Jeff
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Jeff: Screen sharing through GIFs
When you're trying to explain something to someone, often a screenshot isn't enough as you need to show how something progresses over time. Screencasting tools are wonderful, but the file sizes can border on the ridiculous and sharing can be an issue as a result. Along comes Jeff (US$9.99), a new Mac app that makes it drop-dead simple to capture a whole screen or a portion of it, then turn the video into a short GIF that makes sharing much more simple. Jeff is absurdly simple to use. Launch the app, and you'll see a menu bar icon - a J in a circle. Click on it, and a little dialog comes up. Follow the simple instructions by clicking the record button or use Shift-Command-5 to record a section of a screen or Shift-Command-6 to record all of a screen. For a quick example, I decided to do a search on the App Store for Solar City's new app, which I want to load onto my iPad so I can obsess about how much energy my PV panels are generating. Here's the GIF: (Note: the GIF may stop playing after one time through. To restart it, please clear your browser history (one hour is fine) and then reload the page) All I had to do is click the button, drag out a rectangle over the iTunes app, click a Start button, perform the actions I wanted to show, then click the Stop button. When setting up Jeff, I linked the app to Dropbox. After about two minutes, the completed GIF was sitting in Dropbox waiting to share. Jeff showed a small version of the GIF that I could click on to view it in a web browser, and there was also a button for copying a link to Dropbox. In addition, Jeff also supplies a number of other ways to share the link via email (the first image is also included), Messages, AirDrop and various forms of social media. Two features I'd like to see developer Robots & Pencils add in a future version of Jeff are 1) the ability to scale a capture to a preset size and 2) the ability to control how often screen captures occur. This would provide much more control over the size of the GIF file. Scaling in the Mac's Preview app is time-consuming after the fact and it would just be nice to be able to adjust a slider for frames per second as well. Other than that, I like Jeff (the app, and I also like Jeff Gamet, the blogger/podcaster) and think it's a great way to capture and share screens easily. Jeff is well worth the $10 if you often need to explain things to other people visually. Jeff requires OS X Yosemite 10.10 or later, so be sure your Mac is up to the task.
Bezos: Amazon breaks even on Kindle devices, not trying to make money on hardware
Amazon makes a pretty good case for its Kindle Fire HD and Paperwhite with prices as low as $199 and $119 respectively, but it turns out there's more at work than just special offers to keep them affordable. In an interview with the BBC, the company's head honcho Jeff Bezos revealed that they can keep the price tags reasonable since they don't turn a profit on the devices. "Basically, we sell the hardware at our cost, so it is break even on the hardware," Bezos said. "We're not trying to make money on the hardware." Instead, Amazon banks on making a buck when owners of the slates and e-readers purchase books, movies, games and other content through their digital storefront. This doesn't exactly come as a surprise, but we're glad that Jeff's confirmed our suspicions.
One Shots: Overkill
When it comes to the battle for sov in EVE Online, players will use just about every trick in the book -- including making your POS (player-owned station) look like some fairy space castle, such as the one we see in today's One Shots. This image, captured for us by Jeff, offers an interesting sight that some players who stick to hisec may never see. He writes in to explain: "When an attacking force sieges a station in a sovereignty conflict they try to ensure that the enemies assets within the station stay trapped there. The standard tactic for accomplishing this is a constant blockade of combat ships to engage targets trying to escape, along with anchoring Mobile Warp Disruptors at strategic points around the station (mobile disruptors scramble the warp engines of all ships within the radius of the deployed bubble). However, sometimes deployment of these bubbles can be a bit... excessive." Have you captured an image of something others may not often see? If so, we'd love to see it. Just email it to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name, the name of the game, and a description of what we're seeing. It could be the next one featured here on Massively! %Gallery-85937%
Rockstar's rise and fall told by the common worker
This is the tale of Jeff Williams, a web producer, who on his personal blog tells the inside story of the average man at Rockstar games, from just after Grand Theft Auto III's launch, to right before the "Hot Coffee" incident. A feature he says the company was well aware of, but due to massive turnover and disregard for the depths some PC gamers will go, Rockstar ended up lying about their knowledge of "Hot Coffee." That lie, along with other Rockstar games, helped create the video game censorship and regulatory issues we face today.Although not nearly as devastating as the EA Spouse chronicles, Williams does spin the tale of a company that hit it big with the GTA franchise, a franchise he says had little to do with the Rockstar he worked for, and never found another. Jeff says, "It was obvious to me from the start that the company had built itself on one major hit game. The question was whether they knew how to capitalize on that and create other hit games. Manhunt was my answer, and that answer was 'no'." By the end he says Manhunt turned a lot of people off, burnout was high, management was inexperienced and it just fell apart with "Hot Coffee," which he says the company was well aware of the whole time. Rockstar still hasn't found another viable franchise as we all sit and wait for Grand Theft Auto IV. A good read to understand the average man's experience at a company, away from the suits and the PR spin.
