“The Adventures of Johnny Bunko” — A Manga Career Guide

Local tech evangelist David Crow points to The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You’ll Ever Need. Unlike What Color is Your Parachute? or Who Moved My Cheese?, Johnny Bunko is in manga form — that’s right, it’s a Japanese-style comic book.

An unusual book needs an unusual promo, and Johnny Bunko is no exception — it’s got a trailer!

Read on for more…

The Very First Thing You Should Do When Laid Off

In his article, Laid off? The one thing you absolutely need to do on the first day, Jason Kester suggests that “the single most important thing to do as soon as you make it back to your house with that box full of stuff is to book a flight. Read the article for his reasons […]

Grand Theft Auto IV…for the NES?

What if Grand Theft Auto IV had come out in 1990, for the NES? The ad would probably look like this:

Conan O’Brien on a Kinder, Gentler “Grand Theft Auto”

“In the past, Grand Theft Auto has been severely criticized for being too violent,” says Conan O’Brien. “Well, the new version — I got it yesterday and was playing with it — it’s been toned down a lot. I’m not sure it’s better…”

Sleep Deprivation is not a Badge of Honor

Sleep Deprivation is not a Badge of Honor: I’ve written about this topic on the Accordion Guy blog (see “Crunch Mode” and Sleep), but it’s nice to hear other developers talks about it. Sleep is not the enemy, people!

Lenovo’s Clever Counter-Ad to the MacBook Air

This ad for Lenovo’s ultra-portable ThinkPad X300 is a pretty good counter to the ad for the MacBook Air…

…but I think I’ll wait for the Mac version. The ThinkPad may boast that it’s the “no-compromise” machine, but the lack of Mac OS X is a big-ass compromise in my books. Especially when the OS likely to be bundled with this machine is:

My Tech Reading List for May

I got a number of books for free this past week:

• Head First PMP - When my friend Leigh Honeywell heard that I was taking a project management course later this month, she told me that she got this book for free at a conference and had no use for it. So she gave this book to me, and I’ll be reading it so that when the course comes around — it’s May 21st through 23rd — I’ll be at least familiar with the material.

And four books from Apress, courtesy of Julie Miller:

• Pro PHP: Patterns, Frameworks, Testing and More
• PHP Objects, Patterns, and Practice, Second Edition
• Practical Web 2.0 Applications with PHP
• Practical Reporting with Ruby and Rails

I’ll be reading them this month and posting my reviews here in Global Nerdy. Watch this space!

Wubi: Peaceful Coexistence between Vista and Ubuntu “Hardy Heron”

I had trouble getting Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon to work on my Toshiba laptop, but heard that Hardy Heron was a significantly more compatible distro and had a little Windows installer called Wubi that would simply things greatly.

Read on for my report of installing Ubuntu using Wubi…

Portal Meets Walken

Here’s the only way that the game Portal could be improved: by adding Chrostopher Walken to the mix!

Click the picture to see a larger version.

The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet

The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet distills the best tips for improving your site’s findability by search engines down to two sides of a letter-sized sheet in PDF format. Download it, print it, design your sites by it!

Speeder Dogs!

As both a dog person and an aficionado of science fiction action flicks, this photo amuses me to no end:

Click the photo to see it at full size.
Photo courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Websites You Shouldn’t Have Missed in April 2008

Websites You Shouldn’t Have Missed in April 2008 is a collection of 52 links featuring graphic design tutorials, Ajax, CSS, tips for freelance workers, free fonts, icons and graphics, tools and generators, WordPress themes, typography sites and sites to inspire you. Well worth perusing.

GTA IV Grab Bag #1

Here’s a first in a series of regular updates on the just-released and much-awaited Grand Theft Auto IV. In this installment, there’s a hint about how to get all that Serbian translated into English, a video featuring ten more minutes of gameplay, and some thought on “sandbox” games done right.

Rogers to Offer iPhone in Canada

It’s official: Rogers will be offering the iPhone in Canada. No word on whether they’re going to lower their ridiculous mobile data rates to reasonable levels.

Grand Theft Auto IV: Midnight Lineup and First Impressions

Here’s a photo of the line outside my local EB Games (the Runnymede/St. Clair location in Toronto) for Grand Theft Auto IV, taken last night at midnight:

Read on for more about the line, my initial impressions and a video featuring the first ten minutes of the game.

Darth Emo

Jeff “Coding Horror” Atwood will tell you that there’s nothing like a computer you build yourself, and as the Star Wars comic below shows, it applies to droids you built yourself too:

Click the comic to see it at full size.
Comic courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.

Click here to see the comic at full size.

Grand Theft Auto IV Goes Out at Midnight!

Grand Theft Auto IV Goes Out at Midnight! Games stores all over Toronto are opening for an hour at midnight to sell the hotly-anticipated and universally praised next installment of the Grand Theft Auto series of games. If you’re in the Toronto area, all Future Shops and EB Games will be open at midnight, as […]

The Real Threat to Google

According to a BusinessWeek article, the real threat to Google isn’t Microsoft or Yahoo!, but cell phones:. “As more people use cell phones and their tiny glass screens to gain access to the Internet, Google and its fellow online advertisers will have less space, or what’s called ad inventory, to place marketing messages for customers. […]

Making Long-Distance (Business) Partnerships Work

Making Long-Distance (Business) Partnerships Work: “Technology makes it possible to run a business from practically anywhere on the planet. But what if your business partner lives in a different city or a different time zone? How do long-distance partners make it work? The answer appears to be with lots of planning and smart use of […]

Eric Sink on Windows XP and Listening to Customers

Eric Sink on Windows XP and Listening to Customers: “My overall posture toward Microsoft is still friendly. I still use Windows every day…I’ve used Vista, and while I didn’t find it to be a compelling “must-have” upgrade, I rather liked it. But none of this means that I’m going to give my blanket agreement […]