Digital Sketching: See You On Tumblr

I’ll be uploading all my sketching/artistic stuff only on Tumblr from now onwards. Here’s the link: http://aubykhan.tumblr.com. See you there!

Loyalty And Sacrifice

This picture speaks for itself. An animal teaching a lesson in a most simplest of manner.

The horse bears the scorching sun while the owner relaxes in its shadow.

ThemesVillage.com – best place for WordPress themes!

I have been using WordPress for couple of years now but when it comes to themes, things get a little difficult. It’s just that whenever I try to search for a theme, I Google it up or visit many popular websites but all of them end up showing me same content. Anyway, this time..I Googled more and found another themes website which looked similar but I thought I’ll give it a try. ThemesVillage.com looked similar to other sites since it had categories, tags and all. But what I liked was “Featured Themes” section and guess what? The featured section really had quality themes and it got me many new themes which I have never seen!

ThemesVillage seems new but I think they can do well by providing fresh content along with more exciting features. That’s all for now

eXcelarz Interactive launches Checkerzzz Pro

After the remarkable success of Checkerzzz Lite in Android Market, eXcelarz Interactive has released a paid version with enhanced features titled Checkerzzz Pro. The Checkerzzz follow the rules of conventional Checkers with slight variation making it more flexible and enjoyable for players ensuring them with a pleasing past time. The main features of Checkerzzz Pro are:

• Challenging Casual, Normal, Pro single player mode
• Exciting Multiple Player
• Allows the users to randomize player’s first turn
• Provide the option to configure undo moves
• Doesn’t enforce force capture making the game captivating
• Comes packaged with 4 amazing themes
• Smooth, impeccable game play
• Awesome graphics
• Unique scoring mechanism with Player performance statistics

To check out the game, download Checkerzz Pro from Android Market and have a joyful time playing an all time classic board game in a versatile manner.

For more information, visit http://www.excelarz.com

eXcelarz Interactive launches Checkerzzz Pro

After the remarkable success of Checkerzzz Lite in Android Market, eXcelarz Interactive has released a paid version with enhanced features titled Checkerzzz Pro. The Checkerzzz follow the rules of conventional Checkers with slight variation making it more flexible and enjoyable for players ensuring them with a pleasing past time. The main features of Checkerzzz Pro are:

• Challenging Casual, Normal, Pro single player mode
• Exciting Multiple Player
• Allows the users to randomize player’s first turn
• Provide the option to configure undo moves
• Doesn’t enforce force capture making the game captivating
• Comes packaged with 4 amazing themes
• Smooth, impeccable game play
• Awesome graphics
• Unique scoring mechanism with Player performance statistics

To check out the game, download Checkerzz Pro from Android Market and have a joyful time playing an all time classic board game in a versatile manner.

For more information, visit http://www.excelarz.com

The Android Experience

Assalamo Alaykum Readers,

The backdrop of this post links way back to the time when i first got acquaintance with this news about Google, trying to jump in to the cellular thingy. They were trying hard to develop a framework-cum-OS that could revolutionize this business. Definitely, they were trying to compete with already establish names having the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Palm and RIM. Lately, I started following the ‘Search Engine Giant’ in their journey towards becoming a tough competitor in this market.

After having a first shock in the form of G1-disappointment, Google didn’t stop and since then they have released 4 versions of their OS, each having slight improvements over the previous one. The latest, Android 2.0.1 is featured in Google’s own mobile aka Nexus One. This, by far is the most stable and polished version of their OS and the phone is gaining some critics’ sympathies. The result; Android is now standing face-to-face with iPhone, and all the other ones are left behind.

