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Breakfast Topic: A new recipe for anachronisms
This article has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. My guild runs all content. In doing this, we frequently find ourselves in Burning Crusade raids. Last night, for instance, we downed Lady Vashj. I got another couple of handfuls of Badges of Justice, essentially worthless currency even for someone who hangs onto things for nostalgia. We had a couple of level 70+ players in the group, new players who are leveling as fast as they can to 80. They asked what they do with these badges. We old hands laughed and said, "Not much." Beyond buying gems from the Isle of Quel'Danas to level my jewelcrafter's skills, there's nothing my level 80 finds interesting in BC badge gear. We talked about the changes in Wrath badge gear and how we wished for something to spend our accumulations on. This led to a discussion of the patterns that had just dropped and how they aren't relevant to anyone other than a newly minted 70. How nice it would be to find a use for all these patterns, recipes, schematics, etc., in addition to simply leveling a profession. I am an alchemist, and I've often thought it would be neat to combine some of the potions I know to make better potions. Combine rage and healing potions to make a potion for warriors that heals them over time, based on the amount of rage they generate during combat ... a spellpower and fire potion combo for fire mages or warlocks using fire spells ... a tracking and invisibility combo for hunters or druids or rogues ... Take it one step further and allow all sorts of combinations where on occasion, you get something you weren't expecting: a third eye, an extra arm, laser gaze, 3x growth. I'm a former dungeon master from Dungeons & Dragons; I know all about "side effects." There must be thousands of things in the game that could be combined in new ways to make them useful again as we progress to 85. What are your suggestions? Have you ever wanted to write for WoW.com? Your chance may be right around the corner. Watch for our next call for submissions for articles via Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW.com. The next byline you see here may be yours!
iTunes 101: How to prevent podcasts from spoiling
Like milk, podcasts will spoil if left unused for a period period of time -- at least in the mind of iTunes. iTunes will automatically unsubscribe from a podcast that hasn't been listened to within the last 5 updates, and more than 5 days have passed since an episode was played.The rationale, as Apple states in the documentation for podcast providers, is to "minimize unnecessary bandwidth costs for both the user and the podcaster," as well as making it more likely that episode downloads align with the actual plays of the episode.But I like the option of being current on all my podcasts, as well as being selective about which episode(s) I want to listen to. And being the rebel that I am -- using a two button mouse in 2001 while everyone else was still control-clicking -- this means that I will sometimes not listen to a podcast within these set parameters. In the past, iTunes would keep me in check by forcing me to manually click on the exclamation mark next to each podcast to resume updating the podcast. Needless to say, this became a chore after the 10th click. You can also select all your podcasts, right-click and choose "Update Podcast" to force a global update, but why do three steps when AppleScript is there to reduce those to one?iTunes will keep me in check no longer, as Doug Adams (of Doug's Scripts fame) provides a solution for this issue with his Update Expired Podcasts v2.0 AppleScript -- which batch updates each of your podcasts. You could even set up an iCal alarm that runs the script every day to force a fresh set of podcasts.Update Expired Podcasts v2.0 (download link) is donationware, and is available for download at Doug's Applescripts for iTunes site (link). It's finger clickin' good.
Your Addons vs Patch 2.4
Once again, we find ourselves anxiously waiting for the World of Warcraft servers to come back up. However, today stands out as the best (and worst) variety of Tuesday downtime. Today we see the release of patch 2.4 and, for your addons, it is a day of reckoning. The majority of you are familiar with new content patches and the havoc they wreak on addons, but for those of you new to this; many of your addons could very well be broken. There are a number of philosophies on how one should approach this. Some would suggest disabling your addons and waiting a few days until the storm subsides. Some have even said you should clear out your Addons folder, or your WTF folder. Clearing out the Addons folder gets rid of the addons, while deleting your WTF folder will clear all player and character settings. I personally go this route when I find that most of my addons are acting "buggy" or weird, or when I want to start with a clean slate.I recently wrote an article on how you can automate the updating process, which I would recommend you take a look at, the servers are down anyway! Alright, really I would recommend reading through the comments of that post, as some of your fellow readers have some great advice and insight you may find helpful. Also, the folks over at WoWInterface contacted me in regards to their own addon updater, which looks promising as well. They have been busy testing it and have released a Windows version as well as a Mac/Linux version, both of which merit a look in my opinion. WoW Interface also released their Patch 2.4 Survival Guide, which I profiled recently. All this just screams that you've got options, so keep reading!
