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Tools for Tech Startups

May 12, 2011 by ndh

A few weeks ago Detroit Labs started up. And in that period my eyes have been opened to the world lean startups live in. There are so many amazing free tools out there for a tiny new company! Things that would have required money, time, and suffering a few years ago are polished and incredibly useful and just waiting for you to use them. Most of those free tools have upgrades available, for a reasonable price, that makes them appropriate for growing companies. Here’s a few of the most common and useful apps I’m using on a daily basis or have been most impressed with.

Gmail

Exchange is the enterprise standard for email. It requires servers and administrators and licensing (there are plenty of hosted solutions as well, Rackspace charges $10/mailbox/month). For $0.00 you can get email addresses with unlimited storage and amazing search capabilities. ’nuff said. You can pay $50/year/person and upgrade to Gmail for Business, which gives you email to your own domain and access to the Google Marketplace, itself a treasure trove of free and cheap utilities.

Google Calendar

Exchange is also the calendering solution of choice for the enterprise. And I have to admit they do get the large meeting scheduling, resource planning, and free/busy time down. But see above re: costs. Google Calendar is free, and with a little configuration you can use it to view multiple calendars on one page. And the next app can help with the scheduling…

Tungle.me

Hopefully your startup isn’t doing much meeting scheduling (already). But it is inevitable, and if all of your startup friends are using Tungle, you can get some help with free/busy schedule planning. Tungle is a service that pulls in meeting information from you and your contacts who have also signed up with Tungle and provides a great little interface to find free blocks of time.

Dropbox

I’ve spent many (company dollars) solving file sharing, backup, recovery, and versioning problems. Dropbox can solve these problems, and is free for 2GB of storage or less. Dropbox uses your native file management, Finder in OSX, Explorer in Windows, synchs files between any computer you install Dropbox on, and most importantly Just Works. You can quickly share documents with other people by right clicking and adding users (by email address) to a file or folder. You can pay to upgrade storage space, and Dropbox also offers a team version with additional features perfect for the startup with a few paying customers.

Yammer

Yammer is your own personal social network. Taking its user experience cues from Facebook, you can setup a free Yammer account and share and interact with the other people in your Startup. What makes this tempting for a startup is information posted to Yammer is available to everyone, much easier than everyone looking through their email for a thread.

Xmind

Mind maps are ways of organizing information and data around linked central points. It’s a great way to deconstruct complicated topics, keep on top of large volumes of information, and take notes. Xmind is an open source tool available for OSX, Windows, and Linux to create mind maps. It can be navigated completely with the keyboard, making it a very fast way of entering information.

Google Docs

Any business will find it difficult to survive long without Excel, the swiss army knife of business programs. But Google Docs can take you pretty far. MS Office power users will find a lot lacking in the Google Docs tools, but they may be swayed by the near-magical ability for multiple people to edit the same Google Doc at the same time, and see what each editor is doing while they are doing it. With Google Docs you never have to go through the ‘mail out the spreadsheet, each person makes their one edit to their one line, email a spreadsheet back per person, and some poor slob combines it all back into one spreadsheet’ game. The documents are stored in the cloud and available from any machine with an internet connection, and can be shared with other users (read only or full access). And if you’ve never tried it, get a buddy to open up a document while you also have it open and check out the collaboration.

Google Alerts

Create search terms in your industry, for your company name, or anything else you can think of and save them as Google Alerts. On the time period you specify, your search will be executed and any hits will be emailed to you. Free and easy way to keep up.

Basecamp

Project collaboration and lightweight project management can be had for free in the highly usable, clean, and simple Basecamp. Free accounts have a limited number of projects and users, upgrade as you have more projects (and hopefully more money) you need to manage.

Highrise

Contact management and CRM, from the same fine folks that bring us Basecamp. Takes a little getting used to to fully understand the capture mechanisms, but good collaboration possibilities for your fledgling sales empire.

