The Sims Freeplay: Building a Factory to Generate Cash, Experience and LP's

I've recently got onto The Sims and tried my hand at playing it. It seems like conventional wisdom in life, like getting a job, career advancement, and improving your skills in your chosen profession don't work effectively in this game. Instead, being unemployed (which frees up your time) and working on your garden is the best way to generate cash, experience and lifestyle points! Allow me to direct your attention to the following video which really helped explain this anomaly of Sim economics:

A huge "thank you" to Make2, the wonderful couple who are a huge inspiration for all things Sims-related.

Here's a suggested "factory" layout to maximise the use of your Sims' time and energy. I took the liberty to make the factory look nicer by using the first house as its template, hence the blue flooring and a dedicated toilet.

Meeting Your Sims' Needs

To recap what the video tutorial said, your Sims have a few basic needs that the factory meets:

• Food: Use the fridges to provide sustenance.
• Sleep: They don't necessarily have to sleep, so use the coffee machines to keep them up indefinitely.
• Toilet: Well, it seems the Sims don't mind being in a unisex, uncovered toilet.
• Cleanliness: Kitchen sinks have the advantage of being able to keep your Sims clean (they don't necessarily have to bathe) and being the place they can clean up plates (in cooking to generate LP's).

The only critique I have for the factory is the lack of socialising, which I suppose we could spend some time with the Sims making conversations to fill that up.

Generating Cash and Experience

Gardening is the quickest way to earn cash and experience depending on the plant. Some plants have shorter growth cycles, such as corn which takes 20 minutes, while others can take up to a whole day. Pumpkins generate the most amount of experience, so it will really depend on your immediate needs.

Generating Lifestyle Points

The cooking hobby allows for all Sims to participate in chalking up hobby items. Once all hobby items are complete, you'll earn experience and prizes. Completing the hobby items consecutively earns you LP's, so get those Sims to make lots of cheese on toast, the quickest cooking task, and one which only requires a basic stove.

You will, however, need to exploit a bug in the game. Get one more countertop, place it in the corner, and buy a toaster. You will need to make the toaster face outwards, away from the "correct" orientation. For cheese on toast, the Sim will usually cook on a stove then head over to a toaster to finish off. However, with the toaster inaccessible, this last animation is totally bypassed. The kitchen sink is especially useful because it will allow your Sim to wash up the plates right there and then, instead of wasting time walking out to the trash.

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Viewing iCloud Calendar Events in Google Calendar

I wrote a short how-to for ministry members to view iCloud calendar events on their Google calendar spaces because some people just don't have iCloud access (being Android phone users). This is a short post, but I hope it helps you out as much as it helped me!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ucwY4RHrkpr6GU1JIS-yxZBDilq1D7-0cssAjGEPey0/edit?usp=sharing

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Using Instagram as a Gear-a-holic

I was never one to use Instagram until I started following Matthews Effects and Pedal Projects. These guys post regularly on Instagram as one of their main communication streams to update customers (and fans like me) on their recent work, news, developments, and general updates. They are able to get instant notifications on comments and can respond very quickly to specific posts. I think it's a novel way to use social media to keep in touch with your clientele, especially since guitarists are naturally tech-savvy people!

How does it work?

Like other social media sites, the @ and # tags are integral to the use of Instagram. @ tags are for users, and adding them into both your caption and your comment section will push them a notification that they've been tagged (depending on how they've set up their notifications on their smart devices). This is useful for starting conversations or to "forward" a post to a friend who might be interested in it.

For example, I post a picture of my rig just before a gig:

And if Friend A wants to let Friend B in on the photo, he'll post in the comment like:

"@FriendB check out this guy's EHX LPB-1 and Mooer Shimverb!" (Ok, terrible example, but you get the picture)

Hash tags (#) are to include topics in a post, which will make it searchable by other users. Gear communities like @Gearaholic, @Knowyourtone and @Toneheaven encourage users to # them, which effectively shares the post with the wider community. # can also be used in both captions and comments. Here's a list that I currently use, and feel free to use them in your own posts!

#geartalk
#pedalboardfrenzy
#gottone
#gearaholics
#knowyourtone
#worship
#tonefordays
#toneheaven
#gearwire
#thisismypedaltrain
#globalworship

I see Instagram as a great way to:

1. Get pedalboard ideas

I got quite a few build ideas with my Pedaltrain PT-3 from searching up other users. This can go horribly wrong because it may stir up the GAS in you, so ogle with caution! 

2. Meet other guitarists/pedal makers/manufacturers

I love my country, but it's so small that the gear market only carries "mainstream" stuff. With Instagram, I'm able to contact the makers directly, and they're such a joy to talk to! Notably, Rick Matthews from @MatthewsEffects and Asgeir Helgi from @PedalProjects are great people.

3. Posting/hearing gear demos

@GearDemoGram and @PedalProjects are good examples of how the short video function in Instagram can be used to demonstrate gear, using the iPhone audio as a gauge. I know, it's not the best of audio, but it's decent enough to hear 75% of the pedal's "vibe". It's inspiring me to make use of this medium to 

4. Participate in competitions, give-aways, sales

Boutique pedal makers and mainstream manufacturers make use of the holiday season (or when they're in a good mood) to promote their wares. Most of them require the simple procedure of # the relevant topic, like #trexgiveaway, and tagging other users as a shout-out.

