20 Days of Christmas Sale at PDA 24/7

PDA 24/7 is having their annual holiday season sale and Smart Box Design will be featured on the first day, December 1st. If you are looking for some deals stop by PDA 24/7 daily for the next 20 days. See you there.

Palm

Pocket PC / Windows Mobile

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

We had a great snowstorm yesterday that has closed most of Bellingham, WA. The paper asked residents to stay home if possible. The schools are closed which I m sure all the kids are celebrating. The snow is a beautiful sight to see. Snow still holds a child like wonder for me as I barely saw it growing up in Southern California.

The attached pictures were taken from my Zire 72 PDA. The views are from my second story bedrooms. The water in the background is Bellingham Bay. Canada is just a mere 10 miles or so north of here.

Although the Treo and Zire PDA have been criticised for the low end camera I think it is fine for quick pictures that you want to share online. I find it very convenient having a camera with me at all times as I take my Zire with me everywhere. I am thinking about moving up to the Treo 680. I will take a look at it as soon as the snow melts and I can get to the mall.

Win a copy of any of my mobile games. Send me a picture from your Treo, PDA or Phone, and I will randomly select a winner or two. Send email to tsherman(at)smartboxdesign.com (replace the "at" with "@").

Smart Box Design Forum is Up and Running

I love forums. They are rich with content and the casual nature of them often result in some very entertaining posts. I added a forum to Smart Box Design about a year ago. I used phpBB2 which is a very well known. Unfortunately, each week it was getting hacked, and I was spending more time fending off hackers than actually creating software. Thus I closed it down. After searching and reviewing several bulletin boards I settled on vBulletin. After spending most of the day installing it and doing basic configuration I can only say that I AM THRILLED WITH IT. It works great, has more features that I know what to do with it, and is fast. I will be announcing its comeback in my next newsletter. But if you wish to post please do so by clicking this link. Smart Box Design Forum

TraxItAll Review

I am a list guy. I make lists for everything; who to call, changes I need to make to the Web site, gifts for family, home repairs, etc. However, I have several reoccurring tasks, such as doing my push ups every morning and giving my cat her medication twice a day, that does not fit well into a task list. TraxItAll fills this niche.

TraxItAll "...does something no other program can do: it automatically tracks anything on a daily basis." For example, to track my cat's medication, I made the header Cat-AM and then Cat-PM. I then selected to track this task daily and finally made the data entry a Yes No choice. This took all but a minute. Now when I give my cat her meds I tap the box next to the date and it fills in with a Yes, if I forget, I tap again for a No. For my push ups, I topped the column with Push Ups and selected count as my entry choice. After I do my push ups, I tap the box next to the date and it increments by one for each push up I did. Quick and easy.

TraxItAll is the type of program than is simple but deep. The more you use it the more there is. For example it has a great reporting system so you can track your progress over time. You can even set goals.

There are few features I would like to see added in the future. I think there are several opportunities to use color. For example Yes could be green and the No red. Also, I would like to be able to resize the column widths to squeeze a little bit more data on the screen.

TraxItAll has a wonderful flash demo that you can watch here and is thoroughly documented. If you want to be more organized you need to try TraxItAll.

My Digital Generation - A fun read

Shaun McGill a well known writer in the mobile world has written a wonderful book name My Digital Generation about his generation and technology. You will no doubt find and learn something of yourself when you read it.

The first three legit comments (as determined by me) about this book or Shaun McGill will receive a free copy of Smart Box Design's game Triples for Palm OS.

Here is an excerpt from the book: “When I was very young we used to have an outside toilet and I remember being scared that a big spider or rat would come and visit while I was taking care of business yet at no time did I think it odd that the toilet was in the garden. My brother and I used to have our baths in the kitchen sink and again it all seemed perfectly normal. We used to play in the street because there were hardly any cars and when the man who lived a few doors down picked up the local children to let them sit in the back of his open bed truck while he drove down the hill no one shouted “paedophile!” at him…” “…I remember snow very vividly and being able to build a Dad sized snowman and then roll his head down the hill just before the global warming melted him- in those days global warming was called the Sun…”

