You’ve seen all the Tycoon-themed PC games like: Mall Tycoon, Seaworld Tycoon, Ski Tycoon, etc. Rollercoaster Tycoon is the crowd favorite as far as gameplay goes (and mine too, BTW), but today I bought my favorite themed Tycoon game: Prison Tycoon!

The gameplay doesn’t rival Rollercoaster Tycoon, but the concept of building and managing your own Prison seemed like a curious idea. After playing it … well, the execution was ok.

Weighing in at $19.99 USD (and destined to be a bargain basement buy at $5-10) this Tycoon game allows players to build, maintain and manage their own prison. The CD case cover is black and white, guess they couldn’t spring for color. The manual is a scant two pages basically giving the advice to players to make sure to put work areas near food as prisoners are “always happy” once they are done eating, and thus more willing to work.

The load screen.

Choose where to build your prison in free play mode. Or you can choose challenge mode.

Below is the West Coast prison in free play mode.

Tips for new players: start by building inmate facility with bunks, a few security towers, a small mess hall, a place for prisoners to work nearby and a small recreation area. An administration building with planning ($10,000) will open up bigger areas. Watch out for the trees near the fence (why would any prison have trees right near the fence? Only in a videogame!).

Saw this Mouse Rug at the local Good Guys / CompUSA megastore (the only one in Washington state, they say, based right here in Puyallup) and just had to spring for it. The Mouse Rug has ‘impulse buy’ written all over it. Yeah, it’s too expensive ($19.99 USD) sort of like fancy, snobby rugs are, but it sure looks stylish, and just read their pitch:

Lextra creates a computer mousing surface with over 7 million yarn-dyed micro fibers to insure precise mouse control plus amazing comfort: never hot, cold, sticky or abrasive to work on all day long!

Never “hot, cold or sticky?” Ok, I won’t go there!

I just saw that Sharebuilder is running an interesting promotion for new accounts that I wanted to tell MakeYouGoHmm readers about (pictured above). As of this writing (limited time offer!), existing ShareBuilder account holders (and I know a few readers are like me) can invite up to five friends/family to sign up for an account at Sharebuilder and they will give each person $25 USD free to invest. One of my friends checked this out and in order to sign up for Sharebuilder one must be a US citizen or be an alien with a social security number.

This could be a good chance for someone you know (friend/family member) who has been procrastinating and would like to learn what it’s like buying some stock but isn’t ready to make larger monetary committments. GOOGle stock alone is over $280 USD a share as of this writing, so a 10 share purchase would cost nearly three grand not even talking commissions and fees. That kind of purchase might be out of reach for some folks who would might like to own a stock like GOOGle. It’s quite possible through Sharebuilder to buy $25 worth of GOOGle stock, which I think is pretty darn cool for the cautious, experimental and/or beginning investor. Should this take place of a real savings plan? No, no, no! Stock investing is high risk, especially in the tech sector (remember the dot bomb bust?). Consult the licensed pros for real investing information. We use TRowePrice for that.

I use Sharebuilder for some smaller stock purchases and experimentation buying (mostly) tech sector stocks which is explained in more depth via the post Sharebuilder Rocks! To summarize, I’ve been very happy with my stock trades to date, but again it is very important to note that stock contains risk and investors can and do lose money all the time. In this case, a friend/family member could lose the $25 Sharebuilder is giving which seems like fairly low risk investing, at least for those twenty five bones.

My five invites have all been spoken for, but I’m curious if someone signs up new if they can get five invites for their friends/family? I’ll find out soon after the people I gave the invites report their findings back to me. I don’t know what the inviteee side of things is like on this deal, only the inviter. The inviter gets five free trades per accepted invitation (to a maximum of 25 free trades) which, depending on the monthly ShareBuilder plan chosen and over the plan allotment cost between $1 and $4 per trade.

Here’s the fine print from Sharebuilder as to how this works:

*ShareBuilder Plan Investments are recurring or one-time purchases of stock made on the first, second, third and fourth Tuesday of each month. Does not include real-time trades. You will receive 5 free Automatic Investments for each person you refer who opens a ShareBuilder Account and makes at least one investment. You will receive the credits within 2 weeks after the referee’s first transaction. Credits expire 90 days after date awarded. Maximum 25 Automatic Investing credits per account. Those you refer will receive a unique id code number that they must correctly enter in the proper field during their account set up process in order for you to receive your free investing credits. ShareBuilder is not responsible for incorrect entry of this unique id code. ShareBuilder reserves the right to end this promotion at any time.

Sharebuilder also has an Investor Starter Kit deal where for $29.95 that comes with $25 cash to invest, $10 iTunes certificate, the ShareBuilder iTunes Bonus program (where folks can earn up to $20 more in iTunes), a 1 year subscription to Young Money and Money Magazines and the #1 National Bestseller “The Automatic Millionaire” by David Bach. This package has a retail value of over $125 USD. Sounds like a good gift idea if there aren’t a lot of strings attached anyway.

