Publications I have written for.
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Other publications I wrote for.
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My most recently published articles:

Computerworld
Review: 5 free apps that make project management easier
June 30, 2009
I'll take a look at five free alternatives to using Microsoft Office Project. None of these are from major software companies -- four out of the five are open source while the fifth, jxProjects, is advertising-supported. On the one hand, this means that you don't get the amount of hand-holding that you would from a commercial product. On the other hand, these products often employ more innovative methods than commercial software.
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
"Analyze This:" What Went Under-Reported at This Year's E3?
June 23, 2009
Were there any announcements or events at this year's E3 you felt went under-reported but were notable for you and your analyst colleagues? From a professional or personal view, what were some of your favorite things about this year's E3? Least favorite? Is E3 back? That is, does the annual event still matter in the industry, and if so, did this year's E3 prove it?
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
"Analyze This:" Is It Time To Refresh The PSP?
May 19, 2009
We asked Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities, Doug Creutz of Cowen and Company and Nicholas Lovell of Gamesbrief on what they think of the current state of Sony's PlayStation Portable.
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Gamasutra
"Analyze This:" Advice on Investing in Game Development
April 8, 2009
We asked Ed Barton of Screen Digest, Doug Creutz of Cowen and Company and Billy Pidgeon of IDC what they would advise somebody who might want to invest money in game development right now.
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GamesIndustry.biz
Top of the Pops 
March 26, 2009
PopCap Games is certainly one of the major publishers when it comes to the casual games sector. Buoyed by the success and enormous popularity of its Bejeweled franchise, the company specialises in web games; games sold as downloads for the PC, iPhone and mobile phones; and sells a few retail, boxed titles for the PC, and some of the console and handheld platforms including the Nintendo DS.
[Read the rest]

Computerworld
Review: 6 Web-based image editors help you fix your photos 
March 18, 2009
About three years ago, Web-based image editors started appearing, but most were not terribly useful, and they certainly did not threaten desktop-based editors -- they tended to be experimental projects and no more powerful than Microsoft Paint. More recently, however, newer Web applications have been launched that offer features similar to those found in desktop image-editing software.
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Gamasutra
"Analyze This:" Turmoil In The Game Business
March 3, 2009
With the dismal economy and layoffs affecting the game biz, how will the trailing console platforms - the PS3 and Xbox 360 - fare this year, and what are the knock-on effects for the rest of 2009?
[Read the rest]

Computerworld
AIM, meet Yahoo: 8 apps help you chat across IM services
January 30, 2009
The world of instant messaging is crowded and becoming even more so. It began with ICQ, which was closely followed by AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger. That's where instant messaging applications like Digsby, Pidgin or Trillian come in. These chat apps -- which can be described as cross-platform or multiprotocol IM apps -- support more than one instant messaging network.
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
"Analyze This:" New Year Resolutions for the Video Game Industry
January 28, 2009
What would you strongly advise Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony to focus on this year with their respective consoles? Likewise, what would you advise game developers to focus on this year? Overall, what are you predicting for the industry in 2009? For example, is there an interesting trend you're starting to track?
[Read the rest]

DevX
How Y! OS Unifies and Expands the Yahoo Ecosystem
January 13, 2009
The Chief Architect of Platforms explains why Yahoo is opening itself up to developers and why you should want to build applications for them.
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
"Analyze This:" Analyze This: Looking Back at the Year in Gaming 2008
December 18, 2008
Which game releases in 2008 were for you the surprise hits, and surprise misses, of the year? Which console platform's performance in the market surprised you the most this year? Conversely, which one(s) disappointed? What do you think are some of the lessons that the industry learned this year... lessons which may carry over into 2009?
[Read the rest]

Computerworld
Three free tools for teleconferencing with a 'virtual presence'
November 19, 2008
Using teleconferencing technology has lately become an obvious and financially practical choice to offset rising business travel expenses. Yet sometimes simple chatting doesn't cut it. There has been growing interest in the notion of online conferencing with a "virtual presence" emphasis, which enables people to share information and their very selves with one another with a stronger sense of near-tangible "face time."
[Read the rest]

