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Wasteland Diaries: Long-term goals
So you're a brand-new clone in Fallen Earth, dressed in your snappy LifeNet ensemble? So far you've managed to get yourself blown to bits inside the bowels of the Hoover Dam. Remember that awesome scoped battle rifle you were using? Well, forget that. The weapons you will be using for the time being will be a bit more primitive and a lot less deadly. Luckily for you, Elena Winters was able to respawn you safely away from the dam. After being led around by the nose, you're no doubt ready to begin making some of your own decisions. I'm going to tell you that you aren't quite ready to do that. Not just yet. Before you go off on your own, there are some important things you need to know. These things I will tell you will save you a lot of trouble later on. I wish someone had given me all the information I'm going to give you, but I learned it the hard way. As they say: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." This also holds true in Fallen Earth. Now that you're in a safe place, I'll get that handy information to you after the break.
Wasteland Diaries: Take a hint
In the past, I've written guides to help new Fallen Earth players. Most of the information I put in these guides is common knowledge. I have compiled a list of things one should know about playing Fallen Earth, whether one is a brand new clone or a grizzled veteran of the wastes. This guide is different because it isn't really a guide at all, just a compilation of advice. Most of this stuff may not help you, but I can assure you, at least one of these bits of wisdom will be of use to you. Essentially, I have compiled a list of useful hints, tips and tricks that I think every player should know. Some of them might evoke a facepalm from the veterans, and some might make life easier for a new player, but you will learn something. So without any further ado, proceed past the cut and prepare to be enlightened.
Getting some FaceTime -- hints and tips about iPhone 4 video calls
When I ordered my iPhone 4 on June 16th for delivery in July, one of the features that I was intrigued about was FaceTime, Apple's Wi-Fi video calling application. Sure, other phones have had this feature for a while, but for me this was going to be something new. After an abortive attempt at my first FaceTime connection with Kelly Guimont on Wednesday, I finally connected with one of my fellow bloggers (Dave Caolo) yesterday morning. Later in the day, Erica Sadun and I tried out a few tricks with FaceTime. We agreed that some of things we discovered while playing with Apple's newest software toy were postable, so click the Read More link to check them out.
WoW Magazine polls the community
WoW Magazine is looking for some new information, helpful hints, and feedback in the form of two polls just added on the official Warcraft forums. What's in it for you? The best responses they receive will be incorporated into the magazine's features as quotes, and people whose suggestions are used will have their character fully credited for the quote they provide. The first is a request for tips, hints, and other useful information for the "Battlegrounds Back to Basics" feature, regarding Eye of the Storm in an upcoming issue: Bashiok The industrious gnomes and goblins at World of Warcraft Official Magazine are currently working on the next issue. One of its regular features is "Battlegrounds Back to Basics" - this time around covering Eye of the Storm As part of that feature, we're looking for hints and tips from EotS veterans. Is that you? If so, please feel free to post your favorite one-line strategies, tactics and tricks that help give you the winning edge. They can either be team oriented, or even class specific. The best suggestions will be incorporated into the feature as quotes - and of course your character will be fully credited. Remember – these should be straightforward one-liners – we're not looking for long paragraphs packed with intricate details. Thanks in advance to all! source The second involves the upcoming beta for Cataclysm, whether or not people are avoiding it and what those that are opting-in are looking forward to among other things. Is this a hint that we'll see the beta for Cataclysm before we see the next issue of Warcraft Magazine? Who knows -- but check out the post for more information on what kind of feedback they're looking for: Bashiok The gang at World of Warcraft Official Magazine would like to know if you plan on participating in the Cataclysm beta. What about it gets you excited? What should people know before opting-in and participating? Are you purposefully avoiding the beta and all information? Do you love to hunt down bugs, do you thrive in a world of the unknown, or do you despise the impermanence of a testing environment? Tell us about your best experiences from past tests, missed opportunities, your dos and don'ts, your beta hopes, and anything in-between! The best posts will be incorporated into the feature as quotes, and your character will be fully credited. Thanks in advance to all! source Have an opinion about either of the two topics? Check them out on the official Warcraft forums and put your two cents in -- who knows, you may end up in Warcraft Magazine!
Wasteland Diaries: Try not to be such a noob
Fallen Earth has a steep learning curve. It's not hard to die a horrible death in Fallen Earth because you simply didn't have even the slightest clue what you were doing. But life doesn't have to be short and brutal in the wasteland. In fact, you can eke out a decent living and make quite a name for yourself. There are a few things you can do to minimize the bewilderment you will face once you emerge from the LifeNet pod for the first time into the unforgiving desolation of the apocalypse. After reading this guide, you are likely to be heard saying things like: "Y'know what? The apocalypse isn't all that bad." and "I wish this place were just a little more dangerous."