How I used my Palm during the power outage

I now live in Bellingham, which is 85 miles north of Seattle and about 10 miles from the Canadian border. Yesterday a strong storm arrived with 80 plus miles per hour winds. It was not long before the power was out in the entire area. During the day I kept busy by looking up phone numbers on my Zire 72 PDA and catching up with friends and family. Night starts around 4:20 this far north so I was soon in pitch black. I went back to Zire and started playing games. I started with Bejeweled, then moved on to Bubble Ship Boy, and ended my last game playing Eric Snider’s Solitaire. With my battery wearing down and still hours to go before I would be tired I opened eReader and went down my list of several books I had recently loaded. Tarzan Lord of the Jungle quickly popped to the top of my list. I made myself comfortable on my bed and spend the next three hours reading Tarzan on my Palm. With about 20% battery left, I decided it was time to stop and conserve what was remaining. I opened World Clock and set the alarm for an early morning rise and went to bed (after brushing my teeth). Power was back on by morning, but with my Palm I barely missed a beat.

Google's New Blogger is Great

I really enjoy blogging. It gives me a chance to discuss technology topics that interest me and to give insight into developing casual games. I use Google's Blogger because it is easy to use and free. I tried several of the paid Blogger services and although they were all feature rich, they were much more than what I needed. However, Google's Blogger had several frustrating shortcomings. The most important was the lack of customization tools. You either had to stick to the basics or jump into HTML editing, there was no in between.

The new Beta Blogger is very nice. Many of the basic features that I had to add manually in the HTML editing view have a pretty good, although not perfect, interface. Bloggers can now easily add links, pictures, lists, change colors, rearrange the screen, and spell check much easier and faster. My Blog already look better. If you don't already have a Blog, I encourage you to start one today with Google Blogger.

Porting Word Monaco to Windows Mobile - Part 4

Recently we've had an interesting problem, signing. What is signing? It is adding a verified certificate to your program which tells the smartphone that the application can be trusted. If you want your Windows Mobile application to install onto a smartphone, such as a Treo without an error message declaring your application as untrustworthy you will need to buy a certificate. In theory, the certificate is to protect the consumer from bad manufacturers.

I do not have any statistics on how many phone users have purchases games or other applications for their smartphones and the program destroyed their phone or stole data, or did some other unmentionable act. If you have or know of someone who's phone was attacked please let me know as I would love to talk with them.

Overall, I am not happy about having to purchase a certificate to remove, in my opinion, an unnecessary message. I could say more about this topic, but this blog entry at Craig Stuntz's Weblog says it all. What is interesting about all of this, is that none of this is required for Palm OS smartphones.

Great Free Web Link Checker

In addition to being President of Smart Box Design, I am also responsible for maintaining the Web site. After a long day, I find it relaxing to tweak the pages and try out new ideas.

I had not checked for broken links in a bit and being unsatisfied with my current tools I went searching on the Web to find something new. The FREE program Xenu quickly rose to the top of my list. It is a small and specific tool only designed to check links. I downloaded and installed it and to my surprise it worked great. Why was I surprised? Free programs rarely work as advertised.

Xenu quickly checks each page and displays if each link is successfully linking to another HTML page. To my surprise there were over 15 broken links. I quickly discovered some of them were from graphics, while others were links to reviews on external sites, but still, I had a few broken links that needed my attention.

Xenu provides a very long and detailed list on all the links of the web site entered in HTML form. The program will even post the results to your Web site if you have the correct FTP information. After about 40 minutes I made the corrections and retested.

If you are looking for a free and simple broken link checker I highly recommend Xenu.

Britney Spears should Play Farkle Dice

Britney Spears should play Farkle Dice as I think it would improve her life immensely. Although Farkle Dice is primarily designed and developed for entertainment purposes it has a lot of education built in. These Farkle Educational Features can help her.

Educational Feature 1 - Statistics / Play the Odds
Each roll has fewer and fewer dice which decreases the odds of a successful combination. For example, if you are trying to get the 2 to appear, rolling 5 dice has better odds then just rolling 1. If Britney Spears played Farkle Dice and compared it to her marriage she would have learned early on what the odds are for success. She could have assigned each dice side with a trait, such as, happy, sad, anger, bliss, divorce, envy, and jelousy. Then roll the dice to see which ones are coming up more often. If divorce is appearing often, perhaps it would have been better not to marry. But perhaps she was hoping to beat the odds.

Educational Feature 2 - Risk Management
Each roll risks all points earned. The player needs to weigh the risks of earning more points to getting a bad roll. A losing roll results in all points earned being lost for that round. When Britney Spears chose a husband she needed to apply this lesson as each husband is like a roll, should she keep him or roll again? It appears this time she should have rolled again.

