MMO updates

MMO updates

Lineage II: GoD - Awakening trailer

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 02:45 AM PDT


Apologies for shortening "Goddess of Destruction" into "GoD" as the former is probably too long to fit into the post title. First, a clarification. In my previous post, I stated that Lineage II's first part of the expansion will be called Call of Destiny, which is wrong. Call of Destiny is actually the event name, and Chapter 1 of the GoD expansion is called Awakening instead. NCsoft Korea has released the official trailer for Awakening, which you can see below. Why Awakening? It is actually a new feature for high level players! For more official information about Goddess of Destruction, head on to the official English website. For unofficial and translated information, head on to my other posts!

E3 2011 - Videos Roundup Part 1

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 12:23 AM PDT


So, instead of going all crazy and create a post for each video, I decided to gather all on a daily basis and post them together. Do note that I only upload online games for the PC, not consoles (unless the game is cross-platform of course). It will be hard to find any E3 2011 trailer from the Asian companies as I have a hunch they will be kicking their backsides by being lazy, but I will do my best to dig them out.

First up is the new CG cinematic trailer for EA's Star Wars: The Old Republic. Although the business model is not confirmed, I will be damned if it is totally Free to Play. I am guessing a freemium model with limited F2P content while the P2P users get the full content. I am sure this game doesn't need anymore introduction, so hope on to its official website @ http://www.swtor.com/.


We have here the teaser trailer for Defiance from Trion World, also known as the developer for Rift. Defiance is a joint MMO project by the company and America's SyFy channel. In a rather ambitious move, the game will be a cross-platform one, running on the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The game is confirmed to be " the first-ever open-world shooter MMO" although there is no announcement on the viewing mode. The game's official website is @  http://www.defiance.com/en/.


Here are trailers for 2 of UTV Ignition Games' titles, Faxion Online and Sky Legends. I didn't like Faxion Online when I tried it, but you might! The game went into Open Beta not long ago and it is a Free to Play title. Based on a holy war between Heaven and Hell, the game's official website is @ http://www.faxiononline.com/.


Sky Legends look awesome. And while I don't normally post about web/browser-based online games, this looks really astonishing in terms of both graphics and gameplay. It is described as an "online multiplayer flight combat game featuring intuitive flight controls, intense aerial combat, and outstanding graphics". The official game website is @ http://www.skylegends.com/.

E3 2011 - Before the show starts

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 07:33 AM PDT


Today is a really bad day. Well, I mean in terms of MMO news. There is none to be honest and I can't help wondering if the all major Chinese, Korean and Japanese MMO journalists have been sent to Los Angeles to cover E3 2011. While I do know there are many online gaming booths there, but it had been sometime since there was totally no news on a weekday!


Looking at the exhibitor list, there are at least over 20 companies dealing with online games, both Pay to Play and Free to Play. Will any stand out? Or will the consoles once again hog the limelight (especially Wii 2)? E3 2011 will be starting in less than 90 minutes with Microsoft's press conference, I can't wait!
Posted by Shri Krishna

General gaming

General gaming

E3 2011: Kinect Star Wars is a Guilty Pleasure

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 04:18 AM PDT

Whenever motion controls are mentioned, Star Wars is always my first thought. Maybe it was the long hours of waving a cheap, plastic lightsaber knock-off as a child, or the secret thought of knowing you'd feel totally bad-ass if you could act like a Jedi. Either way, Kinect Stars Wars is definitely a game I've been wanting since my days before Kindergarten.

After the Microsoft press conference, I was left feeling a lot more than disappointed. Maybe it was the way the guy on stage played the game, or the fact that the controls looked completely unpolished. So in those moments leading up to playing the game myself, I really didn't expect much at all. And after going from desiring it, to giving up hope, to then playing it, I am left in a state of mild content.

E3 2011: 6 Things I Just Learned About Street Fighter X Tekken

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 01:58 AM PDT

Empires & Allies

Given the success of Marvel vs Capcom 3, it's safe to assume that expectations are high for Street Fighter X Tekken (pronounced Street Fighter cross Tekken), the next big fighting crossover title from Capcom. But the big question is how will these very different fighting games really come together? Both are based on completely different fighting systems. Heck, the Tekken games use three dimensions compared to Street Fighter's two dimensional plane (just go ahead and pretend the Street Fighter EX games never happened -- you know you want to).