Toy Story 3 and the Mac
One of the things I missed in the news last week due to being so busy at Macworld (along with most of the Olympics, though we did get to watch the opening ceremony at a post-show dinner) was the brand new Toy Story 3 trailer -- Pixar's latest movie has Buzz and Woody in a third adventure, and while I won't spoil the details, it does appear that Apple plays a big part in the movie. Macenstein has a quick breakdown of all of the places that Macs appear in the new trailer, with cameos by both Safari and iTunes, and director Lee Unkrich actually tweeted a picture of his editing session for the movie on a MacBook Pro (in Avid Media Composer) at 36,000 feet! Of course, Steve Jobs was the owner and CEO of Pixar for twenty years, and he now is the largest individual Disney shareholder with a seat on the company's board of directors. Pixar always produces excellent films -- Toy Story was the studio's first big feature as a studio, so it'll be interesting to see what happens with the franchise after moving on to more mature pictures like Finding Nemo and Up. As always, when the movie comes out on June 18th, we'll have to keep an eye out for nods in Apple's direction.
WoW Insider Show Episode 114: Live on location
I think this might be one of my favorite things we've ever done (though all credit must go to Turpster, as usual). Last week on the show, he asked listeners for pictures of where they're listening to the show, and we got a nice gallery below of all of you in different places (many of you at work, which makes us worry a little bit), all listening to the WoW Insider Show all over the world. If you take a picture this week, feel free to send it along to theshow@wow.com, and we'll add it into the gallery below. In the meantime, here's a new episode, featuring said Turpster and myself, along with Eddie "Brigwyn" Carrington, talking about what's coming up in patch 3.3, including the new looting system, paladin changes aplenty, and hints at the next expansion. And as usual, we answer your emails and just generally have a fun time. Enjoy -- and be sure to send us a pic while you listen! %Gallery-77044% Get the podcast: [iTunes] Subscribe to the WoW Insider Show directly in iTunes. [RSS] Add the WoW Insider Show to your RSS aggregator. [MP3] Download the MP3 directly. Listen here on the page:
Creative posts World of Warcraft teaser
Computer audio manufacturer Creative Labs sent us a note that their Soundblaster page has a brand new teaser on it, which appears to be hinting at... something. Something World of Warcraft-related, apparently: the Lament of the Highborne song plays in the background while an image of the Maelstrom and some circular hardware gives way to a glowing Horde symbol and the message "to be continued..."What is it? Given that Creative makes audio equipment, it's probably something audio-related, and given that BlizzCon is later this week, it's probably something released in partnership with Blizzard. But other than that, the guessing is up to you. A new WoW-branded sound card? Something music-related? It's anyone's guess. Stay tuned to WoW.com to find out more soon.
Terminal Tips: Rebuild your Launch Services database to clean up the Open With menu
Problem: Some piece (or pieces) of rogue software have cluttered up your Open With contextual menu, which you can see by right-clicking or control-clicking any document in the Finder. This problem seems to be most prevalent with virtual machines that allow you to open documents with Windows applications, but tend not to clean up after themselves. After having both Parallels and VMWare installed on my MacBook Pro, my Open With menu was a mess. Solution: Lucky for me, I noticed David Chartier's question about this on Twitter around the same time as I was wondering what to do about it. Some friendly person pointed him to a posting on Apple's discussion forum (also noted on Mac OS X Hints here and here), noting that running a specific command in a terminal window will rebuild your launch services, which repopulates the Open With menu with a current list of applications, without duplicates. It worked perfectly for me, but beware, on my system it took about 10 minutes to complete, and I suspect it could take more on a sufficiently gummed-up system. Here's the Leopard version of the command (the path to the tool is different in Tiger, see here). I broke it into three lines for readability, but the \ at the end of the line is bash-speak for "keep on going with the same command" -- you can copy and paste it directly and it should work, or if you type it on one line without the backslashes, it will also work fine. Just copy and paste it into terminal and it'll work just fine. /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain user If, preferring to avoid the Terminal, you want a handy GUI app to rebuild the Launch Services database with a couple of clicks, check out Titanium's OnyX or Maintenance utilities, both free of charge.
