Kokul’s World

This article is for my fellow Canadians, well more specifically my fellow Ontarians. So I am sorry for those who feel left out, I’ll write a more internationally focused article next time. If you are a senior high school student like me (grades 11 or 12) or somebody who wants to go back to school Continue reading →

This article is for my fellow Canadians, well more specifically my fellow Ontarians. So I am sorry for those who feel left out, I’ll write a more internationally focused article next time.

If you are a senior high school student like me (grades 11 or 12) or somebody who wants to go back to school to get another degree or improve upon your current one, and have no clue which university you want to go to, then the Ontario University Fair is for you. It happens yearly in the Fall where 20 of Ontario’s universities travel to Toronto to gather under one roof.

You are able to speak to representatives about different programs at various universities. It is a great place to get started on your search for a university. It is being held at the Metro Toronto Convention Center in downtown Toronto. Across the road from it, there will be an International University event where you can learn about universities abroad. Even better, the skywalk that connects the convention center to Union Station will be host to an exhibit called Student Life which shows what students can do as an alternative to university.

Just check it out. It starts today, Friday September 29, 2006 and goes on through the weekend until the October 1.

More info at http://www.ouf.ca/

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Here are some great online games that you can play for FREE on low end computers. This is kind of a follow up to my previous post where I talked about great games you can play on those lower end computers. However most of those games don’t have much of an online community left to Continue reading →

Here are some great online games that you can play for FREE on low end computers. This is kind of a follow up to my previous post where I talked about great games you can play on those lower end computers. However most of those games don’t have much of an online community left to play against in multiplayer, if any at all. So for those who still crave a multiplayer challenge here are some free games for you:

• Gunbound World Champion
  This is a very cool 2D platform game very similar to worms where players are organized on teams and take turns shooting each other. The shooting isn’t that easy since you have to adjust the angle, account for wind, and find the right power to shoot at. To make it harder, these factors always change as you are facing other players. Terrain is destroyed so you may lose your vantage point. Unlike worms, this game has a large variety of mobiles you can use. Mobiles are the machines/living forms that you use to shoot other people. Their attacks vary, and each has it’s advantages against a certain other. Very large online community.
   
• Gunz Online
  A 3D third person shooter with a large online community. It also tosses in some Matrix/Prince of Persia style elements like the player can run up walls, run across gaps by running along walls, do a variety of aerobatics such as front sommersaults while shooting to add a lot of variety to the game. The game features a vareity of equipment you can buy such as swords, bazookas, machine guns, rifles, and a large number of guns where you hold one in each hand.
   
• Survival Project
  This is a 2D fighting game where you take on a character, use a variety of different cards such as axes, bows, magic, boots, etc to improve your stats. You can fight against other people and team up with others to go on quests. Although many think the 2D style of graphics may ruin the game, it actually doesn’t. The graphics are colourful and vibrant, and the gameplay is great fun!
    
• 02 Jam
  This isn’t a game I’ve actually played, but I’ve heard positive comments from many others and read many positive reviews about it. In this game, you be that aspiring musician you always wanted to be. You can make music in this game and share it with a large and helpful online community. You can team up with your friends and make some rocking songs, or go solo. Either way, your artistic desire to create music is fulfilled.
    
• Neopets
  I’m pretty sure many of you have heard of this game. Although it isn’t real-time online where you interact with others in real-time, I think it is worthwhile to mention. The point of this game is to create a virtual pet and raise it. You have to take care of it, by feeding it, grooming it, even giving it books to get smarter. You can do a lot with your pet, battle it against other pets like a Pokemon battle, build a house for it, create a shop to sell your wares, create/join a guild, play flash games to earn neopoints, even buy your pet a pet! It’s addictive and fun to play. Perfect for those who want a pet, but can’t have one in real life.
    
• Runescape
  First off, I would just like to say, this game has A TON of players. Although the graphics may not be great, the gameplay definetely is. Runescape is an online game that is run through a java web-based client. You live in a mythical world of various monsters. You can make your way through the world through a lot of ways. You can improve your skills and be a fighter. Improve your mining skills and sell ores. Improve your smelting skills to forge new swords and armour from ore and sell them. You can even improve your fire makings skills, wood chopping skills, and even fishing skills. You can make fire to cook food, fish, fight monsters, and mine. The name for this game comes from the Runes you collect to cast spells. If you want to be a powerful player in this game, you need to collect runes and you should also pay for the premium membership as well (even though for casual playing you don’t have to).
    
