ashNOLOGY

windows 7, cheating Robots, & Spider-woman?

2009-08-19T07:01:00.000-07:00

As an XP fan, and someone who hasn't played too much with Vista, I have been very 50/50 about changing ANY of my machines to any other operating system. I just read an article on Wired about 7 good things about Windows 7, and I must say it's winning me over. I will most definatly still have my old laptop running good old XP, but I'm willing to try out Win7, I especially love the fact that they have XP Mode, and Wifi media streaming out of the box. Awesome.

Apparently Robots can cheat now =)

Marvel is now doing Motion Comics: Spider-Woman

Google OS!

2009-07-14T12:26:00.001-07:00

This is pretty exciting, I'm not surprised really, when Google started testing out the Android OS for smartphones, I kind of thought that it would lead to this. But what I didn't see is "the way" the Operating System would, well operate =)

According to an awesome article on Wired Magazine, the "OS will be for the web and browser-based. It hopes to convince developers to write software that runs inside a browser, instead of on top of the OS as developers for Windows and Apples’ OS X do. It will also let web developers extend the power of their websites by expanding the capabilities of the browser, allowing websites to lean on the browser for storage and processing help."

That's pretty cool =)
Here is the full article if your intrested: Google vs Microsoft
enjoy! =)

Its year of the PSP

2009-06-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

You read right, PSP news has been down low for a while, even since news/rumors about a thinner PSP and all that jazz. But great news my fellow PSP-ers =), there are some great games coming out this fall for the PSP including titles such as "Assassin's Creed" & "Little Big Planet". I'm very sycked about this, I'm usually never home so I don't have one of the big 3 at my home, but I do own a PSP, and get super excited when ever they make awesome games for it.
For more info check out the Destination Playstation site.

Work of Warcraft =)

2009-05-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

A communication professor in Stanford took the "Token" way of virtual life in World of Warcraft and incorporated it into the work's email system, the reason for this to reduce mailbox overload, and get the important messages noticed/read quicker. IBM tested his theory, and it worked =)
Here is the full article from Wired: The Game of Life.

a Games post

2009-05-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

Being a Simulation & Digital Entertainment(SDE) graduate from the University of Baltimore, its natural that information about video game technologies grab my attention. Also the fact that I totally love my PSP, helps me find things like these:

A mouse mod for the PSP.

Patapon 2: UMD-less official release for the PSP.

Another site I've been checking out a lot lately is the Games section of ScifiWire.com. I'm a fan of the channel and follow many of their programs,so for them to actually have a such a cool site, with a section dedicated to gaming entertainment just makes them even more awesome =)

I hope you've enjoyed my quick post for today, I'll check you all later.
Have a great week.

-Ash

Gaming Post

2009-04-29T08:27:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to bring 2 things to the attention of my fellow Game peeps:

#1- Apparently the rumors about a new PSP are not entirely rumors, there has been talk about a UMD-less PSP device coming up towards the end of this year (2009), I must say it does look pretty cool =).
Here is the article.

#2- I have stumbled upon a cool show called WCG: Ultimate Gamer, 12 hard core gamers go head to head each week, not only playing the video games, but actually "living" them. Each week 1 player gets eliminated, until only 1 Ultimate Gamer reigns.
The show is put together really well, and thanks to HuLu I've been catching up =)

Take care peeps =)
-Ash

eReaders Revolution

2009-04-10T11:14:00.000-07:00

I was reading a very intriguing article on Yahoo, it started off talking about AT&T selling netbooks for $50, with a 2 year contract. Then slid into talking about Sprint, and how it is the wireless carrier for Amazon's Kindle. But what grabbed my attention was the article claimed that Verizon said it has been approached by companies looking to use their network for wireless eReaders.

This is going to be fun =). I personally own a Sony eReader, and I love it. I'm really hoping that with all this uprising of eReaders, that Sony would decide to be more aggressive with marketing their product as heavily as Amazon.
Come on Sony, you can do it, =)

Here is the actual article.

Make games easier

2009-03-01T19:31:00.000-08:00

I came across an article on FidGit.com, that a developer at Bethesda named Brett Douville, wants to make games easier. Genius. =)

Internet BalckOut x(

2009-02-17T09:04:00.000-08:00

Third is the charm

2009-02-15T22:18:00.000-08:00

Your favorite blood thirsty Kratos is back with a vengeance.
Sony has announced that God of War III is coming out for the PS3, thanks to SciFi Wire.

My new favorite site is Fidgit.Com (for games), its associated with my favorite channel, The Sci-Fi Channel, which also brings us Dvice.com (for gadgets) & of course SciFi Wire.
Make sure to check them out when you a chance =).

Have a good day =)
-Ash

Kindle 2

2009-02-15T14:24:00.000-08:00

So amazon has apparently released the Kindle 2, and I must say, it looks pretty good. The design is slimmer, and they added a "Text To Speach" feature, and adjusted the dictionary function. Engadget has the scoop, so check it out the link when you get a chance =)

Later
-Ash

Apple's VP Greg Joswiak, thinks iPhone will dominate the gaming market

2008-12-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

According to an article on ExtremeTech.com, Mr. Joswiak thinks that the iPhone is a better gaming platform, even saying that "The DS and PSP are outdated".

