Is Piracy Killing the PC Gaming Industry ?
Written by Jai on May 8, 2008 – 6:40 am - 246 views
I have been a PC gamer for the past fifteen years. I play a lot of games on my PC in my free time, not only to unwind, but also to satiate the hardcore gamer inside me. Off lately, I have been following many gaming forums and websites which are talking about the downfall of the PC gaming scene because of the increasing piracy of the games. This fact is really disturbing for me as I have been an avid gamer and do not want to lose one of my most passionate hobbies.
The downfall is evident from the fact that most of the popular game titles are being released for the consoles even before they make their appearance on the PC, or even a declaration is made that they will be available for the PC. Popular games like GTA (Grand Theft Auto) which were exclusive for the PC in the past years, are now being launched for the consoles first (take the example of the latest GTA IV which has been already released for PS3 and XBOX360) rather than the PC. The foremost reason would be the falling sales figures of the PC titles and the rapid increase in the piracy of games. And because of this reason, major game publishers are switching to the consoles arena where the piracy element is much less. Although some companies are adopting new methods for game distribution like Valve which sells their titles through their online distributor (Steam) which allows you to download all the game content after you have purchased it online. Some game publishers also use strict copy-protection techniques, but then again, these methods install extra software into your computers and totally kill the experience for the gamers.
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Written by Jai on May 6, 2008 – 8:57 am - 707 viewsThe most successful free WordPress theme on Blog Oh! Blog till date has been Bob V2.0 and this is visible by the number of comments and trackbacks that people have left for that theme.
Following on those lines, I am releasing the 3rd version of the Bob theme called BobV3, but this one does not come for free like the previous versions. This will be a Premium WordPress theme priced at $89.99. I know that a lot of people like BobV2.0 and will not really mind spending some money to upgrade their themes and take their blogs to the next level.
Design & Layout
BobV3 has a very unique layout which cannot be found anywhere on the Internet. The front page of the blog (which usually is set to display ten entries at a time) has been divided into different sections which will let you display all your posts without having the user to scroll down the page. This has been accomplished by using excerpts and the accordion feature of the Mootools JavaScript library. So if you have your blog’s front page set to show ten blog entries, you will see the first entry in full, next two entries in excerpts and the last seven entries in the form of an accordion. This accordion has also been integrated with the first entry so you have only one full post open at a time. This will allow your readers to browse your lengthy entries without any hassles by expanding and collapsing the entry titles.
The archives and the search page have also been styled for maximum ease to find information on your blog.
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Written by Jai on May 2, 2008 – 12:14 pm - 1,235 views
You are using a neat WordPress theme with an image header but want to have multiple images that you can randomize on your blog? Here is how to go about it…
STEP 1 - Editing Images
Make all your header images that you want to randomize of the same size (dimensions) and format. For example, if you have GIF images then all should be of the same extension. I hope you get the point.
STEP 2 - Naming Images
All the names of your header images should follow a similar pattern. Here is an example we will use :-
blogtop-1.gif
blogtop-2.gif
blogtop-3.gif
blogtop-4.gif
We do this because when writing the code, we will try to randomize the number part (logically, randomization is done by numbers in any programming language) and keep the text part similar for all.
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Written by Jai on April 29, 2008 – 4:07 pm - 1,346 views
I am thankful to Google because it has made the Internet a better place for all of us by releasing a number of very useful utilities in the past few years. Almost all of us use Google.com for their every day search on the Internet, and also other Google services like Gmail, Gtalk, Orkut etc. But there are some Google products that you might have forgotten about or might not be aware of. Here is a list of those not-so-popular tools that can definitely make your life easier :-
- Google Hot Trends (May 2007)
I highly recommend this tool if you are a webmaster and looking for hot topics and keywords that people are searching for in their daily lives. This can even help you as a blogger to choose the most current topic in your niche to write on. The tool lists all the hot trends by date and its very easy to switch between dates as per the calendar. This Google product is still in the Labs (experimental phase), but I have been using it for a long time now.
- Google SketchUp (January 2007)
Google SketchUp is a 3D (3-dimensional) modeling program designed for professionals to use in their every day projects. SketchUp may also be used to design buildings to be displayed on Google Earth (another application from Google that allows you to view satellite maps of the earth). SketchUp has been developed to be more intuitive, flexible, and easier to use than other 3D modeling programs like 3D Studio Max, MAYA etc. which are often difficult to learn for an average user. Several features allow designers to play with their designs, unlike other 3D CAD programs.
