HEY EVERYBODY,

DUE TO SOME "TECHNICAL ISSUES" WITH THE CURRENT BLOG SERVICE, I'VE DECIDED TO MOVE TO A MORE "CONVENIENT" HOME.

FROM HERE ON, G-FloX's OFFICIAL HOME IS: http://gfxonline.wordpress.com

PLEASE UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS AND RSS FEEDS TO THE NEW ADDRESS.

I'M SO SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE, BUT THIS SERVES BOTH MY INTEREST AND YOURS.

I HOPE YOU LIKE OUR NEW HOME, AND SORRY AGAIN.

Codemasters prove themselves again as the masters of race games. The Colin Mcrae rally series, DIRT, and now: GRID!

GRID appears first as an arcade racer, but proves to be much more than that. It's a whole experience, with different race disciplines, and various car classes.

Adding to the whole experience is a fantastic visual representation. The new game engine is wonderful, great effects, great physics.

The game stays away from strict simulation racing, moving towards a more casual style. Opening the game to a wider audience, including those who use the keyboard, like myself.

So, all in all, it's a wonderful game and a huge success. Rated 8/10.

A great and extensive article on Tom's Hardware shows the benefit of upgrading either the CPU or the GPU, or even both. It concentrates mostly on gaming performance between different hardware parts, indicating some cheaper parts that offer almost the same performance.

Read it here: GPU vs. CPU Upgrade - Tom's Hardware

If you're planning to upgrade, I strongly suggest you read that article. It could save you lots of money.

I'm writing this post because right now, Barack Obama (The US Democrats presidential candidate) is only minutes away from claiming his nomination.

The U.S. (as I can see it on CNN) is shaking over that win, claiming it to be a moment of history. The moment when, for the first time in U.S. history, an African-American have been nominated for president.

I almost know nothing about him, or about his campaign. But, I wanted to write this to take my part in this so called "historical day".

For me, as a Syrian citizen, all I want from the world's most powerful man is to bring peace to the Middle-East region, not by force, not by war, but by politics. And we all know that he could do that if he wanted. So, Obama is campaigning to change, and I believe that peace in the Middle-East is exactly the change the people of this region really need.

If this is really a day in history, then let's all hope it would be a change to the better of all mankind. U.S. is currently the world's most powerful nation, and being its president holds a great responsibility. (And let's hope I won't regret writing this post)

Change wins = peace wins, please!

P.S.: I'll post again when we get to know for real who's the next U.S. president, and try to get a clearer image about him.

I saw it last week. Nothing special about it except for some 'very' special graphic effects.

The story is somewhat boring and predictable. Yes, it is a fictitious world, but nonetheless, it build up on other stories of the same kind. It's no match for "The Lord of The Rings" trilogy.

So, all in all, I wouldn't recommend it.

The reason I wrote about the Demoscene is because it's an amazing concept when applied in video games.

In fact, it was a gaming article that introduced me to the Demoscene. I don't have it on my PC right now, but I believe it was a Gamespot article about the upcoming Will Wright's game "Spore". Will Wright (the designer of the holy grail game: "The Sims") pointed out how modern games are becoming more and more sophisticated in terms of animation and textures. He said that future games would require an army of animators to make the game as real as possible.

So, the point is, why use pre-generated animations if we can animate objects on the go?! Meaning that we could generate animations as needed in the game. The generation algorithm would be based on constant rules defined by the programming team.

That animation method will be used in his upcoming game "Spore", where you'll be able to create your own custom species, and the game will automatically generate the animations required to move your creatures around, make it dance, fight, etc... The creature generator would define the static points on the creature's body, and the body structure (arms, legs) and the game would do the rest. The creature's animations will be generated according to the laws of physics. So, the creature would actually move realistically, because his motion is built on real-world physics.

The great achievement here is that the user has the freedom to create whatever he/she wants, and the game would generate the animations required for that creatures behavior. So, the user is no longer bound by the game's own pre-generated content! And game developers no longer require massive animation teams.

Wrapping it all up:

Realtime content generation = less animators = more programmers = more creative and expandable games = happy gamers all around the world.

