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Apple releases Remote Desktop 3.2.2
Apple just released two updates for its Remote Desktop product. The client update and the admin update promise the following fixes: Improved reliability with the Copy Items command. Upgrade Client Software command now uses unicast packets for improved reliability on some networks. Fixes to the Force Quit All Applications and Copy Items to Computer Automator actions. The update is available to Mac OS X systems running 10.3.9 (or later) and ARD 3.x. You can download the updates by opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update) or by visiting Apple's downloads website and downloading the installer packages.Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Warhammer Online access details for pre-orders and Collector's Edition
Warhammer Online fans, the promised day is almost here. Mythic has announced early access details for pre-order and Collector's Edition customers. Pre-orders get a headstart and will be invited to play as of September 15th; those who sprung for the Collector's Edition get to trump everyone else, gaining access to WAR on September 14th in addition to some of those other sweet extras that come with the CE. Still, not all Collector's Edition customers are happy about how CE customers are being treated. One Collector's Edition buyer named 'Micah' had a nightmare of a problem with his order from Electronic Arts (EA). A simple request to not have his CE shipped to an address he no longer lives at was met with a bizarre choice to be made -- either cancel the order and lose out on the sold-out CE, or let the order stand and have it shipped to the complete strangers living at Micah's former residence. Check out the entire correspondence between EA and Micah at The Consumerist. We hope this is an isolated incident, particularly given the cost and apparent rarity of the Collector's Edition. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
Warhammer Online NDA lifts tomorrow (August 19th)
The Warhammer Online NDA is expected to lift tomorrow, according to Mark Jacobs, GM of Mythic Entertainment. The announcement has popped up in a few places, but the message is clear: the NDA is lifting. Jacobs' announcement also touched upon why they're running the Open Beta as they are and early client downloads, but it's the NDA lift that seems to be catching most everyone's attention. Jacobs said, "We expect to lift it tomorrow morning. I was hoping it was going to be today but I wanted to wait till I got the beta reports from the weekend and we just didn't have enough time to get everything coordinated with our partners in order for the press release to go out today." Jacobs also stated that he'll explain the reasons for the delayed NDA release tomorrow. WAR bloggers everywhere are already freaking out (in a good way) over the news, so expect a literal flood of Warhammer Online info for tomorrow. Did you enjoy this? Make sure to check out all of our previous Warhammer Online features, and don't miss any of our ongoing coverage as Massively goes to WAR!
First Look: Mocha VNC Lite
Mocha VNC Lite allows your iPhone or iPod touch to connect to your Mac or PC via VNC. For those of you who don't know, VNC is a protocol that allows you to screenshare/control other computers via a VNC client (which is what Mocha VNC Lite is). It is amazing to see this working right on my iPhone. I remember back when I used a Palm device to do this sort of thing and it was very kludgy, but this seems to work rather smoothly. When you are connected to the computer via VNC, you are able to control pretty much everything on the screen, with the exception of special keys (i.e. command, option, F keys, etc.). You can, however, "pinch" the iPhone's screen to zoom in or out the viewing area. Now for the gripes. Mocha VNC Lite uses left-clicks on the screen (which can be quite annoying after a few minutes use). You are also unable to change the refresh rate (however, if you click the "+" button, you're given a "refresh option.") Mocha VNC also offers a paid version which gives you more useful features like extra PC keys, cursor keys, text macros, and a right mouse key. However, the lite version will give most users everything they need for casual VNC management. You can download Mocha VNC Lite from the App Store for free. At the time of this writing the paid version has not yet been placed on the App Store. Feel free to look at our gallery of screenshots before you download.%Gallery-28170%
First Look: Twinkle
The iPhone will no doubt see it's fair share of Twitter clients (just as the Mac has). Twitterrific is the big name in the Mac/iPhone Twitter app space, but in a client from Tapulous called "Twinkle" has also been generating some interest. Originally released as a jailbreak application for the iPhone and iPod touch, Twinkle has just debuted on the App Store with the ability to location-base your tweets. While Twitterrific seems to have more precise locating abilities, Twinkle uses the location-based tweeting in interesting ways. For instance, you can see tweets originating within a certain mileage range from your location. Twinkle allows you to easily view your direct messages.Overall, Twinkle looks like it will give Twitterrific a run for its money. Best part of all? Twinkle (iTunes Link) for iPhone and iPod touch is absolutely free.Check out our gallery for some screenshots.%Gallery-28037%
Improvements to Tabula Rasa's performance on the way
The most recent iteration of Tabula Rasa's Feedback Friday brought the announcement of a change to how the client will work in future deployments of the game. "The Bubble," as they call it, is an optimization that the developers hope to roll out in a future build of Tabula Rasa's Deployment 9. Until now, all static map objects such as rocks and trees loaded up front, but at the cost of decreased system performance. The Bubble will limit the client to loading only those static objects within a certain distance from the camera. The end result promises to be a client that uses less memory and delivers increased performance. They would, however, like help from the players with testing the bubble feature once it's viable. As always, Feedback Friday also addressed player questions and concerns, namely that logout countdowns in PvP will stop being exploitable in Deployment 10. As it stands, players can evade combat during clan-wars by simply logging off. Another issue in the game that's being resolved is the common complaint about how difficult it is to keep track of friends. Presently each time a player creates a new character, they must reinvite all of their friends, ad nauseam. So beginning with Deployment 9, both the friends and ignore list are now user-based instead of character-based. This change alone will eliminate a number of headaches for TR players, but check out the Feedback Friday page for more details on how the game is evolving.
