Vanguard: Saga of Heroes was one of the long-awaited MMORPGs of 2007, coming from the original designer of Everquest and promising "old school" challenging gameplay with modern graphics and interface concepts. Despite multiple release delays, it was still shipped in a very buggy condition, with features promised on the box not yet implemented, and hardware requirements well beyond the standard desktop machine of the time. Recently, it has made the conversion to free-to-play, which is tempting enough to bring back some of the original players and possibly attract new ones. fast on my mid-range hardware, I sometimes turn too fast or overrun a goal. The landscape views, in particular, are outstanding. These are no painted backdrops showing you things that aren't part of the world. If you see a mountain or tower in the far distance, you can run to it. There are countless points where even a jaded player (I've been at this since Kesmai in 1990) will stop and stare. On the down side, many of the character models are stiff, and the cities are filled with people who just stand there, with minimal or no idle animation. Gameplay in Vanguard is easily recognizable in general: Pick a race (limited if you're F2P), a class (ditto), and head off to gather ten rat tails, gearing up all the while, so you can gather 10 giant rat tails, and so on. Vanguard shines in the depth of character development. You don't just have your armor; you have a different set of clothes for Diplomacy, and another set for Crafting, and a fourth for Harvesting. You do switch between them automatically as you engage in different tasks. Your mount can be equipped with different horseshoes, saddles, and so on. Crafting is far more complex and interactive than in most MMORPGs; you must make constant choices throughout the process as complications arise or resources are expended.
Internet users should consider disabling Java in their browsers because of an exploit that can allow remote attackers to execute code on a vulnerable system, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) recommended late Thursday. Security researchers were using a zero-day vulnerability in Java to attack computer systems. Attackers were using the vulnerability to stealthily install malware on the computers of users who visit compromised websites, researchers said. The said the agency is "unaware of a practical solution to this problem." Instead, US-CERT recommended Internet users disable Java in browsers. US-CERT is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
but are after a more robust, commercial tool, you should take a look at RoboBasket. At its core, this $20 utility works in a very similar way to free DropIt: You configure file handling rules, and set it loose to enforce them on your messy folders and create order. The biggest difference between the two (other than the price) is that RoboBasket has a much nicer interface for configuring filters, allowing for fine-grained control. File conditions and actions are shown as a vertical bar on the right side of the window. If you want your file to apply to all ZIP files, just drag the "Extension" condition onto the filter, and set it to "ZIP". If you want it to only apply to old ZIP files, drag the "Date Created" condition onto the filter and set it accordingly. In this way you can build very fine-grained conditions that apply to specific files, but the filters remain easily readable and manageable. The same goes for operations: You can both move files and rename them, for example. The only point of confusion I had with RoboBasket had to do with recursive operations: You can have RoboBasket apply a set of filters to a folder and all of its subfolders. I had it move all Zip files in my Downloads folder into a Zip subfolder (so, Downloads\Zip). I then ran it again on the Downloads folder, but recursion made it do something silly: It created Downloads\Zip\Zip, and put all the zip files there. Every time it ran, it buried my Zip files one level deeper in the file hierarchy. This is because recursion isn't set on a per-filter basis (as would have been sensible), but on a per-folder basis. There's a workaround, though: You can create two sorting profile for the same folder, and set just one of them as recursive. So you put all of your recursive rules in one profile, and all of the others (say, file moving operations) in another. It's not elegant, but it's workable.
. There's a new guide to travel in town, and it comes from the creators of Wikipedia. . Earlier this week, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said during an interview on Comedy Central's Colbert Report that development of the travel site was a priority of the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, which runs the online encyclopedia and other properties. contains more than 25,000 articles on places around the world. The articles can be viewed on a number of devices—desktop, notebook, smartphone, and tablet—and can be freely downloaded as a PDF file, printed, or even gathered into a book so you can create a custom guide for a trip.
One of the downsides of using Windows is that, as time goes on, a lot of crud builds up in the nooks and crannies, eventually slowing the whole PC down to a crawl. One example of this is the empty folders left behind by things such as uninstalled software and temporary files. A small freeware app called Remove Empty Directories exists to make your PC experience that little bit easier. RED is a very simple program with a very simple interface. And it should be; deleting empty folders isn't complicated, just tedious and time-consuming. After installing Remove Empty Directories, you first need to visit the settings and check /uncheck the options, according to your preferences. You can also construct a whitelist of directories and files that the app should leave well alone. Examples include cloud services such as Dropbox and Google Drive, as well as temporary files that apps need in order to be able to operate. When you have the settings configured to your satisfaction, you will then be asked to choose a directory or drive to scan. Since a lot of people choose to install Windows in the C drive, this is usually the drive with the greatest number of empty folders in it, but of course you can change the drive letter if you wish. All you have to do is click the "browse" button and navigate to the directory or drive's location.
“You can't stop progress,” as the old saying goes, and that's just as true in the Firefox project as it is elsewhere in life. for desktop and Android, Friday saw the launch of its successor—Firefox 19—into beta. with this up-and-coming new version. Here's a rundown of some of the more notable ones.
Fear not, deep-sea divers: Now you can take your smartphone with you on those icy underwater trips. line of transparent protective bags for smartphones, e-readers, and tablets on display at the International CES act as barriers against the elements for your gadgets. Water, sand, and snow don’t stand a chance against the sacks’ hermetic seals.