What do you think?
I personally disagree. the iPhone / iTouch both have great potential for being an Apple Handheld, but I don't see myself buying a Phone to play video games. There are a lot of thinks to consider, like how many games will the iPhone/Touch hold until you have to either upgrade to a larger memory, or start carrying your games on an external device (game CDs?). With the DS & PSP, that is not an issue.

I'm a huge fan of the PSP, I don't see it as a "gaming device", its almost a mini-computer. With all the cool features and updates that were added only last year (such as using it as a camera, and using skype) it is nothing short of a portable communicator.
Besides, shouldn't the iPhone focus more on getting their battery life & firm ware issues fixed first, before they decide that they are better than everyone in everything?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an Apple hater, I think they have innovative ideas and have a strong following, but at the end of the day many people like me, simply see the iPhone as an iPhone.

Take care everyone
-Ash

Zune update & Halo suit in Korea

2008-11-18T16:59:00.000-08:00

The Zune has released an update today [3.1], and this one really rocks.
For those Sudoko lovers out there, you can now enjoy it on your Zune, that's right. The update also allows the Texas Hold'em game to be a multi-player, and they also added checkers, as well as fixed some problems.
I totally called it when the Zune came out, that it is an excellent prototype for a Microsoft handheld gaming device, and before you know it, the 1st generation Zune was being hacked and games were played. Not too long after that the 2nd generation with flash-base Zunes came out, and voila.
I would not be surprised if a separate handheld shows up on the market soon...can you imagine an xBox handheld? holly crap! that would be AWESOME!!

South Korea is known for its hardcore gameness, the players there are of celebrity rockstar status. So, how would a country with such a large group of hardcore gamers, persuade the young to join the armed forces?..well easy, make a Halo suit. Yup! SK is working on developing a hi-tech Sci-Fi Halo-tastic suit for their military. I'm sure, it will come in handy during actual battles, but I'm betting they're trying to grab attention of all those young Halo lovers.
What do you think?

Enjoy
-Ash

Game Articles, and coolness

2008-11-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

I have run into a few intresting and entertaining news relating to games, and game technology, so I thought I should do another one of my "multi-article" posts =)

Create your own game console (kit).

Tatsunoko vs Capcom (mini-games).

Want a Wii for Christmas? its now in stock, almost everwhere.

Valve tries to trick the Half Life 2 Hacker.

Enjoy =)
-Ash

The Gamer's Zune

2008-11-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

I'm so proud of Microsoft, not only because I love my 1st gen Zune, but because they are really utilizing it really well. They now have a Gears of War 2 limited edition, which would have the Crimson Omen logo in the back, and it would come preloaded with pictures, videos, and game soundtrack.
This is a really great move, especially since there are SO many awesome 360 games out there, could this be a move for them to start making ZuneGames?...enthusiast all over the internet have done so, using the XNA framework, and share their games on forums such as ZuneBoards. I'm pretty sure the HALO Zune won't be too far from arriving now =)

Here is more Zune News for November =)
Enjoy =)

-Ash

No more controllers for playing games

2008-11-11T01:21:00.000-08:00

So, if you haven't heard, Mgestyk has developed an "eye-toy"-iesh device, only its for your hands. So you control everything on the screen, by motioning with your hand toward the screen. You can scroll through your albums, zoom in/out, and of course play video games.

No keyboard, no mouse, and no controllers.

Don't believe me?...here is a Demo Video with the device in action =)

enjoy =)
-Ash

SlipStreaming

2008-10-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

So I learned a new term today, SlipStreaming.
Basically, it means to "create the latest windows installation disc, with the latest drivers/service pack". Its a pretty cool thing actually. I found an article in the LifeHacker Blog that gives you a step by step instruction on how to create your ultimate installation disc. I will actually be making one to use at my work place, and then another one for my personal use.

Here is how to Slipstream Windows XP with Service Pack 3.

Enjoy =)

Look out iPhone, the G1 is coming. sw33t.

2008-09-23T13:23:00.001-07:00

I'm SO excited about this.
FINALLY, the google phone is here. You read right, G1 will be the HTC developed phone, who will be carried by T-Mobile. It will be running Android, google's Open Source mobile OS. I read about the Android and downloaded their kit, but didn't get a chance to actually use it yet.

Find out more about what we geeks call The gPhone, which will be hitting stores next month or so.
Awesome. Google is SO going to take over the world, we will literally by a GoggleEarth.

Have a great day.

Learning SQL

2008-09-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

So a recent job I've applied for had asked if I knew SQL, I unfortunately don't. But they said it was a "preferred" skill. So I thought to my self, well why not learn SQL. I'm already familiar with MS Access, true its not the same, but at least that makes me familiar with the database terminology.

So I started searching the net for tutorials on SQL, and I came across an awesome tutorial. Its simple to understand, has examples, downloadable data, and its free.
After I finished reading the first section on how to create a database, and populate it, it then gives you a little assignment to try it for yourself. Very neat.

If you would like to learn some SQL for an upcoming project, or just to add it as a skill on your resume, make sure to check out the Web Developer's Note: SQL Tutorial, its really quite good, and it provides you with links to free software to use, such as MySQL.