• Conquer Online
  Conquer Online is like Runescape, except with a far larger community and better graphics. Conquer Online I feel has better gameplay too. There is more variety with the equipment you can have. There is also classes in Conquer Online, 4 to be exact. Conquer Online is set in the Ancient Chinese world where Kung Fu is a dominant skill that everyone knows. You can make your way through mining, hunting monsters, killing other players, and collecting their loot and selling it in shops if you want. As I said before, the equipment choices are large. In fact, the combinations are endless. You can trick out your sword or armour a variety of different skills like Elite, Refined. You can add gems to increase power or the amount of experience gained. Not only can you hunt, but you can own a house, get married, join in guild wars, and just plain make new friends online.
     
• Flyff
  Flyff was created to fulfill people’s dreams to fly. It is like Runescape and Conquer Online where you level yourself and your skills while earning money and making friends, but once you reach level 20, the real fun starts! That is when you can fly! It is very cool to fly across the world instead of having to walk. You can also directly control the flying instead of just click where you want the character to go. Flying is also a lot faster. Try it out. A lot of people play. No matter where you go, you will see other players playing as well.
     
• Ragnarok Online
  Never really played this game. It is like Flyff, Conquer Online and Runescape. But then again so are a lot of online games. This game has recieved many high ratings and positive comments. So check it out. Large gaming community there as well.
     
• Anarchy Online
  Never have played this game either. Seen the reviews and ratigns on MMORPG.com and it has one of the highest ratings for a free game. Although it is a couple of years old, and the graphics look dated, the large online community of players find it anyways. So you try it out. What have you got to lose?

Hope you enjoyed this list of games. If you have your own, leave them in the comments and please add a few sentences for a description of the game. I’ll add it on to the list.

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Well let’s face it, not everyone can afford to blow $3000+ dollars on a brand new gaming comp. A lot of us out there still have old PIIIs or new computers from OEMs that only have an Intel Extreme integrated graphics card. Now I’ll tell you one thing, never buy any computer that comes with Continue reading →

Well let’s face it, not everyone can afford to blow $3000+ dollars on a brand new gaming comp. A lot of us out there still have old PIIIs or new computers from OEMs that only have an Intel Extreme integrated graphics card. Now I’ll tell you one thing, never buy any computer that comes with an onboard graphics card, it will not work with any game that was made in the past 2 years guarenteed. So for those who still want to game, here are some great games you can play:

• Age of Empires I and II
• Rise of Nations
• Star Trek Bridge Commander
• Ground Control 1 and 2
• Diablo II
• Warcraft 3
• Sid Meier’s Pirates!
• Civilization 1, 2, 3
• Star Craft and Star Craft Brood War Expansion
• Command and Conquer: Red Alert
• Empire Earth
• Freelancer
• Galactic Civilizations II
• Quake 3
• Unreal Tournament 2003, 2004
• Counterstrike 1.6
• Black and White
• Command and Conquer: Generals
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
• Grand Theft Auto Series

Add any of your own suggestions in the comments!

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If you are like me, and just biting your nails to whether Microsoft’s Zune will be an Ipod-killer (which I hope it to be), then you must read this Engadget article that includes more details and the packaging that the Zune is supposed to come in. Zune, the odds and ends wrapup – Engadget Will Continue reading →

If you are like me, and just biting your nails to whether Microsoft’s Zune will be an Ipod-killer (which I hope it to be), then you must read this Engadget article that includes more details and the packaging that the Zune is supposed to come in.

Zune, the odds and ends wrapup – Engadget

Will the Zune be able to beat the Ipod. Well maybe it can. Although the Ipod has a well-established image, reputation and customer base, considering how Microsoft did with it’s Xbox, it isn’t completely impossible. Microsoft door-crashed the video game console party with their newbie, Xbox. Although it had to compete against previously established Sony Entertainment and Nintendo, Microsoft did surpisingly well, gaining it’s own chunk of market share, beating out Nintendo.

So when Microsoft releases the Zune, it’s going to get it’s own small chunk on market share, beating out many companies already in the market. By the time the next-gen versions of the Zune come around, it should have gained quite a sizable chunk of the market. After a couple of years, it will have a good chance of beating Ipod.

Now to all you Apple/Ipod fanboys out there, don’t flame or criticize me for my predictions. Not everyone will love the Ipod. I don’t go with mainstream devices because often, the lesser known ones are better. So I guess we will have to wait and see this holiday season whether the Zune will float or swim in the turbulent waters of the MP3 market.

