Vyoma

Come to think of it, Hercco, I think I should go by your method. It is the most straight forward method, that right out missed my mind. Ha! This is fine example of how one gets lost in the complexity and fails to see all simple solutions.Thanks Hercco.

Is it OK or against the TOS to put an Adsense ad (or anyother content based Ads) on the website I am hosting at Xisto?Ooops! I am extremly sorry. I should I looked properly during my search on Adsense.It seems like I can put Google Adsense on my Xisto hosted website. Forum moderators, please excuse my blunder - you may close this thread.

Well, Houdini. The first link itself hit the jackpot - or so I think. I still will not be implementing it practically, I just wanted to get my design docs proper before going ahead for the implementation. So, I wanted to see, atleast in theory, if it were possible. I am a bit bad with the searches and could not get anything proper.The second one is a mailing list one, which I quite extensive, and packaged. It would not be of much use to me. The third one was way overwhelming for me! :DAs I said, thanks!

Task: To send an email to a list of email addresses stored in a database

 

Premise: Page is written in PHP, with the database as MySQL. The email addresses need to be taken from a column of a table in the database which is queried with some "WHERE" clause. The email sent to these addresses is static.

 

Objective: To send a newsletter to the members who have subscribed for the same on a website.

 

Well, there. I have put it as objectively and as clearly as possible. I have searched for the keywords "mail" and "PHP" on this section of the forum, and from what I have seen, it is possible to mail to an address. But is it possible to send it to a list of them? I mean, if I could get the addresses seperated by ';'. Or is there some other way? What I am trying to achieve is to send newsletters. For now, I would be satisfied with a static content. Later I would like to venture into the possibility of dynamic content. But may be for that, we need to handle each address one by one.

Come to think of it, I have been playing around with a bit of photography these days. But I am having serious trouble with the composition.I know that to have manual controls is of flexibility and that brings out a good photograph. But, at present, I have access to only digicams, and that too the simple ones. That means I have to do about with the auto features of those with very little other controls to play with. But, what I think, I can play with is the composition.Looking at the three photograhs attached, the same thing came to my mind. I mean, in terms of light and dark, or the exposure and colour levels, they all are pretty decent. But what makes it look good or not was the underlying composition. Though, it does not seem like much in the output, it does make or break the photograph.That means, I got a lot of work to do on composition. Other than what 'banglore' has provided, does anyone around here know somelinks that can help me with this. Links that would lead me to pages on photograph composition - not the general photography site. (OK, I am a bit lazy to look around, but if you already have links, that would greatly help).

Here are my views on paying for online games:Being in a similar industry, I understand that it requires resources to maintain servers and systems running. Any game can be considered as a system and it would be running on a server that requires maintainance. And resources (hardware, software, man-power) cost anyone. Hence I think it is fair enough to pay for online games unless those games are very simple ones (text based or minor graphics based games). For simple games, which are usually browser based, they can be hosted and payment may not be required (as is the case of the buisness model of Xisto).Assuming we are talking about complex multiplayer games, we can come to a conclusion that it requires to be funded. Now the question arises as to what approach is used to provide the funds to get the resources. A lot of different approaches have been followed by many different companies.One of them being, keeping the basic game free, but charging for advanced or premium players. This is a pretty good approach but if it were a strategy game or a rpg (that is persistant), one has to think about the impact that would have on the ingame economy. Ingame economy may not make the game, but if gone bad, can really ruin a game.Another option is to charge for the game and then provide with free servers. The Blizzard has been using this option for Diablo, Diablo II and, Starcraft. Here, the gaming company banks on the sales of the games to maintain the servers. Though, I do not understand the working of such a buisness model. A gaming company may choose to additionaly chagre a monthly fee; the system is called a pay-to-play system. Such an approach heavily relies on the tailoring of the plans the company provides for popularity of the system.A different approach I have seen recently, is when the game companies tie up with the ISPs. The game servers are provided free for users those who access the servers using the services of the particular internet service providers. The revenue generated is then shared between the two of them. I belive this is what is happening here in India, where the company is marketting the RPG called A3 in collaboration with a internet service provider called Sify. When I feel like playing A3, I got to the Sify Internet Cafes and play. I pay for only the online internet time.