Earlier this year, CAPTIVATE shed some light on the mechanics of SFxT, but there's way more to discuss. In the wake of the Sony's E3 Press Conference I got to play an updated build of the game, and here's what I discovered.

Postcard from E3 2011: Papo & Yo

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 12:59 AM PDT

There were a lot of explosions, thumping bass, and impressive price-points shown off at the Sony press conference earlier this evening. However, the one title that perked my interest was one that didn't get a single mention during the toting of 3D and motion controls. This game is Papo & Yo, a puzzle-adventure game from the new Montreal-based indie studio, Minority.

What caught my attention wasn't what was on the show floor but from the game's announcement last week on the official PlayStation Blog. That's when it became one of the games I wanted to try out this week at E3.

Postcard from E3 2011: Battlefield 3 Presentation

Posted: 07 Jun 2011 12:58 AM PDT

On Monday, EA held their annual E3 press conference. While editors filtered their way into the Orpheum Theatre, I caught a glimpse of two familiar faces from DICE. Patrick Bach, Executive Producer (left), and Karl Magnus Trossden, (right), are in the image above. At the time, they were relaxing before the show's start. When I asked how Patrick was doing, he waved his arm in the air and mentioned how a live demo during a live stream is no big deal -- I appreciated his sarcasm.

Postcard from E3 2011: Irrational Declares Grey the Color of Girly-Men

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 11:43 PM PDT

The way I figure it, there are are two major advantages to working at Irrational. One, you get to create great games like BioShock and BioShock Infinite; and two, you transform into a paragon of physical human perfection. Seriously, check it out sometime. Pretty much everyone who works at Irrational is some kind of golden god with crazy muscles and an affinity for tight shirts. Well, except the ladies, who go easy on the muscles but enjoy certain other traits that are handily highlighted by the aforementioned tight tees.

Even so, when Irrational boss Ken Levine stepped out on stage tonight at Sony's E3 press conference to talk about Infinite and the upcoming BioShock title for the Vita handheld, I wasn't admiring his Adonis-like beauty. I was far too busy gaping over the gorgeousness of his game. BioShock Infinite isn't the most beautiful or technically impressive game I've ever seen, no doubt about it. What it is, however, is one of the boldest and brightest first-person shooters around.

Postcards from E3 2011: The Redemption of Shadow of the Colossus

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 11:17 PM PDT

After Sony's E3 press conference tonight, a wide array of games was available for hands-on play. Sadly, the most interesting of these (read: the ones on the newly christened PlayStation Vita handheld) were trapped behind lines two hours long. However, you could find plenty of interesting things to play with less of a wait if you took the time to search around. One of these was the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus Collection, a compilation of two Sony-developed PlayStation 2 classics retooled to run on PlayStation 3.

I stopped by to check out the collection for myself, and it quickly became evident that the games haven't been retouched in the least. They look like PlayStation 2 games running in high definition, low-res textures and chunky polygons and all. Nevertheless, there's one compelling reason to look forward to this new rendition of the games, though unfortunately it's not one that comes through in hastily snapped phone-camera pics like this:

EVE Online Developer's New MMOFPS a PS3 Exclusive

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 07:55 PM PDT


Several publishers pledged that the PlayStation 3 versions of their games would be getting some exclusive content. CCP Games went ahead and made its upcoming MMOFPS, Dust 514, a full-on PS3 exclusive, confirming rumors suggesting the move was going to be made.

CCP is best known for EVE Online, the extremely-innovative-with-a-steep-learning-curve MMO on PC. Dust is set in that same universe and will be the first post-EVE game released by CCP. A trailer was shown during Sony's E3 media briefing that demonstrated some Killzone-like FPS gameplay and the connection between the game and EVE (the ISK currency, for instance). It's unclear how the game will actually connect with EVE on PC beyond taking place in the same universe -- events in one game are said to impact the other. Regardless, the game has an impressive sense of scale and offers support for PlayStation Move and Vita connectivity.

The full release is planned for 2012 with a beta set to take place later this year.

PS3 Lands Battlefield, SSX, and Need for Speed Exclusives

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 07:27 PM PDT


While they might not be exclusive games to the PlayStation 3, Sony is hoping that some exclusive content from three Electronic Arts games will convince you to go with the PS3 versions of Need for Speed: The Run, SSX, and Battlefield 3.