Have a nice day.
=)

Zune 3.0 Upgrade

2008-09-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

Zune has +1Uped their game.
A lot of people were talking down about the Zune, especially the so called "useless feature" of having an FM tuner. Well, now you will know how "useless" it is.

With the new 3.0 Upgrade, you will be able to:
-Tag music you hear on the FM tuner to download later (not so useless now is it).
-Browse and buy music from the Zune Market Place, wirelessly.
-And play games, legally =)
+ other features as well.

To download and learn more about the upgrade, just go to the What's New section of the Zune site.

Enjoy =)

New Free Photoshop Alternative (not GIMP)

2008-09-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

So apparently there is new open source Photoshop Alternative out there.
Its called Artweaver. Its more like a stripped down version of Photoshop, which sounds fine to me. So if you use GIMP this might be a step up, and if you need a free photo manipulating software to play around with, then this is for you.

Try it out and feel free to comment back here and let me know what you think.
Have a good weekend.

Student Software: Cheap & Legit

2008-09-05T13:35:00.000-07:00

So we all know about the "Academic" version of software, such as Adobe CS3, its less expensive but still expensive. Now there is an even CHEAPER option.

Adobe now provides something called the Student Licensing Option, in which you get the FULL version, for a much cheaper price, for example the CS3 Design Standard for $200, or the CS3 Master Collection for $500. That is a pretty good deal considering the original price of the actual software.

It would make sense for Adobe to make a step like this, since its products such as the world known PhotoShop, end up being one of the most "Shared" software amongst students.
Feel free to research this some more, I had just heard about it and did a quick google search and found this information for you.

Information from the Adobe site about SLO could be found [here].
Creation Engine provides the software online [here].

have a great weekend everyone.
-Ash

gdgt: The weekly gadget podCast

2008-09-04T11:16:00.000-07:00

Peter Rojas(founder of ...) and Ryan Block (editor-at-large of ...) Engadget have joined forces once again. They have JUST launched (today 9/4 was the first broadcast) their podCast called gdgt, this will be a weekly installment of your gadget fix.

Enjoy! I know I will =)
Take care.

-Ash

Games for disabled children

2008-09-03T12:26:00.000-07:00

This is beautiful.
Arcade Heroes has started a contest to ask Game Developers to create games for children who have difficulty playing the normal games that we play.
Its mostly geared towards children with mobility disability, so modifying controllers is a HUGE part of this project, which they call "A Game for Helen".
Other project relating to this one are Special Effect & Helen and Douglas House which is a charity providing end of life care to children with life-shortening conditions.

This is a great thing, I love it when I see the game developing community trying to reach EVERYone, and to show the world that there is more to this awesome industry then just random violent products.

4 game posts, 4 you =)

2008-09-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

Gunnar Optiks have created Gaming Glasses, claiming that they will reduce eye strain & fit comfortable with headphones, allowing you to game more. How nice of them =)

Super Mario RPG game has been released. Enjoy.

The PS3 is 1Up-ing its game, by releasing a wireless headset, it will hit Japan on October 30th.

Infinite Combo, glitch or feature? Apparently the character El Fuerte in Street Fighter IV has the frowned upon infinite combo (Oops), and so the game has been labeled as broken?.

Kindle vs eReader

2008-08-27T09:56:00.000-07:00

Since I’ve finished school I have found my self to be reading quite often, and it seems that it’s a hobby I quite enjoy. Since I’m also a big gadget fan, I started shopping around for an eBook reading device. The two dominant readers that are out there at the moment are Amazon’s Kindle & Sony’s eReader. It’s a tough decision, because they both have great features, but the question is, which one is for me.
So I decided to do a little comparison between the two, and to also find out what is it that I need from an eBook reader.
So here we go =)

Amazon's Kindle around $400
Comes in white, and has a built in Keyboard
EVDO internet
Plays Audio
SD card slot
Wikipedia
Dictionary
Blogs $1/each
RSS feed $1/each
Transfers texts & PDF’s for $0.10/each
Kindle bookstore

Sony's eReader around $300
Comes in silver or black, and has side buttons for naviagation
No internet
Plays Audio
SD card slot/Memory stick
Blogs / RSS feed – free
Reads PDFs, TXT, RTF, and DOC files – free.
eReader bookstore

The book prices are about the same, it seems that each one has something to provide that its competitor doesn’t have. The Kindle has the internet “click and download” feature, which is very appealing to many people. The eReader however, offers more free readable formats, which compensates (in my opinion) for not having internal internet.

I personally don’t mind having to download the content to my computer/ SD card first, before transferring it over to the eReader. I will end up backing up my downloads on my machine anyway. So to me that’s a “feature” =)

As you see, they both have great features that out way their minor set backs. So I personally vote for the eReader, because it does exactly what I need for it to do. I’m a tech so I deal with a lot of PDFs, TXT and what not, so the fact that the eReader supports those formats makes it a no brainier for me. I don’t mind not having internet, it will only be a distraction for me =)

If you are however a speed reader then the kindle might be a better choice, because it will allow you to download books in about a minute directly to your Kindle, as long as you have a signal (think cell phone).
I hope my little comparison has helped you as much it has helped me.