Turkey and Morocco authorities assisted with Microsoft investigators and the FBI in locating two suspects believed to be responsible for the recent Zotob virus that was causing constant reboots on computers worldwide. via earthtimes:

… FBI chasing an electronic trail that has lead to two youngsters faraway in the Middle East and North Africa. It is believed that 18-year old Moroccan Farid Essebar wrote the Zotob viral program in return for a payment offered by the 21-year old Turk Atilla Ekici, after meeting him over the Internet. Yesterday both were arrested and now await prosecution in their respective countries.

Seems like this duo might be involved in some identity theft crimes as well. If found guilty, I say put them in a cell with a door that keeps opening and closing just as they have a chance to reach it — for the rest of their lives.

A long time ago my wife gave me a subscription to Playboy. Lasted for like a year or two and then she stopped renewing it. I dug it, what can I say? You know, for the articles and stories, that’s why. That’s why all men read Playboy, right?

Today I learned that the October Playboy magazine will be available September 13 via Zinio:

The digital Playboy, produced in association with digital-publishing services provider Zinio Systems, will be identical to the print edition, the company said. “We see this is a natural extension of the Playboy brand,” said Christie Hefner, chief executive of Playboy (PLA), in a statement.

Actually the digital version will have some Zinio-enhanced differences like no inserts falling out everywhere and it will be searchable! There has already been an adult webmaster magazine (Klixxx) via Zinio available and from the search I ran (see above) looks like there are some other softcore Playboy titles available via Zinio. Wonder how long before Zinio is running out Hustler or High Society?

Eric Mack, the guy who spent days keeping readers in suspense over opening and configuring his shiny new Toshiba M4 Tablet PC turned on his Tablet PC and discovered the dreaded missing/corrupt OS errors. Uh oh. It gets worse. He needs the master boot disk to repair which Toshiba didn’t provide. He hasn’t had the M4 that long before this crash (May 19 - August 25, wee bit more than 90 days) which makes me suspicious of their drive durability (is that what caused this? Or was it some program Eric installed that knocked it out of whack?). Can’t base any opinion on one bad experience, of course, because I’ve had drives and Windows go bad before. My Sony VAIO has had the drive replaced once in five years, it just seems awful quick for their to be HD problems. Maybe it’s just the OS though and the HD is fine? One would expect for the extra expense of Tablet PCs that the drives are more durable, if that turns out to be the problem … let’s hope for Eric’s sake that it didn’t die after barely 90 days.

Warner seems disgusted by the situation:

I do know this. The practice of not including a boot disk, like filling a recovery disk with CRAPWARE, is wrong and should be stopped. Shame? It is tough to cast shame when the party who should be shamed won’t even deign to acknowledge you are talking to them.

Via Warner’s blog, I also noticed that Adam — a new Tablet user — is also having troubles:

Grrr… so far, not off to a great start. And the paper docs are useless, too. Ridiculously general (don’t use the TPC in the bathtub kinda stuff). Maybe the manual-on-CD will give me a better jumpstart into the world of TPC’ing? I know I really should have thought about this before plunking down more than a grand, but why the heck did I buy a TPC anyway? I’m not an artist, nor do I want to be one. And maybe it’s just a steep learning curve …

Adam does have a few positive things to say about his “TPC’ing” as he calls it. That sounds too much like TP’ing to me, Adam. What, are we rolling up toilet paper around our tablets? A new kind of tablet owner revenge! That’ll show ‘em.

Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining about Motion planning to turn their backs on their M-series customers in 2008. No, screw that, I’ll keep complaining until somebody from Motion shows that they actually care and make some sort of concession on this idiotic legacy date.

I just looked through my stuff and it seems I don’t have a master boot disk for the M1400 either, but then I don’t have a floppy drive either. Do have an external CD. I sure hope I don’t ever need a master boot disk, especially if it’s after 2007 …

Got to hand it to Curry and company for trying to get the labels with commercial music to authorize their music be played in podcasts free of charge. The reality is nothing is free of charge in this world and the labels can’t get by without using the word “but.”

Cory Doctorow points to the PodShow producer terms and then dismantles the fine print:

The problem is that in return for access to PodCast music, you agree to a license that prohibits you from referencing “software piracy (warez, cracking, etc.), hacking, phreaking, emulators, ROM’s, or illegal MP3 activity” or saying anything “deemed unsuitable or harmful to the reputation of PodShow or the Licensor.”

What’s that cliche? The big text giveth and the small text taketh away. Bummer.

Today at noon is the fall signups for the Y. They have lots of different programs that we can sign up for and commit to for the next couple months. Jowl and I still haven’t made a habit out of our workout schedule yet.