In the case of Battlefield 3, the PlayStation 3 version will pack in a free copy of Battlefield 1943, the downloadable XBLA/PSN game first released in 2009. (BioShock Infinite is doing something similar, packing in a copy of the first BioShock.) It'll be available right on the disc, no need to download anything from PSN. Need for Speed: The Run will have seven extra supercars on PS3. SSX on PS3 exclusively gets Mount Fuji.

Sony also announced a deal with THQ to secure a PS3-exclusive game mode and content for Saints Row: The Third. Details weren't forthcoming on what any of it is, but a November 15 release date was mentioned.

Nintendo E3 Press Conference Live Stream/Blog

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 07:13 PM PDT

Click here for HD.

BioShock Coming to Vita, Infinite Supports PS Move

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 07:11 PM PDT


Irrational Games boss Ken Levine came out during Sony's E3 media briefing to announce a number of PlayStation-related items. First and foremost, the developer is cooking up a new game in the BioShock series for Vita, although it's not ready to talk about it just yet.

Levine told a story of how he bashed PlayStation Move in an interview, something that led to Sony requesting a meeting with him to change his mind. After he accepted, he and Irrational found that they actually liked Move and that it allowed them to do some new things. As a result, Infinite will support Move although, again, there's no real information about it as of yet.

Another goodie PlayStation 3 owners will be able to enjoy when picking up the PS3 version of Infinite is a complimentary copy of the original BioShock. Rather than be a separate download or located on a second disc, it'll be available right there on the Infinite Blu-ray.
Posted by Shri Krishna

MMOGaming News

MMOGaming News

RIFT Addons are Coming

Posted:

In a post to the official forums, James Nichols explains that the game's addon API is currently being tested for implementation, with the hope that players will be able to customize the game's interface while still maintaining the high level of quality found throughout the game. And a new official forum has been created for Addon Developement.

GW2 Character Naming Resources

Posted:

This article was shared by BBQman about the GW2 Character Naming Resources

Eden Eternal Early Access First Look (Part 1)

Posted:

If you haven't, it is a new mmorpg that was developed by X-Legends and is getting prepped for release by Aeria Games.

World of Warcraft: Midsummer Fire Festival Guide

Posted:

The midsummer celebration is here. It's celebrated across Azeroth beginning with June 21 through July 5.

[E3 2011] Ubisoft Presents the Key Features of Ghost Recon Online

Posted:

E3 is just around the corner and Ubisoft's latest title Ghost Recon Online is ready to meet all of you. Step into the boots of an elite Ghost and deploy cutting-edge weapons and technology as you link up with your Ghost squad to dominate your enemies on tomorrow's battlefield. Experience the next generation of PC multiplayer shooters with Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online, for free!

[Quest at E3 2011] MMOs Mentioned at E3 Press Conferences

Posted:

Today signaled the beginning of E3 week, since even though the doors of the Los Angeles Convention Center don't open until tomorrow at noon, the industry spend the day visiting the major press conferences and learning about all the upcoming titles.

Dust 514 Exclusive for PS3, Business Mode Announced

Posted:

CCP has teamed up with Sony and to bring the groundbreaking persistent shooter to PS3 exclusively in Summer 2012. The developer released a trailer and a bundle of new screenshots for the console MMO.

SWTOR E3 2011 Intro Cinematic Released

Posted:

Bioware and Electronic Arts have released Star Wars: The Old Republic intro cinematic video that reveals many ancient and terrible enemies that players will have to face against.

Dynasty Warriors Online: Playable at Tecmo-Koei's Booth at E3

Posted:

Aeria Games, a leading global publisher representing 20M+ gamers, announced today that Dynasty Warriors Online (dynastywarrriors.aeriagames.com) will be available to play at the TECMO-KOEI booth at E3 this year.

Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising Open Beta Goes Live with a New Trailer

Posted:

Heatwave Interactive, Inc.,global publisher and developer of premium interactive entertainment, announced today that Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, the studio's highly anticipated Roman mythology massively multi-player online role-playing game (MMORPG), is now in open beta testing (OBT).

