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Game Cheats Are Illegal?

kryo — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:06:32 -0400

In his summary ruling on Blizzard's case against World of Warcraft cheat-maker Michael Donnelly (released yesterday), District Court Judge David Campbell has stated that the act of using a bot in violation of a game's license or terms of use qualifies as a copyright violation. Huh?

Just to get it out of the way, I'm as much against cheats as the next guy. As a WoW player in particular, I'm glad to see Blizzard shut down the cheaters and cheat-makers. But this ruling doesn't make much sense to me; it seems like a case of the judge just trying to find a way to cover something which doesn't really cross any real existing laws. Worse, it sets some (arguably) nasty precedent, effectively making EULAs law (any violation is a violation of copyright), rather than simple contracts where the most you can lose is your right to use the software.

Do you use an UPS (Uninterruptible power supply) for your computer setup?

nephil — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:02:19 -0400

Do you use an UPS (Uninterruptible power supply) for your computer setup? And do you think it's worth it/does it work?

No Mac zealots, Apple didn't invent the dock

Draginol — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:07:53 -0400

With Dell taking the Windows experience to the next level with the introduction of the Dell Dock, I've seen a lot of online buzz about it. Most agree that the Dell Dock is really good but intermixed are a lot of Mac fans who use terms like "Mac rip off" or how it's a copy of the Mac dock.

Mac zealots have a long and glorious history of retroactively claiming pre-existing concepts as being invented by Apple. For example, the modern "widget" (end user created applets that use Javasc...

Dell ups the ante on the Windows experience

Frogboy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:48:27 -0400

For years, PC makers have competed with one another largely on price. PCs, it was said, were nothing more than a commodity. But over the past couple of years, consumers have begun to take the overall experience a lot more seriously.

Last year's successful launch of the Apple iPhone made clear to cell phone makers that yes, the experience a "commodity" provides for the customer matters. PC makers have begun to take note and leading the way is Dell who began pre-loading the n...

Jing 1.6 Released

Island Dog — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:11:11 -0400

Jing is one of my favorite utilities, and it makes capturing screenshots and quick videos of your desktop a snap. Version 1.6 was released for both PC and Mac, and the best part is, it’s free.

Link: Jing

Download: Jing 1.6

Trillian Astra: Build 83 Progress

Island Dog — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:17:25 -0400

Trillian Astra, the long awaited update to Trillian which is still in alpha testing has been updated to Build 83. Trillian Astra is still in private invite mode, and no word on when a public beta or final release is scheduled. I'm hoping to get some more info soon, but in the meantime I wanted to touch on the Build 83 update which is detailed ont he Cerulean Studios' blog.

Facebook support: Trillian Astra now includes some basic Facebook integration which includes status upd...

Problems With Windows Defender Updates?

Leo the Lion — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 23:25:15 -0400

Many of you may well use Windows Defender software to protect your PC against spyware etc. I noticed recently that the definitions were quite old and out of date and I had always thought that it would automatically update itself. I found I was not the only one who was not getting automatic updates so I visited the Defender website - above link - and downloaded the most recent definitions file. Not sure how many other people are having this problem but if you rely on this software I would suggest...

Cat 8.7 drivers are out

Snidely Whiplash — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:14:55 -0400

for all of you ati vid card holders, especially the 4850 and 4870 owners, the catalyst 8.7 drivers are available NOW! i've no idea if they make things for the 4800 series any better tho. i'm downloading them while typing

EU to Ban Pirates from the Internet?

kryo — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:31:05 -0400

Some of you may be aware of the "three strikes" plan recently approved in France, where suspected copyright infringers are liable to be banned from the internet for up to a year if they persist after two warnings, and failed efforts to push similar laws across the entire EU a few months back.

Not content to be rebuffed, proponents of the laws have put them back on the table in Brussels, where they were set to be voted on yesterday. No news seems to be available online yet about how it went (any Europeans visitors have details on that?).

Is banning pirates from the internet going too far, or is it justified?

Are You Upgrading to the iPhone 3G?

Island Dog — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:17:41 -0400

Well Friday is almost here, and even right now there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people lined up around the world to get their hands on the new iPhone 3G. Last year I didn't stand in line, but I did go on launch day and picked up an iPhone. I have been very happy with it and you can ready my two-part review here.

So am I upgrading my iPhone to the new 3G iPhone.....no. However, I will be in line early in the morning to buy my wife one for her birthday. I have ...

Dual Screen Screen Saver

BiffBKStudmuffin — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 01:39:25 -0400

I use Dual Screen and there is some Screensavers that seems to only work on one Screen is there a way for me to make it show up on both? Ive had some screen savers show up on both or i had one screensaver that would just make one the screensaver and the other just completely blank just like one solid color. If anyone can help me on this i would appreciate it.

Used space?

Richard Mohler — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:29:16 -0400

Just got new computer & downloaded tree size and it says 22 gb's used. Computer drive c says 227 gb's from 283 gb's which is about 56 or 57 gb's used.. Should I be concerned that the tree size reads about 35 gb's less? I tend to trust it as opposed to what drive c says. Anybody know why the difference?

When you buy a disk...

erathoniel — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 05:40:55 -0400

When you buy a disk, who owns it? Is it you, the consumer, who paid the money, or is it the company whose software is on the disk? Do you have the rights to use of the software, in exchange for its purchase, or is it an area where the software you paid for is still the company's, therefore you paid good money for the disk and a limited usage?

