A few months ago, Pete and I were invited to a book launch, where (unsurprisingly) we met a couple of authors. We were introduced to one as people who knew a lot about the internet, and she asked the inevitable question – how do I make money from my website?

The lady in question had paid a small amount of money for someone she knows to build her a basic website. It was occasionally updated with news of events she would be at, or new books she had just published, but mostly was just a static site.

Shockingly, it didn’t increase her book sales by a noticeable amount. For some reason, people who don’t spend a lot of time on the internet think it runs on some magical principle, but it doesn’t. It works the same way as most aspects of life – you get out what you put in.

If you only have the budget for a cheap website (and don’t have the skills to improve it yourself) then it is unlikely to do wonders for your brand. There are things websites need to be successful – including engaging content, regularly updated to encourage readers to return for multiple visits. If you want to make money from your website then you need some way of tracking those visits, so you can see what works and what doesn’t. And if you want your website to sell something, then you have to make it easy – either by having your own webshop or by linking to a decent online supplier (for books, Amazon is usually the vendor of choice, but it doesn’t have to be yours).

If you don’t have the time to get really engaged in social networking, then don’t bother starting. There’s only one thing worse than an account that dries up after a couple of weeks, and that’s one that’s used intermittently to fire out ‘information’ – essentially nothing but an infomercial when you have something to promote.

So if you don’t spend a lot of time on the internet, and can’t pay someone to do it for you, don’t expect to make your millions there. Market your wares through one of the other activities that you have time for, and that you enjoy doing.

If you do spend time on the internet then market your website by engaging with the online world. Read blogs on relevant topics and join in the discussions – leave meaningful comments with a link to your site and people will follow them. Leave dross and they won’t. If you’re in to forums then do the same – be part of the conversation. Add something beyond advertisements if you want to feel the internet love.

And learn a little bit about SEO. Perhaps we can get Pete to write about that for Part 2 :)

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This is all good advice if you have a website already, but if you’ve yet to set one up then don’t forget to check out our GoDaddy discounts page!

As a fairly long-tem Apple Mac user, there’s been a period of around 7 years or so where I moved from a Windows computer to a purely Mac environment. I use Macs for my business – for repetitive grunt-work and the more exploratory and creative stuff, which is arguably more fun, in the conventional sense of the word.

A large part of my daily Mac experience is processing tasks, doing stuff, and doing it in an efficient way. I’m a big fan of workflows and getting things ‘just so’ and to my liking. This invariably involves using a bunch of software from a bunch of software developers outside of the Apple campus. They make (usually) small, efficient applications that integrate well with Mac OS (the Apple version of Windows, if you like). If someone were to ask me for an app recommendation for doing a given task on a Mac, I would most likely have one that I use, or know of one that the might get them going.

Enter Macheist. They’re Mac app brokers. They don’t release applications themselves, but some individuals within the Macheist staff are involved in software development projects in various ways. Every so often, normally once a year, they release a cut-price bundle of 3rd party Mac applications with a value of hundreds of US dollars, with proceeds split between the developers, Macheist, and reputable charities. These Mac software bundles are becoming more commonplace across the Interwebs. Whether this is due to economic conditions and/or developers fighting for lebensraum is up for debate; frankly, I don’t know the reasoning behind it.

To market the latest Macheist bundle (codenamed ‘nanobundle2’ and released March 2nd/3rd, 2010), there was a multiple day real-time countdown timer on the front page of macheist.com with a natty HTML5 animated graphic of crated-up Mac apps being taken off a lorry, the premise presumably being they were preparing the big launch for when the counter hit zero.

When zero hour arrived, thousands of excitable Mac nerds – me included – were curious to see what was in store with this bundle. Now, I only picked up on this bundle around 12 hours before it was launched, I hadn’t been ruminating and getting twitchy for the week or so before the bundle actually launched, so I was sort-of excited, and sort-of assumed it would be a big, damp blob of boring anti-climax.

After a delay of 40 minutes (this tweet summed up the unexpected wait perfectly), the bundle deal was announced. 20 US bucks gets you full, legit versions of this little lot:

• MacJournal (normally $40)
• Ripit ($20)
• Clips ($27)
• Coverscout ($40)
• Flow ($25)
• Tales Of Monkey Island ($35)
• Rapidweaver ($79)

The pricing is such that, even if you use one or two apps, it’s a good deal for the consumer. The first thing that struck me, rather selfishly, is that this bundle wasn’t a good fit for me. Which is fine, and not something I’m going to hold a grudge over. Sure, I’ll admit I was disappointed when the list was revealed, and there were subsequent grumblings (along with pre-launch frustrations at the wait) on my Twitter stream.

A few things troubled me slightly. First, an open letter on the Macheist forums made it clear that Mac developers would be ruling themselves out of inclusion in the annual Macheist bundles if their apps were in other (competing?) software bundles. Sort of a “you’re with us, or you’re against us”, which is something I guess you can dictate when you run the place, which the author of the post/letter does. The reason I mention this is down to Ripit – a DVD ripping app that’s streets ahead of anything else in the class. I use it daily, and have total confidence in it doing what I want it to do. I got Ripit in a MacUpdate bundle in mid-2009. I don’t need another licence for it, thanks. Macjournal was in TheMacSale last year, which makes two of the bunch which are already in bundles elsewhere. Perhaps the nanoBundle doesn’t count as an annual bundle, as mentioned in the open letter, either way it’s a bit odd to have statements of intent and then muddy the waters.

