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We apologize for the lack of a podcast, but you don't often get a chance to see your city humiliate its self
Subject: General Tech | June 17, 2011 - 06:36 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: friday, PC Perspective Forums
Before your weekly tour through the PC Perspective Forums, it would behoove you to check out the bottom of some of our front page stories. If you click on the comments link, or just scroll down after clicking on an article you will notice it is possible to have a discussion about that article right there on the front page with other readers and with the creator of the review or news post. It is easy and you don't even need to sign up, though we would prefer that you do as membership at PC Perspective does have its privileges. If you want to remain anonymous or unverified then certainly do, though we do require you to fill something in the email address box and read a captcha, as there are still spammers out there on the internets.
To get really in depth advice and opinions you really should head off to the PC Perspective Forums, we can't give you indepth instructions on using Microsoft's debugging tools in the comments section but it is a piece of cake (slightly old cake, but still) to provide step by step instructions with pictures in the Forum its self. Some things just shouldn't be on the front page, but in the forums you will find kind souls ready to help your wetware as well as your hardware. Sometimes you will even find independent reviews in the Forums.
In the Cases'n'Cooling Forum, a new case mod has appeared; the Blood Ice HAF 922 is worth a look whether you are into case modding or just want to see an impressive tool set and workbench. In the Storage Forum a member is having an unpleasant time with a recent SSD upgrade as is someone in the Linux Forum.
The live watchers are already upset with us and the rest will just be receiving the bad news, but for the first time in quite a while we failed to provide our dedicated viewers a fresh PC Perspective Podcast on Wednesday. With Ryan in Seattle schmoozing with AMD and a pending riot of Vancouver residents, we decided to call it off. Perhaps next week we shall torture you with a double length episode?
Attackers trying bold new things to get your PC
Subject: General Tech | June 17, 2011 - 02:37 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Malware
We have been long battling online menaces that are looking to generate money off of the grief of others. It used to be simple for the attack to be successful: release virus; ???; profit. Now that worms are much less common the focus has shifted from invading a person's computer to tricking the person to allow you in their computer or attacking the service they are accessing. Now, what was once a far-fetched joke by a popular comic strip is true: people are being contacted at home and told to infect their computer.
Your call is VERY important to us.
The story for security has always been the same: be careful what you do, keep your attack surface as small as possible, and limit the damage in the event of a breech. You need to be aware, regardless of what platform you utilize, that you are only as safe as your level of complacency. If someone is attempting to get you to do something quickly, they likely are trying to play on your complacency by distracting you with an urgency. The disappointing part is that in the heat of the moment even someone aware of these attacks could still be susceptible to them because social engineering is simply very effective.
All of the above said, the silver lining to this whole problem is that the attackers are getting substantially more desperate which means that it is only a matter of time before the pool of attackers shrinks due to lack of profitability. The problem will never go away, but as the difficulty steadily increases for the attackers (which it is, otherwise they would not be so inventive) the draw of money will seem much less luscious.
TSMC gets AMD's 28nm APU business
Subject: General Tech | June 17, 2011 - 02:24 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: TSMC, southern islands, northern islands, llano, global foundries, arm, amd, 40nm, 32nm, 28nm
Back in April there was a kerfuffle in the news about a deal penned between AMD, Global Foundries and TSMC. It is not worth repeating completely as you can follow the story by using the previous link, suffice to say that it did not indicate problems with the relationship between AMD and Global Foundries.
The previous post was specifically about 40nm and 32nm process chips, however today we hear from DigiTimes that TSMC has scored a deal with AMD for the 28nm Southern Islands APUs of which we have seen much recently. The 40nm Northern Islands GPUs will also be produced by TSMC. That leaves a lot of production capabilities free at Global Foundries to work on ARM processors.
"AMD reportedly has completed the tape-out of its next-generation GPU, codenamed Southern Islands, on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) 28nm process with High-k Metal Gate (HKMG) technology, according to a Chinese-language Commercial Times report. The chip is set to expected to enter mass produciton at the end of 2011.
TSMC will also be AMD's major foundry partner for the 28nm Krishna and Wichita accelerated processing units (APUs), with volume production set to begin in the first half of 2012, the report said.
TSMC reportedly contract manufactures the Ontario, Zacate and Desna APUs for AMD as well as the Northern Island family of GPUs. All of these use the foundry's 40nm process technology.