Houdini, you summed it up quite well. I would like to add few things to what you have said.Other than being information on happenings of the world out there, it is also used by many experts who have got a penchant for knowledge sharing. They go about writing articles and publish it using the blogs.Blogs are also used by creative people or content creators as an extention and message board to their audience. For example, the comic artist of the famous WebComic, MegaTokyo also maintains a blog where he rants about other things related with the gaming and anime industry.

I had been to the site before, and now I visit again to find two new designs.I like the Winamp skin design the best. I like the feel of the top bar and the menu bar. But he second design hurt my eyes. The fist impulse on seeing the page was to close the browser window. I resisted, because I had seen your work on the first design.I think the Winamp design is the best in terms of theme. If you ask for my advice, I think now you should proceed on the layout, fonts and such things. But do one thing for sure - do change the fonts from Times New Roman to some other Serif font. The Times New Roman font totally puts the theme off track.Hope you have not taken offence at my observations. They are just my opinion and other may differ.Happy designing.

I personally like blue(that is what I voted for), but I think would also like if it where white. White with better fonts give a feel of neatness to the site.

Well, that is the problem bobokalln, I would not be able to download software since I will be using the cyber cafes for accessing the internet. I do not have a PC at home at present, so that rule out the possibility of carrying around storage devices.Note to Moderators: This thread may be closed if you wish, I do not see the possibility of finding such a site.

I see that you have most of the things figured out and have listed here. What I would suggest for you to do is come up with design documents. You should be having a series of design documents form high level to low level.You should understand that when I say design documents, it is not with the programming aspects. It is with the gameplay aspects as you have stated in points above. You would have a high level document stating the game design very briefly and giving a birds-eye view. Then you need to focus on parts of it, getting the work done on the lower level designs. You may do this more than two levels depending on the details.One may ask as to why we need to have designs of gameplay rather than the engines and the rest. The answer lies in the fact that once we have the gameplay clear, the approach needed to go forward for the engine design becomes much easier. Yes, the logical next step would be to get the engine design. The same approach of high level to low level needs to be employed.Once these two tasks are done, the coding should be piece of cake for most parts with out considering the technical hurdles that would be encountered.On a side note, if you are serious about the MMORPG, you would need to think of the buisness model you need to follow and such things.

Recentlly I have been using Pixia.It does not have much control over the media when compared to GIMP or Paint - much like the real art media. That is what gives it the reality factor, at which I am good at when compared with CG.

Do these filehosting sites let one do hotlinking? Sort of like ImageShack that lets people upload image files and then hotlink it.What I have in mind is to store some data files that I would like to hotlink on the fly at other webpages.

I really restrain myself from looking out for companies that give out free domain names. I mean, one has to think at how they would do buisness. What their buisness model is>That to speak, I was wary at joining Asta Host itself. Why would a company give of hosting service for free and that too without any ads? It took me some time to understand the buisness model, and I joined up.I have not yet created my website, and am yet to think if it is worth registering a domain for it.

I tried to sign-up for that service of theirs, even though I do not use Ad-Words (Why would I need that, I do not have anything to sell). Anyway, I thougth I would analyze the traffic to my blogs, but as some one noted above, I was given the following message:

Thank you for your interest in Google Analytics!Google Analytics has experienced extremely strong demand, and as a result, we have temporarily limited the number of new signups as we increase capacity. In the meantime, please submit your name and email address and we will notify you as soon as we are ready to add new accounts. Thank you for your patience.

So, I gave my name and mail ID and am crossing my fingers.
Come to think of it, I am really getting a bit suspicious about Google. I mean, they have been quite successful at pulling a rational being like me to their servieces.

I even tried a using the Google Translator but I gave up.Anyway, it may be a bit of off topic, but do any of you guys have links or information on the algorithms used for compression. I have been rummaging over things and the net trying to get some information on the same.