Week #1 we worked five days with a couple of the days two workouts, week #2 we were down to five days with no extra workouts and week three we have worked three of the five days this week — yes, we worked out this morning. A couple days Jowl hasn’t woken up and a couple days I haven’t woken up. We started doing resistance training this week with weights and cardio.

Jowl had lost 11 pounds after week 2 and I had lost eight pounds. He put back on seven pounds and I put back on five pounds according to the scales today.

It looks like we’re going to settle into a routine (hopefully) of 3-5 days per week with both cardio and resistance training. As far as how we feel, I know I sure feel a lot better than I did three weeks ago. I asked Jowl how he felt and he said he feels good and “more awake.”

The first two weeks we were strictly in cardio mode and working 5-15 minutes on the bike, then 20-30 minutes on the treamill, then 1/2 mile to mile around the track and then riding the bike for another 5-20 minutes. We used various resistance levels on the machines.

This week we started doing upper body and arm strengthening for 15-30 minutes to go along with 15 minutes on the bike and 20 minutes on the treadmill. On the treadmill we are walking briskly for 4 minutes (at an increasing incline) and then running for a minute, then walk for 4 minutes and run for 1 minute, repeat until 20 minutes. That gives a good cardio workout — or so I’ve read anyway — in a shorter amount of time. Our goal is get the total workout down to an hour, as we both need to do this before going to school.

We haven’t consulted with professional fitness trainers or anything yet. Our workout so far seems to have done very little in the weight loss department, although we both have lost a little weight. Our nutrition and dietary habits are a big part of this, I’m sure, because we have only mildly changed what we’re eating, when and how much, so that will become something for us to focus on more in the coming weeks.

There are programs that can help us track and improve this.

When I asked about fitness programs that were Tablet PC friendly fyiguy (thank you!) pointed me to Bodytrans (14 day free trial, $24.99 USD). This program is very detailed and covers Training, Nutrition, and Mindset allowing users to setup multiple user accounts (so Jowl and I can both track our progress separately) and make notes or enter data using ink. We started entering in data on Friday August 19, 2005.

The BodyTrans home menu is pictured at the top of this thread. You can make diary notes in ink and text (shown below):

Too bad you can’t optionally upload them to your (private or public) blog! (hint, hint for future version). You can also make notes in a daily sleep log so you can make sure you’re getting enough rest. The “pictures” section allows for before and after photos to visually review what improvements have been made in your body.

I really like the detail and effort put into this program. It’s a good companion for taking to the gym on the Tablet PC and keeping track of what’s going on. I was lamenting the other day how the gyms aren’t really caught up with technology. For the $100/month they are charging they should be providing members with tracking software like this but they are still in the dark ages of paper and pencil. Maybe the author should contact the Y, Ballys, etc as this could be a good avenue for distribution … ?

For webmasters: BodyTrans has an affiliate program (via RegNow). You could get yourself in shape (most of us webmasters are out of shape) and maybe make a few bones promoting a good program! We signed up and are awaiting approval approved! I’ll be writing more about BodyTrans as we continue through our usage of the software.

Until tonight I missed the Aug 18 upgrade for Yahoo Toolbar for IE (you have to just download over the top of your existing Y! toolbar, as the site doesn’t say a word), via Yahoo search blog:

Good news: We heard the feedback, and the latest version of the Yahoo! Toolbar for Internet Explorer now supports Y!Q (integrated along with other cool features, such as saving to My Web and Y! Music Engine controls). Install the latest Yahoo! Toolbar, select several words from the web page you’re reading, and you’ll see an actuator icon. Select the “Search” menu item and you’ll get contextual search results.

That acuator think seems pretty slick but I need to run many more tests to see how accurate/useful the search results are. Just copy a section of text and see what it turns for Y! search results (too bad you couldn’t dump it to any search engine, but that’s probably wishful thinking hoping for a customization option like that). It is sort of a twist on searching.

I’ve enjoyed using the whole Yahoo! My Web way of dealing with bookmarks as tags. It seems a shame that only 110,387 documents have been tagged for ‘everybody’ I’m just one lone user and I’ve managed to tag 181 URLs to date– most of which are for everybody. That cache the page feature is sweet. All around, Yahoo keeps moving on up (a Jefferson’s reference) in my book.

Oh, and we finally got accepted into the Yahoo Publishing Network, so now we are starting testing on Webmaster Cookbook. Jowl and I will be talking more about YPN on tomorrow’s live show / podcast. We put our request in on the day it was announced beta, so if you submitted on the same day — August 3 — keep watching for the acceptance email with the code to setup an account. Code is only good for setting up one account.

Time for a view of the Dark Side of the Force via a Darth Vader PC mod. I like the Millenium Falcon mod better. While in the Star Wars mode, I checked to see the box office gross: $378,977,117 … light years from a billion.

Guess we wait for the DVD set and TV shows now.