I just signed up for a new online trading account at optionsXpress. I was debating going with ETrade, because they have a great iPhone application, but in the end went with what was recommended to me. I’m quite happy, it’s a big one-up from the Scottrade account I had (their interface leaves a lot to desire). The registration process was really nifty, though.

It’s two part, they automatically save your progress as you fill out the application. I didn’t know this at first and went away from the computer half-way through. I got back and figured, "Well, my session definitely timed out by now," and proceeded to hit cancel. Turns out when I started the registration process over it said that my account name had been taken, which was curious to me since I’ve never had that problem with my usernames… ever. It was to my utmost delight that they actually had saved my old application, so I just picked up right where I left off. I know this isn’t a tremendous deal, a lot of sites do it, but it’s rare that I’m ever on a site where the registration process is longer than an OpenId textbox so I appreciated it.

The really cool part, though was the screen asking me to verify that I am in fact myself. There’s the traditional route of sending in a picture to them and waiting for weeks which I’m used to, but then there is the other option. I figure they got the information about me from my social security number, but they provided a series of questions that only I or someone extremely close to me could figure out asking about my history and providing an array of radio options for me to select from. The coolest part is they throw curve balls in there of faulty information as well that you have to get around. Pretty nifty.

I’ve never seen that before, so I thought it was blog worthy. I would’ve taken screen shots, but it had personal information on it (who knew).

A few of us here at PRPL are big fans of the UFC and when we heard that a game was coming out for UFC, we were no less than geeked. We downloaded and overplayed the demo, eventually buying it. I’ve been playing it a week and overall, I’m loving it. There’s good reason why I’m writing a blog post at 4 in the morning: I was playing UFC all night. Its a highly addicting game because, when it comes to career mode, "One more fight," is really like saying I’m going to keep playing for 45 more minutes, forgetting you were just going to do one more fight.

It’s a pretty clever setup, I’ve never actually been into much console gaming up until the past year or so, and even still I’m a fanatic of first person shooters (Counter-Strike is the best ever — do not argue). Once in career mode, the game is setup as a calendar where you must balance training, sponsorship events and actual fights keeping care to not enter a fight unprepared or overworked; an interesting but important dynamic. But alas… onto the game.

Menus

If I had a dollar for every time the game went into a loading screen or started saving for 15 years, I’d probably have paid this month’s rent by now. Whoever was in charge of making the user experience tolerable for end-users failed miserably. Not only does the experience get frequently interrupted by seemingly endless load screens, the menus continue sometimes up to 10 levels deep or more. God forbid you want to change a sponsor on your shorts: You have to jump (mostly) out of career mode, then dive into the menu abyss changing 3 options for a single logo. Extraneous, I think.

Save times are bad, too. Or at least I perceive them that way–the Xbox 360 tends to save slow to begin with but fly out messages updating you on exactly what is being saved is just misleading. I keep thinking, "Maybe this will be the last save message before I can get back to playing the game… oh wait… here’s another." It could have been improved better by simply leaving it to a single message and sitting there for awhile. No teasing, please.

Oh and lastly, the email thing that the game uses to notify you of new matches and other super relevant stuff is akin to a website that keeps spitting popup advertisements at you or Facebook application notifications. Unfortunately, you cannot block the emails nor can you ignore them. I really don’t care about reading the same emails over and over again, but the game forces you to individually open each email before it will be marked as read.

Gameplay

I’d hate to go from terrible to bad, but that’s what I’m doing. While the others do not agree with me, I find the animation in the game atrocious. It’s rare, but there have been quite a few times where players clip into each other while on the ground game or punching each other at the same time. Granted, I know how difficult this is to fix, but it’s something so blatant when the entire game revolves around two people hitting each other.

I’m not especially talented at remembering a ka-jillion moves on the controller, so it’s been an adventure trying to retain all of the stuff the game tries to teach you. It’s my fault, though, today I went upstairs to Zach’s place and actually read the manual for the first time. After doing so, I proceeded onto bringing my career record to 23-4-0 from where ever I left off at 15-3-0.

My record brings me to another thought: The player difficulty is seemingly disproportionate to the rankings. I find that I can walk over the opponents without any change in difficulty until around ranking 7 or better. It’s some mystical barrier that increases the computer’s difficulty by some ridiculous amount. It may be my fighter’s training and having a poor matchup, though. Plus side: matchups and training are such big parts of the game: so I can’t really complain about difficulty because there are so many variables at play.

Xbox Live

I don’t really understand the Live experience. Zach and I made an honest attempt to play each other a few days ago without success in sight. It turns out that, similar to the other menus, you have to go through a few menus to play a friend, then rinse/repeat for every match. It just seems so poorly designed. Eventually Zach decided to send me a message to come up to his place and ended up just playing on his TV instead of across live. It was that bad.

