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Posts tagged with "doted"

Taser 1. DotEd 0.

By Dustin WilsonKhadgar. Friday, January 21, 2011 4:22:03 PM

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Our fearless leader has decided to demonstrate why he deserves such an illustrious title. We know this has little to do with Nintendo, but it's about the head honcho enplusser and is just too damn funny to not post here.

And promoting Opera isn't such a bad thing.

5 comments

Scoring Points

By .edDotEd. Monday, January 3, 2011 8:25:29 PM

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I want to share a quick note to loyal and new enplussers. OperaFollow Opera on Twitter has long had an affiliate program that calculates how many times Opera has been downloaded from the advertisement in your MyOpera sidebar (should you choose to enable it). It's a nice way to give credit to those that help them spread the word casually. I've been around MyOpera for about 5 years, I'm ranked #393 in the world, give or take. I'm pretty proud of that.

There are ways to get more points, like sharing the link the ad uses with friends and family.

At N+Follow Nplus on Twitter we tried a different method. We made our own advertisement, and it's been recently updated again by Dustin WilsonFollow DustinWilson on Twitter. How well does that work?

You guys have made N+ rank at #34 in the world!

Is is the custom ads? The staggering page views? The sexy reporting? A combination (also sexy)? We don't really know, but several thousand people have come across N+ using another web browser and made the switch right here.

I'm pretty proud of that, too.

Thanks for enplussing,

EdFollow DotEd on Twitter

10 comments

Bad UI Making Kids Cry?

By .edDotEd. Tuesday, September 28, 2010 3:54:35 AM

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Opera employee, user research scientist, and otaku specialist Lawrence Eng ran into a problem with the user interface (UI) of a game recently. Well, actually his young son did, and it was a Nintendo published DSiWare, too: Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!

In his recent blog post Bad UI Makes My Kid Cry, Lawrence illustrates a problem that I've often wondered about but could never prove existed. A problem that spans 30 years and over 200 games. A problem not tied to to the color of Mario's hat, but threaded in the fabric of game design, across systems and generations. Red.

Nintendo likes the color red for obvious reasons, I'll not get into that. In the real world, kids learn red means danger, caution, and stop. But video games don't adhere to nature's standards and sometimes artistic liberties are taken in interface design that give mixed signals. In Lawrence's example, Red to start a new game, Red to erase your data, Red to go back to the title screen, and blinking Red to cancel that erase command. Green to confirm erasure. :[ In a game that's geared toward a younger audience, you'd think the designers would make it harder to accidentally erase your data.

We've had red and green buttons across systems and on in game menus for years, sometimes performing the opposite function than you'd expect, sometimes a company will choose one function set across multiple games. Sometimes a system will make color less important. You ever watch a Playstation gamer try to start a Konami game?

Have you ever learned a hard lesson due to bad interface design?



11 comments

Load Old Memories?

By .edDotEd. Thursday, April 8, 2010 3:24:20 PM

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In posting a tweet a little while back I unlocked a treasure trove of short and simple memories that I'm ashamed to say had fallen into the back of my mind. Memories that I nearly forgot because modern game culture takes many of the concepts for granted. At the time, no one would have seen the charm of:

  • Rushing home to turn the TV back on and unpause my early morning session of Super Mario Bros.
  • Waiting six minutes for Excitebike to save my track. For years I never used the 'SAVE' or 'LOAD' feature because I didn't understand what save and load meant.
  • My basement packed with neighborhood kids all doing pushups, jumping jacks, and shadow boxing excercises while they waited for their turn in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.
  • Figuring out how to wire the sound into seperate speakers so I could listen so my games with the TV off. I called it 'stealing the music.'
  • Wondering what BGM stood for.
  • Coming up with strong arguements for why the NES Max controller was the best and thinking it allowed for new shooting angles in Contra. I quickly learned it didn't but the sliding D-pad let your thumb move all over!
  • Pretending I knew how The Sega Channel worked to neighborhood friends even though no one had it.

While none of these little memories were enough to write about, collectively they start a fine conversation. Use the comments to share some of your younger gaming memories of concepts, discovery, or features that today are taken for granted. Regardless if age, I think everyone can find something cool to share.

Written by N+ EdPalumbo

28 comments

Nintendo + Google?

