book coverI am back again from a small vacation to see family in Indiana and to celebrate my wife’s birthday. I was able to take the game of Go along with me via a set I brought as a present for some interested family members, and got to teach a newbie how to play in the bargain. Jon may continue to learn after I have gone now that he has the tools he needs in order to actually play a game with his wife: a full board (my very first set, purchased more than 5-6 years ago), and the slim introductory book by Cho Chikun on learning the rules and history of the game, another early purchase of mine.

Jon and his wife Jessica don’t have much time or money to spend on entertainment, but they both seem interested in the possibilities of such a balanced board game, with each other if nobody else, as well as the mental challenge offered. I would be pleased to play more with them some day in the future, perhaps after they get around to getting some Internets…

I am also excited as I have received my copy of the GoGod CD and I look forward to exploring it more in depth and writing up a review, I purchased it with the prize from my entry to the AGA quiz, $15 off the full price for initial subscription. As was likely the intent, it was necessary to supplement the certificate with my own money, but the reduced cost was good nonetheless in prompting the purchase. I just managed to make it under the deadline for expiration, October 1st.

I am a bit further now in the Bruce Wilcox software which reads more like a book, Contact Fights. I am feeling very happy with that purchase for sure, as I feel a much more calculated appoach now in fighting with enemies. I have yet to prove its improvement on my game, but look forward to completing the study materials and quizzes soon. The style is very understandable, and straighforward. I will take screenshots and offer an analysis in the near future for others who may be interested in it.

I am at a pause with my game with Sam, I have resolved that I would like to fully play out the game upon my board and review the game so far. I was laying it out on my home board to renew my rememberence of the game and immediately found a few moves that I would play differently, so I suspect that hindsight will reveal more as I finish replaying the game to date.

I have also now helped two people get set up to use third party applications on the iPhone by loading the Installer application, and unlocked one of those as well from AT&T, and I’m committed to helping someone at work do the same to his phone. I’m thinking I might just set some kind of standard fee to do this, since it takes quite a while and although it is straightforward when you know how, there are some significant pitfalls and some of the people who have an iPhone just want it converted over to be able to participate in the bleeding edge without risking their $400 gadget. All of the stories about the iPhone bricking update have caused FUD that many non-technical folks interpret as bad things for the iPhone hackers. So the wheel begins to turn…

While I was away in Indy for the week, I had considerable opportunity to use and test iShudan using only the iPhone via EDGE. This experience should be written up into what is basically a use-case for the program and some of my reflections on the experience. The overall data usage is low, as expected, and the experience was overall quite positive. We already have a useful tool! There are two important things however that need addressed, and this is stressed by the remote experience: Takeback is vital, due to how easy it is to make a mis-move, and the export to SGF features are sorely missed from previous iterations. Now with the single database structure in place, it may be difficult to spit out a properly formatted SGF file of the game as it is, which makes it harder to use in other contexts such as review or posting somewhere else, such as to the Go Teaching Ladder or a review by another stronger player.

I will devote more time to writing and coding this week for iShudan, as well as studying my favorite game.