Entropia Universe learns three new languages
Microtransaction-based Entropia Universe is set to expand into new markets, as developer/publisher MindArk has announced the completion of translations of the Entropia client into three new languages -- German, French, and Spanish. Previously, the virtual world was only accessible to English-speakers. The translations were performed by a company called Lionbridge. MindArk rep Frank Campbell said his company made the move to increase market penetration, address users' needs, and increase the company's credibility.Entropia is a Sci-Fi-themed virtual world. It's an unusual combination of MMO-style combat and crafting, and Second Life-esque e-commerce. MindArk suggests to potential users that they can make money -- or even a living -- within the virtual world. Unsurprisingly, though, a substantial investment of real funds and time is required to become competitive.
Transmission 1.2 released
If you're a fan of the ever so popular BitTorrent client, Transmission, then you might like to hear that a new version was just released. According to the release notes some of the fixes included: You can now reset global statistics Support of multitracker torrents has been improved UPnP port mapping now faster on startup Ability to IP block using the Bluetack Level1 blocklist Dock badge images have been updated The new dock badges provide greater readability of the transfer in progress. Transmission is freeware and can be downloaded from their website.
AoC beta: a tale of two clients
Frustrated with the Age of Conan open beta's serious performance problems? Worried that the game won't be ready for retail in just a couple of weeks? Don't worry too much; not it is all as it seems. Word on the virtual street is that the open beta client is an old build with issues long since resolved in the closed beta version.When the IGN beta event finally began on Thursday, thousands of excited gamers ended up more frustrated than entertained. The experience has been marred by low framerates, stuttering, and frequent hard crashes. Admittedly, it's a beta; some of that is to be expected. But it's bad, and since the game's retail release is less than three weeks away, there's an air of concern that Age of Conan will hit retail in an unplayable state. The reality is more complex than that.
SAGA now available for free, minus some features
More than ever, it appears as though MMO developers are struggling to keep afloat using the traditional models for monetization. SAGA is a game that's had an interesting subscription model from the getgo, shirking the typical subscription fee model for a CCG-esque booster system. Once you've bought the client, the game is free to play. The only caveat is that you can only get additional troops for your army by purchasing "boosters" for an additional fee. It's really a pretty brilliant system, combining two types of games (CCGs and MMOs) that are independently addictive, and fusing them together into what one would have assumed was a license to print money.We haven't really heard how the game has been doing since it's since it finally emerged from beta last week, but already Wahoo Studios is shaking things up in an effort to draw in players. Like a drug dealer looking to give clients a first taste to get them hooked, they're now offering a free version of the client to give would-be players a better idea of what's on offer. The free client is missing a few features, but a free something is always better than nothing. Unlike a trial though, there is no time limit on how long you can use the free client. Seems they're confident in their product. It's probably worth a shot if an MMORTS/CCG sounds up your alley![Via Warcry]
Starting bittorrent downloads remotely from the iPhone
I like Mac OS X Hints a lot, although I will admit that most of the hints they post just aren't for me-- either they're for things that I just don't have a need to do, or they're for things I already figured out a solution for on my own. But lately, I've been trying to figure out if there was a way to start up bittorrent downloads from my iPhone (we've already been able to control clients remotely, but getting the torrent file was the hard part). And so I was ecstatic to see this tip from Whosawhatsis-- with just a little tweaking, you can install a bookmarklet on the iPhone and a script on a PHP server that will send a URL from the iPhone to the server, and then download that URL directly into a folder that a bittorrent client (Transmission is used in the example) will monitor to download the torrent.Pretty slick. Whosa runs this on a separate server, but while I'd have to read up on exactly how to do it (or maybe our commenters could jump in with suggestions), I'm sure that it wouldn't be too hard to enable a Mac to run a PHP script when asked remotely. Get that running, make the necessary modifications in Who's script, and bingo, you should be able to click the bookmark and then the link on your iPhone, and have the torrent file show up in your Mac, ready for a bittorrent client to grab it immediately.
