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Quikthinking Software Blog
  • 0 Empower Encyclopedia CD-ROM Flashback Video: Building A Bridge To Black History

    When computer floppy discs were kicked to the curb, a new portable software storage unit inherited its place. CD-ROM (Compact Disc Read-Only Memory). James Russell was the visionary behind the CD-ROM concept in the 1960s. By 1980, the first disc player was made. Sony - Phillips licensed the concept and had their units in the marketplace between 1982 - 1985. CD-ROMs use a laser to read and playback information. Between 1993 - 1998, we developed a Black history resource, Empower Encyclopedia for CD-ROM distribution (1998 release). By today's standard, this relatively small 72 megabyte sized program could easily reach your hands through a digital download. Back then, slow speed dial-up modems were a deterrent for digital distribution. However, technology always marches on as does the Empower Encyclopedia story! Graduate school advisers rejected this project proposal as part of the body of study I needed to receive my second degree. This didn't matter to me. They could keep the degree. The project was more important, so I did it anyway. Empower Encyclopedia was developed from the ground up using the Visual Basic programming language. The software included hundreds of biographies, many with pictures of the people. You could print out all of the biographies from your personal computer. There were videos, animations, internet links, slideshow, a sound "name pronouncer" and other useful features that benefited users. When we pulled the CD-ROM off of the market in 2005, some of the content was already there to morph into the various Black History mobile apps that we started releasing in 2011 and continue to develop today. So now you know the backstory. Watch this video with my comments about Empower Encyclopedia. See it in action. A throwback gem that's gone, but not forgotten.

  • 0 Black History App Choices: Making The Cut

    In December, 1999 Ebony Magazine published "The 100 Most Important Blacks In The World in The 20th Century." The Four mobile apps we created below represent nearly everyone on their list, but not 100%: Black History Quotes Express (quotes) Black History Express (knowledge base & trivia game) Black History People (quick, concise knowledge base) Black History People Game (fast, entertaining hand - eye action) Why not 100%? Because in the app world editorial decisions must be made based upon space limitations dictating who can be included if the finished concept ever hopes to reach you. Certainly pre-20th Century folks have to be represented too. We get lots of suggestions to add 21st Century achievers into these mobile apps and we continue to do so. I always thought of these Android and iOS apps as a starting point for you to discover more about these important Black history people on your own. You can do it and be successful at it. Continue to offer suggestions. That's part of the reason why specific new people join the collection of entertainers and entrepreneurs, inventors and instructors, politicians, publishers and other notable success story winners. 

  • 0 Building Black History Quotes Express

    What does it take to create a valuable mobile app? Here's a recipe. Generate some creative energy, conduct some consistent research, and tie-in some technical knowledge to put it all together. For our highly successful Black History Quotes Express project, we started with a storyboard listing the quotation categories: Love, motivation, inspiration, instruction, Friendship, Humor, Family, Reflection, leadership, Empower, Faith. Next, over seven months from June, 2018 to November 2018 we curated the quotes. Here are running totals during a sample 5 day period: Quote total = 1,922 (6/28/18) Quote total = 1,978 (6/29/18) Quote total = 2,079 (6/30/18) Quote total = 2131 (7/1/18) Quote total = 2,211 (7/2/18) Quote total = 2,251 (7/3/18) At the end of the process there were 2,688 quotes. Many more have been added since. Each author was collated into a massive list. We assigned a category to each quote. Here's an example for historian Lerone Bennett Jr....   1  "An educator in a system of oppression is either a revolutionary or an oppressor" - reflection  2  "History is knowledge, identity and power. History is knowledge because it is a practical perspective and a practical orientation. It orders and organizes our world and valorizes our projects" - instruction  3  "It is difficult, if not impossible, to understand American history without some understanding of the Black experience" – reflection   Finally, the Software Development kit Android Studio was used to create the app for Android. We used the Xcode SDK for the iOS (iPhone and iPad) version of Black History Quotes Express. After the apps were complete, we created the promotional material to support awareness. The last step was to submit the app to three app stores (Apple, Google Play and Amazon). Watch and listen to the video below to see more quotes in action. Learn how you can download the free Black History Quotes Express, a mobile app you can use all year long. Use the quotes yourself or easily share them.  

