World in Conflict & Today's PC Games

I started playing newest RTS game "World in Conflict". Which got really high rating in game review sites ( gamespot 9.5 !) . But it was a crashing experience. The game cannot be played (rather hangs) if U have more than the "low" detail which is rather confusing as I have a decent Video Card.

The game is good & seems to be a normal RTS, I'm sure it does not deserve a 9.5 rating... No Way ! Best thing about the game is the Solid story line which depicts a world war I/II type of a scenario. And the visual FX used to show mushroom clouds and bomb explosions are innovative.

But as a whole, most games nowadays are a bit boring. They have better graphics / visual effects which most of us casual gamers cannot see b'cus of low end video cards most of us have. nevethless the concepts are still the same. Most genre's like FPS (First person shooter) , Real time strategy (RTS) have similar or rather common story lines. We need something more.. diffrent concepts to surprise the gamers & take them to another level. This kind of out of the box thinking is not seen in recent years. Therefore game developers need to do more creative thinking and come up with different concepts rather than sticking to the same old stuff.

Entering LCD world

I got my 17 inch Samsung Monitor after various hesitation on which brand to by. ViewSonic is also a good choice but my older Samsung CRT performed well so went for the Samsung. It seems like new things becoming more affordable these days.

If u buy a LCD there are some differences from the usual CRT world we have used to. First the brightness. Most LCD users are saying their screen are more bright. of course u there is a brightness control, but for me it seems too bright no matter what. Second problem or the ajustment to make as a new LCD user is that the viewing angle is 90 degrees. I used to rotate a litte maybe 100 - 120 degrees in the CRT. Now with the LCD I need to ajust with the straightening screen hmm. Also we need to use the native the screen resolution, in my case 1282X1024 becuase if we change it to anyting else the fonts are blurred and the images are not clear. But on the good side I got more space on my computer table !! thats a bigger plus point !

My final conclusion is that LCD is way better than CRT spacially with gaming, interner surfing and entretionment stuff, reduced eye strain and the electricity bill.

For more info on LCD monitors go to: http://compreviews.about.com/od/multimedia/a/LCDSpecs.htm?terms=lcd+monitors

Vista

Windows Vista promises new features which might made me to upgrade in future release. One of the most important feature is the Windows ReadyBoost. with a USB thumb drive windows will be added as a physical RAM. So even if u're low in RAm with your USB drive we can increase it within minutes. Volume Shadow Copy is the other nice feature I was talking about. This will create backups of the files we delete or move. So that always we can undo the move or delete actions to the original files. These are the only feature that I think important aprt from the new look. Even the new Media player version 11 can't match up with features provided by open source players such as media player classic v6.4. I'm not sure why Microsoft is only considering about the look & feel of the software not the overall fuctionality. Looks like I'm going to use my favourite meida players:media player classic for videos & winamp for mp3, even with Windows Vista.

blogging

when I first started the blog few months ago , I searched other newly created personal blogs just to see how they are blogging. And what I saw was most of personal blogs have been abandoned long time back, no post were made recntly only the old one were there. Hmmm now I'm writing this blog after one month break. its not that I didn't have anything to say, but maybe the interest for blogging faded :-( anyway what i'm just doing is writing ( rather typing) a blog, so I'm re-entering to the blog world.

Python ?

Python ? Well I've never heard of it but considered to look about it today. As a software developer I've been "going with the flaw". My academic years JAVA was the teaching language for us and I also did a final year project in C#. But now in my job working as a PROGRESS developer (it's a programming language) . Most people never heard of PROGRESS either. anyway I got a 3d modelling software called "Blender" and just went through it and saw it was developed in python. The interface and user interactions are really good just like in a VB or C# application. If its written in java we can always tell b'cus the flicker type of interface and the slow type of performance in a windows enviroment. But as for a open source object oriented language this seems to be a great product. python language might become the standard OOP language of Open Source community.

The Weather Man

Finally today I got a sense of cold rainy day after couple of months of "HOT & Sunny" days. B'cus of the Weather pattern in Sri Lanka, its very difficult to do anything, that is if you go outside. Very high temperatures can be seen in Colombo B'cus the SUN is directly above our country usually from march to April. When talking about weather reminds me of "The weather Man" movie starring Nicholas Cage. Its a "lost in translation" type movie which tells the life of the weather anchor of a local tv station. The story goes as ordinary troubled marriage life of the weather Man and how he tries to change it with all the happenings around him. Also it give a good message for fat people, which is his daughter always wears cloths that shows the fatness of herself b'cus she's wearing cloths that normally used/Fit to slim girls. and later with some help from her father gets new clothes that fit to her personality. In the end the movie gives something for us to ponder about; We can't change the way we are, but been nice to others and trying to do things that best fit us can make us live a happy life .

Been the Best Programmer

Software Development engineers (programmers for short) including myself (yes I'm a programmer ) thinks that whatever we do in the 0ffice environment- projects,bug fixing etc will give us the knowlege & experiance needed to conquer the field of IT. But if U check this article on Practicing Programming , we might have to re-think.

Here's quote that describes what I mean; "Contrary to what you might believe, merely doing your job every day doesn't qualify as real practice. Going to meetings isn't practicing your people skills, and replying to mail isn't practicing your typing. You have to set aside some time once in a while and do focused practice in order to get better at something." I learned a lot from that article and I'm going to try some of the Drills he's suggesing.