hallowe'en and nanowrimo!

This weekend marks two fantastic events!

At work today, no copy machine or printer dare break on my watch!

I went with Batgirl for our work party since I'll be, more or less, an inside joke on actual Halloween.

I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday of the year. It combines all the best things in life like candy, costumes, and gory horror movies into one night of pure bliss. I've got an action packed Saturday planned!

Halloween Agenda:

• Saturday morning pumpkin carving. My three planned pumpkins are RRoD, Batsymbol, and Castle Crasher.
• Then I'll go meet up with the ever magnanimous Broken Angel for trick-or-treating with her adorable children.
• After that is some good ol' fashioned caramel apple making (and eating).
• Then horror movies and alcohol!

Could I ask for anything better? 


Then, on Sunday, it's November 1st. Oh yes, that means it's time for NaNoWriMo!

This year I've joined up with the PAX kids for some group tracking - The Writer's Block - put together the awesome VT! 

And of course I am still part of my original local writing guild, the Guild of the Rough Draft - Rough Writer Order. This year we're giving Google Groups a try to keep together all our info. The mailing list functionality of Google Groups is amazing to use. Our only beef so far is that we are unable to embed our Google Calendar in a group page.

A crazy wonderful weekend ahead! No matter what  your thoughts on the holiday, or writing, or fall in general, I hope you have a fun filled and amazing end of week!

things to do when it's raining in Seattle

(1) Make some hot cocoa, wrap a blanket around  your shoulders, and write that book you've always wanted to write; or alternatively, write your outline for this.

(2) Go to the Seattle Center and run around in the fountain. It's still warm enough out to enjoy the showers without freezing to death.

(3) Put on your galoshes and splash in every puddle on the sidewalk. See how wet you can get your pant legs.

(4) Cut a hole in a garbage bag, put your head through the hole, go stand on the edge of a sidewalk and wait for cars to splash you with tidal waves of water. Ravenna Blvd is great for this.

(5) Learn how to knit. Here is a neat knitting blog from a PAX kid I know. See how many pairs of mittens you can make over the winter, then pass them out to friends for next year.

(6) Throw a fancy tea party in your living room with two rules: (1) Everyone has to be dressed in a fancy manner and (2) No one can do anything without first lifting their pinky finger.

(7) Prop up your comforter on your bed with a broom, thus creating a fort. Then put a flashlight or lantern inside and read a book or play Pokemon Red or Blue version.

(8) Challenge someone to see who can stay the driest going from your house to the closest coffee shop. Loser buys the winner a cookie.

(9) Re-arrange your closet by color. Same with your shoes. Same with your bags. Same with your books. Same with your posters/wall decorations. Enjoy your new color-coded rainbow room.

(10) Create and then play a board game.

(11) Sit in your house and complain about how summer is gone and how much you hate the clouds. Then move back to California, you wuss. (Only kidding! ...mostly.)

(12) Play a game of mud...anything.


It's raining in Seattle. Have I mentioned how much I love this city?

Extra Life - fill your karma requirements for the month

https://waystogive.texaschildrens.org/netcommunity/EDP

Hey you!Yes, you! You with the hair! Have you done your good deed for the day? How about the month? For the year, perhaps? You haven't?

Well then, might I suggest donating to money to Extra Life, a charity fund that supports the Texas Children's Hospital? Helping sick children can only do good things for your karma.

Not convinced yet? Those crazy kids over at Epic Default will be staying up playing video games for 24 hours straight in support of and in an effort to raise more money for this event.

If you're a horrible person who hates sick children you could always donate in favor of watching the ED Team slowly crumble under the strain of a sleepless stressful night. In fact, they will be allowing video game suggestions. How sane do you think they'll be after a few rounds of Desert Bus at 4AM?

Yep, I'm evil. However, my black soul has been cleansed with the notion that my measley 24$ might save a child at a children's hospital similar to the way I was saved in my youth by one. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for efforts like these, and I hope that you too will throw them a bit of support. They're about half way to their goal, toss 'em a buck or two won't you?

Click the link/picture above to donate!

re: the state of webcomics

I read an interesting article over at comixtalk.com that discussed the "State of the Webcomics Union" that Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content posted.

In the article he hits on an interesting point. Webcomics aren't prospering because they have a lack of review, if anything, that points to a decline and/or lack of interest in readership.

I have some issues with webcomics, but it's not enough to stop me from tuning in. There are quite a few of them I read - in fact, I would say a good third of my giant list of Google Reader entries are webcomics. I even sit on the outskirts of their world, peering in at what community sites I can view from a distance.