Educational Feature 3 - Others Influence Behavior
In Farkle Dice, if another player is way ahead or way behind you behave differently. If you are behind, you need to take more chances or you may never catch up and win, if ahead you can take it easy. Britney Spears should have compared her success with her husbands. Since his career was so far in the rear she could have predicted that he would start taking chances to catch up with her success.

I do wish the best for Britney Spears. By all accounts she appears to be a very hard worker.

When you are playing Farkle Dice, remember these three educational lessons and try to apply them to your life at work or at home. Play the odds, take risks, and remember how your life influences others. But most of all, remember that life is a game to be enjoyed.

Shaun McGill All Around Gadget Guy

Technology enthusiasts come in all types. You have the cutting edge technofile, the must have the latest no matter what it is, the slow adopter, and others. Each group has it's own opinions and reasons for using and loving their devices. Every now and then you come across a person who really understands these groups and reaches out to them. Shaun McGill is one of those people.

Shaun runs several Web sites and contributes to many. If you have not yet visited these Web locations you are in for a treat. Take the time over the next few days to check them out. My favorite is WindowsMobile24/7.

Writer- PDA Essentials: http://www.pda-essentials.co.uk/
News Editor- Palmtop User: http://www.palmtop.co.uk/
Palm247: www.palm247.com
WindowsMobile247: www.windowsmobile247.com
Symbian247: www.moremobile247.com
E61 Blog: http://stmcgill.wordpress.com/

Palm Addict Supplies Great Palm Info

I love my Palm device. I am excited about the Treo 680 coming out this week at Cingular and I plan to be one of the first to buy. But how did I learn that Cingular will be selling it this week? Palm Addicts. Where do I get the latest news? Palm Addicts. Where can read rumors of things that might be? Palm Addict.

Purchasing a Treo is not cheap which is why I want to take full advantage of it. Palm Addicts is reviewing and discussing software, hardware accessories, and tricks on a daily basis. For me, my day is not complete without reading their articles.

I subscribe to their RSS feed using Yahoo.com news reader. That way I can glance at the latest postings, which change constantly. I encourage you to visit them. It is worth your time and will help you take full advantage of your Treo.

Porting Word Monaco to Windows Mobile - Part 3

There are 4 key areas that need to change when porting Word Monaco Solitaire from Palm to Pocket PC / Windows Mobile devices. These areas are critical as the audience is used to navigating and interfacing differently than the Palm.

Menus - Window Mobile OS displays a universal menu at the top of the screen for global navigation and a menu at the bottom of the screen which is controlled by the launched application. Many games take over these areas to gain back precious screen real estate. Microsoft provides links to third party developers who have published code to take control of these areas. Plus a developer can create their own code. I saw two risks in taking over the menus. The first is as new devices are released there is no guarantee that the application will be compatible once you stray from Microsoft official code structure and second, many Pocket PC owners are professionals and we wanted to make sure the could quickly navigate away from our games and back to work without anyone noticing. :) Thus, all of our games leave the global navigation at top alone and create an appropriate and helpful menu on the bottom of the screen.

Help - Windows Mobile OS supports a reduced version of HTML. Which I think is fantastic. This means the WM users can easily and quickly navigate my long and thorough help. Plus I can then post the same help file on my web site.

Different Orientation - With the exception of a few square Pocket PC's most of the devices running Windows Mobile are rectangle while most Palms are square. This new ratio results in additional real estate for our players and I think Pocket PC players expect gamers to take advantage of the space. On Word Monaco Solitaire we will allow users to make longer words and my tips can be slightly longer, if necessary.

Fonts - Windows Mobile has a greater variety of fonts and sizes than the Palm. Pocket PC players are use to this variety and expect information to be presented clearly. In Word Monaco we were able to fit more information into a smaller area because of this. For example, the tips that pop up use a smaller font than on the Palm, this resulted in a smaller dialog box, which means more of the game can be viewed when the tip is being read.

These four areas were the ones the rose to the top for Word Monaco Solitaire. Other games will have different concerns. If you have a question or comment, please feel free to contact me.

WordPop! Winning Strategies - Part 2 of 5 Hard Letters

Use difficult letters early. Letters like Q, Z, J, X and V are harder to use than other letters because there are fewer words that use them. For example, how many words can you think of with Q. Now compare that to words starting with B. Plus 99% of the time the letter Q is followed by a U. You have to work to get a U next to the Q to make a word like QUOTE or QUICK. However, if you get stuck WordPop accepts the word QAT (which is a type of shrub). If you see the letter Z, check to see if there is another one. If there are two Zs you can make high scoring words like BUZZING.