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Well, since smaller chip sizes seem to be in style nowadays with smaller and smaller phones, USB devices, etc, it only makes sense that someone introduces the world’s smallest MP3 chip. As if the new IPod Shuffle wasn’t small enough, Japan’s Oki Electric Industry wants to make it even smaller. The company has recently announced Continue reading →

Well, since smaller chip sizes seem to be in style nowadays with smaller and smaller phones, USB devices, etc, it only makes sense that someone introduces the world’s smallest MP3 chip. As if the new IPod Shuffle wasn’t small enough, Japan’s Oki Electric Industry wants to make it even smaller.

The company has recently announced that sample shipments of the “world’s smallest MP3 playback chip” were being sent to manufacturers of cellphones, PDAs, MP3 players (kind of obvious), and essentially anything in which MP3 playback can be stuck into. The tiny chip called ML2011 has an MP3 decoder and 650mW amplifier all stuffed into a 3.6mm by 4.2mm silicon wafer. While pricing details were kept under wraps, Oki plans to ramp up full scale production by December.

Well since MP3 players seem to be unstoppable in getting smaller, I might have to start hanging them from keychains or something.

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Recently, I have been taking my USB cable for my Zen Micro MP3 player more often to school mostly because I wanted to recharge the battery there. But I also use the USB Removable Storage feature more often now too. At school in comp science class, I hate using Internet Explorer. I also hate using Continue reading →

Recently, I have been taking my USB cable for my Zen Micro MP3 player more often to school mostly because I wanted to recharge the battery there. But I also use the USB Removable Storage feature more often now too.

At school in comp science class, I hate using Internet Explorer. I also hate using the ftp client built into windows explorer because it freezes sometimes when you try to go to an ftp site (yes the computers at my school are slow). So if you have a computer course at school, or maybe just want to use your preferred browser at your workplace with all your favourties and preferences intact, there is a long list of portable applications that you can choose from.

So far, I’m using only a webbrowser, email client, calender/organizer, and an FTP client. But I definetely will be adding more apps to my USB drive as time progresses along.

The best place to go for portable apps is PortableApps.com

Remember you do have to have a USB drive to use the applications.

Say what? You don’t have a USB drive but you want to use this program anyways? Well, I guess you can use these programs on any type of removable storage as long as you can write to it as well as read to it without requiring any extra hardware. But common folks, if you are using a computer a lot between your workplace/school and home, then it is useful to have a USB. They aren’t expensive nowadays, you can get like 512MB – 2GB USB drives on sale all the time in Canada and probably the United States. If you live in places like Hong Kong where they give out USB drives with company names on them as promotional items all because they are so cheap to manufacture there, then you are in even better shape.

I use the following on my USB drive, all are from PortableApps.com

Filezilla Portable – FTP Client (Site)
Firefox Portable – Web Browser (Site)
Thunderbird Portable – Email Client (Site)
Sunbird Portable – Calender/Organizer (Site)

I also like using 7-zip Portable (Site) to compress those bigger files to a smaller size to fit on my MP3 player.

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Well now that Windows Vista RC1 is out, and more features are being released to the public, I think I can say a bit about it’s load on graphics card. Well a lot of the Windows Vista appeal to consumers will probably be it’s new AeroGlass theme with all the flashy 3D and transparent effects Continue reading →

Well now that Windows Vista RC1 is out, and more features are being released to the public, I think I can say a bit about it’s load on graphics card.

Well a lot of the Windows Vista appeal to consumers will probably be it’s new AeroGlass theme with all the flashy 3D and transparent effects it will boast. Obviously this means that your graphics card has some work in store for it. But the question i’ve been pondering is whether Vista will kill computers with older graphics cards like mine’s (ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128 mb) or computers with integrated graphics cards when games are run, or whether it might breath some life back into the performance of games and other graphic applications for those with old or integrated graphics cards.

On my card, the desktop graphics will probably run smoothly, unless I open up over 4 windows at once (which I usually do). Then it might become a problem. Another thing is the transition between the desktop and a game. Will the graphics card be allowed to unload the Vista desktop to make room for games or will the Vista desktop have to reside in some part of the video card’s memory or the system RAM. How long is it going to take to switch from desktop to game and vice versa. Just by looking at screenshots, all that eye-candy seems graphics intensive, which might be the final nail in the coffin for integrated graphics cards or for my old graphics card.

But on the other hand, Vista does have some promising features that might improve the perfomance of games on those with integrated or older graphics cards. Vista has a feature that reserves part of your system RAM for your video card. So it’s like having extra onboard RAM for your graphics card. Such a memory increase will most definetely mean more performance and framerates. What if you run out of RAM to reserve for your video card or don’t have enough to begin with? Well that’s no problem too. Thanks to Vista, you just have to plug in a USB flash drive and you’re all set. Instead of having to pay like $40 for that stick of RAM, you can just buy a 512mb-2gb USB flash drive on sale and use that to boost your RAM for a cheap and affordable price.