Karma Online: Prisoners of the Dead Begins Closed Beta Test Today

Posted:

Joymax is pleased to bring Karma Online: Prisoners of the Dead to a global audience today, Tuesday, June 7th. To sign up for the closed beta and learn more about the game, players can visit http://www.joymax.com/karma/

Martial Empires Unleashes The Catastrophe of Babylon

Posted:

The Catastrophe of Babylon will be hitting Martial Empires soon. During this epic world event, players will need to work together in order to unlock the new dungeon and destroy the 'Destructive Grudge' inside to avert disaster.

EverQuest II 'Children of War' Update Interview

Posted:

EQII has not only survived, but it is arguably one of the best high-fantasy MMORPGs that has ever been created.
Posted by Shri Krishna

MMORPG Videos

MMORPG Videos

Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising: Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising Gameplay

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 10:11 AM PDT

Heatwave Interactive and the Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising team have released an updated gameplay trailer to celebrate the game's entry into open beta. Check it out!
Posted by Shri Krishna


General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

OWC Extends Warranty on Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD to Five Years

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 07:16 PM PDT

Last month, Intel increased the warranty period on solid-state drives in its SSD 320 range from the original three years to five years, making them the first consumer SSDs to have such a long warranty period. Now, Woodstock, Illinois-based Other World Computing (OWC) has taken a leaf out of Intel's book and extended the warranty on its Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD line to five years. According to OWC, this move has made it "the industry's first SandForce processor-based 6Gb/s SATA Revision 3.0 SSD offering an enterprise-class level 5 year warranty." 

Those who bought the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD prior to this announcement need not worry, as "OWC is also retroactively extending two additional years of warranty coverage to owners of the Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G who purchased their drive beginning mid April 2011 when it was offered with a three year warranty."

The SSD, which promises up to 559MB/s sustained reads and 527MB/s writes, is available in 120GB SSD, 240GB and 480GB capacities priced at $297.99, $569.99 and $1279.99, respectively. 

"We're very pleased to offer the industry's longest warranty coverage on the latest and fastest SSD data interface and make it retroactive on all purchases of our Extreme Pro 6G SSD," said Larry O'Connor, founder and CEO, OWC. "By building OWC Mercury SSDs with the best components and engineering processes available, we can offer consumers the best pre and post purchase assurances for the ultimate in SSD ownership confidence."

 

Google Adds Appointment Management to Calendar

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 02:35 PM PDT

appt

With the continued expansion of Google Apps, many businesses and individuals use Google Calendar to organize everything. Making a calendar publically visible has always been a great way to let others know when you're available, but a new feature of Calendar will help people actually set up appointments right from another user's calendar.  

All a user needs to do is set up appointment slots on their calendar. Google then provides a unique URL for setting up appointments on that calendar. The link can be set to anyone that may need to grab one of those slots. The other party won't have full write access to your calendar. They can only modify open appointment slots. When a person views your appointment slots, their own Google calendar will be overlaid on your available appointments. 

As is customary, the new feature will be rolled out to all users over the coming days. We imagine this is going to be a big help in business and education. Will you use it on your personal calendar as well?

News Corp Can't Sell MySpace, Looking into "Partnerships"

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 01:59 PM PDT

mspAs you are no doubt aware, MySpace has more or less fallen off most people's radar. The once great site, acquired by News Corp in 2005, has been on the auction block for several months. The sticking point? No one seems to want it very much.

After seeing a few offers significantly below the minimum asking price of $100 million, News Corp has decided selling the faltering site isn't an option. Instead, Murdoch and company have turned their attention to a "strategic partnership". The exact nature of what this partnership might be is not clear, but we imagine it would need to involve a social property that people still frequently use. But who would be willing to sully their good name by getting in bed with MySpace?

The former social networking king has seen traffic drop dramatically in recent years. Hits are about half what they were just a year ago, and the site lost $165 million last quarter. News Corp paid $580 million for MySpace in 2005. It's really become a money sinkhole for them. We wouldn't be surprised if the site is just shuttered and sold off in bits before too long.