Playing the Rapidweaver card is clever, although it has been included as a cut-price item on the regular MacUpdate promotions (which is where my copy came from). I don’t use Rapidweaver often, but when people ask me for pretty websites (and there are some people I can’t say no to, despite my better judgement), I can throw something together quickly enough to fit their budget.

What really annoyed me is the way Flow was presented. Flow appears to be an FTP client and file editor. Macheist intro’d the app as follows:

1998 called… it wants its file transfer app back
Are you still using Transmit, an app that dates all the way back to MacOS 8? Well, if so, then it’s time to make room for the new kid in town… Flow.

Wow. I was speechless. Way to go, Macheist, knocking the competition before you’ve even explained what the app actually does. I point the finger at Macheist rather than the developers of Flow, presumably they have marketeers and copywriters who vet the text before it hits the web. And this got through, which bothered me. I’m not a tree-hugging hippy (well, I am a bit), but poking fun at your competitors doesn’t sit well with me. Update: according to this tweet, it looks like the text in question came from MH, not ExtendMac.

It continues…they then go on to say:

And we’re not talking about a gimped editor… it has powerful features like syntax coloring, multiple tabs, and code-suggestion.

On a technical note, there are also niggles. Firstly, Transmit is made by Panic, a long-standing and respected Mac software developer – until yesterday I’d never heard of Extendmac. Secondly, comparing Flow to Transmit is like comparing iTunes to Quicktime Player. Panic also make the excellent Coda, which is in many ways very similar to Flow (FTP client, viewer, editor, plus “syntax coloring, multiple tabs, and code-suggestion”, and a shedload more stuff besides). Established, stable, does the job, exactly the things I want from a Mac app.

Neil Dixon, author of SEO Webmonkey has written about his thoughts on this Macheist bundle thing in a far more succinct fashion, and I urge you to read it – I’m glad I wasn’t the only one affected by this (besides, I haven’t blogged anything in about a billion years, so I have to start back somewhere, right?). Update: another Mac user whose opinions I trust, Jen, has similar concerns about Macheist.

There are many people who are already saying they’re going to buy this bundle because of the 25% charity donation, despite not being over-enamoured with the app selection, which seems odd to me. A few dollars/pounds/groats/etc in a charity collection tin or whatever would service the charities far more effectively if software is not your primary concern. It also begs the question that if the bundle is considered mediocre by Macheist standards, does this lower the standards of the next one, either from a consumer point of view or from the Macheist HQ app acquisition process.

I, maybe rather childishly, don’t even want to download a trial of Flow to see if it is better than Coda, purely on the basis of the unprofessional Macheist copywriting. Ultimately, I can destroy thousands of hours of development time and marketing by saying: “don’t need, got, don’t need, don’t need, don’t need, I’m useless at games, got”. Which is not to say I’m ungrateful. Frustrated, yes, a little – but today is continuing as it was going to, regardless of new software arriving. Expectations and enthusiasm for the ‘main’ bundle (Macheist 4?) are a bit lower with the past 24 hours in mind.

FarmVille and it’s creator, Zynga, have a lot of detractors. There are those people who think that FarmVille is dull. Fair enough – if you don’t like it, don’t play it, but don’t assume that because you like it everyone who does is an idiot, a Zynga Zombie or a sad, FV addict. There are also those people who, for some reason, don’t think that Zynga should be allowed to make a profit from a ‘free’ game. Many of these people play FV, but don’t want to pay real money for the things that cost Farm Cash. That’s fair enough – if you don’t want to pay real money for the game, then don’t, you have that option. But don’t compain that you don’t have access to the premium features and don’t sound off about people who do pay real money and call them idiots. Remember that Zynga employs real people who do real work and need to get paid. If Zynga doesn’t make a profit from its games then it will stop making them.

No doubt the news that Zynga has started a Haiti Relief Fund won’t stop their detractors from whining, but for the last few days FV players (and players of Zynga’s other online games such as FishVille and Mafia Wars) have been able to pay real money for special virtual goods, with 100% of the donated cash being donated via Zynga to the people in Haiti who need our help after the devastating earthquake there. The news from Zynga this morning is that FV players have donated over $900,000 in just a couple of days and will no doubt top $1 million soon – real money, going to real people. That money will be spent on emergency relief, food and other supplies, but as my friend Maddy says, if it’s spent on suitable permaculture solutions to Haiti’s problems then it will go a long way.

FV’s contribution to the Haiti Relief Fund is White Corn. Farmers can pay 25 Farm Cash ($5) for a license to plant White Corn for 7 days. White Corn costs 10 coins to plant, gives a harvest worth 125 coins plus 3 XP, matures in 6 hours and never withers. So it’s a great crop to plant, whether you’re hoping to save up some farm coins, gain enough XP to get to the next level or just work your way through the ribbons relating to ploughing, seeding and harvesting.

Speaking of ribbons, there are two more new ones this week. You’ll need more Fuel for the ‘Need for Seed’ ribbon, as it involves seeding your farm with the Seeder vehicle. The second is ‘Cat Lady’, and you work towards it as you brush all the kitties that are wandering around the farm. Here’s a tip to help you work towards the ribbon – keep an eye out on your Facebook News Feed for when your Neighbors find lost kittens wandering around. The more cats you add to your farm, the quicker you’ll gain those ribbons!

There are also two new giftable trees this week – the Durian (it’s a good job virtual fruit doesn’t smell!) and the Cashew.

