Description:
Random thoughts from the creator of Ally's Adventures,
Cherokee Trails and the SerpentHead Saga.
Contents:
2005 SIC, trip, games and more!
Hello everyone,
It has been a long time since I wrote in this blog. Time gets away from you when you are very busy. I decided to cut back on a few things I was doing, and [ummm] well... started a few other things. [sigh] I can't help it. It's just the way I am.
But here I am tonight, taking it easy, with only the gentle sounds of my cat snoring (I think she has a cold) to keep me company, so I thought I'd share a few thoughts about everything that has happened lately.
We attended the Shareware Industry Conference in Denver, and it was great! Cherokee Trails won the award for best educational software or game. We are truly pleased and feel so honored to have received this award.
You can see some pictures from the event, and our also eventful (and fun!) drive out to the West Coast and back by clicking here.
We've added a lot of products to the Great Mind Store website and these are also featured in our store on Amazon.com.
We've also got some fantastic new games on our site, including Dr Germ and Pretty Good Solitaire .
I can't help be downhearted tonight though, as I think of the problems from the hurricane that devastated Louisiana, and now another class 4 hurricane threatens the coast of Texas. My thoughts and prayers are with those people who are trying to get out of the path of this storm. It looks as though the storm has veered away somewhat. I hope and pray that somehow hurricane Rita will not do the damage that is predicted.
Stay safe, everyone!
Kathy
Waxing Philosophical - Backgammon Thoughts
If I might, I will wax philosophical for just a moment. Come to think of it, waxing philosophical is much easier than waxing just about anything else I can think of.
I was just thinking how life is like a game, and this led to another thought: this would be a good blog entry. This led to yet another thought, but I valiantly made my way back to the blog idea.
The other day we were playing backgammon, and I rolled double sixes five times in one game. Five times!
Now you would think this would be incredibly lucky, fortuitous, and maybe even thrilling. But you see, I was "on the bar" for three of those five lucky rolls, and couldn't use the move, since the "six spot" was blocked..
What does this mean? Was I unlucky because I rolled double sixes three times on the bar?
Was I incredibly lucky to roll them twice more after I was off the bar? Does the bad luck cancel out the good and just make me "average" lucky?
I think it means that you simply must be ready and able to use good luck when it comes along. This could mean that you continue to learn, and add skills so that when you have a chance to use them, you're ready!
It could mean that you continually think positive thoughts so that when your "good luck" comes along, you can recognize it and take advantage of the situation.
It could mean that I should learn to play backgammon better so I don't end up on the bar so often!!
Have a great day everyone. I'm going to go get out the backgammon board!
Kathy
More Systems Thinking
I mentioned systems thinking in an earlier blog entry. When I first read about it, I thought that systems thinking was just about the best thing since sliced bread. It was one of those special moments - what do you call them? - epiphanies?
Ever since then, systems thinking has been my catch phrase, my mantra, my joi de vive (wait that's something else!)
At any rate, it has helped me - at least I think so... I've been working on the premise that everything should have a system, and every system should have a place. I have faith that it's all going to work out in the long run, but now I have systems for my systems, and complexity upon complexity, not quite resolved, but mostly just piling up in my office, not to mention my brain. I used to happily ignore these things, and go blithely about my business. Though admittedly that business wasn't doing so well.
Not since I am a systems thinker.
Before systems thinking I would never have had the nerve to tackle so many projects. But it's getting really crowded in here. Do you know what this means? I am a real honest-to-God entrepreneur!
It also means we need to remodel the office area, if I have any hope of creating more systems. This means we are becoming a real two room business! Growth!
But I promised that my next blog entry would have something to do with gaming. Well, it's about time, isn't it?
The cell phone problem resolved itself, with a land line being installed for the office. We also have a nifty antenna which brings us up to 3-4 bars most of the time, and an unverifiable rumor that Verizon will put up a new tower in the near future. Maybe we are clinging to straws, but this rumor was enough to make us decide to keep the service.
Not only that, but I could hook my laptop USB adapter up to the serial port of the cell phone, and that is just too cool.
Oh yes... back to gaming...
We needed this ...ahem... "system" for the cell phone/laptop because we are planning to attend the Shareware Industry Conference in Denver this year. We're making a long road trip out of it, and although we'll have our young assistant keeping an eye on the 2 room (wheee!) office, we do need to stay connected, just for our peace of mind. OK, MY peace of mind...
And what does it have to do with gaming?
Much to our shock and surprise (since we didn't even submit the game for consideration) Cherokee Trails has been nominated for "best educational software or game" !!!
If I can be uncharacteristically serious for just one moment, I will say how honored we are to be nominated for this award. A big thank you goes out to everyone in the shareware industry who voted for Cherokee Trails!
