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Hi all!

A month ago, I had an opportunity to review a new computer game for preschoolers from Knowledge Adventure (you can see the review here). Having purchased other Knowledge Adventure here). Having purchased other Knowledge Adventure games in the JumpStart series in the past, I was familiar with their work and knew it would probably be pretty good and my girls would enjoy it.

Now I’ve had a chance to check out a new game from Canadian publisher Kutoka called Didi & Ditto: Mother Nature’s Visit (Preschool). Until now, I had never seen any of their games before, so I was curious how their approach to educational software differed from that of Knowledge Adventure.

Well, when I first installed the game, I ran into a few issues running it on one of our machines. However, Kutoka’s support staff (thanks Mathieu!) was very helpful in getting us running on a different machine. Though we’re still not quite sure what was going on, we’re confident we will get to the bottom of the issue before too long.

That said, the game installed very quickly on our other machine from the DVD in the package. And from there my daughter and I were able to start the game and work through the opening menus.

Though we liked the disappearing clouds as we worked through the menus, I have to wonder at the number of options for your usual 2-4 year old. I suspect that their thought was that a parent would be present to help them get set up, but it might still be nice to have a quickstart option to perhaps use the same settings used the last time the game was run.

The story for Didi & Ditto: Mother Nature’s Visit (Preschool) is that the animals get a message from Mother Nature announcing that she’s coming to visit Smart Valley. They want to have a celebration and decide to hold an election to choose a mayor who will plan it. Zolt the Wolf loses the election and he’s mad. To get his revenge, he breaks all the musical instruments and hide the food in an attempt to ruin the party. Zolt thinks he’ll be able to step in as the hero to save the day when Mother Nature arrives.

Didi and Ditto see Zolt’s strange behavior and one watches Zolt while the other helps Hootdini the Owl to gather everything together again. The player gets to choose whether to play the girl (Didi) or the boy (Ditto) and run around Smart Valley so that Mother Nature has a great visit.

The opening movies are interactive and allow the child to jump right in to be involved in the story. I think this is a great approach, rather than watching a long movie where they aren’t involved at all.

The game includes many different min-games, including:

• Matching Games
• Alphabet Skills
• Counting
• Shapes
• Colors
• and Sorting

The biggest difference for me between Didi & Ditto and the JumpStart game is how mousing is handled. I thought it was difficult for my 3 year old to learn to navigate with the mouse in JumpStart. Not so with Didi & Ditto. It starts building the mouse skills right from the opening sequence and it was interesting to see my daughter pick up on the subtle feedback on screen. The mouse feedback is such that it provides a nice wide target area for clicks and the color of the pointer changes when you’re on a place you can click.

Also, keyboard play was great as well. Building hand-eye coordination in the form of a very simple arcade game, she had to hit the key to make the character jump at the right time. By the end, she had it down and was enjoying herself. But it was easy to get the hang of it.

The 3D graphics for the game also have a nice clean look with lots of creative, colorful characters to interact with. And, your child can pick whether they want to play a boy or a girl. Plus, lots of positive feedback makes them feel like they’re making progress and learning all the way along.

There were a few things I didn’t really like, though my 3 year old didn’t seem to care. One was the repetitive nature of the screens. Each screen had a few things to do, and then we’d go back to the signpost, pick another destination, and repeat it for the next screen. Again, she didn’t seem to mind the reinforcement.

The other thing I noticed was that the main character seemed to talk down to the kids, which may have just been a perception issue with the slow, deliberate quality to how they were talking. But my daughter didn’t seem to mind it at all, so it’s probably just me.

The only thing that really frustrated my 3 year old was trying to “catch” letters in the net. She’s developing a two-handed mouse technique for now, moving it and holding it still with one hand and using the other to click a button, which makes it difficult to move and click quickly. But I’m sure she’ll get the hang of it before long.

Really, Kutoka seems to have a great feel for how to get children starting to use the computer. The beautiful, three-dimensional world is just an extension of our own world for them and they can feel safe as they learn to use the mouse and keyboard and explore all the skills they’ll need as they go into kindergarten.

Except for the glitch we’re still working to resolve, this was a great find and a game that I know my daughter will enjoy for the next year or so as she gets ready to go to school. It’s available for both PCs and Macs, so if you have a computer and a preschooler at home I’d encourage you to take a look.

Didi & Ditto: Mother Nature’s Visit (Preschool) has its own web site, where you can get additional information and see some other Kutoka products. For now you can purchase the game from the Kutoka website directly, though it looks like the game may be available on Amazon sometime in 2009, as many of Kutoka’s other games are available there as well.