DevX
An Interview with Evan Prodromou, the Developer Behind the Open Source Twitter Clone
November 19, 2008
The author of Laconica, an open source tool that lets anyone set up their own Twitter clone, discusses the technical challenges of microblogging and why it's not a fad.
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
"Analyze This:" Analyze This: Will The Slowing Economy Affect Holiday Sales?
November 19, 2008
With the slowing economy likely to enter recession, how do you predict each platform (console and handheld) will fare this holiday season? Which titles coming out for the holiday season do you predict will be hits? And which ones will struggle for gamers' money in the weak economy?
[Read the rest]

Computerworld
Running on AIR: 10 great office apps you can grab right now
September 8, 2008
AIR is a tool to build rich Internet applications that can be connected to your desktop and use Adobe's Flash player. Some six months after the release of AIR 1.0, what little there are of these applications -- we're talking things you can really use to help your productivity -- remain mostly limited to simple widgets or work-in-progress prototypes. Keep reading, though, because we've found some good ones. Almost all are free or free to try before buying. But why aren't there more?
[Read the rest]

The Escapist
When Worlds Collide
August 12, 2008
As if MMOGs like World of Warcraft and Second Life weren't already addictive enough, imagine if those virtual worlds crossed over into your real-world life. For the last two years, faculty and students at the Georgia Institute of Technology have been conducting experiments into enhancing MMOG environments with "augmented reality" (AR) technologies. Mowing down murlocs on your morning commute has never been so tantalizingly close.
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
"Analyze This:" What To Make of the Industry's Urge to Merge?
July 30, 2008
Generally, what are your thoughts about mergers (such as the recent one between Activision and Blizzard) and all the talk, rumors and speculation about other possible mergers/acquisitions in the industry (including EA's attempt to buy Take-Two)? Why has there been, apparently, such a strong "urge to merge"?
[Read the rest]

O'Reilly XML.com
How Comet Brings Instant Messaging to meebo
July 23, 2008
Instant messaging has become a ubiquitous communications feature of the internet. Yet it has been mainly confined to requiring the user to download, install and run a separate application. Prior to the launch of meebo, the concept of an in-browser instant messenger had not been executed well enough to match the features, responsiveness and stability of a standalone messenger program.
[Read the rest]

LinuxWorld
Easy podcast tool for Linux: Laszlo Pandy
June 10, 2008
If you're planning to record a simple podcast on Linux, Jokosher is a way to get started without all the confusing on-screen doo-dads. Developer Laszlo Pandy talks about the features, the Python code under the hood, and the Linux podcast that started it all. (12:49)
[Read the rest]

Make Magazine
Mall Living
May 2008
Artist Michael Townsend and his wife Adriana Yoto lived in a mall, rent free, for four years.
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
"Analyze This:" Will The Games Industry Give Hollywood A Run for Its Money This Summer?
May 20, 2008
Earlier in May, Hollywood was in a tizzy over the release of GTA IV, fearing that its popularity (the money spent to buy the game, and the time spent playing it) would negatively affect the box office for the movie industry's blockbuster releases this summer. But the results from the "showdown" between the Iron Man movie and GTA IV suggest that a blockbuster movie and a blockbuster game both targeting the same audience can peacefully co-exist.
[Read the rest]

Computerworld
6 factors that will decide the fate of Silverlight
May 01, 2008
Its first version was a little rough, experts say, but the beta of Silverlight 2 (released in March) shows that Microsoft could indeed have a shot at challenging Adobe Systems Inc.'s hugely popular Web media platform. But adoption of Silverlight by developers or end users has yet to take off. Realistically, it's going to take more than Silverlight being able to overcome, or to simply match, the technology of Flash, according to many observers.
[Read the rest]

