shocking moment coming a mile away. As my horror movie aficionado girlfriend sitting next to me constantly said throughout the movie “it’s coming…anytime now…” in regards to the not so subtle hints that Freddy was about to “shockingly” appear. I couldn’t help but agree.

Speaking of dreamland, the alternate realty did provide one of my favorite parts about the movie: the transition between real world and dream world. I’m a sucker for cool visual tricks, and there were some pretty cool surreal tricks as the teens crossed over, not to mention some of the things that occurred in the dreams themselves. While I liked it, the movie could have done a much better job at promoting suspense here. At one late point one of the teens says “It’s becoming difficult to determine what is real anymore, if we are awake or asleep.” I was thinking they would play with both this and the whole “awake while sleeping” thing (whatever the medical term for it was called) a lot more. Sadly it was a one surprise trick never to surface again. Pity.

On its own, Nightmare ranks as a completely average movie in my book. My dislike for the movie stems mostly from disappointment in what could have and should have been an excellent 90 minutes of Jackie Haley running around killing people with an uber claw glove. Nightmare purity aside, there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the movie at the end of the day, but it really could have been so much more. This movie will not give me nightmares due to being a cinematic disaster, but I will lose sleep wondering what could have been.