And, for those of you who believe this is mere junk, take a look at ".Kkrieger" (developed in 2004) by "The Produkkt", a 3D FPS in 96 KB! with all the fluffy 3D effects of a full-blown x GB game!

Check their website to download it and see for yourself: www.theprodukkt.com

Also, don't forget to check the Spore official website: www.spore.com

It's a new world out there. Imagine using that technology along with ray-tracing rendering technique!

WoW! I'm speechless!!!

I wanted to write about the Demoscene ever since I saw the first real demo.

The Demoscene, as defined by Wikipedia "...is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations run real-time on a computer. The main goal of a demo is to show off programming, artistic, and musical skills."

Those of you who owned a PC during the 90's will surely remember those executable files that were bundled with certain pirated games or programs. They would probably show an animated scene about the piracy group who cracked the software. So, they'd show their names and make pride of their abilities. All that in a relatively small file. (That was my first contact with a demo.)

However, after some research I have found that the Demoscene actually started before the 90's, on some early platforms, like the Commodore64, Atari, & Amiga.

Demos (or Intros) have evolved well beyond traditional pixelized images floating around on the screen, to become more like a short movie, including most of the artistic values of any real-life movie: art, direction, storyboard, photography, 3d art & animation, and music.

The really stunning fact about Demoscene is that Demos are a real programming challenge, where some groups are challenged to write a Demo in a restricted file size of 64 KB! There are even some recent Demos stuffed in a tiny space of 4 KBs. Early Demos are available in 256 Bytes!

So, yes, the Demoscene IS a programming challenge that focuses on new, innovative techniques to generate all the required contents in real-time. As opposed to saving each component in a separate file.

When I watched my first Demo, I was instantly shocked about the great amount of effort put in it. And as I watched more and more Demos I really started to notice how each Demo has its own artistic mood.

I could talk for hours about Demos and Intros, but it won't matter, because you won't believe it until you see it with your own eyes. So, I'm gonna cut to the chase and list some sites and groups to give you a head start:

- More info about the Demoscene: http://www.demoscene.info/

- Even more info: http://pilgrimage.scene.org/demoscene.html

- The Demoscene online TV: http://www.demoscene.tv

- One of the best groups on the scene (ASD): http://www.asd.gr/ (Go for their "Animal Attraction" Demo first)

- Another amazing group (Conspiracy): http://conspiracy.hu/ (I like their "Chaos Theory" Intro)

- And finally, the biggest Demoscene archive on the web: http://pouet.net

Have fun.

It's weird. But nevertheless it's in the news.

According to an article by Dailytech, a group of scientists at the University of Melbourne have made a progress towards bringing an extinct species (The tasmanian tiger) back to life!

In an exciting, successful new experiment, researchers at the University of Melbourne report that they have taken DNA from the extinct thylacine, commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger, and inserted it into a mouse embryo which continued to grow with the thylacine gene in place.  The process represented the first time DNA from an extinct creature was inserted into an embryo, effectively bringing "back to life" in part the extinct species.

(Read the full article here: "Jurassic Park" in The Real World? Scientists Inject Extinct Mammal DNA Into Mouse)

That's actually VERY exciting. It's really amazing how genetics is proving to be a vital component to the future of mankind. The ability to manipulate genes could (and hopefully would) help to cure most diseases before they even happen.

Genetics brings out a cool concept. Let's hope it'll be put to good use! We don't want any "Godzillas" wandering around in the streets. Or do we?!

I don't agree that PC gaming needs to be saved. But however, several organizations are trying to "save" it from the unknown threat. The latest effort is an AMD logo program to identify that a certain PC is capable of "decent" gaming performance in major titles.

It's actually ridiculous to try and think that way. Simply because the PC hardware market is a an everyday changing market. Current top of the line PCs will be mainstreams in a year or two. And so is the case with PC games.

So, an AMD Game! certified PC today will certainly be outdated next year, and will surely be incapable of running next year's games..

Anyway, Mark Hachman of ExtremeTech has a very interesting idea on how to solve this. And I like it very much. You can find the original article here: Another Sorry Effort to Save PC Gaming?

