Digital Rights Management (DRM) - good or bad for games and gamers

Digital Rights Management (DRM) 

A great read on the topic of DRM and how it affects the games industry.

For years publisher have used locking codes, digital codebooks, encrypted discs, and software rootkits in attempts to thwart game piracy.

But the only people really affected were the legitimate consumers.
The simplicity of access and lower price points actually makes it more likely that a consumer will be willing to pay for a game, and therefore will actively discourage the illegal pirating of the game.

http://www.ausgamers.com/features/read/3323745

Icons Idols and Inspirations

Nikki Sixx

Nikki Sixx is my idol, all devil may care, self confidence, ego and talent.

His music, words and images speak to me about love, loss, life and show me that I am not alone in this struggle called life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikki_Sixx

http://nsixxfoto.tumblr.com/

http://www.facebook.com/nikkisixxofficial

Icons Idols and Inspirations

George Carlin

http://www.georgecarlin.com
http://jamesaquilone.com/101-greatest-george-carlin-quotes/

The GIFT Principal

Game Developers Conference - The Science Behind Shaping Player Behaviour

GDC
The Game Developers Conference is an annual event held in America where programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers and others involved in the development of interactive games gather to exchange ideas and shape the future of the games industry. 

http://www.gdconf.com/

The Game Developers Conference features over 400 lectures, panels, tutorials and round-table discussions on a comprehensive selection of game development topics taught by leading industry experts. 

http://gdcvault.com/

The Science Behind Shaping Player Behaviour In Online Games presentation is a great example of how the games industry is continually pushing the bounds of how games are played and the gaming experience.

http://gdcvault.com/play/1017940/The-Science-Behind-Shaping-Player

The Game Developers Conference website is a fantastic resource for game designers with many in-depth design, technical and inspirational presentations.

SQL

SQL

Wow my first taste of SQL and it is so much fun.

First download WampServer at http://sourceforge.net/projects/wampserver/?source=dlp

Here is my first go 

First I create the database -

create database MyFirstDatabase;

Now that it is created I can use it -

use MyFirstDatabase;

Now I create a table in the database, and define the data format for each of  the table fields -

create table MyFirstTable (TableID int auto_increment primary key, TableValue varchar (200) not null);

Now I can see my table and the format of the table -
show columns from MyFirstTable;

Now I can insert data into the first row -

insert into MyFirstTable (TableValue) values ('Hello World');

And now I can check the data in my table -

select * from MyFirstTable;

Some great online resources for SQL, (and most other languages), are

StackOverflow   http://stackoverflow.com

W3Schools   http://www.w3schools.com

SketchUp

SketchUp is such an important game design tool for quickly, and intuitively, creating 3D items and landscapes that can then be exported into UDK, Maya, 3DS, etc.

SketchUp all has a 3D Warehouse where you can search download thousands of 3D modles built and shared by a very strong community.

http://www.sketchup.com/intl/en/

There is also a vast library of SketchUp plugins that can be installed to provide even greater control and options for designers.

http://extensions.sketchup.com/
http://www.1001bit.com/