Have a good day.
-Ash =)

PC fitness program..by accident.

2008-08-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

Who needs the Wii Fit, when you can engineer a treadmill to help you race your Elf avatar in World of Warcraft. Yes, you heard right. A couple of guys wanted to see if they could have a "physical" race in the virtual world.
I must admit, it was pretty cool.
It even gives me ideas, because since this is possible with a couple of amateur engineers, that means a Wii Fit type device is plausible for PC gamers.
Those two may not realize it, but their little experiment could be VERY beneficial for the Gaming & Health community. Who knows, maybe even a WoW-Lympics =)

Here is the article and the video, via the good people of Engadget.
Enjoy =)

-Ash

The Mini Notebook Invation

2008-07-18T08:30:00.001-07:00

The hottest thing in the laptop world right now are MiniNotebooks. I first heard of this when I was reading about Asus's Eee Pc a few months ago, but today even the big boys like HP are entering the market with their 2133 Mini Notebook ($600).

But the one that I'm very delighted about is Acer's Aspire One ($380-$425) It runs on Linpus Lite Linux, uses the new intel Atom processor, and is very sleek and cool. The link provided is from Laptop Magazine, it has an in depth look as well as (7) minutes of hands on video with the machine, that you should check out.

Enjoy,
Have a great weekend everyone.
-Ash

Major xBox 360 news + Flash WarGame

2008-07-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

xBox 360:
---------
So 2 very exciting news:
#1. The price is coming down, and the storage capacity is going up. You read right, according to an article from SEATTLE's Associate Press, the 360 is planning to increase the hardware capacity to 60gb ($350), and the price of the 20gb 360 will go down to ($299).
This is great news, especially for those (like yours truly) who have been too busy to actually get one these.
The full article [here].

#2. Microsoft announced that they will be giving the dashboard a major face-lift, a 3d face-lift to be exact, including 3d avatars, video chat capabilities and all the extra goodness that comes with the 360 and then some.
The full article [here].

Flash:
------
Do you like flash games? Do you like card games? then "The Continuum" is defiantly for you.
Seven Lights is the publisher of this new card WarGame, and they are targeting the HardCore gamers. They claim that its not one of those 30 minute games that flash developers tend to make. To tell you the truth its looks pretty cool, but I'm too impatient to keep track of stats of my self and my opponents. If I want strategy I just play chess, but hey! that's just me.
More info & a video [here].

Eee PC 900: With Touch Screen.

2008-07-03T06:46:00.000-07:00

I've been reading many tech blogs recently, and a subject that keeps coming up is the Asus Eee PC 900. Its a brand of laptops that are coming out, mostly known for their super light weight and open source compatibility.

Since almost every device coming out these days has some sort of TochScreen technology implemented, many techies have been wonder as to when the Eee PC will start to support it. Well, look no further, through the Engadget blog, I was linked to jkkMobile.com, and he has successfully moded his Eee PC with a TouchScreen, you can check out his video [here]

Zune Blog

2008-05-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

The Zune in Education:
::::::::::::::::::
This is awesome.
A teacher by the name of Eric Langhorst did something very "cool". He started a blog, and put up "StudyCasts" for his students to download. The cool thing here is that these digital study materials are formated to be used by the Zune, Microsoft's portable media player.

I love the fact that teachers are starting to think outside the box, and use untraditional methods to get material to their students, this is a great idea. Not only is it engaging the student at their level, but the material will always be on the blog for the students to re-download, and they don't have to carry their notes, books, or laptops..unless they need to check their emails =)
Looks like Microsoft is 1Uping their game! =)
check out the full article [here]

The Zune in Gaming:
:::::::::::::::::::
This is also awesome.
With the release of XNA 3.0, you can now play games on your Zune.
Which means for those savvy XNA /C# programmers of us, we will be able to make our own games and play them on the Zune.
awesome.
To learn how to Install Games on your Zune go [here]
To download some Zune Games go [here]
Provided by the fine people of ZuneBoards.com

Open Source Hardware

2008-05-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

This article really jumped at me, I've always heard of Open Source Software, but Hardware? What does that mean?
Well VIA OpenBook did something revolutionary in my opinion, they provided the CAD files for their laptop designs for people to download. What they are trying to accomplish is encourage those of us who are designers in heart, to start, well, designing laptops.

So pretty soon their will be a plethora of new companies, having ultra thin "cool" designed laptops. Who knows? maybe even a company that allows you to send them the design you want for your laptop, not just the specs, but how it actually "looks".
This takes customizing to a whole new level.
You can check the full article [here].

Second Life | A.I. Testing Platform

2008-05-19T09:26:00.000-07:00

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have created an avatar called Edd, Edd is not controlled by another player, but by a computer. What this research did is basically gave this avatar Artificial Intelligence, Edd currently "understands only English that has previously been translated into mathematical logic."
The full article by Michael Hill can be read [here]

This story is very near to my heart, a couple of semesters back I was in Simulation class, and every other week we would all meet online in Second Life. So to find another school utilizing virtual reality in such a way just makes me smile with joy.
Second Life being used as a Testing Ground for A.I.? Brilliant!

