I am a bad speller. And it’s frustrating to think that spell checkers have been around for 20 years but spellchecking is still not an OS-wide function. Instead, every app that spellchecks has it’s own UI and it’s own dictionary. This should all be built into the OS. Just like I can right-click any text field and select “copy” or “paste” there should be a “spell Check” option. It’s like the days where every app had it’s own set of printer drivers you needed to install.

I’ve been using Firefox 2’s spell checker, and while I’m happy they implemented it (especially with the red underlining) it seems pretty bad. One of my problem words that is difficult for me to spell even when concentrating is necessary. I always spell it nessicary. Let’s take a look at the complete list of Firefox’s suggestions for nessicary:

• carsickness
• lyricalness
• vicariousness
• carsickness’s
• caressingly

What. The. Fuck. Carsickness’s? Are you kidding me?

Of course, I am still blaming Microsoft for this, since spell-checking should be an OS-level function.

This is my second post in my Gmail UI rant series. I started this series to point out why I prefer Yahoo Mail over Gmail. I don’t think Yahoo Mail is perfect, but Gmail to me is just downright nutty, and has many-a-time left me feeling like a n00b, which is something that I really don’t think email should ever do to anyone except the elderly (that’s a joke, please no hate mail). This time I’m discussing the shortcomings in Google’s labels-instead-of-folders approach, and the difficulty in telling read messages from unread ones. Read the rest of this entry

I happened to watch ScrewAttack’s top 10 worst ways to die in a video game video today. However, they missed what I feel was the most embarassing, frustrating kill of all time. Karateka: getting kicked in the groin by the princess after you defeat the final boss.

For those who don’t remember, Karateka was perhaps the first ever fighting game for the Apple II and Commodore 64. You worked your way through battle after battle to rescue the princess from the evil Akuma. The game had no save feature and only one life, so you had to start from the beginning every time. If you managed to defeat Akuma and his falcon, you’d be greeted by the princess. However, if you forgot to step out of fighting stance, she’d drop you with one swift kick to the groin, and your character would crumble down to the ground in a world of hurt. You lost all your health, and the game would be over. After defeating the final boss. By a princess. With one blow.

I still remember the day I had won every battle and felled Akuma, and I thought I had finished the game, only to be taken out by that chick’s self defense move. Little did I know at the time it was a metaphor for the hardships of Life. That is truly the worst way to die in a video game. Okay, back to work.

Dean Utian has posted a survey for people who use Adobe Director to make games. If you’ve not filled it out already, please do. It’s short. The end result will be seen by Adobe, and your comments will help influence the future direction of Director.

http://www.fbe.unsw.edu.au/learning/director/survey/games/form.asp

A while back I wrote about the secret handshake. The idea is that websites that want to communicate with you could allow you to provide to them a keyword (not a password) that they would then include in all email correspondence. It would make phishing more obvious and allow you to set up filters to look for your handshakes to move them to priority folders.

Yahoo! has been using something similar for at least a few months now. It’s not for email, it’s for their log in page. Here’s how it works:

• Yahoo allows you to choose some words or upload an image. This image becomes your seal.
• Once you’ve done this, the seal will appear everywhere Yahoo asks you to sign in.
• Since it’s displayed before you sign in, it’s computer dependent -- go to a different computer and you’ll need to set up another seal.

Sherwood Dungeon on maidmarian.com is a 3D massively multiplayer RPG written with Adobe Director and deployed with Shockwave and the Shockwave MultiUser Server. It’s creator, Gene Endrody, reports that over the weekend Sherwood dungeon hit 4000 simutaneous players across two servers, with each server handling 50% of the players. Read the rest of this entry