The other big release this week is Collections. As you work on your farm, ploughing, harvesting crops, animals and trees, and fertilizing, you will randomly find collectable items that belong to one of four Collections. Collectable items are also giftable, with a new collectable gift becoming available every two days. You can hold up to 10 of any particular collectable, and once you have completed a collection you can exchange it for 250 XP, 5000 coins and 5 Fuel refills. You can complete the same collection an unlimited number of times, so don’t discard those duplicate gifts!

If you find an uncommon or rare collectable then you will have the option of posting it to your News feed so that 5 of your Neighbors can share it. And when you complete a collection you can post the news to your feed and, for 24 hours, all of your Neighbors will be able to collect a random collectable to share in your good fortune. So keep an eye on your News feed and you could really rack up those collectables quickly!

Also new this week are three buildings – a bed and breakfast, a post office and a general store – that don’t appear to have any special functions at present, and peace-themed decorations. The news from the podcast is that level 70 (the top level at present) is not going to be the final level, and that the 24 × 24 land expansion is not going to be the final land upgrade either. The 24 × 24 expansion is coming soon – but if you sign up as a FarmVille fan on their Facebook page then you’ll be given the chance to get the 24×24 land expansion before everyone else! There’s also a special event on the way, to celebrate FarmVille having 10 million fans, more sendable gifts and more updates to the chicken coops.

Long and rather dull story short: we’re starting to add links to cmp.ly where appropriate, the premise being that we’re not hiding anything when we mention/review stuff. There are occasions that we benefit when someone uses a coupon code or mentions us, and it’s only fair that you know what’s going on.

To that end, if you see a post with some text in saying “Disclosure: cmp.ly/5" or similar, you can see exactly what’s up and where we stand. New ones will have the declarations where relevant, adding this disclosure to all the relevant old posts will take some time. Generally speaking, where we have a coupon code mentioning either of us or The Emma and Pete Show by name, it’s a safe bet we will earn a commission in addition to you saving some money or getting a discount on a service, etc.

All sounds a bit serious, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not – it’s all part of a more transparent approach to this website, and hopefully it’s a proverbial step in the right direction.

Over the last couple of weeks, keen FarmVille farmers have been giving and receiving presents to sit under their special Holiday Tree. Those presents couldn’t be opened until today, and the tree only had a capacity for 100 presents. Now that it’s Christmas Eve there will be a frenzy of farmers opening their presents – items seen so far include various animals (alien cow, baby turkey, lamb, brown chicken, black chicken, golden chicken, clumsy reindeer, etc), fuel refills and decorations (including a special lighted sign worth 2000 coins) and mystery boxes. So those presents are well worth having.

The news from FV is that presents can continue to be gifted and opened until January 7th, so there can now be renewed gifting (many people stopped gifting the presents because their neighbor’s Holiday Trees were full).

But if you’re good friends with one or more of your Neighbors then you can turn your Holiday Tree into a Perpetual Present Machine – here’s how:

1. Holiday Trees give out extra presents when you reach certain thresholds – I think it’s every 10 presents. Certainly mine has been triggered to do so at 80, 90 and 100 presents.
   
2. If you reach one of those thresholds and open one more present then you only need to add one more present back to your tree to trigger the extra present, which you can share with your neighbors.
3. If your neighbour is at the right threshold and adds that extra present to their holiday tree then it triggers an extra gift that they can share with their neighbors – including you!
   
4. So your special present generates other special presents that you can use to generate more special presents and your Holiday Tree becomes a Perpetual Present Machine right through until January 7th, with the number of presents you can open only really limited by your patience (and that of your neighbors) of adding and opening your holiday presents in ones and watching your Facebook Wall for notifications of available special presents.

Happy Holidays!

I’ve been ill all week, with plenty of time to play FarmVille (and TreasureMania! I like the new Beta release), so it’s great that it has been a week packed with new FV excitement. Where to start?

Well if you’re a reader of my gardening blog you’ll know that I keep a pair of chickens in the back yard (in fact, I talked about what they like to eat in my latest podcast) – so it’s exciting that FV have finally developed a chicken coop for me to keep my virtual chickens. It’s similar to the dairy farms released a while back in that it holds 20 animals, and you can harvest the eggs from all 20 chickens with just one click and save space at the same time. Unlike the dairy farms, you can only have one chicken coop, but they contain a special surprise – every time you harvest the eggs there’s a chance you’ll find a mystery egg (white, brown, black or golden). You can’t keep the mystery egg yourself, but if you post the announcement to your Wall then up to 5 of your friends can hatch the egg and win a mystery gift. Quite a few of those mystery gifts turn out to be chickens (white and brown) but some of them don’t!

It’s possible to gift a chicken coop to your friends, but as you can only have one coop if you already have one your gift magically turns into a chicken instead.

There have also been updates to the Gift Box that mean you can now sell unwanted gifts straight from the box without having to find space for them on your farm first. And there’s a Sell All button to save on clicks. You only have space for 30 gifts in your Gift Box, but as of this morning the new Storage feature has been enabled and you can store unused decorations in your Barns and Toolsheds. The extra space will be very useful, even though FV have finally enabled the 22×22 land expansion!

They’ve also started a new Sweet Seeds event, and you can buy a license to plant Sweet Seeds sweetcorn for 7 days, with half of the money being donated to charities in Haiti. The new sweetcorn is a 6 hour crop that costs 10 coins to plant but gives you 125 coins at harvest. It also gives you 3 XP per square, and doesn’t wilt.