LinuxWorld
The open life of Second Life
April 29, 2008
On January 2007, the source code of the client viewer for the online virtual world community Second Life was released as Open Source. It was seen in some circles in the Second Life community as questionable, raising concerns about security and speculation as to why Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, would do such a thing. The popularity of, and media hype for, their virtual real world was huge at the time. So why did the company feel the need to do it?
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
"Analyze This": Is The Video Game Industry Recession-Proof?
April 9, 2008
Since the year began, it's been a worrying topic in business news and on the minds of Americans: recession. Yet it appears that the video game industry has been immune to the effects of an economic slowdown and growing lack of consumer confidence -- or has it? Could, in fact, the industry also be facing an economic downturn sometime later this year?
[Read the rest]

LinuxWorld
Spotlight on open source for business: Adam Williams on OpenGroupware.org
March 27, 2008
OpenGroupware. org is relatively unknown outside the Open Source developer scene, yet it's one of the oldest projects around: This groupware has origins dating back to 1996. OpenGroupware. org is also one of the most expansive communities in Open Source. It serves as an umbrella organization for several inter-related projects. The major ones include:
[Read the rest]

LinuxWorld
Why major mobile handset makers are riding with LiMo
March 18, 2008
The LiMo Foundation was formed on January 2007 as a consortium of mobile industry companies joining together to create for handsets an open and standardized software platform based on Linux. Their goal is to deliver an open handset format that will become more widely accepted and used over closed, proprietary platforms. The foundation's major founders include Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics and Vodafone. These companies and other members share leadership and decision making.
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
Analyst Talks Apple's iPhone Games Strategy
March 6, 2008
Prior to today's official announcement of the iPhone SDK and its big name games content, Analyze This columnist Howard Wen asked OTX Research's Nick Williams his opinion on Apple's position in the gaming market and where the company's opportunities lie.
[Read the rest]

The Escapist
Interview: Cryptic Allusion on Keeping the Dream(cast) Alive
March 4, 2008
The Dreamcast was the best and last console Sega ever made. Its short life of less than three years on the market (originally released in November 1998) was marked by good reviews for the console itself and many of its games. None of this was enough to make a difference, especially against the onslaught of the PlayStation 2.
[Read the rest]

The Escapist
So Game We All
February 26, 2008
One of the more impressive games released last year was Beyond the Red Line. This action-spacecraft sim is based on the modern-day incarnation of the TV series Battlestar Galactica. Beyond the Red Line puts the player right into the cockpit of a Viper, the show's signature starfighter, and into a dynamic storyline that expands upon the Galactica universe.
[Read the rest]

JavaWorld
Java solutions profile: Java Web conferencing
February 19, 2008
Flash is widely considered the technology of choice for real-time audio and video, but Java's open standards-based approach is essential to many developers and clients. In this Java solutions profile, four developers explain how they're using Java to build real-time Web conferencing and collaboration software, and also reveal their wish list for improved client-side media support on the Java platform.
[Read the rest]

The Escapist
What Happened To The Last Starfighters?
February 12, 2008
It was once one of the most popular computer game genres. A little over 10 years ago, the space combat sim was represented by the likes of the Wing Commander series and Star Wars games centered around a certain TIE Fighter cockpit. Nowadays, the genre is moribund. It is pretty much dead in the marketplace, but a dedicated online community of devout fans has been keeping the traditional action-packed space sim alive, thanks to open source.
[Read the rest]

LinuxWorld
Born from Firefox
February 5, 2008
They are four applications designed to serve different purposes: A web browser, a music player and organizer, another that does the same for video, and a word processor for screenwriters. Yet they share one thing in common: All were built with a Mozilla-based toolkit, either the Gecko Runtime Environment or its successor, XULRunner. Both toolkits use the same codebase which runs Firefox.
[Read the rest]

LinuxWorld
Big mods for the small Eee PC
January 31, 2008
It looks like a toy, but this Linux mini-notebook has inspired a growing community of hardware mod devotees.
[Read the rest]

Gamasutra
"Analyze This": Should There Be A 'Wii Seal of Quality'?
January 30, 2008
Even over a year after its release, the Nintendo Wii is still in huge demand -- and difficult to find on store shelves. But some commentators are now vociferously claiming that the selection of Wii game titles contains a large number of underwhelming, if not downright lackluster titles, especially those from third-party publishers.
[Read the rest]

Articles published in 2007...

