Dragons, wizards, and grandparents, oh my!

Want to see something cool? Fire up your computer, even your five year-old computer or your netbook. Go over to Wizard101.com, an innovative, entertaining, family participation role play game. Known as an MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game), Wizard101 delights people from pre-readers to post-retirement and everything in between.

I know. I play it. So do my four year-old grandson and granddaughter. My husband claims not to be that interested, but he hovers around and tells us what we need to do when we’re playing. The game is based on a Harry Potter-type world of wizards, creatures, magic, and graphics to die for.

How Wizard101 works

In this MMORPG, you get to create a wizard character, male or female, hair color from brunette to purple, and any variation of ethnicity you could come up with. Diversity is integral. With your wizard born, you hook up with the headmaster for fun lessons in how to play. Everything you’ll need is covered in about fifteen minutes of play.

• Learn to use your wand
• Learn how magic spells are cast via an amazing card game
• Understand your tools
• See how to add pets to your experience
• Begin reading the imaginative backstory

You’re ready, Young Wizard, to play in earnest. Quirky characters visit your screen as you play telling you, in the nick of time, what you need to know. Six brightly beautiful worlds, soon to be seven, make up a universe known as “the Spiral.” Intense color, well animated creatures and characters, and a satisfying soundtrack put Wizard101 out in front of the pack of role play games I’ve seen.

Participate for free as long as you wish. There’s plenty to explore without buying areas or subscribing to the universe, and thousands of people have played free for almost two years. Still, KingsIsle, creators of the game, is characterized by brilliant thinking. They don’t hawk their wares. They never push product at you. They woo you, seduce you into desiring more because it is so much fun to keep going.

Why Wizard101 is perfect for multiple generations

I talked with Fred Howard, KingsIsle marketing VP. He explained, “In 2005, our founder, Elie Akilian, saw a huge space in the gaming world. There was hard core violence, and then sites like Club Penguin for very young children, but nothing in between for family entertainment. Of course there were no wizard worlds, no card-play based dueling. Ours isn’t a tight niche; it’s crossed niches that appeal to all ages.”

He’s right. Wizard101 RPG is simple, user friendly, with much of the story playing out in text-to-speech. Even pre-readers jump in, fiddle around, strike down a banshee with a well-played battle card, and are on their way to saving a world, with magic. More sophisticated players engage in all manner of strategy, learning, and power-ups, taking play to higher levels.

The cool thing, the very cool thing is that people from 4 to 84 can play together– as a team or group. They talk to each other on screen, help each other out, strategize, and learn from each other. Grandma or grandpa, living in Ft. Lauderdale, can spend a couple of hours roaming worlds hand-in-hand with grandchildren in Anchorage, a priceless bridge over geographic distance so difficult for families to manage.

It’s a social thing, this game. Howard likes to call it “family entertainment,” not “family-friendly” play. He means his game is totally engaging for everyone. While family-friendly products like the famous Florida Mouse’s website delight kids and are safe, they could quickly bore the pants off elders.

Why Digital Grandparent is sold on Wizard101

It’s simple. It’s grassroots. This year, KingsIsle will focus on showing

Grandparents can learn magic at this school

Wizard101 to people of mature ages and let us sell ourselves. We grandparents get that it’s wonderful to interact with family in a clean, safe space. We’ve embraced Wii, Skype, and other web properties.

My grands and I learned a new language around this game. We hang out in exotic places. I like Mooshu, the Oriental city of cherry blossoms, black lotus, and the fearful Jade Oni. My grandson can’t stay out of Dragonspyre’s lavafalls, dark broken villages waiting for rescue, and a breathtaking dragonride he can access anytime he wants.

We talk about the game and plan our best options. We talk to other players, without fear of inappropriate interactions. Filters prevent inappropriate comments in player chatter. It’s almost impossible for anyone to exchange personal information – again, filters remove anything that resembling an address, phone number, real name, even age.

