The Future of Mac Gaming

While listening to Drk Mode with Luke Miani and Noah Rubin, one of the topics brought up was Mac gaming. The question was, is Apple moving in the gaming arena? Will the next generation of Macs be more suited for gaming? Yes they will be. But, in many respects, Apple is already there. If we jump back, the Apple II was absolutely a gaming system. Companies like Electronic Arts, Origin, and Sierra got their start on the Apple II. Big franchises like Ultima, King’s Quest, and Wizardry got their start on the Apple II. Clearly there is precedence. The Macintosh and Apple III were a push toward making Apple a serious business company. Games feel to the wayside. Let’s not forget the iPad is a huge gaming platform. There are thousands of casual games, but there’s lots of bigger, beefier titles. Real Racing got its start on the iPad. Need for Speed, and Asphalt are available on the iPad. Adventure […]

Blocking more ads with AdGuard for iOS

If you have AdGuard for iOS and want to block even more ads, this article is well worth following. I did this within AdGuard Pro on my iPad Pro and saw dozens of blocked request to outside advertising. Like AdGuard for Mac, this helps with blocking ads system wide. Yes, that means within apps themselves. This only takes a moment to implement, but has some impressive results. You will need the “Full version” in order to use this feature as it uses both VPN and DNS filtering features. Read the full AdGuard post for more details. The relevant bits are listed below. https://adguard.com/en/blog/updating-adguard-pro-for-ios.html Advanced mode Simplified domain names (SDN) filter is composed from several other filters (English filter, Social media filter, Spyware filter, Mobile ads filter, EasyList and EasyPrivacy) and simplified specifically to be better compatible with DNS-level ad blocking. To enable it in AdGuard Pro, you need to take three steps: That’s it! You’ve successfully added a custom filter! […]

The glorious Dorfromantik

It took a few plays to understand the “quest” aspect of Dorfromantik. The numbers that appear above some of the tiles, mean to “connect” similar tiles to achieve that goal. Such as, link together forest tiles to connect 150 trees. Place fields tiles so you string together 10 farms. Make a neighborhood of 50 houses. Now that I understand, I’ve moved past struggling to hit 1,000 to closing in on 10,000 points. I should have paid attention to the tutorial a touch more. Anyway, Dorfromantik is as wonderful as I had hoped it would be. The tiles make me think of Carcassonne. The art style is like TownScaper. The scoring and quests are like Islanders. Combined they make for a wonderful atmosphere. The Quests are fun little goals that add a dash of strategy. They make you think twice before placing a tile and cutting yourself off. Yet, they don’t get in the way of having fun. There is no […]

Knowing when you’re out of touch

The other day, as a token of appreciation, I got a gift from my company. Within the giant envelope crammed inside my mailbox was a paper calendar. I have to ask, what year is it again? Who uses a paper calendar? Further, if you were going to send such a pointless item, why wait until the end of March? I can’t even imagine the decision making paradigm.

What is this horrid trend of iOS Apps becoming subscription based?

While browsing apps and games for my iPad Pro, I saw a disturbing trend. Why are apps going to a subscription model? It’s been awhile since I seriously went shopping for apps, so this was annoying. I found rudimentary word games with a weekly subscription for coins. I found coloring books with a weekly subscription to use the app and work on images. Apps that required a subscription to access servers rather than storing data locally. LiDAR apps with a monthly subscription to export objects. Everything is turning into In-App Purchases which is infuriating. What’s going on here? This is a scam and these developers should be ashamed. Offering an In-App Purchase so people can demo your app is perfect. I’m all for a single purchase that removes ads. I’m all for a small fee ($0.99-$1.99) to access new levels or content that is optional. But what in the hell is going on where developers feel they deserve a $99 […]