Mountain Lion – There’s a reason it’s $20

Mac Desktop - July 26My experience with OS X 10.8 is off to a bad start. Apple officially launched Mountain Lion on July 25, 2012. But unfortunately, I didn’t get to use it until today. The installation was hindered by slow download speeds and an unusual hard drive glitch. After those frustrating issues, problems persisted. At first, I was looking forward to this upgrade. But soon after the installation, I was contemplating a switch back to Windows. What’s wrong with Mountain Lion?

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Upgrading to OS X Mountain Lion – The Cheap Way!

Mac Software Update Icon - ThumbnailApple’s 2012 World Wide Development Conference kicked off today. And overall, the news was impressive. If you have $2199 to spend on a laptop, the 2880 x 1800 retina display of the new MacBook Pro might interest you. Meanwhile, iOS is getting upgraded with anti-Google technology — like maps and improved Siri responses. Yet, I was most excited by a fairly minor announcement. OS X Mountain Lion is releasing next month… for $19.99.

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ROUND 2: GameSalad vs Stencyl

Stencyl vs GameSalad - Round 2 - ThumbnailA little over three months ago, I posted an assessment of two powerful game creation applications. Which one would win in a fight? I didn’t really declare a winner, as choosing between Stencyl or GameSalad is essentially a matter of preference. Yet, things did not stand still. During the last three months, one of the competitors dramatically improved. That competitor is GameSalad. Is there a clear winner in the game development battle now?

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GameSalad Template – Dual Controllers

Dual Controls ThumbnailWhile frequenting the GameSalad forums, I spotted an interesting thread. Apparently, the default template for creating dual controllers is a bit buggy. I know the frustration that this can cause, as my first GameSalad project didn’t go so smoothly. The virtual joysticks would jam, creating a rather broken gaming experience. Fortunately, I designed my own system to resolve this problem. A free template is available for download.

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Stencyl Officially Upgraded to 2.0

Stencyl 2.0 install thumbnailProduction level — what does that mean to you? When is software ready to leave beta or be labeled with a new integer? When should software hit the point-0 mark… 1.0, 2.0, 3.0? If you’re GameSalad, three years is not enough time. If you’re running Firefox or Chrome, it seems like every other Monday. But with Stencyl, I think that they’ve got a good pace going. The numbers are ticking by quickly, but so are the new features. Version 2.0 is a significant change from the previous 1.4 version.

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