The interface is beautiful. The infrastructure is extremely well-planned for safety, fun, and people-appeal. Once in a while as the audience expands, technical issues arise but are solved fairly quickly. KingsIsle’s parent award winning Wizard101 is not a perfect world. But overall,  I’d be hard-pressed to think of anything else with so much to offer so many.

You, a tech-friendly grand, might just discover how to enjoy this as much as the kids, at no cost or reasonable cost.

They say laughter is as effective in preventing ailments as is exercise – we laugh a lot over this jewel of a toy. Digital Grandparent gives the game a whole bucketful of stars and recommends you grab your favorite child of any age and give it a go. You’ll find yourself feeling younger and more spry with each spell you cast.

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Grandparents, Wizards and Online Gaming

Oil spill is larger than Connecticut

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Oil and water don't mix as BP's spill shows.

By Dan Pelland, tech guru guest writer

Remote-operated vehicles (ROV’s) worked on apparatus at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, trying to save a planet. I couldn’t stop watching the live feed from BP. It’s almost interesting enough to dispel some bitterness I feel at the unfolding events down there. Maybe that’s BPs whole idea as their digital imaging technology brings a tragedy into our living rooms.

Early Thursday morning June 3, about 10:30, engineers began work, apparently to disconnect damaged pipes atop the now infamous blowout preventer. Two ROVs were visible. The point of view was a camera onboard what looks like a Millennium II cage-deployed ROV, owned and operated by Oceaneering International, Inc .

The ROV had a circular saw gripped in its right hand. As the ROV maneuvered into position, I could see how intensely difficult the adjustments must have been for the operator 5000 feet above. Regardless of what hi-tech equipment I was looking at, placing a tool with this kind of precision, without the benefit of tactile feedback, requires an extreme amount of skill and patience.

As soon as the blade began to spin, a thick cloud of mud obscured the camera but the operator held the saw in place and kept up the cut. I knew, from my own experience, what could go wrong in a situation like this. A little off axis, and the blade could bind and, in an instant, wrench the tool out of hand.

On the second cut, it happened. As I watched the saw fall out of the ROVs gripper, I knew what the operator was saying. I wondered if it was in a Cajun dialect. The camera panned downward. The saw had come to rest, precariously, on the top of the BOP (blowout preventer). The second ROV moved in to assist. It took the two operators, working from separate consoles. More than 30 minutes to recover the saw and get back to the cut.

Finally after more than an hour of careful maneuvering, a strap around the main riser was removed. At the moment it broke loose, I yelled.

video by alexhiggins732 via Youtube.com

The human factor of BPs oil spill

Regardless of the ill will and contempt many of us feel for the oil industry right now, there are men and women working as hard as any human ever has trying to mitigate the damage to our treasured resource. This is an intense drama unto itself, as compelling and fascinating as anything I’ve ever seen. The fact that I can watch it unfold in real time is a testament to the ingenuity of people like the staff at Oceaneering who put this technology to work.

Display the World Wide Web with HTML5

If you follow tech news, you’ve heard a bucketful about the virtual war between Apple and Adobe (makers of FLASH) over web design. Apple supports adopting HTML5 and Adobe still says FLASH is the thang. What’s it all about? Money and sales, of course, but here are some facts about how HTML5 may relate to your Internet experience in the near future.

Definitions HTML5 and FLASH

HTML is hyper text markup language, a fancy way of describing the coding tags web designers have used since the dark ages of webpages to make plain old text look fancy. HTML causes a browser to display specific or general colors, fonts, text styles, images, links, and everything else that goes into making webpages cool. HTML is part of the web page, a container for design elements.

FLASH is Adobe’s add-in program that causes web browsers to interpret video, animation, special effects, and interactivity. It was invented by Macromedia, a property of Adobe who makes Photoshop and other imaging software.