Christie Golden chat transcript posted
As planned, Medievaldragon hosted a live chat with author Christie Golden last night, and even if you didn't tune in, you can see the transcript right over on WorldofWar right now. It's a very interesting read, especially if you're into the lore of the book and these characters -- Golden talks about how she built up Arthas' life and relationships, and turned him from the Human prince he started out as into the (her word) "monster" he is today. And she mentions a few fun tidbits about her influence on the game -- she created the Taretha character in the Old Hillsbrad instance, and there's an NPC in the Plaguelands that bears a striking resemblance. There's also something in the Balnir Farm that she suggested they put in. You'll have to go and see for yourself what that might be.And even if you're not interested in the book and the lore, we get another little pull on the line in reference to Gilneas -- when Golden is asked what's going on at the Greymane wall, she says that she "really can't comment as to that." One more little breadcrumb in the trail leading us to either the next big content patch or the next expansion.Definitely give the chat a look if you've got any interest at all in the Arthas book (which comes out in just over a week on April 21st) or the history of the game's current big bad.
Breakfast topic: Why didn't you tell me...?
Every time we log into WoW, we find ourselves greeted with trivial, non-helpful bits of information. We learn quite a bit on our own and sometimes from helpful players. These little gems do little to actually help learn the nuances of the game. There have been countless times I've been taken by surprise, causing wasted time and sometimes costly repair bills. Here are some of the things I had to learn on my own, the hard way, that I wish someone would have told me:* You don't have to wait for a portal, summon, or level 74 to get to Dalaran. Battle ports* work just fine, but you do have to get connecting flight points to make it useful.* If you wait until 74 to go to Dalaran, don't run there to get the flight point. There is a quest that takes you there. If you do run to the Crystal Song Forest to get there you, will find yourself looking forlornly at a teleportation device that is no help to you at all.* On the subject of teleportation, If you're Horde, you should really save the Goblin Transponder that you use to port from Booty Bay to Gnomeregan. It can help for raiding Ironforge.* Beware of the Animal Blood debuff in Borean Tundra. You will be killed on sight if you go into the D.E.H.T.A. Encampment if you have that debuff. It took me two deaths to figure out why I couldn't turn my quests in.* I'm relatively new to tanking, until about a month ago I clicked to set my marks. I had no idea that you can hotkey your lucky charms.I'm sure there are still many nuances of the game I still don't know. Share your wisdom, what's something you wish you'd been told?
Very useful iPhone tips
The blog Tap Tap Tap has posted a wonderful list to 10 iPhone tips and tricks you should know, including taking a screenshot (here's our how-to on that trick), enabling caps lock and customizing the home button's function. Definitely check it out.While we're on the topic, here are a few of our own favorites The homescreen shortcut in firmware 2.2. With a click of the home button, you can jump to your first home screen. How to enable passcode protection. It's bad enough that you left your iPhone at the post office. At least the shmoe who finds it won't be able to call China. Pause an application download. Because sometimes you just don't have a free 90 seconds. Go Geocaching with an iPhone 3G. Who needs an additional GPS device? Is your favorite trick not on either list? Let us know!
Scourge Invasion to return?
Here's a promising note for those who enjoyed the Scourge invasion world event a while back. When a player moans on the forums that he thought it was a yearly thing (and that it might never return), world designer Kisirani says not to jump to conclusions: we may be using the Necrotic runes from the event very soon in the future. Rumors have been swirling about a world event for a long time now, and if you've been paying attention to the spoilers (that link is a spoiler, of course), you know that things are going to hit the fan very shortly here.Though for all of the hints and leaks and files found in the beta, we haven't actually seen an event at work, and it's not completely clear just what will happen. Of course, something has to happen to Naxx for it to move north to Northrend, and we've speculated all along that, without being too spoilery, Arthas would do something to drive the Horde and Alliance to seek him out, and that's exactly what the hints are pointing at. But as for when this event will go down, and what, if any, rewards might come out of it, from Necrotic Runes or otherwise, we don't know for sure. As much as players have learned about how Wrath might kick off, Blizzard is still holding their cards close on this one.
Hints keep coming for future content in CoX
It's a month and a half since City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour went live, and by now the developers will have been hard at work on Issue 13 for some time. While there has been little in the way of concrete information, over time the Developers have given out a multitude of hints and comments that have enabled us to put together a speculative look at some of the coming content. As we'll see, there's been a lot more hinted at concerning powers and game systems than new mission content or zones.The safest bet for Issue 13 is the introduction of the Shields powerset, which Back Alley Brawler has described at length: 'Shields will be a defensive powerset, not an AT. They'll also be useable with any unarmed or right handed weapon powerset... because Shields require their own combat mode animations, they have to work with every attack power, every buff, debuff, hit reaction, pool power, ancillary power, and patron power that might be used while holding a shield out in front of you. So the bulk of work on Shields is just all the animations.' The bulk of those animations were completed with Issue 12, as many of the Cimeroran NPCs use shields. Since the NPC hero Blue Steel is famous for his shield, we'd be surprised not to see him play an active part in the game at last.
