Writing.Newsletter
Last updated on Wed Jul 02, 2008 |

The dave.caretcake Newsletter
Volume 2, Issue 5 (Summer)
June 2008

Here in New York, yesterday was the first day of summer. I rang the new season in with a fun-filled day in Brooklyn's own Coney Island. If you've never been there, I highly recommend checking it out sometime if you get a chance. Unfortunately, it's nothing like it was back in its early-twentieth century heyday, and, sadly, part of it was already torn down last year to make way for a developer's dreams of luxury condos on the site of what was once New York City's summertime playground. For now, though, Coney Island is still bursting at the seams with quintessential Brooklyn history, character, and charm that you just can't get anywhere else. While I was there, I lounged on the beach for a while, poked around inside some of the shops on the boardwalk, took a quick peak at the 25th Annual Mermaid Parade, had a great Russian ice cream in a Brighton Beach cafe, and, of course, thought about the summer issue of the dave.caretcake newsletter and all that's gone on since last April. What exactly has gone on in the last three months, you ask? Quite a lot, actually.

One of the more exciting things (as far as I'm concerned) was Kitomaza's appearance in the UK-based print magazine, "PC Utilities" (http://www.magnesiummedia.com). "PC Utilities" editors put together monthly compilations of no-cost software that they like. The software is reviewed, categorized, and included on a CD that gets distributed with each issue as well as on the magazine's own download website. In the U.S., "PC Utilities" magazine is available in any of the major chain booksellers (Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc.) and many small and independent bookstores, too. Kitomaza was included in issue 97 back in February, but I didn't find out about it until April--which, unfortunately, was too late to buy the magazine in any way other than by special backorder directly from England. It was still pretty exciting for me, though, and has contributed a significant number of people to the 10,000+ estimated Kitomaza players around the world. In fact, the "PC Utilities" publicity led me to purchase kitomaza.com which isn't actually anything yet but will be the future home of a site dedicated solely to Kitomaza. Among other things, the new site will give people a chance to get a forthcoming 2.0 version of Kitomaza (with native functionality on Linux, Mac, and Windows), discuss and share gaming experiences with other Kitomaza players, purchase Kitomaza swag (mouse pads, coffee mugs, t-shirts, etc.), get digital extras and add-ons (screensavers, iconsets, alternative game graphics, etc.), and get a preview of the upcoming sequel, Kitomaza II. Look for a kitomaza.com launch announcement around the end of the summer and Kitomaza II (hopefully) before the end of 2008.

This spring I also had to do some business traveling to Washington, DC. While I was there, I managed to take one day off just for fun, and it turned out to be the weekend of the big Washington, DC, Cherry Blossom Festival. I got a few great pictures from this which I put up on my flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/davecaretcake/sets/72157604443904861/. Shortly after my return home, it was time for Brooklyn's own cherry blossom festival, Sakura Matsuri. Of course, there are photos of that on my flickr site, too, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/davecaretcake/sets/72157604912556068/.

Keeping with the visual theme, I created a new section on dave.caretcake that I carried over from another website. In May, I launched the official dave.caretcake presence on the deviantART website at http://caretcake.deviantart.com/. deviantART, if you haven't heard of it, is the largest online, user-generated, art sharing website in the world (or so they claim). Basically, it's a place where everyone from seasoned, professional artists to total amateurs like myself can share artistic endeavors with the world. I had so much fun creating my first two desktop wallpapers for it that I decided to expand it into an entire section on dave.caretcake called Desktop Flare (a tongue-in-cheek reference to the movie Office Space). I broke the new section up into two categories: desktop wallpapers (http://dave.caretcake.com/software/desktop_flare_wallpaper.rhtml) and mouse pads (http://dave.caretcake.com/software/desktop_flare_mousepads.rhtml). Ironically, the only photo I currently have on dave.caretcake wouldn't make such a great mouse pad, but it's also available in print and magnet format--which it's much more suited for. I actually have a backlog of other images ready to begin releasing in the coming weeks and some of those will definitely make great pads for your mice!

