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Truly the worst way to dieOct-13-06, 8:44 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Video games I happened to watch ScrewAttack's top 10 worst ways to die in a video game video today. However, they missed what I feel was the most embarassing, frustrating kill of all time. Karateka: getting kicked in the groin by the princess after you defeat the final boss. 
For those who don't remember, Karateka was perhaps the first ever fighting game for the Apple II and Commodore 64. You worked your way through battle after battle to rescue the princess from the evil Akuma. The game had no save feature and only one life, so you had to start from the beginning every time. If you managed to defeat Akuma and his falcon, you'd be greeted by the princess. However, if you forgot to step out of fighting stance, she'd drop you with one swift kick to the groin, and your character would crumble down to the ground in a world of hurt. You lost all your health, and the game would be over. After defeating the final boss. By a princess. With one blow. I still remember the day I had won every battle and felled Akuma, and I thought I had finished the game, only to be taken out by that chick's self defense move. Little did I know at the time it was a metaphor for the hardships of Life. That is truly the worst way to die in a video game. Okay, back to work. Yahoo! using the Secret Handshake, kindaOct-10-06, 12:37 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Mail, Yahoo, User Interface A while back I wrote about the secret handshake. The idea is that websites that want to communicate with you could allow you to provide to them a keyword (not a password) that they would then include in all email correspondence. It would make phishing more obvious and allow you to set up filters to look for your handshakes to move them to priority folders. Yahoo! has been using something similar for at least a few months now. It's not for email, it's for their log in page. Here's how it works:
Shockwave MMO Sherwood Dungeon hits 4000 simutaneous playersOct-2-06, 12:40 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Video games, Macromedia, Director, Adobe, Shockwave, Lingo  Sherwood Dungeon on maidmarian.com is a 3D massively multiplayer RPG written with Adobe Director and deployed with Shockwave and the Shockwave MultiUser Server. It's creator, Gene Endrody, reports that over the weekend Sherwood dungeon hit 4000 simutaneous players across two servers, with each server handling 50% of the players. ContinuedA massive collection of vintage Polynesian menu artwork and designSep-29-06, 9:48 am by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Tiki, design  My friend Mimi Payne has launched a new website called Arkiva Tropika featuring scans from her exhaustive personal collection of Polynesian menus, postcards, matchbooks, and other ephemera. It's truly an overload of mid-century graphic design and photography, and it's great browsing as a source of design ideas, or just for fun. I've seen Mimi's collection in person and the quality and volume is staggering. At launch the site only features a fraction of her collection, but she's adding more to the site all the time and the RSS feed chronicles the latest additions.
 There's scads of Tiki Bars, illustrations, and vintage typeset menu interiors, and this is really only the tip of the iceberg. I'm really excited to see this launch, I wish I had it as a resource when I was designing Forbidden Island's menu. The site features tags and searching, and was designed and programmed by Humuhumu. Congratulations Mimi!
http://www.arkivatropika.com The Seetharaman Narayanan InterviewSep-28-06, 2:05 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Photoshop, Adobe The wonderful blog IronicSans interviews Seetharaman Narayanan of Photoshop splashscreen fame. I love interviews of unfamous people behind famous things, like The Sneeze's interview with the FedEx logo designer. Dear AppleSep-14-06, 2:06 am by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Bad User Interface, Mp3, Apple Here's a tip: A "progress bar" should go from left to right, and never go backwards. 
Yours doesn't. It goes from left to right, and when it just about reaches the end, it hops back to the beginning with a new "status" message, so it never really shows you how far along you are. That's retarded. Literally. Apple's iTV: Are they serious?Sep-12-06, 1:49 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Mp3, Apple  Apple announced the iTV -- a set top box that will play iTunes movies and shows on your TV. Details are blurry at the moment, since it was just announced hours ago and it won't ship until 2007, but from what I understand it's 300 bucks but still requires you own a computer and have it turned on and running. I think I'd be fine with that but I don't think that's going to fly with the iPod generation. ContinuedPhotoshop: tricky snapping of vector shapesSep-9-06, 3:48 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Photoshop, design, Adobe First off, although I love them, I have some issues Photoshop's Vector tools.. But I thought I'd share this little trick I use with snapping vector shapes to guides. The ProblemWhen moving stuff around with the Path Selection Tool, shapes only want to snap to guide lines via their points. This can cause the occasional problem when a shape's curve defines one of it's edges. Take this rounded triangle for example: ContinuedNutty Photoshop: Using floating selection quirks to my advantageSep-7-06, 5:32 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Photoshop, design, Adobe This odd little Photoshop trick that I've used for a long time just came up the other day while I was working on my new game, and I thought I'd blog about it. It uses an obscure side-effect of floating selections to make filling in the gaps of semi-translucent images a bit easier and without a lot of steps. See this broken button here? 
The trick I'm about to demonstrate will let me fill in gap in this button without copying, without pasting, without creating a layer, without using the clear command or delete key, and without any precise measurements, and hopefully without me using any more italics. Continued Bootlegged BackdropsSep-5-06, 2:01 pm by Hanford | Read full postFile under: Tiki, Photoshop  A few months ago I visited the San Francisco Airport's in-lobby art exhibit on Polynesian Pop. The display was fantastic -- a lot of great collectables and ephemera from both the midcentury and the current Tiki revival. Humuhumu, her Mom (who was travelling that day) and I browsed the exhibit for quite some time. Taking it all in, something caught my eye, and it wasn't any of the pieces in the exhibit, but what was behind them. The back of the display case was lined with a huge print of faux Hawaiian patterns. Continued  |
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I make things. From consumer electronics, to video games, to theme park attractions. Perhaps I can make things for you! Check out my portfolio. When I'm not making things for other people, I'm usually experimenting.
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