XBMC is a fantastic and free cross-platform media center application we’re nuts for. If you’ve wanted to start using it or just wanted to customize the XBMC installation you’re already running, this guide will walk you through everything, from installation to total customization. More »
Media center – XBMC – XBMC Media Center – Microsoft Windows – Operating Systems
With the increased screen real estate of the iPad, it’s the perfect device for playing board games. If you haven’t had a chance to browse some of the great titles available on the App Store, here’s some of our favorite board games to get you started.
ScrabbleSuch a classic, Scrabble is awesome on the iPad platform. Enjoy playing against friends (or a computer) on a gorgeous large game board. If you have an iPhone, download the free Scrabble Tile Rack and arrange your letters on your own device. When it’s your turn, simply flick them towards the game board and they’ll appear, ready for you to place and score big. Similar to the iPhone version, you can play against your friends locally or over a local network. Scrabble is $9.99.
Words with FriendsIf there’s one app at the moment that’s popular across social networks and mobile devices, it’s Words with Friends. Similar to Scrabble, this game allows you to play, turn based, against friends who are playing on their iPads, iPhones or Facebook accounts. The app supports push notifications to let you know when it’s your turn, and you can chat in-game with your friends. At $2.99, this is definitely a fun board game for those who enjoy playing against friends and don’t want to take the leap to Scrabble.
Game TableOne of the first game apps on the iPad, Game Table provides a virtual game board for a variety of games, like checkers, chess, poker and other card games. It’s not a traditional game in the sense that you’ll have scoring or rules and stuff. Instead, it’s simply all the pieces to play games without all the fuss so you can play them any way you want. For 99 cents this app is a great value and the developers have promised that additional game pieces for Backgammon, Go and Reversi will be added soon.
UNO HDWhile UNO technically is more of a card game than a board game, I decided to include it because it’s a very fun experience on the iPad. It features all of the traditional UNO rules and actions, like Draw 2, Reverse and Wild cards. It also supports multiplayer (sharing one device or multiple on a Wi-Fi network) and features challenges allowing users to unlock additional themes to give the game a fresher look. UNO HD is $4.99.
StrategeryStrategery is an engaging game originally designed for the iPhone that has been optimized for the iPad as well. This game of world domination features you as leader of a “country” (think Civilization style) and you battle against your neighbors to gain/lose territory. It supports pass-and-play style multiplayer (with up to five players) or online battles with push notifications. The iPad version allows for much larger maps and a much more engaging experience if played like a traditional board game (a group of players gathering around the iPad). At $1.99, this app is a definite must-have.
Theme CheckersOf all board games, Checkers (or Chess) was probably the most expected to debut on the iPad. There are a variety of both available now, but my favorite is Theme Checkers HD. Just like a real game, the movement is very fluid and natural. This game supports one and two player modes and regularly updated themes for unique checkers experience. Users can even create and install their own custom themes as well. Theme Checkers HD is 99 cents, so give it a spin and see what you think.
Board BoxIf you’re looking for a little more than just checkers or chess, you should check out Board Box. Similar to some of the others I’ve mentioned, it includes checkers and chess, but this app goes further by including Reversi, Tic Tac Toe, Go, Draughts and more. Not only does it include the regular version of these games, but it also includes some variants. This app doesn’t support an automated second player, so you’ll either need to suffer from having a split personality or have a friend to play against. If there’s nobody local, you can play against friends through email. The developers of Board Box have promised that there will be no in-app purchases for this app so as they continue to update and add additional game boards and variants, the updates will be free. At $3.99, Board Box is a great investment.
LudoIf you’re a fan of Parcheesi, you should definitely check out Ludo ($3.99). Supporting up to four players (both human or computer), the game plays like real Parcheesi, except with a fresh modern interface and smooth animations and sound effects. Though there are a few other Parcheesi variants on the App Store, this one is definitely the best for the iPad. Additionally, your game state is saved so you can start and stop the game as you please.
Moonlight MahjongIf you’re one who loves playing mahjong, check out Moonlight Mahjong for 99 cents. Putting a literal spin on the traditional idea of mahjong, this version is 3D, allowing you to use touch gestures to tilt and turn and zoom in and out. There’s over 90 built-in board layouts. When you get bored with those, you can create your own and share them with others. Plus, it offers for support of multiple players (even across Wi-Fi or against an automated opponent). If you’ve never given mahjong a shot, this is an excellent game to reduce stress and relax.