And there are a couple of new Ribbons to work towards. To gain the King of Compost ribbons you need to harvest fertilized crops, and since you can’t fertilize your own crops you’d better head out and get fertilizing on your neighbors! You’ll get coins and XP for your efforts and when they return the favor you’ll get points towards your ribbon. The second new ribbon is more colorful – add bunches of flowers to your farm to earn points towards the Pretty Garden ribbons. Keep an eye out on your Wall for announcements of when your neighbours have Perfect Bunches of flowers to give away, and make sure you sow some flower crops so that you’ll grow some too.

And finally, this morning the Country Fair has arrived in FarmVille! You can deck your farm out with all kinds of new, limited edition decorations and funfair rides!

And what’s coming up in the future? According to the podcast, updates to the Fuel system are on the way. If you want more FV information, check out their Twitter feed.

It’s been a little while since my last FarmVille diary, and a lot has been happening down on the farm. Firstly, I’ve discovered that there is a FarmVille podcast – well worth listening too if you want the latest FV news. According to the October 30 episode, the Sweet Seeds event raised around $575,000 for charities in Haiti, which is pretty impressive. There’s no news yet on whether another charity event is on the way. Personally I’d like to combine new FV animals – bees – with a charity event to help fund research into CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). You could have some really cute decorations for bees, too, including different types of hive.

Bees would be happier on the farms now that Flowers have been introduced. Flowers are sown and harvested just like other crops on the farm, but each square harvested also gives you points towards a new ribbon – Flower Power. And of course they do brighten the place up!

The new fertilizer bags have settled in, and you get 5 bags of fertilizer per Neighbor, per day – but you can only collect them when you do your friend a favor. You can only use the fertilizer on their crops, and only at the time, so make sure you use them before you head back to your farm. You get 4 coins and 1 XP for each square you fertilize, but your neighbor gets a bonus too – fertilized crops grow much larger and when you harvest them you get 1 XP on top of their coin value. So spreading the fertilizer love is a great way to rack up XP and move up through the levels.

Halloween is over now, and the decorations are disappearing – but according to the podcast there is some sort of storage on the way, so don’t delete your decorations just yet as you may be able to keep them without them taking up farm space. In place of the spooky decoration we moved on to aliens! There were some huge crop circle decorations available for a limited time, and an alien animal. The neon green cows gave a harvest of Milktonium, but it looks like they’ve gone back home for now – so what’s next on the special editions?

If you’re stuggling to achieve your Crop Mastery bonuses (and they give you both coins and XP) then here’s a tip – although generally the number of squares you need to harvest goes up (in some cases a lot) for each level of Crop Mastery, there are a couple of crops for which that’s not the case. So far I’ve spotted that Artichokes and Watermelon have much easier level 2 & 3 targets. Although they take 4 days to mature, if you plant a big enough field it’s possible to gain two Crop Mastery bonuses at the same time. For example, level 2 for artichokes requires just 50 squares, and level 3 is 75.

Coming soon: I’ll be adding 5min downloadable previews and a Flash player.

My recent bouts of night-time insomnia and lack of focus during the day have been lessened significantly with the use of binaural beats and a bedtime regime change. I’ll go into more detail on the regime change thing in another post, this post is about the binaural beat side of things.

The following mp3 files were created with the express use of helping me get my focus together during the day, and calming me at night so I sleep more soundly. In both cases, they had an effect within two or three uses, and I’m still using them today in order to train my brain.

Before you undertake any course of binaural beats, you should be aware of the effects they can have. The vast majority of people will be absolutely fine, but a small number of people may have adverse reactions. If you start to feel unwell/odd, stop listening. I am not responsible for any bad stuff happening as a result of these files, I am providing them in good faith.

Disclaimers out of the way, here are your files:

• Delta waves (deep sleep)
  bb-90base-3beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 3hz beat frequency, 320kbps)
• Theta waves (dream sleep, deep meditation)
  bb-90base-6beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 6hz beat frequency, 320kbps)
• Alpha waves (awake, relaxed)
  bb-90base-10beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 10hz beat frequency, 320kbps)
• Alpha waves (awake)
  bb-90base-12beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 12hz beat frequency, 320kbps)
• Beta waves (awake, focused)
  bb-90base-15beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 15hz beat frequency, 320kbps)

I made a couple of variations of some of the wave types to suit my mood and task at hand, so try a few for size. Find the best that works for you.

For the best results, listen on headphones. You may find that the lower frequency waves (delta, theta) might rattle certain brands of headphones. If you get rattling, turning the volume down might help. Have them playing at a comfortable volume.

Nerdy stuff: each file starts and ends with a 30sec fade in and fade out. The should play on any mp3 player without issue. There is no DRM on the files.

Very nerdy stuff: waves were output-ed in bbEngine v.011 by rpflech at 24-bit 96khz, grabbed at the same quality by Wiretap Studio, chopped and post-processed in Soundtrack Pro and derived into mp3 by Compressor (no dithering or explicit chopping of frequencies).

This is very sweary language-wise, so audio NSFW, but it’s scarily accurate.

To support Energy Saving Week (which runs 19th – 25th October), Ethical Superstore are dropping the price of their OWL energy monitors by £5 to just £29.95.

The OWL is a great gadget to focus your mind on saving energy. Tap in the price you’re paying for your electricity, and watch the bill soar as you boil a kettle full of water or turn on the washing machine! You can also set it to show how much power you’re using at any one time.

It’s easy to install – the wireless transmitter clips on to your electricity meter and the desktop unit sits anywhere you like. As well as your power consumption it also shows temperature and humidity. Once you can see how much you’re using, it’s easy to work out how to save energy and money.