Chrome Web App of the Week: Amazon Cloud Player

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 01:36 PM PDT

If you listen to the pundits, there's little doubt that iTunes users will be getting word that their Apple powered ditties will be making their way to the clouds by the end of the day. That might be great news for anyone rocking Cupertino's resource hogging, behemoth of a music player or an iOS device, but what about the rest of us?  If you signed up for a free or paid Amazon Cloud Player account, chances are that over the course of the past few months, you've had a chance to upload all of the audio files in your music library that your Cloud Drive can handle. Too bad Amazon's browser-based music player is, shall we say… clunky?  Fortunately, Amazon Cloud Player, our Chrome Web App of the Week, brings a modicum of style to Amazon's streaming music service.

Dropped into the Chrome Web Store by Will McSweeney (who MMO fans will know for his excellent Wowhead Utility), Amazon Cloud Player for Chrome is a fan-built labor of love. Once installed, the app, allows Amazon Cloud users to enjoy their streaming tunes from a dedicated window that foregoes everything but what you need to get your groove on.

No search field, no tabbed browsing, no bookmarks--just you and your music. After one use, we're sure you'll agree that McSweeney's app elegantly simple app fills a void that Amazon has left empty for too long.

Be sure to check back next Monday for another Chrome Web App of the Week.

 

Maingear Shift Super Stock Review

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 12:45 PM PDT

A bronze statue of power

How far can you take a Sandy Bridge processor? We've heard that even extreme overclockers seem to hit a wall just beyond 5GHz with Intel's darling new chip.

Whatever the limitations, Maingear seems content to take its Shift Super Stock to the brink of madness by clocking the 3.4GHz Core i7-2600K to 5GHz.

The company credits some of that high overclock to its new partnership with CoolIT and the use of a massive and exclusive 18cm EPIC cooler. EPIC, in this case, stands for Enhanced Performance InterCooler. Perhaps even more impressive, you can't even find the cooler in the Shift SS.

The Shift sports a well-tamed quad-SLI setup.

When we cracked open the case, we scratched our heads as we searched for the new cooler. It happens to be hidden away between the bottom of the hard drive cage and the case frame's center support. While inside, we also saw the reason the Shift SS's two GeForce GTX 590s run so quietly: an 8cm fan sits atop the quad-SLI setup and blows cool air directly onto the GPUs. Another aid to system cooling is the inverted motherboard that allows air to rise straight up out of the case. Any hot air that doesn't intend to leave is forced out by another large 12cm mounted at the base of the cards.

The case itself is Maingear's custom Silverstone enclosure with an attractive paint job applied. It's not the most refined we've ever seen, but it's certainly good and sets the machine apart from the standard black or off-the-shelf aluminum systems. The case interior is wired tight and two sets of LED interior lights are tastefully set into the rig.

Performance is what you'd expect of a Sandy Bridge rig running at 5GHz with a pair of GTX 590s. In our Vegas Pro 9 test, it was fastest of the Sandy Bridge–based boxes that we've tested to date. However, our Vegas Pro 9 test favors threads, so the record continues to be held by the hexa-core Velocity Micro rig we reviewed in March. The Maingear set the record in our ProShow Producer benchmark. It also smashed right through the record that had been held by—believe it or not—a Digital Storm system we reviewed back in May 2010. In our STALKER: CoP benchmark, the quad-SLI GTX 590s still couldn't muscle past AVADirect's monstrous machine from our Holiday 2010 issue. That rig used two Xeons paired with four GeForce GTX 480 cards. The Shift SS is close, very close, but it's still a couple frames behind. Against our zero-point, a 2.66GHz Core i7-920 overclocked to 3.5GHz, it's a slaughter, of course. Basically, expect tasks to take half the time with the Shift SS and games to run, well, from 90 percent to 213 percent faster.
 
The only serious ding against the Main-gear Shift SS is its price: At $5,640, it's a big chunk of change. Especially when you consider that the CPU is the bargain burner Core i7-2600K. Much of the price comes from the GPUs—a $1,500 commodity. But the paint job, a $650 option, is also to blame. This is all academic, though. If you're the kind of person that can even consider buying a custom-built, tuned-to-the-max gaming rig, you're probably not the kind of person to quibble too much over price.

$5,650, www.maingear.com

Tiny, Free and Kick-Ass: 20 More Awesome Apps Under 2 MB

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 12:23 PM PDT

A month or two back, we posted our list of 30 amazing apps under 2MB. We thought it was a pretty fun concept, and apparently you guys agreed, because we got some great feedback, and some excellent suggestions. Our first list was far from complete, of course, so we decided to do some more investigating, and found 20 more great apps. They're all free, all easy to download, and all great at what they do. Read on, and hit the comments if we've still missed any of your favorites.

