I like me some video games.

I got my first game system when I was something like 5 or 6. It was an Atari 2600… since then I have pretty much always had a console of one sort or another. I still play them when I can, but most of the games these days just kind of leave me cold. I don’t like first person shooters, and can find playing online fun when it’s not in a round filled with 13 year olds. I do like RPGs (can’t wait for Diablo III), space shooters, RTS and a few other genres including sports games. However, mostly I play casual games on my iPhone these days or other similar format quick games. I really dig the play control possibilities on the phone, with Frenzic being a lot of fun to play recently. I also recently found 99 bricks online, that is a really fun twisted take on Tetris and absolutely worth checking out.

I have a Wii. Yeah, I know, not very hard core… but you know what, a lot of the games on the system are just fun! I just picked up the WiiWare title “World of Goo“. Pure awesomeness. Have you tried it out? If you don’t have a Wii, you can get it on your Mac, PC and I think even Linux… too cool.

Anyway, I have designed and built a few games over the years. Mostly Flash games, and little things like that, but I do appreciate fine game design. It is partially for this reason that World of Goo and I connected. There is just so much attention to detail in this game that it’s tough to overlook. The are, animation, sound, physics, everything. Amazing!

I was really happy to come across this video today about the same thing. This clip is a thorough dissection of the design and thought that went into the World of Goo. Watch and then be prepared to lose a few hours playing this addictive little puzzler.

Design Tour – World of Goo from David Rosen on Vimeo.

Seriously, just too much fun!

I blogged a few months ago about some great Actionscript open source or free code libraries that you should check out. In that list, I mentioned the great, somewhat outdated, but still useful Casa Framework for Actionscript 2. Well, let me repeat that endorsement, but with a big big reinforcement! The Framework has been renamed to CASA Lib and updated to Actionscript 3.

The redubbing is appropriate, as it’s not really an application dev framework like Gaia, but rather an association of packages and classes like the AS3Corelib. Simply put this library just help you get things done faster and easier. Mundane things like date operations, comparisons, display object alignment, etc are a simple method call away. Also, a great addition to the library is a destory() method to assist you with the rather buggy Flash Player 9 garbage collection.

I have downloaded the library and as soon as I have another Flash 9 project pop up, you can bet I’ll be using it. I mean, really the stuff in the util package is just by itself a very useful chunk of code.

Why do I like using these little libraries over just writing stuff from scratch? Well, I have a few reasons, but what really makes it so great in my opinion, is not because any developer couldn’t write these themselves (beleive me I have written all kinds of boring code in the past), but rather by standardizing on a set of packages and classes, you make your team so much more productive. No more debating the better way to do it, no more maintaining your own huge code repository, just simplicity. Really nice, if you ask me.

These bits and snips allow you and your team to focus on the creative parts of your apps and experiences. No one is really going to congratulate you on how awesome your email validation was on that sweet form you built, but they might just love the innovative menus or great integration of video, etc. You see what I mean.

When you think about things like that, and you have great code that is well documented and maintained, it just seems like a no brainer to me. Many congratulations to Aaron Clinger and Mike Creighton and the other contributors on the team. Thanks for your great contribution to the Flash platform community.

Has your company adopted using a Wiki or multiple Wikis for storing information, informal learning, etc.? Has it been successful in using it? This topic has been top of mind for me since returning from DevLearn08 and it is really an exciting development in how learning is changing. From formal to informal. From top down to bottom up. Peer led discussion, community grown insight. Very cool indeed!

Our company has been using a wiki for about two years now. It’s great. We store all kinds of archival data, proposals, bios, fun stuff, procedures and process stuff, handbooks, etc. It’s pretty good, really. We grew it organically and haven’t applied a lot of doctrine in the management of it.

However, it hasn’t been without it’s bumps. Getting people to use it as a primary info source, record, etc is not easy. People are used to a public folder in Outlook or a directory on a network share… but gradually this trend is fading. Beyond that, preventing empty pages or information currency problems (gardening old content and pages out) is always going to be an issue with wikis. Really though, the main issue is getting it filled up in the first place. Here are some tips I have come across in my experience in maintaining ours, reading up on Wiki Patterns and just talking to a few other people I know that manage a wiki. I am by no means an expert in this, but in a Wiki who is? I hope these tips help you, and if you have any other original ideas let me know, or join WikiPatterns and contribute!

Here they are:

1. Hold a Barn-raising! – I first heard this from Tony Karrer and have since read up on it at wiki patterns. With a small amount of planning, this could be really successful in creating a few dozen pages to get your site started. Ask your coworkers to come hungry armed with their laptops and their valuable emails and assorted PDFs and word docs they always forward on to coworkers about process, procedures and tips on how to do their jobs. Order some lunch and start editing! Soon your site will be singing with content. In a comfortable environment like this, WikiNoobs can be schooled on how to work in the system. A great side effect of this is that your pages will start to share a voice or common formatting style and that adds value and coherency to the site!
2. Have a lesser informed or rookie employee fill up some pages with scaffolded content. This content just needs to be ‘kinda’ close. Then, have that same worker send the link on to a superior or mentor for final edit. Showing your expertise can be a strong motivator for some, so by creating a basic framework for content, you are priming the pump and creating an incentive!
3. Go easy on the WikiFormatting! I like HTML. I’m used to it. Many editors are by now. WikiMarkup, or WikiText can be a bit tricky to get used to. It’s got all kinds of rules and things that can easy to implement if you haven’t spent a few years editing web pages already. But for a seasoned web designer, it can feel like training wheels. In this vein, too much focus on making things pretty can slow things down in the creation of a basic wiki’s content. I’m not sure if noticed this on the WikiPatterns site listed as an anti-pattern, but I have just really recently started digging in to this site, so it may be there.
4. Just make it a requirement. Every employee should at least be in charge of their own bio page, right? I would argue that they should not only be editing their profile/bio, but also maintaining a process page if the if they are project manager, contributing to a project’s case study if they were the designer or developer for it, you see where I am going. Simply make it a part of a project’s delivery phase and there you go. Easier said than done, right?
5. Use the Wiki’s ‘Special Pages’. MediaWiki has a “Special:Specialpages” page that lists dead-end pages, orphaned pages, basic stats, most linked to, least linked etc. These links and tools will help you, the editor, manager, etc keep your wiki fresh. Not to be overlooked!

So that’s it for now. I’m going to continue editing my Wiki, and reading Wiki Pattterns. I’m very interested how you are using your Wiki at your work, and hearing your success and trials. Let me know what you are doing with ‘em!