If you follow this website on a weekly or even bi-weekly basis, you may have noticed a real lull in the middle of spring where virtually nothing new was showing up on the site. During that time I was in the process of creating and launching a huge expansion to the caretcake domain, Mine all Mine. Mine all Mine, http://mine.caretcake.com, is a partner to the dave.caretcake website, and my first ever attempt at blog writing. The dave.caretcake homepage says, "All of the content on this site is created and offered in the spirit of free and open sharing." Free and open source principles and development techniques are something I care a lot about and are a real driving force behind what I produce for this website. But, working on the dave.caretcake site made me realize that I also really wanted a venue just to talk about the philosophy, people, news, and events that have inspired the movement as a whole and me personally. Blogging, I've learned, is very, very different from everything I've done on the dave.caretcake site. It requires way more promoting, networking, and marketing (which isn't always fun for me), but overall I'm enjoying learning about and refining my process and contributing to a greater discussion. Now that Mine all Mine is launched and stabilized and I'm in somewhat of a routine, you can expect more frequent updates on this site again. Oh, and on a side note, there was yet another expansion to the caretcake domain this spring! apostrophe, http://apostrophe.caretcake.com, is a partner blog with a focus on hand-crafted, environmentally-friendly, unique creations from around the world. It, too, has a deviantART component at http://apostrophe-caretcake.deviantart.com/ with some really creative desktop wallpapers.

With all the work I was doing in visual arts this spring, it may not come as a surprise that my one new article in the Writing section was titled, "Leave Your Mark with The Gimp." Then again, if you don't know what The Gimp is, it may have come as a big surprise. The Gimp is a free-of-cost and open source graphic design program that can be used on Linux, Mac, and Windows computers. While it's not quite as powerful as Adobe's Photoshop, I think it's a close second place. In this article I walk you through using The Gimp to put watermarks or other subtle branding on your digital images before sharing them with the world. To learn my seven simple steps to marking success, check out http://dave.caretcake.com/writing/watermark.rhtml.

In May, I also decided to contribute my Hymns to the Night EP (long available on dave.caretcake) to the Internet's own library, the Internet Archive, at http://www.archive.org. The goal of the Internet Archive is to create a record of humanity's digital culture. From professional and well-known writers, musicians, thinkers, photographers, and painters to the efforts of everyday people like me, the Archive hopes to create snapshots in time of what people are doing now so that future generations will have a lot of source material to figure out what this time in history was all about. You can check out my contribution at http://www.archive.org/details/HymnsToTheNight and consider submitting your own work by first registering at http://www.archive.org/account/login.createaccount.php.

Lastly, but certainly not least, I've made a lot of progress on HMSCalculate. For those of you following this website from the start, you may remember first seeing it in the Software section when only it and ModestMenus were there as options. Months have passed since then, but that poor HMSCalculate page never got updated. Until today. I'm happy to announce that HMSCalculate has reached version 0.8.5. This will hopefully be the last version before the 0.9.0 public beta release. Right now, the calculator (whose mission is to add, subtract, multiply, and divide hours, minutes, and seconds) is fully-functioning . . . it just doesn't look very pretty. But, a great looking user interface has already been designed, and I'm working on applying it to the current version. Once that's done, it'll be compiled and packaged for Linux, Mac, and Windows desktops and shipped off to the beta testers. Who are these beta testers? They're your friends, your co-workers, your brothers and sisters, your neighbors, and even you! That's right, by simply applying for a spot in the beta tester program, you could be one of the first people to get your hands on this fantastic new calculator. So, to refresh your memory about what HMSCalculate will do and to see an artistic rendering of what the final product will look something like, go to http://dave.caretcake.com/software/hmscalculate_overview.rhtml. And, to volunteer yourself as a beta tester, go to http://dave.caretcake.com/software/hmscalculate_beta_registration.rhtml and fill out and submit the very short form. But act now; time is of the essence! (Sorry, it had to be done.)

Well, all in all, it was a pretty productive spring with lots to share. That reminds me. I forgot to mention that since the last newsletter, I also added a "Share This" icon and link to the top of every page on dave.caretcake. This gives you a very simple and effective way to share any page on dave.caretcake with all of the major social networks (Digg, Facebook, Reddit, etc.). And, on a final, final note, I wanted to welcome the newest subscribers to the dave.caretcake newsletter which is now being delivered to multiple continents and countries ranging from Argentina to India and beyond.

I hope everybody has a wonderful summer and I look forward to actually getting to talk with some of you directly through the HMSCalculate beta tester program. Thanks for your continued interest in my work, and I'll talk with you again in the fall.