Alex Hardy

Today is the first day (in work) of my fifth year at The Foundry, a creative agency in Altrincham, Cheshire.

I was hired principally for my Director skills to maintain a presentation system for one of the company’s major clients. Time passes, and that particular project has run its course. They keep me around though – must be for my charm and wit…

These days, I’m almost entirely occupied with building web sites and applications. My toolbox includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Zinc, Final Cut, XHTML, CSS, PHP and MySQL. Work is pretty varied, and an enviable client list keeps life interesting.

Occasionally I get my crayons out to do some design work, but that isn’t really part of my remit here. I work out any creative frustrations that I have via this website and the occasional freelance job with Stephen of D3 Creative, a friend and former Foundry colleague.

At 28 years old, this is the longest stint I’ve put in at a company to date and I’d attribute that mainly to the people. I’m all too aware of friends and family who endure difficult environments. I’ve also learned from experience that working alone from home doesn’t suit me, so to spend my days with people whose company I enjoy is worth a great deal.

In the long term I haven’t entirely decided where my ambitions lie, although like Brent I think about this as the Big Three-Oh looms closer. My gut feeling is that I won’t always work in an agency, but for the foreseeable future I’m happy where I am.

That is all. Back to work.

… is available as a webcast.

After a glowing introduction by GDC Executive Director Jamil Molidina, Miyamoto steps up to deliver “A Creative Vision”. It’s almost comical to see the audience cheering for this humble little man who honestly, could afford to dress more smartly. He greets the audience in English, before reverting to his native Japanese.

Miyamoto discusses Nintendo’s corporate vision, to take risks in the name of expanding the marketplace. To challenge the negative perception of gaming and gamers that exists.

He also discusses his own guiding vision and principles. His mental focus is on the imagined look of pleasure on a gamer’s face, rather than gameplay specifics. He describes his humourously dubbed “wife-o-meter” where he uses his wife’s interest level to gauge whether his games will have popular appeal.

Having never played games in the past, she is now warming to them since discovering games like Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training, Animal Crossing, Wii Sports and the Mii creation tools on Wii.

The Mii tools demonstrate another of his principles: tenacity. The concept has been a pet project through many failed implementations all the way back to the N.E.S disk system in Japan. So you might say he’s been working on it for twenty years.

He wraps up with the newly released footage of Super Mario Galaxy.

It’s a rare and fascinating opportunity to see a master of his art like Miyamoto talk at length about what drives him. His simple, honest approach to giving his audience pleasure and new experiences speaks to creative fields beyond his own.

The arrival of Starfox 64 on the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s Wii list is solid evidence that it will release for Virtual Console, if not an indication of when.

For me, this one of the first pieces of exciting news about VC. There are many Nintendo games that I love, but have played to death and won’t be buying. Starfox 64 is one N64 game that I missed out on. If they can get Blast Corps, GoldenEye, Paper Mario and Perfect Dark on there as well I’d happily throw down some points.

As is his way, Brent has once again indirectly inspired musings on a subject. In this case the matter is of credibility. I recently read an amusing article called You Are Being Lied To on a related theme:

Those business writers and speakers… talk the talk, but they don’t walk the walk. I know many of the world’s leading customer service speakers and writers. Call them. You will be lucky to get your call returned. The relationship experts aren’t usually in a relationship… The financial experts are broke. I even know experts on ethics and integrity who don’t pay their bills…

It argues that there are no new secrets to success in business (indeed any aspect of life), that haven’t been true forever. Anyone who claims otherwise just wants to sell you a book or a seminar ticket.

The web provides a platform for any of us to “publish” our thoughts and connect with others. There lies the caveat though… Anyone. The blogger isn’t necessarily a professional journalist. They need no recognised qualification or experience in their chosen subject, only a computer and an opinion.

I wish I had a pound for every tutorial I’ve read that was hopelessly inaccurate, every script I’ve tried that simply didn’t work (or was too poorly documented to employ). I have plans along those lines, but they can wait for another day…

So credibility becomes a crucial issue, perhaps the most important currency you can have. Can it even be achieved, or does it only exist in the eye of the beholder? How do you recognise and measure it? How do you retain it?

I know I’m good at what I do. This certainty has nothing to do with how inspired my visuals are, or how refined my code is. My graphic design skills are, frankly, a little rusty from four years as a developer. As a coder I’m lost without my previous projects, books and a web connection to find the syntax I want.

I know it because when I set out to create something, I succeed. Because each time I work, I try to do it better than last time in some small way.

I can’t tell anyone the right way to build a web page: no one can. I can tell you how I built one today. I can share the ways in which it was a little better than yesterday, a lot better than last year. You might suggest how I could do better tomorrow.

Perhaps all any of us can do is send our flawed, preconceived opinions out there. Hopefully a respectful dialogue will ensue that leaves us all a little wiser.

As a wise fellow put it:

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”

It looks like the underwhelming Sunshine will soon be forgotten. Super Mario Galaxy looks phenomenal.

On The Onion.

I think I’ll wait for Version 2.0. I hear the battery life on the built-in Reality Distortion Field™ Generator only gets about 90 minutes, and you can’t upgrade it.