The Internet is a big world. There's no telling what you can find someday while surfing.

One of my findings, my 'funny' findings I should say, is an article teaching you how to survive an unplanned freefall. What if your plane crashed and you suddenly found yourself freefalling in mid-air. What would you do, or not do, to have a nice, relaxing landing?! This article explains how. But is it sarcastic, or is it for real?! Only YOU can tell.

Here's an excerpt from the article's introduction:

Admit it: You want to survive an airline disaster. You aren't looking for a disaster to happen, but if it does, you see yourself coming through it. The good news is that you're not out of touch with reality—you can do it. Sure, you'll take a few hits, and you can count on some sweaty flashbacks later, but you'll make it. You'll sit up in your hospital bed and meet the press. If you are considerate, you will keep God out of your public comments, knowing that it's unfair to sing His praises when many of your fellow passengers lack the means to offer an alternative view.

Happy freefalling...

But what kind of word??

I'm writing this after watching 5 mins. of the Syrian private satellite channel (Cham TV). It's obviously spreading a word. But not the right word IMHO.

We are living in a world where the single, most important factor in cultural supremacy is SCIENCE. And, because we're actually well behind the other part of the world in science and technology, I'd say the right word to spread is science, not religion.

If we really want to compete with other countries, we need to encourage every man, woman, and child to learn and love science. This doesn't mean that we should forget about religion, but I have yet to see any mention of science in our local TV channels, and that's bad. If we intend to close the technological gap separating us from the rest of the world, we have got to start moving NOW, not tomorrow, not later, but NOW. And TV would be a very good starting point.

So, everybody, spread the word, the word of science. For a better future for all of us.

Just finished watching the "August Rush" movie, and couldn't help but to shed some tears. Even though I knew the movie isn't a masterpiece from the first 30 mins. or so. But the music is so touching that you can't just sit and not be moved. The story is somewhat casual, a 'fairy tale' kinda story. Nothing new or out of the ordinary. But when coupled with the amazing soundtrack, it WILL surely force an emotional reaction now and then, no matter how much you try to avoid it.

So, for 80% music, 20% story, the movie is a success, and I don't regret buying it.

I can't help but wonder everyday about the future of the Internet here in Syria.

Currently, I'm using a monthly flat-rate modem connection to get access to the outside world. And today I stumbled upon this article, which discusses the broadband initiative in the USA. And they are quite angry because they are actually falling BEHIND in the worldwide broadband race!

The very same article is listing France as one of the world's leaders in broadband spread. Some of the ISPs there are constructing THEIR OWN fiber networks, which led to a DSL price drop all the way down to $20/mo for a 20Mbps ADSL2+ connection!

So, according to my modest calculations (taking the average income rate in Europe into consideration), the DSL subscriber is paying ~2% of his monthly income for broadband access. Which translates to approx. 160 Syrian Pounds for the Syrian subscriber (assuming an income rate of 8000 S.P a month)! Let's not forget that this is for a 20Mbps connection.

I'm not trying to compare my country to European countries, because I know we don't have their financial/cultural capabilities. This post is just a reminder for the Syrian people to know how much we are falling behind in the global Internet domain.

This gap is causing lots of losses. As the Internet is growing larger and more important each day, it's becoming the master mainstream method of communication, competing with telephone lines. And if we don't speed up the work to close this gap, we'll be cut out from the world in terms of communication, and we'll lose a huge amount of productive time only because we can't get the information we want as fast as other people in Europe or Asia.

I don't know how to further explain the importance of the Internet in the upcoming years. But I CAN help to raise a voice of concern to those who make the decision, and I hope all of you do the same, and take your part to spread the word and educate other people about the Internet and its capabilities, in the hope of making the Syrian Broadband Dream become a reality..

... Continuing with the brag:

- A good gaming rig would certainly be incomplete without a descent sound system. My sound system consists of a Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic sound card coupled with Creative Inspire 5200 5.1 speaker system. Now, I know that Creative isn't doing well at the moment, and it's turning to be a magnet for negative press, but I can't deny the fact that they have made a great sound processor. The X-Fi processor is a revolution actually, I don't really know much about it, but I DO know that the sound is like nothing else I have ever heard! Even on the modest speaker system I have. It's literally pushing the speakers to their limits. I can't tell you how much I'm satisfied with that sound card, you just have to go buy and see for yourself!