A few months ago, Pete and I were invited to a book launch, where (unsurprisingly) we met a couple of authors. We were introduced to one as people who knew a lot about the internet, and she asked the inevitable question – how do I make money from my website?

The lady in question had paid a small amount of money for someone she knows to build her a basic website. It was occasionally updated with news of events she would be at, or new books she had just published, but mostly was just a static site.

Shockingly, it didn’t increase her book sales by a noticeable amount. For some reason, people who don’t spend a lot of time on the internet think it runs on some magical principle, but it doesn’t. It works the same way as most aspects of life – you get out what you put in.

If you only have the budget for a cheap website (and don’t have the skills to improve it yourself) then it is unlikely to do wonders for your brand. There are things websites need to be successful – including engaging content, regularly updated to encourage readers to return for multiple visits. If you want to make money from your website then you need some way of tracking those visits, so you can see what works and what doesn’t. And if you want your website to sell something, then you have to make it easy – either by having your own webshop or by linking to a decent online supplier (for books, Amazon is usually the vendor of choice, but it doesn’t have to be yours).

If you don’t have the time to get really engaged in social networking, then don’t bother starting. There’s only one thing worse than an account that dries up after a couple of weeks, and that’s one that’s used intermittently to fire out ‘information’ – essentially nothing but an infomercial when you have something to promote.

So if you don’t spend a lot of time on the internet, and can’t pay someone to do it for you, don’t expect to make your millions there. Market your wares through one of the other activities that you have time for, and that you enjoy doing.

If you do spend time on the internet then market your website by engaging with the online world. Read blogs on relevant topics and join in the discussions – leave meaningful comments with a link to your site and people will follow them. Leave dross and they won’t. If you’re in to forums then do the same – be part of the conversation. Add something beyond advertisements if you want to feel the internet love.

And learn a little bit about SEO. Perhaps we can get Pete to write about that for Part 2 :)

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This is all good advice if you have a website already, but if you’ve yet to set one up then don’t forget to check out our GoDaddy discounts page!

As a fairly long-tem Apple Mac user, there’s been a period of around 7 years or so where I moved from a Windows computer to a purely Mac environment. I use Macs for my business – for repetitive grunt-work and the more exploratory and creative stuff, which is arguably more fun, in the conventional sense of the word.

A large part of my daily Mac experience is processing tasks, doing stuff, and doing it in an efficient way. I’m a big fan of workflows and getting things ‘just so’ and to my liking. This invariably involves using a bunch of software from a bunch of software developers outside of the Apple campus. They make (usually) small, efficient applications that integrate well with Mac OS (the Apple version of Windows, if you like). If someone were to ask me for an app recommendation for doing a given task on a Mac, I would most likely have one that I use, or know of one that the might get them going.

Enter Macheist. They’re Mac app brokers. They don’t release applications themselves, but some individuals within the Macheist staff are involved in software development projects in various ways. Every so often, normally once a year, they release a cut-price bundle of 3rd party Mac applications with a value of hundreds of US dollars, with proceeds split between the developers, Macheist, and reputable charities. These Mac software bundles are becoming more commonplace across the Interwebs. Whether this is due to economic conditions and/or developers fighting for lebensraum is up for debate; frankly, I don’t know the reasoning behind it.

To market the latest Macheist bundle (codenamed ‘nanobundle2’ and released March 2nd/3rd, 2010), there was a multiple day real-time countdown timer on the front page of macheist.com with a natty HTML5 animated graphic of crated-up Mac apps being taken off a lorry, the premise presumably being they were preparing the big launch for when the counter hit zero.

When zero hour arrived, thousands of excitable Mac nerds – me included – were curious to see what was in store with this bundle. Now, I only picked up on this bundle around 12 hours before it was launched, I hadn’t been ruminating and getting twitchy for the week or so before the bundle actually launched, so I was sort-of excited, and sort-of assumed it would be a big, damp blob of boring anti-climax.

After a delay of 40 minutes (this tweet summed up the unexpected wait perfectly), the bundle deal was announced. 20 US bucks gets you full, legit versions of this little lot:

• MacJournal (normally $40)
• Ripit ($20)
• Clips ($27)
• Coverscout ($40)
• Flow ($25)
• Tales Of Monkey Island ($35)
• Rapidweaver ($79)

The pricing is such that, even if you use one or two apps, it’s a good deal for the consumer. The first thing that struck me, rather selfishly, is that this bundle wasn’t a good fit for me. Which is fine, and not something I’m going to hold a grudge over. Sure, I’ll admit I was disappointed when the list was revealed, and there were subsequent grumblings (along with pre-launch frustrations at the wait) on my Twitter stream.

A few things troubled me slightly. First, an open letter on the Macheist forums made it clear that Mac developers would be ruling themselves out of inclusion in the annual Macheist bundles if their apps were in other (competing?) software bundles. Sort of a “you’re with us, or you’re against us”, which is something I guess you can dictate when you run the place, which the author of the post/letter does. The reason I mention this is down to Ripit – a DVD ripping app that’s streets ahead of anything else in the class. I use it daily, and have total confidence in it doing what I want it to do. I got Ripit in a MacUpdate bundle in mid-2009. I don’t need another licence for it, thanks. Macjournal was in TheMacSale last year, which makes two of the bunch which are already in bundles elsewhere. Perhaps the nanoBundle doesn’t count as an annual bundle, as mentioned in the open letter, either way it’s a bit odd to have statements of intent and then muddy the waters.