  • 0 Hate is No Game

    Cyberhate and extremism is hard to avoid if you are a part of a demographic that plays online multiplayer games. I was fascinated by the Anti-Defamation League report about this crisis. Some in the press did report on the ADL summary when it was released in early 2022. However, not many in the press followed this story. Reading through the report in January was distressing. I finally decided to expose some of their research here. All of these facts are from ADL surveying done in 2021: Five out of six adults (83%) ages 18-45 experienced harassment in online multiplayer games—representing over 80 million adult gamers. Three out of five young people (60%) ages 13-17 experienced harassment in online multiplayer games—representing nearly 14 million young gamers.   8% of adults ages 18-45 and 10% of young people ages 13-17 reported being exposed to discussions in online multiplayer games around white supremacist ideology, the belief that "white people are superior to people of other races and that white people should be in charge." 71% of adult online multiplayer gamers experienced severe abuse, including physical threats, stalking, and sustained harassment...The largest increases in identity-based harassment occurred among adult respondents who identified as women (49% in 2021), Black or African American (42% in 2021), and Asian American (38% in 2021).   Even the Quikthinking Software YouTube channel is constantly getting hit by haters who leave their vicious anti-Black comments among our videos thinking their thoughts will be published. They won't. Solutions involving government regulations are proposed by the ADL to address cyberhate and extremism. Sadly, you may know that legislating morality has never worked. The ADL suggests: Regular reports about hate and harassment Independent audits Better reporting systems Addressing workplace toxicity Number 4 seems to be the most valuable idea for adults. I'd extend this to work-at-home teams who share remote duties. For the 13 - 17 year old crowd a better approach might be to establish an anonymous feedback loop direct to the online multiplayer game app managers. These decision makers controlling organizations can make it clear through their social media channels that cyberhate and extremism won't be tolerated inside of their game platforms. Scan through the whole ADL report yourself on their website. It is well worth the time, and well worth the read. If the summary disappears over time just do an online search to find it: Hate is No Game: Harassment and Positive Social Experiences in Online Games  

  • 0 Quick Thinking with Critical Thought About Game Design

    Pick your favorite game. What was your first impression? Did you play it to experience some fun with friends? In the digital diversion world did you accidentally discover a new title for a gaming console? During a period, I wrote independent reviews for around 80 mobile games that I actually played for a legit review service that is no longer active. Many of the games were cash grabs. Some of the games didn't work. Several games were just trash. I have a certain perspective as an app developer. If you enter the mobile app space as a consumer looking for leisure you probably just want a seamless easy to use tool, game, or app that doesn't frustrate your patience! There are game developers, game users... and then there are game journalists. These professional writers offer their take on what makes a good or bad game. Long time game player and author Josh Bycer @GWbycer searched online for information about game mechanic systems but he couldn't find a strong knowledge base. What did he do? He started compiling research based on his own experiences eventually translating them into books stressing game mechanics over game story telling. Through this effort Josh Bycer's Game-Wisdom, game design critical thought process was born. I talked with Josh in the video below about a unique way in which he uses video games. He explains why he wants to see more Android games on the PC (Amazon says some of their Android mobile apps may be coming to Windows 11). Josh breaks down his game design philosophy along with what he likes best in successful games. You'll also discover what element Josh believes is crucial to making a video game a hit. We talk for 14 minutes. Here's a photo of Josh giving a presentation about the history of video games at the M Allan Vogelson Regional Branch of the Camden County Library in Voorhees, New Jersey on September 24, 2018. Photo by Kingsley H. Smith.