Having difficult letters near the end of the round is very difficult because there are few 2, 3, and 4 letters words with Q, Z, J, X, and V in them. Often you are forced to use a blank tile.

Use those difficult letters as soon as possible. WordPop! is available for Palm and Pocket PC. Look for tip #3 coming soon.

WordPop! Winning Strategies - Part 1 of 5 Vowels

WordPop! is our most popular game and as a result I receive many positive comments about the game. One popular theme is how to be a better player. I will address this question over a five part series. Here is Part 1 of 5.

Assess the number of vowels. The number of vowels per round is random, although the code maintains a minimum and maximum count to guarantee the round is solvable. After the letter tiles have fallen into place look for the vowels to get a general sense of how many there are. If there are very few, then you know that you must make words that use several consonants but few vowels. Many words with blends fall into this category, such as black, flint, spring, strips, etc. In each of these words 4 - 5 consonants were used but only one vowel. When the grid is half empty you could easily find yourself with too many vowels. If you do have too many, develop a list of words that use several vowels, such as, iota or ion.

Good luck clearing the round and keep an eye on those vowels. WordPop! is available for Palm and Pocket PC.

Look for tip #2 coming soon.

Porting Word Monaco to Windows Mobile - Part 2

I had a great conversation with Surur Davids from Window Mobile 24/7 in his email he says, "Your note about the profusion of resolutions in the windows mobile world is an interesting insight in itself. Who knew the market has already become so fragmented, and now with the new prominence of the smartphone platform things will become even more confusing for consumers and software developers." I agree with this. My team will have to work very hard to make the process of installing easy and error free. Fortunately, Microsoft has provided a nice suite of products to help developers.

I also received a request asking who the team members are. The team is made up of:

• Jim Patterson - Artist, animator, and designer. Jim will create every piece of art. He is 100% dedicated to his work and the results are fantastic.
• Wyatt Webb - Engineer, technology expert, graduate of MIT. Wyatt is the type of engineer who instantly grabs concepts and runs with them. Wyatt also programmed WordPop and Farkle for Pocket PC.
• John Winston - Sound engineer. John is the owner of Sound Audio Solutions, and has created all the sound and music for all our Palm and Pocket PC games. If you ever need sound or music for your games, applications, video, electronic toy, etc. his company is excellent.
• Todd Sherman - Producer, designer, and QA tester. Author of this blog.

I was hoping to cover features that need to be changed so the game feels like a Windows Mobile game, but will cover that in the next blog.

Porting Word Monaco to Windows Mobile - Part 1

Over the next several months I will provide updates and some of the thought processes involved in porting our new game Word Monaco Solitaire to the Windows Mobile platform.

One of the first choices I had to make was what versions of the operating system to support. Our framework was designed to work with Windows Mobile (WM) 2003 and 2003SE. Should the framework be updated to take full advantage of Windows Mobile 5 but possibly be WM 2003 incompatible? The team consensus was clearly no and I agreed. Since my game is a 2D puzzle, it would not need the full power of WM 5.0

The next question to answer was which screen resolutions to support? I can't support them all, as a privately owned company, I need to watch to bottom line carefully. After reviewing device sales data and pulling out the old crystal balls, several predictions were made on what might be released. Thus Word Monaco Pocket PC will support 240 x 320, 480 x 640, and 240 x 240. If the Motorola Q is a huge hit, 320 x 240 might be added to the mix. The art needs to be tweaked for each one of these resolutions, which increases costs. And the game code has to be modified too as the relative input changes (more on that later). Installation becomes more complex as the installer will need to detect the device type and install the correct files and technical support issues become more varied.

My next blog on Word Monaco will list out features that need to be changed so the game feels like a Windows Mobile game.

If you are interested in signing up to be informed when Word Monaco Solitaire for Windows Mobile is click here.

Scrabble Players Love their Words

I love making games. My team and I released our 5th game last month, Word Monaco Solitaire. It is our 3rd word game. After creating WordPop! I realized that I really miss creating word games. I use to create language arts software for children and it was so rewarding watching a child make the reading connection.

