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Best Buy hopes to offer in-home tech advice
Best Buy can already send Geek Squad and Magnolia to your home when you need a fix or some help setting up a new TV. But what if everything is running fine, and you'd just like to improve your tech? The retailer thinks it can help there, too. It's piloting a free in-home consultation service where staff will offer advice about your tech goals (such as home automation or multi-room audio), answer questions and send a customized plan. While you'll undoubtedly be pointed to Best Buy to purchase any missing pieces of the puzzle, there won't be an obligation to buy anything -- you can walk away when it's all done.
George R.R. Martin's assistant to consult on Telltale's Game of Thrones
George R.R. Martin's series of fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, is immensely popular, especially thanks to HBO's Game of Thrones adaptation. It's to be joined by another take on the property from adventure gaming studio Telltale Games. To help Telltale keep its adaptation of Martin's source material in check, HBO assigned sci-fi author and Martin's personal assistant Ty Corey Franck to the developer as its story consultant, according to The New York Times. Telltale announced its Game of Thrones adaptation at the VGX awards in December. The partnership between Telltale and HBO spans multiple years and games, and NYT reports that it began with a little persuasion from the developer in the form of a 10-minute presentation of what the game may look like when it launches this year. Game of Thrones is just one project that's keeping the 200-person developer busy, as it recently launched the third episode of The Wolf Among Us, as well as the first two episodes of the second season of The Walking Dead on Vita. We recently met with Telltale's producers and The Wolf Among Us voice actor Adam Harrington, the voice behind Bigby Wolf, for a special one-hour livestream of the game filled with funny and interesting stories. [Image: Telltale Games]
MacTech Match finds consultants and developers
MacTech has rolled out a handy service -- currently in beta -- for anyone looking to hire consultants, experts and developers. We here at TUAW are often asked "where can I find someone to build my app?" or "who can I find local to me that can help me choose a computer for my small business?" MacTech has a lot of expertise in this area, and it has launched MacTech Match to help customers and experts find each other. Consultants can list for free here, and anyone can find a consultant for free. Developers, considering their demand and the supply of qualified people (the ones who can ship a quality product on time), are handled a little differently. First, if you are a developer and wish to be listed, you'll have to apply here. If you are a client seeking a developer, there is a nominal fee, a little reading and a call from MacTech before you are matched up with three developers who give bids. I think this cuts through a lot of hassle if you're perplexed as to where to find a developer who can serve your needs. Check out MacTech Match for more info.
MacTech Boot Camps offer fine Apple consultant training at a great price
MacTech has posted its Boot Camp schedule for the rest of the year, including some excellent day-long training sessions for Apple IT professionals and consultants. The company will be in Washington, DC on June 27, then San Diego on August 7, Minneapolis on September 5, and finally Miami, Florida on December 5. Tickets for all sessions are available now. MacTech's world-class conferences offer information about best practices and insider info on how to consult for the Mac. Sessions cover topics like marketing your consulting firm, running support calls effectively, installing Windows on a Mac and creating a reliable backup system. We've been to MacTech's conferences before, and they're always well-run and full of quality information. TUAW has a deal for readers who attend the event. Just follow this link to register and receive US$200 off registration, plus a free subscription to MacTech Magazine (print and iPad version). You must sign up by June 7 for that deal, so don't wait. MacTech is a great resource for the Apple consultant community. If you do any kind of work in the field, definitely check and see if they're coming to a town near you.
Ex-Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci joins Lenovo as a consultant
We haven't heard much from outspoken former Acer CEO Gianfranco Lanci since he left the company back in March of this year, but it looks like he's now ready to get back into the PC business in a slightly different role. Lenovo confirmed today that Lanci is joining the company as a consultant to "help develop and accelerate Lenovo's worldwide consumer business." Initially, those efforts will be mostly focused on Lenovo's integration of German PC manufacturer Medion, which it acquired in June for $907 million, but it sounds like this is more than just a short-term gig -- he does get to stay in Italy, though. Head on past the break for Lenovo's complete statement.
Frogster CEO resigns
Andreas Weidenhaupt, CEO of Frogster, has announced his impending resignation from the company. Weidenhaupt will be stepping down in April of this year to focus on other projects but will remain a consultant with Frogster afterward. Weidenhaupt has been one of the most public faces of the company, particularly for Runes of Magic and TERA. Frogster's chairman of the executive board Christoph Gerlinger had this to say about Andreas' departure: "We thank Andreas kindly for his job performance of the past years, the amicable co-operation with the executive board colleagues and for his significant contribution to the success of Frogster. In the course of last year, Andreas managed to fill the Frogster product pipeline with excellent titles for the next years in advance." You can read the full announcement over at Frogster Interactive.