VC Friday: Hey, look, an N64 game!
This week, Europe gets its own milestone 100th game on the Virtual Console in the form of an N64 racer. And it also gets a Turbografx-16 game that most people apparently hate. Not us, though. If we lived in Europe, we'd be downloading right now. Just sayin'.This week's offerings: F-Zero X - N64 - 1000 Wii points J.J. & Jeff- TG16- 600 Wii points Let us know if you go for either of these fine games! We kind of like to talk about games occasionally.
June: best VC month ever for a small subset of Wii Fanboy bloggers
We need to write Virtually Overlooked columns about Turbografx-16 launch games more often, because we look really cool when those games show up on the Virtual Console. Last time it was Ninja Spirit; this Monday: J.J. & Jeff! We'll say it right now, before the actual Madness ensues: buy it if you like Adventure Island. We obviously love it. Sure, it's not the Japanese version, but it's functionally identical. We'd like to personally thank Hudson for pushing World Sports Competition back a month to give us J.J. & Jeff that much sooner. And after capping off May with a great game that only we like, Hudson is giving us more weird, wonderful TG16 stuff in June. We might be the only people who like China Warrior, but we really like China Warrior. It's a Kung Fu clone starring a Bruce Lee clone, and it has giant sprites. Also flying tea. It's weirdly enjoyable, and one of the games we've been waiting for since we first heard about Turbografx-16 games on the Virtual Console. Also coming in June: Dead Moon, Bloody Wolf, and, of course, World Sports Competition.But, as usual, Japan's getting the real treasure: Bonk 3, China Warrior, Neutopia 2, Silent Debuggers, and ... Devil's Crush. We wish we had the money to buy everyone a copy of Devil's Crush. Even if you don't think you'll like it, you need it.
Virtually Overlooked: J.J. & Jeff
Welcome to our weekly feature, Virtually Overlooked, wherein we talk about games that aren't on the Virtual Console yet, but should be. Call it a retro-speculative. Hudson's J.J. & Jeff isn't particularly obscure. But it happens to be one of our favorite Turbografx-16 games, and we really like talking about it. If Hudson really plans to release every US Turbografx-16 game, then we have to hurry up and get our longform rambles out while we can! Plus, apparently some people don't like this game, and, while they're entitled to their crazy, wrong opinions, we feel like it deserves defending.
Hudson Entertainment president talks about TG16 and Virtual Console
As you may have guessed, we're big Turbografx-16 fans here, so Brandon Sheffield's interview with Hudson USA president John Greiner, who was with the company through that system's lifetime, was an especially good read for us. The interview is long and detailed, and covers a lot of Hudson's lesser-known franchises like Tengai Makyou, as well as the fantastic Kato-chan and Ken-chan, which we got as JJ & Jeff. It also talks about how Hudson got into the Virtual Console biz.Here's the quote of the freaking millennium for us: "We're looking at...you know, eventually all Turbo Grafx games will be on the Virtual Console, because they're going to be emulations." Oh, no, wait, that's awesome, but here's the quote of the millennium: "We're going to work on the Turbo Grafx titles, but there were 600 some-odd PC Engine titles, and there were only 150 or so Turbo Grafx titles, so I think that if people tell us they want these games, absolutely." We cannot control our dancing. It is difficult to type at the moment.