If you're looking for still more tiny software goodness, check out our list of 21 great games under 5MB.

HWMonitor

Another of CPUID's gems, HWMonitor is like the tricorder of utilities. Want to know the maximum temp of core #2, or some other esoteric readout, HWMonitor probably has it listed.

www.cpuid.com

GPU-Z

If you want the full 411 on your graphics card, we know of no better app for that than GPU-Z. The tiny utility, which doesn't require installation, supports both Nvidia and AMD GPUs and provides a thorough accounting of a card's specs. We're talking clock speed, die size, ROPs, texture fillrate, release date, the works.

www.techpowerup.com

Sandboxie

Protect your PC and data from suspicious or malicious sources. The app provides a sandbox, wouldn't you know, in which you can surf the web, run programs, and open questionable emails with abandon, knowing that all these activities are confined to an isolated space.

www.sandboxie.com

Restoration

It's happened to us all. You delete a file, empty your recycle bin, and then later realize you want the file back. Restoration's sole purpose is to help you retrieve that data. No install is necessary. Just run the app, selecting to scan all deleted files or only those within select parameters. You can opt to recover files or select to wipe the files, making them unrecoverable to future attempts.

bit.ly/cxUL4I

Stickies

As handy as sticky notes are in real life, the same holds true on your PC. Stickies lets you affix digital sticky notes—small text-based .ini files—anywhere on a desktop, webpage, file, or folder, where they will stay until closed, even through reboots. There are options to customize your notes' font, color, format, size, and even the times at which they appear.

www.zhornsoftware.co.uk

Secunia PSI

One of the most common ways for a PC to get infected with malware is through out-of-date, unpatched software. Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) makes it its business to monitor all the software on your PC and inform you when a patch is available.

www.secunia.com

EasyBCD

An award-winning utility, EasyBCD extends and takes control of the Windows Vista/Windows 7 BCD bootloader, allowing you to dual-boot between Windows 7,Windows Vista, and older versions of Windows, as well as Linux, Ubuntu, BSD, and Mac OS X.

bit.ly/2FpG4W

Paint.net

You don't need a shotgun to swat a fly. And you don't need an enormous and expensive image-editing program like Photoshop (or even a small, free, and complex program like GIMP) to do basic image editing. Featuring layers, robust edit history, and powerful tools, Paint.net is a great app that takes up almost no space.

www.getpaint.net

Volumouse

An essential utility for music fans, Volumouse gives you the ability to control the volume on your PC by rolling the wheel on your mouse. You define the rules for how the mouse wheel controls volume (when the Alt key is held down, when the left mouse button is pressed, etc). If your rules are undefined, the mouse wheel reverts to regular scrolling tasks.

www.nirsoft.net

Startup Programs Tracker

Want to know what programs are automatically loading on startup? Startup Programs Tracker tells you, by scanning both the Start Menu and the system registry for such items. Then it automatically pastes results to the Windows Clipboard for easy sharing via email or other documents. SPT can also check for disabled Start Up items and changes to the default Shell value.

bit.ly/k4tKDC

DSClock

This is an awesome way to create, customize, and turbo-charge your desktop clock. DS Clock 2.5 allows a remarkable array of configurations, including fonts, colors, transparencies, positions, and sounds. You can also choose to synchronize your desktop clock with atomic time servers, and integrate your Google Calendar into the clock, as well.

www.dualitysoft.com/dsclock

PowerMenu

Ever since its debut back in 1998, PowerMenu has been a staple of our Windows environment. Once installed, it grants you additional right-click menu options such as the ability to make windows transparent, add system priorities to applications, and to set a Window to always remain on top. Pro tip for Win7 users: You have to hold down L+ Shift to enable these options in the taskbar.

www.abstractpath.com/powermenu

Taskbar Shuffle

Like the best wee apps, Taskbar Shuffle does a few things and it does them well. First, it allows you to quickly and easily rearrange and reorganize your Windows taskbar by simply dragging and dropping icons. Second, you can do the same to applications in Windows system tray. Third, an options menu in the app allows you an even wider range of controls. It's also fully compatible with UltraMon.