Intigrading Audio: XNA (tutorial)

2008-04-23T10:13:00.000-07:00

Source:
Professional XNA Game Programming for Xbox 360 and Windows
By Benjamin Nitschke

Section: Part III:
Improving Your Game Engine

Chapter 9:
Adding Sound with XACT

Integrating Audio into XNA
A tutorial by Ashraf Dawod

Integrating audio in the XNA frame work is done in five (5) stages according to the book, one thing they mention is the sound files have to be in .WAV format. So in actuality it should be six (6) stages, because your first step will be converting your audio files into WAV format. Here is a quick outline of this tutorial:
What is Xact Xactly?
Step 1: Converting your files to .WAV.
Step 2: Creating your wave bank.
Step 3: Compressing music data.
Step 4: Creating a sound bank.
Step 5: Cue Variables.
Step 6: Creating a sound class.

What is XACT Xactly?
XACT is the name for Microsoft’s Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool, which allows you to create audio projects for the Windows and Xbox 360 platforms. The reason you can’t sue anything but XACT is the fact that you cannot use any unmanaged code in XNA. The reason why it was implemented into XNA is to make sure it is possible to use the same sound content and sound playback code for both the Windows and Xbox 360 platforms.
Note: Xbox 360 supports only XMA compression.
For the PC only ADPCM is supported in XACT.

Step1 : Converting your files to .WAV
There are several ways to do this, if you use iTunes, you could configure it to do the conversion for you. You can also go to download.com, and use programs like “Mp3Decoder”.
Here is how you convert you files using iTunes:
1- Start up "iTunes"
2- Go to "Preferences"
MAC: click 'iTunes' \ then preferences
PC: click 'File' \ then preferences
3- Go to the "Advanced" tab
4- Click the "Importing" tab
5- In the "Import Using:", use the drop down menu to choose "Encode WAV"
6- Click "OK" until you exit out of the preferences
7- Now simple choose a song, "Right Click" it, choose the option to convert it to a WAV

Where to find your converted files:
Navigate to it
You will need to navigate to where the original song is located.
For example:
I converted the song "Sunday Bloody Sunday", which is from the album "The Joshua Tree", from my favorite band "U2".
My Path would be:
iTunes \ music \ U2 \ The Joshua Tree \ [the wav file will be found here]

Step 2: Creating your wave bank
To get any wav files into your new XACT project you have to create a wave bank first, which stores all the wav files into a wave bank, and is then loaded and used by your game.
There are two (2) ways to do this:
Way #1: You can either right-click Wave Banks and select “New Wave Bank”.
Way #2: You can use the toolbar icon for creating a wave bank (eighth entry, the orange-white rectangle with the wave effect)
Note: you can have multiple Wave Banks, this is especially good if you have multiple levels in your game.

After you have created your Wave Bank you can drag and drop wav files into it or alternatively use the “Insert Wave Files” entry from the context menu.
Note: the italic red font indicates the files are still unused. As soon as you add these wav files to a sound bank they become green.

By default no compression is chosen and most of the sound files are pretty small. If you want to compress the music sound file, click it and select your desired compression preset in the wave properties panel, before you can choose a compression you will have to create a compression preset, which leads us into Step 3.

Step 3: Compressing music data
To create a new compression preset click Compression Presets and select “New Compression Preset”. Now you can enter a name for your compression; in this case you just want to create a music compression schema.
Note: XACT does not show the resulting file size of XMA right away, you will have to compile project first. It is recommended to use XMA files with 50% or higher file size.

After setting the new compression for the music file you should now get file sizes of around 5-6 MB for the Xbox directory and 10MB for the Win Directory.

Step 4: Creating a sound bank
In order to playback the music, you need sound cues, which have to be created in a sound bank, which we will create.
You can do this by clicking the Sound Banks entry or clicking the second orange orange icon in the toolbar (the one with the orange wave going over the orange-white box on the right side).
Note: If you just have one wave bank and one sound bank, then leave the default name “sound bank”, but if you have multiple wave banks then feel free to give them different names to be easily accessible for you when needed.

Try to position your windows in a way that will allow you to see both windows clearly, then drag all wave files from the wave bank over to your sound bank.
The sound bank window consists of two parts:
Sound names (on the top) & Cue names (at the bottom)
Note: Each sound here can get additional settings like changing the volume, frequency, or applying other variations or effects.

Here are some adjustments you might want to do as well:
-In the Sound Properties Panel (on the left) make sure that the Category is “Music” instead of “Default”
-Set instances limiting and fade in/out durations for your music files, either each single one, OR by simply setting it once in the “Music” category.
-“LimitInstances” is by default set to “false”, once you set it ot “true” the properties below it become active.
-“BehaviorAtMax” should be set to “Replace” instead of “FailToPlay”

Step5: Cue Variables
XNA allows you to access only sound cures, which have to be created first.
Select all sound names and drag them down to the cue section of the Sound Bank windows. F7 to compile.
Note: Names are automatically taken from the filenames, but you can rename any entry if you like.

Step 6: Creating a sound class
When creating the Sound Class we will define a function with all the sound cue names in it, this is the most valuable thing you can do for sound playback in XNA. Playing a sound cue is easy now with help of the “play” method in the Sound class.

