Yesterday I exchanged my normal cable box for one that handles HD signals. I didn’t need to do it before now because until my birthday recently I didn’t even have an HDTV and rarely watched a “channel” at all.

First thing I noticed with the new box is that stuff looked *really* different. In a good way. Clarity and vibrant colors. The trade-in was definitely worth the extra $8 per month.

As cool as the enhanced picture is, during my TV watching session yesterday I noticed three things that made me realize (once again) why watching TV is mainly just a waste of time.

1st Stupid Thing

Some of the commercials BLARED out of the TV so much louder than the main program it wasn’t even funny. I don’t actually blame the producers of the commercials so much as I do the cable company. Why don’t they normalize the volume of the content they push down their pipe?!? I simply don’t believe they don’t have the technical ability to do so — I think they just don’t care about their customers.

When a company cares that little about their customers they don’t deserve to be in business.

And if I’m wrong and they DON’T have the technical ability to normalize the volume, they could always refuse to air commercials that are volume boosted. That would be the right thing to do for their customers.

2nd Stupid Thing

We’ve not been a “TV family” for at least the last 7 years. We’ve usually had a set but used it for movies, not TV itself. But a while back we won an Xbox 360 which got a bit of use (mainly by my son) and then Skyrim came out. And I wanted it but knew I wouldn’t be satisfied playing it on an old-fashioned tube TV. So my family all chipped in and bought me an HDTV for my birthday — and Skyrim.

That was cool, but now that I had an HDTV I wanted to experience Bluy-Ray so I bought a player.

And I’d always wanted an AppleTV so I could play around with AirPlay from my iPad and stuff, so I bought one of those.

So now we have a remote for the TV, one for the cable box, one for the Blu-Ray player, one for the Xbox, and one for the Apple TV.

Yes, I have heard of universal remotes, and we have a couple of them, but every one I’ve tried has *something* missing, that one function that I use often enough to make me have to grab more than one remote.

I’m not sure there’s a good answer to this problem, although a single standard that all entertainment equipment manufacturers would implement would be a good start. My Sony Blu-Ray player and my AppleTV can both be controlled using my iPhone or iPad, but they both use different apps. As more and more pieces of equipment become wi-fi enabled maybe this problem will solve itself.

3rd Stupid Thing

While watching a show the lower third of the screen was obscured for about 20 seconds by an advertisement. Are you kidding me?! We just got out of a commercial break and you’re going to hide part of the program I’m watching in order to fit more promos in?

In the past I’ve seen little blurbs on the bottom part of the screen, but a full third? And for such a long time? I’m already paying for my cable* so why are you even showing commercials in the first place?

Why I Keep My Subscription

Stupid Thing #2 above isn’t the fault of the cable company, but the other two things are. * We have cable because the landlord pays for it, but at some point we’ll be in a position where we have a choice, and when that comes I can’t imagine paying the cable company a penny (unless it a requirement in order to get internet service).

With all the options available where I don’t have to watch commercials and I don’t have watch when the cable company airs a program, why would I choose something so inferior? I won’t.

I’ve been the owner of a Kindle Fire for just about 12 hours now so I don’t have a lot of experience, but my initial reaction — overall — is that it’s the wrong size.

At the risk of being called a fanboy (or even fanboi) I think Steve Jobs was right about 7″ tablets not being a good size. (Now watch them come out with one…) Here’s why:

If I’m in a “mobile” situation, stopped at a red light, standing in line, etc., my iPhone is the perfect size. And if I’m in a “settled” situation like sitting in bed or on the couch, I’d rather have the large screen of the iPad.

The middle size of the Fire is too large for mobile and too small for stationary.

As far as usability goes, it’s fine. There are some stuttering and things that happen that make me realize I take don’t notice the smoothness of the iPad and/or iOS until it’s gone. And while I don’t know what the actual weight is, it feels heavier than my iPad with the case. Maybe the Fire feels heavy because it’s too big to grip comfortably in one hand, and the bezel is too small to hold comfortably that way.

I bought the Kindle because I need the device to be able to test my games on it, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have bothered. It’s not a bad device, but if you need a tablet and can possibly swing it (price wise) go ahead and get an iPad.

