Eric's All-in-1 Solitaire for Mac OS X 10.6 and later

It's been a long time and I appreciate your patience. I finally shipped my new Mac solitaire game. It's called Eric's All-in-1 Solitaire and is available in the Mac App Store here. You can also check out some info on the Sniderware web site.

I'm Mesmerized by Fiverr.com

Fiverr.com is crazy. After being mesmerized by it for a couple days I just spent $20. I've ordered...

• A new logo for Sniderware from v3_lily on fiverr.com
• A video ad for my friend Drew's old old web site http://www.coolsciencefacts.com (it's super funny though!)
• A review of my FreeCell game to be sent to thousands of people on Twitter
• A banner ad for FreeCell

I'll post what I end up getting once I start gettin' stuff back. (8 hours later!) I got the potential Sniderware logos. Here they are: This one's like a game controller that's gonna eat the company name...

A planet with a sad face made from a game controller?

I got my first banner ad. There was a typo at first ("Erik" instead of "Eric") but here it is fixed:

Eric's Ultimate Solitaire doesn't run on Mac OS X Lion (yet?)

Good news! Eric's All-in-1 Solitaire for Mac OS X 10.6 and later is available in the Mac App store. Click here to check it out


I've started getting email from users about Eric's Ultimate Solitaire for Mac OS X Lion. The problem is that it's not compatible with Lion and they need their solitaire fix. I'm busy finishing some iPad contract work, but once I'm done I'm going to work full time on my own Sniderware games. There's a lot on the to-do list... One of the big items is writing a new Mac solitaire game based on my iPhone and iPad solitaire games. I need to talk to Joe at Delta Tao Software again and see about licensing the "Eric's Ultimate Solitaire" name. Although whether it's called "Eric's Ultimate Solitaire" or some other name I'm a long way from being ready to ship the game. Okay, I just emailed Joe to see what he thinks! It's weird, but maybe I'll be porting from iPhone/iPad to Mac OS. Weird since I started long ago on Mac OS...

Do I have pink eye? Also. Scratch programming.

My eye is crazy itchy. Someone in Jonah's class had pink eye a couple days ago. Do I have it? I'm always getting pink eye from the kids. Man.

In other news... I'm trying to decide if I should be working on Mac solitaire or Android solitaire first. But really I'm busy with contracts so it's not that big an issue. Still, I'm excited to do something new.

Jonah has started doing some programming stuff with Scratch. It's a free and cool programming thing from MIT. It's sprite-based and the programming is drag & drop scripting. He showed me a tiny program he wrote yesterday where he said "Yell something." When I did a dragon appeared and it instantly changed size based on how loud I was. Cool. :) Anyway, Scratch is really well done. Check it out. I've also heard that Game Maker is really good for kids who want to learn to program and make games... But I haven't tried it yet.

Better Book Titles

I just discovered Better Book Titles. It made me laugh out loud more than once. There's no writing to go with each one, which is different than one of my favorite sites, Cake Wrecks. But these are funny all on their own.

This page is for people who have trouble slogging through the information on book jackets or feel intimidated by the title and cover itself. How many times have you perused the cover of a novel only to rub your sore eyes and realize you've learned NOTHING from the book's title?!

2010...

Overall... 2010 was really good. Baby Colin is starting to sleep more at night and smiles a LOT. We all like Jonah's school pretty well now (we switched him to a magnet school, but it's farther away, but they don't hold him back like his old school). Ari is becoming a big kid, which makes us a little sad, because he's such a cute little kid. He's starting to read a little bit and that's exciting and I'm curious to see what kind of big kid he'll turn out to be. Kelly's looking for work and there are some good prospects. I've had lots of great contract work this year and my own games are selling well. I've learned more, had more fun, had more free time, made more money, seen my friends more and spent more time with my family this year. It's been really good. Here's hoping 2011 is just as fantastic for us and everyone we know.

I've gotta go watch Baby Colin and make some nachos. More later... :)

Lots of stuff going on

We visited my Mom, Dad and brother David in Florida. It was super fun although also super cold. That was okay 'cause I don't like when it's hot and humid. It was ~36 degrees the morning that we flew home though!

There was a leak in our roof while we were gone. It was right above my tiny desk, next to my new Hackintosh PC. Yikes. Luckily my nephew Joe spotted the problem and did a ton of good work including moving all the junk out of my office, met with the contractor and more. My PC is working great and things are all in good shape. Plus the leak is fixed.

I'm busy catching up on lots of Sniderware stuff. Christmas Solitaire for iPhone and Christmas Solitaire HD for iPad just got approved by Apple and I need to do some promotion before it's too late. FreeCell and FreeCell HD have been doing well. I'm going to revamp the art in Spider and Klondike and release them with a bunch of bug fixes and a few new features (e.g. No more tiny text on retina displays, no repeated deals in Spider(!) and a new "Start Deal Over" option). Once everything's updated I'll get crackin' on an all-in-one solitaire. Maybe just a free one that you can buy extras in. Although maybe a paid version and a free one.

No possums while we were gone. In fact we got four eggs which is miraculous since the chickens haven't laid any eggs in months.

I'm cleaning my office and found some old haikus I wrote back when I worked for Delta Tao Software making Mac games. It was probably Haiku week there or something :) The main themes are Customer Support, Moving, Things that are delicious, and Trouble at school:

Haikus June 18th, 1998 Moving/New Roommates

Hello Matt and Sean
There sure are lots of boxes
I will never clean

Picture of sunflower
My mother gave it to me
Housemates say "too girly"

Customer Support/Delta Tao
Dear Ruth Ohara
You returned the disk months ago
Yeah, still doesn't work

(This was a disk a nice user returned because there was a problem. I think I found it and we hadn't responded to her yet. So I wrote this haiku.)

The phones are ringing
I'll be making more money
John will just be mad

Old people call us
Irritating John Walter
That's how I make dough

Dude, 'sup? Lance is here.
Plays Starcraft. Then does shipping.
We pay him little.

Replacement dog here
Bippie is irritating
I sort of like her

I hold the baby
Get a mocha in return
Mmmm. Oh yes. Caffeine.

Solitaire won't go
Preferences file is bad
Throw it in the trash

Delta Tao Software
Secret Motte "Games that Joe likes"
Please do not tell Joe

Miscellaneous
Maybe you are tough
Maybe you take us all on
Well, maybe not though

-- Some optional endings here...
Many types Pocky
Royal Milk Tea marble kind
(Tastes and smells so gross)
(So much like poison)
(Is disgusting taste)
(Unnatural taste)

Kid in second grade
Throws the hamster in the air
Why didn't he catch it?

Calculus exam
Lots of memorization
Notes in pocket watch

Sleeping through test bad.
Teacher nice. Take it later.
I get 6 percent.

-- This was when I worked at Babbages software store in a mall. I was talking with my friend, John, and here's what happened:
Used to work in software store
Old man wanders nearby us and says
"Mostly for women I guess"