Technology | WWW.Design

Design for Your Gaming Blog or Website

If you have a gaming hobby, you may find that you want to talk about it. There are many ways to do this, and blogging is one of the most popular today. Because of this, more and more people are starting to make websites based around betting, gambling, and gaming. If this is something that you are interested in, you may find that you need to come up with the perfect design for your new website or blog.

Many people decide to go with some of the basic, classic colors of gaming and betting. Blacks, reds, and greens tend to be popular for gaming blogs and websites. Another option is to take cards from games of bingo, and use them as backgrounds on your website. This can add a fun element to your site.

When talking about design on a website, you never want to forget about the header. This is a crucial part not only of your design, but also of your marketing itself. The header has to tie into the rest of the site, so that it all looks like a cohesive site. An example of this would be if you have bingo cards on the rest of the site, it can look awkward to have a roulette table in your header. Keeping the same theme throughout the site can help people understand the basis of your blog or website.

Design is a very personal choice. You want it to reflect what you are talking about in your blog or website, but there is so much that you can vary that you will want to make sure it also reflects you.

Gaming – From Console to Online

Image via Wikipedia

The gaming industry has grown a great deal over the past few decades. Moving from the popular console gaming systems that dominated throughout the 80s and majority of the 90s, to more advanced and interactive online computer gaming. The shift was subtle, but seemed to go by extremely quickly. This is simply due to the fact that technology is becoming more advanced at a seemingly exponential rate. In addition, video game designers and developers listened to the demands of the public and put forth the effort to produce more graphically enhanced games. The Nintendo Entertainment System boasted a sufficient 8-bit processor in its hay-day, which was the standard and nobody had any complaints. Years later, the coveted 16-bit systems came out: The Super Nintendo and Genesis, which quickly paved the way for the 32-bit Playstation and eventual 64-bit Nintendo 64.

As graphics became more of an emphasis for manufacturers and game developers, people began looking for other areas of gaming that they wanted improved. Among one of the more widely sought after aspects includes that of multi-player capabilities. People were wanting to experience these games with their friends in a setting that would allow for more than simply two players. Around this same time, computers were becoming a more common household item. In conjunction with computers becoming a more common household item, Internet access was becoming an equally popular commodity to supplement the computer.

Computers, and more specifically, Internet access opened a whole new area of gaming up to the public. Now, you can find all types of games online. Everything from games of bingo to games of war. With computers, people could get together and build a LAN for multi-player gaming.

Additionally, the Internet provided this concept on a much wider scale, without requiring people to leave their home in order to participate in multi-player online gaming. First person shooters were among the most popular in the multi-player genre, and introduced environments in which players could play in the same setting with 30 or more other players. These games consisted of cooperation games, or free-for-all games in which it was every man for himself. Online gaming has since become a dominant source in the industry.

Data Processing: Investigating

Understanding the data processing of a computer will happen when the user learns how the computer represents and stores data. All data and the various programs are stored as files. A collection of stored data is known as a computer file. Now an executable file is one that contains specific instructions that relay messages to the computer on how to perform a certain task.

An individual user creates the data files, generally with detailed software. Here is where it can get very confusing. The terms that are used in the human language are meaningless when it comes to the computer. A computer has to interpret every signal as either “on” or “off.” The computer represents data as dissimilar or separate numbers.

For example, it represents “on” with a 1 and “off” with a 0. These numbers are defined as called binary digits or bits. A series of eight bits is considered a byte, and a kilobyte (KB or K) is around 1024 bytes. A gigabyte (GB) is approximately one billion bytes! And just for informational purposes a terabyte (TB) is approximately one trillion bytes!

Generally most PC’s or personal computers use the ASCII system to signify character data. (ASCII, American Standard Code for Information Interchange) The original ASCII utilized 7 bits to stand for the numbers 0 to 127 to stand for the 128 common characters and non-printing control characters. For that reason bits are typically arranged in bytes, the eighth bit is saved and used for error checking. Most computers use the original version of ASCII, but not all computers use the dame definitions for the extended version of ASCII.

Network Admin: Ins & Outs

Network Administration is described in different ways. NetWare is sometimes called an operating system while others call it simply protocol. Each network is much more than operating systems and protocols. All network systems have to determine the physical dynamics in the decision processes.