Friday Favorite: Mac HelpMate
I'll open this Friday Favorite with a caveat -- Mac HelpMate is not an app that just anyone is going to want to license. However, if you're a Mac consultant and/or do system support for many Mac users, this is an application you should consider. Mac HelpMate is the brainchild of Dean Shavit, an Apple Certified System Administrator based in Chicago, Illinois. Dean's goal in producing Mac HelpMate was to eliminate many of the issues that Mac support professionals deal with when trying to perform remote support tasks for their clients. What are those issues? Usually, they consist of trying to reach the end user's network through a maze of firewalls and routers. For example, one of the major issues with Apple's Back To My Mac remote access and control technology is that it doesn't work with many cable or DSL modems that don't support UPnP (Universal Plug-and-Play) or NAT-PMP (NAT - Port Mapping Protocol). Mac HelpMate provides zero-configuration remote access through a proxy server run by Shavit's company, eliminating the hassles of trying to talk clients through configuration of their Macs and network hardware.
Richard Bartle grudgingly plays World of Warcraft
Richard Bartle hasn't necessarily been super kind to Blizzard's game in the past, but our sister site Massively recently sat down with the legendary MMO developer to set the record straight. In an interview from the Indie GDC from earlier this year, Mr. Bartle speaks candidly about his job as a consultant to MMO companies, and while he says that he has leveled three characters to 70 to see what all the fuss was about, he's not that interested in playing World of Warcraft -- he'd rather make his own games.He does have good recommendations for what he'd tell Blizzard to change, though: first things first, he wants to see an official "WTB" mechanism for the Auction House, where you can offer a price not only for what you want to sell, but for what you want to buy as well. He'd also fix the LFG system (and who wouldn't, really? has it ever worked?), and he says that Karazhan was a great example of a mistake -- by putting such a rough, guild-killing instance first in line for progression, Blizzard really put the hurt on players (especially solo players -- he says Karazhan is impossible to PuG) heading into the endgame.Finally, he's excited for "Lich Kingdom" as he calls it, but not really happy about it: "The only reason that I played up to level 70 was credentials," he says, "and when Lich Kingdom comes out, I shall have to requalify myself." We can't say he doesn't have a point -- as popular as WoW is, competition always makes a marketplace better, and up to this point, WoW hasn't had any competition at all, leaving its faults glaring to an expert developer like Bartle.
An Introduction to Apple Certification
I spent three days in a class last week learning about Leopard. It probably sounds a little strange that a guy who works day in and day out on "nothin' but Macs" would be taking a class to learn more about the Mac operating system, but I did it for a reason - I am an Apple Certified Technical Coordinator (ACTC) and I need to keep my certification current. Within a few weeks, I'll be taking a certification exam to prove that my brain absorbed some of the course content and my years of Mac experience really have turned me into a Mac guru.Not many people know about the certifications available to Apple professionals. Certification has a number of benefits to independent consultants and wage slaves alike, including recognition of professional competency, credibility with clients and employers, and the ability to publicize your certifications on Apple's website. For those of us who are Apple Consultant Network members, we can have clients referred to us by the Apple Stores.Over the next few weeks, I'll post several articles about the different types of certifications available to you, how to become certified, and why you might want to consider getting certified. Read more after the break.
Lessons learned in virtual worlds
Nic Mitham from K Zero is going to offer up the key things he's learned about virtual worlds in the last 18 months. But who is Nic Mitham, you wonder, and what is K Zero? Mitham describes himself as a "one time corporate strategist, ad man and analyst. Now spreading the metaverse word." K Zero describes itself as a virtual worlds consultancy, 'specialists in connecting real world brands and companies with the residents and environments of virtual worlds.' Mitham's most recent blog post, '50 lessons I've learned in virtual worlds' is an introduction to his upcoming series of reflections on the unpredictable nature of the metaverse. The series of posts will be a look back at what Mitham's seen in the 18 months he's been immersed in the virtual. It's chiefly aimed at those interested in doing business in virtual worlds. Mitham writes,"The point to getting my 50 lessons 'out there' is to attempt to ensure mistakes made by companies along the way are not repeated by others and also to hopefully assist new companies in this space get traction as quickly as possible, because that's in the interest of everyone."That's not to say that only biz types will get something from his blog; the series of insights is likely to have some significance to the people who populate the virtual worlds already in existence, and those who will flock to the birth of new worlds in the future.
Guide to becoming a Certified Mac Professional
If your love of Apple's products is evolving into a desire to work for or with them to some degree, informit.com has a nice roundup of the various Apple certifications one can earn, ranging from consulting, system administration and even getting trained to train. The individual articles provide nice summaries, as well as a few gotchas, for each of the certifications, as well as links to Apple's official sites. This is a nice starting point for making that leap from 'living room Mac nerd hobbyist' to 'paid corporate Mac nerd.' Scoring that choice parking spot, however, is an entirely different certification altogether.
