Mark Dalton

So i’m not quite sure how but I managed to pull a muscle in my lower back last weekend. Now I hurt my back years ago, but its never really done much more than ache, and then only when I had over done it. This time however I have been in total agony, and laid up most of the week. Coughing or sneezing brought tears to my eyes, and going up and down the stairs was a major excursion.

Thankfully by Thursday it was starting to ease up and by Friday morning it was back to just aching. So today I arranged to meet Katrina and take William and Eleanor to the park to feed the ducks. It was a beautiful day and the walk around the ponds really loosened up my back, and allowed me to get some fresh air for the first time in a week.

Near the end of our walk I remembered that I hadn’t tried recording any video on the iPhone 4, so I grabbed a few seconds of Eleanor singing a unique version of “Old MacDonald had a farm”. Far too cute not to post!

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).

After a week of teasing and fiendish clues it was time for my Birthday Surprise. As instructed by my sister I was up and ready for a 09:00 start and I will admit slightly nervous as we set off. It was a lovely day, but she wasn’t going to give in and tell me where we were going, despite my constant questioning. I tried to follow our route on the maps application on my iPhone, hoping to be able to identify our destination, but it couldn’t really keep up with us and I was none the wiser. I still didn’t have a clue when we arrived at Moors Valley County Park.

We grabbed a coffee and it was only then Katrina said that we were booked to start at 11:00. I was intrigued, but still no nearer identifying why we were here. On the way to the coffee shop I had seen the little hut with the big “Ape” statue, and asked if we were going to see relatives, but Katrina still wasn’t giving in and I hadn’t put the clues together. We had our coffee, biscuits, and chatted, me still probing for more information.

At 10:50 we started walking towards the hut, and I was starting to get really nervous. It was only when we arrived and I saw the signage and harnesses I realised what I was in for, and I swallowed hard.

“Go Ape“

After being asked to read an instruction card and sign a disclaimer (that always makes me wary) we had a 30 minute induction that took us through the basic safety aspects. We were then taken to the start of the course.

Well, this was my opportunity to get a little pay back and when the instructor asked for a volunteer I kindly volunteered Katrina. With about 10 of us sat watching Katrina had to go through attaching the harness to the safety lines, rigging the pulley system, and then traversing the obstacle. She was very nervous, but completed it without any problems and at the end got a big round of applause. We were then let lose on our own!

Katrina and I were at the front of the group and we worked our way around the course. Mum had asked Katrina to get lots of photos but when I reminded her of this she wasn’t very polite in advising me that she was to busy holding on. We slowly progressed getting a little more confident as we went.

It was after we completed the third obstacle, about an hour in, we saw a sign saying exit. We started back towards the hut where we had picked up our gear congratulating ourselves and saying what fun it had been. It was only on arriving one of the “Go Ape” team advised us we had walked past the last two obstacles. Opps! We made our way back up the path feeling a little silly, but grateful for the rest and found the forth and fifth obstacles, although by the time we reached the forth we had been over taken. The last two were harder than the first three and at this point we both wanted a drink and a cigarette. Our arms were starting to feel heavy, and pulling ourselves up was getting harder and harder. The final obstacle ended with a long wire bridge and then a long zip slide back to the hut, and the smiling assistant that had made us walk back earlier.

We both stepped out of the harnesses with a sigh of relief and big smiles and headed towards the picnic area for a well deserved packed lunch, which we both inhaled sat next to one of the Moors Valley County Park Lakes. It was a fantastic day and one I would recommend to anyone not afraid of heights.

More photo’s Here.