  • 0 Parker, Spikes, and Boykin Score Invention Patents

    Morristown, New Jersey resident Alice H. Parker detailed in her July, 1918 U.S. patent application a creative new way to use gas to power a heating device.   She received a patent on December 23, 1919 for an improved heating furnace. Parker's goal was to heat houses and buildings using independently controlled ducts in rooms. Heating units raising the temperature of a common cold air box in the furnace supplied the warmth to different floors. The unit above represents a 19th to 20th century design rather that the actual Parker gas furnace itself. Richard B. Spikes from San Francisco, California thought out the complex mechanics of the automatic car gear shift. Here's what the inside of a modern transmission looks like. Spikes applied for his patent in 1931. He describes it's operation: A "driver can manipulate levers representing the various speeds, these levers being mechanically or otherwise connected to mechanism which will throw in the clutch of the desired gear train, the clutch operatively connecting the drive and driven shafts together when the automobile clutch pedal is depressed." That's a mouth full! Today we'd call this "automatic gear shift" a manual transmission. Spikes' patent was awarded in December, 1932.   Resistors, pictured below are used in electric circuit boards to control the flow of electricity. The electrical resistance of a resistor is measured in ohms. German physicist Georg Simon Ohm mathematically worked out how the flow of electricity through a conductor is computed. Chicago, Illinois African American inventor Otis F. Boykin reasoned in his 1956 patent application that the manufacturing process of resistors up to that point had limitations. He designed a precision wire wound lower cost resistor with higher tolerances to relieve some stress factors. Modern resistors are shown here. Boykin received his patent in February, 1961.   Alice H. Parker, Richard B. Spikes, and Otis Boykin are just three of the creators featured in our Black History Inventors mobile app for iPhone or Android. We include a brief audio anecdote about each patent holder describing what they've done. Learn more about Black History Inventors and watch the video below.

  • 0 MLK Day Quotes Galore Video

    Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929. Dr. King has been honored with a national holiday in the USA on the third Monday in January since 1986. MLK Day of community service encourages you to get involved locally to help your neighborhood, town or city deal with important civic issues. Here's a 3 minute video that I produced featuring some of King's quotes in text. We posted it on our sister YouTube channel Black History People. Discover more Black History quotes in our mobile app Black History Quotes Express. All images and film in the video were taken during a personal visit to the King Memorial in Washington, DC.

  • 0 The 7 Best Mobile App Blog Posts of 2021

    Did you miss our 7 best mobile app blog posts of 2021? Take a look below and then jump right to the complete stories. New research published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine and conducted by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine reveal this: Those who believed that smoking increases the risk of getting COVID-19 or having a more severe case were more likely to quit, while those who perceived more stress tended to increase their smoking. See Blowing Cigarette Smoke During a Pandemic and the related mobile app. What kind of mobile phone do you have? From a game developers point of view, if your phone is iOS, we celebrate. Why? iPhone and iPad models add up to a few dozen variants so designing a visual layout to accommodate these devices is straight forward. Unfortunately (for app developers) there are thousands of Android device models with design features that challenge our screen layouts! Read the rest of Sizing Up Thanksgiving Match 3 Game App Screens. iPhone 13 has just been released. As a follow-up to the disclosure about Android screen sizes in Sizing Up Thanksgiving Match 3 Game App Screens, here's a quick look at the same mobile app on iPhone. Although it is easier to design screens for iPhone and iPad because there are many less variants than Android, the iOS screen design process is still tricky. We reveal why in Sizing Up Thanksgiving Match 3 Game App Screens IOS. Three familiar faces: President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and former first lady Michelle Obama. Custom portraits of the Obamas sketched for Quikthinking Software by artist Julia Liberali. General Powell passed away on October 18, 2021. Powell (1937 - 2021) was born in Harlem, New York on April 5. During his distinguished career, he served as a four-star general, National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State, and as the mastermind of operation Desert Storm (against Iraq). Learn more in Black History Express App Stories. Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. was drafted into the U.S. Army's first integrated unit. Hazel W. Johnson served her country as Chief Nurse for the Army Medical Command in Korea. Army, navy, air force, or marines. All veterans including prominent African Americans have served their country. We salute them and those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Film maker James Edwards served in the army, and after service enrolled in drama school under the G.I. Bill. Actor James Earl Jones was another army vet who studied theater after military service under the G.I. Bill. Discover more in the Veterans Day Appreciation post and why this information is included in our app. Andrew was a former co-worker who constantly swapped his mobile phone for a different model so frequently that it was not unusual to see him with 3 different phones within a 3 month period. A mobile phone of the month club didn't exist. Andrew was just in pursuit of his ideal cell phone. Suppose you want the latest and greatest device to run that cool new app but getting a fresh iPhone or Android is questionable thanks to supply chain issues. Know what to do by reading The New Mobile Phone Shortage Quick Fix. What would you do after years of collecting African American artifacts and memorabilia? Here's what Jeffrey A. Fletcher did. He decided to share his curated history with the community of Stratford, Connecticut. Even though the last two pandemic laced years have been a challenge for all of us, this obstacle didn't stop Jeffrey A. Fletcher from opening the Ruby and Calvin Fletcher African American History Museum in October, 2021. Find out in the rest of the story How African American Artifacts Inspired a Collector. Even more within the museums app.  

