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Maximum PC | Rip, Watch and Organize Everything: The Ultimate Media Guide

Maximum PC has done it again. For a dead simple, feature rich guide to ripping, watching and doing whatever you might ever want to do with your media that have released an updated one stop shop. Want to know my favorite parts of the article? Hit the Read more link, if you want to skip all that rambling hit the link at the top or head over to Maximum PC!

With streaming services getting more and more popular everyday (it is how the wife and I consume media almost exclusively) having to put in a DVD or Blu-ray feels archaic. By far the most useful and relevant portion of this article is the step by step guide to ripping your media for hosting on your own home server or backup. Being able to sit back and flip to any movie you already own is an astounding experience and shouldn't be skipped. Go read up on the article and let me know your favorite part.

There isn’t much time remaining in what is the final beta event for Aion: Tower of Eternity and I wanted to take a few minutes to share my thoughts on select topics of my choosing from the brief time I’ve spent in Atreia.

Race
First and foremost I want to cover the races. I particularly love the back story between the two different races and how they came to become exactly that. I spent some time with both the Asmodians and Elyos and oddly enough found myself feeling more in tune with the Asmodian’s plot, but I will likely play as the Elyos for one reason. My play through as an Asmodian Warrior left me wanting in a bad sort of way. I’m not sure if it was how and when the quests were dispersed, how the starting area was laid out, or something else entirely but just playing the Asmodians proved to feel more grindy and tedious. I suspect at higher levels (I only got to 10) this will not be an issue, or maybe it is just me, either way I don’t really care to subject myself to that. That being said, I enjoy the Elyos even if they don’t have black wings.

Class
Almost with certainty when I start a new character in any RPG or MMO I roll a warrior. I tend to prefer the straight up brutality of the melee fighter and rarely stray from that tried and true favorite. However I will most likely roll a Scout with the intent of playing an Assassin in Aion. Why have I veered in this regard? I can’t really say. Maybe I just didn’t “feel it” with the Warrior classes, or maybe I am just looking for something a little different. What I do know, however, is that the Assassin is a stupid fun class to play in Aion and I can’t wait to get back into it come September.

Combat and Quests
The quests tend to be the general affair and pretty much what I’ve come to expect from the MMO genre. That isn’t to say they are boring or without merit, but they do tend to follow the standard routine. The combat on the other hand I find to be oddly exhilarating. Perhaps it is the crisp, swift animations and the brutal sound, but whatever the cause I find myself mesmerized by the “feel” of combat. It never seems to get to the point where I feel like I’m just hitting auto attack and letting the computer do the work. And then they throw in flight, seriously, it just keeps getting better from level 1.

Final Thoughts
My general feel of Aion is that it is going to be a fantastic game. Perhaps it comes from having already been released in Asia, but it has an excellent polish to it which really helps it shine. There are few genre redefining elements to the game, but it takes everything that the MMORGP does and does them just that much better. With the few tricks it does throw out, like the afore mentioned flight, it definitely filters to the top of the A+ MMO list.

Verdict
Grab it in September and get a breath of something fresh.

If you hadn't heard, with the soft launch EA pulled I wouldn't blame you, Electronic Arts has launched a new web based free to play First Person Shooter called Battlefield Heroes. This is a cartoony shooter with a visual style reminiscent of Team Fortress 2 and a fun, light hearted stab (damn Commandos) at the competitive Battlefield formula.

Visually the game is pretty nice, lots of bright colors and great animations. The two different sides are different enough to typically be able to tell them apart from a distance with the Royals looking similar to the "high school jocks" and the Nationals looking like those punk greasers. The over done cartoon style will also help the game keep its graphical appeal well into the future, something that the gritty realistic games have tend to have trouble with.

The gameplay is simple, but not boring. There are three hero types: the Gunner, Soldier and Commando. The gunner is your heavy weapons specialist carying a light machine gun, anti-tank bazooka and shotgun. The soldier is your everyday middleman with his submachine guns, pistols (or shotgun) and anti-infantry grenades and the commando is your typical sniper that carries a knife. Both sides have the same classes which lends balancing to be a little simpler for the development team. All three classes are fun to play, but you can't change at will. One you create a hero he is the class you chose forever and experience (and clothing, weapon upgrades, etc) are tied to that particular hero for ever. So if you have a level 10 gunner you will need to create a new level 1 commando if you want to snipe.

The UI is a little weird, there is no server browser which tends to frustrate me when the game keeps dumping me into a server that is poorly balanced and not fun to play. But I'm not complaining too loud since the game is entirely free - you can purchase clothes and other customizations - and a ton of fun to play. Hop online and fire up an account, if you do look me up (Player name RedeyeLE) and add me to your friends list (so we can join each others' games!) and we'll frag some Nationals!

So in preparation for the now official hurricane season I've taken some preventative measures to protect my analog game collection. Last year, when big bad Ike came rolling through Houston, I took a risk that the hundred plus games I own would potentially be lost forever. You see, I store my games pretty close to a window in a nook that is located in the dinning room. If we had taken any amount of water damage or lost a window (thankfully we didn't) my games would have been soaked and very likely ruined forever.

So this year I have taken action, and that action comes with the help of a nice CD holder and Google Documents. When I came up with this concept of game storage I wasn't really sure how much effort would be involved, but fortunately I have a fantastic wife willing to be a team player when team playing is needed.