Like all things digital, HTML (and FLASH) goes through various iterations of itself as the powers-that-be adopt changes and improvements. The coming generation, being fiddled with now but not in wide use, is HTML5. Because the two platforms overlap in functionality, there’s an ongoing debate about which is better, HTML5 or FLASH, for cell phones, computers, etc. Apple’s Steve Jobs (CEO) is a master of calling attention to his company and so, has made it his hobby to bash FLASH and Adobe. This has no impact on us, as people.

The 10 facts about HTML5

I’ve been writing HTML code since, I don’t know, like 1998? and I like it. It’s easy to write, easy to use, and it’s an open-source platform. That means no one owns or controls HTML. So here’s how HTML5 will impact your coming experience.

1. Any designer, including you or me for our home pages, can do stuff like liquid particles without much learning curve.
2. Web users won’t have to download new versions of HTML5 like we do FLASH. Designers have to keep up on new tags. You just browse.
3. It won’t cost you anything to use it, write it, read it.
4. FLASH may have serious security issues. It’s doubtful that would ever be the case with HTML as a platform
5. HTML should be transparent to users (you and me) and has the potential to be read in any browser or adopted by any cell phone manufacturer.
6. Because it’s open source, it’s development as a platform will gain from contributions of some of the world’s brightest developers. No one has to hire them. The developers just contribute. We win.
7. Browsers will be backwards compatible – meaning old browsers will ignore new HTML5 tags they don’t understand and still provide you a usable website experience.
8. Embedding video in web pages will be easier and standardized so you can add video to your blog or page, play it on any browser, and enjoy more of it.
9. It may become possible for us to have web applications that run offline even if you do not have an active Internet connection running.
10. There will probably be lots more gadgets or mini-apps on the Web, just like those found for cell phones now, that you’ll be able to download and play with. Many will be free.

HTML5 vs Flash

At the end of this story is a simple fact. Right now, HTML5 isn’t doing much for you, but behind the scenes it’s maturing like a toddler in a growth spurt. Right now, browsers mostly don’t know what to do with it. Developers for Microsoft’s IE, the most ubiquitous web browser, need a swift kick in the template to get them moving on adopting HTML5 as current reality.

Safari is onboard, others are partially onboard.

FLASH is FLASH and it’s insecure, and can cause display problems.  Adobe seriously needs to tighten up FLASH and make it safer and more stable.

The future isn’t here yet, but HTML5 will be in it, and really, I can’t wait. In all likelihood, you and I will never make a webpage with FLASH, it’s too complicated. I can write HTML all day long and enjoy the process, and so could you if you picked up one reference book. I think HTML will be fun for designers and for users.

More cool digital stuff:

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The digital side of real estate

Home theater on the cheap

Magic U.S. money - high tech changes

In 2011 you might be lucky enough to carry one of the most sophisticated currencies in circulation. The U.S. will, according to CBS News, change the one hundred dollar bill to do some virtual legerdemain. The casual observer may think her eyes are playing tricks on her as a liberty bell disappears from the face of the bill.

A CBS News report says:

Benjamin Franklin is still on the $100 bill, also known as C-note, but he has been joined by a disappearing Liberty Bell in an inkwell and a bright blue security ribbon composed of thousands of tiny lenses that magnify objects in mysterious ways. Move the bill and the objects move in a different direction.

Little liberty bells will change shape and appear to move. Various icons will color shift. Symbols will appear and disappear. Was this all about designers having a great time showing off their latest magic tricks?

It sounds pretty slick to us. The idea is to make sure counterfeiters are strongly challenged if they try to replicate that bill. Is it foolproof? Maybe not, after all, anything someone can think up, someone else can hack. But it’s an interesting use of technology. The question is, we suppose, is it an effective use of money, even hundred dollar bills, when our economy is still struggling and the U.S. budget groans with the staggering weight of Federal debt?

Guess it doesn’t matter. It’s a done deal. Do you think it’s a prudent move? After all, the hundred is nearly the only bill that hasn’t been duded up in the last ten years. the other is the single and it won’t be changing. Talk to us – what do you think about all this?