A rewarding Tranquilien grind
There's a good little tip on the forums for anyone starting out a Horde alt (maybe to take advantage of the new leveling changes)-- do your 10-20 grind in Tranquilien. As long as you're thorough, you can pretty easily get exalted with Tranquilien (the rep flows freely), and there are some incredible rewards for doing so. Tranquilien Champion's Cloak is the best you can get, and +7 Stamina inside of level 20 is amazing.Just shows how far Blizzard has come in rewarding up and coming players with the items they need to level faster. You've always been able to get rep from other starting areas, and these rewards have been around since Burning Crusade (so this is only news if you're just now starting another alt). But it's cool to look back on all these changes-- increased rep per quest, a new starting area, and better reputation rewards, and see how they all work together to give lowbie characters lots more fun stuff to play with.
Mac 101: Using the Up Arrow in Finder
It's no surprise to most Mac users that you can use arrow keys to navigate through Finder windows. Arrow-key presses work in all three window styles: icon view, list view and column view. What many new Mac users don't realize though is that there are Command versions of these arrow keys. When viewing folders using icon view or list view, both Command-Up-arrow and Command-Down-arrow play a special role. Command-Up-arrow moves you up to the parent folder of the currently-displayed folder. So if you are in, say, /Users/ericasadun/Pictures/Family, Command-Up-arrow would take you to /Users/ericasadun/Pictures. Press Command-Up-arrow again and you move to /Users/ericasadun. You can check your current folder by command-clicking the icon at the top of the folder window. Command-Down-arrow only works when the selected item is a folder, and, like Command-Up-arrow, only in icon and list views. Pressing Command-Down-arrow opens and selects the current folder. So it essentially does the opposite of Command-Up-arrow. It moves you further down in the folder hierarchy as opposed to Command-Up-arrow which moves you up the folder tree. These are useful shortcuts to have at hand when you prefer to use the keyboard to navigate through your files rather than the mouse.
iPhone Coding: Recording Audio
%Gallery-5616% Yesterday, I figured out how to record audio on the iPhone. Today, by popular request, I'll go through the how-to part. And, for those of you paying close attention, I've updated the application with lots of nice new features. For those of you playing along at home, here are the basics you'll need to know to get started with audio recording.
iPhone firmware hints at new widgets, including MobileRadio
Tyler over at iPhoneology went diving into the iPhone's firmware, and found a preference file called "DefaultApplicationState.plist," apparently a list of widgets placed by Apple inside the iPhone.Except that there's a few that we can't actually use yet... com.apple.unitconvertercom.apple.widget.phonebookcom.apple.widget.translationcom.apple.widget.worldclockcom.apple.mobile.radio That mobile.radio one looks especially enticing-- while built-in FM radio would be nice, it's more likely that Apple is expecting the iPhone to support streaming radio, just like that already found in iTunes.Of course, this is all just speculation-- just because Apple laid out plans in the software for features like these doesn't mean that they're actually coming. And as a few folks have noted, they could just be holdovers from Apple's translation of OS X to the iPhone firmware. But because we know that more widgets and features are planned for the iPhone, these could be the groundwork of things we'll see implemented later.Thanks, Reggie!
Mac 101: Apple's Mac 101
Welcome back to Mac 101, the TUAW classroom full of Mac tips for beginners (and veterans who might have forgotten them). Commenter Kris noted on a previous Mac 101 post that we hadn't mentioned the obvious: Apple has a collection of basic Mac tips, also called Mac 101. In our defense, we did blog about Apple's version almost two years ago.Apple's Mac 101 tips are organized by topic, walking a novice user through initial setup and various Mac OS X features, as though you were paging through the manual; you can see a complete list here. An accompanying collection, Switch 101, covers hints specifically for switchers from Windows. The level of instruction in the Mac 101 hints? Well... here's the intro to the Ports and Connectors article:On the sides of your Mac are a few small, geometric-shaped holes on your computer that may differ from one another. These are your computer's ports, which are used to connect other devices (aka peripherals) to your Mac. You've probably heard the words "FireWire" and "USB" tossed around at work or your local computer or electronics superstore, but what exactly do these terms mean? This lesson will tell you.Ah yes, the geometric-shaped holes, I've been wondering about those! Elsewhere on apple.com, you'll find the Pro Tips section, mostly culled from Scott Kelby's well-regarded Mac OS X Tiger Killer Tips book. We'll pick some winners from this list for a future Mac 101 post.
HOWTO: Matting rotated QuickTime videos
One of my recent posts showed you how to rotate videos shot in portrait orientation. While this technique restores your video to its proper orientation, the results are not particularly usable in your favorite video editing programs like iMovie because of their unusual aspect ratio. The following gallery demonstrates how to matte your video onto a plain background using QuickTime Pro to restore a proper 4:3 (or 16:9) ratio. %Gallery-2616%