Playing the Rapidweaver card is clever, although it has been included as a cut-price item on the regular MacUpdate promotions (which is where my copy came from). I don’t use Rapidweaver often, but when people ask me for pretty websites (and there are some people I can’t say no to, despite my better judgement), I can throw something together quickly enough to fit their budget.

What really annoyed me is the way Flow was presented. Flow appears to be an FTP client and file editor. Macheist intro’d the app as follows:

1998 called… it wants its file transfer app back
Are you still using Transmit, an app that dates all the way back to MacOS 8? Well, if so, then it’s time to make room for the new kid in town… Flow.

Wow. I was speechless. Way to go, Macheist, knocking the competition before you’ve even explained what the app actually does. I point the finger at Macheist rather than the developers of Flow, presumably they have marketeers and copywriters who vet the text before it hits the web. And this got through, which bothered me. I’m not a tree-hugging hippy (well, I am a bit), but poking fun at your competitors doesn’t sit well with me. Update: according to this tweet, it looks like the text in question came from MH, not ExtendMac.

It continues…they then go on to say:

And we’re not talking about a gimped editor… it has powerful features like syntax coloring, multiple tabs, and code-suggestion.

On a technical note, there are also niggles. Firstly, Transmit is made by Panic, a long-standing and respected Mac software developer – until yesterday I’d never heard of Extendmac. Secondly, comparing Flow to Transmit is like comparing iTunes to Quicktime Player. Panic also make the excellent Coda, which is in many ways very similar to Flow (FTP client, viewer, editor, plus “syntax coloring, multiple tabs, and code-suggestion”, and a shedload more stuff besides). Established, stable, does the job, exactly the things I want from a Mac app.

Neil Dixon, author of SEO Webmonkey has written about his thoughts on this Macheist bundle thing in a far more succinct fashion, and I urge you to read it – I’m glad I wasn’t the only one affected by this (besides, I haven’t blogged anything in about a billion years, so I have to start back somewhere, right?). Update: another Mac user whose opinions I trust, Jen, has similar concerns about Macheist.

There are many people who are already saying they’re going to buy this bundle because of the 25% charity donation, despite not being over-enamoured with the app selection, which seems odd to me. A few dollars/pounds/groats/etc in a charity collection tin or whatever would service the charities far more effectively if software is not your primary concern. It also begs the question that if the bundle is considered mediocre by Macheist standards, does this lower the standards of the next one, either from a consumer point of view or from the Macheist HQ app acquisition process.

I, maybe rather childishly, don’t even want to download a trial of Flow to see if it is better than Coda, purely on the basis of the unprofessional Macheist copywriting. Ultimately, I can destroy thousands of hours of development time and marketing by saying: “don’t need, got, don’t need, don’t need, don’t need, I’m useless at games, got”. Which is not to say I’m ungrateful. Frustrated, yes, a little – but today is continuing as it was going to, regardless of new software arriving. Expectations and enthusiasm for the ‘main’ bundle (Macheist 4?) are a bit lower with the past 24 hours in mind.

FarmVille and it’s creator, Zynga, have a lot of detractors. There are those people who think that FarmVille is dull. Fair enough – if you don’t like it, don’t play it, but don’t assume that because you like it everyone who does is an idiot, a Zynga Zombie or a sad, FV addict. There are also those people who, for some reason, don’t think that Zynga should be allowed to make a profit from a ‘free’ game. Many of these people play FV, but don’t want to pay real money for the things that cost Farm Cash. That’s fair enough – if you don’t want to pay real money for the game, then don’t, you have that option. But don’t compain that you don’t have access to the premium features and don’t sound off about people who do pay real money and call them idiots. Remember that Zynga employs real people who do real work and need to get paid. If Zynga doesn’t make a profit from its games then it will stop making them.

No doubt the news that Zynga has started a Haiti Relief Fund won’t stop their detractors from whining, but for the last few days FV players (and players of Zynga’s other online games such as FishVille and Mafia Wars) have been able to pay real money for special virtual goods, with 100% of the donated cash being donated via Zynga to the people in Haiti who need our help after the devastating earthquake there. The news from Zynga this morning is that FV players have donated over $900,000 in just a couple of days and will no doubt top $1 million soon – real money, going to real people. That money will be spent on emergency relief, food and other supplies, but as my friend Maddy says, if it’s spent on suitable permaculture solutions to Haiti’s problems then it will go a long way.

FV’s contribution to the Haiti Relief Fund is White Corn. Farmers can pay 25 Farm Cash ($5) for a license to plant White Corn for 7 days. White Corn costs 10 coins to plant, gives a harvest worth 125 coins plus 3 XP, matures in 6 hours and never withers. So it’s a great crop to plant, whether you’re hoping to save up some farm coins, gain enough XP to get to the next level or just work your way through the ribbons relating to ploughing, seeding and harvesting.

Speaking of ribbons, there are two more new ones this week. You’ll need more Fuel for the ‘Need for Seed’ ribbon, as it involves seeding your farm with the Seeder vehicle. The second is ‘Cat Lady’, and you work towards it as you brush all the kitties that are wandering around the farm. Here’s a tip to help you work towards the ribbon – keep an eye out on your Facebook News Feed for when your Neighbors find lost kittens wandering around. The more cats you add to your farm, the quicker you’ll gain those ribbons!

There are also two new giftable trees this week – the Durian (it’s a good job virtual fruit doesn’t smell!) and the Cashew.