This post will however cover my own experience with Android and may be termed as a review. Since I have already become a fan, i started searching for some suitable deal through which i could get my hands on some Android based mobile phone. Just a couple of days back, i did managed to try HTC Hero and i found it pretty exciting. With some discussion with the shop-owner (who i know very well), i somewhat finalized the deal. The very next day, i bought the set which was in pretty good condition. And here I am, a proud owner of Android mobile

Anyways, so far it looks like a very promising affair. Having some really cool features that include Customizable Home Screen, Context-based Searching, Generic Notifications (one area for all types of notifications), Pattern-based phone lock (security feature), Integrated Contacts Module (Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Google, SIM and Phone contacts) and Multi-Touch gestures for browser and gallery. The phone response is astonishing too. The QWERTY keyboard is really amazing with its suggestive features kicking in nicely. Some things that I find missing include a File Manager and Notes applications. Although these applications are available through Android Market for free but i would like them to be there as default applications as the available-ones are not made by Google itself.

Nearly Ruined:

Yesss, you read that right. I nearly ruined my smooth flight with this handy device. What happened was, somehow, I decided to reset the phone to its factory settings. I wanted to check the phone with its default settings since this phone was slightly used and the 1st owner might have changed some settings based on his likings. So, I did what I thought. The phone was reset and everything went fine. It was rebooted and was up-and-running. Sometime later, i noticed that the backlight of utility buttons and the notification LED were not working :S and that started my nightmare . I started searching wildly over the internet, trying to find a solution and, to my disappointment, i didn’t find the situation much encouraging. I was like ‘damn!!! Why did i do that’, and while i was cursing myself, i stumbled upon a forum that indicated a ROM update that could have solved this problem. Well, the way i got that update was another painful story but that did solve the problem for me.

So, that ends the story here. I will try to get the world posted about my adventures with this cool device

Until then,

Fi Amanillah!!!

Going Android!

 

So here it goes.. as the title might suggest, this post is somewhat ‘techy’, so those of you out there who don’t like to read this kinda stuff might find it a hell lot boring but i can’t help it.. m usually like this

For those of you who don’t know, Android is a mobile operating system cum platform that was unleashed by Google almost 2 years back. The move was not surprising coz Google is a company which always tries to do something different (they might have found the usual search-engine stuff a bit boring ). The OS is targeted to compete against “iPhone OS” (which is by far one of the most elegant mobile OS that has ever made, IMHO), with a difference that it is crafted to be more ‘open’ and ‘reachable’ from both the developers and consumers’ perspectives. It has the similar capabilities as the “iPhone OS” like the multi-touch and gravity-sensors support as well.

Android is based on Linux kernel so it is expected that the consumers may get loads of free applications for their handsets. Developers also don’t need to buy a separate licensed OS (with compatible hardware), SDK and developers’ license to build the applications for Android based phones as they would have required in case of iPhone development. The OS (or platform) is available as open source under an Apache license (src: Wikipedia). Google has done well by making the SDK flexible enough to support multiple platforms including Mac, Windows and Linux. More details can be found on the official developers’ site (http://developer.android.com).

The first handset that featured android was HTC’s Dream (aka ‘G1’). Released in October 2008, the handset wasn’t able to get much positive feedback from critics because of a somewhat premature OS. It had some serious performance glitches which made it fall down on its face. Developers also had some issues with that release due to poor documentation. Google has managed to reach out to a number of other vendors including Motorola, Samsung, SonyEricsson and LG. The latest version of the OS is number 2.0 and it is the most stable and feature-packed release to date. So far HTC has released the most number of handsets featuring Android OS. You can find more handsets backed by android platform on http://www.androphones.com/. 

More information and news about Android OS can be found here. I found an interesting video which introduces the platform in a very basic manner:

This marks the end of this post. I hope this was useful for some of you at-least

Until next time,

Fi AMANILLAH!

Making of a logo!

Assalamo Alaykum Readers,

It has been a long time since last time this poor blog saw a ‘fuzool c post’ i could not say that i’ve been busy ‘n all. But been thinking hard to do something that i haven’t tried before. Two days back an idea came into my mind and it struck me so hard (:P) that i instantly decided to do something about it.

I would try and walk you through the whole designing process in order to let you get the idea about how this was done.