Conclusion

There is an obvious disconnect of quality between the gameplay and menu system, seemingly to the point that all of those menus were an after thought or some sort of inconvience to whoever was put in charge. I would’ve given 4 stars to the game, but unfortunately I lost of few of them in the menu system:

Overall: 3.5/5

Other reviews (who are seemingly more forgiving than I am): http://www.gamerankings.com/xbox360/949120-ufc-2009-undisputed/articles.html

Again…this week I am spicing up a recipe right from the back of a pre-packaged product.  As surprising as it may be, the recipes that companies put on the back of their packaging are actually quite good.  Today, I decided to feature the M & M Rainbow Blondies recipe which is found on their 12 oz mini baking bits package.  The great thing about these recipes is that with a few minor alterations, you can make just about any type of blondie you want.  I almost forgot that some of you may not know what a blondie is.  In the simplest sense…it is just a brownie without the cocoa.  Let’s get down to the basics:

Ingredients:

• 1 C (2 sticks) butter or margerine
• 1 1/2 C firmly packed light brown sugar (My Recommendation: Use 1 C of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of granulated sugar, 2 Tbsp. of molasses)
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (My Recommendation: Use 1 1/2 tsp. for more flavor)
• 2 C All purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 12-oz (1 3/4 C) M & M baking bits

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  I recommend substituting the 1/2 C of granulated sugar and ~2 Tbsp of molasses to taste.  This way you can make it sweeter / less sweet depending on your personal tastes.  Remember, sugar and molasses mixed gives you brown sugar.  So if you are out completely, you can always make your own!  Remember, when creaming, you want your butter to be semi-soft.  I usually recommend microwaving refrigerated butter for about 30-45 secs to reach the right consistency.
3. Mix in the egg and vanilla extract.  Again, feel free to adjust the vanilla to your own personal tastes.  I personally like a little extra on the vanilla and a little less on the brown sugar.
4. Sift or otherwise mix baking soda and flour together.  Remember that your baking soda acts as a slight leavening agent, so make sure it is evenly dispersed throughout the flour.  Otherwise you’ll end up with very dense blondies which rise uneven.
5. Once your flour and baking soda are mixed, turn your mixer down to low and slowly add it into the sugar / butter mixture.
6. When your flour is fully integrated, mix for another 30 seconds and get your mix-ins ready to pour in.  Give the M&M’s a whirl first.  They do make a very tasty dessert.  However, once you grow bored with M&Ms try dark chocolate chips and dried cranberries for a more mature taste.  For the real sweet tooth, try using butterscotch chips or perhaps crushed butterfinger or heath bar.  Another great choice is crushed oreos.
7. Don’t be worried when you see it.  This dough is going to be extremely thick.  There is nothing wrong…you’re doing great if it came out stiff.
8. Turn off your mixer and get your pan prepped.  The original recipe calls for a 13×9 baking pan, but I find that this makes harder "crispier" blondies.  I prefer to have fudgier blondies, so I went with an 8×8 pan.
9. No matter what pan size you choose, cut a square (or rectangle) of parchment.  Spray a non-stick cooking spray on the pan, then place the parchment in the bottom.  The non-stick cooking spray will help to hold the parchment flat and allow you to spread the brownie dough around the pan a little easier.
10. After you get the dough evenly spread in the pan, place in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes.  You may be asking, "Why the large range?"  Well, if you go with a 13×9 baking pan, your cook time will be about 32ish minutes, depending on both altitude and your oven.  Since I used an 8×8 pan, my blondies were twice as thick, so I cooked a little longer.
11. If you find that your blondies don’t seem quite done on the inside, but the outside is getting golden brown, try taking them out of the oven for a few minutes to cool, lower the temperature of the oven and place in for another 3-5 minutes.  Another technique is to just turn off the oven about 5 minutes before baking is complete and just leave them in the cooling oven for 10 minutes or so.  These techniques are hit or miss though.  I took the blondies out probably 2-3 times to check on them during the last 5-7 minutes of cooking, so the cook time is definitely approximate.
12. Once you have them out of the oven, let them cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes.  The blondies will shrink away from the edges of the pan, making them even easier to get out of the pan.  I recommend placing a wire rack over the pan and inverting the blondies upside down onto the rack.  Let them continue to cool.  Don’t bother taking the parchment off the bottom either…this comes in handy to keep your blondies from sticking to the plate you use.
13. After completely cooling, place a flat cookie sheet over the wire rack and invert the blondies again.  This allows you to cut the cookies on a nice flat surface without holes in it.
14. Once cut, use two large spatulas to transfer the cookies (still on the parchment) onto your serving dish.  At first it might sound like a lot of steps to plate them, but this method allows you to easily get the blondies out of the pan, cut them cleanly and then serve them without losing the shape you baked them in.

No matter how you choose to personalize this recipe, I guarantee these blondies will be a hit and a nice break from traditional brownies!

At PRPL, we are big fans of Diggnation. In fact, the die-hards often pour a round of beers after hours and watch the latest episode together. What’s more, we even included the Diggnation logo on our skatedecks. So, you can only imagine our excitement when Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht featured our skatedeck in "Episode 201 – Semi-Instant" this past week. Click here to view the episode on Diggnation, or watch the show below. And if you’re in a rush, fast forward to the 36 minute mark.