Mashing buttons can cause cooldown problems
Ever since patch 2.3, a number of players have been having a lot of trouble with their instant abilities, especially in PvP. They're finding they get constant "spell is not ready yet" and "target is out of range" errors whenever they mash their buttons. The main source of this problem has to do with a change to the way your computer communicates to the server what your character is doing. It's not very easy to explain, but I'll do my best here. First, I'll explain how the change affects longer spell casts, and then afterward look at how it affects instants.Here's how things worked in patch 2.2: I press a button to cast a spell or activate an ability. My computer says, "Hey! Realm server! David wants to cast Frostbolt!" The realm server says "Okay!" 300 milliseconds or so later (this round-trip communication time is your "latency"). My computer then starts a 1.5 second global cooldown, and shows me the Frostbolt casting bar. I cannot use any other abilities from the time I press the button to the time my Frostbalt casting finishes, unless I manually cancel the spell (as with a /stopcasting macro), or unless the server tells my computer, "Okay the spell is finished already!" or "Whoops! That spell got interrupted!" Either way, without a manual interruption on my part, I'm waiting on the server to tell me the outcome of the first spell before I can tell it to start casting the second. Here's how things work in patch 2.3: I press a button to cast a spell or activate an ability. My computer says, "Hey! Realm server! David wants to cast Frostbolt!" My computer goes ahead and starts the global cooldown for me, assuming the Frostbolt will succeed. The realm says "Okay!" 300ms later, and the casting bar shows up. Alternately, if there's a problem, then the realm says "No way, silly! David isn't finished casting Fireball yet! Wait a moment to try again, and cancel that global cooldown while you're at it!" Either way, I can send my commands to the server whenever I want, as long as my global cooldown isn't currently active -- and if it gets activated too early, I just have to wait for the server to tell my computer to cancel it before casting another ability. Sounds fine, right? Before, we had to wait for latency between our computers and the realms in order for any spell to go through, but now we just have to wait if we press a button too early.
Tranquility is flipping out
It must be all those new crazy Mac and Linux people-- the EVE Online server, Tranquility, is going mad this afternoon. EVEMon is telling me it's up, it's down, and then it's back up again. Probably doesn't hurt that this is primetime in Europe right now, and of course the new Revelations 2.3 patch dropped today.But if you were planning on doing some mining or ratting anytime this afternoon, better make other plans. Tranquility is taking a beating right now, and it probably won't be super stable again until the Europeans head to bed. If it's like this today, we can't help but cringe at what might happen next month.
EVE Online Mac client works great
I was a little surprised to hear all the cheering over on the EVE Online post the other day-- I have to say, I had no idea you TUAW readers could get so excited about an MMO (and by the way, my name in game is Frank Dante, if any of you more experienced pilots want to take me on an Omber mining mission).But now that I know you're out there, I've got even more good news for you. The Mac client has been available to download for a little while now in beta, and it supposedly works great. Plaguelands got it running terrific on a pretty well-fitted MacBook Pro running Tiger. There have been rumors about Leopard not working well, but considering that CCP (the company that makes EVE) specifically mentioned Leopard in their announcement, it should run just as well.And tomorrow's the day-- EVE players are getting both the new patch, and the new Mac and Linux clients. I'll see you all out there among the belts, mining asteroids and fending off rats.
Don't mash in 2.3!
Your character can be less effective if you mash buttons in 2.3, according to Altitis. You can also stop using the /stopcasting command in most macros. In the 2.3 PTR patch notes, "client spell cast requests are now sent to the server even if your player is already casting another spell. This eliminates the need for /stopcasting in macros to compensate for latency." What this means in English is that outside of global cooldown, your computer will try to send a new cast command to the server when you press a button, no matter what.