I couldn't actually display the actual "code" here, because it interfered with Blogger's website script.
So I've added a screen shot of what the code looks like:

That concludes the end of the XNA integrating Audio tutorial.
I hope it has been helpful to you.
Have a great day.

-Ash

Cloud Computing

2008-04-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

This is the newsiest brainstorm from the magnificent mind of Jeff Bezos, the same mind that founded Amazon.com. In simple terms Cloud Computing is Net Storage. If you’re a small company who can’t afford the space for / or money to have a server to store all your essentials, or just need a computing infrastructure that is higher than what you have, then Hardware as a Service (Haas) or Cloud Computing is the way to go.

Sean Knapp, chief engineer of Ooyala the new interactive “hypervideo” technology, uses Cloud Computing. One of the products is Justin.tv, which “serves up a half-million live videostreams daily thanks to Amazon hardware.” This is what Cloud Computing could do, amongst other things.

Read the full web article [here] to know more.

Have a good Wednesday everyone.
-Ash

Games for Health. May 2008

2008-04-10T12:48:00.000-07:00

The infamous Games For Health Conference will be held at at the Baltimore Convention Center, from May 8-9. I also hear that on May 7th there will be a two (2) day long event dedicated to Virtual Worlds, Health & Game Accessibility.
Make sure to check their website for more information.

Have a good day
-Ash

Summer of Code 2008

2008-03-21T07:02:00.001-07:00

I JUST heard of this, apparently there is some kind of world wide summer internship program that is being sponsored by Google. That company just amazes me to no extend. So every summer they have this Codeing event, in which you would apply to one of the projects, who will have a mentor for you to work under, and you basically code to improve some kind of Open Source application, that is just fantastic.

The Student Sign up Perdiod: per their Important Times & Dates page.
Starts: 3/24/08
Ends: 3/31/08

For more info on this awesome project check out The Tor Blog.

Hanhelds , MODs, & Games

2008-03-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

I found the following game related topics very nice, and shiny (literally in some cases), and I decided to share them with you. Enjoy.

DS-lite:
No more just plain colored hand-helds, a company called ColorWare has a website in which you can customize the colors that you want for your DS-lite and they send it to you, so you could have a hand-held truly yours.

PsP: 3.93 firmWare upDate
The latest firmware upDate has now been released.
What this includes is: 20 internet radio stations \ Skype \ Playstation Network.
You could do the update either through the PSP or through your PC, choose your method.

xBox Halo MOD:
For 55 Euros, you will receive a kit that will allow you change you xBox 360 case, to a Green Halo MOD case. It actually looks wicked cool.

Ash Games:
I've updated my portfolio to include some of the Games that I've worked on in the past 2 years for my classes, so now I have a "games" page, as well as a "C++" page which includes the files as well as the code for people to use if they want to take a crack at MODing these silly creations =)

Free Game:
EA has released a free game for people to play online, its called Battlefield Heroes. No its not an FPS (first person shooter), its actually very cartoony looking, you can get more info at their site.

I hope you enjoy my compressed gaming post, I think I might start doing this every now and then, its pretty cool don't you think =)

Have a good day.
-Ash

TouchPad Pro : the iRemote

2008-03-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

This is a free downloadable hack for both the iPhone & iPod Touch, it basically turnes your iPhone/Touch into a remote control for your computer. It works with both PC & MAC.
There is a video demo here.

You can get more information at their website as well.
TouchPad Pro

New Type of Online Gaming.

2008-03-18T07:08:00.000-07:00

Justin Hall has come up with a new kind of online gaming, for his master's thesis. He calls it PMOG (Passively Multi-player Online Games). The concept is basically to rage technological warfare against your friends 'through' the browser. Which means you can go the sites that you know they visit often and set mines and traps to take away their data point (life). Its a pretty neat concept, but I think it would be a bit distracting, especially if your at work, or researching something important. I'm not quite sure what actually happens to the page your viewing, I just know that you can see your data points going down and it tells you what happened to cause that. I don't think it shuts down your browser or anything, but still I think its a very neat concept.
You can read the article here, it will explain it better than I.

Have a good day.
-Ash

Open Source | Close Wallet

2008-03-05T07:29:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a big advocate of the Open Source community. True I'm not 'creative' enough to be of any actual 'help', but I'm keeping the faith that one day I'll use my experiences to do something super useful to the beloved Open Source community.

This topic is brought to my attention because of the FireFox 3 T-shirt design contest, I was at their site reading about the contest when I saw that one of the criteria of submitting a design, was to have the image created in an SVG program, such as Adobe Illustrator, or Inkscape [a FREE SVG program], so I got super excited about it. Because Inkscape reminded me of Open Office [a FREE word processor suit] & Blender [a FREE 3D animation program]. I also recently found out that there is a Photoshop-like open source program called Gimp.

My question is this. Why aren't school utilizing these tools, true the work field asks for experience in the 'real' programs, but if these are available to students (and everyone else) for FREE, than I'm sure they will be more inclined to use it, first off they won't have to pay $300 for a watered down version of the actual product, and they will not need to illegally find a way to get a copy of the program.
Besides, if we start enforcing these producing into the school system, than the job market will have to adjust their standards to what is being taught, especially if they are as good as the real thing.