Update Jan 14, 2012

A few days later and I may need to rethink my opposition to the size of the Fire. Since then I’ve used it several times each day and even carried it with me on one outing instead of the iPad (okay, I had the iPad in the car just in case, but didn’t touch it).

When the iPad came out people claimed it was a “consumption device” and not suitable for creating content or doing real work. That idea has been knocked completely out of the ballpark but I’d say that description is a good one for the Kindle Fire.

Reading books, watching movies, playing games — those things all work fine. But I wouldn’t want to have to update a web site, type more than a short email, etc., on a Kindle Fire. I can take my iPad to a coffee shop for a few hours and get a lot of actual work done — that’s not the kind of thing you’d want to do with a Fire.

I still find the size awkward and the web browser is too small to really use for “browsing”, but as an extra tablet it’s nice to have around.

Laptops are outselling desktop machines (by a huge margin) and tablets (iPads, specifically) are being used to replace laptops by more and more people.

I can see a time within a couple years (yeah, that soon) where the only computer most people will need will be an iPhone.

Sidebar: Yeah, someone using Android could pull off what I’m suggesting, but Apple has a proven track record of doing more cool things. Sorry, just a fact.

A “home computer” could consist of a monitor and a keyboard — and your iPhone. Sit down in front of the keyboard and connect your iPhone to the monitor — that could be as simple as tapping the phone against the the monitor. It’s wireless — and iPhones can already mirror what’s on their screens.

And iPhones already talk to Bluetooth keyboards. So right now, today, you can actually do 90% of what I’m talking about.

What’s missing is a way to use a touchpad to control the “cursor” on the screen — of course, while the iPhone is sending its signal to the HDTV/monitor, it could be used as a regular touchpad that controls an on-screen cursor, so that piece is easy for Apple to add.

Your iPhone is powerful enough to do 100% of what 90% of people use computers for:

• Listening to and watching audio/video
• Reading
• Browsing web sites
• Using Facebook
• Email
• Playing games

Am I missing anything? Isn’t that about the extent of what *most* people do with a computer?

With a system like that in place you could be at someone’s house and check your email, update your Facebook status, etc., without needing to log in and out of someone’s computer — because you’re using the computer in your pocket.

Make the monitors just a little bit “smart” so they can watch for nearby iPhones and when you walk up to one it can ask if you want to connect — wirelessly, of course.

Right now I can do a lot of my computing on my iPhone and/or iPad but I have different data on those devices than on my desktop computer. Cloud storage helps with that problem to some extent, but I’m looking forward to the day when someone (Apple, probably) puts all the pieces together into a really compelling package.

I’ve written a LOT of tools over the years but the ones I use day in and day out are the following (and you’ll notice these are all aimed at creating and promoting products):

Article Architect – While I don’t do tons of article marketing anymore (I do it, but it’s very focused — no more shotgun approach for me) I create content all the time, and I still do most of my writing in AA. It’s one place where I can find all my content and then auto-post it to my WordPress blog or export and upload as an HTML web page.

Sonic Sneak – I’ve been cloaking and tracking my links for years and it’s probably the single best task I’ve ever done. At any time I can look at my dashboard and see which sources are bringing me the traffic. Is it a post on my blog? An article? A forum message? With Sonic Sneak behind the scenes I never have to guess about that, I simply know.

Instant Video Web Pages – Web video is a proven workhorse, whether you’re using it to promote a product, show someone how to use some software, or giving people a glimpse at how clever your cat can be. And since we should make use of it, I created IVWP to make it brain-dead simple to not just put up a video, but put up a complete video web page. Fill in the blanks, choose a template, and boom, it just works.

Product Creation Station – Finally, while I don’t “use” this actual product on a daily basis, the ideas and knowledge that went into creation of this course is what I use to create all the products I crank out. If you want a comprehensive course on info product creation, delivered on a weekly basis, PCS is perfect for you.

If there’s one thing I’ve preached in the years I’ve been doing internet marketing it’s to reuse and repurpose the content you create. I’m not a big fan of using PLR materials for much when it’s really pretty easy to create your own content.