NetWare generally runs on pretty much any type of cabling that is used such as: twisted pair, coax, and fiber. There are also NetWare drivers for almost any hardware that maybe needed in network installation. Coordinating all these aspects creates networking as a commanding and unique discipline, and makes the responsibility of troubleshooting a network fastidiously challenging.

There is generally a natural interplay that occurs between each working component that may be composed from various manufacturers, which makes it difficult to pinpoint one isolated issue.

So what is the difference between a file server and an application server? A file server is a laymen’s term for a device that handles basic programs and data on a LAN. These could be print services, communication services, word processing programs and files, email, and many more. Ultimately, the user typically creates an explicit connection to a specific file server through drive mapping.

Now an application server acts as client’s machines on a LAN and necessitates the presence of a file server to give low-level transport protocols. Also, an application server can give a certain service on a LAN at the discrete demand of an application (the client). From that a calling application, other than the user, which the connection is, develops the dialog with the server. The service is transparent to the particular user.

Things to consider: Web design

There are some essential elements that are required to establish a successful web design. Here are some tips on what many consider important factors when creating a site:

Content. The content that is used needs to be interesting and useful to the observer. Try to stay away from using too much technical jargon, overwhelming amounts of information, and leading the reader in circles of confusion. The goal is to bring users back to the site, rather than driving them away!
User-friendly navigation. The purpose here is to enhance the visitor’s usage of the site, and not to detract or confuse them. Some of the best graphics and content won’t be beneficial if the visitor cannot figure out how to find various resources.
Printing of the site. It is not uncommon for a designer to get caught up in the graphic effects and overall beauty of the site, and not take into account potential printing issues. Many consumers print off information to take with them to read at home, in the car, airport and so on. So this is a tip that needs to be taken into account when building a site.
Page loading. We are living in an era of fast paced, ever-changing technology. The fact is computers, browsers, and Internet connection speeds are continuing to increase, however, there are still consumers that have connection speeds that are less than 56k. Try to keep elements of the site that consume excess bandwidth to a minimum.
Updated sites. It is imperative to the success of a site to keep it updated so that the user reading will be able to trust the information. Try to provide accurate, up-to-date information as often as feasible.

There are many other useful tips, but these should at least begin a list for the designer to begin researching on what works for their site.

Watching Videos Need Not Be Costly

A video codec is software that compresses or decompresses video formats like MP4, AVI, MPEG and so forth. Codecs work hand in hand with various streaming protocols so that users may watch digital videos on their computers. The two primary codecs are for MPEG-4 videos are DivX and Xvid. DivX is proprietary software whereas Xvid is free.
A streaming protocol is software that allows you to play video either from your hard drive or from the internet. The most popular protocols are QuickTime from Apple, Windows Media Player from Microsoft and VideoLAN and the VideoLAN Client (VLC) which are free. Of course there are others but VLC is an incredibly powerful tool that will meet the requirements of most video watchers. There is no need to pay for a protocol when VLC is available for free and can do everything that the others can as well.
Should one decide to watch XviD videos and other videos from the internet, they could do this for absolutely free by downloading VLC (or by purchasing one of the other viewers) and watch videos from most online video sites such as Youtube. VLC supports most audio and video file formats and codecs so often one does not need to download anything other than VLC. This is a great incentive for users who are not technologically advanced to use this product. Once downloaded, VLC can be associated to all file types which will then run automatically when clicked.
The Xvid codec installation file is freely available from Xvid.org or from various file hosting sites throughout the internet.

How Computers Have Changed Movies

If we take a look back to the evolution of the film and motion picture industry, it is truly remarkable how far we have come. Moving from silent movies to the spectacular 3-D phase that is becoming the standard; one can only imagine where the film industry will be in another decade. Through the journey of enhancing the viewing experience for audiences, there have been many talented people who have worked diligently to deliver the most visually appealing and unbelievable pictures that in short, boggle the imagination. With the inception of computers into the mix, the film industry has blown the doors open on what they can accomplish, with virtually no limitations at this point.

Obviously, there are still important aspects of the film industry that will not change, these pieces all come together in accomplishing a like goal. Among some of the more known include make-up artists, film-score composers, and directors. However, in terms of the capabilities of what the finished product will actually look like, computers are the new kid on the block that continue to push the limits of what can be accomplished. The most prevalent and most noticeable as of late are the types of creatures that can be programmed and developed by a computer and be viewed as a realistic entity in the finished product of the movie. Prior to computers being able to do this, expensive costumes and extensive make-up was required in order to accomplish similar feats, and many times, these attempts, while impressive, could still be seen through quite easily.