When you buy a book, who owns it? You, the consumer, who paid the money, not the company who sold it. ...

Guided Tour: Purchasing Through the Impulse Store

Island Dog — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:13:30 -0400

Stardock’s Impulse is here, and whether you are purchasing a game, software application, or MyColors theme, the checkout process is basically the same. I wanted to write a guide showing just how simple purchasing through the Impulse Store is, and what to expect when your sale is completed.

This is the Impulse Store. You can get here by selecting the Store tab in Impulse.

As you can see in the notes in the screenshot, you can select diffe...

Firefox Updated to 3.0.1

Island Dog — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:23:54 -0400

Firefox has been updated to version 3.0.1, and this release was mainly a security fix for some highly publicized security issues over the last few days. This update also fixed a few other non-security issus. The update should be available within Firefox, or you can download the full installer at the Firefox website.

For those of you running Firefox 3, what is your opinion so far? There has been a lot of mixed reaction in the community, but for me it seems to be a decent upda...

Hey I just got Vista I'm paying the "Ultimate" Price for it!

Dan Greene — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:02:22 -0400

I'm not going to lie to you all. Vista looks great, but it runs like shit.

---PROFANITY WARNING--- Nothing too severe but I'm not pulling punches with this one.

In the interests of telling you all where I am coming from I've been into computers since 1988 when I played a game called SUBBATTLE on my uncles Apple IIGS. My first comp was a 486SX 20mhz with 4 MB ram stock. Since then I have run DOS 5.1, 6.2, Win 3.1, Win 95/98SE, I've had a P3 500, a P4 2.4 Ghz, and now I am running

Vista, ...

WINDOWS/system32 error

nephil — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:42:08 -0400

Ok, so I just got my new radeon HD4870, and after I installed it an error started to pop up evey time I turned on my computer. The error reads - Error loading C:/WINDOWS/system32/usaqxjtv.dll The specified module coul not be found. ...

DRM Stops Piracy for Now, Preservation for the Future

kryo — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:18:34 -0400

In a new report issued jointly by the United States Library of Congress and preservation groups in Australia, the UK, and the Netherlands, a problem has been brought to light that companies who use DRM may not have foreseen: their works can't legally be duplicated by the LOC, and may well disappear entirely once the media degrades or the means to use the works are lost.

We've had discussions recently about DRM that causes trouble for legitimate users, but this takes the issue a step further--thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a growing number of games, programs, music, and other digital works may only last as long as the discs they're on.

What is DRM ..really.. all about?

KingBingo — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:48:23 -0400

Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 I see a lot discussed on the net about DRM and its purpo...

Say No To Region Locking.

Camerooni — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:41:03 -0400

Say no to Region Locking.
(Full Article Coming Soon)

Quick Summary

- For a service designed to promote software 'freedoms', Impulse enforcing region lockouts is introucing a concept otherwise never existing in a PC environment (other than Microsofts Vista Anywhere Update - which is not available outside the US/Canada, and parts of Europe and annoys me no end because I want to upgrade to Vista Ultimate... but.. can't!), and Steam (the big publishers prevent sale of some games in particular...

ATI's new HD48xx range

Phazon88 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:45:27 -0400

ATI has been hard at work on their next series of graphic cards. After the excellent HD38xx release, things are looking better for ATI since the release of the HD2xxx series which didn't go down too well at the time.

The HD48xx series of cards are armed with ATI's new RV770 chipset, built using 55nm production. The card also sports 512MB of GDDR3 memory. It is extremely powerful for its size (with the stock HD4850 being a single-slot product), price (launch price for HD4850 is only&n...

Browser Wars

Zydor — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:36:09 -0400

Came across a strange thing I had not really noticed before .... accessing MSNBC via IE gets different news compared to accessing via Mozilla(V3). Anyone else come across this, or know why? To test this I cleared all cache, zapped all temp files, got it as clean as I could, then let them both loose at the same time, both accessed at 9.31am MSNBC time.

http://www.zydor.co.uk/browserwars.jpg

Regards

Zy

The Most Wanted iPhone Apps

Island Dog — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 21:47:40 -0400

Since the iPhone 3G launch along with the 2.0 software update, I have seen tons of reviews about the apps that have become available in the App Store in iTunes. While I have about 3 or 4 home screens filled with applications that are very cool and useful, I noticed there are quite a few missing that i would love to see added, and I bet you would you to. Here is my list, and please feel free to add your own.

WordPress. There is no arguing that WordPress is one the top b...

Software updates gone bad

Philly0381 — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:02:37 -0400

Everyone does them, usually without any problems, right.

Well not yesterday. Seems that there were a couple of updates available for my XP system from Microsofte that were identified as priotity. Updates being what they are I try to do them early in the day in case there are problems, Yesterday I failled to follow that rule.

After doing the updates I did the required reboot. Hmmmm, reboot will get you everytime.

Once the computer was booted I no...

July Windows Update and Zone Alarm

Po' Smedley — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:13:23 -0400

I got the July update for my WindopwsXP. I didn't notice anything right away because I hadn't restarted my computer.

When I got to work, my Wife's PC would not connect to the internet after she got her update. I looked at it and I lowered the firewall on ZA to medium. Bam..connected.

When I got home tonight I had the same problem on my PC. The only way to connect on FF, IE or in my email was to lower ZA's firewall to medium.

Anyone else having this problem? Or ca...