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Written by Jai on April 28, 2008 – 4:08 pm - 1,238 viewsI just found this really nice flash game which tests your concentration skills. You have to move your mouse cursor slowly without touching the edges and get to the finishing point. The game has various levels and if you make through all of them, consider yourself a real player 
So, how steady is your hand?
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Written by Jai on April 26, 2008 – 1:16 pm - 2,584 viewsI am proud to release another free WordPress theme called “AdsPress“. The theme is ready to use with Google Adsense and the advertisement blocks are perfectly placed (tested & tried) for giving you the maximum revenue out of your websites.
This is a widgetized, gravatar ready, 2-column theme with inbuilt WordPress 2.5 gallery optimization. I am sure that people looking to benefit from Google’s Adsense publisher program will find this WordPress theme useful for the purpose. I have also included the logo.psd file for modifying the logo image in the theme folder.
The adsense codes are included as images for the theme demo, but you can modify the adsense files and include your own adsense code to show your advertisements.
AdsPress is compatible with WordPress 2.5 and has been tested with Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Please give your comments to make this effort worthwhile for me
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Written by Jai on April 24, 2008 – 10:19 am - 1,055 views
Every blogger has got two basic choices when building his own blog— Either he can sign up for a hosted solution, or he can install a serve-it-yourself solution and take care of it on your own. Signing up for a hosted solution is generally easier (especially if you don’t already have your own website and you’re not terribly interested in jumping through a hoop or two to get one), while installing a serve-it-yourself solution can be more powerful.
Popular hosted blogging CMS (Content Management Systems) include Blogger.com, Typepad.com, Vox.com, Squarespace.com, and others. With these services, you simply access the site, go through a registration process and, in some cases, enter your payment information to cover the monthly fee. (Some are free, some require payment.) These are hosted services - somebody else worries about the Internet server, setting up the Web addresses and all that sort of stuff. You’re given a URL for your site (mostly a sub-domain), some online tools for editing your blog (and, perhaps, for editing the template and making some minor changes to the functionality), and you’re ready to go. With a serve-it-yourself CMS (like WordPress) you’ll need to do a little legwork. First, you’ll need some sort of web hosting account from an Internet Service Provider. You might already have something along those lines from the Internet Service Provider that you use for Internet access, or you may need to shop for a web hosting account that will support the specifications of your blogging software.
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Written by Jai on April 21, 2008 – 1:08 pm - 2,384 views
Its contest time guys! Woo Hoo!
I have not yet moved from a PlayStation 2 to a PlayStation 3 myself, but I am offering a golden chance to all my blog readers to win a brand new Sony PlayStation 3 plus a free PS3 video game of your choice. For a long time, I had been thinking of running this contest on Blog Oh! Blog but didn’t get a chance to make the post. I would also like to mention that this contest is not being sponsored by anyone..This is directly from me to all of you So here it is, finally!
The Playstation 3 console worth $399.99 ships with the following features as per Amazon.com :-
* Internal 40GB HDD for storing your games, music, and photos
* Built-in Blu-ray player
* Cell Broadband Engine advanced microprocessor
* SIXAXIS wireless controller (very cool!)
* Screen sizes supported : 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
* Memory : 256MB XDR Main RAM, 256MB GDDR3 VRAM
Apart from the PS3 console, I will also give the winner an opportunity to choose any PS3 video game (already launched or order a pre-release) which should easily be worth $60 (most new titles that ship out are priced at $59.99). So, you will have something to play on your new console as soon as you win it!
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Written by Jai on April 19, 2008 – 11:45 pm - 1,240 views
If you are new to WordPress and looking for reasons to use WordPress as a CMS (content management system) in your new website, let me give you some.
Open Source Software
WordPress is an Open Source software which allows it to be used free of cost. You can use it on any kind of personal or commercial website without have to pay a single dime for it. It is built on PHP/MySQL (which is again Open Source) and licensed under GPL.
User Friendly
You don’t really have to be experienced to use WordPress on your website. Nowadays most of the hosting companies provide the ability to install WordPress on your site at a single click of the mouse. The administration section is easy to navigate and its even easy to add articles/content to your website.
Themes Support
You will never run short of templates when using WordPress. If you don’t like the themes that come with the default installation of WordPress, you can hunt on the Internet and you will find thousands of free themes that you can download and use for your website. There are themes which can even make your website look like a regular site instead of a blog.
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