The Daily Grind: Updating...
Tons of updates hitting this week: WoW is headed to 2.3, Everquest is getting patched, and it seems like almost everyone is getting code out to their games (maybe in advance of the holidays).So what's your routine when patches come around? Me, I'll probably be avoiding Azeroth on Tuesday, as a big patch usually means things are a little hectic when it first comes down (not to mention that Assassin's Creed is coming to the non-MMO world, and that's going to be grabbing lots of my attention). But in the meantime, I'll have addons to update, a probably a good chunk of the patch to download yet.What's your plan for patch day this week? Are you going to charge in ahead of the crowds and be the first to see the new content (and all that lag), or sit back, relax, and let things work themselves out before you login?
Is Norrath ready for Tuesday's patch?
Everquest will always hold a place in my heart. One of these days I will go back. As strange as it may seem, there is a part of my soul that I left in Greater Faydark, high atop the tree city of Kelethin. I think it's the MMORPG place that always felt the most like home to me. Even in my later years and levels I went back to that city every night before I logged off. I wish somebody could identify and duplicate that "feeling" and put it in another game. Until such time, Everquest retains it's crown despite it's dwindling numbers.To some this may seem like The Ballad Of The Sugar Plum Noob, but the good folks at SOE have kindly published some tips on their site on how to survive this coming Tuesday's patch with a minimum of anxiety or discomfort. To a certain extent, this information is good information for all of us who live in virtual worlds, not just the world of Norrath. Don't let the door kick your butt on the way out. In other words, get off the server before the engineers pull the plug. There's always a possibility of a game transaction being lost if your timing is off. I've also seen cases where a rollback has had to be performed and people who tried to further their characters in the eleventh hour got burned. Physician heal thyself, or at least get a necromancer to help. Sony suggests that even though the servers will attempt to clear corpses during maintenance it's always best to do it yourself. Be a shutterbug. The best way to protect yourself from maintenance-induced psychosis when your custom user interface becomes borked is to take a screenshot of it in all of it's pristine (functional) glory before the mayhem begins on Tuesday. A screenshot can be a useful tool for remembering what you had, and what you need to replace. A definite hat tip is in order to the folks at SOE for their thoughtfulness in publishing these helpful reminders!
The Dangers of Updating: Don't Do Anything While Optimizing
Gruber points to this post by Rosyna at Unsanity regarding a bug in Apple's Software Updater. According to Rosyna, "when you see the 'Optimizing System Performance' phase of a software update, Mac OS X is really updating prebinding. Updating prebinding has a very, very nasty bug in it... If multiple processes are updating prebinding at the same time, then it is possible for a system file to be completely zero'd out. Basically, all data in the file is deleted and it is replaced with nothing." Yikes! Rosyna claims most of the problems that arise from software updates are manifestations of this bug. The upshot: "When 'Optimize System Performance' appears during the update process do not touch your computer and definitely do not launch any applications." I know some are inclined to blame the Unsanity APEs for pretty much any and everything, but I think it's worth considering what Rosyna has to say.In response to this Gruber points to a old post of his own on updating (we even mentioned it back in the day). Basically, Gruber advises waiting a full day until after the update is released, then installing the update clean (with no other applications running), letting it finish, and then rebooting. These seem like prudent steps, and probably worth the hassle in order to avoid the prebinding bug.Update: fixed.
NetNewsWire 2.1b36 fixes server/network, news updating issues
As if Ranchero employed hundreds of little coder gnomes who work around the clock, the company has cranked out yet another beta release of NetNewsWire 2.1 to fix news updating issues. Turns out NNW's ability to grab news might experience some quirks if NewsGator syncing became flaky, so this release is targeted at fixing the issue.By now you probably know the drill; you can grab your copy at their beta page.
Download BitTorrent podcasts in iTunes with iTorrent
A lot of people are clamoring for Apple to build support for BitTorrent into iTunes. Setting aside the greater implications and the major industry bridges Apple would burn if they were to do this, a man by the name of Michael Hobbs has developed a solution that might suffice for some of you who just gotta have your podcast torrents subscribed in iTunes.While it might not be pretty, iTorrent (is anyone else getting sick of the 'i' prefix?) is essentially a set of Python scripts for Windows or Mac OS X that will allow you to add those BitTorrent podcasts into iTunes and update them with the rest of your podcasts. Unfortunately, it isn't a simple drag, drop and double-click, so check out Michael's site for installation and running instructions for both Windows and Mac OS X.[via digg]
