Reboot
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Windows 7 Beta automatic shutdowns begin today, RC users safe until March 1st
You're not still running Windows 7 Beta are you? Tsk tsk, better get your RC build before your system starts spontaneously shutting down every 2 hours. As Microsoft has warned repeatedly, Windows 7 Beta builds will begin bi-hourly shutdowns starting on July 1st in a bid to move you over to the latest release candidate. RC user will suffer the same treatment starting March 1st, 2010 on the way to a June 1st expiration -- well after the October 22nd launch date of Windows 7 to retail. This concludes this Engadget public service announcement, your regularly scheduled snarkiness will return in a moment.[Thanks, Kyle]
iPhone 101: Reboot your iPhone for better gaming
One of the biggest comments on the recent SimCity announcement for the iPhone, other than being able to locate the SimCity International (link goes to the U.K. iTunes store) version of the game, was complaints that the game was crashing for some people. This is not a new issue for graphically intense games for the iPhone and one of the solutions for solving this is very easy: Before playing your new game, reboot the iPhone. Here's how to do it. Update: As has been pointed out in the comments, a normal shutdown/startup process, or "soft reboot," should work fine: simply hold the power button down for 3 seconds and slide to power down. The "hard reboot" described here should only be used if your iPhone isn't responding to touches or the Home button -- it is not intended as regular maintenance. Thanks to all for the feedback. [If your phone ever becomes completely unresponsive, you may need to do the 'hard reboot process described next -- but remember this is the equivalent of pulling out the power cord on your computer.] Hold down the Home and the Sleep/Wake buttons until your screen goes black, as shown at right. After a few seconds, you should see a sliding bar for powering off the phone. Ignore it and keep pressing those buttons. After about 20 seconds or so, the screen will go completely black and the silver Apple logo appears. Once your phone goes through the rebooting process, launch your game. You shouldn't have any further problems with it. One word of warning: Rebooting the iPhone does drain your battery somewhat, so if you're pretty low on power you may find yourself unable to use the phone until after you're recharged it. Why reboot your phone? The iPhone, like a regular computer, uses memory and system resources every time you launch a program. The typical iPhone user utilizes several applications at a time, often hopping back and forth between them. When a program that is heavy on system resources is launched, such as SimCity, if you haven't rebooted in awhile to refresh your iPhone's memory and resources, it could cause the program to crash. I saw this tip posted on the App Store when I was purchasing Scrabble at the end of November and followed the advice and didn't have a single problem with Scrabble on my 1st generation iPhone. I repeated it with SimCity and, again, I'm not having any issues playing the game. If that doesn't solve your issues, check out this list of iPhone troubleshooting tips.
MMOART stands up to cancer
Our friends at MMOART (they make custom art of characters from MMOs, including World of Warcraft) recently "rebooted" their service and website, and in the process announced that from here on out, they're donating a percentage of all proceeds to the Stand Up To Cancer charity. They don't say just how much they're donating, but they do say that the disease has been a problem among their family, and they're taking a stand to fight back.We know the studio's owner has had health problems of his own, but those aren't related to cancer, this is just something they're doing to commit to a charity for others. So now you can get some great looking art of your characters, and help out a worthy charity as well.
Flipside gets you to Windows and back without changing a thing
While you can use utilities like BootPicker or rEFIt to quickly select a Boot Camp partition at startup, Flipside hopes to take the pain out of booting into Windows (no, it doesn't make Windows pretty, simple, or virus free -- that's for version 2.0). Flipside automatically finds your Windows partition on your Mac and boots you into it -- all without changing your startup disk settings. If you're in a hurry to reboot into Windows, then you can have Flipside force-quit your open Mac applications and instantly reboot (not recommended, but could be handy).This tool is definitely useful if you find yourself booting into Windows regularly. Best part of this application? It's free -- however, donations are accepted. You can download it today from Barraford Software.
DS Daily: Franchise reboot
We were looking over the reviews that have come in so far for Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword and we were thinking about how that franchise rebooted itself on the DS. Now, it didn't really need a reboot, nor is it 100% a reboot in the normal way we think of reboots, but it did take an established franchise and retool it for another platform. Now, whether it was a good retooling or a bad retooling remains to be seen.But, we were wondering what other established franchises could use a reboot in this manner? What about a Crazy Taxi game on the DS that has you controlling an interactive steering wheel on the touch-screen or only turning with the shoulder buttons? What about a Sims game that allows you to control them only by barking commands through the microphone? How about a Space Channel 5 game redone with Ouendan controls? What can you come up with?