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Tooling around the web I found some fascinating tidbits about Nintendo. My quest began when I browsed the editorial calendar from one of the publications I write for. It said Nintendo, the company, was founded in 1889. It’s been around almost a century and a quarter. Digital trivia I needed to know more about, and I was surprised by what I learned.

Nintendo (the word, says the company website, means something like “Leave luck to heaven” in Japanese) originally made card games. Later, according to Wikipedia, they dabbled in being a taxi company, a TV Network, an instant rice maker, and what is carefully described as a “love hotel.”

Now, they’re mega-players in one of Japan’s busiest industries, electronic gaming. They own the Seattle Mariners baseball team and are worth almost $100 billion.

Before Nintendo wowed the world with two guys, Mario and Luigi, they owned Japanese distribution rights to a video game system most baby boomers will remember, Magnavox Odyssey, often considered the world’s first home video game system. Odyssey was first demonstrated in May, 1973 (again, according to Wikipedia). I recall clearly playing Light Tennis until my eyes went glassy and I had to pee so badly it felt like my teeth were floating.

The first NES game system debuted in the U.S. in 1985 – accompanied by Super Mario Brothers, still a hands-down favorite among serious game enthusiasts. If you think back, you’ll recall that it came with the light gun and Duck Hunt, too, an amazing feat of electronic wizardry for its time.

From manufacturing cards to swamping the electronic home game industry with the innovative Wii system in 2007, Nintendo has come a long way. They’re winding up to pitch a 3D handheld DS game this year, and keep tossing out new ideas all the time like a program to integrate DS game decks into school curricula.

Leave luck to heaven might well be the company motto. Skill and business sense seem to be where it’s at for this firm that employs about 4,000 people in more than half a dozen countries. You go, Mario.

Read more:

Nintendo for baby boomers

Learn about Ubuntu – the op sys that can dump Windows

Edit your videos FREE

We liked this online learning project so much that we invited Mary Ellen Pinzino, Founder/Director of the Come Children Sing Institute to explain her program for our readers. Since 1984, her organization has been a center for research and development in music learning. Mary Ellen tells you how to learn music online. Grandparents and kids can get FREE gift certificates via SKYPE.

The Come Children Sing Institute is conducting research on music learning in the youngest children through online music classes with distant grandparents via Skype.  Come Children, Sing! Online Music Classes for infants, babies and toddlers are designed so that distant grandparents can interact meaningfully with their youngest grandchildren in an ongoing developmental music program.

Grandparents can now engage with their little ones in online music classes from their own homes and on their own schedules, whatever their musical background.  MP3 files, music activities, and grandparent tips are all provided online, while the child sees only the loving grandparent onscreen, engaging with the child in music activities.

Discover new ways to interact with your youngest grandchild via Skype on a regular basis. Become part of the exciting process of your grandchild’s music development during the most important years for music learning. Just sing along, move along, play along, and go along with Come Children, Sing! and your little one via Skype.

Come Children, Sing! is a developmental music program that makes learning music as natural as learning language. Infants, babies and toddlers across the country are thriving musically on Come Children, Sing!, surprising loved ones with their focused attention to music activities designed for the young child’s music development.

Come Children, Sing! Online Music Classes deliver one new lesson each week for 10 weeks.  Participating grandparents are expected to engage with their loved one in weekly lessons for at least 10 minutes each week for 10 weeks, with 14 weeks to complete the 10 lessons. $40 gift certificates for continuing Online Music Classes will be provided for as long as grandparent and child engage in the program via Skype. Three years of quality music instruction for little children are now available online at Come Children, Sing! where you can view sample lessons. Distance learning has now reached the youngest children, with all the benefits of online education. To participate with your grandchild, send an email to Come Children, Sing! with your name, the age of your grandchild, and a notation that you read about the program at DigitalGrandparent.com.

