Sunday, June 18, 2006

Popular Search

okay, a quick post... Popular Search on Yahoo! Search - top Aishwarya Rai - http://www.yahoo.com/

Friday, June 09, 2006

Terraserver - Keyhole – WorldWind - Google Earth - Virtual Earth

CAUTION: This post is going to change reader's experience from personal to developer.

Terraserver – I remember using this service a long time back in 1999. This is probably the first web site to give earth view from satellites on internet, but sadly it could only show some parts of US and Canada and not all, particularly famous places. Service provided by Microsoft, yes Virtual Earth is not something which Microsoft did for first time, they did Terraserver a long back. Know some really interesting facts about Terraserver here, and yes developer friendly.

Keyhole – I remember using product from this company couple of years back, I liked it a lot, but again only US. I really liked software from this company, because they had support for developers as well. For example it allows me to develop application which can take data from the Keyhole calculate distance from one place to the other and can do lot of things.

WorldWind – This is one really cool application from NASA, which does same thing as what other applications do, application is developed using .NET and Managed DirectX and best part is its source code is available to download, so you can go to its web site and download its source code and play around with it, add more features of your own do whatever you want, but you can’t sell it. Interesting thing about WorldWind is that it’s from NASA, it has lots of things based on SPACE view, etc… really interesting to try at least once.

Google Earth – some of you might not have heard about the above applications or products or services, but am pretty sure, everyone have heard about Google Earth and have used it. Google actually bought Keyhole company and added a little features here and there in the product and called it Google Earth, interface remains the same, and almost everything is same, only few features here and there. Bad thing about Google Earth is it’s does not have any support for developers, good thing about it is that its fast. I just wonder why they removed developer support what keyhole used to give.

Virtual Earth – this is from Microsoft, after success of Google Earth, Microsoft decided to come in market with their own software to compete Google. And they named it Virtual Earth, it has more features than that of Terraserver + lots of things. Good thing about this product is that, it has lots of developer support, and bad thing its slow.

Now, you must be wondering why suddenly am writing about it. Well it appears to be my friend at Delhi wants to take admission in Mumbai college, and I am helping her with that, she asked for St. Xavier’s college stuff, etc… and as I was going to Churchgate I said I will get form for her, I knew that College is at Churchgate but not sure where exactly in Churchgate, so I opened up Google Earth and located the college, and yeah it’s great product, so I thought to write about it with all history stuffs.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Writing a Book

I am a book worm, I do read lot of books and I got bunch of books at home and you will find at least one book in my bag along with my Laptop, Pad, Pens, Badge, CDs, and lot of other things.

I generally read almost all types of books, but my most favorite. books are those which deals with philosophy, history, autobiography, stories, novels, and knowledge related books. Yeah you got it right, computer books are not my favorite to read.

Being a book worm I always want to write my own book, many times I thought of writing book on different topics, but one topic in which I can write book easily and can write well will be on computer stuff rather than writing book on history or something else.

So, finally I have decided to touch very interesting topic but very less books you will find on this topic. So while I was thinking of writing book on a topic, other idea stroked in my mind, and which is surely going to make it worth reading book and trying it out.

I got book on 3D Studio Max - named Foundations of 3DS Max 6, software is most used 3D Animation Software in media industry, for creating game animations, models, also animation and special effects in movies. The book is not at all related to general programming or game programming but it deals with the 3D Modeling and Animation.

Then I have got book on DirectX - named Managed DirectX 9 Kick Start : Graphics and Game Programming, DirectX is used to develop games on Windows Platform, I will write more about DirectX sometime later, like why DirectX is required and why we cant really just write games directly without using DirectX, in fact really nice question, but will explain it a bit later on.

And lastly got one book on Game Programming - named Beginning .NET Game Programming in VB.NET, book deals with not just .NET Game Programming but also talk a lot about fundamentals of developing game, etc...

Okay, so while I was reading all three books and going through them, I decided to develop one fanatic game. But used to face lots of difficulties as Game development needs nice 3D Graphics, book helped me in creating them, but fails to create models which I can use for game development and had figure out things by myself and similar problems with the game programming, game programming talks about using model but model was simple 3d model and not flexible for to be use in game programming so again failed and faced a lot of problem with that, but after a lot of struggle able to do it :D.

Now, the coolest idea which I mentioned earlier is that, now that I am expert in 3D Max, already expert in Programming and also Game Development I have decided to write a single book which coveres all topics of Game Programming, which includes 3D Animation and Modeling + Game Fundamentals + Game Programming + DirectX Programming and I might include something on Music ??? yeah Music, I can play music very well (4years of training :D), but don't have good electronic keyboard with me, but I am going to buy one soon, but let's see might include in book, not sure about Music, but special effect sounds for sure are going to there and how to use them.

So did you like my idea? you heard about One Stop Shop, now its One Book Develop Full Game. I am not going to completely devote my time in writing this book. Will be also posting other things on blog, but will also show progress of my book writing.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Ransomware

New worm hits the machines named "Ransomware", which encrypts everything in My Documents folder, so if you try to open it up it asks for some 30 characters password, now I have got that password, now I have not cracked the password just got it from the news web site, here is the password to decrypt it:

mf2lro8sw03ufvnsq034jfowr18f3cszc20vmw.

Please inform your friends about the same, post on your blog as well.

News Link - http://timesonline.typepad.com/technology/2006/06/the_archiveus_t.html

Monday, June 05, 2006

Dhaval Faria's Blog

Hey Everyone,

Changing my blog from http://www.dhavalfaria.com to http://dhavalfaria.blogspot.com for a time being.

Reason: Not able to maintain server properly right now, but once I have enough time and enough resource I will again move to http://www.dhavalfaria.com.

Now about Blog - I will be posting same things that I used to post earlier but this time will make it make more sense and will be giving more information.

Color BLACK: why I choose, is because the images that I will be posting on blog, and things which I will write on blog should come out clearly and should create the environment such, so thats why black color template :).

So keep visiting my blog :)

Dhaval Faria.