Additionally, disasters and unworldly events that occur within specific movies no longer have to rely completely on small scale models to portray the action; computers can mimic the event in an intensive realistic and visually extravagant display that functions precisely in correlation with the movie.

In all, computers have vastly increased the visual experience of movies in general. With all of the accomplishments that have been made, it is amazing to think of the potential that remains to be seen.

Web Design E-Books

Many books can be purchased at the store on all areas of web design but the same information can be gotten for free on the Internet. This article will describe those e-books and guides that will facilitate building effective, accessible and informative web sites in very little time.

Under the category of general web design e-books is the “Web Style Guide” which is a practical e-book that helps in the process of designing web sites. It provides information on basic design principles that will make web page content that is created as easy to understand as possible. The “Web Typography Style Guide” provides information on fonts used on web pages and on how text can be made to be readable and attractive. Both “Web Design at Wikiversity” and “Web Design from Scratch” are designed to cover the topics of the basic skills used in web design. “Laura Lemay’s Guide to Sizzling Web Sites” is more a of a hands-on reference guide that serves to increase one’s knowledge about web design in order to make better web sites.

Another category of web design e-books is on the use of cascading style sheets and HTML. The “Complete CSS Guide” has comprehensive material about cascading style sheets. It not only acts a reference for learning about them but provides information about properties, selectors and all other aspects of cascading style sheets. “HTML Dog: The Best Practice Guide To XHTML and CSS” is a comprehensive, concise and informative resource on HTML and cascading style sheets and how to make the best use of them in designing web pages. It can also be used as a reference book to look up any topic regarding HTML and cascading style sheets. “Using HTML”, second edition, covers advanced techniques in using HTML in order to create high end web pages.

Web Design Color Tools

Color is important to the design of a web page and there are many tools available to facilitate the use of color in web page design.

One of them is the Accessibility Color Wheel. It serves to analyze the color contrast of foreground and background colors on a web site and determine their readability. It also simulates the colors that people who are color blind see on a web page so as to able to determine if a web page is readable for them as well. Another tool that is used to help people with vision problems related to color is CheckMyColours. It checks the contrast of various combinations of foreground and background colors and objects to determine if they would be viewable by people with color deficiencies. To assist in the selection of good color schemes for different types of graphics is ColorBrewer. It is an easy to use package that is free and available from the web.

There are additional tools that help with the selection of colors and verifying their contrast. One of them is Contrast Analyser from the Paciello group. This package is used to check the visibility of foreground and background color combinations to determine if they meet preset ratios. Another Color Contrast Analyser from Black Widow Design also checks the contrasts of colors to determine if they are too high. Too much color contrast on a web page makes it difficult for people with dyslexia to read a web page. Colour Contrast Analyser from Vision Australia uses color visibility algorithms that have been determined by the World Wide Web Consortium which has preset ranges for color brightness and color difference. These are 125 for the former and 500 for the latter. Considerations of color have to be made for web pages that are displayed on different types of screens and for people who may have various difficulties in viewing a screen.

Web Design Background Tips

The backgrounds that are used are an important part of web page design. If a large background image is used, it will take a long time to load and slow down a web site. A seamless image can be used that is as little as 3 Kilobytes in size because this image is tiled across the background and does not display its borders when done so. This results in simpler and faster loading web pages.

With regard to background colors of web sites, there should be contrast between the colors used in the foreground and colors used in the background. Background colors should not be bright ones but more like pastel shades. When designing the use of colors on a web page, it is important to test the colors of links, active links and visited links so that the resulting color palette is a desirable one. Foreground text should also be clear and tested out. It should be viewed from a distance of 3 feet and still be readable with the chosen colors.

The use of Flash has become popular on web sites because it made possible putting simple animation on a web site. Flash animations are easy to create and are often used as introductions on the home pages of web sites. However, more often than not they serve little purpose except to animate a web site for the sake of animation. In addition, because Flash animations typically use images which tend to be on the large size, they increase the time for a web page to load. If a Flash animation includes music and sound files, these files make the animation even larger and increases even more the time for a web page to load. In addition, if keywords which help a web site to be found by a search engine are embedded in the Flash animation, they will not be found as search engines cannot follows the links created in Flash movies.