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Make family videos – excellent quality and CHEAP

Ubuntu log-in

Ubuntu is a slick operating system you might want to look in to. It’s more user-friendly than Windows. It’s every bit as robust – meaning Ubuntu can do everything you need to do on your PC. It’s quick, less buggy than windows tends to be, and probably more secure. The best attribute of Ubuntu is it’s FREE and always will be. Ubuntu is open source software.

If you use Firefox, then you use open source software. That means the program is developed by members of a world-wide team of expert, experience developers whose goal is to make computing accessible. Ubuntu is a spin-off of the Linux operating system, but don’t be intimidated. It has a graphic user interface – that means it’s “what you see is what you get.” Just like Windows. It’s point and click. No learning curve. It looks very familiar and behaves nicely.

How to get Ubuntu

The package downloads pretty quickly from Ubuntu’s site, where you can take a tour and see what this free operating system looks like and how it behaves. The package includes a web-browser (a great one!) an office suite, media apps, instant messaging and a bunch of other useful stuff that’s compatible with most other systems.

Ubuntu is easy

Anything you do with Ubuntu can be shared with other PC users, even if they’re still spending big buck supporting Microsoft. If keeping up-to-date with office and operating software is getting expensive, complicated, and annoying, take a test drive.  Download Ubuntu, install it easily, open it and start working. FREE.

Ubuntu will always be free, just like other open source software. The products get better as time goes by and are never difficult to work with. Support is available and customer-friendly. The group is interested in your input – that’s part of how they make improvements. If you really want to get into it, you can become a developer or help develop the art work and interfaces. This is a project tailor-made for baby boomers – the generation with solid experience and a great work ethic.

Becoming an Ubuntu fan

Over the next few weeks, Ubuntu gets a new version, 9.04, the 10th release of the Ubuntu operating system. It’s nickname is Jaunty Jackalope. Ubuntu 9.04 features improvements to their GNOME desktop environment including Evolution, Control Center, Media, and GNOME Power Manager –all aspects that make computing friendlier. All typical consumer “wants”. In addition, wireless, webcams, and other up-to-date compatibility and support debut with this version.

Users get FREE

• OpenOffice.org
• GIMP image editing
• Mozilla Firefox
• Thunderbird

and the list goes on.

We recently bought a netbook, the handy small laptop so popular in the last year or so. We removed

Ubuntu has a familiar feel

Win7 op sys and replaced it with Ubuntu. Dan was right at home with it, being the uber-geek, and I loved it at first use. It took me about five minutes to get comfortable in the driver’s seat, then I was off and running. Truly, if it weren’t for the fact that we need to keep up on all operating systems in our business, I would be ready to dump Windows and put this baby on all our computers. FREE is such a budget-friendly price – especially when quality is right there.

More free stuff:

Video production service

Chrome browser

Free TV

DIY videos good and cheap

Animoto.com is an online do-it-yourself video production program so easy your grandchildren could absolutely create their own videos. It’s effortless and affordable. We found it fun and quick enough that the shortest attention span can hold out during the production process.

For free trial use go to the site and clicked on the get started link. We found seven options to make shorts, full-length, unbranded video and four kinds of greeting cards. We got an immediate nudge for upgrading to a paid subscription, but hey, they’re in business to make money. Once you buy a membership – you can begin creating videos. We chose the All Access level and decided to make an unbranded, short video.

We found we could turn photos or clips into a 30 second video the one featured above, with storytelling text. The site is straight forward and easy-to-use. We uploaded still images from our computer to the site. You can use your own images, select from Animoto’s stock library or retrieve from another website like Flickr, Facebook, Picassa. You’re responsible for monitoring copyrights on your own. In other words – use only material you have rights to.

Once we uploaded, the amount of time required was governed by length and resolution of the videos or stills. Animoto allows 8-15 elements (clips or images) in shorts. We chose four still images, typed a little text  and clicked. Animoto took us to background music selection, the  we gave the video a title and short description. Our video processed, analyzed and rendered, letting us know what it was doing each step of the way, for about 60 seconds. Then Animoto began actual production, showing us in color animation what it was doing. I was interested in following the progress over one and a half minutes it took to complete the video.