First things were first, I needed an easy to transport, robust and simple storage device. My local Fry's Electronics pulled through for me in the way of a Merax Aluminum 300 CD/DVD hard case. I got it as an open box item for several dollars off making a great deal, the only thing I wound up short on was the key to lock it, but this was not a feature I felt would be necessary. I also went with the higher capacity due to a couple factors: A) I had no idea how many games I actually owned and B) I had no idea of those games that I owned how many were single DVDs and how many had 2-6 CDs that would need to be stored. As it stands I filled a little over half of the case which gives me some room to grow.

The first thing I did when I got home was take the cardboard sheets that are provided to allow you to title each sleeve and throw it out. I felt it was pretty silly having to keep up with writing down what game goes in what number sleeve on a little cardboard sheet. Instead I fired up Google Documents to start a spreadsheet. This way I can access my game list from any machine, which is particularly useful when I'm on my laptop in the other room or in another city during an evacuation!

I also decided at this point that there was going to be no way to easily organize my games alphabetically or by any other ordering scheme, because reordering them everything I buy an "A" game or what have you would just be silly. So, with the help of my wonderful wife, I piled in. Going through each box and/or jewel case filing the CD/DVDs in as many slots as necessary and recording the game's Name, Genre, Activation key (this is important!), and slot number(s). After a couple hours of effort and several episodes of True Blood we finally finished.

The result? I have since installed as many as three games I completely forgot I had that I am now very excited about playing all over again and I have a grab and run system for the next big bad hurricane that rolls through sunny Houston. I also gained the added advantage of being able to compactly stash all my games right next to my desk where I can easily flip open my Google Doc spreadsheet, find which game I want to play, make note of its location and pull it out. I also no longer have to go digging for manuals and leaflets for those pesky CD keys. This little system is so handy we went back up to Fry's and nabbed another case to store our movies in.

I highly recommend everyone take a few hours of your time to save your collections in a manner that will hopefully help preserve them for posterity. After all, in 20, 40 years you may not be capable of running them, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to show your grandkids all the fantastic vintage game disks you used to play!

So I was flipping through the oft read pages of Maximum PC the other day and noticed a fantastic step by step guide to setting up a streaming server to host your music. Essentially you take your desktop (or home server) and stream your music using Xampp and Netjukebox. I also threw in a little DynDNS as recommended in the article, but that is just icing on the cake.

Check it out, I highly recommend it. This will make listening to music at work while I'm "intently focused on my tasks" all that much easier. Thanks MaxPC!

On other music related news I recently picked up the Kings of Leon album Only by the Night at the Amazon.com MP3 store and it is fantastic. I highly recommend.

As proven by many awesome things such as The Daily Show, taking things out of context rocks. Don't believe me? Take this picture for example:

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Gamasutra has a pretty interesting interview in regards to Stardock and the upcoming Impulse.

April 7, 2008

Q&A: Stardock's Wardell Talks Distribution Revolution With Impulse
In this wide-ranging Q&A, Gamasutra talks with Brad Wardell, founder of publisher Stardock (GalCiv), about how its new distribution platform Impulse could breathe new life into PC gaming.The series has a unique opt-in subscription and microtransaction model and MMO developer services, and details on its exclusive publishing deal with Gas Powered's forthcoming Demigod.

See the rest of the interview after the break.

Can you introduce us to the concept behind Impulse?

Brad Wardell: Impulse is going to be our new digital distribution platform. We've been doing digital distribution for years and years on our own stuff. We had Totalgaming.net for games, and Object Desktop for non-games. What we've done with Impulse is we're consolidating it on one platform, so you can literally manage all of your games or all of your applications and tools and utilities all in one place. Historically, we've just put our stuff, or if indie developers wanted us to distribute their stuff, we'd let them, but we didn't really push it. Now, with Impulse, we're going out and getting major third-party games and applications put on here as well. By the end of the year, you should be able to get most games on Impulse.

Is this going to adhere to a genre strategy? Is this all going to fall in line with what you're known for?

BW: No, it'll be all games. You'll be able to get to them on the Internet. For example, players would have a choice between various publishers like THQ or Sega, etc?

So it's sort of a Steam competitor, then, but more broad?

BW: Yeah, exactly. It's more broad. We like Steam, and I'm currently playing Team Fortress all the time, but we've talked to a lot of publishers and developers who do not want to replace Wal-Mart at retail with a digital front. They want there to be more avenues for them. I know there's Direct2Drive and GamersGate and other things like that, but in terms of a consistent platform where you can just manage and run your games and be a part of the community and that sort of thing, that's what Impulse is bringing. We're starting to go out and get not just game content, but non-game content as well.

What kind of stuff?

BW: Well, for example, we just signed Gas Powered Games' Demigod. Stardock is going to be the worldwide exclusive publisher of that, at both retail and digitally next year. I believe we're going to have most of the game publishers on here as well, we hope, by the end of the year. Demigod will be coming out in February next year.

But when it comes to non-game related things?

BW: Oh, non-game? I can't talk about it yet.

Just broadly, I don't mean specifics. What kind of content?

BW: Like paint programs, antivirus, disk defragmenting...

What about media content?