TSMC was quoted as saying in previous reports that it had begun equipment move-in for the phase one facility of a new 12-inch fab (Fab 15) with volume production of 28nm technology products slated for the fourth quarter of 2011. The foundry previously said it would begin moving equipment into the facility in June, with volume production expected to kick off in the first quarter of 2012."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- ARM acquires Obsidian Software @ The Inquirer
- Mozilla pushes out final Firefox 5 test build @ The Register
- Sega Hacked @ XSReviews
- Tablets of 2011: What to Look For - June Update @ TechSpot
- A few thoughts on Ultrabooks @ The Tech Report
- Dsabling Windows Pagefile & Hibernation to Reclaim SSD Space @ Techgage
- Overclockers Benchmarking Party II: Where the Bell Tolls!
- Post Computex 2011 - Part 2 @ Bjorn3D
Microsoft reiterates stance on 'harmful' WebGL
Subject: General Tech, Graphics Cards, Mobile | June 17, 2011 - 04:35 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: webgl, microsoft
WebGL: Heaven or Hell?
(Image from MrDoob WebGL demo; contains Lucy model from Stanford 3D repository)
WebGL is an API very similar to OpenGL ES 2.0: the API used for OpenGL features in embedded systems, particularly smart phones. The goal of WebGL is to provide a light-weight, CSS obeying, 3D and shader system for websites that require advanced 3D graphics or even general purpose calculations performed on the shader units of the client's GPU. Mozilla and Google currently have support in their public browsers with Opera and Apple shipping support in the near future. Microsoft has stated that allowing third-party websites that level of access to the hardware is dangerous as security vulnerabilities that formerly needed to be exploited locally can now be exploited from the web browser. This is an area of expertise that Microsoft knows all too well from their past attempts at active(x)ly adding scripting functionality to the web browser evolving into a decade-long game of whack-a-mole for security holes.
But skeptics to Microsoft's position could easily point to their effort to single out the one standard based on OpenGL, competitor to their still-cherished DirectX standard. Regardless of Microsoft's motives it seems to put to rest the question of whether Microsoft will be working towards implementing WebGL in any release of Internet Explorer currently in development.
Do you think Microsoft is warning its competitors about its past ActiveX woes, or is this more politically motivated? Comment below (registration not required.)
Intel Enterprise SSDs Specifications
Subject: General Tech, Storage | June 16, 2011 - 03:02 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: ssd, Intel, enterprise
Intel is currently in the process of releasing their 2011 lineup of solid state hard drives. A lot of news and products came out regarding their consumer 300-series and enthusiast 500-series line however it has been pretty silent regarding their enterprise 700-series products. That has changed recently with the release of specifications as a result of Anandtech's coverage of the German hardware website ComputerBase.de.
And how does it compare to OCZ?
Intel will be releasing two enterprise SSDs: the SATA 3 Gbps based 710 SSD codename Lyndonville and the PCI express 2.0 based 720 SSD codename Ramsdale. The SATA based 710 will feature 25nm MLC-HET flash at capacities of 100, 200, and 300 GB. The 710 will have read and write speeds of 270/210 MB/s with 35,000/3300 read and write IOPS at 4KB and a 64MB cache. The PCIe based 720 will feature 34nm SLC flash at capacities of 200 and 400 GB. The 720 will be substantially faster than the 710 with read and write speeds of 2200/1800 MB/s with 180,000/56,000 read and write IOPS at 4KB and a 512MB cache. On the security front the 710 will be encrypted with 128 bit AES encryption where the 720 will be encrypted with 256 bit AES.
While there has been no hint toward pricing of these drives Intel is still expected to make a second quarter release date for their SATA based 710 SSD. If you are looking for a PCI express SSD you will need to be a bit more patient as they are still expected to be released in the fourth quarter. It will be interesting to see how the Intel vs OCZ fight will play out in 2012 for dominance in the PCIe-based SSD space.
Microsoft is probably laughing as AMD speculates the unlikelihood of Intel buying NVIDIA
Subject: General Tech | June 16, 2011 - 12:57 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: amd, Intel, nvidia
In some sort of bizarre voyeuristic hardware love/hate triangle AMD, Intel and NVIDIA are all semi-intertwined and being observed by Microsoft. Speaking with The Inquirer the VP of product and platform marketing at AMD, Leslie Sobon, stated that there was no chance that Intel would attempt to purchase NVIDIA as AMD did with ATI. AMD's purchase was less about the rights to the Radeon series as it was taking possession of the intellectual property that ATI owned after a decade of creating GPUs and lead directly to the APUs that AMD has recently released which will likely become their main product. Intel already has a working architecture that combines GPU and CPU and doesn't need to purchase another company's IP in order to develop that type of product.