- 580 GB of storage space comes from two SATA2 HDDs: The WD 500GB AAKS with 16 MB of internal cache. And the Samsung 80 GB SpinRite with 8 MB of cache.

- Two Samsung CD drives: One is a combo drive, the other is a DVD-RW drive.

- One could never realize how important the power supply unit until one starts to get CTDs and random restarts. So, to extinguish the power thirst of the system I have bought a respectable FSP PSU, with 350W (effective) of raw power. It has 2 +12V rails, and a 12 CM fan.

- The case has 2 fans: one Arctic Cooling 9.2 CM on the back, and a Zalman 3000RPM 8 CM on the front.

- A 17" Hyundai ImageQuest L70S+ LCD monitor. Native resolution: 1280*1024.

And to sum it all up, here's some facts about my rig:

Temperatures (24 C. room temp.): - System: 35 C - CPU 45, 57 C (Idle, Load) - GPU Core 54, 72 C (Idle, Load) - HDDs ~32 C.

3DMark06: ~7600 3DMarks (~1750 CPU, ~3000 SM2.0, ~4000 HDR/SM3.0).

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If you have read so far I would like to thank you for your time. Some of the information here might be useful to some people who like to compare system performance with similar hardware.

I've received Tiesto's newsletter yesterday, and it carries good news. Tiesto is about to release a new volume of his hit mix/compilation series "In Search of Sunrise". This time it's labeled "Asia".

And even though his last compilation "In Search of Sunrise 6" was a bit of a disappointment, I'm really looking forward to this new mix. I think it's going to be different because Asia has a very unique Trance flavor. So, even in the worst cases, the tracks should be interesting enough. As if Tiesto's mix isn't good enough! ;)

Where's my coffee, sunshine?!

Considering that I've spent lots of money (some mine some from my father's pocket) on my PC, and that I spend 90% of my home-time using it, I couldn't help but to brag about it here.

And since this is MY blog, I get to write as much as I want! Hurraaay!!

Let me start by saying (and stressing) that I'm a devoted Gamer. Can't live without games. But we'll talk about that later. The point is: my rig is a gaming rig, so please bare with me as I try to explain the details.

So, inside my magnificent piece of time-sucking hardware you'll find:

- An Asus LGA775 motherboard, model P5LD2, with an Intel 945P chipset. Supports DDR2 frequencies up to 667MHz. Sadly, it doesn't support the new Core2Duo processors ;(

- A very torture-able CPU: the Intel Pentium D805, which consists basically of 2 Pentium 4's stitched together to make a dual-core processor using the 90nm process. It's proudly rated @ 105 Watts, so obviously it's hotter than a water boiler! Stock FSB frequency @ 133MHz giving it an effective QDR frequency of 2.66GHz. (very low, I know), but the bad news ends here.

- With the aid of a very precious Asus Silent SQUARE heatsink/fan + Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste, I'm now able to comfortably overclock the CPU all the way up to 3.5GHz (175MHz FSB)! Temperatures are ~58 C. under load, and about 46 C. when idle. Great numbers for a rated power of 150 Watts!!!

- Joining the CPU on the northbridge are 4 sticks of identical Kingston 512MB DDR2 667MHz CL5 ValueRAM. Also overclocked, and running at 700MHz.

- Aaaaand, introducing the masterpiece, the fierce, power-hungry, mindblowing BFGTech nVidia 8800GT VGA card!!!! (Applause all-around). It's the OC edition and comes factory-overclocked @ 625MHz, 1566MHz, 1800MHz (Core, Shaders, Memory). Equipped with the legendary G92 GPU core by nVidia, the card is a REAL MONSTER!! But of course, I just can't settle with stock speeds, so I overclocked it to a humble 675MHz, 1688MHz, 1950MHz (Core, Shaders, Memory). Problem is, it runs a bit hot, so I had to modify the fan speeds to make it run faster under load. So, the GPU core hardly steps over 75 C. under heavy load. And idles at 55 C. Moderate, I think.