BW: We're not going to be doing movies or music for that. We have a lot of work with the PC OEMs, and we don't want to try and compete with the any of the things that are going on there. It would make it much harder to get it distributed widely. The main reason we wanted to talk to you guys about this is because I know you guys have been covering how the PC game industry is going from here. Impulse has integrated into it support for what is called mini-subscriptions and micro-expansion packs. Currently, a lot of people think that a subscription model is the only way to go, with some sort of MMO, but what we think is that a lot of games will come out with support for people purchasing additional content. That itself isn't that new, but that includes also having optional subscriptions. You could, for a few dollars a month, subscribe to something where you keep getting new maps, new characters, and new items, but it wasn't required and you weren't forced to subscribe -- and that's the critical part. A lot of people will go, "Why do I have to be nickel-and-dimed in every single game I play?" But if you get into a game and really like it, then here's an option to get new stuff out of it, rather than the current model, which is "Publisher gives developer big advance. Game gets made. One patch is made, then expansion packs." That's it. Then all the people who are into the game are basically abandoned after that.

It would be subscription-based -- so it would be a monthly charge?

BW: You would be able to do both. You would have that option. You could either buy the subscription and get all the content as it comes, or you can pay another price and get just the content that you want to get.

It sounds potentially like the microtransactions model, like buying swords and stuff for a game.

BW: The thing that's nice about subscriptions is that the developer then has a steady stream of revenue coming in, so they can then start to plan out. The problem with microtransactions on their own is that they're kind of hit-or-miss. And microtransactions lend themselves a little bit more to abuse than subscriptions. For example, we're well-known for releasing free updates with new features. We don't want that to go away. We're going to continue to release... like with Demigod, we're going to be doing free updates for that for a year. We don't want someone paying five dollars for horse armor or something like that. We want people to get that sort of thing for free. But if they want to get significant new content for a game that they love, here's an option to do that.

So we're talking about something more significant than a single item?

BW: Exactly. You don't want players to feel like they're being nickel-and-dimed. But at the same time, for people who really got into a game, they don't want to feel abandoned after a year, which is the current PC model.

Well, for years, I thought it would be nice if console games... it wasn't feasible up until the current generation that it could support something like that.

BW: Yeah, they didn't have that.

But it's an idea that I, as a gamer, personally had years ago, the idea that "Why can't we get additional content for these games that we love so much?" They're kind of self-contained.

BW: And yet make them optional, so you don't have to. If I want to play [a game] and I like the game as-is, I shouldn't have to pay for a subscription if I don't want to. But if I really get into it, and it starts giving me more realms to explore, more castles, and more armor -- all kinds of cool stuff -- I'm willing to pay for that. You know... it doesn't take that many people to make it worthwhile. I mean, even if you only have 100,000 or 150,000 people subscribing, or even 10,000 people subscribing, you're making $100,000 a month. That's enough to have a dedicated team constantly enhancing the product year after year.

Well, the same thing is true of Nexon, who do MapleStory. They're totally microtransactions, but I think it's something like three percent of the people who play actually buy a lot of items, but that's enough to give it a huge profit, basically.

BW: Exactly.

There are some people who just play for free.

BW: Right. But it's a win-win for gamers and a win-win for developers, because the current PC game model is just not that stable. The whole "spend millions of dollars on a game and then one expansion pack..." Even if it's a hit, it's really hard to recoup it, especially in an age with World of Warcraft and things like that.

There's been a lot of discussion lately about piracy and how that affects the market.

BW: Yeah, I wrote an article on it.

I'm familiar with it. I see it both ways, kind of. Obviously, I agree that not putting in the aggressive copy protection is better for everybody, because it's cracked anyway, and it just creates a really unpleasant experience for people who actually pay, rather than creating a barrier for pirates.

BW: Exactly. Not to mention that an increasing percentage of PC users have laptops, and if I can't play a game on my laptop, I'm not buying it. And if I'm going on a trip like this, I'm not taking a bunch of DVDs with me and my games. Every little bit matters to me.

You just want to install on your laptop, and your desktop, and just...

BW: Play it whenever I feel like it. If I'm paying $40, $50, or $60 for a game, don't treat me like a criminal.

Speaking of which, if you have installed multiple times, how do you manage the save file across multiple installs?

BW: The save file?

You know, like your progress in the game. Is that something you've looked into?

BW: It depends on the game. Demigod is going to have a persistent universe, so all your characters and stuff are server-side. But what I'm saying is that it's not the platform that does that. It's the individual implementation from a game point of view.

Going back to the piracy thing, I think it must be an issue, though.

BW: Oh yeah, piracy is a huge issue. But there are ways to solve it. I don't like piracy. It drives me crazy when I see my stuff up on some torrent, -- especially when some people go there and criticize the game -- but the solution isn't to make it harder for the users who bought the game. That's the thing that's insane. That's not stopping the pirates. That's just making it inconvenient for the users.

The last time it came up for me was with Starforce, which really was a PR nightmare for them, more than anything.

BW: Oh yeah, because it would install hidden drivers on your machine. No game or piece of software has a right to install drivers on your machine without telling you what they are. That's really a problem. And that hurts their sales in the future. But here's the thing. What we do with our games, like Sins of a Solar Empire, we've already released two updates for it, and we have another update coming out. We can control who gets those updates, because we have every serial number that we've actually shipped that's out there and is connected to a person's e-mail address. So sure, pirates can get your game, but at some point, it's more convenient to just buy the game. If you support your products after release, you keep getting people who will convert over because it's just too much of a hassle to pirate. And the people who don't are not a lost sale in the first place, because they never would have bought it.