By meghan leeemlee. Thursday, April 8, 2010 3:03:21 PM

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People like .ed pride themselves on their Googling skills. If you think you've got what it takes to take on Ed or your IRL friends, there's a game for that: Ando Kensaku.

Releasing for Wii (in Japan) on April 29th the game's title Google translates to ...Ando Kensaku, ...hmm. The game supports 4 player, Miis, Audience Miis, and 14 search related mini games. Actual internet connection during game play isn't clearly stated.

The premise of some of the games is to guess more popular search terms, like which has more results. I'm pretty sure you can do this on a computer or phone already, but offensive background Miis are sometimes worth the purchase of a whole game. Do you think this is worth a Disc, Channel, or Wii-Ware download?

Written by N+ MeghanLee

1 comment

Zelda + Rap

By .edDotEd. Tuesday, May 5, 2009 5:26:25 AM

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[/IMG]Well, there are some things that just don't seem like they'd be good. This is one of them. An 8tracks playlist that made me go "....uh.?"

I clicked play, and half way through the first song I started writing this post. If you like mainstream rappers when they happen to pull a decent set of lyrics and if you're old enough to responsibly hear bad words and not repeat them with meaning, then get ready to octo-rock. To be honest it's more interesting than amazing, because you've heard all the songs and lyrics mashed up in here, but it's a new way to listen to some relaxing beats. And frankly, it will make you smile.

WARNING: EXPLICIT LYRICS
8Track: http://8tracks.com/teamteamwork/the-ocarina-of-rhyme
Tape Download: http://www.sendspace.com/file/45pogy
N+RSS

1 comment

N+ DSi: Complete Guide + Review

By .edDotEd. Sunday, April 5, 2009 2:15:51 AM

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Since everyone is interested in different aspects of the DSi, we decided to run this like a list of features, all of which we see as improvements. There are a few caveat's like the choice of AAC over MP3. Truth is, AAC sounds better but MP3's are what everyone's got, so converting is a pain for some people, and will probably confure more people than it pleases - bit of a drawback, but in an added feature, so can we really complain? These types of micro details are all inside. Find what you're looking for, and see what else you may have missed about this excellent system. The truth is, games really make the system, and we know support for the DSi is going to be huge. However, this system comes with a great deal of additional ways to use it for fun, to record your life, share, and browse the web. You can't really go wrong. So, since no one's reading this long paragraph anyway, here's the listed details:

Continue reading for the full explanation, thoughts, pictures, videos, and more.
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Read more...

32 comments

.Ed's Saving His Game

By Dustin WilsonKhadgar. Monday, February 23, 2009 7:06:02 PM

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Well I finally get around to doing this post, a day late and a dollar short. I'm ducking broke I tell ya (little iPhone humor for you guys)! Took longer than I thought to finish this design, especially when there hasn't been a header for February. I guess this one'll work for March. Right before Cap'n moved and lost his internet connection for a month he posted a story stating that construction was almost finished. He must have been smoking rope that day as I wasn't close to being done. Anyway, here it is. I'm going around nitpicking things here and there, but it's pretty much finished.

It doesn't work properly in Internet Explorer 6 or 7 because they suck I'm not allowed to change the markup to provide padding elements for Internet Explorer to be happy with the CSS I provided. The best thing to do is use a standards-compliant browser such as Opera (or any browser but IE), and things should be fine. Perhaps sometime down the line the My Opera guys'll throw us another bone like it did with our awesome reviews page.

The header image at the top is of our fearless leader, DotEd, dressed as Travis Touchdown. He's "saving his game". If anyone wants to take a look at the larger image which has much more to look at you can view the image in the N+ Design photo album on our photos page or just click here as I like to help out you lazy bastards great people.

Now that I have this done I can focus on writing a review of the lovely WHITE DSi (just to piss lutherjw off bigsmile) I was graciously given by Opera...

20 comments

N+ DSi: DS Browser Speed Comparison Video! (with surprise ending)

By .edDotEd. Sunday, February 22, 2009 10:42:53 PM

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Here's that video I was talking about (finally uploaded). It really speaks for itself. There's a fun surprise at the end :3 ...Enjoy!

N+RSS

Read more...

47 comments

N+ DSi: The Cameras

By .edDotEd. Friday, February 20, 2009 12:50:37 AM

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With all the news finally dropping regarding US, European, and Australian release dates for the DSi, doing a daily post about the one in my backpack is getting more exciting.