I’ve created a page on My 9rules. In a nutshell, 9rules is a high-profile community of bloggers and one that I’ve been aware of for some time. You can freely join the site and add your blog feed, which will then be aggregated and searchable by readers.

The true ambition though is to become a “member” of the site during one of their submission rounds. The quality of writing on the site is very high, so to be accepted is a recognition of your efforts by a vibrant and helpful community.

I’ll submit when I’m ready. If nothing else, it’s a spur to make this site something special.

It’s been three months since my little bit of shameless eBay profiteering. Now I have Zelda, Wii Play, a classic pad and a points card. I want a Wii. Despite great sales, this may be the most disappointing console launch ever.

Any manufacturer knows how disastrous it would be for their machine to not fly off the shelves at launch, so shortages are obviously engineered. For it to still be unavailable after such a long time is inexcusable. The situation is compounded by the poor software line-up that has no doubt left thousands of consoles gathering dust under televisions while the shop shelves are bare.

OK, it isn’t the weakest console launch ever. That dubious honour probably goes to the 3DO. It’s almost certainly the weakest Nintendo launch ever. Let’s consider the evidence:

• The NES launched with Super Mario Bros.
• The Gameboy had Tetris, Tennis and Super Mario Land.
• The Super NES came out with guns blazing in the form of Super Mario World, F-Zero and Pilotwings.
• The Nintendo 64 had Super Mario 64, which some still say is the best game ever made.
• The Gamecube had Luigi’s Mansion (uh oh getting weaker…) and Super Monkey Ball.
• The Nintendo DS had Super Mario 64 (weaker still, a few extras tacked onto an old game).

The Wii launches with Zelda: Twilight Princess which, by most accounts, is brilliant. That doesn’t change that it’s a delayed and tarted-up Gamecube game with a tacked-on Wiimote control system. The rest of the launch crop look like rubbish. Then we have the Virtual Console.

Don’t get me wrong. I think the VC is a wonderful idea. I wish I could erase the part of my brain where I remember the challenge of figuring out the relationship between the Light and Dark Worlds in Zelda: A Link to the Past. Or hearing Mario’s giddy whoops when he either manages to grab Bowser by the tail or gets his pants set on fire in Super Mario 64.

But I can’t. So VC has precious little to offer me.

All this can be turned round. It took time for the DS to find its way and for games like Nintendogs, Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Electroplankton to show its unique potential. I expect Wii will be the same. There will be a lot of drivel, and some moments of genius.

They need to get some Wiis on the shelves. Right now. Before PS3 launches and Sony’s PR machine eclipses it. Before people like me lose interest. They need a proper 100% authentic AAA+ Wii game. Or three. We need Super Mario Galaxy. What we’re going to get is Super Paper Mario. That will have to do.

Hurry up, Nintendo…

Joe Trotter, in post entitled “God I Hate WordPress”, writes:

I have a penchant for knowing - just, well, knowing - when a blog or website is powered by Wordpress. You know? Way too many links in the sidebar or header, usually styled the same way? Info all over the place? A candidly modified Kubrick theme? Referring to static pages as, omigod, Pages?

*Looks around my blog design. Hmm.*

WordPress sites tend to be a bit simple and standardised in layout, but I would have said the same of CSS-based sites in general a couple of years ago. At the time, I remembered the learning curve and put this down to designers getting to grips with new techniques.

WordPress, like Movable Type is just a database and a set of tools for content creation and presentation. It can’t be held accountable for the shortcomings of a site’s design. That would just be a poor workman blaming his tools.

Templates also have their place. They allow people who lack the design skills, or perhaps simply the time, to get a site up and running. I have valued my first few months using the standard Kubrick theme because it was a discovery phase. It removed the barrier to writing, and allowed the content of my site to develop organically.

When I released this design for my site, I made no bones about the fact that this is Version 1.0 and that I had been modest in my attempts to customise the standard layout. As I observe trends in what I choose to write about, future redesigns of this site will support that to greater degree.

If Trotter chooses to abandon WordPress as a backlash against its ubiquity, I think that’s a bizarre decision. If as he says, he seriously aspires to have a blog as highly regarded as John Gruber’s Daring Fireball, it will be the quality of his writing that achieves that. It will have nothing to do with his blogging platform of choice.

… says MacUser, inaccurately quoting the BBC’s business editor, Tim Weber. He clearly says “Wait for half a year until the driver issues are settled and then buy a new PC.”

In my opinion this is good advice for the average user. Irrespective of the pros and cons of Windows Vista, the average user would do well to sit out the teething troubles that any major OS upgrade is liable to have.

Weber’s advice isn’t for people like me. If I had a PC I’d be trying Vista out by now and I’m not shy of taking a screwdriver to my computer if needs be. It does make me wonder though – upgradeability is considered a selling point of a computer, but is it really such a big deal? Decent PCs are cheap these days.

My iMac’s graphics, processor or motherboard can’t be upgraded. However, it is capable, small, quiet and beautifully designed – which is what a modern computer ought to be.

I wonder how may people actually do go to the expense and hassle of upgrading a machine. Don’t most people just buy a new one?