Mark Dalton

So feeding my addiction to “We Rule” I have decided to carry out a little bit of analysis and thought I would share my findings with you, starting out with looking at the returns gained from the varying crops. Those already playing ”We Rule“ will know that in order to get started you really need to start planting, growing, and harvesting crops. This is how you start to establish a revenue stream and grow your Kingdom. As you progress through the levels more crops start to become available to you, offering varying levels of reward. Now on the face of it, it would appear that the more valuable crops will help you progress through the levels quicker, but is that the case? I decided to take a look.

As you can see all is not necessarily as it might first appear. Take for example the legendary “Magic Cauliflower”. It offers a whopping 2000 coins and 350 experience points, but it takes 12 hours for them to grow. Now if we were to grow the lowest level crop (“Corn”) over the same period, we would earn 3600 coins and 720 experience points!

Okay it’s not quite that simple as the “Corn” matures every 45 seconds and even I am not that addicted. So what is the best crop? Well, it depends on what you are going to be doing. If you are going to be sat glued to the game you might want to be growing Wheat, over a 24 hour period you can see this is the highest grossing “Crop” from the table above. However this does mean that you have to be harvesting and replanting every 5 minutes. If you are only checking your Kingdom once a day you might be better off picking a crop that takes a little longer to mature, but remember if crops aren’t harvested within a short period of time they will spoil and be worth nothing.

As and when time permits I will be looking into the other aspects of the game, and will update the spreadsheet accordingly. You can download the latest version of the SpreadSheet here (Numbers Format), (Excel Format).

So I am still working on my iPad blog post but due to a new found addiction it’s taking longer than planned. The problem is a game called “We Rule”; for those that don’t know this is a game for the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad that is a like FarmVille on FaceBook but without the noisy social stream. I am not sure what is so addictive about games like these, but I know I am not alone in my addiction. Leo Laporte of TWiT TV doesn’t seem to be able to get through a show without “harvesting his cauliflower”.

So I thought I would have a little show and tell and post a screen shot of my “Kingdom”. I am currently sitting at level 24, but I have gone more for aesthetics than monetary gain. Hey, we have all seen what happens when money takes over If you wish to join me I go by the original name of MarkDalton.

What does your kingdom look like? What is your strategy? Can you have a strategy with games like these? Have you actually spent any money with them? Let me know via the comments and upload a picture of your Kingdom at the same time.

One of the things we all take for granted in the online world is our privacy. We assume that we are safe sat behind our computers in the comfort of our homes and offices, and forget that our online activities are recorded, analysed, and commonly shared between companies and organisations. This is most commonly done for marketing purposes, but there are others who seek our data for more nefarious purposes.

The recent furore surrounding the changes Facebook made to their privacy policy has proven that we all need to be vigilant with our personal data, who we share it with, and more importantly what they do with it. Facebook themselves have tried to put a positive spin on the subject, claiming they are trying to make the web more “sociable”. However as others have pointed out this should have been optional and the user should have the choice, rather than Facebook unilaterally making the decision on their behalf.

This got me thinking about my own online foot print, where my data resides, who has access to it, and more importantly how they use it. Thus far I have figured out that merely understanding this is a mammoth task, and doing something about it, even more daunting. However I have decided that I am going to at least try.

I have started off reviewing the mailing lists I subscribe to and reappraising if I actually want or need the communications I am sent, removing myself from the ones that I don’t, and confirming the source of the ones I do. Where I wish to remain on a mailing list I have checked the web site of the company / organisation and confirmed that they a) have a privacy policy, and b) clearly state who they are and who they are owned / run by.

I have started reviewing the contents of my spam filters more closely than I have done in the past. A lot of the spam that does make it through to my inbox these days (I have several lines of defence starting at my ISP) are actually from companies and/or organisations that I am linked with either directly or indirectly.

One such example is Plaxo, an online contact manager tool that I used to use way back in my Windows days. I haven’t used this service for a good number of years and the service has changed a lot since I originally signed up. Not only to I get email from random people that would like to connect with me, but I now also receive Birthday reminders and a whole bunch of other email from them and their partners with all sorts of special short term offers.