WordPress

Your startup needs a website, and WordPress might be all you need for a long, long while. For look and feel options there are many different themes available for free, many more available through WordPress’ marketplace for reasonable prices, and freelance web developers everywhere have built expertise in creating custom themes just for you. WordPress.com is the hosted solution, if you outgrow that or ever want to host your WordPress blog on your own site, WordPress.org gives you the software itself.

Delicious

Delicious.com is a bookmarking site. Recently its future was in doubt as Yahoo, the then owner of Delicious, looked like they were preparing to shut it down. Luckily a buyer was found and the service remains. To use Delicious you save the page you are currently viewing in your web browser to Delicious, much like you’d save a bookmark or favorite in your browser. The bookmark is stored in the Delicious database with whatever tags and metadata you add to it, and are available to you from any machine. You can add bookmarklets to your browser to make adding new bookmarks quick and painless. The value comes from being able to access these bookmarks from any other computer or mobile device, and also by being able to search and organize the bookmarks by categories you create.

Evernote

Finally, a personal favorite and powerhouse, Evernote. Evernote is a capture system for digital files of any kinds; text, images, PDFs, etc. But more importantly, Evernote incorporates an OCR mechanism that searches for words in any uploaded image or picture, and makes those words searchable through the Evernote interface. There is a good web client to access your docs, as well as PC, Mac, and Mobile clients, keeping all your data at your fingertips.

So, there’s a few of my favorite and most useful free apps that are making the startup life much easier. There are many more, especially on the programming and application development side. I’ll cover more in a future post.

So, what are some of your favorite free apps?

Posted in startup, technology | 3 Comments »

Some advice for the job seeker

March 4, 2011 by ndh

Over the last few years I’ve interviewed a lot of people, and been the interviewee a lot as well. Here’s some advice.

  • Be honest. You are awesome, tell them that in at least ten different ways. Leave your self-consciousness AND your ego at the door, and be genuine.
  • It’s all about confidence and communication. If you don’t seem confident, I’m not confident you can do the job. If you can’t communicate, I don’t want to think about spending the next five years trying to decipher your crazy talk. Tell yourself you are having fun at the interview, too. Because you want to act like you are having fun.
  • Make sure there’s a good mix of ‘we’ and ‘I’. I don’t want to hear all “I” did this, because it can’t be true and what’s that person think of themselves? Likewise, all “We” did this makes me question how much they actually do, and by themselves.
  • You have incredibly interesting gigs and hobbies that you are making money from right now. Everyone would love to hear about being a paid bass player, and making cakes. Just make sure you talk the business side of that up as well as the playing part. It’s a “I started playing 20 years ago and got serious 10 years ago when I decided I wanted to play in professional bands, I’ve been booking shows and self-managing for the last five, I coordinate lights and sound for five band members which involve all this work. I’m very shy, so I make myself go up there every single time and make sure I have practiced everything to overcome my stage fright, every time it’s a battle and every time I give my absolute best performance.”, not “One time this guy got so drunk that!” – the latter makes you memorable, but doesn’t make you stick as a doer. The former makes you a doer that will be remembered because hey, what you did is incredible.
  • Be honest honest honest. Tell yourself the person you’re talking to will run into a mutual friend tomorrow and fact check you – don’t say anything embarrassing.
  • Know what you’re going to say about your best quality, worst quality, best project, worst project, best coworker, worst coworker, best boss, and worst boss. Many of those boring ass canned questions can fall in one of those categories.
  • And have three questions you will ask. Make them good questions, and a little sideways (so you don’t cover them in the interview and then come up short). “What’s the executive culture like here? How do they make sure everyone working towards shared goals?” or “What do you think people like most and dislike most about working here?” and “What’s a major success story here?” and “What’s your culture like? How do people relate and treat each other?” are starters.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Get On the Floor

June 9, 2010 by ndh

“What are you doing?”

This was my three year old. She had been bouncing around the basement and was now at my elbow, looking at the screen. What I was doing wasn’t much; catching up on email, Hacker News, the Well, some twitter, paying a couple bills, wondering why my auto-pay wasn’t automatically paying. Usual nonsense.