Be sure to check it out!

–Fitz

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• Software Review: JumpStart 3D Virtual World My First Adventure

Hi all…

It’s rare that I read nonfiction these days that is worth reviewing. Most nonfiction simply consists of reference material, examples, and step-by-step instructions to help in a given field of study. As a software engineer, I often find myself digging into a particular book for an example or a hint as to how to implement a piece of code. But only rarely do I find myself reading a book from cover to cover.

Pragmatic Thinking & Learning - Refactor Your Wetware is one heck of an exception.

If you’re in the field of computer programming, you’ve probably heard about the Pragmatic Programmers series from their publishing house - Pragmatic Bookshelf. The Pragmatic Programmer philosophy was born with the creation of the first book (The Pragmatic Programmer) written in 2000 by Andy Hunt and David Thomas. Since then, they created their book imprint and have produced more than 70 titles since October 2003.

The Pragmatic Programmers have focused on everything from source code control and testing to writing in a wide variety of languages and environments. And now with Pragmatic Thinking & Learning, they’ve gone beyond the philosophy of computer languages, tools, and environments and focused on the one constant through it all - the programmer him or herself.

That said, please don’t think this book is just for programmers, engineers, and other geeks! The book is so rich with techniques for expanding how you approach the world and develop ideas that I truly believe that people in any profession would get something out of it. So, among the many books published by the Programmatic Programmers, this is the one I think they should spread the word far beyond the bounds of the typical engineers they market to.

Imagine if you will, your brain. Each of us has developed a unique tool filled with pathways different than anyone else on the planet. No two people think exactly the same, even if they come to the same conclusions. Your brain, and therefore how you think and learn, is the product of all the experiences that brought you to this specific point in time.

Andy Hunt brings resources to your attention to make you think about how you think and learn. Regardless of whether you’re currently taking classes or not, you most likely think every day of your life and hopefully are learning on your own, through various experiences, every day as well.

But wouldn’t you like to think better? I know I would. I’m convinced that I do things more inefficiently than I might to get the most out of solving problems or learning or developing new skills.

Hunt focuses on little things to improve your methods, boiling a ton of research down into a set of 48 tips. Some of these are intuitive. Some are not.

For example, tip #1 is “Always consider the context.” This makes perfect sense. Without context, most intellectual pursuits lack meaningful hooks to actually make them useful. Though you might consider an apple on the ground as a unique object on its own, you can only get so far without looking at the larger picture. It makes much more sense when you consider the tree that it fell from and the many ecological systems that allowed the tree to grow, thrive, and ultimately produce the fruit that fell to the ground.

However, tip #14 makes less sense on its own — “Use metaphor as the meeting place betweeen L-mode and R-mode.” What exactly does this mean? It’s less clear until you read the text.

“Most humans aren’t particularly good at dealing with the abstract: using a metaphor to relate some abstract notion to something concrete, something found in everyday life, makes it much easier for people to grasp.” p. 87

Many people attempt to understand one system in terms of another system they already understand. For example, a window on the computer screen isn’t really a window at all. A mouse isn’t really a rodent. These are metaphors to give us the idea of something in the real world we can associate with these objects on the computer so they’re easier to relate to.

Each chapter in the book follows a similar pattern. It provides an overview, a set of techniques to try with a variety of examples on how to do so, and a set of next actions to try. For example, Chapter 4: Get in Your Right Mind ends with two lists - one of new habits to try and cultivate such as doing morning pages, involving more senses, trying something different than you usually do; and one of things to try such as changing your morning routine, taking a class, or examining the experts you know to see what “quirky” habits they might have been using all along that never made sense.

The chapter I took the most from was Chapter 8: Manage Focus. It stresses ways to increase your focus and attention, manage your knowledge, and optimizing your context. As an example, I’ll focus on the last part - optimizing your context.

I work from home 99% of the time. This automatically grants me some new distractions while reducing some of the old ones. For example, in the office I was constantly distracted by the social nature of the workplace, whereas now I’m distracted when my family has a day off and I’m trying to get work done.

Hunt works through how to reduce the number of times we switch context while working on a given project. For example, if you’re working on a report or e-mail and the phone rings, it’s a potential context switching event. If you have the discipline to let it roll over to voicemail, that’s great. It’s a minor glitch. But if you pick it up, you often have a hard time, once the conversation is done, getting back into the task you were working on before the interruption. One recommendation he makes in this case is to let the phone ring a couple of times while you jot down (in the report or e-mail, on a note, or wherever) a couple of cues so you can more easily pick up the breadcrumb trail of where you left off and get going again.