Do you have any research besides your success that suggests that supporting the game after release does increase its sales?

BW: It would be so hard to do a truly scientific study on that, but I think common sense says it does. First of all, every time you do an update, you get some media coverage of it, so that's almost like free advertising. Two, some number greater than zero of people who want to pirate it who don't want to go through the trouble of trying to find yet another update are going to buy it. So it's certainly not going to cost you sales. Therefore, it has to increase sales.

I'm just thinking about the cost of developing the update.

BW: It doesn't cost very much. Like on Demigod, we're going to do a full year of updates for that, too. Gas Powered Games has converted over to the way we're doing things.

When you're doing the budgets for your game, you know this far out for a game that's not coming out for a year that you're going to do a full year of updates for Demigod. How does that affect the budget? Do you decrease the budget for the initial product, instead having a full budget over the course of the product's lifespan which includes all the updates?

BW: We just increase the budget overall. So the main game doesn't lose anything. You just add a little bit on the back, and you're going to make it up in extra sales.

That's really interesting, because it sounds so counter to the mercenary way that a lot of things in the game industry are run.

BW: Yeah, but everyone says that the PC game industry is dying. Maybe they should change course.

It's a discussion I've had. I think when people say the PC game industry is dying, they mean that the way we've done the PC industry for the last 20 years is dying, and they sort of equate those. The way we've been doing it is the PC gaming industry. It's not. It just has to evolve to survive.

BW: That's what Impulse is about, putting in the features necessary to allow to evolve to the next level. Integrating extra content into a microsubscription and microexpansion packs, letting people get to their games however they want. If I buy a game at the store, let me download it through Impulse, so I don't have to worry about losing a CD... not having any sort of copy protection, and it will be so seamless. Some of our games have activation. Galactic Civilizations II does. But nobody notices it, because they're downloading it through this anyway, so it's not a big deal.

You're talking about how you'd be frustrated if you couldn't play your game on your laptop and PC, yet you're talking about activation. So you'll have to activate once, and then it will be okay?

BW: Yeah, once you activate once, you're set.

So the impetus is just to have a user-friendly service?

BW: Right.

You said you're working with other publishers. Do you have a set of standards they have to adhere to, or do you just say, "Your rules are your rules?"

BW: It depends. We're getting more comfort with the way we're doing things. I can't speak for any particular publisher, but generally speaking, even what's on Steam usually is not that draconian.

Sure. It's almost like a philosophical question, getting people to understand their audience. It's a big problem in all markets right now, I think, is the disconnect between the audience and the people who supply the content a lot of the time.

BW: We're hoping that Impulse can provide a game development platform for developers, so, for example, where Steam has specific features [via SteamWorks] for first-person shooters, we're going to have persistent universe support and that kind of thing for strategy games and so on.

So support for game developers... pro or indie?

BW: Both. Sins of a Solar Empire and Demigod will both be able to make use of the matchmaking services, and you'll have a persistent character in Impulse that you use between games as you build up your stats, and you'll have friends, and that kind of thing.

So it's sort of a metagame.

BW: Exactly. But it gives a reason for people who are into one kind of game to try out another game and that sort of thing.

Are we talking like an Xbox Live sort of thing, where you have a name and points that you earn?

BW: It's a little bit more than that. The community thing isn't in yet, but you'll be able to have your own blogs, talk about your own experiences, setting up clans, and that sort of thing right within it. You can work with other people, play games with other people, and give tips and tricks to other people within it. One of the things Demigod is going to have in terms of a persistent universe is that you have this world full of arenas that you keep conquering, but it lasts between games. It's kind of like what you were talking about earlier, where it's not just on my local machine. I'm part of a virtual world.

I'm just trying to get a handle on how much is tracked between different games.

BW: It'll depend on how much each publisher wants to participate, really. Valve has Steam, but Stardock's Impulse has the advantage of Stardock being an actual game publisher as well. Obviously, Valve can do it on Half-Life and their own games, but we have Gas Powered Games' games in there, and Ironclad's, and they'll all have the seed of something that others can grow and make use of.

So say you buy one of your games at retail after this service is launched. Will it install this service as part of the retail disc?

BW: Yeah. We want people to make use of this because for one thing, it will let you re-download the entire game. So from a support issue, if they've damaged one of their CDs, we don't want people to think like, "Oh no, my CD is scratched." Once they get on here, then from then on forever, they can re-download the entire game and not have to worry about their CD. Even if they lose their serial number, they only need their username and password on this. Even if they lose that, they can get that e-mailed to them.

That's sort of bridging the gap between the retail present and the online future.

BW: Right. We make no distinction where you buy. People who buy Galactic Civilizations 1, back from 2003, in Germany, they'll be able to download this and be able to download all the latest versions of Galactic Civilizations from scratch. They don't need their CD anymore. They can just toss their CD.

They just need the key.

BW: They just need the key that came with it.

Going back to the question about discussing Impulse as a development platform, you talked about attracting indie developers and maybe pro developers. Are you just talking about using this as a distribution channel for them, or also...?

