Summaries
At the end of last year, Mythic allows current Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning subscribers/players (me) to refer its MMORPG to friends as free trials (called “Recruit a Friend”).
So if you want to try playing Warhammer Online for free, I have 3 Free Trials of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning available. Simply put your request on the comment section of this post. Don’t put your email on the “Comment” field but put it on the Email field instead when you are submitting your comment. This way I can see your email but the internet and spammers won’t.
Please note however:
- I only have 3 trials at the moment so please request only if you are really interested in trying (and possibly buying Warhammer Online).
- I’ll be given 1 extra trial every month so if I run out of keys, put your request on the comments but it will take some time before you can get the trial, unfortunately. I’ll try getting my friends who play WAR to give their trial keys to you if I’m running out.
- Once I’m in contact with you and confirm your email address, I’ll send the WAR trial key across. You have to use it in 30 days period or it’ll be expired.
- You can download Warhammer Online Trial Client at FilePlanet later. (I’m not sure whether you can use your friend’s CD to play the free trial but it should be the same client).
- You are not required to have a Credit Card to try Warhammer Online for free but you will need one to subscribe to the real one after your trial period is over (if you decide to play).
I’ve been playing Warhammer Online for a few months and so far I’m loving it Much better than World of Warcraft in my opinion and it doesn’t suck your life much (well it depends on you, I guess. But at least it doesn’t force you to spend 3 hours doing dungeon raids or grinding for an item).
Check both my posts here to buy Warhammer Online as cheaply as possible (only buying Warhammer Online cd key) and also buying a cheaper subscription time card if you’re in Australia.
If you are working as a developer or a Linux system administrator, then most likely you’ll use PuTTy to connect to one of your servers (on-site or off-site).
PuTTY Connection Manager allows you to have multiple PuTTy sessions all in one window (PuTTy sessions in tabs). It’s much better than the PuTTy itself because this program actually merges all the PuTTy windows into one.
There was a bug before where you couldn’t just double click your saved PuTTy session configurations to connect to it if you already set-up a username on the configuration. There is an alpha update (not meant to be used on the production system) that actually fixes this problem and also other bugs. I’ve already updated mine and confirmed that it’s working. Doesn’t seem to have a problem too, despide of it being Alpha and the disclaimer.
To get this fixed version of PuTTy Connection Manager, check out this forum post.
This is not a review about the default Windows Vista start menu but “Vista Start Menu” is the name of an application that is designed as an enhanced version of the default Windows start functionality.
Ever love the new Vista search on the Start menu and wish that you can have it on Windows XP? Vista Start Menu can achieve that and can be installed on Windows Vista, Windows XP, and other modern Windows platforms. Not just that though, the application also has a few more interesting quirks.
Vista Start Menu is developed by OrdinarySoft and designed with human cognitive abilities to memorize locations and images. This way, you can remember your application shortcuts on the Start menu much better and quicker, rather than going alphabetically.
As you can see on my screenshot above, I usually organize my installed program folders on several categories (Games, Windows Applications, Internet Applications, etc). It’s probably the only way to keep them organized on Windows XP.
Well, with Vista Start Menu installed, I don’t need to worry about it anymore. I can either use the search field to find the program quickly (just like in Windows Vista) or I can still go to the specific program folder like before, but better (Please refer to the Vista Start Menu Flash demo to find out why)
You can also assign TABs (a list of your favorite programs/shortcuts) and keyboard shortcuts with the software. Some of these features are not available for free though, so you may have to go PRO if you want them.
Conclusion
Vista Start Menu is a good Windows XP Start menu replacement. If you want Windows Vista start menu search in Windows XP, then you should give the free version a try. Even if you don’t fancy the search capabilities, you will benefit much with the way your installed programs organized, especially if you are an unorganized person.
The only drawback is you’ll probably going to miss having the most recently opened programs on your Start menu.
Vista Start Menu doesn’t really slow down my system when I have it installed and running, although it takes around 41 MB of my RAM. So if you are really low on memory, then you might want to reconsider not having another program clobbering your RAM.
To find out about the complete features of this program, head off to Vista Start Menu official site.
To those who are brave enough to get the leaked version of Windows 7 Beta 1 (Build 7000), DON’T USE your Windows Media Player 12 (built-in) to play your mp3 files!