So over the last few weeks I have been seeking out these redundant services and deleting my accounts. If I have subsequently received a communication from these organisations I have contacted them and challenged them, pointing out where possible their privacy policy. So far I have only needed to do this once, and the matter was resolved quickly and without fuss, but I am sure I will hit a few bumps in the road ahead.

Now where I have come across services that I do still want to use, I have checked there mailing list options, which most companies / organisation still tend to keep well hidden away, and ensured that I am not on their special offers list. If a company / organisation do not provide these options they get a rather to the point email advising that they either provide the options or lose a customer. TextExpander from SmileOnMyMac provides the mean’s for some rather terrific email templates.

I have also taken the time to change my passwords whilst on these sites, ensuring that no two are the same and that they are highly complex. I will say the rather marvellous 1Password from Agile Web Solutions has made this a very simply process, even saving me from having to think of my own passwords.

For now I am aware that I am only scrapping the surface of what is a very large topic, and that what lays ahead is a long journey, but one that I hope you will share with me, and find useful.

I am not quite sure when this option crept into iTunes, but boy am I glad it did. I like to keep my iTunes library tidy and save disk space by deleting PodCasts after I have listened to them and am sure that I will not need to refer to them again. However from time to time I do remove one that I need to refer to.

Now in the past you had to CTRL + Click the little disclosure triangle to the left of the podcast a number of times which would then download the list of past episodes. However the team over at Apple must have the same OCD habits as me, as they have introduced a handy little right click option “Show all available episodes” that does exactly what that CTRL + Click trick did. Cool!

One thing I really hate buying is printers, not because they are overly complex devices or because they are particularly expensive, but simply because I hardly ever need to print anything. In fact the only things I do tend to print is electronic flight tickets and the occasional photograph.

So when my faithful HP 7210 Office Jet Printer kept asking me to check the print cartridges, which were brand new HP branded cartridges a mild form of panic started to set in. You see while I don’t do much in the way of printing the scanner plays a pivotal role in my Digital Office setup. Every letter, paper bill, useful flyer, that comes through the door gets scanned in and securely stored in Devon Think. Without the scanner I end up with is a desk overflowing with paper, which doesn’t fit well with my OCD tendencies.

As time went on the 7210 was no longer happy with me removing the cartridges, putting them back in, and then turning the printer off and on again, it just complained. So screwdriver in hand I set about taking it apart to clean the sensors and man do these thing attract dirt. I dutifully cleaned and air dusted and then reassembled the device, and smiled to myself when I realised that I didn’t have any “spare” parts left over. As I powered the printer back up it started its diagnostics, and then asked me to check the printer cartridges. Noooooooo!

So I hit the web looking for reviews and guidance on what was the best printer in terms of original cost and then running costs. This is the part I hate, as there are just so many on the market with so many bells and whistles, and they change so quickly that by the time you have made up your mind the one you decided on is end of life and the whole product line has changed direction.

I sat down and started to think about what I needed from the device, and looked back to the 7210 and the features it lacked. The biggest thing by far was the lack of a duplexing unit. A duplexing unit in essence allows the device to automatically flip the page over, allowing you to print, copy, fax, and scan both sides of a document without manual intervention. With the amount of scanning I do not having a duplexing unit involves a few extra steps in my workflow, as I have to manually flip all the pages over and then merge the two scanned document into one single document. The next shortfall of the 7210 was the quality of the printing, especially when it came to photo’s. The 7210 is really a small office printer, that is suitable for documents and not photo’s. Finally was the ability to print onto CD’s & DVD’s. This is only recently something I have wanted to do! After playing more with video I thought it would be really nice to be able to make up DVD’s of family events and share them with family members.

A little more research and I discovered the HP Photosmart premium Printer. An all-in-one device that supports printing, scanning, copying, and faxing as you would expect with the added benefit of allowing you to print on CD’s and DVD’s and includes and a built in duplexing unit.

I am still putting the device through its paces but so far it works very well and Snow Leopard automagically recognised the device and didn’t require any additional software to be installed.