First of all i created a curve resembling a mark that includes the initials of my name:

Left side of the curve in an ‘A’, ‘B’ on the right side… ‘U’ can be seen in the middle of these two and it extends to create ‘Y’ as well . After that all was pretty simple, created a rectangular curve and used the loft object to create a solid object similar to the curve:

  

While i was thinking of what to do next, another thing came into my mind. I copied this same curve three times and arranged the figures. Then assigned different material to each one and came up with this:

Not enough… created a terrain as well and assigned a grass texture to it. Placed the logo into the scene and changed the environment to carry a sky texture. Following are some final renders of the scene:

That ends the post!

Until next time,

Fi Aman Allah!!!

Hi-Tech One-liners ;)

Assalamo Alaykum Readers,

Here I am again with another ‘faarigh post’ . This time around I want to share some one-liners that I recently compiled (more precisely… recently = today ). So… witout further ado… here they are:

• I do know everything, just not all at once. It’s a virtual memory problem.
  
• Code so clean you could eat off it
  
• A core dump is your computer’s way of saying “Here’s what’s on my mind, what’s on yours?”
  
• A good programmer is someone who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street. – Doug Linder
  
• A program is a device used to convert data into error messages.
  
• Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
  
• All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?
  
• Application has reported a ‘Not My Fault’ in module KRNL.EXE in line 0200:103F
  
• Behind every good computer… is a jumble of wires ‘n stuff
  
• Beta. Software undergoes beta testing shortly before it’s released. Beta is Latin for ‘still doesn’t work.’
• C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg. – Bjarne ‘Stumpy’ Stroustrup
• Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.
  
• Error: Keyboard not attached. Press F1 to continue.
  
• Error: Sector not found — search behind couch? (Y/N)
  
• If the ‘Start Windows Restart when Windows starts’ check box is checked Windows Restart will start automatically every time Windows is started. – Actual excerpt from a windows program help file
• Marketer to coder: “You start coding. I’ll go find out what they want.”
  
• Real_men_don’t_need_spacebars.
  
• The three most dangerous things are a programmer with a soldering iron, a manager who codes, and a user who gets ideas.
• You know you’re obsessed with computer graphics when you’re outside and you look up at the trees and think, “Wow! That’s spectacular resolution!”
• You’ve heard about the computer programmer that died while washing his hair in the shower. The instructions said, ‘Lather, rinse, repeat.’

I hope you like them as i did. If not.. you have wasted your time.. now get back to work

Sony Bounces Back: Motion Based Gaming Experience

Assalamo Alaykum Readers,

It has been quite a while since you saw my post related to the same sphere (motion based controllers for consoles) and I wasn’t expecting to return to this very topic with some new name behind this technology. This year’s E3 saw the unleashing of Microsoft’s highly anticipated Project Natal and Microsoft must be given due credit for the way they have marketed the product so far. So much so, that we almost forgot to check what the industry’s leading name (i.e. Sony) has in its pockets to counter the hype.

Yesterday, while i was exploring gamespot.com, I got some glimpses of Sony’s step into this new war fought among industry’s giants for changing the gaming experience as a whole. The shocking thing is that the technology was introduced in the same E3 conference where Microsoft showed-off theirs.

So, here’s what I learned about this new tech up to now. First of all, this technology is not controller-free (as Project Natal, which according to Microsoft is a complete controller-free experience). Instead, it has a wireless controller having some sort of glowing ball connected to one end that can change its glow color. It has some internal sensors for detecting acceleration etc.  It will also host some buttons for performing different functions (trigger for firing a gun??). There would be a device (called PlayStation Eye… man!! this sounds SO familiar to me ) placed on top of your TV. The PlayStation Eye has the ability to detect motion, color and voice… all at once. The interesting part is that every motion of the controller is detectable, even if you rotate the controller along y-axis by just twisting your wrist.

Sony has definitely come up with a pretty interesting stuff here and it is expected to give tough time to its competitors (it has more potential than Wii Remote.. that’s for sure). Though the official name for this technology is hard to find yet, but some sites are referring to it as PlayStation Motion Controller.

As always, I am sharing a couple of videos for anyone who’s interested