“Nothing honey, just a little work.”

“Play with me.”

I almost blew her off. She didn’t say it in the way you are imagining, drawing the meeeeeeeee out to scratch your ears. It was matter of fact, simple, a statement. “(Hey, how about you) Play with me (instead of the computer).”

And I even said “Ok,” and kept doing what I was doing for another minute. She’s three. She won’t care. Heck, she won’t even notice. Jerk.

I came to my senses. And I unassed myself and got on the floor.

“What’s this?”

She was holding a metal cable management contraption I took off my home theater setup. It consisted of a couple brackets and a nut and bolt.

“Here, let me show you.”

I grabbed my crescent wrench and showed her how the bolt screwed on. “What the heck!” (All day long at our house lately it’s What the heck! I’m saying it all the time now too. What the heck! Our six year old brought it home from first grade. Better that than Wizards of iLizzie Castle or whatever that junk is on Disney Channel.) I showed her how the crescent wrench shrinks and grows with the thumb wheel. “What the heck!” I showed her how to construct a new creation with four L brackets and a nut and bolt. “That’s crazy!” (If it’s not raising heck, it’s crazy).

The L bracket thing was christened Spiderey.

I grabbed my orange Swingline and made it talk. Then I showed her how to open it with the little button in the base (“What the heck!”). The Swingline was renamed Orangey Orange.

“Orangey Orange, what are you doing?”

“Eating dinner!”

“I’m looking for my web. Have you seen it?”

Luckily the spider web was nearby. Some people put magazines in it and call it a magazine rack but it was obviously a spider web.

“Here it is Spidery!”

“Oh thank you!”

Then Mr. Hammer Head came by to visit. It was a busy night at the Spidery pad.

“Mr. Hammer Head, what are you doing!”

“Nothing Spidery, look how I walk.”

“Wow, I wish I had a hammery head.”

“Here’s your hat!”

Someone had accidentally clipped Spidery’s hat on some papers and hung them on a line. Silly mistake, I can see how you could think it was a spring loaded hanging clip.

“Oh, what a nice hat!”

“Thank you Orangey Orange!”

There are lots of exclamation points when the family has a reunion.

I looked around. There she was, in her black stretchy pants and shirt, with her Cinderella princess outfit on top. The parent/child relationship is complex. We can forget, or force ourselves to ignore, the rotating teacher and student roles. Within throwing distance was $10k worth of digital entertainment. We had $4 in random hardware, a stapler and a crescent wrench. What the heck! Thanks little one for reminding me, again, about real life. And getting me back on the floor.

Posted in education, family life | 1 Comment »

Networking

May 25, 2010 by ndh

Today I went to the monthly Motor City Connect (MCC) meeting in Royal Oak, Michigan. MCC is “a collection of professionals banding together to help each other – and our community – succeed.” From the group’s website, “MCC is Detroit’s networking engine. We connect enlightened business professionals with greater opportunities through the sharing of referrals, connections and comperation. We are changing the way business is done.”

I don’t know what any of that actually means.

It is organized by two names I recognize from social media Detroit and local conferences, but people I don’t actually know. Recently I have been looking for opportunities to practice networking, connecting, hell, even small talk. So I signed up.

It took a lot for me to actually go. All morning there were reasons flying through my head about why I should just skip it. “It’s not for technology people.” “I won’t fit the dress code.” “I won’t get anything out of it.” “You don’t have the first clue what it’s about.” All the normal nonsense when I’m nervous about doing something; logically sound possibilities that don’t stand up to a second of actual scrutiny. I told myself that all those reasons are exactly why I should go. Telling myself what I should or shouldn’t do is putting myself in a box. Nobody puts baby in a box.

People have told me they are surprised when I share my level of discomfort with a room full of strangers. By people I mean my wife. They don’t see that from me at all. I’m loud and boisterous. I take charge of the conversation. I’m sometimes confident to the point of arrogant. Well, yeah. I am confident, in situations where I am at ease with my place in the grand scheme. But the internal conversation while I find that comfort and control is just like everyone else. I am excellent at facing down that discomfort at the office. Getting better at facing it down in other areas was the goal here.