For a long time now I have been slowly drawn into the field of Digital Photography and more recently Digital Video. I don”t have any great artistic leaning, or for that matter skill but I do like the idea of capturing memories. It wasn”t until I returned from India that I realised that looking at a picture only reminded me of the event but didn”t convey anything more to others. Take for example the day we stopped at traffic lights in New Delhi. A normal day, the normal sounds, and the normal chaos of horns beeping and young children running between the cars trying to sell there wares before the lights changed. When all of a sudden I look out of the car window to see an Elephant standing at the traffic lights next to the car. I smiled as my driver said “Elephant Sir!”, like I had never seen one. Well, he was half right, I have never seen one stopped at traffic lights. As the lights changed I saw the little man sat on his back. He had no cane, no whip, and no saddle. This fellow was just sat high up there on the elephants back, almost asleep. The elephant didn”t need any instruction when the lights changed, its like he knew!

The photo I took was out of the back side window and the elephant is clear to see. Now I remember what happened but anybody else looking at the picture would just see a photo of an elephant taken out of a car window. It was this that attracted me to the idea of digital video. On one of my trips back to the UK I purchased a Sony HandyCam (HDR-SR7).

This is a great camera but is still a little big to carry around every day just incase you see something interesting. All is not lost however as technology hasn”t stood still. In fact it has moved on in leaps and bounds. Now just before Christmas I was in Liverpool and Don McAllister had a new toy, the Kodak Zi8. He had brought it to play around with an idea he had for YouTube and was putting it through its paces. At the time we all had a look at it, discussed it strengths and weaknesses, and then forgot about it. Well, it wasn”t until a couple weeks ago when it snowed heavy I thought it would be great to get some video footage. I did this without any problem at all using the Sony HandyCam, but got me thinking about the Zi8, and in the end I ended up ordering one.

Well, I have been playing around with it for a couple of weeks now and I must say I am quite impressed. Some of the issues we had discussed in Liverpool have subsequently been fixed by way of a firmware update and it now goes everywhere with me. So watch this space for some hopefully interesting video footage in the near future.

Technical Specifications.

Sensor type: 1 / 2.5–type 5 MP CMOS
Lens: 6.3 mm, f/2.8, fixed focus lens. 35 mm equivalent: 61 mm (1080p), 46 mm (720p/60 fps, 720p, WVGA), 42 mm (still)
Zoom: 4X digital
Display: 2.5–type LCD
Storage: 128 MB internal memory*, SD/SDHC card expansion slot
Focus modes: normal, macro;Focus range: normal: 100 cm–infinity. macro: 15 cm
White balance: auto
File formats: video: H.264 (MOV), AAC LC, still: JPEG
Capture mode: 1080p (1920 × 1080, 30 fps),720p/60 fps (1280 × 720, 60 fps),720p (1280 × 720, 30 fps),WVGA (848 × 480, 30 fps),Still (5.3 MP, 16:9 widescreen, interpolated)
Microphone: yes (monaural)
Speaker: yes
I/O interface: USB 2.0 (high speed), AV out, HDMI, DC in, external microphone jack (support stereo)
Tripod mount: 1/4 in. standard
Power: KODAK Li-Ion Rechargeable Digital Camera Battery KLIC-7004, AC adapter;Dimensions: 62.0 × 113.2 × 21.5 mm (2.4 × 4.5 × 0.9 in.)
Weight: 110 g (3.9 oz) without batteries

So like most iPhone owners I struggle to stay away from the App Store but every now and again just can’t help myself. This weekend after hearing a number of people talking about it I went ahead an purchased “Flight Control” from Firemint and I haven’t been able to put it down since.

The game is extremely simple in terms of understanding the aim, which is to land the four different type of aircrafts (Helicopter, Light weight plane, and two types of passenger jet) by dragging a flight path to there respective landing area’s which are signified by there colour.

My highest score currently stand’s at 62, which is sad given the fact that the highest score logged stands at an impressive 4442.

The game allows you to save your scores to an online tracking board over at CloudCell which is a nice addition, if a little frustrating when you see some of the scores that people are achieving. There is also a forum, which is still in its early days but people are already starting to share tips and strategies. [($0.99 / £0.59) App Store Link]