nerdcave.webs.com

SumatraPDF

Ninety percent of the times you open a PDF, you just want to look at a PDF. You don't need attach rate tracking, digital signing, password-protection, DRM, an STMP server, or any of the massive security holes that seem to riddle Adobe Acrobat Reader. SumatraPDF is uber-fast, responsive, and won't bog down your system. Also reads .xps, .cbr, and .cbz files.

bit.ly/aHICnC

Defraggler

One of Piriform's many fine utilities (others include Recuva, CCleaner, and Speccy), Defraggler does what it says on the tin: It defragments. You can use it to defragment an entire drive, or drill down and defragment individual folders and files. More useful for XP or older machines that lack the auto-defrag feature of Vista and Windows 7. And, of course, you shouldn't defragment an SSD.

www.piriform.com/defraggler

AutoHotkey

Don't let the name fool you, AutoHotkey is good for much more than hotkeys. Designed for automating boring tasks, AutoHotkey's scripting language has been used to create any number of useful utilities for Windows.

www.autohotkey.com

Ultimate Windows Tweaker

What do you call an app that lets you change something about the Windows UI that you never knew was changeable? You call that a great tweak. What do you call an app that lets you make more than 130 tweaks for Windows Vista, 7, and Internet Explorer, all in a sub-500K package? You call that the Ultimate Windows Tweaker.

http://bit.ly/iLE04

Folder Guide

Windows 7 has made it pretty easy to keep track of your most-used folders, with the inclusion of Libraries and the Favorites menu in Explorer. If you wish you could get those same, useful features in Windows XP and earlier, Folder guide is for you. Just select your favorite folders, and the app creates a custom context-menu entry that allows you to quickly jump anywhere you want in Explorer or the Save/Load dialogue box.

http://bit.ly/bOaRa

RevoUninstaller

Ever get a pesky application that you just can't uninstall? RevoUninstaller is the equivalent of calling Chuck Bronson over to pull a Mr. Majestyk on them. Use the hunter mode, which lets you point the crosshairs at any icon. This lets you uninstall the app from the shortcut, kill its process, stop auto starting, or kill and delete the process. The free version is plenty full featured to make it worthy of checking out.

www.revouninstaller.com

CrystalDiskInfo 4.0

Let's face it, monitoring the S.M.A.R.T. values from your hard drive to head off the next hard drive crash is a bit like trying to predict earthquakes. Still, the research shows that this data can sometimes save your bacon. CrystalDiskInfo lets you constantly monitor your S.M.A.R.T. data as well as graph it.

www.crystalmark.info

Research Proves Your Password Sucks

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 12:23 PM PDT

Make strong passwords. Make strong passwords. Our high school computer teacher beat the mantra into our heads, at least until the day we forgot our log on, a non-dictionary jumble that consisted of 39 upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, ampersands, exclamation points and any other special characters we could jam in there. After restoring our account, Mr. O'Donnell changed the mantra to, "Make kinda strong passwords." Microsoft MVP Troy Hunt analyzed the user information leaked in the recent LulzSec hack of Sony Pictures, and discovered that most people's passwords not only aren't kinda strong, but usually down-right crappy.

Troy tested 37,608 accounts in total. Analysis shows that 93 percent of all the passwords clocked in between 6 and 10 characters, not surprising given the 6- or 8-character minimum imposed by most services. Next, Troy took a look at variation of character types in the passwords. As Maximum PC readers no doubt know, varied passwords are harder to crack. Troy defined four different types of characters: uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and everything else. And wow, are the results disappointing!

Only 4 percent of users had a mix of three or more different types of characters. Over 50 percent only used a single type, and less than 1 percent used a nonalphanumeric, or special, character.

There's lots of more juicy analysis where that came from. Troy was even kind enough to list the top 25 most common passwords. Check them out below. You'll find 22 in all lowercase letters, and two of the three that aren't are "123456" and "abc123". In case you were wondering, yes, "password" is in there.

seinfeld, password, winner, 123456, purple, sweeps, contest, princess, maggie, 9452, peanut, shadow, ginger, michael, buster, sunshine, tigger, cookie, george, summer, taylor, bosco, abc123, ashley, bailey

Microsoft Dances Over The Body Of Rustock Botnet

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 11:37 AM PDT

Everybody hates spam, but Microsoft hates spam more than most. The company apparently got sick of spending money trying to block the scads of spam the Rustock botnet was putting out on a daily basis, so it teamed up with federal prosecutors to crack down and wipe the botnet off the face of the Internet. And somehow, it worked! Today, the company rubbed its success in the face of the spammers by taking out quarter-page ads in two of Russia's biggest newspapers, listing the IP addresses of the domains that were shut down and warning... er, informing them of their day in court.