So I drove over. Meeting was at Mongolian BBQ in Royal Oak, and as expected it was daunting to approach the room without knowing anyone and without knowing what to expect. Walking in, I recognized Terry Bean, the event organizer. I also saw Charlie Wollborg, the only other face I could put a name on. Terry walked over, we introduced ourselves, chatted it up with another gentleman who walked in a little after me, and just like that the fear was gone and this was another opportunity to learn and grow.

(Of course it helps that Terry makes his profession out of networking, but I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth)

And surprise, this was a really fun time. Isn’t that always what happens? It was moderated by Terry, and the topics weren’t focused on extracting money from customers (I admit I had visions of “Perfecting your vacation timeshare high pressure sales pitch” in my head), but relevant and interesting and open for all. Current events, social media, who is looking for what, etc. As I expected, with my deep technology and software background I didn’t exactly fit in with the bankers, realtors, insurers, restaurant owners, etc. From a job point of view. But an open mind invites lessons, and the lesson here was big, and one I keep forgetting, we all have something in common and it’s the differences that make it special. Heck, one of the specific topics of discussion was about finding the common ground between you and someone you are trying to connect with. Ok universe, I got it.

At some point I got really comfortable and the situation turned from “I don’t fit in” to “I fit in just fine, and hey, there’s lots of people here with unique knowledge and experience I don’t have, and I have a ton of unique knowledge and experience that people in this room don’t have, what an opportunity for improvement.” After one lunch I wouldn’t say I’m better at this, or that it will be easy next time, but I enjoyed it way more than my lizard brain expected. I also got that kick in the pants reminder. “Hey dummy, if you’d quit making easy things so hard, you might enjoy yourself!” And the wonderful thing is I will become better and more comfortable, guaranteed, if I give myself more reasons to practice. As a matter of fact, I should run, I think there’s another meetup with another group happening tonight…

Posted in education, social | 3 Comments »

English

May 24, 2010 by ndh

Interesting tidbits about the English language:

  • No word in our language rhymes with MONTH, ORANGE, SILVER, or PURPLE.
  • DREAMT is the only English word that ends in the letters “MT”.
  • The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter of the alphabet.
  • Only four words in our language end in “dous”: TREMENDOUS, HORRENDOUS, STUPENDOUS, and HAZARDOUS.
  • Only two words in our language have all five vowels in order: ABSTEMIOUS and FACETIOUS.
  • TYPEWRITER is the longest word you can make using only the letters on one row of the keyboard.

Source unknown.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

To quit or not to quit

May 11, 2010 by ndh

I enjoy Facebook a lot.

It allows me to keep up with acquaintances in a way I would never, and I mean never, do otherwise. It gives me a communication tool that I am comfortable using, an asynchronous text and visual medium. It allows me to say stupid and silly nonsense and not have to worry about the consequences, since it’s reader controlled opt-in consumption (huh? meaning: if you don’t want to read about my pancake adventures, you don’t have to).

It has critical mass – search for an old friend, odds are you’ll find them. It’s the first online technology both my wife and I enjoy, and the first we regularly use to communicate and connect on. It has useful text and photo features that seamlessly allow me to update and read on phone, work computer, and home computer, all of which use completely different operating systems and user interfaces.

But, I also enjoy my privacy a lot. And Facebook isn’t in the business of protecting that. I don’t know if they ever were, but it certainly felt more balanced a year ago. Their business model now relies on marketing and advertising dollars, and those dollars are easier to come by if my information is easier to extract and use.

Just for me, the EFF put together a lazy man’s timeline of Facebook privacy:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-timeline

Facebook has gone from this:

2005: “No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.”

to this:

2009: “Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings.”

That’s pretty cut and dry.