Honey, That’s Mine!This is a “sweet” board game where players compete against each other to collect the most honey. If playing on the iPhone or iPod touch, the game supports pass-and-play for multiplayer, but if you’re on the iPad, the larger screen makes it easy to just place your iPad on a table and play against your friends. The idea of the game is rather simple, but the options for computer opponents and difficulty variations give this game additional replay value. Honey, That’s Mine is available on the App Store for $1.99.
This is just a small sampling of some of the apps available for the iPad. If you’ve tried these or found others you like, share your thoughts in the comments below. Personally I’m thrilled to find replacements of my favorite board games on the iPad. Just imagine how many little pieces I don’t have to keep up with anymore!
If you’re pondering over a gift to give a chess-loving, mechanically minded friend this holiday season, you could do worse than a chess set made of nuts, bolts, and washers.
Julia Suits, a tinkerer with a Flickr account, had this to say to Make Online about her endeavors in chess set building:
[As I] headed toward the light-bulb aisle in my local hardware store a few years ago, I stopped to admire the bins of nuts,bolts and the like … I love metal,and have cast and welded all types as a sculpture major in graduate school. When I saw the little bin containing two different types of castle nuts, I immediately thought of rooks.
At the time my three sons and I hosted a weekly chess club, so chess was on my mind a lot. With my boys in tow, I returned with graph paper and we computed what sorts of bits we might want (we didn’t know for sure) for each type of piece and how many in total. An hour later, after poring over numerous bins and waiting for the clerk to saw the threaded rod into measured lengths (for kings, rooks,and bishops), we went home with about fifteen pounds of loot, including spray paint for the black pieces. We created a set not far different from what is pictured here. Since then we’ve added washers to some and added a flanged hex nut to each of the bases to make the set uniform and even more stable. The hardware chessmen were a huge hit and the other boys built their own sets.
If the set caught your eye, you’ll definitely want to check out her Flickr account for a deep look. There you’ll find close ups and “exploded parts” style photos of various pieces. If you’ve tried your hand at building a custom chess set of your own, we’d love to see pictures of it in the comments.
Whether you’re moving, short on cash, or running out of storage space, you’ve got plenty of reasons to ditch your physical media. Hard drives are cheap; here are our recommended methods of saving, selling, and trading your CDs, DVDs, and video games.
Photo by mutednarayan.
Backing up: If you’ve only got a few CDs to digitize, either because you’re already on top of your backups or just want a few sacred albums, go ahead and use whatever music manager you’ve got. We’ve found some decent explanatory guides for iTunes, WinAmp, and Windows Media Player, all of which suggest you make sure you’ve got your format settings tweaked to your liking before you commit the time to swapping discs in and out. Photo by joelogon.
What format should you back up to? We can’t tell the future, nor do we know how much of an audiophile you are. The safest bet is to go with a lossless compression method, which doesn’t compress audio information for file size, and so has a better likelihood of being rescued and re-converted if a new format takes over from MP3. Both iTunes and Windows Media Player offer their own lossless formats to convert to in their settings.
The free, open-source alternative is to convert to FLAC, which, while popular among serious music fans and the open-source community, isn’t quite a readily-playable format on MP3 players and devices. You can convert audio CD tracks to FLAC, or most any other audio format, using the free VLC Media Player.
If you do decide to stick with MP3s for your conversion, aim for a higher bitrate—perhaps 256 kbit/s. Some notice audio "artifacts" on files compressed at 192 kbit/s and lower. On most modern hard drives, a library full of MP3s encoded at the 256 rate can readily be fit.
Selling and trading: Your best deals will depend on your collection, with rare or hard-to-find discs, of course, likely to fetch a better dollar. We’ve previously posted that disc-by-disc Amazon selling can be worth the effort, if you’ve got the time. In my own brick-and-mortar experiences, I found that one locally-owned record store (in a different town) wouldn’t bother giving me more than a cursory estimate for about 60 CDs, while another took the time to look for any gems with resale value and provided a final estimate. Photo by brewbooks.