Have some fun today, everyone!
Kathy
Posted by Kathy Salisbury at 11:59
Going Wireless
Everyone else on the planet has a cellphone but me, or so it seems. Normally I like techie gadgets, of course, but I didn't seem to get the hang of using cellphones. Maybe it was because I was so attached to my old gadgets.
I have fond memories of working for Verizon years ago, when it used to be GTE, and when I started there as a technician the equipment was still electromechanical. They were still using the old step-by-step (or stepper) switches that had been around since approximately 1945!
I survived the conversion to all-digital equipment, and that was pretty cool too. But the phones were still the same. They were heavy, and tough, and fit snuggly over your ear. You didn't worry about signal levels. (Actually I did work on digital microwave too, and we were a tad concerned about that, since it carried ALL the long distance traffic!)
But at home, unless some act of God knocked down a pole (or a hungry squirrel chewed through your phone line!) that good old 48 volt talk battery got through every time.
But we needed a wireless connection, since we'll be traveling this summer -- so reluctantly we ported our old phone number over to wireless. We live in a hilly area (Amish country) just on the verge of the Verizon service area.
So Fedex delivered this teeny tiny little toy telephone last week, and before we knew it we were forced to learn to use it, when our old phones (SOB) quit working. It does look pretty cool, I will admit. But it's so tiny!
But our signal strength was not anything to boast about. Things weren't looking good for our decision to go wireless. We were able to call Verizon from the old phone (although nowhere else) and a very nice sales rep at Verizon switched us over to Verizon Wireless.
The Verizon sales rep could not understand this strange concept "land-based phone line." Apparently I was speaking Greek, not English, because he couldn't understand anything else I said either.
I put my husband on the phone, and he also failed to make any headway. At one, the VW rep remarked that talking to us was "like talking to his parents." This little comment didn't exactly endear him to my heart, as you might imagine.
Anyway, we finally gave up, and decided to try again another day. Turns out the signal levels are pretty good today, the phone is pretty nifty, and we may keep it after all.
In my next entry I'll tell you why we will be traveling this summer, and yes, it does have something to do with games! I promise!
Take care, everyone!
Kathy
Posted by Kathy Salisbury at 16:17
To Carlos - Not to worry
I just received a wonderful email. As a result, I have to write a special entry in my blog dedicated specially to Carlos. 
Now I don't really know Carlos, but he said he has bookmarked my blog and every time he sees it lately he feels bad for me, because my last blog entry was entitled "Worry."
Where have I been?
I'm not still worrying!!! Well, at least no more than usual anyway. Hanging my head in shame, I admit that have not done a very good job of keeping up my blog.
It's a well known fact that computers will, if you let them, invent new tasks for you, of ever-increasing complexity, that take up ALL of your time.
This is what happened to me - I was assimilated. However, it is not completely the computer's fault. Most of the problem was due to the fact that I took on too many tasks for too many people. These were all fascinating tasks, mind you, and accomplishing the most frustrating of them helped me to learn the most. Therefore, I don't regret doing them.
In fact one of these tasks was creating an ebook. I agreed to do it mainly to learn about ebooks, with my primary goal being to publish them. In the process, however, I learned that I do not communicate well with non-geeks. Non-geeks prefer to converse via telephone - how quaint! Not me. If I can't read it on a computer screen, I can't absorb it. Yes, I have been assimilated all right. Sad, but true.
Have a great weekend, Carlos, and everyone else!
Kathy
Worry
Worry wears you down, it gives you gray hair, it ruins your health. So why do we worry? I'm pretty convinced there is a genetic component. My Mom is the champion worrier of all times. She can worry about things that most of us can't even imagine, and then invents new scenarios to give herself even more things to worry about.
So I come by my worrying honestly. I even worry that I worry too much. Then I quit doing that, and start to worry that I'm not worrying enough. What is the antidote to worry? Action!! But sometimes you find yourself in a position where you really can't do anything but wait for things to get better. So then what do you do? The answer is simple -play games!
Playing games relieves stress, it relieves boredom, and even better - it relieves worry! Especially my worry -- if you buy our games! If everyone, or even half the people, who come to this website, will buy our games, then I will have no worries at all. Ok I'm just kidding... I think(!) Anyway, don't worry - be happy! Play some games - euchre, backgammon, cranium, trivial pursuit, monopoly, scrabble [don't groan] or crosswords. These are my personal favorites.
Have a great day, everyone!
Yipes, I've become a marketer!
Life is a game. I think that when you realize that, you're one step ahead of the crowd!
I hope folks will forgive my ramblings about marketing lately, because I've been looking at it as a big game that I am playing. I started looking at everything that is being marketed, and wondering why people like what they do.