When finished, Animoto loaded the do-it-yourself video into the page and emailed me a copy. I didn’t have to keep the browser open. You can go do something else, or start another video in the meantime. The end result was attractive, high quality video in less than ten minutes. This process is slick and appealing. You can produce videos for your social media – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – or email them to friends and family. They would be suitable for showing customers your entrepreneurial products, or for sending a video resume to employer prospects.

An enterprising person could buy the pro-quality level and start a business producing wedding or family videos for profit. Animoto has been around for about three and a half years and began as a consumer level product. It has expanded to serve photo professionals and will increase its capabilities this year. Bottom line – we couldn’t find anything to complain about. The prices are justifiable, the quality outstanding, the process simple and fast. We recommend you give it a try. My partner, not easily impressed, said, “This is actually totally cool.”

Price points:

Pro account $249 annual subscription – produce unlimited length, unbranded, commercially licensed high res videos. Three months for $99.

All access: $30 per year. Unlimited full length greetings and videos for the price of an evening at the movies. Finished product has the Animoto brand name on it with music video style credits on it indicating your name as producer. It’s like watching real music videos and there are awesome embellishments available. Animoto will provide a downloadable MP4 file for $5 or a DVD for $20. If you can’t find a use for this product, you’re not a photo enthusiast.

You can make professional looking images with your digital camera, no matter what the pixel count is. I’ve always been a firm believer that it isn’t the equipment that makes the photo – it’s the photographer. Here are a couple of ideas to make your family photos pop.

1. Goo-free lenses are the best. They can be wiped gently with a lint-free, non abrasive cloth, like those micro-fiber things you dust with.
2. The owner’s manual usually talks in detail about white balance function. The balance makes colors look better, depending on where the photographer is shooting – indoors, in the sun, dim light. Those who know which white is the right white, make better pictures.
3. Composing is something only a human can do. I like capturing something interesting just off center frame. Centered makes me feel constrained. Offset just a hair looks good. I like to keep my background uncluttered, too, unless, of course, I’m shooting a landscape.
4. I love images that fill the frame. One of my favorite things is the macro setting (little thing that looks like a tulip) to shoot odd parts of objects. My little grandson’s toes, for example…filling the frame. Incredibly fun to frame and hang near a bathtub. No macro? Use telephoto – stand back, zoom in till a relatively small object fills your viewfinder. Click.

Want more tips? I like Kodak’s consumer photo Web site and Picture Correct has tips from beginner to advanced.

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Google just acquired a website called Picnik that you should know about if you like digital photography and photo editing. Picnik is FREE cloud computing, with an available upgrade if you want it. With a simple click you can edit and manipulate photos to your heart’s content. Use filters, special effects, and controls once only available in expensive editing programs.

People are bringing their photos off their hard drives now and sharing them, posting them, mailing then, printing them, and displaying them on my favorite gadget of all time, electronic photo frames. If you’re going to use your digital images, you might as well get all the functionality you can. Here’s how it works.

Browse the web or your hard drive and find a photo you like, but you think it needs a little work. Cropping? Red eye correction? Color shift? Ok. Go up to Picnik, there is no registration to fill in. Just click “Get Started Now” and — get started.

Follow the prompts to upload your image. The site is very intuitive and the documentation is right out front and easy to follow. Play around. Use the tools that appeal to you. Experiment. When you like what you’ve created, save the photo and download it back to your computer.

From there, you use it the way you have always used images. Picnik is an application that was ahead of its time and really did the cloud-thing right. I hope Google never decides to charge for this service. Picnik, along with Google Docs, Windows Live and a few other easy-to-use cloud-based application will get us into the nimbus very quickly. Let me know what you think of Picnik.