Vyoma

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.

If you have drawn those images, then, I have to say, you are amazing.But even other wise, I like the Sig. Maybe you should have brought the saturation a bit less on the red and green in the background. Not much, but a little bit. Overall, I like it.

Yes prorip, you are right. What you were saying about the 'quick responses' and 'small amount of space' made me go through Michael Abrash's books mentally. (I am like total fan of his works. I worship him - maybe because only his books where available back in those days on assembly, optimization and graphics put together). I would like to tell you all one of the trick that he had up his sleeve, one that explained where to go for optimization. Consider the following pseudo code (with the relative time taken in the square brackets): START TASK A [10] ... ... TASK B [10] ... ... TASK C [120] ... ... TASK D [10] ... ... LOOP 500 TIMES ... TASK E [10] ... TASK F [40] ... END LOOP ... (the logic moves on) Say, the values in the square bracket are time take for the task to be done when written in a 3GL (3rd Generation Language). Now, if you notice the above code, on the first glance, we would jump at optimizing task C, since it takes way too much time. But according to Michael Abrash, and what I have found myself, optimization should be done for those that are repetitive. In the above example, Task F should be optimized. Let us look at both the cases. 1. Case 'Task C' reduced to 50%: Time saved = 120 - (120 x 50%) = 60 2. Case 'Task F' reduced to 50%: Time saved = 500 x (40 - (40 x 50%)) = 500 x (40 - 20) = 500 x 20 = 10000 3. Case 'Task F' reduced to 75%: Time saved = 500 x (40 - (40 x 75%)) = 500 x (40 - 30) = 500 x 10 = 5000 As can be seen, when both the optimization lead to reduction to 50%, optimizing Task F is better. (Case 1 Vs Case 2) Even when Task F is reduced to only 75% as opposed to the whooping 50% of Task C, the time saved for Case 3 is way higher than that of Case 1. (Case 1 Vs Case 3). Now these case are theoretical, but trust me, real-case senarious are a lot closer to this than we think. Oops! I got carried away. Hope this not way off track, but what I was making a point is that Assembly when used with right strategy can lead to powerful applications.

During the design phase, I was going through many articles and resources. I was also looking out for how best to modularize the final layout. That is when I stumbled across CSS Zen Garden. http://www.csszengarden.com/ You need to visit the site to realize the beauty of the site. I usually restrain myself from making such remarks but I have to give it to this site. Going through this site, really affected the personal CMS project I am undertaking. It made me revisit the option of using CSS. I cannot say if I would use CSS or not, but this is a must-visit-site.

Yes, as Quatrux said, it does not have enough Christmas feel to it. The Christmas colors would involve, semi-dark green, bright read, and white with light-blue tinge. The green for the christmas trees, the bright read for the Santa Claus attire and the white with blue-tinge for the snow. You may add a silver or gold bells. (I am just trying to set the mood here for you to work on the Sig). Do not just make only what I said above, but theme it over your earlier Sig, or over your earlier Sig theme. I hope I am making sense.Also, make it a bit more assymetric.

OK. It was the firewall problem.There was no problem with the cPanel.Sorry for the false alarm.

As I said earlier, I want to design and code a CMS myself. There is nothing like hands-on practicals that would teach me all the concepts and tricks. After that I may shift to something else. It is something like: I need to reinvent the wheel, 'Cause I need to feel the thrill!

Well, the point is that I do know of all those CMS, but what I wanted to do was to design and code one of my own. I want to know what it takes to create a CMS in terms of implementation. For that sake, I would like some design documentation or something of that sorts, that gives me the architectural and functional views. If there are none, that is fine. I will try to work something out, and may be I will put a tutorial here?

Here is what I felt I need - a simple content management system. I have a lot of things that I need to put on the web, and by now, I am pretty much tired of repetitively coding in HTML. So, I need to resort to a Content Management System (CMS). I know there are a lot of CMS around, a lot of free ones too. One that seems good being PHPNuke. But, as I said, I need a pretty simple CMS. Simple in the keyword. So, I thought about designing a system for myself. That would ensure that I would learn a lot during the process. So are there any resources that you would like to point me at, that would be of help? More in terms of architecture design and such? Because that is the phase I am presently at. I would be keeping track of things on how I proceed at my blog. The link is: My Blog for those who wish to see for themselves. [Moderators, please remove this, if it is not appropriate to post link].

I actually do not have much of a choice on the browser, since I do not have a PC and internet connection at home. But I think, I do know the problem. It may be due to firewall issues on that particular port from where I browse. I will try from somewhere else and then let you know.