The book is chock full of interesting research and insights into how to use our minds more efficiently and possibly see the world in new and very different ways.

I can’t stress enough the fact that this is NOT just meant for programmers. People from all walks of life would most likely find some tidbits of information in this book to make our brains work better in the long run!

Many thanks to Andy Hunt and the Pragmatic Programmers for this excellent book, Pragmatic Thinking & Learning - Refactor Your Wetware and now I think I’m going to read it again, applying some of the new techniques I learned while reading it the first time!

–Fitz

p.s. Check out more about this book at the Pragmatic Thinking & Learning website here.

p.p.s. Pick up the Pragmatic Thinking & Learning book and The Pragmatic Programmer from Amazon:

Hi all!

As a parent of two young girls, ages 3 and 7, I’ve regularly struggled with what brand or type of educational software to pick up for them. Over the last few years, I have to admit the track record of this type of software has been hit and miss, but the JumpStart series from Knowledge Adventure has been one of the most consistent vendors we’ve run across.

So when I saw a chance to review JumpStart 3D Virtual World My First Adventure, which is geared towards ages 3-5, I saw it as a perfect opportunity to see how my youngest daughter would do with it. She often “helps” her sister when she’s playing her “big girl” games on the computer, but we haven’t had a chance to pick up any software specifically for her.

The box for JumpStart 3D Virtual World My First Adventure has a cool holographic picture that changes as you move it (the kids in the boat wave, a dog jumps, and the dog in the water swims). That alone was enough to capture the attention of my 3 year old.

Installation was a bit more involved than I expected, requiring an initial installation from the CD-ROM, sign-up through the JumpStart website, and then a pass through a second installation to pick up any software updates. The JumpStart website allows you to add multiple children to the list of users, which is nice for tracking more than one child’s progress on the computer.

For inexperienced computer users, this whole process may be a bit of a challenge as they wonder why all of these steps are required to get their tykes up and running on the computer. However, the steps are pretty straightforward.

Once we actually ran the program, we were brought to an initial configuration page. This is again, not a page for the children who will actually use the game, but intended for the adult configuring the software. On this page, you can further customize the game for the children you signed up for on the JumpStart website. By adding birthdays, which holidays are celebrated (for example, not every family celebrates Christmas, Haunukah, or Kwanzaa), and personalized photos, you can really make this game fit into your world a bit more. I did not try adding actual photos, but would expect them to show up in the game further down the line.

After all of that, the kid(s) can actually play the game. The first thing they get to see is a smoothly animated 3D movie where the many characters sing and dance. It was a great little animated sequence with catchy music to get a child’s attention.

From there, the child can choose who is playing (from the list of kids you added earlier) and then customize an avatar to represent themselves in the game’s 3D world. Customizing an avatar is nothing new or different in the world of computer games, but I have to say this is the first time I’ve seen it done for children. And my girls loved it! Think of it like a virtual paper doll that the kids can change hair, eyes, mouth, and clothes on whenever they want to. I think my 3 year old got more of a kick out of changing her avatar than some other parts of the game.

Once the avatar is done, they are launched into the 3D world to explore. The hardest thing seemed to be learning how to navigate with the mouse. My 3 year old was having a tough time getting the hang of moving and clicking the mouse on the mouse pad to get it to do what she wanted on screen. This is just a hand-eye coordination skill that she will have to learn eventually, but it was tough to see her struggle with it.

That said, the child is able to follow paths of colorful letters to the different parts of the world to do different things. They start at the movie house, and move from there to customize their own house, and from there go to the school house, the library, and finally to the music machine. All along the way, they have to point and click at the various letters, objects, and characters. It seemed very easy to miss a letter with an errant click or moving the mouse too far. But again, I think this is a skill that will be learned over time.

In the school house, they can play a variety of different games, including matching letters, putting puzzles together, and so on. For each game they complete, they earn a “prize” that shows up in the mailbox at their house. So they can then leave the school house, go to the house, open the mailbox, and see what to do with the prize. One prize we saw was an apple, which you can leave in various places to decorate the world. Another prize was a CD you could take to the music station and play.

In addition, for each task they complete, they get a portion of a story book. When they’ve completed enough tasks, the whole story book is available and they can read it at the library. These books are interactive with creative stories to keep the child entertained.

When they have completed all the tasks in a “world” and earned all of the various available story books, they can move on to the next “world” and do different things.

I left my daughters playing this game together for about 90 minutes and their favorite part was going down the water slide in the pond and changing the avatar’s clothes. I think the rest will come with time, but I was amused to see what they found fun!