Sometimes it's the name. Right now I'm taping the National Geographic Special HogZilla! so that I can watch it later. What is interesting about a giant wild hog, and the hunt to prove its existence? Maybe it was the name "HogZilla" that really piqued my interest.
Sometimes it's not the product so much, but the delivery, that is important. The classic example is the McDonald's hamburger. Is it better than a hamburger you make at home? Probably not, but McDonald's is great at the delivery, with restaurants everywhere, advertising, and promotion.
Uh-oh... I believe this qualifies as more rambling. I promise my next blog entry will be focused on gaming. Marketing might be a game, but it's a lot more nerve-wracking than the games we usually play around here.
Back to play - umm, I mean work!!
Multiple streams of income
Oh the life of an entrepreneur is not all fun and games, you know. Well, in my line of work it is actually (mostly, maybe about 99.9%). But making games does require a lot of effort. While I love making games, trying to make money with them does not come naturally to me. This does seem to be changing a little, however, as I realize more and more that marketing really is like a big game, and it starts becoming fun to play it. See my blog in a few days for my next entry: "Yipes, I've become a marketer!
Being a successful entrepreneur requires something called multiple streams of income. This mainly consists of having ideas, never a problem for me. Sometimes I just wish for one day, I'd quit getting ideas. But then I'd be a vegetable, and there might be no turning back. Oops, off on another tangent aren't I? mmmm...vegetables...
My ideas range from making posters, to selling Amish spices that really turn out to be from Hungary (it's a long story). Some of these ideas pan out, and some of them die in Szeged.
The other day I looked into merchant accounts. I researched for hours and hours and hours to find the best deal. It was like a treasure hunt. But I did eventually grow quite weary, trying to figure out all the various options, and what was really, when you get right down to the nitty-gritty, the best deal.
In the process it occurred to me, hey maybe our company could become an authorized reseller of these credit card gateways. How hard could that be? Did a little more checking, and found we don't really qualify for this. Since I didn't even know what an ISO or an MSP was, that should have been my first clue. :)
Seems you need to develop a pretty close relationship with a bank, and pay the bank something like $10k per year. That would be a pretty close relationship all right. I get nervous even thinking about that much intimacy.
Well, anyway, the long and the short of it is that we just got our very own merchant account... and an authorized gateway - ooooh! Maybe we'll become an "Associate" reseller, since we can probably handle that. Soon the order pages on our website will be a bit easier to navigate, and I'll be able to sell my Hungarian Amish spices at the flea market too.
Hope you are having a great weekend, everyone, and greetings to Szeged!
Kathy
Not So Sick of Spam
There are lots of incredibly nice people in the software business, and when our friends at DAIR Computer Systems read my blog entry entitled Sick of Spam they very kindly sent me a complimentary copy of their software SPAMAI.
Thanks to the SPAMAI Anti Spam Filter Software, I can actually use my kathy@ email address (even though it gets more than 99% Spam). I don't have to endure the embarrassing pictures and ANNOYING STUPID spam messages that were coming in every few minutes. An occasional spam message slips by every now and then, but it's quite bearable. A big thank you to Dennis Reinhardt at DAIR!
No SOAP
Is it just my imagination, or is a new computer language written every day? Then of course comes the inevitable next question: WHY?
I love computers. I love working on them; It's fascinating to see all the amazing things you can do with the aid of a computer and the proper software. When I got my first computer I was intrigued by every little bit and byte of them. Once I even took apart a worn-out console from my son's Odyssey 2 game (remember those??) and rewired it using a regular PC keyboard. It didn't work too well, but that's not the point. It was fun!
But I've long passed the point when I think things like that are fun. I'm a "do" junkie now - I want to see results!
So late one night I got up my courage, and decided I'd delve into the back end of Amazon.com's web services. I wanted to see if I could make a remote shopping cart work for third party merchants, since I (coincidentally enough) am an Amazon third party merchant.
Fascinated, I successfully carried out the steps in the Amazon SDK, inserting my product codes into mile long strings (I'm not exaggerating - these strings nearly ran off notepad and onto the floor!) If that ever happens, I'm quitting the business, btw.
Almost blind by then, I did glance up long enough to see the clock above my desk. I rubbed my eyes - it can't be 3:00 a.m. already! But it was. And I had not even discovered SOAP yet.
No, no, no... I don't mean Ivory, or Irish Spring, or whatever other cleaning aid you might enjoy. (haha - yeah right - I love cleaning, I'm sure you do too.)