I found the best deal at an FYE, because they can quickly scan CDs, match them against a national database of inventory, and offer you firm disc-by-disc prices. A Tina Turner hits collection owned by my wife, and Black Flag’s The First Four Years netted surprising double-digit returns, but don't kid yourself—audio CDs are not a product seeing growth, so you may have to swallow your pride and admit your Smashing Pumpkins collection isn't all that valuable these days. If you're offered mere pennies for a disc, you can, of course, always keep it, but there are alternatives.
Reader Richard wrote in to tell us about SwapACD, a service he’s found fairly reliable for trading out old, hardly-touched discs for unexplored music territory. Swaptree is another fair bet for all kinds of media.
If mailing out your old wares disc by disc isn't all that appealing, we propose a fun alternative—host an Old CD Party. Email a bunch of nearby friends whose tastes in music aren't completely appalling, buy some snacks and drinks, and invite everyone to spread their CD collections in personal piles on your floor, just like the baseball card trades of yore. Swap albums, negotiate two-for-one deals, and laugh about what a sullen, sappy, or seriously goofy person you used to be. It's a lot more fun than getting 50 cents for your Throwing Copper disc(s).
Backing up: Adam really dislikes having DVD scratches and skips interrupt his “stories,” while I loathe looking at my DVD purchases and realizing that, on a per-view basis, they’ve cost me about $5 per hour. How many films does one really intend to watch over and over? Wouldn’t your copy of The Italian Job (the newer, Marky-Mark remake, of course) be put to better use as spare cash or a new DVD than as an entertainment center bench warmer? It may not be entirely, officially legal, but making a personal copy of a DVD for your viewing on any device is the mildest of infractions these days.
Adam so dislikes dealing with scratched optical media that he made two tools for converting them to digital goodness. His one-click DVD Rip tool for Windows uses the ever-popular DVD Shrink to make it stupid-simple to turn any DVD disc into standard DVD folders—VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS. Rather than make you dig through folders and thumbnail shots to find those ripped DVDs, he also patched together DVD Play to make browsing, playing, and editing the details of those ripped DVD folders much easier, using VLC for the actual playing work.
For any computer, we also recommend the powerful, popular, and reliable Handbrake, which offers a bevy of helpful presets for all your devices and screens. The VLC Player itself can also help you rip DVDs, while Mac users can still grab the last free copy of Mac the Ripper for a pretty easy solution. DVD spines photo by ToastyKen.
Selling and trading: As with CDs, DVDs see a drastic reduction in value once they leave their plastic wrap, but videos are even more generally low-priced than their audio brethren. As with CDs, though, there are specialized trading sites, SwapTree and SwapADVD among them, that might net you a bit more cash for your cinema.
If you’re not up for individual listing on Amazon, checking for no-seller-fee periods on eBay, or becoming an enlightened Craigslist seller, I've found the best bet is selling in a garage sale, open flea market, or other face-to-face opportunity. Price your discs accordingly—hit up Amazon, find the price for used discs, and go down from there. Friends of mine have had the same kind of "Wait, really?" success trading in DVDs at FYE and similar big-box chains that take them, but the best deals I've seen involve bulk offers for boxes of DVDs. It's a guaranteed sale, the discount usually isn't that much, and, hey, you've already got the essential movie moments backed up to digital files.
Backing up: If you own a PS3 or Xbox 360, there's no easy way to back up your games for later second-chance playing—at least no easy method that we (or our brethren blogs) have come across. For the Nintendo Wii, however, Jason recently posted a guide to copying and playing Wii games with an external hard disk that’s not all that difficult to pull off. Photo by NMGilen.
If you’re a PC gamer, some of your older games can likely be copied whole cloth onto blank discs, and any of our Hive Five CD and DVD burning tools can get the job done. Some can’t, or won’t work on installation, because of proprietary copy protection systems. In general, though, most games rely on a serial number to authenticate a game, so keep those backed up somewhere you can’t lose them, like a code-named email to yourself, or on paper you won’t likely lose.