I do think that if we start using these products more, then it will catch on. Look at Open Source Operating Systems, such as Linux, Unix , and all their flavors. They are being used in third world countries to teach children and people about technology. The digital gap is narrowing, and fantastic open source products are coming out every day. We seriously need to start embracing this, as soon as I get my bachelor's degree, I'm formating my mobile laptop to Ubuntu (which is currently a 2nd OS on my other machine), and I'm going to start running all these great products so I could actively help the Open Source community, you should try it, its good for you, really =)

Have a good day everyone.
-Ash

Linked-In Etiquette

2008-02-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

I found an article that describes briefly what Linked-In is exactly, and also tells you how to use it properly. If you are unfamiliar with "Linked-In", its a Professional Network site, meaning, its NOT aimed to be used for 'fun' (that's what MySpace & FaceBook are for). Linked-In is intended to be used to literally network with business professionals in either your field or other fields your interested in. Hopefully someone in a company you admire, or would like to work for. So basically its another way to put your resume out there, in a more 'relaxed' casual environment.
[Get Ahead on Linked-In]

Have a good day everyone.
-Ash

A race to the moon...

2008-02-26T07:15:00.000-08:00

...Literally, Google and the X Prize Foundation announced official contenders to a Private Race To The Moon. Ten(10) teams from around the world, will be competing for a Thirty(30) Million dollar prize, by creating a robot that will land on the moon and send pictures back to Earth.

This is the kind of innovation, and encouragement young engineers and scientist need. Don't get me wrong, I think NASA has done some great work over the years, but private projects such as these are pure innovation in my opinion, because the only restrictions they will have is gravity and physics. I can't wait to see the shiny uprising of MoonBots =).

Have a good day.
-Ash

Morph

2008-02-25T11:46:00.000-08:00

This is very exciting, the University of Cambridge & Nokia have announced a joint "Nanotechnology Project" they call "Morph". The article by David Becker reveals that there is a new kind of cell phone coming out in the "future", saying that Nokia is hoping to have these new phones out with in 7 years.
If that is possible, in my opinion, it will change our way of communicating for a good while. In the article is also a YouTube video of how Morph is going to be used, theoretically speaking of course.

[The Morph Article/Video demo]
Have a good week everybody.
-Ash

DreamSpark

2008-02-20T09:58:00.001-08:00

Microsoft is giving its Visual Studio web applications free, to students.
According to the article on WIRED magazine's website by Jessica Mintz, a technology writer for AP, the DreamSpark offer will include "Visual Studio Professional Edition, a software development environment; Expression Studio, which includes graphic design and Web site and hybrid Web-desktop programming tools; and XNA Game Studio 2.0, a video game development program."

As a game developer student, this is HUGE. Students need access to these types of software, and not just in the school lab. Because the only time we are in there is when we have class. So having a non-water down version of the software is very helpful to us.

To find out if you qualify for the DreamSpark download, go to [channel8.msdn.com]

DigiWars

2008-02-13T11:54:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading this great article on WIRED Magazine's website, talking about where the "Base" for the newest Air Force Cyber Devision will be. Its being called "Cyber Command", sounds like a term you would here on a Transformers episode, but its true. The article is five(5) pages long, so if you plan to read it make sure you have a few mintues to spare.
[Welcome To Cyberwar Country, USA]

The topic of Hacking and Cyber Crime has always been near to my heart, I honestly do think that the next major terrorist attack will be a digital one, which is why after I get my B.S. in Simulation and Digital Entertainment, I want to get a Masters in Computer Forensics.

Hope you enjoy the article.
Have a good Wednesday.
- Ash

24 Hour Game Challenge | Ohio Game Jam

2008-02-02T20:57:00.000-08:00

This was a very cool experience for me as a potential game developer. Last fall [2007], Dr. Harmeyer found out about a friendly competition called the “Ohio Game Jam”, she sent out an email to the SDE students to inform them of this event. Dakota LaMaster contacted me a week or so later, he said that he had two (2) game artists with him and needed another programmer to help even things out. I accepted the offer and before you know it we were all packed and ready for our gaming road trip.

Ohio Game Jam
This game jam isn’t about ‘playing’ a video game, its about ‘making’ one. As an SDE student at the University of Baltimore, I was very excited to put the skills I’ve been acquired to the test. So when this opportunity came knocking I anxiously opened the door.
The idea behind this game jam is as follows:
A theme will be revealed to the team of developers, then you have 24 hours to create a working, playable game. That’s it, plain but not so simple, as far as what program to use was up to the developers. Most of the students there were Ohio university students, naturally, we were the “outsiders”, the Baltimore Boys who drove up just to test their game creating skills.