My biggest issue with this genre is probably part of what I commented on the comixtalk article: "The webcomic genre has become so over saturated with start-ups trying to use webcomics as some misguided get rich quick scheme that nobody really cares about them anymore."

I think that's a big part of the reason there aren't as many major, or even minor, webcomic review sites. There are so many people who put up a couple poorly written comics with a donate button and a massive cafepress store that it's difficult to shift through it and find the gems. Word of mouth isn't as strong as it use to be in a world full of memes.

In this point a am a little hypocritical since I have my own little webcomic with a donate button; but I don't update or put enough effort into it to expect anything aside from a few silly comments from my friends. To be honest, that's all I wanted out of it. There's nothing wrong with making money from webcomics - just be sure to draw and write because you love it and not because you want a quick buck.

I  hope to see more people blogging and talking about webcomics, because if anything, the genre has started to die down. Just because it's on the internet does not mean it's immune from the way of the newspaper. You have to keep your readers interested, and a lot of that interest is created through discussion.

Epic Default pointed me toward The World Wasn't Meant, which is a comic I absoultely love now. It would be fantastic if more blogs had a segment like that (or if they updated more often *COUGH*).

I'd love to see a similar deal like Negative Gamer's Xbox Indie Games Recap for webcomics. Someone get on that! Theoretically *I* could get on that...but, eh, we'll see what the weekend looks like for starting regular blog segments. I have a date with Arkham Asylum and ODST.

(edit: Once again, Zero Punctuation has explained all my feelings on the subject perfectly. Thanks David!)

cloud services come to the UW

UW Technology just launched cloud services for University of Washington students. At this time neither service (Google or Microsoft) is available to faculty and staff, though that seems to be on the horizon.

I am a staff member but I received the email since I enrolled as a student to use our six free credits we are able to take every quarter. I haven't yet used my netID to sign up for either service as I already forward my student address to my personal gmail and my main work address will remain in Exchange.

Dear ISHA:

Starting this quarter, all UW students can sign up for enhanced email, calendaring and collaboration services: UW Windows Live and UW Google Apps. You'll get more storage, no ads, and easier collaboration with classmates and friends (and, soon, with your professors!).

Sign Up Online!
To activate your UW Windows Live and UW Google Apps services, go to your Manage UW NetID Resources page to turn on each one. Remember, although you can sign up for both services, you will have to choose one to use for your UW email.

For details about what you get with each service, check out the information online:

	UW Windows Live (with Outlook Live Email and Calendar, Messenger, SkyDrive, Spaces and Photos)
	UW Google Apps (with Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Talk)

Support is provided by Microsoft and Google, with activation help from UW Technology. Because this is a new service, please send email to help@uw.edu if you encounter anything unusual so we can address it right away.

We hope you enjoy using these new services available to UW students!

It should be interesting to see what types of issues arise with these services. I suspect it will not be a huge leap for students as most, if not all, will already be familiar with one or both of these email programs already. That fact made it much easier to launch and since "support is provided by Microsoft and Google" we don't have to worry about training up for hordes of questions.

I suspect launching for faculty/staff will be a much more complicated matter. They are very use to the simple desktop email program Web Pine and programs like Blackboard or our Catalyst offerings for student/professor collaboration. I wonder how all these will factor in and come together.

The other issue that stands out in my mind is, of course, the reliability factor. To be honest I think these services have problems a lot less often than consumers believe. Then again, when one of our servers tank we are able to tell people what the issue is and when it'll be fixed directly. If Google's server tanks we're in the dark until they give us information.

In a world where email is the main sorce of communication it can be pretty devastating to someone's day to have a server go down for any amount of time. However, I believe that cloud services have come a long way and that our partnerships with these companies are strong enough to make these offerings work for the best.

For a little more info you can check out this post from Scott Mah, our AVP for Technology Services.

pink gorilla in the University District, pink godzilla no more

I have been waiting for a gaming store in the University District for quite some time. We have the technology center at the UW Bookstore which sells video games, but you have to go all the way to Northgate or Downtown for a Gamestop.

My first emotion upon seeing the sign for the new Pink Gorilla store on 4341 University Way (tentatively set to open the week of Oct. 5th, 2009) was pure joy. Finally, somewhere to buy and trade Super Nintendo games again! The lack of such a place has left a deep hole in my heart ever since Funcoland died.

My second emotion upon seeing the sign for the new Pink Gorilla was confusion. Gorilla? I'm pretty sure that's a typo, as the name of the store should be Pink Godzilla.

I had some snarky thoughts about King Kong vs. Godzilla and their battle royal over the color pink, when my ever knowledgeable and observant friend Julia pointed out to me that there was talk around PAX time about Pink Godzilla being sued over the rights to the name/word "Godzilla".