The privacy update from 2009 that blurb comes from was an important one for Facebook, as it initiated what I find to be one of the most troubling situations: Facebook sets default privacy settings that err on the side of open communication, and resets those defaults to promiscuous mode each major update. Not following the release schedule for Facebook changes you say? Then your profile information right now is very open and accessible to strangers. The EFF (have you donated to them lately? No? Do you use the internet? Than you should) wrote up a summary for me on this as well:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/facebooks-new-privacy-changes-good-bad-and-ugly

Also notable is Facebook has month over month increased the number of features and the complexity of its API and connection points, and those have allowed serious bugs to surface. This is the nature of software; add features, add bugs, add complexity, add bugs, add tremendous growth, add bugs. Some of those bugs are serious privacy issues: http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/05/05/video-major-facebook-security-hole-lets-you-view-your-friends-live-chats/

I’m in the software business. I expect bugs from software. I expect more bugs from less important software. But with the amount of data Facebook is collecting and the ability of smart developers to aggregate that data, we’re entering territory that highly motivated and goal oriented individuals can use to do some pretty impressive things. Yes, Facebook is just a social media platform. Just like Jon Stewart is just a comedian. Facebook’s reach is going to attract some pretty high profile attention. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2363518,00.asp

Finally, Gizmodo in early May 2010 rounded up 10 reasons to quit, 7 of which I very heartily agree with:

http://gizmodo.com/5530178/top-ten-reasons-you-should-quit-facebook

and followed that up with another post answering some of the most common responses:

http://gizmodo.com/5534736/more-reasons-you-should-still-quit-facebook

The Consumerist posted five more monsters under the Facebed: http://consumerist.com/2010/05/five-scary-facebook-monsters-just-waiting-to-grab-you.html

It’s pretty grim reading.

Maybe it’ s just all the rage to pour hate on Facebook. After all, they are #1 and an easy target. But their last few major updates have traded privacy of the users for availability to marketers in a pretty one-sided deal. It’s a deal I’m not comfortable with. I use gmail and google and I’m served ads and I’m happy with the balance; I get more utility value than I have to pay for (by dealing with ads). Facebook’s utility to me right now is the enormous existing user base which includes pretty much everyone I know and a handy central application for my social needs. And that balance is shifting, as Facebook displays some Evil Company tendencies.

What Else Is There?

Well, that’s the rub. There isn’t a Facebook replacement. But there are thriving and active and feature rich communities and sites that offer bits and pieces. Here’s what I’ve been exploring.

LinkedIn - as a business and professional networking tool, LinkedIn is top notch. As a social community? Not so much. Yet. As I think of it, a feature rich social network site with no soul.

Twitter - my main complaint with twitter is it’s flat out harder to use than Facebook. It scratches my geek problem solving / mountain climbing itch. On the plus side I find it much easier and more natural to have smaller conversations. It’s like talking to a couple friends in the middle of a giant party – you are broadcasting everything loud and clear, and anyone so inclined could listen in, and sometimes they do. To do that though, you have to learn the conventions of the community. Which, ironically, help build the community. That’s why fraternities have pledging after all.

Flickr - top notch community around photos and pictures.

The Well – I’ve been an active member for around 17 years. It’s a closed community, and can be a little insular, but it’s top notch interaction with smart and articulate people.

WordPress - replacing Facebook Notes with a feature rich blog is a win all around.

tumblr - replacing longer Facebook Statuses with a feature rich microblog is a win all around.

I think it can be done. The decision comes down to, do I want to work harder by using something else?

Posted in social, technology | 1 Comment »

Deciding to pay it off

May 10, 2010 by ndh

About six years ago I inherited some money, and I made my only (so far) genius investments, putting that inheritance in Apple and Pixar stock. I chose those companies because they represented products, culture, and ideals that resonated with me.

A few weeks ago I cashed out. Pixar had become Disney stock, and while I am not anti-Disney, I recognize it for what it is: a machine designed to separate adults from their money via the clever application of a simple lever, namely their kids. I appreciate Disney products and am ok with what it is. That investment performed well.