How to increase your camera distance
It seems to me like we've covered this before, but I can't find it, so it must have been a while. The standard camera distance in World of Warcraft isn't bad, especially if your computer is right at the system requirements-- you can usually see most of what's happening and yet it's close enough to keep you focused on your character.But if you've got a really nice PC and, like me, want to see a little farther than normal (or as in the picture above, a lot farther than normal), there are a few easy ways to increase your camera distance, as Dr. Laxative found over on LJ.ImprovedCamera is probably the easiest-- it's an addon that will give you a slider to increase camera distance up to the max allowed range. You can also see, in the description on that site, that there are ways to edit your WoW files and increase the max range even farther. By editing the "SET cameraDistanceD" number in your config.wtf file, you can change one of the preset lengths for the camera, and then cycle through them with Home and End. You don't even really need an addon to tweak your settings-- type "/script SetCVar("cameraDistanceMax",30)" (or whatever distance you want) into the chat console, and then you should be able to scroll out to the max distance that you just set.If your computer's not that great, doing this stuff will definitely introduce slowdown and pop-in to your graphics, so run these commands with care. But if you've got the gear for it, you can see Azeroth at a whole new distance.
Kiwi IMAP email client goes closed source
Developer (and sometime TUAW commenter) Matt Ronge has announced he's closing the source of the upcoming IMAP email client Kiwi he's been working on. It's a decision that's been a long time coming, he says, and most of the feedback he's gotten has been positive towards closing the source, so he's going ahead with it. MailCore and libetpan, the two code frameworks Kiwi is built on top of, will both remain open source, so the possibility of someone else building an open source client off of MailCore is still there.The question is, will Kiwi be worth paying for? The answer, as usual, is "depends." Ronge has some great ideas for how a well built IMAP client could work, but the proof is in the pudding, and right now, all we've got are some screenshots. Kiwi promises Address Book and Spotlight support, LUA customization, and good performance and scalability. If Ronge can make his app do all that, most users will be happy to pay for his hard work.[ via Brent Simmons ]
GameTap Lite client (finally) released
The long awaited GameTap client for the Mac is out (direct download right here), and our (newly redesigned) sister site for all things gaming Joystiq put together this video (complete with music from "Psycho Mother$*#^ing Soldier"), along with a pictoral preview of what you can expect when you download and install.According to Joystiq, the Transgaming setup works very well-- they even found an Xbox 360 controller driver to use with it, and the client brought them right into OS X arcade gaming heaven. There are apparently some games you can play for free, but most games will require a subscription; we're told it's 99 cents for the first month, and it'll be about $7 to $10 a month after that, depending on how often you pay. This client is actually the "Lite" version-- GameTap says the deluxe version is coming later this year which will offer full screen gameplay, the ability to download more games while playing, and "a richer game environment," whatever that means. What are you waiting for? Download that sucker and go psycho, solider!
First Impressions: Mailplane - the desktop Gmail client
The fusion of web services and desktop software is a holy grail of computing bliss that few can claim. The web can often be clunky and limited by the constraints of a browser, while the data in your desktop software takes a swim with your MacBook when you drop it at the beach. Anyone who has ever gone back and forth on whether to use the convenience and innovation of Gmail on the web vs. the power and integration of a desktop email client like Apple's Mail.app knows what we're talking about. While the melding of these two universes might seem like an impossible hope to some, Mailplane is a new desktop Gmail client in private beta that just may be a light at the end of the tunnel.Continue reading for the details on just what Mailplane is about, and be sure to check out our screenshot gallery for a taste of how well (so far) Gmail and the desktop are getting along.%Gallery-2135%
Pukka 1.4: No More Dupes
I just posted something to del.icio.us with my favorite client, Pukka, and up pops a notification that it's been revved to 1.4. Now as much as I like Pukka (above all for its multiple account functionality) that would probably not be worth a post, except for the fact that version 1.4 adds the one thing I've always most wanted: duplicate warning! The whole point (as far as I'm concerned) of things like del.icio.us is that I don't have to remember what I'm posting there, but by the same token that means I often post the same thing several times. The new version of Pukka "knows" everything you've posted, and if you try to post a duplicate it will tell you: you're "given the original post date along with the option to cancel, continue editing as new and overwriting the old post, or populating Pukka's editing form with the old post for review or refinement." In addition, 1.4 adds hierarchical menu access to all your bookmarks (through their tags) in the Dock icon, as well as a few other things as detailed on the Pukka blog. A hearty TUAW 'attaboy for Justin Miller over at Code Sorcery Workshop for this one.Pukka is a very reasonable $5 and a 14 day demo is available. If you use del.icio.us with a Mac you should definitely get Pukka.[Update: added note about the hierarchical menu in the Dock icon]