BW: A little of both. On the distribution sidethere's professional developers and professional publishers. We'll use Gas Powered Games as an example, because they're a professional developer, right? They make their game, and then someone like Microsoft or THQ in the case of Supreme Commander, or in Demigod's case Stardock, publishes it. But historically the developers are cut off. They're at the mercy of the publisher. With Impulse, though, they can actually generate money by using Impulse to sell their game. Because we have an affiliate system, which is something that no one else has. Let's say if Gamasutra had Impulse. When you install Impulse from Gamasutra, it would print to the registry the Gamasutra affiliate ID, and every time someone ever bought a game or anything from Impulse, Gamasutra would receive 15 percent of the gross on it. What's nice is that developers, even the ones that have publishers, can essentially push their own game and still make 15 percent of the sale, which is nice, because historically, they're locked out. You can tell people to go to Best Buy, but there's no affiliate system for that or Steam, or what have you. There's no affiliate. Even today, if a publisher puts their title on Impulse, anyone can try to sell it, just like if my title is at Amazon.com, there's nothing stopping anyone from trying to get people to buy it from Amazon.com.

Yeah, I guess my only question is... you're talking about Gas Powered, how they're published by THQ, and obviously THQ has a relationship with Impulse, but what about for the theoretical publisher that doesn't have a relationship?

BW: Right. In that case, if they don't have their game on Impulse, there's nothing we can do, but it creates an incentive for everybody to put their title on Impulse, because it's a way of generating higher amounts of revenue. Let's say for example THQ used Impulse as their store. They would get the 70 percent royalty because they're the publisher, and then they get another 15 percent as the affiliate, so they're making 85 percent. That's better than the typical e-commerce solution. If you went to Digital River or whatever, they can't even match that.

When it comes to development, you're not offering any tools or anything? You're just trying to attract developers to distribution?

BW: Demigod's going to be the first one to make use of this...

The flagship?

BW: Yeah, flagship of additional services that are going to be able to apply to developers. If you want a persistent universe, if you want to provide subscriptions to your users, if you want to provide mini-expansion packs, we can do that. In fact, we already have that on the desktop side. It's like, here's my software, and then I can have this extra content that just pops in here because I'm subscribed to Object Desktop. It pops up every month, and I can try that out. Right now, because we can support that right out of the box, a developer or publisher who goes "You know, I'd really like to do this. I'd like to be able to provide this,"...we're the first platform that can seamlessly do that kind of thing.

It's interesting, because right now there are so many strategies percolating around the industry, and so many platforms, that I don't think anyone knows how things are going to shake down now.

BW: I don't know if there's one way it's going to work, but I think most people will agree that they've played at least one game in their life where they would say, "You know, I would pay a few dollars a month if that game kept going and going year after year." Especially if it's optional. I want to stress that. You don't want people to feel like they have to pay for some service to get to play the games.That's why free updates are so important. You have to say, "We're doing free updates, but for the hardcore people who want to see new stuff being made..." That part, you have to say, "All right, what are some new things that you guys want to see?" You talk to your community, and they'll tell you what they want to see, and you make it. At that point, obviously you weren't holding back stuff, because the users themselves are the ones who came up with it.

POSTED: 07.17AM PST, 04/07/08 - Christian Nutt - LINK

Space Shuttle Endeavour screamed into the night sky, on the STS-123 (1J/A) mission at 2:28 a.m. EDT, March 11. A record 16-day mission to the International Space Station and deliver the first section of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Kibo laboratory and the Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) two-armed robotic system, Dextre (SPDM).

We watched the launch from the Banana River viewing area, and got some pretty cool shots of both the Saturn V/Apollo facility and the launch, of course! Check them out.

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In the months after Strider brought four hobbits to the hidden valley of Rivendell, Elrond Half-elven sent forth many Elf-scouts and Rangers to search the surrounding lands for signs of the Enemy's servants. One of these scouts, an Elf-woman named Candelleth, established a way-station in Tâl Bruinen, the southern reaches of the Trollshaws that follow the course of the river Bruinen.

From this outpost, called Echad Candelleth, many scouting parties resupply and take much-needed rest from their arduous journeys. Echad Candelleth also sometimes hosts parties of hunters from Bree-land and from the villages east of the Misty Mountains. Recently, the outpost has given succour to hunters frightened by a strange creature seen wandering the woods of Tâl Bruinen.

Echad Candelleth is one of many locations created by Turbine to populate a relatively untouched region of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Lore-savvy adventurers stopping here may discover a familiar, though not entirely welcome presence in Tâl Bruinen.

(Click for larger image)

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MAKE Magazine has posted a really really awesome guide on making a super cheap image stabilizer for cameras, both of the picture and video variety. I plan on making one, but will need to go searching for materials. I will post some examples before and after later on; in the meantime fly over to the article here or hit the article title to watch the video tutorial.



$1 Image Stabilizer For Any Camera - Lose The Tripod - video powered by Metacafe

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GameBanshee has an interesting news blurb on the Witcher being nominated for "Outstanding Achievement in Video Game Writing". My only response: "You are damned strait." Full article after the jump.

The Writers Guild of America sent out a press release earlier this week announcing that The Witcher has been nominated for "outstanding achievement in videogame writing."