Welcome Maxam.These forums are for coding-interested people and many other kinds too. (ruben, I am not trying to contradict you. Please do not kill me! I want to live! *ahem! Sorry, just being nice.)Anyway, you can find a lot of people around here that have a different set of talents. These are divided as sections, that inlcude programming, designing, gaming, science and technology and so on and so forth.You can post around here with your opinions and knowledge, and that way we help each other.Again, welcome to Xisto, Maxman.

Me? A graphic designer/pro? I do not know that for sure. I mean, I have been skecting and drawing since I was in 4th or 5th grade (Most of my works of those times have been fed to fire). And soon, I was into CG, a bit of 3D designing, a bit of photography(I am bad at this), a bit of comic-making, a lot of gaming and roleplaying, and lately I am into guitar. And yes, all along, I have been a bit of programmer, and now that is kind of related to my job. Come to think of it, I am not a graphic designer by profession. But some times, I tend to get good results.

ASM sucks on an x86? Well, cannot exactly agree with that. I remember, I made a brick like game during my Engineering study all on a x86 Real mode platform. You move on to Protected mode, then it really gets tougher. But again, I do not know much about m68k, so I may be wrong. Assembly, by nature should be very hard to port. Assembly used on its own cannot, in my opinion make amazing programs. But, what you can do is, build the most repetitive and basic funtionality of your program in Assembly, wrap it up in a function, and then you can use it in any high level language. This is where the actual power lies. It is one of the techniques used by Michael Abrash as can be quite evident when one reads through his books, Zen of Game Programming, or the Black Book. Note here though, that my opinions are limited by the scope of graphics and game programming, and I may not be accurate in other domains of applicaitons.

Well, it is more of a writing-thrill than gaming. (May be I should not have put this thread here).The concepts of time can be managed, and I have seen systems which do it beautifully, and they rarely bogs one down. And, since it is usually a small community, when there are people playing against each other, a GM (moderator) comes into picture. It all settles quite well.I actually am a GM in one of such forums, and people play by writing. There have yet not been any player vs player, but there have been quite a bit of player vs NPC. As a GM, I was moderating such threads.The amazing part is that the story that comes up as a end result can be quite amazing, since it was not done by one person but many. And if it is a GM moderated thread, the story is very coherent with that of the realm.

m^e said: Well m^e, that is what I was suggesting. Have one section where people can make requests, and that can be made a no-post-count zone. The pros of such a approach is, people just no where to look if they feel like they have some time to spare and their talents could be of use. It was those links that you suggested, made me think in this terms.

Hmmm...There does not seem to be one. Well ...fine. I think I will work something out. Maybe I will program the games myself, now that I have got a website hosted at Xisto.Anyway, thank you guys for the input.

I am using IE. I cleared all the temporary internet files, and tried again. The error is persistant. Oddly I can visit http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ but not http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/.

I tried it again. It is showing the same message. It is not even showing the pop-up that asks for username/password.

Shoot! I should not have said that. Sorry for double posting, but I seem to be having a problem with the cPanel now. When I try to access http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/, I get the follwoing error:

Well you could make the section not provide any hosting credits. Something like these Help sections or the Music sections. That way, people who post in these section do not get any credits, but one would be providing them with a platform where we can talk about it.

Yes curare, I have to agree with you in terms of the fact that Google cares about copyrights. It is just another part of the almost-good image they have.What worries me though is that, they are a almost-perfect-good image. I mean, even if they are doing something hideous, and they are able to cover it up, then imagine what they are capable of. I mean, they would be having a major impact and say on the lives in the future, where the future promises to be more cyber-intensive.(This is just a speculation and not based on anyfacts).

Here is what I suggest:Have a section for Work Requests. Here people can ask for something to be done, in return for Hosting credits. I know by now that Hosting Credits are of real value, and I would love to trade using them for getting some work done that requires talents or resources that I do not have. So, someone requests for a work to be done. Someone else does the work and the person who requested, pays him/her with Hosting Credits. Requests could range from, graphic requests, sig requests, write-ups, and such things.That would mean someone would have to prepare a draft for a guidelines on posting there - you know, that explains what a fair deal would be like. And yes, you may need to subdivide them into further sections later, but may not be necessary in the begining. But later one may require to do it. And may be, a moderator to handle the section.This would help in community interaction, people will know each others work much better.I am sorry if this is an idea laready implemented. If so, could you please point me to that section.

Yes, m^e. I was able to access my cPanel. Everything seems fine now. I am off to designing my website. Moderator may close this thread. It has served its purpose.