Apple I was happy to cash out, based on my personal and emotional investing reasons. I am starting to lean anti-Apple now that their corporate culture and ideals are either changing or becoming clearer. With their recent moves to command and control at all costs and their CEOGod Jobs at the top, we’re not meant to be.

Of course, that investment went amazingly well.

Oh, I also invested in Southwest Airlines. Alas, if I’d put that into Apple as well…

To be clear, I didn’t cash out in some kind of /ragequit over big business antics. I did it to collect enough cash to do something crazy: pay off my mortgage.

When I took a look at where my money went every month, I realized something disturbing; it was mostly going to other people. This was my fault of course, I’d made the choices to buy things before I could actually pay for them. In my 20′s I did this for clothes, electronics, small things. As my responsibility increased (and paycheck) that had mostly turned into cars, houses, and big ticket items or repairs. But the idea was the same. I’d used credit to pay for things that decreased in value over time, like cars. And unfortunately, houses.

This is where conventional wisdom and I part ways. We’re in the middle of a giant housing depression and economic recession. Conventional wisdom says that, if I have the cash, I should keep it for an emergency, or use it to upgrade my lifestyle in a manner I couldn’t previously afford. Buy a bigger house that is suddenly cheap! But that line of thinking didn’t do it for me. I don’t want to increase my reliance on others, I want to start paying myself, all of my money, first. This meant getting rid of my debt.

Now, conventional wisdom also parts way in my approach to eliminating debt. See, the smart guy would pay off the less valuable debt first: credit cards, then cars, then mortgage and school loans. Mortgage and school loans are tax deductible, our government saying “this is good debt, go ahead and accumulate that”. Ok. But something happened in 2009; I reached a point where the interest I paid on my mortgage and the taxes I paid on my house didn’t top the standard deduction. I’ve never even considered that happening since I bought this house 12 years ago. All of a sudden this amazing tax break is gone. So I decided that I’d get rid of the giant monthly debt payment first, then double and triple up on the other payments and pay them off quickly. With mortgage gone I’d pay my minivan off in three months (I have less than a year remaining on that loan), then applying mortgage + minivan payments towards my commuter car, pay that off in another four months. After that I could take a hard look at some debt I never think about, my old school loan.

Free and clear. It’s almost too much to imagine.

There are tradeoffs, of course. I am putting a lot of bets on wanting to live in my current house for a long time. That’s not a safe bet, as while I love the city, neighborhood, schools, and feeling of my home, if things go bad in the economy, we are at a high risk for a quick downturn. And my home doesn’t offer everything I want; a big yard with mature fruit trees, walk out basement, kitchen you could swing a cat in, yoga room, attached garage, 2,000 extra square feet. All the things Steve Martin has in Father of the Bride, this house doesn’t.

But you know what? The last couple years in America have taught me one thing, and that’s that all the stuff is baggage. Like a yoke around your neck, full of water, that you are petrified of spilling. I want nice things, but I also want to understand what that really means. Is nice things a 4000 square feet McMansion with a half acre, or are nice things a house that’s safe, warm, and doesn’t leak when it rains? Perspectives change with experience.

I’m also using up the majority of my emergency fund. But what I realized was that if I don’t have a mortgage I need a fraction of the emergency fund. In a real emergency I still have a 401k, I can stop paying for the 2nd car (or sell it), we can pinch pennies… it would all of a sudden take a real emergency to shake us loose.

So over the last few weeks I did it. Made my cashout stock sales, transferred money, and just last Friday walked into the bank to wire transfer my payoff to CitiMortgage (and that’s a story all to itself).

Step I of operation free and clear.

Posted in consumerism, family life | 1 Comment »

Reading

February 14, 2010 by ndh

This year I made a resolution to add no brand new books to my collection. My original intent was to only purchase used books from half.com, amazon sellers, and local used book shops. But then I remembered the library.

Growing up, I consumed the majority of the children’s and young adult section of our local library. It was a 10 block or so bike ride from my house, crossing one major road, and I remember treacherous trips back home, plastic grocery bags filled with paperbacks hanging from my handlebars. I remember wobbly towers of worn paperbacks on the desk in my room.