The other big release this week is Collections. As you work on your farm, ploughing, harvesting crops, animals and trees, and fertilizing, you will randomly find collectable items that belong to one of four Collections. Collectable items are also giftable, with a new collectable gift becoming available every two days. You can hold up to 10 of any particular collectable, and once you have completed a collection you can exchange it for 250 XP, 5000 coins and 5 Fuel refills. You can complete the same collection an unlimited number of times, so don’t discard those duplicate gifts!

If you find an uncommon or rare collectable then you will have the option of posting it to your News feed so that 5 of your Neighbors can share it. And when you complete a collection you can post the news to your feed and, for 24 hours, all of your Neighbors will be able to collect a random collectable to share in your good fortune. So keep an eye on your News feed and you could really rack up those collectables quickly!

Also new this week are three buildings – a bed and breakfast, a post office and a general store – that don’t appear to have any special functions at present, and peace-themed decorations. The news from the podcast is that level 70 (the top level at present) is not going to be the final level, and that the 24 × 24 land expansion is not going to be the final land upgrade either. The 24 × 24 expansion is coming soon – but if you sign up as a FarmVille fan on their Facebook page then you’ll be given the chance to get the 24×24 land expansion before everyone else! There’s also a special event on the way, to celebrate FarmVille having 10 million fans, more sendable gifts and more updates to the chicken coops.

Long and rather dull story short: we’re starting to add links to cmp.ly where appropriate, the premise being that we’re not hiding anything when we mention/review stuff. There are occasions that we benefit when someone uses a coupon code or mentions us, and it’s only fair that you know what’s going on.

To that end, if you see a post with some text in saying “Disclosure: cmp.ly/5" or similar, you can see exactly what’s up and where we stand. New ones will have the declarations where relevant, adding this disclosure to all the relevant old posts will take some time. Generally speaking, where we have a coupon code mentioning either of us or The Emma and Pete Show by name, it’s a safe bet we will earn a commission in addition to you saving some money or getting a discount on a service, etc.

All sounds a bit serious, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not – it’s all part of a more transparent approach to this website, and hopefully it’s a proverbial step in the right direction.

Over the last couple of weeks, keen FarmVille farmers have been giving and receiving presents to sit under their special Holiday Tree. Those presents couldn’t be opened until today, and the tree only had a capacity for 100 presents. Now that it’s Christmas Eve there will be a frenzy of farmers opening their presents – items seen so far include various animals (alien cow, baby turkey, lamb, brown chicken, black chicken, golden chicken, clumsy reindeer, etc), fuel refills and decorations (including a special lighted sign worth 2000 coins) and mystery boxes. So those presents are well worth having.

The news from FV is that presents can continue to be gifted and opened until January 7th, so there can now be renewed gifting (many people stopped gifting the presents because their neighbor’s Holiday Trees were full).

But if you’re good friends with one or more of your Neighbors then you can turn your Holiday Tree into a Perpetual Present Machine – here’s how:

1. Holiday Trees give out extra presents when you reach certain thresholds – I think it’s every 10 presents. Certainly mine has been triggered to do so at 80, 90 and 100 presents.
   
2. If you reach one of those thresholds and open one more present then you only need to add one more present back to your tree to trigger the extra present, which you can share with your neighbors.
3. If your neighbour is at the right threshold and adds that extra present to their holiday tree then it triggers an extra gift that they can share with their neighbors – including you!
   
4. So your special present generates other special presents that you can use to generate more special presents and your Holiday Tree becomes a Perpetual Present Machine right through until January 7th, with the number of presents you can open only really limited by your patience (and that of your neighbors) of adding and opening your holiday presents in ones and watching your Facebook Wall for notifications of available special presents.

Happy Holidays!

I’ve been ill all week, with plenty of time to play FarmVille (and TreasureMania! I like the new Beta release), so it’s great that it has been a week packed with new FV excitement. Where to start?

Well if you’re a reader of my gardening blog you’ll know that I keep a pair of chickens in the back yard (in fact, I talked about what they like to eat in my latest podcast) – so it’s exciting that FV have finally developed a chicken coop for me to keep my virtual chickens. It’s similar to the dairy farms released a while back in that it holds 20 animals, and you can harvest the eggs from all 20 chickens with just one click and save space at the same time. Unlike the dairy farms, you can only have one chicken coop, but they contain a special surprise – every time you harvest the eggs there’s a chance you’ll find a mystery egg (white, brown, black or golden). You can’t keep the mystery egg yourself, but if you post the announcement to your Wall then up to 5 of your friends can hatch the egg and win a mystery gift. Quite a few of those mystery gifts turn out to be chickens (white and brown) but some of them don’t!

It’s possible to gift a chicken coop to your friends, but as you can only have one coop if you already have one your gift magically turns into a chicken instead.

There have also been updates to the Gift Box that mean you can now sell unwanted gifts straight from the box without having to find space for them on your farm first. And there’s a Sell All button to save on clicks. You only have space for 30 gifts in your Gift Box, but as of this morning the new Storage feature has been enabled and you can store unused decorations in your Barns and Toolsheds. The extra space will be very useful, even though FV have finally enabled the 22×22 land expansion!

They’ve also started a new Sweet Seeds event, and you can buy a license to plant Sweet Seeds sweetcorn for 7 days, with half of the money being donated to charities in Haiti. The new sweetcorn is a 6 hour crop that costs 10 coins to plant but gives you 125 coins at harvest. It also gives you 3 XP per square, and doesn’t wilt.