  • 0 Holiday Greetings - Merry Christmas

    • video
    • by Kingsley H. Smith
    • 12/23/2021

    All the best to you in 2022. Our most popular YouTube video of 2021 is below. We hope it was helpful. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel right now.

  • 0 Music Trivia Quizzes Sing Song Success

    • Quiz
    • by Kingsley H. Smith
    • 12/15/2021

    The nostalgia of music makes me happy. Does it do the same for you? Every decade presents a new symphony of songs with emotional clout. Here's our take on RnB and Hip Hop trivia. You'll find lots of old school - throwback music memories in the mobile app we created. See some of the questions by watching the video. I briefly describe more game details in the 75 second update. In the app the iPhone and iPad version is shown. It features nearly 600 questions across 26 levels of game play. Android is also supported sporting a slightly different look with less questions at this time.  I wrote all of the questions. Enjoy RnB and Hip Hop Quiz.

  • 0 How African American Artifacts Inspired A Collector

    What would you do after years of collecting African American artifacts and memorabilia? Here's what Jeffrey A. Fletcher did. He decided to share his curated history with the community of Stratford, Connecticut. Even though the last two pandemic laced years have been a challenge for all of us, this obstacle didn't stop Jeffrey A. Fletcher from opening the Ruby and Calvin Fletcher African American History Museum in October, 2021. On the museum's website we are reminded about the significance of their collection with this statement: "The artifacts and memorabilia may seem to be difficult to view but they are a part of African American history that needs to be told just as much as the triumphs which were made by African American pioneers and trailblazers." Our latest December, 2021 Android mobile app update for Black History Museums includes the new Connecticut contribution bearing the name of Ruby and Calvin Fletcher. The Black History Museums app features 51 selected African American museums or resources from every state and the District of Columbia. I developed this app in 2016. It has been updated 13 times since then to reflect museum changes. Watch in the video below how I demonstrate the top 4 reasons why you'll benefit from downloading this 100% free app to your tablet or phone. December 8th Update: We replaced the original video with this version to update the audio track.

  • 0 Swinging Santa Safely Jumps For Joy

    • Games
    • by Kingsley H. Smith
    • 12/02/2021

    Had enough of Office Christmas Party, Bad Santa, or Reindeer Games. These wild December holiday movies might bring you cheer or get you fired if you act out the fantasies in the films. Get fired-up instead on the safer side of life playing Santa Jump Game Party, a mobile marvel of an app mixing action with patience. Just a touch is all it takes to get Santa to hop over to the next pole. We wanted to offer you some free promotional copies of our exclusive "Holiday Cheer Red Capped" 'ugly' sweatshirt, but supply chain issues have made that contest possibility a bust for Christmas 2021. Mediums, Large, and X-Large sizes are temporarily missing in action and not available from our supplier. Watch me play Santa Jump Game Party for iPhone, iPad, and Android. I'm playing on an Android device (phone) in the video below.