So I started frequenting our local library.

Books Read, January to February 14th, 2010

  1. First, I finished up all the current Dresden series novels:
    1. Dead Beat
    2. Proven Guilty
    3. White Knight
    4. Small Favor
    5. Turncoat
  2. Makers (Doctorow)
  3. Manage It! (work related)
  4. The Plot Against America (Roth)
  5. Ariel (Boyet)
  6. The Unnamed (Ferris)
  7. Elegy Beach (Boyet)
  8. Odd and the Frost Giant (Gaiman)
  9. The Lightning Thief (Riordan)
  10. Bo’s Lasting Lessons (Schembachler)

Posted in entertainment | 2 Comments »

Gaming with the Kids

January 6, 2010 by ndh

I grew up playing card games with my Grandma. Standards like Euchre, Pinochle, and Rummy as well as endless Solitaire variations. I have vivid memories of going to see Grandma and immediately asking what new Solitaire game she knew, and her teaching it to me.

In addition to card games, I played all manner of board and role playing games as a kid, gradually shifting to computer games as a teenager. And as an adult I love to play games, and find myself shifting from computer games back to good old board and card games again.

In contrast, my wife grew up not playing games, and even today is sometimes playing games as an adult. Since she missed out on the basics as a kid she feels left behind when playing. It’d be like me hopping onto a basketball court today and trying to play; I never played basketball as a kid, I don’t even know the fundamentals. You know, like dribbling I think it’s called.

I want my kids to have a gaming experience. More importantly, I want my kids to get the benefits I see from playing games:

  • Competitive social interaction
  • Sportsmanship
  • Strategic Thinking
  • Quick Decision Making
  • Developing skills through repetition
  • Math and Reading Comprehension
  • Teamwork
  • How to Win
  • How to Lose
  • How to Cheat

Granted, some of these are only benefits because the girls are so young. A teenager is probably not going to get a lot of math and reading practice from playing Sorry. But a six year old who is learning number lines in her first grade class is mastering the number line while determining how to split her seven.

Computer vs. Non Computer

This is about board and card games. I am an avid computer gamer. However, I am doing all I can to introduce the kids to non-computer gaming first and more enthusiastically than computer games. They are different beasts and while I don’t discard the learning and development opportunities from computer games, I believe computer games provide a vastly different and less beneficial experience in general over an in-person old fashioned board or card game. We play (and the girls see me play) computer games, my desire is that when they play computer games the difference and pros/cons will be apparent to them, and they will make informed choices because of that.

A Few Games We Are Playing

Finding good games is a balance of interesting for me and playable for the kids. I won’t play games I don’t enjoy, which means Candyland, a game I find distressingly boring, is out. But it’s also not fun for me to play a game where the kid doesn’t have a chance at winning, or needs constant propping up, hints, or cheats to win. With that criteria, some of the games on our kid friendly menu are:

Sorry!

When I was growing up we played Parcheesi, and Sorry! fills the same role. The goal is simple, be the first person to move your four pieces around the board and reach Home. A great game for teaching kids how to press an advantage, handle disappointment, and practice counting. The rules are dead simple, the possible actions for each turn are crystal clear, and for some reason, Sorry! usually creates a close finish which is always good for excitement. Sorry! will cause a fair amount of tears and cancelled games for the beginner, because it is cutthroat and can be brutal. This is a safe and good place to learn how to deal with that.

Dungeon

An out of print classic. I picked mine up on eBay for cheap, but this can fall in the collector’s category so go for the beat up copy with missing pieces. The goal of Dungeon is to venture into a Dungeon, fight monsters, collect treasure, and be the first back to the starting location with enough treasure to win. The appeal to my kids is the different monsters and treasures you encounter, and the luck of the dice roll when fighting. There are also some special treasures like magic swords and crystal balls that grant game changing powers and a few twists and turns to keep it interesting. An easy game to dumb down a bit for any age level – I can play the simplest version of all with my three year old by having her move her character anywhere she wants, picking a monster from any level she wants, rolling the dice, and getting a treasure. Sometimes I’ll have her lose, mostly I’ll have her win, and away she goes.

