I've been using wireless cards on my laptops when traveling for years. I currently use a Verizon 3G card for my laptop. I have to say, it's come a long way. Now, I use the 3G card instead of 802.11g when I'm on the road or even a dedicated line at a hotel - even if the place is offering it for free simply because the speed of 3G has gotten so good. The Verizon performance at this point is as good if not better than the typical T1 speeds I get when traveling.
Only a week or so left until we go gold with our new PC strategy game, The Political Machine. It's scheduled to hit stores in North America on June 17th so we're up against the gun! I haven't been to bed in over 2 days! The AI and the pacing has to be just...right. But we're in the home stretch and very pleased with how it's turning out - especially compared to the version we did in 2004. The last days of Bush... The Political Machine 2008 includes more than...
Digital distribution - the ability to download intellectual property on-line is growing by leaps and bounds. Whether you're an iTunes user, Xbox Live, a user of Steam, Stardock Central, or some other mechanism, these programs or platforms are revolutionizing the way we "get our stuff". I've been meaning to write a primer for digital distribution as it has certainly become pretty mainstream at this point. But I also want to make sure I have the facts absolutely correct. So her...
This week we should be relatively feature complete for The Political Machine 2008. We're pretty happy with how it's turning out. The first edition we did was a pretty good game, but it wasn't really well polished and its replayability was limited (it was hard coded to 1 map with one set of data). The 2008 edition is just so much better in every way. I'll be glad to take Memorial Day off and so will the team. It's been a pretty rough month for all of us. I'll also be hap...
About once a month someone, somewhere, will comment on something I've written saying how "A CEO shouldn't act unprofessionally in public". Over the years, I've gotten that message hundreds of times along with predictions of demise for my company due to my "public" behavior. A long time ago I took a calculated risk: Most people would prefer a CEO that is transparent, open and tells the truth even if those truths are sometimes not what they want to hear versus the tra...
Rafael from WithinWindows visited us this past week and took some great pictures. I'm stealing this from his site . . Rafael is best known as the world's leading expert on uxtheme patching (XP and Vista). But he's not just a great developer, he's a great guy too. The wetlands on the Stardock property. Bee hives inside the hives Outside the Stardock ...
Jeff Schader, the CEO of his home-based art contracting company "The Skins Factory" has decided to write about me (again). Now, normally I try not to get involved in this kind of thing. Life is short and all that. But what Jeff is doing is obnoxious enough that I've decided to do the one thing that I think will stop it: Write about it. Here's the deal, Jeff will write some post or comment about me that's incredibly vile. When people naturally become outraged about what he's writte...
There's so much going on that I have no life. Life at Stardock is changing so rapidly. It was just a couple years ago that Stardock was an $8M company. This fiscal year ends on June 30th and it's looking like Stardock is going to break the $20M mark. If all goes well, we'll double that again next year once certain big projects get launched this Summer. The skinning world I know and love continues to evolve. The "power user" market for skinning has pretty much peaked. Tha...
When it comes to skinning the OS, I'm a fanatic. I've been into changing the look and feel of the OS for nearly 15 years now. From Object Desktop on OS/2 to working on the very first GUI skinning program on Windows, skinning is a passion of mine. Over the years, I've seen a lot of programs, companies, and ideas come and go. On the software side, there's been great programs like eFX and Chroma (to name two) along with the ubiquitous WindowBlinds . On the content side, ther...
Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor Info Guide By Brad Wardell Designer and AI Developer Title: Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor Description: Expansion pack to the award-winning PC strategy game, Galactic Civilizations II Requires: Galactic Civilizations II: Gold Edition or Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords + Galactic Civili...
There's something to be said about walking into a room and seeing that the 18 month old has thrown all the books on the floor making a big mess with the top most book being the book on discipline. I think she's sending a message.
I have a lot of obnoxious opinions on a whole range of issues. But I never allow my personal opinions to be injected into software. Our customers are buying products and services from us. They don't want to be forced to deal with my diatribes. But on-line is a different matter. If you're visiting my blog or reading one of the off-topic forum categories on one of our sites, something I write might pop up. I value my freedom to say what I want more than anything. I'd sooner close ...