The reason is because there’s a bug that may actually corrupt your mp3 files when you set Windows Media Player to automatically retrieve media information from the internet (or when you edit your mp3 tags). As a result, a few seconds at the beginning of your song may get corrupted/truncated because of the false meta data update.
This is a confirmed bug and will be addressed by Microsoft after the Beta has been officially released to the public. I think this should teach a lesson to us not to use a leaked version ever
More discussions here on Neowin forum.
So you love the Windows Vista (and Windows 7) sleep mode but somehow your machine wakes up from the sleep by itself?
It is an annoying problem and usually happens the first time you try the Sleep feature on Windows Vista/Windows 7.
Here are some details on what you should check to fix your Windows from waking up automatically.
Prevent your Network Card to wake your Windows up from its sleep
Check your network card properties through the device manager and disable the “Allow this devide to wake the computer” feature.
- Right click on your “My Computer” then select Properties.
- Click Device Manager on the left side of the Properties window.
- Check your Network card on the Network Adapters (Click on the + sign to expand).
- Right click on your network card and select properties.
- Go to the Power Management tab and untick the option there to prevent your network card from ever waking up your Windows.
Find out what wakes up your Windows from its sleep
To find out what event/device woke up your Windows from its sleep state, go to command prompt (type cmd on the Run/Search box and press ENTER), then type this:
powercfg – lastwake
To get the most detailed info (and probably easiest) on the device that wakes your Windows up during the sleep, type:
powercfg –devicequery wake_armed
There! You’ll find the culprit I clicked my mouse to wake my Windows up intentionally so that’s why you see an HID compliant mouse on the screenshot above. Yours might be different.
Hope this helps!
If it still doesn’t work:
- Check out your Power Management Options on your Control Panel (Start, Control Panel, Power Settings, Change plan settings, Change advanced power settings).
-> “Multimedia settings” option, “When sharing media.” ->”Allow the computer to sleep.
-> Check other options one by one while you’re at it.
This blog’s December 2008 statistics: 35,214 visits, 52,339 pageviews.
- Referring Sites – 16,677 visits
- Search Engines – 15,427 visits
- Direct Traffic – 3,098 visits
- Other – 12 visits
Referring Sites Breakdown
I honestly didn’t do much posts marketing last month, so I’m not surprised to see a reduced number of traffic compared to the month before. I’m quite happy to see that my organic (search engines) traffic has increased quite significantly, though, thanks to my Red Alert 3 wallpaper & iPod Nano review posts.
Income made online on December 2008
- Google AdSense: $76.58
- BuzzLogic: $65.43
- Private Advertising: $50
- ASE AdNet: $24.57
Total money made online: $216.58
Interesting things happening last month
Hm nothing much, really. I know I can do better to get more visitors and market this blog more. Oh, my blog on Technorati Top 10K for a few days last month It may not mean much but some bloggers seem to feel proud when their blogs are on Technorati Top 10K. If you like this blog, don’t forget to fav this blog on Technorati
Last month I also received a bunch of new Twitter followers (thanks to Entrecard community for the initiative).
December 2008 Post Highlights
- Beware of fake subscriber counts
- Julian Beever 3D Chalk Drawings
- C& C Red Alert 3 Review
- Fight Against Spam – Round II
- Convert to whatever format you want
As expected, Windows 7 Beta build 7000 that is supposed to be out on January 2009 has already been leaked on the web. The file, 7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD.iso, has been published on torrent sites and if you can’t wait until January to get a hold of the public beta, then *ahem* feel free to grab it.
In case you didn’t know, Windows 7 is the next Windows built by Microsoft after Windows Vista.
The look and feel is indeed like Vista. Many people complain that this is what Vista should have been when it was released. However, due to time and resources constraints, Vista had to be release as it was. A quite similar case with Windows 98 last time (vs Windows 95).
I’ve played around with a few internal builds of Windows 7 before and I’d say that this is probably the operating system that I really want to use on a day to day basis (unless if you still like XP, of course).
Windows 7 has some new features such as jumplists, new taskbar, less annoying User Account Control, and many more under the hood. If you want to find out more about Windows 7, you just have to Google it