WGA Announces First-Ever Videogame Writing Award Nominees2008 Writers Guild Awards Winners to be Announced Feb. 9LOS ANGELES, NEW YORK --

The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) have announced nominations for the Guilds' inaugural Videogame Writing Award, honoring outstanding achievement in videogame writing during 2007. VIDEOGAME WRITING CRASH OF THE TITANS, Written by Christopher Mitchell, Sierra Entertainment DEAD HEAD FRED, Written by Dave Ellis and Adam Cogan, D3 Publisher THE SIMPSONS GAME, Lead Writer Matt Selman, Written by Tim Long and Matt Warburton, Dialogue by Jeff Poliquin, Electronic Arts THE WITCHER, Lead Story Designer Artur Ganszyniec, Dialogue Sebastian Stepien, Additional Dialogue Marcin Blacha, Writers Sande Chen and Anne Toole, Atari WORLD IN CONFLICT, Story Design Christofer Emgard, Story Consultant Larry Bond, Script Consultant Ed Zuckerman, Sierra Entertainment Developed by the WGA and spearheaded by the Guild's New Media Caucus to encourage storytelling excellence in videogames, improve the status of writers, and foster uniform standards within the gaming industry, the WGA's inaugural Videogame Writing Award spotlights quality work by videogame writers, raising their profiles, and validating their contributions to this rapidly maturing medium. The WGA Videogame Writing Award honors the best qualifying script from a videogame published in the previous year. To be eligible for entry, games must have been released between Dec. 1, 2006 and Nov. 30, 2007. For this first year, work that was not produced under WGA jurisdiction may have been submitted, but must contain separate writing credit(s). Writers of source material were not eligible for awards consideration. At the time scripts were submitted, the credited game writer(s) must have been or applied to become members of the WGA's New Media Caucus. 2008 Writers Guild Awards winners in all categories will be announced on Saturday, February 9. For further information about the 2008 Writers Guild Awards, please visit http://www.wga.org/ or http://www.wgaeast.org/.

Well deserved.

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Turbine has released some information on the update that Guardians are going to get in the Book 12 release. Hit the article title for full post.

Overview
The Month of the Guardian is here! Guardians are receiving attention to both their primary tanking role and secondary damage-per-second role. We hope you'll enjoy these changes and the new depth they bring to the role of the Guardian.

Already the hardiest class in Middle-earth, the Guardian is able to withstand relentless onslaughts. Capable of maintaining a high level of threat generation, only the foolish and overly aggressive dare try to outpace them. Where this class is weakest is the ability to actually kill their foes.

We do believe that Guardians perform their core tanking role well. The changes in the Month of the Guardian are largely designed to provide interesting and viable alternative playstyles for the class while addressing core concerns such as repair costs and offensive stances.


Tanking - In the Line of Fire
We've added some new tools to the Guardian's tanking toolbox, the first being Shield Wall: the ability to protect a single target from incoming attacks (though leaping in front of attacks doesn't allow the Guardian to mitigate any of the damage on himself!). The goal of Shield Wall is to allow the Guardian to save someone in trouble by standing in harm's way.

We also wanted to add a single-target ranged taunt to the Guardian's repertoire. This comes in the form of Fray the Edge, which also increases the chance of random conjunction opportunities on signature (and above) monsters with each successful application.

Shield Taunt's functionality is also going to be changing, since due to some technical limitations this skill wasn't functioning as we expected. It will now provide a large threat add; previously it had a negligible threat add, but would bump the Guardian to the top of the threat list. Shield Taunt will now be much more effective at letting the Guardian generate additional threat, but will be less effective at digging the Guardian out of a deep hole.

We know that some changes to tanking are sure to be controversial, and we'll be keeping an open dialogue on them in the Guardian forums.

The first of these changes is to Deep Breath. A miscommunication during development led to the skill's reset being faster than the traited resets of the skills it refreshes. To address this we've increased the base reset of both the skill and the traited version. We are fully aware that Deep Breath's fast reset has become a key component of strategies to defeat some of the higher end instance bosses, and we are closely monitoring the impact this change will have on some of the very difficult fights on Isengard and will continue to do so on the live servers. It is not our intent to make these fights more difficult, but we understand that the Deep Breath change may have this result. It is our expectation that the new and updated skills in the Guardian's repertoire will greatly compensate for this reduced frequency of use. After we have additional feedback from players and data gathered from live we'll decide what if any future changes need to be made.

During Book 12's development, Catch a Breath was changed to have a faster action time and to deliver its attack hook at the beginning of the animation instead of the end. This change was made to improve the usability of the skill. However, it also revealed that players were previously able to use both Catch a Breath and Shield Swipe after a single block event. All of our combat event skills remove the event they require, and now Catch a Breath is functioning correctly in that regard. We understand that this will decrease the utility of Catch a Breath, but Guardians still have more healing in Book 12 than they did previously -- as Warrior's Heart now completely heals all the morale it adds to max morale.

We've been through extensive discussions both internally and with the Isengard testers about the potential issues associated with these changes and are confident that these changes will result in a more rewarding and enjoyable play experience. We will of course continue to monitor their impact as time goes on.

