The Legend of Zelda - Phantom Hourglass (DS)

The best game I have played in a long time. I have to admit I don't play many games these days. The only gaming system I own these days is the Nintendo DS. So when Zelda came out for the DS last week I decided to buy the game and have a go. I was blown away! Many games have come out for the DS over the last 3 years since it was launched. The quality and originality of these games is what has allowed Nintendo to trump the Sony PSP with its lower spec'd DS console. My favourite DS games to date are; Mario Karts (Especially in wifi mode), Super Mario bros, Advance Wars Dual Strike & Final Fantasy 3, Mario 64. But none have managed to make the touch screen and dual screens the core element of the game except perhaps Advance Wars, a great strategy game. But even Advance Wars can be navigated using the keypad if need be. Zelda on the other hand is a game designed entirely around the DS platform. All movement within the game involves tapping, swishing and swirling with the stylus. It also uses the built in microphone to solve some puzzles involving blowing into the microphone or yelling at it. The game is so engaging and varied you lose hours of your life at a time without the slightest idea.

The Legend of Zelda - Phantom Hourglass is destined to be a classic game of all time and a masterpiece for the DS system. I really recommend you buy this game if you own a DS.

Swear well!

People say the first words you learn in a new language are the swear words. And for me that has often been true. Now there is a site to help you improve your swearing in other languages. Youswear.com

Upoko kohua! Tutae kuri

Banned from Kmart

Mint

How do you spend your money? Restaurants? Shopping? Petrol? If you are anything like me you probably only have an idea of the major expenses you are incurring. Mint syncs online with all your bank accounts and credit cards and starts to group your expenses and provide you with statistics. Using this software should allow you to keep a closer eye on your personal finances. My only niggle is that its only available for US bank accounts at this stage. I would like to try the system out with my UK accounts.

DIY alarm clock

I just received all the internal parts of a digital alarm clock. So now I can go about constructing a stylish case for it. My current idea is to install it in my VW Camper at the back where the rock and roll bed is. That way we will have an alarm clock beside our bed while be travel. You pick up your own DIY alarm clock from Furni. Or alternatively buy one of their rather stylish fully built clocks.

Human Tetris

The object of this Japanese gameshow is pretty simple: squeeze through the hole in the moving wall, or be pushed into the water. Check out the video on Youtube super funny stuff.

Voyage

Today I launched my latest personal project, Voyage. Its an adaption of the 3d blogging engine I built earlier in the year. Its a RSS feed reader. Posts are sorted by date so all your feeds are combined into one stream. Users can manage the feeds it reads using the feed management pane. Navigation through the feeds is done using the scroll wheel or up and down keys on your keyboard. Have a play and let me know what you think.

Playing with the Iphone

Today Athila our designer at work brought in an Iphone. I have to say normally I'm a bit skeptical of Apple products as they tend to have so much hype around them that they are often a let down. But I can assure you that the Iphone is truly amazing. What makes it for me is the user interface, the user interface is so well thought out that it actually makes you forget you are navigating complex content on a small screen. This is the first phone I have used where i can truly say it offers top quality web browsing. Full websites display beautifully and moving around the page is a real dream. Here is some video of Nicolas and I playing with it.

Flight of the Conchords

Today I was sent this link to a comedy skit by the "Flight of the Conchords". I was really blown away by the act it was hilarious. So go check out Bret (AKA Rhymenoceros) and Jemaine (AKA Hiphopopotamus) if you want to find out more about these guys here is their official site.

Create your own VW

By now you are probably aware that I am in the process of buying my first VW Kombi. Today I discovered a really cool site that allows you to add your own design to a VW in real time. Above is the design I created. It's not in English so it can be a little hard to navigate. But the idea is really cool, the bus is rendered in 3d using flash and you can spin it round and apply your own colours and graphics to really make it your own bus. Its worth while checking out the gallery of other peoples creations as there are some really fantastic designs.

Why not try designing a Kombi of your own.

3D Sound

Here is an amazing experiment using 2 microphones where each of your ears would be if you were in the room. To really appreciate this you need to use headphones. The way your brain perceives position with the sound is just incredible.

3D Sound

New wheels... well not quite new

I have just laid down the deposit on a VW type 2 (early bay) transporter. Polish Bob a VW restoration specialist in Poland is going to refurbish my rather tired looking VW Kombi into a lovely van in which I intend to explore Europe over the next few years. She will be two tone with pacific blue bottom and white top. Inside there will be a rock and roll bed with 12/230 volt electrics and a night time heater. Everything you need to live on the road, I can't wait for the restoration to start. Sarah and I will be flying over to Poland to pick up the Van and drive it back to England once it's complete.