So, if you're a guitarist and want to tap into social media, why not give Instagram a spin? Find me @justicepao (it's the nickname I used when I played DOTA back in my uni days)

For further reading:

Using hashtags to promote your brand

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Jailbreak Adventures: How to Sync Plants Versus Zombies 2 Across Multiple Devices

Picture from pixelvolt.com

Christine introduced PvZ to me a while ago, and it wasn't long before I got hooked on the mission to defend my brains from being eaten by the horde of not-so-scary zombies. It's a really fun game!

So, when PvZ 2 came out this month, I was very pleasantly surprised that it came out as a free download for iOs. Of course, this means that Pop Cap has gone the route of in-app purchases, and there are a ton of IAP's--plants, power-ups, new locations--just to name a few of the possible areas to pour your cash into. That being said, PvZ 2 is a game that you can fully enjoy free; everything in it is attainable through hard work, persistence, and the occasional stroke of luck.

The only problem I've had with PvZ 2 so far is that I couldn't sync the game across my iPad and iPhone. I spent a lot more time on PvZ 2 on the iPad than on my phone, so obviously my progress was a lot further on one device than the other. I found a solution that requires iFunBox to access the raw file system:

1. Open iFunBox and connect the device that has the further progress.
2. Locate the following folder: /var/mobile/Applications//Library/Preferences
3. Locate the following files: (1) com.apple.PeoplePicker.plist, (2) com.popcap.ios.PvZ2.plist
4. Copy these files from the device onto your desktop.
5. Connect your second device, locate the PvZ2 folder as above, and paste the files from your desktop onto your second device.
6. This should sync your devices together with the same player ID.

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Jailbreak Adventures: WhatsApp on iPad, iOS 6.1

One of my biggest goals of jailbreaking the iPad was to be able to use WhatsApp on it. As you know, the messaging client only works on mobile phones, and the key to installing WhatsApp is to trick it into thinking that it is operating from a phone, and not a tablet. 

Here's what I did to install WhatsApp on iOS 6.1.

Step 1: Download and install the latest version of WhatsPad from the Cydia store.

Step 2: Download the latest WhatsApp.ipa (at this point of publication, it's 2.8.7). The iPad is smart to the point that it recognizes older, outdated .ipa installation packages. If you try to run anything older than 2.8.7, the iPad will bring up a "Please update to the latest WhatsApp" error message.

Step 3. Connect your iPad to your computer. Use a third party installer (like iFunBox) to install the .ipa package onto your iPad.

Step 4. You now have the app on your iPad. Now you need to verify your app. Verification requires you to key in a code that will be sent to a mobile number. This is the main problem with installing WhatsApp on iOS6.1: you need a working mobile number just to verify the app. You can't escape the verification by putting in a house or office number.

Step 5: This next point is very important. Do not use your own phone number to verify if you already are a WhatsApp user! If you do, your existing WhatsApp will be logged out--removing you from every chat group that you are a part of and erasing your chats. I learnt this the hard way, and I don't want anyone else to suffer! Use a spare mobile number to verify the app. My mother is a technophobic retiree who will never touch a smart phone, so I just used her mobile number.

If you really want to, I suggest buying a pre-paid SIM card for the sole purpose of verification. Yes, I know it doesn't make this method free, but I think the benefits of having WhatsApp on the iPad more than make up for the cost involved.

I have hosted the latest WhatsApp.ipa package here for your download.

You might want to improve the experience of WhatsApp on the iPad by using either of the additional tweaks below:

RetinaPad - You know how the 2x view of iPhone apps on the iPad look grainy and reminds you of your old Gameboy display? This tweak fixes the display by correcting the distortion and making your iPhone apps look it's in HD on the iPad.

FullForce - This tweak forces an app to conform to the dimensions of the iPad's display dimensions and uses the native iPad keyboard (instead of the iPhone keyboard).

For further reading (legacy methods):

Installing the WhatsPad tweak (Redmond Pie)
Using iPhone configuration utility (Justin.my)

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Jailbreak Woes Part 2: When Apps Crash on Loading

I used iMovie for a good part of an afternoon to film and edit clips. It was easily 3 hours worth of work, and I was wrapping up the day's editing and ready to export my videos.

The unthinkable happened. I exited the app to check out my Whatsapp messages, and when I tried to re-open the app, it just won't open. Every method I tried resulted in the same result: app crash! I tried to kill the app from the app switcher and re-open the app. I tried soft resets, hard resets, using iCleaner, checking out if files were corrupted using iFile...everything didn't work!

Then the thought occurred to me that maybe it was crashing because I was working on a new movie project, I wasn't satisfied with the clip, removed the clip (so the project board was empty) and exited the app at the same time. This meant that iMovie was trying to save a project that had an empty project board.

So I rebooted my iPad in Safe Mode--and it worked! I could load iMovie without it crashing on me. And true enough, the project I was working on was empty, as the title screen for that project was showing a total duration of 0:00. I removed that dud project, exited Safe Mode, and I was back in business.

Safe Mode. It really works.

And here's the video I was making that started with a dud project board:

How to spot a vintage stratocaster

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