To be continued.... (it's 5 AM already!)

I was looking online to get her song "Hung Up", so I decided to download the whole album instead (Confessions On A Dance Floor) over my dial-up connection.

So, it took about ~10 hours to finish. But was it worth the wait?!?! HELL YEAH!!

This album defines a whole new era for Madonna (been following her news since 1998), it's 90% Electronic music with some rather mild vocals (which is a first, considering Madonna is classified as a Pop artist). So, it is closer to "Vocal Trance" than Pop.

I couldn't believe my ears, the music production is just off the hook. Every track is structured in a very unique way, making the whole album so interesting that you can't skip any of the tracks!

The "Get Together" track is fantastic, the closest to Trance in that album.

"Isaac" is a milestone. Exotic and mystic eastern touches sends shivers down my spine each and every time I listen to it. Two thumbs up!

I like it that Madonna is trying new styles of music, which ultimately is getting her even more success as a 50 years old female-singer. Way to go Madonna!

I'd highly recommend you get the "Confessions Tour" DVD, as it stretches the "Madonna Experience" even more.

So, to all the Electronic junkies, go buy that album, you won't be disappointed. You have my word.

Well, this is my 4th year alone in Aleppo. And I'm really starting to develop a sense of hatred to this city.

Not that it's ugly, dirty, or just smokey most of the time. But because there's virtually nothing to do here but go to college, return home, go to college.........

It's a boooooring loop, and no matter how hard I try to escape it, Aleppo seems to get the upper-hand. Let me try to convince you:

Traditional methods of routine-breaking:

• Movies (Cinemas): nothing interesting in local and respectable showrooms (2 to be exact). Mostly showing silly Egyptian movies which are coming closer to the Bollywood kinda style!
• Poetry nights: mostly boring, having nothing to do with poetry, even though the music could be good sometimes.
• Theater: do we even have theaters here?!?!?!?
• Social gatherings: restricted to LAN matches. My friends can't -for some reason- find any other useful way to socialize. (pretty "social" isn't it?!)
• Walks: N/A, same reason as above.
• Net-surfing: Net-Cafes won't let you do anything more than IMing and browsing, which are basically feasible using my home dial-up connection.
• Club activities: DEFINE:CLUB.
• Student Club activities: DEFINE:STUDENT; ANSWER:"ROBOT".

I really can't figure anything else, if you have any other way to spend the afternoon, please post about it.

So, I guess I just have to shed my human skin away for the rest of college, and rely on the human machine to get me through this living hell!

Bye for now,

The happy robot from Aleppo.

Michael Jackson has had a great influence in my life ever since I started listening to his songs back in the '90s. I am truly amazed and shocked by this man. I know how most of people judge him by his looks and his trial history, but I know there's much more humanity in this man that probably exceeds our own levels.

And when they say he's a legend, I just know HE IS. I'd say he's a legend because of his professionalism and dedication, his lyrics, shows, choreography, and music is just unmatched. And I'm yet to see such a great talent in any other artist on the scene today.

Also, it's great to know about his rather unknown songs. Songs like "Smile", "Little Suzy", "Childhood", and many others. Those songs are truly inspirational to every human being. Especially when you notice the special treatment Michael has given them. He's so convincing you know the words are coming out of love from his heart, not out of the greed for money.

I'm not saying he's the perfect man. He has done some mistakes, but then again, who doesn't?! The very special and delicate details of his life displayed by the media are nothing - to me- more than a cheap distortion to the image of a great man, a great person, and last of all a wonderful human. Those details are his own damn business, and I don't have to say anything about them. What matters to me, are the actions. He has a history full of donations and aid to charity organizations, and he spent lots of money into his "Heal the World" project. Actually, it's more than satisfying to know that he has dedicated some of his greatest songs to the earth and to the people all around the world. Something that has nearly disappeared from today's albums.

So, what about Michael Jackson?? I LOVE MICHAEL JACKSON!!