New Timepiece

I've just purchased a new watch online. I can't wait to receive my new Tokyo flash sourced EleeNo EG3 watch. I love that its almost impossible to tell the time on it unless you have been told how it works. For ages I've been thinking about building a watch that tells the time in binary using leds. When I saw this watch i knew it was the one for me. While it doesn't tell the time in binary it gets pretty close, it uses 12, 5, 9 to tell the time. The hours are displayed by a block12 leds while the 10's of minutes are displayed by block of 5 leds and the single minutes are displayed by a block of 9 leds.

Microsoft Surface

Microsoft has just announced a new product, Surface. The idea is a large touchscreen table with an interface designed completely for multi-touch based interaction, touch based interaction is the main feature rather than an add on. The interaction reminds me strongly of the work that Jeff Han did on multi point touch interfaces a few years back. The result is a very slick looking presentation. To me this is the first time I have seen a computer that can easily be interacted with by more than one person at a time, outside of gaming. I can really see this product replacing the coffee table in the lounge at my flat. I love the user centric design and can't wait to try this product out.

Scary Sheep

I'm sure you have probably heard of the movie Black Sheep by now. But who could have imagined it was real. Check out this Youtube video to see the real scary sheep.

LOL

Encyclopedia of Life

Amateur biologists pay attention! This is the most interesting project I have seen online in quite sometime. The aim is to produce an encyclopedia documenting all the different species on the planet, constantly updated and added to by scientists and amateurs in the field. At first I thought isn't this just a specialised Wikipedia. But after looking through a few of the demo pages I soon realised that the layout and interaction of the site is driven completely by the structure of the information. There is even a slider that allows you to adjust the content displayed on a subject from a novice to expert. I am super impressed by the careful thought to the design and presentation of this information. The Encyclopedia of Life will become an invaluable resource in the future.

Encyclopedia of Life

Cafe Press and Digital Doodle

This weekend I integrated my Digitial Doodle site with cafepress using their content api. This now means when users draw doodles on the site they can buy their doodle on a tshirt straight away. I can see many great web applications being created using the cafepress api.

Conservation Architect

My good friend and great designer Sam Dallyn and I have just finished building a website for Conservation architect Christian Randall in our spare time. I think it looks pretty cool. We tried to keep it as minimal as possible so Christian's work would speak for itself. Sam created a very minimal design while I built it so the menu would hide unless needed leaving only Christian's work on the page.

Conservation Architect

Homemade MP3 Player

I have just finished building my own Mp3 player, obviously its not quite as slick as an Ipod. But it does have its own charm and it was a great project to work on. It's made from the MAKE magazine mp3 player kit. You get a printed circuit board and all the components you will need to build an open-source mp3 player. Whats also great about the kit is the player takes SD memory cards so you can make your player any size you want. I'm going to start buying 2Gig SD cards (around £10 each online) and load them up with music compilations. After building the Mp3 Player I needed a case for it. I decided I wanted to put it in a hollow book. I followed the really good directions on this site about how to make a hollow book. And last of all I added next, prev, volume up and volume down buttons to the front cover of the book.

Stumbleupon

If you haven't heard of Stumbleupon you're in for a treat. Its a really clever idea that revolves around suggesting websites for you. Its a bit like clicking the "I'm feeling lucky" button in Google. But the clever part is that you refine your searches so its not totally random. You can pick topics which your stumbles will be based around. You also get the ability to rate each site you stumble upon. If you rate it thumbs up you'll get more like it while thumbs down removes it and sites like it from your stumbles.

I predict Stumbleupon to be the next super addictive website. I totally recommend you give it a try yourself.

Digital Doodle

So about two weeks ago I was sitting around in a meeting doodling away. And I noticed Athila our designer at work was also doodling. And it made me think, wouldn't it be cool if we could share our doodles online. So i built this little site that allows people to draw a doodle and share it with the world.

Digital Doodle

Let me know what you think of it.

Web Designer Syndrome

Almost every web designer I have met has web designer syndrome (tunnel vision). What is web designer syndrome you ask? Well web designers are always striving to produce an innovative and creative web site with an amazing interface. They want to be famous amongst other web designers. In this quest for the ultimate web site they continually forget about the user or they have a misguided impression of who the average user is. They spend all their time looking at Web design portals like newstoday or thefwa. Which both have links to very innovative work, often with creative interfaces which while heavy web users like web designers or developers can navigate easily my mum can not. This is not to say that my mum is dumb, quite the contrary, it is because my mum is not a heavy web user and has not been exposed to these unusual and creative interfaces before. My mum has a limited knowledge of interfaces online. So if a web designer is designing a site for Marks & Spencer or Carphone Warehouse it is important to realise that the average user is not a fellow web designer but my mum and my dad, brother, sister, etc for that matter. I'm not saying never create innovative interfaces, it is fine to push the limits a little but makes sure you don't lose your user rely predominantly on the cognitive learnings of an average user not a heavy user. Make sure you really are designing for the correct audience. Ask your mum to use your websites after designing them, watch her use them, take notes on the way she interacts with them. Work out where you can innovate and where you may be losing her. This will not stifle your creativity it will open your websites up to a much larger audience.