Sleeping Queens

Like a Pixar movie, this is a game for kids that’s also fun for adults. This is a card game whose goal is to awaken enough sleeping queens to win. Winning conditions change based on the number of players, for two people the first person to awaken five queens or collect 50 points worth of queens (each queen has a point value) wins. This is a great game because, while simple, there is a lot going on. First it teaches basic card play (draw, discard, keep a card count) and hand management. There are a number of action cards that do specific game activities: awaken a queen, steal a queen, and put a queen to sleep as well as counters to other people trying to steal your queen or put your queen to sleep. Then there are number cards which you try to make sets with or, more interestingly, equations with (8 + 2 = 10, discard the 8, 2, and 10 cards) to draw new (and hopefully special) cards into your hand. And if all else fails there is a simple discard/draw mechanic to refresh a minimum of one card per play.

I lose at this one pretty regularly.

Others

There are a lot more games we roll through, from Rat-a-Tat Cat and Blokus to Uno and Life. Some we play according to the rules, some we’ve never played a real game with but make up our own game play rules (Blockus). My kids will want to play a certain game over and over then stop, I support that by swapping new and old games in and out.

Where to Buy

Games can be expensive. Since these are going to be played with by kids I try to make a point of not buying expensive games I don’t want wrecked – pieces are going to get lost, bent, spilled on, or stolen to make fairy furniture or something. Used games from eBay, craigslist, and garage sales are great for kids play. The kid certainly doesn’t care if a few pieces are missing or a few cards are hand lettered stand-ins, and I don’t get stressed out when the six year old attempts her shuffle bridge.

More Information

A few places to go for more information or browsing.

Board Game Geeks: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

A treasure trove of community game knowledge. Tons of reviews, impressions, gaming session writeups and the like, this is a great site to start with when considering a game.

Funagain Games: http://www.funagain.com/

A commerce site to buy new games. Wide selection and a good browsing start.

Now go roll some dice!

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Christmas List 2009

December 5, 2009 by ndh

I miss the Sears Wishbook.

  1. Waffle Iron. http://www.amazon.com/VillaWare-V2002-UNO-Belgian-Waffler/dp/B0007SXISG/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1260048075&sr=1-9
  2. Stanley 2QT Thermos. http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-2-0Qt-Classic-Vacuum-Bottle/dp/B000FZX93U/ref=pd_sbs_sg_7
  3. Saddleback Wallet. http://www.saddlebackleather.com/categories/90-Wallets-Small
  4. Personal Training package (Christmas PT, 5 1/2 hour sessions and fitness assessment, DRHC)
  5. Small Case Pocket Knife with real bone handle
  6. Microplane Box Grater. http://www.amazon.com/Microplane-34006-4-Sided-Box-Grater/dp/B000W8AMOO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1260582520&sr=8-1
  7. Leatherman Skeletool. http://www.amazon.com/Leatherman-830850-Skeletool-CX-Multitool/dp/B000XU43IC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1260052665&sr=8-3
  8. Aeropress Coffee Maker. http://www.amazon.com/AeroPress-Coffee-Espresso-Maker-Filters/dp/B001HBCVX0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1260054395&sr=8-3-catcorr
  9. Pressure Cooker. http://www.amazon.com/Presto-4-Quart-Stainless-Pressure-Cooker/dp/B00002N602/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1260055563&sr=1-1
  10. Art of Simple Food (Alice Waters). http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0307336794/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance
  11. B&N Nook. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/index.asp
  12. Verizon Droid (make sure there’s a return policy!): http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=5069
  13. Ukelele. Seriously!
  14. Guitar Lessons.
  15. Guitar stand and strap.
  16. Deluxe Make: Electronics Kit. http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKEE2
  17. Cool Things to Wear. Underwear, Socks, Shirts, Jeans, Sweaters to wear over button shirts.

Posted in consumerism, entertainment | Leave a Comment »

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