Sample portfolio of past published work:

Salon
Atari Lives!
The Atari 2600 ceased production in 1989. But practically speaking it never really went away. The abandoned system has been adopted by online fans, who nurture it with loving care. And they're doing more than just keeping it on life support; the Atari 2600 is actually growing -- new games are being written, and new hardware is being manufactured.
[Read the article]

Salon
Do-It-Yourself "Star Wars"
Have you seen "The Dark Redemption,"  the "Star Wars" prequel film set days before the events of the original "Star Wars"? What about "Bounty Trail,"  which features the further adventures of "Star Wars" intergalactic bounty hunter Boba Fett? If the above sound like fanciful ideas dreamed up by fans, that's because they are. These are products of the "fan film" scene -- an offshoot culture of independent digital filmmaking.
[Read the article]

Linux Magazine
Playing for Keeps
Over the years, NetHack fans with programming talent have dreamed up and realized all kinds of clever ways to enhance the basic game, including adding player character races, monsters, and spells. Two notable projects that enhance gameplay and graphics are Slash'EM and Falcon's Eye.
[Read the article]

Salon
Battle.net Goes To War
Is an open-source version of Blizzard Entertainment's online gaming service an illegal copyright violation? Ross Combs and Rob Crittenden, two of the lead developers on bnetd, say all they ever wanted to do was create a place to play best-selling Blizzard games like Starcraft and Diablo in a friendly online atmosphere free of the technical bugs that plague Battle.net. Blizzard sent a cease-and-desist to the ISP that hosts the Web site for bnetd.
[Read the article]

O'Reilly LinuxDevCenter.com
Building Freeciv: An Open Source Strategy Game
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Freeciv is clearly a labor of love among its many volunteers. Since the code for this open source version of Civilization was released in 1995, hundreds of volunteers have added to it and improved it, even though the original developers haven't been heavily involved in years.
[Read the article]

Wired
Blade Runner Run-On
Why will Blade Runner aficionados want to "retire" Jeter's book? Largely because Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human reads like a treatment for a "typical" Hollywood sequel - short on new ideas, heavy on brainless action. Quiet moments like those that made the original film a classic are not only few but irrelevant. Instead, whenever there's a lull, Jeter piles on the action: explosions, gunfire, characters getting busted up real bad.
[Read the article]

GameSlice
Serious Sam: Made In Croatia?
You'll probably find yourself running backwards a lot when you first play Serious Sam. That's because, in this first-person shooter, there's plenty of space to run around in but few places to hide. Herds of strange cattle-like creatures called Werebulls try to mow you down with their huge horns -- that is, unless the armies of decapitated zombies, who lug their severed heads like bowling ball bags, don't do you in first.
[Read the article]

O'Reilly LinuxDevCenter.com
The Hacker Behind "Hacking the XBox"
Hacking the Xbox, as the title of Huang's tome sums up, details how-tos for modifying your Xbox, and provides various insights into the security and other inner-working code of Microsoft's game console. John Wiley & Sons was originally set to publish the book, but the company became concerned over the legality of hacking and reverse engineering—practices that have since been muddled by the DMCA—and dropped it.
[Read the article]

Salon
New Life for Old Games
Video-game emulators intriguingly blur the lines between hardware and software, PCs and game machines. Do they also promote piracy? Straddling the legal line between reverse-engineering and software piracy, scores of programmers are coding freeware programs that emulate the hardware of video-game consoles, arcade machines and even other personal-computer formats.
[Read the article]

O'Reilly LinuxDevCenter.com
AbiWord: Open Source's Answer to Microsoft Word
Tired of putting up with Microsoft Word's bloated file size and price, but still need to deal with documents in Word format? Then you should take a serious look at AbiWord. This open source word processor is able to read and write most documents in Word's *.doc file format.
[Read the article]