And there are a couple of new Ribbons to work towards. To gain the King of Compost ribbons you need to harvest fertilized crops, and since you can’t fertilize your own crops you’d better head out and get fertilizing on your neighbors! You’ll get coins and XP for your efforts and when they return the favor you’ll get points towards your ribbon. The second new ribbon is more colorful – add bunches of flowers to your farm to earn points towards the Pretty Garden ribbons. Keep an eye out on your Wall for announcements of when your neighbours have Perfect Bunches of flowers to give away, and make sure you sow some flower crops so that you’ll grow some too.

And finally, this morning the Country Fair has arrived in FarmVille! You can deck your farm out with all kinds of new, limited edition decorations and funfair rides!

And what’s coming up in the future? According to the podcast, updates to the Fuel system are on the way. If you want more FV information, check out their Twitter feed.

It’s been a little while since my last FarmVille diary, and a lot has been happening down on the farm. Firstly, I’ve discovered that there is a FarmVille podcast – well worth listening too if you want the latest FV news. According to the October 30 episode, the Sweet Seeds event raised around $575,000 for charities in Haiti, which is pretty impressive. There’s no news yet on whether another charity event is on the way. Personally I’d like to combine new FV animals – bees – with a charity event to help fund research into CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). You could have some really cute decorations for bees, too, including different types of hive.

Bees would be happier on the farms now that Flowers have been introduced. Flowers are sown and harvested just like other crops on the farm, but each square harvested also gives you points towards a new ribbon – Flower Power. And of course they do brighten the place up!

The new fertilizer bags have settled in, and you get 5 bags of fertilizer per Neighbor, per day – but you can only collect them when you do your friend a favor. You can only use the fertilizer on their crops, and only at the time, so make sure you use them before you head back to your farm. You get 4 coins and 1 XP for each square you fertilize, but your neighbor gets a bonus too – fertilized crops grow much larger and when you harvest them you get 1 XP on top of their coin value. So spreading the fertilizer love is a great way to rack up XP and move up through the levels.

Halloween is over now, and the decorations are disappearing – but according to the podcast there is some sort of storage on the way, so don’t delete your decorations just yet as you may be able to keep them without them taking up farm space. In place of the spooky decoration we moved on to aliens! There were some huge crop circle decorations available for a limited time, and an alien animal. The neon green cows gave a harvest of Milktonium, but it looks like they’ve gone back home for now – so what’s next on the special editions?

If you’re stuggling to achieve your Crop Mastery bonuses (and they give you both coins and XP) then here’s a tip – although generally the number of squares you need to harvest goes up (in some cases a lot) for each level of Crop Mastery, there are a couple of crops for which that’s not the case. So far I’ve spotted that Artichokes and Watermelon have much easier level 2 & 3 targets. Although they take 4 days to mature, if you plant a big enough field it’s possible to gain two Crop Mastery bonuses at the same time. For example, level 2 for artichokes requires just 50 squares, and level 3 is 75.

Coming soon: I’ll be adding 5min downloadable previews and a Flash player.

My recent bouts of night-time insomnia and lack of focus during the day have been lessened significantly with the use of binaural beats and a bedtime regime change. I’ll go into more detail on the regime change thing in another post, this post is about the binaural beat side of things.

The following mp3 files were created with the express use of helping me get my focus together during the day, and calming me at night so I sleep more soundly. In both cases, they had an effect within two or three uses, and I’m still using them today in order to train my brain.

Before you undertake any course of binaural beats, you should be aware of the effects they can have. The vast majority of people will be absolutely fine, but a small number of people may have adverse reactions. If you start to feel unwell/odd, stop listening. I am not responsible for any bad stuff happening as a result of these files, I am providing them in good faith.

Disclaimers out of the way, here are your files:

• Delta waves (deep sleep)
  bb-90base-3beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 3hz beat frequency, 320kbps)
• Theta waves (dream sleep, deep meditation)
  bb-90base-6beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 6hz beat frequency, 320kbps)
• Alpha waves (awake, relaxed)
  bb-90base-10beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 10hz beat frequency, 320kbps)
• Alpha waves (awake)
  bb-90base-12beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 12hz beat frequency, 320kbps)
• Beta waves (awake, focused)
  bb-90base-15beat-320kbps.mp3 (206mb)
  (90min, 90hz base frequency, 15hz beat frequency, 320kbps)

I made a couple of variations of some of the wave types to suit my mood and task at hand, so try a few for size. Find the best that works for you.

For the best results, listen on headphones. You may find that the lower frequency waves (delta, theta) might rattle certain brands of headphones. If you get rattling, turning the volume down might help. Have them playing at a comfortable volume.

Nerdy stuff: each file starts and ends with a 30sec fade in and fade out. The should play on any mp3 player without issue. There is no DRM on the files.

Very nerdy stuff: waves were output-ed in bbEngine v.011 by rpflech at 24-bit 96khz, grabbed at the same quality by Wiretap Studio, chopped and post-processed in Soundtrack Pro and derived into mp3 by Compressor (no dithering or explicit chopping of frequencies).

This is very sweary language-wise, so audio NSFW, but it’s scarily accurate.

To support Energy Saving Week (which runs 19th – 25th October), Ethical Superstore are dropping the price of their OWL energy monitors by £5 to just £29.95.

The OWL is a great gadget to focus your mind on saving energy. Tap in the price you’re paying for your electricity, and watch the bill soar as you boil a kettle full of water or turn on the washing machine! You can also set it to show how much power you’re using at any one time.

It’s easy to install – the wireless transmitter clips on to your electricity meter and the desktop unit sits anywhere you like. As well as your power consumption it also shows temperature and humidity. Once you can see how much you’re using, it’s easy to work out how to save energy and money.