  • 0 Feedback About Mobile Apps You Love

    • Feedback
    • by Kingsley H. Smith
    • 11/30/2021

    We love hearing from you when you jump on the megaphone to offer your comments or feedback. Here are just a few mentions listed below that we've received. Most of these comments are recent. I do listen to your feedback. These comments are all unsolicited. K. Johnson regarding AAeMojis for iOS via email: "Nice app, thanks." chAregler likes AAeMojis for iOS, App Store Comment: "I love this app." S. McCloud about Thanksgiving Retro Match 3 Game via Google Play: "Happy and grateful for the game." T. D. Qualls loves Thanksgiving Match 3 Game via Google Play: 5 stars Peanut plays Black History People Game for iOS, App Store Comment: "Love it." Jane Mum eats up Pizza Burger Match 3 Game for iOS, App Store Comment: "I down loaded this app yesterday and have really enjoyed it! I think it's my new favorite !!" W. Bontrager comments about Black History Quotes Express for iOS on the App Store: "Somebody did great work with this app. The quotes are pertinent and inspiring. And it is well-organized." E. mathmatic listens to Black History Audiobook for iOS, App Store Comment: "I love the insight they give on black history." A. Wiggins talks about Black History Express for Android, Google Play comment: "It's good, I found out that there's more than I thought I knew and more that I can learn using this just make sure you keep updating there is more out there to know." S. Thomas expresses herself about Black History Inventors for Android, Amazon App Store comment: "I love it. It is so informative about African Americans I didn't know about." Thank you all! Note that these mobile apps are available for iOS and Android except Black History Express which is an Android exclusive (for now). You can always Contact Quikthinking when the spirit moves you! Here's some more insider info for those of you who regularly follow the thoughts that we write. These are the most popular 2021 items in the Quikthinking Swag Shop (in order): Men's Hoodies Men's Premium Sweatshirts Women's Crewneck Sweatshirts iPhone cases Unisex Baseball T-Shirt Teddy Bear Thanks for your support!  

  • 0 Thanksgiving Storytime Video

    • Holidays
    • by Kingsley H. Smith
    • 11/22/2021

    Native Americans, Pilgrims and the Queen. The 1620 search for religious freedom in a foreign land one day to be named America, gets remixed with a new celebration that we now call Thanksgiving. You know the story. Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, history. Since 2007 in various places we've been presenting "Thanksgiving" told by Bama, the Village Poet. He tells the story in a way you may not have heard in high school. For 2021 I have enlarged the captions in the story one more time so it is much easier to read on a mobile phone. Bama's opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect our own beliefs. Watch, listen, and reflect on the story. Remember to celebrate the holiday with Thanksgiving Match 3 Game for iPhone and Android, or Thanksgiving Retro Match 3 Game for Android. Enjoy Thanksgiving week!

  • 0 Black History Names - Arena Spelling Games

    • Games
    • by Kingsley H. Smith
    • 11/18/2021

    The keyboard on your mobile phone or tablet is very important. Two of our games take you into tapping, touching and using your keyboard to construct names or words. First, let's thank the artists we commissioned for the pictures you see, Olivia Burton who drew George Washington Carver, and Julia Liberali who drew Michelle Obama. Black History People Game floats names down your screen. A person's first name is followed by their last name. Touch your keyboard to spell the name before any letters hit the white foul line. Spelling Runners is an arena battle between two players. The keyboard is inside of the stadium field. You are the green runner. Drag your finger to move green runner to the correct letters to complete the word. Both of these games are for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Watch and listen to the video, then learn more about Black History People Game and Spelling Runners Game.

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