This should definitely be on your Christmas list if you have young children in preschool or who are getting ready for kindergarten. I think this software is fun AND educational, which is a difficult combination to get right. Once again, Knowledge Adventure proves that it’s the leader in the educational software arena with JumpStart 3D Virtual World My First Adventure!

We worked with this game on a Windows Vista machine, but I’m sure it works just as well on Windows XP or a Mac!

Check it out!
–Fitz

p.s. You can pick this game up for Mac or PC at Amazon:

Hi all…

Wow. It’s been a while since I had to admit an addiction to a game. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Civilization 2, 3, and 4 are the most recent forms of addiction for me, but I have to add a new one…

Fallout 3…

Damn you Bethesda Scrollworks!

Fallout 3 Banner from Bethesda Site

Do you know what this game does to a roleplayer like me? It taps into some subconscious need to not only play UPS or FedEx driver, but it drives me to reload each time I die just so I can kill the monstrosities or bandits that happen to have sealed my doom…

Saphrym talked about it on his blog a while back. I waited. But evidently not long enough. This thing has created an itch I have to scratch!

It sucks you in so innocently… You start as a baby, grow up in the Vault, and then start chasing your Father down across the Wasteland. One thing leads to another and you get irradiated, blown up, shot at, eaten, stung, and who knows what else.

The images are clean and crisp (until of course you have radiation poisoning and you start getting blurred vision) and you do your best to not stare at the scenery too long or a sniper might get a lucky shot at you from a hidden position… It’s Oblivion all over again. [sigh]

Lucky for me I’ll get a break when I’m gone to Germany next week. But I’m guessing you’ll be seeing more updates from the Waste before I’m done.

If you get addicted to video games like Oblivion, stay away from Fallout 3. It’s insanely addictive. Insane. I can stop any time! Any time I say! Ha hahahaha hahahahahahaha!

[Sounds of sirens can be heard as the men in the white suits come to fit me for a snug fitting jacket...]

–Fitz

p.s. Whatever you do, don’t click these links to pick up this game from Amazon!

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Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

Hi all…

I had a chance to watch the Justice League: The New Frontier animated movie over Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” feature on their website and thought I’d write about it.

Amazingly enough, it worked really well. I say that as if I was shocked, because I was. I tried it a year ago and was sorely disappointed. But on Vista and using Internet Explorer (ugh), it worked remarkably well.

I’m a dedicated Firefox guy, so it was a little bizarre having to open up IE for this. I hope they can figure out how to make it work cross-browser. But ultimately it was pretty seamless.

It did have a few hiccups now and then as it streamed the movie to my desktop, but the quality was excellent on my 19″ wide-screen computer monitor. The colors were crisp and the sound quality was good.

Now that I’ve had one positive experience with it, I might have to start watching other movies online as time allows. It would certainly free up some of the backlog of movies I have in my Netflix queue.

So give it a shot if you’re a Netflix subscriber with Broadband internet access. You might like what you see.

–Fitz

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• Movie Review: Justice League: The New Frontier

Hi all…

It’s the end of the month, and I use Quicken and Quicken Bill Pay to pay 90% of my bills these days, so I was just pretty much able to set up to pay all my bills for July via Quicken’s Bill Pay service. What a cool service.

I used to use MyCheckFree ( http://mycheckfree.com ) for everything, but at the beginning of 2007, their service dropped quite a few of the main payees that I pay every month. So I had to look into another service, as I’ve grown quite attached to my online bill paying.

Though my banks do offer bill pay services through their own websites, their services are often slow and scheduling is less than optimal since they typically cut a check and snail-mail it to the destination. Quicken Bill Pay and MyCheckFree both do as many online transactions as they can, using snail mail only as a last resort.

I used to use Microsoft Money for a long time, but the last upgrade really messed up my files to the point where I couldn’t use it any more. It was at that point last year that I defected to Quicken. It has its quirks also, but so far I have been able to work with or around them.

So if you’re looking for an online bill pay solution and use Quicken, I highly recommend Quicken Bill Pay. It’s easy to configure and set up and works great. It’s a relief to know that 90% of my bills are scheduled and taken care of so they won’t be late. I can then focus that energy on other things during the month — like spending money to see movies!

Until next time… Have a good one!

–Fitz

Hey there…

I have to admit… I am a Civ 4 junkie. I’ve actually been a Civilization junkie since the first version came out many moons ago. But it’s the one game I have that I haven’t grown tired of in a short amount of time.

Are there any other Civ addicts out there? Come on… I know there are… Share your pain.
–Fitz