I have been playing the following three games in the past:-Diablo II-Ragnarok-A3The last one, A3, I am still playing.It does not cost me a penny except for the online time. I have enjoyed all of them.

I am not sure, if I can ask the question here. If not, moderators, please move it to appropriate section.

 

I am looking out for a website that lets me download sheet music. I am in the process of learning guitar, and any resouces would help. I found some, but they required some special format readers, that I would be unable to have at internet centers where I browse the net. Hence, if there are any sites, that gives me the PDFs of the sheet music, that would be helpful.

 

Note: I am on the look out for sheet music and not guitar tabulatures. Tabulatures do not need any other readers, and can be shown in general ASCII supporting documents. But, it is the sheet music that gives the problems with the exotic looking symbols.

I browsed the site using the link you gave me. I did not see anything disturbing, but I am quite wary at using anything that is related to Microsoft.I do use blog services, and at present I use Google's Blogster. I liked it very much, and have referred it to couple of my friends. One does not need to be very tech-savvy to use it, but if one is, one can tweak it.

I am thinking in the shoes of a client. When I go to a site to do business, I would hate it if I am overwhelmed by graphics. I mean, if there are no graphics, I would think they are not professional enough, but if it is over loaded with graphics, that would give me a feel of 'all-talk-and-no-work'. I would associate them with loud mouth salesperson who I think I hate the most in this existance.

Slopy code? Do I?Well, that is a question that I have to answer two fold. The reason is that I code for my job and I code for my hobby.As it is my responsibility to code at my job, and as my company already has a lot of processes in place, I am driven to write clean code. Since I wirte the code with the team, I cannot afford to write sloppy code. Everything is properly designed, commented, documented and reviewed. And tested. That results in a clean code - or atleast is supposed to.Now, when it comes to my own creations, taking it as a hobby, I go wild. Because I am sure, what I write, I never will use again. I always move to greener pastures, and want to learn new things. I rarely need to revisit the same code. So, the result is, it tends to be sloppy. I just burst into it, test it, correct it and test it, and the cycle goes on until I get a satisfactory code - but the end result is a shabby code.But on the other note, the lastest project I am undertaking as I pursue this hobby of coding, I have decided that I will try to stick to the Software Development Life Cycle as far as possible. I do not have much faith in this though.

I have heard about Final Fantasy, and I remember long long back playing a singleplayer demo of the FFVII I think. But I belive there has been a lot many versions of it. I am quite charmed by the bits and pieces of information I get about the game from players who have played the game, but what I would like is a overall story or article on it.You know what I mean? Could some one just write up, what the story is, how the gameplay is, and things like that?Why I am asking when I may not play the game? Just out of curiosity and may be a hope that something you say would spark of an urge in me to go and buy this game.

There is a thread somewhere in the forums which explains how to develop your own CMS. It's actually a matter of first framing a layout that you like, for example:

 

--- cut off for legibility ---

 

You can go one step further and develop a frontend for this (say admin.php) which will allow you to login and then open each of the codes in a text box for easy editing.

 

That's just about the basics for a CMS. I would say actual CMS packages are much more complex.

1064331567[/snapback]

Yes Abhiram, I have been going on those lines. I am presently developing one on my own, and it is quite rudimentary. Presently, I have just realized the basic workings and the birds-eye-view of it all. I have been posting my updates on the issue in my blog.

 

Anyway, once I figure it all out and try it for myself, I would be putting up a tutorial here. (That, ofcourse, if I get enough time from my deviations).

First it was Diablo II.Then it was Rangarok.Then, at present it is A3. Though, I still cannot get myself away from the thought of immersing myself in the world of Diablo. I like playing the Necromancer.

Yes, I do maintain blogs.I actually maintain three of them.-One, just a general banter where I discuss on the things I am presently doing.-Another, on the Star Wars Universe. I plan to discuss and review the novels and such things there.-Another on Roleplaying. This is use as an exit for my passion for roleplaying games.