Blogger
Latest
Calling all bloggers, part two: FAQ edition
Now that we put out the cattle call, we're gonna take a moment to explain the branding ... er, the position itself. We've had a few questions in the comments, so we'll address those -- and we have one for you, dear reader. In this time of transition, take a moment to tell us what you want to see. If you controlled DS or Wii Fanboy for a day, what would you implement? What would you like to see for the future? Let us know, either here in the comments, or through the comment submission form here.Check after the jump for the skinny on the applications.
WoW ruined your life? Stop playing! [Update]
Slashdot is pointing to this blog post, written by a guy who just quit WoW, about how it completely ruined his life. According to him, WoW and the time "required" for even casual raiding were responsible for him gaining weight, losing his girlfriend and friends, wrecking his health, and generally causing him untold anguish and pain. On top of that, after he's quit, he even complains that his guild-- gasp-- moved on without him.Listen to me, right now: if this game is ruining your life, stop playing. If your girlfriend is telling you to choose between her and WoW, choose her, you idiot. If you're about to lose your job because you play this game too much, stop playing this game. It's a game. It's not responsible for any of the stuff that happened to this blogger-- he is.We've heard the arguments he makes before-- blah blah blah, the game is addictive, it becomes an obsession, Blizzard is rewarding farming and time investment instead of skill. And all those things are true, to a degree. But coffee is addictive, too, and so is smoking, and so is alcohol. Is it beer's fault that college students do stupid things on the weekend? Of course not-- it's the students' fault for drinking too much beer. And if this guy is overweight, girlfriendless, and a loser, it's his fault, not the game. WoW is just that-- a game. Shame on him for forgetting that when most of the seven million other players don't seem to have a problem with it.And the worst part... is after the jump.
Another bite of the unofficial Apple
Hey TUAW, I'm Alex, the newest blogger around these parts. The first Mac I ever handled was one of the later Performa models. It was a beige beast of a computer attached to an ABI Prism DNA Sequencer, and I remember thinking how odd it was that there was only one mouse button. This was at a time in my life when I still thought I could be a scientist. That dream faded, but Macs stayed in my life. Oh, there was a time when I strayed, when I spent a few years wandering in the Wild West of Linux and impossible (for me) binary management, but then OS X came along and I couldn't stay away any longer. These days I spend most of my days in balmy London writing about videogames at Kikizo, IGN, and AOL. Macs and OS X make the job that little more enjoyable. My nomadic lifestyle demands portability, which is probably why I'll be using wonderful 12" PowerBooks until I can't find another, or Apple decides to answer my, and many others', prayers and gives us a new (or even smaller) version. That's me taken care of. Let's get to it.
Dan Lurie Incoming
Macs are beautiful. Macs are elegant. Macs embody the spirit of technological innovation and cultural progress we find so readily in this exciting period of human history. As we as a civilization explore and find new ways to interact with and manipulate information, we must have tools that allow us to stretch the boundaries of conventional thinking. Since its founding over 30 years ago, Apple has constantly been on the bleeding edge of design, technology, and communication. It is my passion for these things that drive my fascination and love of all things Apple. I want to share that passion with you, and as the newest TUAW team member, that exactly what I'll be doing from now on.Now, enough with that pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook, time for me to introduce myself. I'm a Graphic Design student in Denver, CO, much like one of my fellow bloggers. Before coming to TUAW, I blogged for The Apple Blog and co-hosted the MacNN Podcast. I eek out my meager existence by fixing Macs and iPods at a local Mac repair shop, as well as the odd design or photography gig on the side. The tools of my trade are my faithful 15" PowerBook, my camera, and my sketchbook. All of which travel everywhere with me in one of my many messenger bags (it will soon be discovered that I'm a horrendous bag geek).In any case, I'm greatly looking forward to writing for TUAW, and hope I'll be able to provide you all with some quality content.
Don't expect any Rare games on the Virtual Console...
...according to Matt over at IGN, who claims to have spoken with some key Rare folk about the possibility of some of Rare's past greats to be in Nintendo's Virtual Console's starting lineup during GDC. While it's pretty much a given that this would be the case, what with Rare being alligned under the cold, Borg-like, Microsoft Game Studios, no-shows will undoubtedly be Killer Instinct, Perfect Dark, Banjo & Kazooie, Goldeneye 007, and Blast Corps. That last one hits this Blogger especially hard. I know many people would say the N64's strongest game was Goldeneye 007 or Perfect Dark, some might claim its stellar first-party offerings in Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64 were superior, but for this Blogger no other experience on the console could top the sheer ecstasy of uppercutting buildings as a giant mech and bulldozing gas stations in Blast Corps. It was like a digital incarnation of my childhood with Tonka trucks and Transformers.
Widget Watch: Blogger
David already mentioned this widget in his round-up post of the new Google widgets, but I thought it deserved its own post in case you missed it.Today's widget is a Dashboard widget that allows you to post to your Blogger blog. It's pretty straightforward-enter your username and password and select your blog from the drop down menu (if you maintain more than one blog, that is). Enter a title, create your post and either publish it or save it as a draft.
Google serves up Dashboard widgets
Marshall Kirkpatrick over at The Social Software Weblog (a sister Weblogs, Inc. blog) noticed that Google has produced some Dashboard widgets just for us Mac folks. The first is a Blogger widget, allowing (you guessed it) quick and easy posting to Blogger. It even accepts standard shortcuts for bolding and italicizing text - awesome. Next up is a Gmail widget, offering "your Gmail inbox at a glance." A neat trick up this widget's sleeve (once you enable the widget's advanced options) is that you can filter messages by a specific label. Last but not least is a Search History widget, which seems to be a small step up from the Google search widget already included with Tiger in that it actually saves the terms you use to search. "Remember the page from last week? Now you will," is the tag line.Check out Google's new widgets and head over to the post over at The Social Software Weblog for a different perspective on these widgets and how useful they might (or might not) be.
Google Couldn't Find a Mac Developer for the Blogger Word plug-in
Looks like my wrath at Google for releasing a Word to Blogger plugin that was Windows only wasn't entirely their fault. Jason Shellen notes on his blog: "As Ev mentioned in his post, the biggest tradeoff is that this is Windows-only. As a Mac-fan I tried to find a good developer to do a Mac version and came up short. If you have any recommendations, I'm all ears." It's nice to know that Mac-support was at least considered, but I'm holding on to my gripe. The "we couldn't find a Mac developer" translates into they didn't try hard enough. I mean, someone at Google couldn't find a Mac Developer. What's wrong with that picture? [via Technovia]
Where Blogger Fails (or, My Gripe with Internet Companies)
Have you heard the really cool news? There's a new Blogger for Word toolbar that lets you post directly to your Blogger-brand blog via the world's most prevalent word processor: Microsoft Word. However, it's not Mac compatible.