Selling and trading: For older games of yesteryear, along with today’s hot items, Nintari is a good place to test the pricing waters, though you’ll have to negotiate your trade or cash deal on your own. Alternately, Goozex uses a point-based system to facilitate the buying, selling, or swapping of games. Game rental service GameFly will buy certain used games and return monthly rental credit.
In bigger cities, a Craigslist post may be worth the effort (mainly connected to spam replies) for rare, well-reviewed, or or relatively new games. Lifehacker readers reported hit-and-miss success at chains like GameStop when we asked for the best trade-in deals, but noted that more in-store credit will be offered than cash—and it's a rare gamer who quits cold turkey. Or so we've heard. Other web stops to check out include TradeGamesNow and SwitchPlanet, recommended by commenters jharris0221 and jadn.
Hey guys. So usually the posts we put up here involve screencasts and presentations, but we are going to start also posting small less time consuming pieces for the site. Today I bring to you a small project involving NSTimers. Today we are going to build an app that represents a horse race. We will create a view with 6 small UIView squares with a blue background at the bottom of the screen, we will use a timer to move a random one of them forward a random amount of distance. Let’s get started!
You can get the source here: NSTimerDemo
Create a view based application in xCode. Call it whatever.
In your view controller class header file add:
NSTimer *myTimer;
In your view controller class, uncomment out the viewDidLoad method and fill in the following code:
- (void)viewDidLoad { [super viewDidLoad]; CGRect workingFrame; workingFrame.origin.x = 15; workingFrame.origin.y = 400; workingFrame.size.width = 40; workingFrame.size.height = 40; for(int i = 0; i < 6; i++) { UIView *myView = [[UIView alloc] initWithFrame:workingFrame]; [myView setTag:i]; [myView setBackgroundColor:[UIColor blueColor]]; workingFrame.origin.x = workingFrame.origin.x + workingFrame.size.width + 10; [self.view addSubview:myView]; } myTimer = [NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:.1 target:self selector:@selector(moveACar) userInfo:nil repeats:YES]; }
In your view controller class, add the following method:
-(void)moveACar { int r = rand() % 6; NSLog(@"My number is %d", r); for(UIView *aView in [self.view subviews]) { if([aView tag] == r) { int movement = rand() % 100; CGRect workingFrame = aView.frame; workingFrame.origin.y = workingFrame.origin.y - movement; [UIView beginAnimations:nil context:NULL]; [UIView setAnimationDuration:.2]; [aView setFrame:workingFrame]; [UIView commitAnimations]; if(workingFrame.origin.y < 0) { [myTimer invalidate]; } } } }
So that is it. Timers are really cool and come in handy for all sorts of small problems in a project. Happy coding.
Many a great video game has been beaten and relegated to gathering dust. Trade your old games for new ones at game-swapping site Goozex and gather a stack of brand new adventures.
Goozex coordinates game traders much like previously mentioned sites Paperback Swap and BookMooch work for books. You enter in the games you have and wish to trade and other users send you requests. Goozex has sections devoted to the Xbox, Xbox 360, Game Cube, Nintendo DS, Wii, Playstation, Playstation 2 & 3, Dreamcast, PC games, and Mac games. The site conveniently detects which section of the site you're browsing when you search, so if you're in the Xbox section and search for Psychonauts, it won't suggest the version released for Playstation 2.
Each game has a point value set by Goozex that acts as a price within the trading system. You accumulate points by sending games out to other users and spend them on games you want. Each request costs you one dollar, plus the points of the game you’re requesting from your account. After looking over the various point spreads, it would appear that you’ll get the best value by trading games within a given platform. For example, popular titles from the original Xbox go for 100-300 points, while popular titles for the Xbox 360 range from 300-900 points. Unless you’re set on ditching your old console games for newer ones, you’d be better served trading for games within the same generation.
Be sure to check out our readers’ suggestions for the best deals for selling used games. If you have other tips for your fellow readers on how to squeeze some life, and cash, out of your old games and game systems, sound off in the comments below. Thanks Sean!
My iPad Wish List: 10 App Requests
Watching the iPad’s first television spot on the Oscars Sunday night, I got giddy all over again in anticipation of getting my hands on this hot new product. Though it’s still a few weeks away, I’m even more excited for the applications that will be coming to the platform. Here’s my top 10 list of apps that I want to see developed for the iPad.