Sidekick Slides losing power, respect when they slide
We're no QA experts here, but if your product is called the "Slide," isn't the slide mechanism the one thing you'd test the dickens out of? Alas, folks are discovering that Motorola's Sidekick Slide for T-Mobile has shipped with a devil of a flaw: actuating the display's slide periodically causes the phone to spontaneously reboot or to simply turn off and stay off. We've tested the claim on our own Slide, and yeah, it happens. Granted, it only happened twice out of thirty or so slides of the screen, but by standards of modern electronics engineering, we're pretty sure that's two times too many. As Boy Genius Report points out, to make matters even worse the power cycle is a hard reset, meaning your data's kaput unless you're within range of a T-Mobile signal to download everything from Danger's servers again. An ever-so-slightly loose battery seems to be the culprit here, but seriously, Moto, how did this defect ever leave a factory floor en masse?
Tobold looks back at WoW, wonders what's next
Tobold's MMORPG Blog is one of the most popular online gaming blogs in the series of tubes, but Tobold suggesting that he and a lot of other online gamers are in a "gaming slump." World of Warcraft transformed the industry and expanded the market by leaps and bounds, but its appeal might be winding down, Tobold said. He could be right. Blizzard has been reporting active player numbers as high as ever, but a big chunk of the numbers comes from the enormous Asian player base. North American and European players might be ready to move on.But what's next? Most games these days are WoW clones, and many of them haven't done as well as expected. Does the genre need a Battlestar Galactica-esque total reboot? If so, what will do it? The new Blizzard MMO, as Tobold suggests? The fabled KotoR MMO? The Elder Scrolls Online? What are your thoughts, dear readers?
ReBoot gets a reboot
One of the first computer-animated TV programs, ReBoot, is about to get a second chance at life. Sure, even in 1994 the show was a bit campy and featured thin plots and bad voice acting, but look how shiny everything was! Now Rainmaker Animation is getting ready to "relaunch the brand in a new way" by releasing a series of three feature-length episodes. The interesting bit is that we, potential viewers, help sculpt the plot. Five undiscovered writers were recruited by Rainmaker to prepare separate pitches for a new ReBoot storyline. These will be posted on the Zeros 2 Heroes website where visitors can work with each production team to help refine their ideas and later vote to choose their favorite pitch. "When it comes to long-standing genre entertainment properties, the fans are the real experts.", says Zeros 2 Heroes president Matt Toner. Not a bad idea. Fans know what they want to see, and this way Rainmaker will ensure nearly everyone is satisfied. And if the ReBoot reboot tanks, fans can only get angry at themselves.[Via Ain't It Cool News]
Australian LG plasma / LCD TV owners forced to "reboot" frozen sets
It's not exactly unheard of for DVR, PC, and PPC-6700 owners to have legitimate complaints about "freezing" issues with their gizmos, but we can't say the average television was on our list of devices we look forward to "rebooting" every day hour or so. Apparently, a horde of Aussies are facing such a quandary, as the digital TV tuner in a myriad of LG LCD HDTVs and plasmas (hit the read link for the full list) is going on the fritz whilst tuned in to broadcasts on the Nine Network. Currently, the only answers irate owners are getting revolve around "reception issues with digital transmissions in Sydney and Melbourne," but LG has also stated that it expects to rollout a "way forward" for customers quite soon. Currently, the only way to solve the seizures is to unplug the set from the wall, give it "two to three minutes to reboot," and flip the power back on, which can quickly erode any meaning found in your average half-hour drama. Regardless of how irritating we're sure this is, at least a (promised) fix is supposedly on the way, and trust us, things could be much, much worse.Update: Oh man, what a disaster this is turning out to be. LG has now admitted that the problem affects 17 different models sold nationwide and stems from certain "digital TV processors and decoders had difficulty dealing with the way that the data signal is packaged." Even worse, the company is going to have to deploy hundreds of technicians to make tens of thousands of house calls, as an in-home repair is the only way to upgrade the components. Sorry, Aussies, until you can make an appointment, it seems like you're gonna be stuck with this annoyance for awhile -- and not only on Nine, as LG claims the bug could affect other OTA channels as well.[Via Core77]
Ground control to DirecTV TiVo users: reboot, please
As a good few PC users will tell you, sometimes the only solution is the three fingered salute, and for TiVo users having an array of troubles with your DirecTV service, it seems the answer could be as easy as flipping the power switch. Oddly enough, it seems the list of recent complaints surrounding unexplainable deletions and problems with Season Pass recordings can be remedied with a simple reboot. A DirecTV spokesperson even stated that "a reboot will clean things up and the unit will start recording again," but we've got a sneaking suspicion there's just more to it than that. Nevertheless, that's the word from the higher-ups, so if you're on the verge of a total meltdown due to AV misbehavior, try the trusty restart trick a time or two, and if it still doesn't get things ironed out (read: the likely outcome), at least you now know precisely who to yell at.[Via PVRWire]
