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Dear Auntie TUAW: What's that little dot in the iPhone's status bar?
Dear Auntie TUAW, I was driving home from an appointment today with my brother, and at a stop light, I noticed that instead of the Edge "E", I had this little blue dot. I just assumed that it was where i had connected to WiFi and had no bars, but it was much too big and centered. My brother, who also has an iPhone, pulled his out to find that we both had the little dot. They are both first Gen iPhones, his 4GB, mine 8GB. I did not know what this meant, but being the Apple nerd I am, I figure I would have heard something of this dot before now. Do you know what it is? Could it have something to do with 3.0 coming out soon as expected? Thanks, And I look forward to hearing what you think. With love from your nephew, Andrew Dixon Andrew, sweetheart, Speaking of the iPhone, are you including enough roughage in your diet? Now that I'm entering onto what we oldsters can only term our "tender years," I've grown to realize that bulk, bulk, bulk is the key to world happiness. Fiber is health; health, fiber. That is what we know at TUAW, and all ye need to know for better digestive function. As for your question, that little blue circle means you youngsters were connected to a GPRS network, aka General Packet Radio Service. When the iPhone first debuted, it displayed the EDGE "E" when connected to GPRS. This made pedants cry. Newer firmware versions show this blue circle instead. As noted below, GPRS is quite a bit slower than either EDGE or 3G. To check this icon out for yourself, you can browse through your iPhone files using sftp (on a jailbroken iPhone) or iBrowser (for iPhones with the developer deployment). The EDGE and GPRS icons live in /System/Library/CoreServices/SpringBoard.app and are named FSO_EDGE_ON.png and FSO_GPRS_ON.png. You'll need to convert the compressed iPhone-style png images to Mac compatible ones using a utility like fixpng. Send my love to your brother and don't forget to wear a scarf to keep your neck warm! Love and hugs, Auntie T.
Ulduar will be 64 harder
Pushed by players to answer just how hard Ulduar really is, EU CM Wyrxian has an answer: 64. Apparently, the instance will be 64 harder than the current Wrath instances. In other news, the recent patch 3.1 changes will make playing the game about 75 more fun, and the ammunition change alone will put Hunters 23 higher than they've been in the past. More news as we get it.Joking aside, obviously Wryxian says Ulduar will be harder, but it's not easy to put a number on difficulty. He says "it has to be experienced to understand." Blizzard has already said that they want to change things like mana regeneration to be less frantic and more strategic, so it'll be interesting to see just what kinds of mechanics appear in Ulduar -- odds are the difficulty probably won't be of the "Bosses that hit really, really hard" variety, but rather that we'll see more situations where the raid's attention is divided x number of ways. Maybe 64?At any rate, the PTR should be up soon, if not tonight considering all of the reveals Blizzard has done this week, and then we'll have a better idea of what the next raid has in store for us.
YouPlayorWePay under "reconstruction"
This could be the end of the strange story of YouPlayorWePay.com -- or a new beginning. We posted about the site when it first appeared, and even interviewed the founders, but apparently they've decided to make some major adjustments to the site, as it's now down for "reconstruction." A forum post by George Tung says that they are not only redesigning the site, but "re-doing our whole concept." One of our tipsters suggests that Blizzard legal may have gotten involved, but that seems unlikely -- Tung also posts that "when we are done, there will not be any more concerns about our service not being worth or if what we are doing is legal."So there you have it. We'll have to see what they've got in store for us (though, of course, there's a chance the site may not return at all). Lots of people have had questions and concerns about the concept behind this site from the beginning, and we remain curious to see how this "reconstruction" will answer them.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
BlizzCon 2008 Breakfast Topic: We need your questions
Today's the day! BlizzCon 2008 is underway in Anaheim, and WoW Insider is of course here -- stay tuned all day today for news from the panels going on all morning and afternoon. We're going to see Blizzard, talk to Blizzard, listen to Blizzard, and if we can get close enough, we may even smell Blizzard, too (Bornakk probably has a musky Old Spice kind of odor, right? Chris Metzen probably smells like bourbon and granite).And we need your help -- let us know what you want us to ask Blizzard. Is there a class question you need an answer to, or something that's been bugging you since launch? Want to know something about Wrath of the Lich King that we haven't heard yet?And let us know if there's anyone else you'd like us to talk to -- FigurePrints, Upper Deck, and DC Comics are all here, and we'll be talking to the folks from The Guild later today, so let us know what you want to know and we'll make sure you get to know it. Thanks, and enjoy the show -- we definitely will.
Age of Conan Dev goes on berserk question-answering rampage
What was in LordOrion's coffee this morning? The FunCom developer began by making two parallel threads on the Age of Conan forums, one on the US forums and one on the EU. Each one was a 'leak', with the EU getting a preview of PvP gear, and the US getting an image of what looked like a dungeon of some sort, with no further hints as to what it might be.That done, he began to answer direct questions. The players on both sides of the Atlantic wasted no time in firing them off, while expressing their gratitude (and disbelief) that FunCom was actually talking to them for a change. Now that the flurry of posts has died down, we've collated all the new information from both sides, presented in interview format and edited for relevance and context.
Scattered Shots: Hunter problems and predictions
Scattered Shots is for hunters. 'Nuff said on that topic. The Freezing Trap David was stuck in last week also wore off a little bit, thanks to Daniel, permitting him to write once more without his fingers snapping off from the cold.In the wake of the recent confusion regarding Scare Beast, once again some hunters have gotten to complaining a lot about the state of their class. While on one hand, there are certainly problematic issues hunters are having, it's really not fair to say that the class is broken. It isn't -- being a hunter is more fun than its ever been, and it looks like this class will only get better in the future.Nonetheless, looking at the problems we do have might give us a clearer sense of where we're going in the future. With more and more information coming out about Wrath of the Lich King, and especially since Blizzard started asking for feedback from hunters, it's worthwhile to have a look at what holes do exist for our class, and how future changes might seek to plug them up.
Ask Massively: The beginning
Ask Massively is a brand new feature here on Massively-- it's your chance to take control of the little conversation we've got going on, and ask us MMO experts whatever you want. Want to know what MMO you should be playing, or why something in your favorite MMO is a little strange? Have a question about the site, or need an MMO standby explained? We're here to explain and elucidate the answers to all your queries, whatever they be.To ask a question of Ask Massively, you can either put it in the comments on this post (for next week's edition), or drop us a note on the tipline. And this column will run entirely on your questions, so please let us know if there's something you want to know, no matter how complicated or how silly.Click the link below to check out the first edition of Ask Massively! A warning: for the first edition, I cheated a little bit-- these are all questions from my friends. But next week, you'll have the chance to get a question of your own answered.
Ask TUAW: Keeping Afloat and Finding Missing Folders
Okay folks, it's time once again for Ask TUAW answers. As before, I'll be offering answers to several reader questions from last week. I encourage other readers to offer their thoughts, and especially to pose more questions for next week. This week we'll be tackling questions about keeping windows afloat, finding missing folders in Save dialogs, static IP addresses, and more. So without further ado, let's turn to the questions