So…this recipe is actually adapted from the back of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips bag, but I like to try my own little twists on it.  That is probably my favorite part about cooking.  You never have to settle for something that isn’t quite what you want.  You have the freedom to mix it up and try just about anything.  Above all else, this recipe is a good starter dough for any chocolate cookie, so you can manipulate it any way you want.

Ingredients:

• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 3/4 C Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 C butter (2.5 sticks) softened
• 2 C sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 2/3 C Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Mix together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt.
3. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with a mixer until fluffy.
4. Add eggs (one at a time) and mix.
5. Add vanilla.  NOTE: For an interesting twist, use 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp almond extract.  This gives your cookies a little character and gives them a cherry-like taste (but not overpowering).
6. Beat the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla (and possibly almond extract) well.
7. Slowly add your flour mixture.  Key word there was "Slowly".  It really doesn’t affect taste, but if you add it all at once I guarantee you will have cocoa powder EVERYWHERE!
8. Now comes the fun part!  Add your choice of chips.  For mine, I prefer to split up the 1 2/3 cups into peanut butter, white chocolate and dark chocolate chips.  It tastes great and gives your cookies something just a hair more unique.  Another interesting experiment is to just use dark chocolate chips and add chopped up candied or maraschino cherries and make a "Black Forest" cookie. This would be a great time to use the almond extract for that extra "cherry taste".
9. Take a cookie sheet and line with parchment.  NOTE: As I’ve said before, parchment is NOT wax paper and it is well worth every penny you pay for it.  You will have a perfect batch of cookies every time.  The only thing I would use (if you have one) is a silicone baking mat, but these are usually over-priced.
10. Decide on a size and then use a correctly sized measuring device.  I personally like BIG cookies, so I use an ice cream scoop.  It usually gives enough room for 6-8 cookies per sheet, assuming 1.5" arround each doughball so it doesn’t hurt the shape of the other cookies.
11. Bake for 8-9 minutes (depending on what is in them…I recommend longer, possibly 10 if you have a lot of chocolate in them).  When done, the cookies will be soft.  This is, in fact, normal.  Simply leave the cookies to cool on the sheet, or move to a cooling rack or countertop.  NOTE: These cookies tend to be REALLY soft if you only bake 8ish minutes.  I recommend cooling completely on the parchment uncovered overnight.  This will help solidify the cookie and keep them from breaking apart too much.

Anyways…this is a short, but sweet recipe.  Tell me what you think…especially if you try out the "black forest" idea I proposed above.

Ever wonder what goes on in the office after hours? Purple, Rock, Fist Pumps proves we’ll do just about anything to keep the blood flowing.  In this random bout of late-night expression, the team races to see who can land the most fist pumps in fifty seconds while rocking out to Valient Thorr’s “Showdown.” And yea, we actually counted the results. Don’t forget, you can use your Facebook account to leave us a comment!

Jani Hartikainen made a post about "Do you need to go to school to learn programming?" as a follow up to Code Justin’s blog, "Did you go to college for programming?". Instead of a quick tweet back or comment, figured I’d make a post of it.

My answer: No, I did not go to college for programming; I got a degree in Entertainment Business from Full Sail University. I started teaching myself how to program when I was in elementary (read: nerd) because my mom used to be a programmer and it fascinated me. I took the AP Computer Programming course at my high school when I was a freshman: learned basic C++. In terms of a formal education on programming that’s as far as it goes for me. The rest came from books, open source projects and working on Half-Life and Half-Life 2 mods.

I remember having an epiphany when I was in high school working on Digital Paintball that if I didn’t learn the theory and academia of programming I’d likely never get out of the rut of being a script kiddie. From that point forward, it was less about learning new languages and more about understanding language-agnostic principles.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if you learn formally or informally — if you want to be good at something you’ll find a way to be good at it.

Coming out onto the job market it’s rare that you’ll be proficient at all angles of development. Either you know theory in-and-out or you know the practical side. The other half of the equation will come either way as long as you don’t get lethargic.

Purple, Rock, Scissors partnered with the Crawford Group to develop an interactive website for "How to Do Florida" This unique high-definition television series entertains, teaches, and encourages Floridians to experience the many natural treasures Florida offers. From surfing to kayaking to Florida-style cooking, the first episode shows viewers how to do New Smyrna Beach, FL.

"Beyond visiting theme parks or going to the beach, most newcomers or even native Floridians don’t know truly how to ‘do’ Florida," said Crawford. "This show will teach our audience how to uncover those experiences, and we’ll have a lot of fun doing it."

Each week, the show will air at 9:30 a.m. on My 65 (WRBW) on Sundays. The show debuts on Sun Sports network Friday, May 8th at 6:00 p.m.

Additional times listed for Sun Sports network below:

Monday, May 11 – 11:30 AM

Wednesday, May 13 – 5:00 PM

Thursday, May 14 – 4:00 PM

Saturday, May 16 – 11:00 PM

Monday. May 18 – 11:30 AM

Wednesday, May 20 – 5:00 PM

Friday, May 22 – 10:30 PM

Monday, May 25 – 11:30 AM

Wednesday, May 27 – 5:00 PM

Saturday, May 30 – 4:30 PM

Saturday, May 30 – 11:30 PM