Coda
As a graphic designer and web developer, Coda is a staple in my workflow. It features a built-in FTP system, which could be problematic to port to a mobile device, considering there isn’t a traditional file structure to store data. However, perhaps the iPad’s new file storage system will provide an adequate solution. Regardless, as someone who codes, it would be awesome to sit next to a client and modify code and push changes to a site all from my iPad while they load and test the revisions on their own desktop.
Before you laugh, remember that Adobe has already released Photoshop Mobile for the iPhone, and all things considered, it’s not such a bad application. A larger iPad version could allow support for opening and manipulating native Photoshop files as well as working between multiple files. CS4 introduced a new tabbed approach to viewing multiple documents at once. A similar setup could easily be implemented on the iPad.
Katamari Damacy
What’s a fun touchscreen device without a fun game? Katamari already exists as an iPhone app so it’ll scale up decently on the iPad. But given the advanced graphics of the iPad and the larger screen, a native iPad version is a must. If you’ve never played Katamari, check out this clip below.
Call me crazy (it doesn’t hurt to be wishful) but the feasibility of an iMovie-like app is certainly within the realm of possibility. I would have never expected Apple to introduce video editing on the iPhone. Nevertheless, along with a video camera, the iPhone 3GS allows for simple video edits. Why couldn’t we have a larger implementation of this on the iPad, provided it gains a video camera at some point? With the larger screen, there’s plenty of room to view a larger timeline, add transitions or effects and with one tap, upload your masterpiece to YouTube.
iChat
I’m actually quite surprised this app still hasn’t made it to the iPhone yet, but as a platform that’s designed to be “the best way to experience the web, email, photos and video,” the iPad seems like the perfect device for iChat, especially if a future model gains a video camera.
There have been a number of third-party developers that have created similar apps for the iPhone, but I’m honestly shocked to see that Apple hasn’t implemented its own solution yet. With a larger screen and almost full-size keyboard, remotely accessing and interacting with other Macs on my network would be a breeze on the iPad.
Preview
While the iBooks application will open books that are in EPUB format, I’d love to see a more robust implementation of Preview available on the iPad (and iPhone). Specifically, an app that is capable of annotating PDF files and provides support for links within PDFs. Since I’m also an academic, some of the journals I read (as PDFs) contain bookmarks to other articles or chapters and currently, none of the built-in applications on the iPhone support interacting with them.
I don’t care how it has to happen or if it involves Flash or not. Who doesn’t want Hulu on the iPad? Even if it required a small subscription, I would love to be able to access my Hulu queue on the go. Better yet, since the iPad is a closed system, the app could download and cache content so it wouldn’t necessarily have to be streamed in real time. This could be a great solution to save AT&T’s crowded bandwidth for 3G models and allow WiFi-only models to still play even if a network isn’t around. I’d pay for that; would you?
Bento/Filemaker
Now that we have iWork, how about a real implementation of Bento (or FileMaker if that’s not too much to ask)? The current iPhone version is pretty pathetic and really hard to use to manipulate larger databases. While FileMaker may be a stretch, I’d put serious money on seeing an iPad version of Bento before the year is out.
It looks as though the new iTunes app represents a step ahead of the current iPhone version, but there are still some missing features that would make this app a rock star on the iPad. Adding support for Internet radio, browsing my other libraries by Home Sharing or support for iTunes Extras and LPs would be amazing. Honestly, why hasn’t Apple announced support of iTunes Extras and LPs? The specs call for a viewing area of 1280×720 (the 720p high definition standard). They also call for building your iTunes Extras with what’s called a bleed graphic, or a graphic that can “fill in the extra space” if you’re viewing it at a size greater than 1280×720. Now given that as a way to compensate for a difference in aspect ratios, if you were to scale down an iTunes Extra for the 1024×768 display, wouldn’t it just make sense? Come on, if the Apple TV can do it (and we all know how excited Apple gets about that product), shouldn’t the iPad as well?
What are your thoughts on apps you’d like to see? Share your thoughts in the comments below. The great thing about Apple’s developer community is that they keep up with what’s discussed in the blogosphere. You never know; a developer might see your suggestions. So, share what you’d like to see on the iPad!