Google has launched a free 3D modelling software called SketchUp that lets you quickly create 3D models - a la dummies version of 3D Studio Max. As with most software coming out of Google stables SketchUp is also delightfully simple to use. There’s a free and a pro version (that comes for a price) with one major difference being that only the pro version lets you export models into different file formats. The free version lets you save either in the native SketchUp format or in a format that’s suitable for use with Google Earth.  While the download is a tad heavy at 19MB it is certainly worth it.  The downside is of course that they don't let you save the models in any real format that you can use (in an OpenGL program for instance).  SketchUp is another Google acquisition incidentally.

Hallelujah!  The Nerdworks Blog is finally underway!  Phew!  I would like to say that this blog is a culmination of years of hard grinding work, only, it isn't.  It actually took me 2 days to put everything together (and maybe another 1 day hunting around for a good ASP.NET based blog site without much success).  All said and done, it was quite an exciting little project.  Here's the 50,000 foot view:

• Nerdworks Blogorama is an ASP.NET based website that let's me spew forth random pieces of mostly useless information at will
• It was written and debugged using the free Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition which by the way, is an awesome development system (really sweet of Microsoft in giving it away free).  It even let's me directly deploy my site from the local box to the hosting provider's server (using the Copy Web Site option).
• An admin console called the Blogorama Console was written using the freely available Visual C# 2005 Express Edition.  This console let's me create new blog entries, edit existing ones and even delete entries that kind of... you know... suck!  The admin console talks to the blog engine via a webservice that I have hosted there.
• The blog entries are stored in a SQL server database that my hosting provider provides.  During development however I used the SQL Server 2005 Express Edition which is, again, a free database server that Microsoft so magnanimously provides.

There's quite a bit of work left though, like for instance:

• The UI could use some re-work so that it looks more cool.
• The admin console does not currently require authentication.  That needs to be fixed.
• Blog entries should get archived automatically every month and appropriate links need to get added somewhere in the sidebar.
• Must provide the ability to search by category (blog entries have a category associated with them you see).
• Must add a section for putting up links to my favourite places on the internet, again, somewhere in the sidebar.
• Implement some way for embedding images in blog entries.
• Implement WYSIWYG editing in the blog console (right now I paste in the HTML directly).

That's a pretty large list.  But hey, the first version has gone out through the doors!  Now, if you wish to contact me you can do that in one of two ways:

• Leave a comment by clicking on the green Comment link below, or
• Click on the Email the author link in the sidebar

If that doesn't work for some reason (it's still beta you know) then you can email me using this address - avranju[at]gmail[dot]com.