Today I'm going to give everyone a glimpse of what seems to be the first question I keep getting asked...

Read more...

15 comments

N+ DSi: DSi is DS 1.9 to Developers

By .edDotEd. Wednesday, February 18, 2009 5:39:58 PM

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I've pretty much been waiting for this announcement to unleash the DSi updates that Khadgar and I have in store for everyone. So without further delay, here's another DSi update:

It's been a gaming generation since the Nintendo DS was first previewed at E3. The device has gone through one promotional display prototype and two major public revisions; the first shortly before launching and later the DS Lite, which at the time was like a dream come true from both a consumer and developer perspective. The more svelt 'Lite' was far more attractive, smaller, brighter, and took the DS out from the game drawer (where it was sitting on the PSP) and put it into purses and pockets. Excellent software at the time of revision helped propel the 'Lite' to the top of everyone's list for years - but nothing REALLY changed.

The DSi, after some careful thought can be considered the first true '1.5' update to a console - you know how people always joke about how:

[weakest next gen system] = [last gen system] x 1.5

It's not the 'DS 2,' but it practically is - I'm calling it the 'DS 1.9.' Continue reading as I explain why this means a shift in the industry from a developer standpoint.

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6 comments

N+ RSS Update

By .edDotEd. Monday, February 16, 2009 4:43:57 PM

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If you read N+ through our RSS feed, we have good news. We've updgraded our approach so that, frankly, we can get statistics on our sum of readers, and better serve you. If most of you subscribe and read on mobile devices, on a DS or Wii based reader, or through a regular web browser, we can do more to generate content that fits you better. So please update your subscription to our new feed: http://feeds2.feedburner.com/nplus so we can do more for you.
Thanks everyone!

Ed

3 comments

N+ DSi

By .edDotEd. Monday, February 16, 2009 1:15:32 AM

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N+ moderators Khadgar and myself were lucky enough to receive two Nintendo DSi's with the Opera web browser preinstalled a few weeks back, and we've been putting them through some rigorous testing (literally - I dropped mine twice, and I never drop anything, so it must have been for science).

Over the next few weeks, we'll be posting daily on the DSi. We're going to cover EVERYTHING because it seems like no other blog did. Exclusive to N+ will be our unique coverage of the new DS Browser - because our DSi's (even though they are Japanese language versions) were sent to the sexy folks in Norway where they downloaded it for us from DSware before shipping to N+. This new version has obvious updates like no need for additional RAM, it becomes a 'channel' on the DSi home screen, and since it's software based there is potential for updates, like the Wii browser has seen (and will get again).

What we'll need from you is comments and feedback on what you want to see, so we get you the most interesting info. DSi compared to DS lite, in every way. New DS browser compared to Old DS browser, in every way. DSi compared to G.I. Joes, in every way. New DSi Browser compared to Opera Mini, iPhone, iPod touch, GBA, GameBoy Player, a cat named Skoo, etc., in every way.

So give us some work to do in the comments, tell us what you want to see, while we compile our data from the past weeks and we'll give you guys and girls something to read daily on the upcoming European and North American Nintendo DSi.

Also, follow @NPlus on twitter for kicky fast notifications of new posts or subscribe to our new N+ RSS Feed so we can get some stats to work with to better serve the community.

13 comments

Iwata's Nintendo Media Summit 2008 Speech

By .edDotEd. Friday, October 3, 2008 4:37:31 PM

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I decided I wanted to SEE what Iwata spoke about for threeleven hours during his speech at the Nintendo Media Summit 2008. Here is a word cloud I made where the larger words are used more, with the full text of the speech after the break.
[/IMG]

Read more...

7 comments

Lazy Sunday: Mushrooms

By .edDotEd. Sunday, September 14, 2008 8:16:20 PM

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[/img]Sunday: nature's boring sister.

Not much going on today and after a few friends came over for some morning whatevs and complained about the size of two rapidly growing fungi (the larger is about a size 4 soccer ball) in my front lawn I went to get tacos. Having witnessed the growths first hand as we made our way to the car, I realized what I had to do.

Yes, I was a bit sloppy, but the neighbors love it. A few more pics in the Member Art gallery.
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7 comments

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