The Challenge
The theme was ‘Science & Technology’, that was a pretty broad theme if you ask me, but never the less. First thing Team UB [TUB] did was sit in a circle and brainstormed, I started writing down the points that seemed to excite us the most, that of course fit into the theme of the challenge. After many friendly debates we came up with a funky idea, it involved rodents, robots, the undead and replanting a forest. That pretty much fit the theme and more. The name of this little game became “ZomBorgs”.
We divided the team into two (2) groups, artists [Ryan and Matt] and programmers [Dakota and Myself]. Amongst the two (2) groups we split again, Ryan and Matt divided the art work between them, one designed the interface and the other worked on the characters. The programming side wasn’t as fair, Dakota is a great flash programmer, and I only know how to spell it correctly. Most of my coding skills are in C++ and some vb.NET, so Dakota gave me a crash course on creating classes for our characters. So while he laid out the background and integrated the art coming in, I pseudo-coded the classes for him in notepad and past it on to him, that worked perfectly, because it was one less thing he didn’t have to worry about.
By us dividing the work load in this fashion, kept us focused and organized, and helped the developing of the game go much faster and smoother than ever.

ZomBorgs
It’s a real time strategy (RTS) game, it was the only RTS game to enter the Ohio Game Jam competition. The idea behind it is simple, you send out your cyber squirrels to plant trees to help clear the air, but there are other cyber genetic creatures that will try to destroy you. In that case you send out your cyber foxes and/or bears, to attach the enemy and protect your squirrels. If any of your squirrels is defeated, you send out your cyber possum to pick up the scraps and bring it back to headquarters to be “re-generated”, that way you can send it out again.
Your goal is to plant 50 trees before all your squirrels are killed, the farther you are from headquarters, the harder it gets to stay alive. It sounds simple, but we actually had a to hack our own game to win. How crazy is that, but we are very proud of it, considering the fact that it took us 24 hours to make ALL of it.

The Feel of ZomBorgs
We decided to go with a more retro Atari-like look to it. Since we were creating the game from scratch and were limited on time. Other groups used programs such as Game Maker, and one group actually made their entire game in C++, very impressive, but it didn’t have the “fun” factor, we decided to do ours entirely in flash.
After the game was done, we had less than an hour before time was up, we heard beeps and boops from the other areas. At that point we realized that we didn’t have any sound. I quickly logged into my SoundClick account and downloaded a few of my original compositions and used it to score the game, and it surprisingly fit the game really well.

The Game Results
ZomBorgs quickly became notice, we got interviewed both by local news papers and college T.V. channel. Many were actually amazed that we drove all the way from Baltimore for this, I guess that 1-UPed our game cred.
I honestly didn’t like the way they scored the games, after we all displayed our games for everyone, they just had the other developers go around the room and play everyone else’s game and then vote for their favorite one. I was actually hoping for a more analytical result. I wanted to know what we did right and what we did wrong, but never the less, we tied in 2nd place with two (2) other games. I still see it as a victory.

Ah! The Memories
I don’t think we’ll ever forget that road trip to Athens Ohio, we got to actually eat at a Sonic, which we have not seen here in Maryland. Then we got to proudly represent our college and the SDE program by successfully creating a playable flash game in 24 hours, from start to finish. All the games are posted and are free to play at the Ohio Game Jam website. I think this experience has defiantly affected our confidence, and maybe a bit our ego, in a healthy way. Not many people can say “I was part of a four (4) man group that created a game in 24 hours”, its actually pretty neat.
I’m actually collaborating with Matt again, he has been making a lot of home brews for the PSP, and asked me to provide him with some music to score his latest brew.

The 24Hr Dev. Team
Dakota LaMaster | TUB Programmer:
Flash extraordinaire, and the brave soul that drove us there and back.

Ryan Hall | TUB Artist:
Photoshop prince, and fellow city guy.

Matt Sache | TUB Artist:
PSP game developer in training, and home brew addict.

Ashraf Dawod | TUB Programmer:
C++ coder, and uprising game score composer.

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.
-Ash

Entry of my century

2008-01-31T21:41:00.000-08:00

For the longiest time I wanted to start a Blog, but I never did. Not out of procrastination, but because I did not have much to say, no actual experience or helpful input to give. But in my Game Project Management class (also known to us as The Seminar) tonight, Dr. Harmeyer inspired me. She spoke to us about the importance of having a blog, not just any blog, but a helpful blog. So I intend to use this blog to be my "digital voice", to speak of the great technologies I've acquired, helped create (or break), and hopefully get some good feedback on how to improve on both my self and my skills.

Hi, I'm Ashraf Dawod. A senior at the University of Baltimore, a Simulation & Digital Entertainment (SDE) major, and now a proud Blogger.
Lets rock and roll.

I want to apologize in advance, I will do my very best to update this blog and respond to comments, but please keep in mind that I'm in a killer semester. I'm taking 5 classes as well as working full-time as a Tech. So homework and school projects come first, but I assure you that this blog is a close second.
I will end up doing a major tutorial this semester on Game Audio (part of my independent study), and I will most defiantly keep this blog updated on that, and I see great potential in posting the final product right here. Since the topic covers the span of three(3) different consoles/coding languages, then it would make sense for me to post them here as a three(3) part series.
I'm very excited about this, and I do hope that it will be useful to others. God knows I have been going to forums and tutorials to find solutions, I think its about time I gave back to the wonderful Open Source community.

Well, I think that pretty much sums up my first Blog Entry.
Thanks for reading, have a good morning.
-Ash