scratch

Digital Innovations 10185 Skip Dr. Motorized AutoMax Scratch Repair System
$55.34
Okay, I didn't get it from Amazon, but rather a competitor brick and mortar store. (bb) FIrst of all, I had a badly scratched disc: long, deep, circular scratches. It was caused by a minor shake on my X360 on the "GTA IV Legend of Gay Tony" disc that I had just bought. After a horrible crunching sound from the console, I retrieved the mangled disc. I first tried the so-called "toothpaste fix", but to no avail: the disc was ruined. I bought the Skip Dr. and used it once and tested it. Nothing. I cleaned the disc a 2nd time. Nothing. I checked to see if it was okay to do it multiple times and saw that it was, and did it 5X in a row. (I figured, what the heck, what do I have to lose?) I used the disc in my 360 and: Success! Fully restored! My tips: use a lot of the cleaning fluid, really soak it every time you use the Skip Dr., and use the buffing cloth in the recommended fashion. (Buff out towards the edge, not in circular patterns.) This will work on your worst XBox 360 disc malfunctions: Highly recommended!

Scratch
$13.95
Before reading Scratch, you really should read the 2 previous books by this author. He has a way of making your golf fun, while teaching you that you really are your own worst enemy on the course. I enjoyed every minute of this book, and hope the author will continue with more of Eddy's adventures.

Scratch 1.4: Beginner's Guide
$39.99
[...]
When personal computers first became popular in the 1980s, every school in the country taught computer programming to every student. That was a bad idea. Students should not be forced to learn computer programming. Programming can be immensely fun and engaging to those students who have a temperament for programming. For other students, programming can be dreary, dull, and mind-numbing. Forcing computer programming on such students can leave on them a lifelong bad taste about computers--something no educator ever wants to do.

So it was a good thing that schools shifted away from having every student learn computer programming. Unfortunately, they shifted too far in the opposite direction, offering very few programming classes and opportunities at the elementary and middle school levels.

The good people at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have stepped in to fill that void. A few years ago they created a free computer programming tool, Scratch, which appeals to a wide variety of students. You can use Scratch for digital storytelling, animations interactive games, and, yes, computer programming. Scratch is free download for Macintosh and Windows computers--and will be available for Linux sometime in the next year, too.

Scratch is excellent in many ways. Children take to it like a duck to water. Adults who want to encourage children to use Scratch need a guidebook to help them develop some skills using Scratch. This new guidebook by Michael Badger is just what the doctor ordered.

Here is what I like about this book. The book has lots of screenshots showing and explaining Scratch. Although Scratch is quite colorful on screen, all the screenshots in the book are in black and white. I like that--because black-and-white screenshots make this book more affordable. The pages are attractively laid out--so readers don't feel overwhelmed. This book takes a project-based approach to teaching. By following along with the projects described in the book, you'll have a good basic knowledge of Scratch.

Another thing I like about this book is that it gives me the language I need to use in talking about Scratch with young people. That language includes words like: blocks, script, sprites, the stage, costumes, control mechanisms, forever loop, random number generator, sensors. After reading this book I'm better able to understand questions about Scratch from the young--and I'm better able to guide them in using the right words to formulate their questions.

On page 96 and 97 of this book, I laughed out loud as the author explains how to create a talking horse in Scratch. The horse can say whatever you want it to say with the words showing up in speech bubbles on the stage. You choose the duration of the speech bubble, too. This opens up a million possibilities for Scratch users to write dialogue--some serious and some silly.

Earlier this year I helped organize a Scratch Day in my community, Takoma Park, Maryland. The other organizers of the event, Sylvia Wu and Denise Lewis, were both quite comfortable with Scratch and went around the room helping students with their Scratch questions. If I had read this book before the event, I could have been more useful to the students who showed up.

I asked the first student who showed up for the event, a fourth-grade boy, whether he was creative. His answer, boldly declared in the presence of his dad: "I'm ALL creative." Another youth attending this event was a seventh-grade boy who explained to me that he had created over 400 Scratch projects. A pair of twin girls in eighth grade told me how much they loved Scratch. One of them was a Scratch animator and the other a Scratch programmer. I love the way that Scratch appeals to different personality types. The twin who loves to program in Scratch explained to me how she is registered into the technology track at her high school. I could plainly see that Scratch was an important tool in getting her to think of herself as a computer programmer.

Mitchel Resnick and the other people at MIT who brought Scratch to life ought to be immensely proud of their achievement. They have opened the minds of thousands and thousands of youth around the world. And Michael Badger, the author of this Scratch guidebook, has now unlocked Scratch for community volunteers like me. With Michael Badger's help, I'm now able to give more of myself to my community.

This book is a highly recommended purchase by school and public libraries. It will also be popular with homeschooling families. Down the road, I hope Michael Badger might make one or more DVD videos about Scratch that I could purchase, too. With his explaining abilities, I'd gladly pay $50--even $75--for such a video.

[...]

Scratch - All the Way Live
$17.98
I got the fortunate oportunity to see the Scratch Tour 2003 (to which this DVD is a part of) when it rolled through Chicago. At the time, I was just starting to get interested in the art of DJing and saw this as a perfect chance to see what some of the pros do in a live setting. The show was a shocker all the way around. Jazzy Jay delivered the old school jams, and X-cutioners scratched the night away (which is why I ended up leaving the show a bit early). Z-Trip caught me off guard with a wonderful mash-up set, like what he normally does. What differes from the Chicago set verses this is we got Q-bert instead of Mix Master Mike (a welcome trade if you ask me). So I thought this DVD would be a great way to remember all those great times from the show in Chicago.

What a waste...

As stated by everyone else, this DVD is so flawed it just destroys what little content there actually is. Short cut teaser sets. Horrible editing and directing. A generally pretty lame crowd. And a really boring set from X-Cutioners that just seems to go on and on and on and on... I don't know what the producers of this DVD were thinking but they really missed the mark with this. The good news is the little amount of footage of sets from Jay and Z-trip do show some solid plays (though Jazzy Jay using Final Scratch does have sort of a WTF quality to it). Mix Master Mike is still scary behind the decks but not as enjoyable as Q-bert was. The X-cutioners set was just too techincal to really be all that fun. Too much scratch technique, not enough actual music.

Ultimately, this DVD gives off one or two impressions: either the L.A. stop on the tour wasn't that great to begin with or next time they really need to learn how to design and produce a concert DVD. Don't get suckered into this waste of plastic and time.