As Josh Dura, I don’t know how long long the Were Here forums have been online with this new look and feel, but it look very clean and almost corporate. A great job indeed.
Visiting the site, I found another nice surprise, an adaptation of Michael Gunn’s original mini-blog reader is in the middle of the homepage! Now I understand why he was so mysterious some weeks ago…
If you have some time available to invest in relaxing, take a look at this simple yet sometimes challenging little flash game. It’s name is Gridlock, and I’ve been playing it during the weekend and it’s very cool.
I already saw comments about it in other blogs, like Moises here, but I think it is worth a port here too. Have fun!
I’m sure you’ve notice that I added this BlogAdNet thingy on the left. If you find it annoying, please let me know; if not, please click on the ads 
Well, about a week or so ago, one of the ads caught my attention. Brainbench offers certification in many topics, based in how high you score in their online tests, several of them free of charge. Of course, it is also based in your integrity as a person, given that there is no way to verify that you didn’t cheat in the test. So, how valuable a certification like this one can be? can it be considered reliable? I wouldn’t think so… but it is pretty cool for self-examination. The questions in the tests are very well chosen and have a reasonable level of difficulty, without being too tricky.
Out of curiosity, I took two of the free certification tests, and for my surprise, I scored better in the Information Technology Industry Knowledge test than in the HTML one. To prove that I passed, here are my badges
I had some doubts when I was about to buy this thing, but it has proved to be very useful. If you follow the instructions carefully, your damaged CDs will be playable again.
I had 5 CDs waiting to be treated or replaced, and now they are like new after the process, that only required a strong arm. I got the device for only $14.99 from the Virgin Megastore at Times Square.
Another article on WIRED caught my attention, too. As a matter of fact, I remember Michael Gunn commenting it a few posts ago. Did I mention that I’ve been very busy at work? well, that’s why I am a little behind on the news … and trying to catch up on things. So, the article by Virginia Postrel is about the influence of aesthetics in the market, better yet, it is about the reason why we buy one item and not the other, despite they offer the same utility, solve the same problem and maybe cost about the same amount of money.
Today’s Economy makes competition so tight that the difference between two or more equivalent products isn’t in the product’s function itself, it is in the added value, specially in the looks. If you don’t believe me, ask the ladies! 
Weeks ago, I made some comments about a web noir named Broken Saints. An article in WIRED made me remember that the final chapter’s publication is around the corner, it is scheduled to hit the browsers on July 14th.
Being such a great work of art, I don’t understand why it wasn’t considered for the Film Festival at Flash Forward 2003, or was it? I mean, there are excellent works among the nominees for the New York’s version of the festival, but in the ‘Story’ category, my vote would have been for Broken Saints.
By the way, they are today’s Site of the Day at Macromedia’s. They also won the Viewers award from the Sundance Online Film Festival earlier this year.
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Update:
I got word from Brooke Burgess, Broken Saints’ writer and director, confirming what Mike Chambers commented earlier:
“(…)We were nominated for Best Story at San Fran in 2001, and won Best Cartoon and People’s Choice at San Fran 2002″.
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Update:
To close the subject, here is the link to Macromedia’s archive of Flash Forward 2002 winners. I found it while checking out Broken Saints’ referers.
An overload of work added to a little of a writer’s block have kept me from updating this site for about a week. In the other hand, news have been slow some of these days, and I’m not really fond on writing for the sake of writing.
Relevance for the reader is important, as well as the means to filter information and categorize it in a way that is both compelling and easy to manage. In that matter, the Macromedia XML News Aggregator has been loaded with some new algorithms that make it possible to find the right posting in the right spot. I’m yet to test it, but I understand that the MXNA would categorize the postings of the blog it aggregates based in what topic is it bringing to the table. So, if I write something about ColdFusion, I should find my posting in that category, despite of the fact that this blog is usually classified as a ‘Flash blog’. What’s gonna happen with my postings about PHP?
[via Mesh]
Everybody knows that the first (and private) round of the Central beta program is already on, at least everybody that showed interest in it and registered with Macromedia before.
I am not participating in this first round, and although I would love to learn more about Central, I’m not asking around. That’s why I find distasteful that some people that had the privilege to be selected are now making comments on things they shouldn’t, since they have signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). In this case, I am referring specifically to some people in the Flashcoders list.
A NDA is a serious matter, and there should be penalties for people that disregard its validity as a legal document. That’s besides of the fact that that kind of comments might cause some discomfort among the unselected, and that’s just why the beta program is private.
Ideas continue to rain over at Mike Chambers’ blog, after he asked for input regarding what new features we would like Flash’s ActionScript editor to have, and what external editors we currently use (if any) and why.
Head over to read what everybody is saying. As for me, I’ve been satisfied with what the built-in editor offers, and the only external editor I really used has been notepad But if you ask me, here is what I would actually find useful:
- Support for browsing and editing multiple AS files.
- Collapsible code and hide/show comments.
- Full screen mode or additional window.
- Ability to jump between code sections (some sort of anchoring).
- Classes and custom objects library.
- Version control.
Thanks to Mike for asking!
This site is amazing, but you need a powerful computer and broadband connection for an enjoyable experience. The other thing is that the language is korean, so I couldn’t understand a word… and even if I could, the fact is that I was too busy interacting with the characters and stuff
This site is for the curious ones, and some patience might be required or you’ll probably get annoyed.
[via NoMaster]