And once you have that original, unique content, you can put it to use in many different ways.

Here’s a perfect example:

Article Marketing Explained on Amazon

Click that link and you’ll be taken to amazon.com where you’ll see a new ebook on article marketing. While some material is new, the bulk of it was created with content I wrote a year or two ago for a different project (membership web site).

Over the weekend I pulled together the materials, wrote some “glue” content to pull things together, and submitted it to the Kindle book store. Today it’s available.

And honestly, I didn’t know what a thrill it would be to see my name and ebook on amazon.com until I opened the page in my browser. :)

I have no idea how sales will be, but the point is that I did most of the work previously and used the content for one project (or more), and now for this project that I can just set and forget. Amazon handles all the sales, order-fulfillment, etc., so I can turn my attention to other projects.

Actually, one of my next projects is to take the same content and either turn it into an ebook app for iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad, or get it into the Apple iBooks store.

Not too long ago I was reading a book I got from Amazon recently called “Paid to Play: The Business of Game Design” by Keith A. Meyers, who’s done a lot of board game creation and publishing. I bought the book because I thought it might have something good for my computer game development. And it surprised me…

…by giving me an idea for a board game. The last couple weeks, off and on while waiting for things to compile, when I needed a break from programming, etc., I wrote up the rules for my game and created a prototype.

Here’s a picture of the final prototype played by myself and my kids this evening:

While the board says “Sailing Challenge” on it, that’s not going to be the real name. I’m still trying to come up with that. (It’s harder than I thought.)

The object of the game is to be the first to sail around the San Juan Islands by rolling the die and using special cards that are drawn. Among those cards are “Disaster” cards that you can play on your opponents to slow them down. For example, put an “Off Course” on a player and they’re stopped until they can play a “Navigational Charts” card, a “Tow Boat” card, etc.

You can get Stuck in Customs and lose a turn (unless you’re holding a “Friends in High Places” card), land on a Treasure Chest square and get to move extra spaces, etc.

There are aspects of luck (die rolling and drawing shuffled cards) mixed with strategy (which cards do you save or discard, when’s the best time to stop your opponent, etc.) that make it more than just a normal board game.

Playtesting has just begun, so there are probably going to be some changes coming over the next few weeks, but according to the family, it plays pretty well right now. :) (I know, I know, what are the kids going to say, that it stinks?)

In the next few days I’m going to write up some of my notes from creating the prototype, just in case anyone’s interested in doing something similar.

Yesterday I finished the initial prototype of my first board game. I came up with the idea while reading the book, “Paid to Play: The Business of Game Design” by Keith A. Meyers, and while I’ve only created computer games in the past, this one came together really quickly during a brainstorm session.

I bought a pack of index cards and using a pen and colored pencils created the cards for the game. Then taped four sheets of notebook paper together and drew the board on that. Finally, last night I sat down and typed up the rules for the game.

Today will be the first real play test with the family so we’ll see whether it’s as fun in real life as it is in my imagination. :) And if it is, I’ll get some foam-core board to make a better game board and use the computer and printer to create better looking cards. And with a nicer-looking prototype I’ll start finding more people to play test to see if “real people” find it fun as well.

Still no name for the game, but I’ll post a picture of the prototype here in the next day or two and let you know how the play testing went.

My newest game, Roly-Polies HD for the iPad, was submitted to the App Store last night. It looks like they’re taking about 7 days to approve new apps, so hopefully by this time next week you’ll be able to download and play!

Here’s a short demo video for Roly-Polies:

http://youtu.be/RpWUNqpfFXw

My new iPhone, iPod touch, iPad game is available to download from the App Store:

Match Game Magic

It’s a memory/match game for people who like puzzles — and it’s free, so download it and if you like it, please give me a good rating on the App Store. If you hate it, let’s just keep that a secret between us. :)

I just finished my first iOS game for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. It’s called Match Game Magic and it’s now sitting behind the scenes waiting for Apple to approve it. That usually takes 7-14 days but you never know when you submit it.

Match Game Magic (a memory game)

The site is up but the download link leads to limbo at this point — I’ll post a follow-up message when it’s ready to download. :)