If you've ever traveled with your tablet, you've probably discovered an inconvenient truth: Your laptop's USB ports don't supply enough juice to charge that tablet. That's why, for example, you see a "Not Charging" message when you plug an iPad into a typical USB port. During this year's CES, I discovered a great little travel accessory designed to overcome that problem. The —not just for tablets, but for phones as well. All you do is plug the dongle into a computer's USB port (it also promises benefits when used with wall and car chargers), then connect your regular sync/charge cable. According to Digital Innovations, the ChargeDr will charge tablets up to four times faster and smartphones up to two times faster.
When it comes to any sort of dancing, I normally just turn around and run right away. But not mRobo, the dancing robot made by Tosy that has a speaker firmly embedded in its torso. When it's activated, mRobo comes out of its shell to show off its talents, expanding to form a full-fledged dancing robot. mRobo will not only play music, but it'll dance along to it, making it one of the more entertaining ways to listen to music of almost any kind. mRobo isn't limited in its dance moves, either, as you can upload your own music using either a Mac or PC. From there, you can even use Tosy's Tune Robo software to program a custom set of dance moves for said music.
offers a modest selection of speakers—all of which are Bluetooth-enabled for wireless connection. But in case you want to use them without Bluetooth, JAM speakers feature a line-in cable that lets you use them with anything that has an headphone port. Not only that, but all of the Jam devices include rechargeable batteries so you won't have to stock up on D-cells before your next vacation.
iAcquire have posted a video to celebrate a unique year. After some high profile SEO hires such as Michael King, they got dinged by Google for shady link schemes. It was bad timing in the midst of efforts to raise their profile and the company came under
Although Google escaped relatively unscathed from a U.S. antitrust investigation into its business practices by the FTC, Europe may bring a less favorable result for the dominant search engine, based on comments by the EU competition commissioner.
Foundem, a comparison search website that helped initiate a large-scale European Union anti-trust investigation against Google, has filed a lawsuit against Google, according to court papers filed in October and released this week.
Facebook will let its billion users send a message directly to its boss, Mark Zuckerberg, but only if you pay #100 for the privilege. Facebook called the Zuckerberg price point an "extreme" test to "see what works to filter spam."
It can be easy to overcomplicate content strategy and keyword research. There’s lots of great ways you to create a content strategy, but to really make it a success you have to get to know your audience and find out what it is they want to see.
More brands are hopping in bed with Instagram and statistics show the relationship just might work. If your brand is buying Instagram shots for everyone, here’s how to track every move, filter, hashtag, keyword, Like, comment, and user.
Instead of focusing on New Year’s resolutions, let’s look back at the things B2B SEOs did that were working in the past year. Let’s focus on how we can enhance what we know works well in content marketing, performance, and collaboration.
The same tactics that make search marketing uniquely effective at capturing a user’s intent can now be deployed on Facebook. Here's a quick look at what Facebook’s introduction of search retargeting on the FBX means for advertisers.
Search industry body, SEMPO, have launched their annual salary survey in conjunction with Search Engine Watch's (SEW) sister site ClickZ. It's the 4th survey of it's kind from SEMPO and it is open to everyone with no SEMPO membership required.
Professional social networking site LinkedIn has announced a new milestone: more than 200 million members. By far, the United States boasts the most LinkedIn members and the site is most used by those who work in information technology and services.
Neil Patel, founder of KissMetrics, shares his thoughts on topics including post-Penguin SEO link building best practices, anchor text, social signals, misconceptions, and the importance of getting press – plus future insights for 2013 and beyond.
What makes a post engaging or popular? It all boils down to understanding your audience and why they are (or aren’t) reading your stuff. Learn how to turn this understanding into clickable, eye-catching titles combined with content readers crave.
Some of the exact elements that can elevate a site – content, links, and usability – can also cut it down. Minor tweaks and waiting for the next refresh is the wrong prescription. With a little SEO surgery, you can restore your site’s health.
In order to develop successful persona profiles, you need to know where to get the information and the right questions to ask. Here’s all the information you need to gather about your customers' behavior to create detailed customer personas.
How can you make sure Google interprets your website’s information and technical SEO instructions the way you want it to while preserving a good user experience? Learn how you can get the right pages to rank in a large ecommerce environment.
Gurus. Mavens. Ninjas. Rockstars. No doubt you’ve seen some of these job titles on LinkedIn or Twitter profiles. Advertising Age even did some calculations using FollowerWonk to show the meteoric growth of such titles over the past few years.
The first underground electrically-operated railway made its debut 150 years ago today in London. To mark the occasion for searchers in the UK, Google has posted a Doodle featuring its letters atop the famous map of the London Underground.
Exactly a year ago today, you may have spotted the relaunch of HitTail; or you may have totally missed it. That's because Rob Walling's plan was to quietly refurbish his new acquisition. Yet the timing to release the keyword tool could not be better.
If you aren’t optimizing your videos to match what people are searching for, then your videos are likely to get lost and not reach their intended audience. Learn how to optimize your videos for more views, clicks, and first page results.
Targeting individuals online who are over age 65 is no easy task, but we’re now entering an area of opportunity with this market. As the Baby Boomers continue to grow older, it presents a unique targeting opportunity for marketing through PPC.