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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?
Motorola's Hint QA30 gets official
We weren't particularly impressed when we got our first peek at MOTO's QWERTY-sliding Hint QA30 yesterday morning, finding the form factor to be a little too squat for our tastes whether open or closed. Today the phone has been given the official treatment and, while things look a little better in a new set of glamor shots from Motorola (no more Alltel branding on the UI), the "innovative" design still doesn't look particularly comfortable to carry or to use. Now that we can make out the buttons on the front we see that they'll serve as controls for the media player when closed, again making us think this should be a good choice for your family's texting-addict rocker. The specs we got before are confirmed, the one exception being that the microSD support tops out at 8GB, not 32GB -- better turn down that bitrate, son.
Crytek trademarks 'Crysis Warhead'
The good folks over at Trademork have noticed a March 3 USPTO posting by Crytek for "Crysis Warhead," which could either refer to a sequel to the best-selling PC game, one of those rumored console ports or a scary new experimental explosive (or possibly a long-overdue remake of an Amiga classic. Or a strange new candy. Or ...)The recent filing isn't Crytek's first hint at extension of the brand -- the company has also filed for trademark protection of "Crysis Wars" and "World in Crysis." Whatever the inevitable sequel/spin-off/port/expansion ends up being called, we just hope they cap the system requirements now. That way, we may actually have a computer that can actually run the game in its most beautiful detail when it eventually comes out.
TUAW Tip: Use Help to select menu items in Leopard
Over at Mac OS X Hints I recently ran into this doozy of a hint that I somehow missed on its first go around. Basically the idea is to capitalize on a great new feature in Leopard's help. You can get to any menu item without your mouse by activating the help menu with the keyboard shortcut ??? + ? (i.e. ??? + shift + /). Then type the name of the menu command you want and scroll down to it with the arrow keys. That command's menu will automatically drop down with the item highlighted, hit enter and you're done! If you're a keyboard maven this is a really easy way to get to your menu items (though you can also activate the menubar from the keyboard with ???F2).Thanks Brandon!
Community goes extremely overboard on iPhone Extreme
Tom from iPhonebuglist.com was poking around in Apple's online feedback form, and as you can see above, he found something interesting hidden in the HTML code. There was a product tag on the form not for the iPhone, but for the "iPhone Extreme." The page has since been fixed, and there's no trace of it ever appearing.We completely agree with Apple Insider on this one: it's a stretch to say this is anything more than a coder mixup. Still, there it is, right there (in a Windows window! Tom, how dare you!). Could it be a "sport" version of the iPhone? Or a home device designed to serve as a standalone, Mac-less dock for your iPhone on your Airport Extreme network?Probably neither. I'm pretty sure a comment over at 9-to-5 Mac has it right (although the site themselves went way overboard, calling a February release on what is really an imaginary product): whoever coded the page just used the Airport Extreme template, and did a mass cut-and-paste with "iPhone" and "Airport." Amazing that the Mac community can get so worked up over what almost surely is simply a coder's mistake.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Upcoming VC releases
Thus far, Nintendo has decided to keep the exact releases of Virtual Console Mondays a secret until the day-of, leaving us gamers biting our nails in mind-numbing suspense. Sega's official website and a major in cryptology have given us three gleaming glimpses in the future.First, from Sega's camp, the classic space-shooter Space Harrier II (1989) will see the light of day next Monday, the 18th of December. Furthermore, on Christmas Day, they'll drop cult-favorite and this blogger's most anticipated VC title, Toe Jam & Earl. Awesome.From Hudson, their website left the internet-at-large with this little clue:WHICH GAME COMES NEXT? This one is a doosy. Truly a classic. Here's your first clue:VGCE0590PG46Yes, I know. that's freakin cryptic. If no one can figure it out, I may drop another clue tomorrow.Good luck!Brilliant minds came together, formulas were solved, chemicals were mixed, and lo, the secret was revealed. VGCE0590PG46 stands for Video Game and Computer Entertainment, May 1990, Page 46. Dig up a couple of old magazine scans, and voilà! The game is Military Madness, a turn-based strategy game with a fairly large following.Couldn't they have just told us right out?
Omni Group confirms OmniFocus, a GTD app in the works
The Omni Group has hinted at new products and teased us with a handy tool and toy. While 3rd party solutions have existed to turn their OmniOutliner Pro into a mean, lean Getting Things Done machine, the Omni Group has finally spilled the quintessential bean in a recent blog post and confirmed that a true-blue GTD app is in the works, and its name is OmniFocus.However, I say the Omni gang spilled one bean - and one bean only - because they have twisted the cruel rumor knife ever so slightly by withholding any other details. No features, no clues, no ETA or price range. Not even a blurry icon. Cursed Omni Group! For now, it seems, you have forced us to suffer in your dungeon of anticipation! Our only salvation is your humbling generosity - some day - offering the warm sunlight of more details. Oh despair - thy name is OmniFocus!
macosxhints debuts hint-rating system
The 'don't-buy-a-Mac-without-it' macosxhints.com has debuted a hint rating system, allowing both logged in and anonymous users to place a 1-5 star rating on each hint. As you might expect, their stats page now includes a 'Top 20 Rated Hints' section at the bottom. This should allow you to spend even more time you never intended to, learning even cooler ways to use your Mac.
Official Dungeon Strategy Guide Now on Sale
Now that Brian Kopp's Unauthorized WoW Guide is back in the news, you might also be interested to know that an official guidebook for WoW has just been published. Brady Games has released the World of Warcraft Dungeon Companion, a 400-page guidebook covering all instanced dungeons currently in the game. The book's features include: • Every Dungeon: Low-level instances and the toughest raid dungeons are all covered in this monstrous compendium. Light is shed on everything from Ragefire Chasm to the brand new Ahn' Qiraj. • Outdoor World Boss Encounters: Learn exactly what you need to take the Azuregos, Lord Kazzak and the Emerald Dragons. • Much more: monster information, question guidance, rewards and secret rooms.So, if you haven't givent this game enough of your money yet this month, you can order the guide over at BlizzPlanet in the merchandise section. Let me know if it's any good...
macosxhints gets redesigned
The invaluable macosxhints has received a redesign and feature boost. The site's theme has received a stylistic bump, and legibility has improved site-wide. New functionality and features include more topic categories and a better search (while Rob won't use the term 'better', I will). Registered and logged in users will likely welcome simplified account management tools and more control over what information you include and display for others.Head over and take a look at macosxhints' new look and add your $0.02 to their announcement post.
The Omni Group hints at new product
The Omni Group has begun hinting at a new product on their blog by offering clues on their blog as to what it is not. In posts like A trickling of inklings, they have let us know things like the product's sub-$20 price, that it is not a replacement for Mail and that it has nothing to do with the iPod. They also have plainly stated that they have other new products and updates for existing products planned for 2006. This should be good news for those of you who (like me) are fans of their excellent offerings like OmniGiraffe OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner. Here's hoping they don't keep us in suspense for too long.
Safari trick: Email url's via the address bar
Here's a cool trick I was unaware of until today. Mac OS X Hints describes how to email a URL from within Safari's address bar. When you're at the website you'd like to share (like, say, this one), replace the address with "mail-link:" (minus the quotes) and hit return. A new message will be created in your default email client, with the site's title as the subject and URL in the body (as if you had selected "Mail Link to This Page" from the File menu). Cool. I've made "mail-link:" into a Safari bookmark, so now it's just a click away.Anyone else know of some cool Safari tricks?[Via MacIT.org]