So in the end, it still remains to be seen whether Vista will be a graphics card killer or saviour. The new features it offers will help improve performance, but they probably won’t be enough to justify running the desktop on those older graphics cards or those onboard ones. So when I get Vista, I probably will have to crank down all that eye-candy and perhaps revert to the Windows XP default theme.

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Well it seems that some brilliant physicists at Rice University in Houston used a scanning ion microscope to create and measure “ultra-thin circular disks of soft magnetic cobalt” ranging in diameter from one micron to 38 microns. According a press release issued by the university, which frankly I’m surprised they managed to do since I Continue reading →

Well it seems that some brilliant physicists at Rice University in Houston used a scanning ion microscope to create and measure “ultra-thin circular disks of soft magnetic cobalt” ranging in diameter from one micron to 38 microns. According a press release issued by the university, which frankly I’m surprised they managed to do since I thought those scientists would be bouncing off the walls in excitement, the six micron wide (size of red blood cell) magnetic vortex they have created is “a cone-like structure that’s created in the magnetic field at the disk when all the magnetic moments of the atoms in the disk align into uniform concentric circles. This must be some damn exciting stuff, too bad I don’t understand it at all.

Thankfully to help me avoid any headaches understanding the above, lead research Carl Rau (professor of physics and astronomy at Rice U) put in normal terms (atleast for those who follow gadgets). He syas that this new advance may lead to storage densities “in the range of terabits per square inch”. He also went on to say that “magnetic processors” and “high-speed magnetic RAM” may also be possible.

So what does that mean to all you other people who don’t understand the simplified version told by Rau? Well think about it this way, you can put what 40 high-end IPod videos can hold (60gb storage capacity per IPod) in just the area of a square inch. So that means that eventually, we will have computers at the same power as we do today the about the size of our thumbnail.

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Recently, a game called Darkstar One was released. It was the most recent addition to the space-sim genre that sees release after release that always seems to be the same game, except repackaged with new graphics, sound and story. Gameplay essentially feels the same. Well Darkstar One seemed like a very promising games (like others Continue reading →

Recently, a game called Darkstar One was released. It was the most recent addition to the space-sim genre that sees release after release that always seems to be the same game, except repackaged with new graphics, sound and story. Gameplay essentially feels the same. Well Darkstar One seemed like a very promising games (like others released before it), and it was a beacon of light and hope for fans of the space-sim genre that perhaps we could revive it after all.

Ever since the big publishers and developers such as EA stopped developing games for the genre and left it up to smaller, mostly European developers to carry on the torch of the genre, the genre has seen a decline ratings such games receive. The games that came out after the big publishers pulled out have the same gameplay elements, and a serious lack of variety from previous games. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t games that broke the mold; however they were plagued with other problems that prevented them from being one of those great games.

Then, in 2003, Microsoft came aboard the space-sim genre’s ship and promised to deliver a new game that would be innovative in terms of gameplay. That game was Freelancer. It was another beacon of light for the space-sim genre because finally a big publisher has decided to dip its toes in the seas of games in the genre. However, Freelancer wasn’t as innovative as promised, but it still kept the genre alive by providing a great storyline, and making the game easy for modders to create mods for, thus prolonging its life even to this day. 

Two years later, Egosoft released their third space-sim game X3: Reunion. The game has a lot of innovative gameplay techniques that expand on the open-ended gameplay established by previous games – trading, taking on missions, exploration, piracy, etc. These expansions on gameplay include the ability to own multiple stations, own multiple ships, have a fleet of ships following you, build factories to make goods and equipment, and establish satellites to monitor areas for you. It was a very promising game like others, however in the end, it was also crippled by other problems. The largest problem was that X3 had a very steep learning curve, about the angle of 70 degrees. There is no in-game tutorial to teach you the controls. The manual is very skimpy and lacks enough information to teach newcomers anything about how to play the game. Such lack of support for newcomers is what drove many away from the game.

So what does this mean for the space-sim genre? Well, it means that we need the big publishers and developers to come back to the genre. Smaller European developers are fine, but most of them don’t like to stray away from the gameplay that is already in previous games. Many European developers in the genre such as Ascaron Entertainment just like to copy what older games had to offer in hopes that maybe what made that older game a classic will make their game better (and they are completely wrong, it just makes it more boring).

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