Thursday, December 29, 2005

Art of Otaku CD Blogging
So I received my copy of Art of Otaku on CD today. Here are some notes about it...

What We Did Really Well:

* The cover slip looks and feels great. I'm very happy with that. Grade: A

* The printing on the CD is good, except for some small ink smudges. Grade: B

* The launch menu and ability to view Art of Otaku by chapter is fantastic! I love it to death. Grade: A

* I really like how an icon appears on the CD-ROM drive when you insert the CD. Grade: A-

What We Didn't Do Well:

* The CD has "Inkjet Printable CD-R" written in the center. This is because to meet our deadline Justin had to grab CDs from CompUSA. Severity Grade: C

* The jewel cases in my package were scratched, broken in half, cover slip distorted, dirty, and otherwise in awful shape.

We had gone with slim CD cases. Unfortunately these proved to be much flimsier than I thought.

I consider this an A-level problem. If you get Art of Otaku and the CD case is a mess, your first thoughts are "why did I pay for this?" It cheapens the guide immensely and makes us look bad.

So what are we going to do?

We have 95 CDs sitting in Michigan right now with these CD cases. I might have to order a box of nice jewel cases and ship one with each order. But that's really ghetto.

I could also see if our fulfillment house can re-package them. But they'll probably charge hundreds of dollars for that.

In any case, we have to do something quickly. Severity Grade: A+

* The launch menu loads a bit slowly. Justin had programmed a "loading" graphic, which helps, but even that takes a little time to load. Severity Grade: C-

Overall Thoughts:

I think we did a good job in putting this thing together. Especially considering this was our first non-digital project.

I'd give the CD version a B/B+ right now, which will be upgraded to an A- once we get the darned jewel case issue fixed and an A once we sell out of inventory and address the other minor problems.

I definitely have to give a shout out though to Justin for his hard work in getting this done. His programming talents and initiative really shined through. Also thanks to James who created some very nice graphics for it.


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Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Napster Contest
So the contest Napster's sponsoring is cool (see main page). Not really that the prize is ground-breaking, but that there's a scoreboard that shows off how members in our community are doing.

I love looking at that. We need more stuff along those lines. Hm...

If you liked this contest, you might like the next one too (not definite yet though). Hint: Has to do with video games and dancing/karaoke.

So what's your New Years Resolution?
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Saturday, December 24, 2005

   Regular Reader Rewards
I really love how Gail and Dagger have their regular theOtaku features.

Dagger has a feature where she previews new DVD releases once a week.

And Gail has two regular features. Her excellent "screening room," where she reviews an anime that hasn't come out yet, and her once-a-month guide to anime conventions.

The cool thing too is that I can't take credit for any of them! Both Gail and Dagger came to me with the ideas and handled all the execution themselves.

Now that I'm shifting my focus back to theOtaku/myOtaku, I'm definitely going to try and promote things like this more heavily.

The ideas are flying.
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Thursday, December 22, 2005

Random Rumblings
A few interesting notes:

(1) The MTA strike in New York is an outrage. I lost about two hours of my life today and about $30 because I couldn't use the subway. (Taxis cost extra now and traffic is insane. Plus it's really cold.)

Now, multiply this cost by the 7 million people in NYC and you have some idea about the selfishness of the MTA strikers. For a couple dollars, they're screwing over all the people they were hired to serve.

(2) My biggest regret about Art of Otaku on CD was that we couldn't get it out in time for Christmas. I know some of you would have loved to give it as a gift. Ah, well...

But I believe in making up for large missteps with small victories. That's why I'm pleased to say Justin and I were able to get (with considerable scrambling) one Art of Otaku buyer a CD shipped in time for Christmas. Hopefully the person who receives the gift will love it as much as we do.

Congratulations!

(3) I'm entering an essay contest about blogging. Think I have a chance (smirk)? Wish me luck...
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Monday, December 19, 2005

Where's Your Copy?
Art of Otaku. Now on CD. We'll update the website with purchasing information tomorrow evening.



(This is Justin's dog, Taz. Thanks to Justin for managing this version.)

UPDATE: You can now buy it!
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Saturday, December 17, 2005

Impressed
So I'm leaving my apartment today to drop off my laundry. I pass by a couple guys downstairs, think nothing of it. People are in and out of my building all the time.

When I return, I see a letter slipped under my door from Petie. He had purchased Art of Otaku beta back on November 1st, but had some payment problems. The letter had a check in it.

Needless to say, I was quite impressed. I mean to hand-deliver payment a month and a half later, when I had certainly forgotten about it, shows a lot of integrity.

I'm just sorry I missed my window to say "hi."

Anyway, I always think good deeds like this should be rewarded. So I'm just going to keep the letter/check in my personal files and not cash it. Congrats!

(Note: I'm only doing this once, so don't think this is a novel way of getting a free copy ^_^.)
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Friday, December 16, 2005

Mad Props
Congratulations to our boy, James.

He recently made a very bold decision to move to a new city in search of adventure.

And only a day after his big move, he's already found a job with Warner Bros.

Major respect.
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Thursday, December 15, 2005

Major Props
Congratulations to our boy, Comments (0) | Permalink