New Skills

Shield Wall - With Shield Wall we're introducing a different type of panic button for the Guardian. Instead of another force taunt, Shield Wall allows a Guardian to protect someone in an evolving situation. This skill does have a number of downsides as it's an extremely powerful tool; it's meant to be used as an emergency tool, not something that's always on.
All damage is transferred from the target to the Guardian
The Protected target cannot block, parry, or evade
Target receives no Item Wear from hits
5m Range
Costs power over time to maintain
Fray The Edge - Fray the Edge is a ranged taunt with a twist. Against Signature monsters and higher, it will increase the chance that a random conjunction opportunity will occur. This skill should aid Guardians in pulling back single monsters that have left their melee range.
Strong Ranged single-target Taunt
Increases the chance for a Random Fellowship Manoeuvre Opportunity on Signature and above monsters.
This effect stacks exponentially with multiple applications

Skill Changes

Shield Taunt - Shield Taunt will now generate more threat than it did previously, and will no longer provide a variable threat catch-up.
Catch A Breath - The Action Duration has been reduced to 1.5 seconds from 2.5 seconds, freeing you up to perform another action more quickly after using the skill. We've also moved the heal effect from the end of the skill to the start. This change fixed a bug that was allowing players to use both Catch a Breath and Shield Swipe from a single Block event.
Deep Breath - The skill reset timer for Deep Breath has changed from 5mins/2.5mins to 15mins/7.5mins.
Thrill of Danger - The traited version now properly resets in 5 minutes instead of 7.5 minutes.
Warrior's Heart - The traited version now properly provides Block and Parry response events on use. It now heals the Guardian for the amount of max morale it adds.
DPS - Cleave and Hew
We've created a new stance for the Guardian, called Overpower, that focuses on 2-handed weapon use. This stance is mutually exclusive from the Guardian's other stances, and increases the Guardian's melee damage output at the cost of power and defensive abilities. While in this stance the Guardian also gains access to several new skills. Force Opening does damage and opens up a parry response event on a successful hit. Stagger does damage, and slows a target's movement and attacks speeds on a critical hit and when used from behind.

In addition to these, Guardians will also receive a new skill called Salt the Wound. This skill can be used at any time to do a small amount of damage, but when it is used directly after the Thrust skill it turns the weak Thrust Bleed into a very strong bleed.

New Skills

Overpower - Overpower is a new offensive stance for Guardians that lets them put more effort behind their attacks at the cost of defense and power.
+15% to Melee Damage
Increases the power cost of all skills played by 20%
Reduces Evade by 5%
Disables Block
Mutually exclusive with Guardian's Threat, Guardian's Defense, Guardian's Parry.
Force Opening - Force opening is a medium-damage attack skill.
Requires player to be in Overpower Stance
Opens up a parry response opportunity on a successful hit
Stagger - Stagger is a low-damage skill that applies a debuff when used to attack from behind or on a critical hit
Requires player to be in Overpower Stance
Slows target's attack speed
Slows target's movement speed
Salt the Wound - Salt the Wound turns the mild Thrust Bleed into a much more powerful gusher. It also does low melee damage.
Strong Damage over Time effect if Thrust is present on target
Skill Changes

Sweeping Cut - Sweeping Cut previously had a long delay after use, preventing you from using additional skills. This delay has been removed, but as a result of you spending less time in the skill the damage per hit has been decreased even though the DPS has remained the same
Shield Swipe - The second attack hook was not properly pulling the weapon's damage type. This has been fixed.
Thrust - Thrust now has double the number of damage pulses on its damage over time effect.
Utility
Repair costs have always been high for Guardians. When they're doing their job correctly, they're getting hit more than anyone else in a party, and since they also take a long time to kill monsters they're hit more during solo battles as well. To address this we've taken a few steps to reduce the Guardian's overall burden. Heavy shields now cost a little more than half of what they previously cost to repair. In addition each of the Guardian's stances now reduces the number of item wear events that the Guardian receives. Guardian's Ward also reduces item wear events from hits when its effect is active, with the traited version reducing the number of events by 10%. Overall these changes should reduce the amount Guardians are spending on repairs, while at the same time Overpower should allow Guardians to generate income more quickly.

While not as cost effective, Guardians will receive the ability to summon a tinker to the campsites located near major instances. This travelling tinker will repair items at a price that reflects the higher value of the service he provides.

New Skill

Summon Tinker - This skill allows a Guardian to summon a Tinker to any Campsite (the same ones that Hunters can recall to). A Tinker is an NPC that will allow players to repair their gear at a premium.
Engage - This skill is designed to let a Guardian slow down a runner, and to potentially snap back single targets that he's lost aggro on while slowing their trip to whoever pulled the aggro.
The Guardian may choose a single target within 5m to Engage.
The Engaged Target moves at 75% of its normal movement rate.
The Guardian moves at 85% of its normal rate.
Engage brings you to the top of the target's threat list.
Item Wear

Heavy Shields now cost as much to repair as normal shields; they'll cost roughly half as much to repair as they did previously.

When the Guardian's Ward trait is slotted, the Guardian's Ward effect will prevent 10% of all incoming hit item wear events. Untraited, it will still prevent 5% of all incoming hit item wear events.

Guardian's Defense will prevent 5% of all incoming block item wear events.

Guardian's Parry will prevent 5% of all incoming parry item wear events.

Guardian's Threat will prevent 5% of all incoming hit item wear events.

Overpower will prevent 5% of all incoming parry item wear events.

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My friend Hunter has posted a blurb on the Honor's Blood forums on how to use the Lord of the Rings Online music system. This is a pretty awesome system if you are not familiar with it and really allows some added immersion into the grand world of Tolkien that Turbine has re-created. Click the link for the full article and be sure to check out some pre-made .abc files available at http://www.lotro-music.com.

Ok. Top of this post will be the "easy" stuff that everyone should know.

Lotro uses ABC files to play pre-recorded music.