While it seems like gloating – and it kinda is – the ads serve a very important legal purpose, too. "By placing these quarter-page ads, which will run for 30 days, we honor our legal obligation to make a good faith effort to contact the owners of the IP address and domain names that were shut down when Rustock was taken offline," Richard Boscovich, the senior attorney of Microsoft's digital crime unit, said on the official Microsoft blog.

Boscovich couldn't resist taking a few shots at Rustock's operators in the post. Before the legal speak, he kicked things off by calling Rustock "Dead and decaying," then followed up the technical mumbo-jumbo by saying that Microsoft would continue to pursue the case even if the owners of the IP addresses didn't step forward. Dog, you better step aside; Microsoft, Bounty Hunter is on the case!

15,000 Facebook Users Accept Girl's Accidental Party Invite

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 11:03 AM PDT

The Beastie Boys had to fight for their right to party; we haven't heard any songs about Thessa, a 16 year old girl in Germany, having to engage in fisticuffs to earn her celebratory privileges, but we might next year. What should have been an otherwise pleasant, probably mildly boring 16th birthday party for the girl took a turn for the awesome when she forgot to set her Facebook birthday invitation to private. Next thing you know, 15,000 had RSVP'd.

It's a good thing she didn't by hors d' oeuvres. The New York Daily News reports that 13,500 of the 15,000 people who said they'd be there didn't bother to show up. Oh, wait, neither did Thessa or her family – they ran for the hills before the event, probably when they calculated the cost of 15,000 stuffed mushrooms.

Thessa's disappearance left a crew of 100 police officers to handle the crowd of 1,500 on their own. Despite the crush of people, police report everything went smoothly as party goers politely milled around for their own right to party.

New Malware Breaks Windows 64-Bit PatchGuard, Inexplicably Targets Mac OS X

Posted: 06 Jun 2011 10:38 AM PDT

Windows PCs don't exactly have a reputation for security, but Microsoft's trying to change that. When smug know-it-alls claim that Windows PCs have more viruses than a public toilet, Microsoft points to the PatchGuard driver signing system on 64-bit Windows as their way of saying "Nuh-uh!" PatchGuard keeps the baddies from getting high-level privileges on Windows machines. Bad news: Kapersky's reporting that a new malware program that targets Windows 64-bit users has figured a way around the protection.

The malware is part of the popular BlackHole Exploit Kit and infects computers through vulnerabilities in Java and Adobe Reader, two third-party programs that basically everybody has on their computer. Kapersky reports that once Rootkit.Win64.Necurs.a gets its foot in the door, it starts downloading those annoying fake antivirus programs – you know, the "OMG! Your computer has umpteen million infected files! Click here to buy a fix!" type. The downloader gets around the Windows 64-bit protection by activating a driver test command that keeps PatchGuard from slamming on the brakes.

An interesting tidbit: one of the fake antiviruses the program tries to download is Hoax.OSX.Defma.f, a fake antivirus for Mac OS X. Obviously, it won't work, being downloaded to a 64-bit Windows computer and all, but it points to an not-quite-so-obsure, post-Mac Defender future for Mac users.
Posted by Shri Krishna

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MMO News

MMOHut Weekly Recap #37 June 5 – Perfect World, Luvinia Online, & More

Posted: 05 Jun 2011 01:20 PM PDT

MMO Weekly News #37 – Perfect World, Luvinia Online, & More

Weekly MMO News summary for the week ended June 5 (May 30 – June 5). A quick look and discussion for every major announcement and update during the week! This week we discussed updates from the following games: Perfect World Entertainment, Cryptic Studios, Blackshot, Cross Fire, Karma Online, Eden Eternal, Divine Souls, GoGo Racer, The Chosen, Luvinia Online, Blacklight Retribution, and Prius Online. You can view all the individual news articles mention over at the MMOHut.com News section.
Posted by Shri Krishna
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