A few days ago an upgrade for Word Monaco Solitaire was released. This release was the result of urging from the Scrabble community. Scrabble players are VERY competitive. To be great players they've learned to make very abstract words. Many players rely on those words to get out of a jam or to get some really high scoring words. The word list used in our games has 83,000 plus entries but the majority of the words are classified as common. Words you would see in the newspaper, best selling fiction novels, and in movies. Scrabble players pointed out to me that sometimes the key for getting out of a jam in my games is often making a 2 or 3 letter word and they felt more were needed. So this last month, I gathered all the suggested words and expanded upon them.

Here is the work involved. If a word is suggested I check it first against several dictionaries to make sure the word does not conflict with several rules I have for adding a word.

1. The word can't be a name or any word that would require it to be capitalized.
2. It can't be an abbreviation or hyphenated, for that matter the word cannot have any punctuation associated with it, such as can't.
3. It is a real word or spelled correctly

Once it passes my test, I then need to locate all the forms of the word, such as its plural, inflection, tense. For example, if the word 'help' was suggested, I don't just add the word 'help' but I also add 'helps', helped', 'helping', 'helper' etc. Thus it is a lot of work to add each word.

Adding over 300 new words to Word Monaco Solitaire was a tremendous effort but a lot of fun. Many of the words being suggested are so unusual that I get a big kick finding out the definition of the word. Plus I really like being able to change my games based on user feedback. This is the best way to improve the game.

All in all, I hope all you Word Monaco Solitaire players really enjoy the new version. Try making some 2 and 3 letter combination and see if the letters stick. I think you will be surprised on some of the words you can make.

Keep those suggestions coming.

Great New Blog about Mobile Devices

I love gadgets, especially mobile devices. It fits my active lifestyle and makes me feel connected to my family especially when I travel. I am always on the lookout for new information sites that provide well written and cool information. I am a huge fan of Palm Addicts and PDA 24/7 and now I have a new site to look forward to, Matt Miller's, The Mobile Gadgeteer on ZDNET. Matt had already made a name for himself at Geek.com so I was not surprised to hear that ZDNET wanted to hire him.

This weeks articles cover secure data, which is important if you ever lose your phone or PDA, a review of the Motorola Q which is challenging Blackberry, and ThunderHawks web browser. But don't take my word for it. Go to The Mobile Gadgeteer today.

These are a few of my favorite things...

Being a gadget guy and loving technology, I am always trying out new application and devices. Below are a few of my favorite things from the last several months.

Favorite Palm Applications

Vindigo City Guide - Vindigo supplies great information about cities, such as places to eat, museums, hot spots, directions, bathrooms (LOL), weather, etc. I use it mostly for finding places to eat and finding cab companies. I never travel without first adding the city I will be visiting.

QuickTips - A FREE application that quickly and easily divides a dinner tab and figures out the tip. It has preset amounts like 15% or 20%, or you can customize it to a preferred percentage.

Destaller - This application makes trying new programs safe. It will thoroughly remove an application and its associated files.

Facer 3 - Replaces the Palm OS look and feel with a fantastic launcher and home page. The home page presents to-do lists, appointments etc., and the launcher page makes navigation a breeze. I like the program so much I plan write a complete review of it in the near future.

Favorite Pocket PC Applications

SPB Weather - Not that I can't look outside, but great for planning outdoor events, especially with the weather finally turning nice.

Broken Sword - What a fun game! It has s a great story line with fun, integrated puzzles that propels the adventure. The Pocket PC version is very faithful to the PC version.

Favorite Windows PC Applications

Skype - I use it all the time to "call" my artist in Japan or to setup conference calls. With a good headset and microphone the sound is excellent and it is free.

PC-Cillian - When I upgraded to Norton 2005 my machine took a nose dive in performance. I removed it and machine speed came back. I did this three times until I was convinced it was Norton. After trying several other virus protection software I selected PC-Cillan for its ease of use, speed, and integration with online and offline email.

Dreamweaver - Makes web site building a breeze. I do recommend taking a class to get full use out of it.

Favorite Gadgets / Hardware

Synching / Charging Cables - They are great to travel with. Compact and light. They use the USB Port to charge your device, so a little slow but gets the job done.

Porporta Crystal Clear Case - Not only does it protect my PDA's but I can check a date, to-do item, etc, without having to open the case. I understand the appeal of the other cases but I am most efficient with a clear case.

Logitech USB headset and microphone.- I bought this to use with Skype and it is great. The advantage of having a USB headset is that you can continue to have music playing while using the headset to talk. Also it is very cool to use on multi-player games.