The following site has a great deal of music that you can download and play. You can download the whole library by clicking on the musical note on the top of the page.
www.lotro-music.com/

Music files are stored in the following folder:
My Documents\The Lord of the Rings Online\Music

You will need to extract any downloaded songs to that directory in order to play them in game.


To play these files in game, type:
/play
(without the < >, and leave off the ".abc")

Lotro supports syncing with your friends. You have to be in their fellowship in order to sync. To begin sync, type:
/play sync

Once everyone is synced up, type:
/playstart
to start playing the music.


MAKING YOUR OWN ABC FILES

First, it's a good idea to know what ABC is all about. ABC Notation is a plain text version of written music. The complete history and documentation for ABC notation can be found at the following site:
www.walshaw.plus.com/abc/


Now, LotRO does use ABC notation, but LotRO does not have complete support for it. There are several limitations. There is an entry in the lotro lorebook about these limitations:
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Mechanics:ABC_Notation

Sadly, that information is out of date. For one thing, Chords are now supported.

More up to date info can often be found on the official LotRO Music System Forum:
http://forums.lotro.com/forumdisplay.php?f=108

The most important things of note are the range limits and note duration limits.
All instruments support 3 octaves + 1 note. The 3 octaves are different in-game per instrument, but with regards to the ABC notation, the first playable note is C, and the last playable note is c'. If you use a standard midi editor, these will be C4 and C7 respectively.
As far as note durations, the shortest duration supported is a 16th note at Q:1/4=250. This is a limit of 1000 notes per minute. As I rule, I stick to making 16th notes the smallest notes that I use, and I have not made a piece in excess of Q:1/4=250.


TOOLS
Midi2ABC - http://www.penguin-soft.com/penguin/man/1/midi2abc.html
Midi2ABC is the best midi to ABC converter that I've found. However, it imports rests as hidden rests, which LotRO does not yet support. This is easily fixed, however. Open your favorite text editor and convert all of the lowercase x's to lowercase z's.

Mid2ABC - claremusic.tripod.com/music.htm
Mid2ABC is a "first generation" Midi to ABC converter. It has a lot of problems and does not do a very good job of converting.

ABCExplorer - abc.stalikez.info/abcex.php/
This is an interesting piece of software that has a GUI for importing Midi files and converting them to ABC. It uses the Midi2ABC conversion program for the conversion.

Anvil Studio - www.anvilstudio.com
Anvil Studio is the Midi editor that I'm currently using to make my music. The interface is a bit confusing at first, but I've gotten use to it. It has a staff editor, a tab editor, and a piano roll editor. Don't know what the heck those are? Well, they're different ways to put music into the computer.

My recommendation, if you want to get started, is to grab Anvil Studio and the Midi2ABC conversion program. Start simple and work your way up.

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Seems almost a strange comparison -- the n800 not being a phone and all -- but downloadsquad.com has thrown together a video showcasing the n800 and compared it to the iPhone in functionality. Check it out.

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I was asked a couple of days ago to list some of my favorite apps that I use for the 770 and I figure I would go ahead and throw some out there. Also take note that some of these are apps I intend to try out and do not necessarily have any experience with.


Media Converter - Allows you to convert videos (on a PC/Linux/OSX desktop) for playback on the IT.
Clock App - A nice clock app that allows you to display a full screen clock... neat.
Video Player Streams - A few video streams that work with the new Video Center
Ultima IV - One of the best RPGs of all time
MPlayer - This version of MPlayer is for use on the OS2007HE.
KMPlayer (replace MPlayer) - An MPlayer alternative, if you can not get it to work.
Kagu - Another media player for the 770 (2007HE)
AirCrack - Detailed walkthrough on how to use AirCrack to crack WEP passwords... awesome!
Flash 9 - Several methods for installing Flash 9 for the HE.
YouTube Scripts - Several methods for viewing YouTube videos on the tablet.

I use several other programs on my own tablet. All of which can be installed from the repositories listed here.

GPE-PIM Suite (calendar, contacts, etc)
Ermining (syncs GPE PIM with Google Calendar)
Canola (media player)
Minimo (Altenative browser)
Maemopad+ (treed sketch/type pad)
WhiteStork Dictionary (multilingual dictionary)
Maemo Mapper (mapping program)

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Imperfection — and other great thoughts
Hannah Seligson Sunday, September 16th, 2007

Last week, Karen Salmansohn, the host of the Siruis radio show Be Happy, Dammit gathered a dynamite panel to talk about work-life balance and how women can often be their own obstacle in the workplace. The panel included Leslie Bennetts, the author of The Feminine Mistake: Are We Giving Up Too Much? and contributing editor to Vanity Fair, Eve Tahminicioglu, career columnist for MSNBC.com and author of From the Sandbox to the Boardroom: Lessons Learned on the Journey to the Top, Cali Williams Yost, author of Work+Life: Finding the Fit That’s Right for You, and Marci Alboher, author of One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success. I highly encourage you to listen to the show, but if you can’t, here are some of the things I learned from this illuminating discussion.

Interesting move for AMD, definitely something to keep your eye on.

AMD Bets on Tri-Core Chips as Quad-Core Market Lags
By Bryan Gardiner 09.18.07 10:30 AM
When your larger competitor outguns you financially and can crank out powerful products at blinding speed, you work with the strengths you have. In Advanced Micro Devices' case, that's architecture.