Our family got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas and it has transformed our living room. Aside from a few broken glasses (we’ve only had one semi-serious injury with my seven year old flipping over an end table - don’t worry, he’s OK) we have had a blast gathering around the TV. All four of us standing, talking, and playing a variety of games. Even my wife likes it - after being dead set against any video gaming in our house, she is regularily initiating Wii activity (yeah!).

If you have never played the Wii - it is an amazing piece of tech. Tactile and responsive, it is a blast.

Our latest Wii adventure is Guitar Hero III - Legends of Rock. Now you have to understand that I have played guitar for 25 years. When I mentioned to a co-worker that I was planning on getting Guitar Hero he said, “Yeah it’s really fun, it’s addictive, but you already play guitar.”

With Guitar Hero they’re doing a ton of clever things - too many to run through here. The basic experience though is right on. Guitar hero lets you rock.

You can lose yourself in the song - totally immersed, concentrating, losing track of time and space you hear the music, sense the crowd. It is very close to truly rocking out - achieving a musical flow experience that normally takes years of practice to get a glimpse of. Music is about becoming one with your instrument, joining your voice with others - being able to suspend time and thought.

Guitar Hero spoon-feeds that “flow” experience - enabling you to rock immediately - insant rockification. I predict (hope) the current Guitar Hero frenzy will isnpire a new legion of dedicated real world rockers. Where will they go to get their gear? Guitar Center of course, that’s where you go in the game to buy fancy axes you pay for with your hard earned gig bucks (you can even click on the Guitar Center logo - clever, evil marketing folks).

Fortunately for me there does appear to be some overlap between real world guitar chops and Guitar Hero. This advantage inspires me to throw down - any ArcStonian who can outshred me gets a guppy named in their honor….

CES, the largest annual trade show for consumer gadgets, is quickly drawing to a close and I haven’t seen Google’s mobile OS make much of a showing. Although it has been only two months since it’s unveiling, I expected to see a handful of companies exhibiting at least early prototypes.

Considering this is an industry only show, and not open to the public, most companies show off products still in the early stages of development. Android’s release should have lit a fire under the metaphorical butts of handset developers everywhere, and CES is where these early stage efforts would first surface.

Keep reading for a quick Android refresher and more of my thoughts on Google’s mobile endeavors.

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Flash installation
Causes my soul to cry out
Adobe help me

On virgin install
A catastrophic failure
Flash must despise me

A few months ago, during some miscellaneous design research, I came across a new and very attractive look for Craigslist. I think one of the keys to the popularity and success of Craigslist is in it’s simplicity. It’s easy. It’s no-bells-and-whistles. It doesn’t make you think.

Ryan Sims and Design Eye for the List Guy had some fun with a redesign of the site. I think this could be quite a refreshing look while preserving the essence of the Craigslist we all know and love.

What do you think? Let’s tell Craig.

Main page:

Listings page:

“Geek Industry Insights” is my series of posts exploring the inner workings of a technology company. I will discuss the unique culture, politics, and challenges that permeate the industry.

In this installment we will explore the lighter side of ArcStone’s company culture, and how humor can bring a boost of morale and productivity when it’s needed most.

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I just started reading a new book: “Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a reluctant Businessman” by Yvon Chouinard, The founder of Patagonia.

The book is great. The concentration of the books content is the philosophy that Yvon holds and used for the development of his company. I could talk about the book and the specifics but you should just read the book. What’s most interesting to me is the idea of the philosophy and how he has put it into action.

There are a million seminars and books out there that give you the top 8 rules and the 5 most effective techniques to achieve “X”. The sad thing is most people take the seminar or read the book and then use what they learned once or twice, if at all, and then move on to the next popular thing. (I’m all for education and continuous learning, but this seems like waste of resources.) They never take the time to think about develop the foundation that they need (the beliefs, values, and ideals) so they can espouse the ideas through actions. Yvon’s admitted overwhelming management technique is “management by absence”. What I interpret from this is that day in and day out while he was out actually using and testing the equipment Patagonia creates he spent plenty of time thinking about and his ideas and building the foundation he needed to live and apply his philosophy in action.

The next time you read a current business or management book or attend a seminar, I challenge you to ask yourself afterward, “What foundation do I need to build to be able to apply this in action day in and day out?” Spend some time thinking about it over a few weeks before you dive into something else. Pick the three most important things that struck you as you read the book and let that be a filter that you use to view your world through. I find that this helps me build a foundation for which to apply and integrate new things into my daily behavior and actions.

Additional information:
You can purchase the book from Amazon or you can read an excerpt of the book at Outside Magazine’s website

For those of you who read my recent article on High Dynamic Range images, you’re already aware of the power of HDR in creating images that trample the boundaries of traditional photography. When pushed to the max, it’s quite easy to create eerie, surreal or just plain fake looking photos.

I recently did some night photography at the old train yard outside of downtown St. Paul, near Shepard Rd. The photo opportunities were endless. Surprisingly, both times I was approached by someone with a blaring walkie-talkie on their belt, I didn’t get kicked out - they only stopped to chat photography. And trains.

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Gizmodo had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Microsoft himself (Bill Gates) at the CES trade show. In this clip Bill discusses the strengths, weaknesses, and general differences between Microsoft and Apple.

Raving fanboys of either company may be taken slightly off guard by the clip. Bill gives props to both his own company and bitter rival Apple.

In truth, both companies are responsible for some amazing products, and any true nerd knows this, including Mr. Gates.

The hunt for alternative fuels is heating up, with corn-based ethanol seemingly the front runner to replace oil. Mexican farmers are even destroying fields of the rare Blue Agave cactus, which is used to make premium Tequila, in favor of planting corn.

However, there is another crop that can be grown easier and yield more ethanol per acre — grass. Specifically Switchgrass, nature’s shag carpet. This native US crop grows in tall bunches all over the country, and needs very little fertilizer.

With a high ratio of energy in vs. energy out, and carbon dioxide absorbing properties, Switchgrass could be the energy of the future. It has my vote, the last thing I want to see is Tequila prices skyrocket.

With social networking all the rage, our lives becoming increasingly hectic, and Internet connectivity nearly ambiguous, it’s not surprising that many people maintain some exclusively digital friendships.

I haven’t seen many of my digital friends in over 10 years, and probably wouldn’t even recognize their voices. Even my brother, who is serving in Iraq right now, has become an all-digital sibling.

Whenever I hear of more Minnesota casualties on the radio my heart skips a beat, I rush home to the computer, and check his Facebook page hoping to see a recent update so I know he is still alive.

All this has led me to conclude that social networking sites don’t necessarily bring people closer together. In fact, sometimes they make people feel farther apart.