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February 2005
Web Hosting - Ten Basic Tips
28 February 2005
After an extremely poor experience with a web hosting company, I decided to knock up a quick article which covers Web Hosting - Ten Basic Tips. Essentially this one-pager goes through my personal experiences with Oktagone.net, and the ten basic rules I believe will help you avoid a similar unpleasant experience. Give it a read if you are considering putting a website (big or small) up on the Internet.
Firefox Browser Version 1.0.1 Released
25 February 2005
If you use the Firefox Internet Browser like I do, you'll be pleased to hear that Firefox Version 1.0.1 has been released. It has a huge number of security and stability fixes, so it is definitely worth upgrading to ASAP. For those of you still using other browsers, once again I urge you to try Firefox for security and performance reasons.
Thief: Deadly Shadows Editor Released
25 February 2005
For those of you who are major Thief 3: Deadly Shadows fans, rejoice! A Thief 3 Editor has been released which allows you to create Fan Missions, just like the previous Thief games. You can find out more about where to download this utility, along with relevant documentation on page 4 of my Thief: Deadly Shadows Tweak Guide.
CS:S, Source and HL2:DM Steam Updates
25 February 2005
Valve have released another bunch of updates for CounterStrike Source, Half Life 2 Deathmatch and the Source Engine via Steam. To download these updates simply restart your Steam client while online. Further details are here.
Knights of the Old Republic 2 Update
23 February 2005
Obsidian Entertainment, the developers of KOTOR II have a big bold announcement on their Front Page: "Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II PC patch coming soon!". That means there is hope for those of you suffering from strange bugs and glitches in this game. I've only just started playing the game, and so far I've had no major problems, however I will wait until the patch is released before writing a KOTOR II Tweak Guide, for the simple reason that many of the problems with the game cannot be tweaked away - they require software patching. Once the patch is out, I will put out a quick guide to help you further optimize the game.
Microsoft "Forcing" SP2 onto XP Users
23 February 2005
A recent article entitled Resistance is Futile - Microsoft Forces SP2 Update on All XP and XP SP1 Machines has created panic and debate among Windows XP users. The article implies that no matter what you do, if you haven't upgraded to Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) by April 12 then Microsoft will automatically force your machine to download and update to SP2. I want to put your mind at ease if you've read this sensationalist take on the situation - Firstly, SP2 is perfectly safe and what I would consider "must-install" software for all Windows XP users. So go ahead and install SP2 if you haven't already - you'd be mad not to. Secondly, and more importantly, if you somehow insist on not installing SP2, you can easily prevent Microsoft from "forcing" you to install this update: go to Control Panel>System>Automatic Updates and select 'Turn off Automatic Updates'. That's it, panic over. Manually run Windows Update regularly and download and install whatever you like. Of course, if I were you I'd have downloaded and installed Windows XP SP2 by now, preferably by following the advice in my Windows XP Tweaking Companion.
UT2004 Patch Version 3355 Released
23 February 2005
Epic has released a new official patch for Unreal Tournament 2004, bringing it up to Version 3355. You can read more about this patch here. The patch mainly has performance and gameplay improvements, and as such there are no major changes in my UT2004 Tweak Guide, which has been brought up to this latest version.
America's Army Tweak Guide Updated
19 February 2005
America's Army has been updated to Version 2.3, and I have updated my America's Army Tweak Guide accordingly. If you haven't seen the guide before, or have thought about trying America's Army for the first time, now is a great time to check out the guide and get acquainted with everything from the basics of where to download this free game, how to create your online soldier and the important rules of the game, descriptions of the in-game settings all the way to advanced performance tweaking for even the most experienced America's Army player.
America's Army Version 2.3 Released
19 February 2005
The America's Army online game has had a new Version 2.3 released. This version contains a new Tournament Mode, two new maps (Urban Assault and Woodland Outpost), and various fixes and better cheat detection. I will update my America's Army Tweak Guide to reflect the changes in this new version shortly.
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