If you google SOAP, you'll find that it is something like WSDL and UDDI that will "enable system-to-system integration that is easier than ever before"! Wow, now you're excited, aren't you? As I read on, I couldn't make much headway with SOAP. I read about other languages and protocols, like REST, Jini, EJBs, and RMI. They all claim to be easy to use, extendable and powerful. heehee Why does that make me laugh? Some of them even use semantic data integration and are model-driven (wheeh!), but I wasn't quite up learning these at 4:00 am.
Maybe I'm just set in my ways. I'm an old C programmer from way back, like the gun-slingers of the old West, not ready to turn in my six-shooter and take on the office job just yet. Just a burned out neophile, who is growing tired of change. Maybe change is becoming the norm, and I want some change from that. Yeah -that's it.
Around 5:00 am. I finally stopped babbling to myself, and somehow clicked on the PayPal site. I set up the PayPal shopping cart in about 10 minutes. PayPal's commission is really low compared to our old payment processor. We had to find a solution because our payment processing and other costs were sometimes taking most of our profit. Don't get me wrong - we love our work! But money is one of those pesky things that comes in pretty handy if you want to keep your computer fired up and making games!
Have fun, everyone!
Kathy
Posted by Kathy Salisbury at 14:31
Dreaming of Eagles
My dreams take me to far away places sometimes. Recently I was on an alien planet with my husband. We couldn't go out after 3 p.m. because of the evil "Grubs," a race which did unspeakable things to you, if you were unlucky enough to encounter them. We had adopted two children from another alien race, a superior life form that resembled Eagles. The boy was very tall and beautiful, the girl was very tiny and sweet. They were both very noble.
What does this mean? Does it mean I need to get away from marketing and back to making games before my dreams get really weird? Or do dreams have a deeper meaning? A quick search on the internet tells me that eagles normally do symbolize spiritual freedom or "reaching for the top."
I'd like to think this is a good omen for our latest enterprise, Great Mind Software. After Pharos Games opened its store on Amazon.com, I started to realize how we could help other indie developers get published. Some of these independents write great utilities and other software that is not game-related (imagine that!), so we started Great Mind to include them as well.
I see the Eagle children as all the talented people that (we hope) will benefit from our service, and I feel sure that some of these small companies will go on to be giant ones someday.
Isn't dream interpretation fun? I hope I get to review some dream interpretation software someday.
Have a great day, everyone!
Kathy
What is a Geek?
My previous blog entry made me wonder, "What exactly is a geek?" I also wonder if anyone is actually reading this blog, but that's another story altogether. heh heh.. I know you're out there, because every now and then I talk to somebody who quotes it back to me.
So anyway, I looked up the definition of the word "geek" and found out that it means (according to die.net) "A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance. Geeks usually have a strong case of neophilia."
Okay, that's fair. But then I had to go look up "neophilia." Apparently geeks aren't strong on vocabulary. Or maybe it's one of those words which have recently sprung up in response to the new technologies. Oh dear, now I have to look that up.
Neophilia, according to MSN, was first found in print in 1932, meaning "interest in new terminology." It appeared in its present form around 1947, meaning "love of or enthusiasm for anything new or novel." Now that makes sense, right after the war, with all the new technologies. But the opposite of neophilia (neophobia) meaning "an aversion to novelty" has been around since 1886.
So what happened in 1886, to cause such opposition to change? That, my dear readers, I'll leave you to ponder, since I must get some work done today. (I'm playing a new game: I of the Enemy.)
Some of us geeks have it made, don't we?
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Kathy
Childhood Memories
I was a little strange as a child. I blame my older sister for this. She started reading to me at a very young age, from the C.S. Lewis book "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." From that point on, I was on a mission to read every C.S. Lewis book I could get my hands on, even to the point of pestering the librarian to find the dusty copy of "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" which was so seldom requested in our little Ohio town that it had long been kept in a storage bin.
When other kids were playing, I usually had my nose stuck in a book (I am also extremely near-sighted, so this was absolutely essential).
But I did have other hobbies, like trying to teach myself Chinese, and then of course, there were my pet worms, and experiments with my brother's chemistry set. (No, I didn't ingest any chemicals, in case you're wondering!)
But I must admit, I also played with dolls, even Barbie (I know she's not a good role model, since her anatomy is completely impossible, but fun anyway.) The most fun I remember with the dolls was dressing them up. I learned to sew, mostly to make little outfits for Barbie to wear. It felt like an essential skill at the time, so in my basically geeky brain, it seemed OK. In fact, sewing is a hobby that has come in quite handy throughout my life (especially when I couldn't afford curtains, and had to make my own!)
Recently I played a game which reminded me of the childhood fun I had dressing up my dolls. And it is on the computer, so the geek in me loves it too. This is a great game for little girls, and it is called "Fashion Cents." Check out my review of
Home
|