On the Pink Gorilla website they joke about the name change saying it's an "evolution". Upon further research it looks like Godzilla has got himself some crazy attentive lawyers with a lot of time on their hands.

The best article I could find with a quick Google search was by a nerdcore music artist, which I am linking because it is both informative and I think that's awesome. Pink Gorilla? by Shinigami Music

In the end, all I (and I'm sure most of us) really care about is a decent place to buy retro games.What's in a name?

Google Wave second impressions

OK OK. I know that I *just* posted about Google Wave, but now I've played around with it a little I have additional thoughts:

(1) This would be a fantastic tool for any bloggers or news writers out there to collaborate on stories. Within a Wave you can edit your replies, other people's replies, and then you can create private Waves that could be used between a couple people in the main Wave or just for yourself to take notes. This could admittedly get a little confusing if you have multiple private Waves within a main Wave, but I like the concept.

(2) Being able to watch people type was *not* something I wanted. Now that I've actually seen it in action though it makes me giggle and I love it.

(3) I almost wish I was part of a multiple author blog just so I would have an excuse to use Wave to write a collaborative story about Wave.

(4) I do wish that I could use this at work. It would be amazing to be able to take notes during meetings and have people adding comments, editing along the way, and then have people who were not able to attend be able to put in questions or clarification after/during the meeting. That would be an amazing help to my job as an administrative assistant.

(5) Given the blogging thing, there needs to be a "publish Wave" button that allows me to give the Wave a public HTML or post to a connected blog.

That's it for now! I'll save any other thoughts I have for tomorrow. I found two friends who also have Wave, and we are currently Waving at each other! Heehee.

Google Wave Preview!

I got a Google Wave invite! I'm so excited!

The funny thing about this, however, is that I haven't yet caught wind of anyone else I know with an invite. Thus, being the first person with a Google Wave Preview is utterly useless to me until they send out the second "wave" of invites to the people I nominated. This service is not really something you can use all by your lonesome.

In the meantime, here is all the info I received upon signing up for the service:


Dr. Wave is here to explain how to navigate Google Wave. Bear in mind that he is pretending to be embedded in my first wave, and is pointing at things on the screen. A screen shot of Google Wave is included below the video.



(embedded video)

--
Here are their ideas about how to use Google Wave:

When to use Google \/\/ave

There are tons of ways to use Google Wave--here are just a few examples to get you thinking and an overview video that shows Google Wave in action.

Organizing events

Keep a single copy of ideas, suggested itinerary, menu and RSVPs, rather than using many different tools. Use gadgets to add weather, maps and more to the event.

Meeting notes

Prepare a meeting agenda together, share the burden of taking notes and record decisions so you all leave on the same page (we call it being on the same wave). Team members can follow the minutes in real time, or review the history using Playback. The conversation can continue in the wave long after the meeting is over.

Group reports and writing projects

Collaboratively work in real time to draft content, discuss and solicit feedback all in one place rather than sending email attachments and creating multiple copies that get out of sync.

Brainstorming

Bring lots of people into a wave to brainstorm - live concurrent editing makes the quantity of ideas grow quickly! It is easy to add rich content like videos, images, URLs or even links to other waves. Discussion ensues. Etiquettes form. Then work together to distill down to the good ideas.

Photo sharing

Drag and drop photos from your desktop into a wave. Share with others. Use the slideshow viewer. Everyone on the wave can add their photos, too. It is easy to make a group photo album in Google Wave.

--
Hello Greg and Stephanie! The Google Wave team tells you what Google Wave is:



(embedded video)

--
Here is a video about Google Wave Extensions:



(embedded video)

The extensions we can use are:

• Wave Sudoku
• Conference 
• Video Chat Experience
• Trippy
• AccuWeather.com 
• Map Gadget (by Google)
• Yes/No/Maybe Gadget (by Google)
• Extension Installer (by Google for developers only)

--

My first impression of Google Wave is that it's like a private message board. Each time you open a Wave you're opening a new thread that only relevant people can view and post to.

It also seems like the next logical progression of the way Gmail is set up. When you reply to messages in Gmail you already get the threaded messages view of replies. This just seems like an expansion on that, or a supplement to it.

For the record: I do not think Google Wave will or should replace email. It's a really neat collaboration tool, and perhaps in a format that I would have loved to see for Google Docs. For email however, it's a little too informal.

I'm hoping that eventually we'll see Google Wave merge or link or collaborate with Google Docs to form a monsterous collaboration machine. It would be amazing. Do it Google!