Martin Brinkmann, who writes the very nice ghacks.net blog, has announced a new game-related blog he's created called "Take 9".

It's off to a great start and even has a piece on Tower Defense games which we love to talk about on DC.  Good luck on the new project Martin, we'll be reading!

You heard me talk about a game blog that I wanted to create for several months and probably asked yourself if the blog would ever go live. I know that it has been a long time but I finally found some time to setup the game blog after purchasing a great domain name for the gaming site. It’s not yet ready for prime time but I definitely think I owe it to you that you are the first to be notified about this new website.

Take 9 is the name of the gaming website and it will cover gaming related articles with a strong emphasize on free games. Much like those that I introduced each Friday for a long time. The articles will be longer at Take 9 and definitely contain more screenshots and even videos if I can get my hands on some. I might even produce my own videos from time to time if I find a game that’s extraordinary.

If you visit the website I would like to receive some feedback on it. What do you think of the design, the functionality. Anything missing that you want to see on that website ? I can make changes and additions to the website with ease.

http://www.take9.com/

DC Member SuperboyAC asks:

I'm a musician, and in an effort to learn some more theory, I'm looking for software that will help me memorize various concepts.  There are so many flash-card like programs out there, I was hoping one of the experts here would help me narrow it down a bit.  I don't need to print the cards, because then I'll just write them out by hand or whatever.  Instead, maybe there's a creative software out there designed to help people memorize things using the computer.  Thanks!

Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of the DonationCoder.com newsletter.  It's been almost a month since the last newsletter so there are a lot of noteworthy posts to tell you about (we'll be resuming our twice-monthly newsletter schedule soon).  I've been working on freelance projects for the last several months to pay the bills, but my plan is to spend a couple of months starting at the end of May working on new software updates and releases for DonationCoder.  Until then, maybe we need to figure out other ways to encourage the programmers who hang out on the site, and new programmers who haven't found us yet, to participate and share some of their creations.  If you have any ideas for how we might do this, or any ideas about how to improve the site in general, please let us know.

A forum member asks:

"I need to develop a software which should dynamically create a layout map from the given scanned layout map. The scanned layout map would look like a layout map of an land area with plots in it (similar to layout map used by land promoters) . I need to recreate the same image in the website but each of the plots should be made selectable (i.e) on clicking each plot it should be redirected to a page which has the details of that plot."

How can I do this functionality?
Please help!!
Thanking in anticipation
Vikram j

It seems to me that the Free Software Magazine website has started to turn out more interesting and relevant articles recently.

Here's a very readable piece on the newly announced Google App Engine, that takes a decidedly balanced and middle-of-the-road look at Google's policies and aims.

Make no mistake: Google App Engine is designed to make Google profit, not serve the public good. They could have based their service entirely on free software, and contributed any improvements they felt were needed, back to the projects that have supplied them with the tools for economic success. But they haven't provided such a fully-capable system in the GAE SDK. So they're not making it easy for you to deploy elsewhere—they definitely want deploying on Google to be the path of least resistance.

Is that "evil"? Well, no, not really. But it isn't exactly “good” either. Which means, if you're a developer, you have to make the same tightrope decision: will you choose convenience and merely try to "not be evil", or will you choose freedom and try to actively "do good"? I can't condemn either option, but you should make the choice with your eyes open.

http://www.freesoftw...e_app_engine_it_evil

This is from the steampunkworkshop.com website, which has long pictorial tutorials on various steampunk/victorian type modifications of technology items.  Really nice stuff.

http://steampunkwork...victorian-all-one-pc