There is another reason for purchasing NVIDIA though, which has very little to do with their discreet graphics card IP and everything to do with Tegra and Fermi which are two specialized products which so far Intel doesn't have an answer for. A vastly improved and shrunken Atom might be able to push Tegra off of mobile platforms and perhaps specialized SandyBridge CPUs could accelerate computation like the Fermi products do but so far there are no solid leads, only speculation.
If you learn more from your failures than your successes then Intel knows a lot about graphics.
"CHIP DESIGNER AMD believes that it is on a divergent path from Intel thanks to its accelerated processor unit (APU) and that Intel buying Nvidia "would never happen"."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Find Out if Your Passwords Were Leaked by LulzSec Right Here @ Gizmodo
- Adobe patches critical bugs in Flash and Reader @ The Register
- Umi, we hardly knew ye: contemplating the fate of the videophone in 2011 @ Ars Technica
- 'A SHARK attacked my ROBOT', gasps ex-Sun exec @ The Register
- We've got a real bone to pick with this mouse @ Hack a Day
- Fun Quotes from the AFDS Media Roundtable @ SemiAccurate
AMD announces new OpenCL programming tools
Subject: General Tech, Shows and Expos | June 15, 2011 - 09:14 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: opencl, amd, AFDS
If you are a developer of applications which requires more performance than a CPU alone can provide then you are probably having a gleeful week. Today Microsoft announced their competitor to OpenCL and we have a large write-up about that aspect of their keynote address. If you are currently an OpenCL developer you are not left out, however, as AMD has announced new tools designed to make your life easier too.
General Purpose GPU utilities: Because BINK won't satisfy this crowd.
(Logo trademark Apple Inc.)
AMD's spectrum of enhanced tools includes:
- gDEBuger: An OpenCL and OpenGL debugger, profiler, and memory analyzer released as a plugin for Visual Studio.
- Parallel Path Analyzer (PPA): A tool designed to profile data transfers and kernel execution across your system.
- Global Memory for Accelerators (GMAC) API: Lets developers use multiple devices without needing to manage multiple data buffers in both the CPU and the GPU.
- Task Manager API: A framework to manage scheduling kernels across devices.
These tools and utilities should make the development of software easier and allow more developers to take the risk on the new technology. The GPU has already proven itself worthy of more and more important tasks and it is only a matter of time before it is finally ubiquitous enough that it is a default component as important as the CPU itself. As an ironic aside, that should spur the adoption of PC Gaming given how many people would have sufficient hardware.
AFDS11: Microsoft Announces C++ AMP, Competitor to OpenCL
Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Shows and Expos | June 15, 2011 - 05:58 PM | Ryan Shrout
Tagged: programming, microsoft, fusion, c++, amp, AFDS
During this morning's keynote at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit, Microsoft's Herb Sutter went on stage to discuss the problems and solutions involved around programming and developing for multi-processing systems and heterogeneous computing systems in particular. While the problems are definitely something we have discussed before at PC Perspective, the new solution that was showcased was significant.
C++ AMP (accelerated massive parallelism) was announced as a new extension to Visual Studio and the C++ programming language to help developers take advantage of the highly parallel and heterogeneous computing environments of today and the future. The new programming model uses C++ syntax and will be available in the next version of Visual Studio with "bits of it coming later this year." Sorry, no hard release date was given when probed.
Perhaps just as significant is the fact that Microsoft announced the C++ AMP standard would be an open specification and they are going to allow other compilers to integrated support for it. Unlike C# then, C++ AMP has a chance to be a new dominant standard in the programming world as the need for parallel computing expands. While OpenCL was the only option for developers that promised to allow easy utilization of ALL computing power in a computing device, C++ AMP gives users another option with the full weight of Microsoft behind it.
To demonstrate the capability of C++ AMP Microsoft showed a rigid body simulation program that ran on multiple computers and devices from a single executable file and was able to scale in performance from 3 GLOPS on the x86 cores of Llano to 650 GFLOPS on the combined APU power and to 830 GFLOPS with a pair of discrete Radeon HD 5800 GPUs. The same executable file was run on an AMD E-series APU powered tablet and ran at 16 GFLOPS with 16,000 particles. This is the promise of heterogeneous programming languages and is the gateway necessary for consumers and business to truly take advantage of the processors that AMD (and other companies) are building today.
If you want programs other than video transcoding apps to really push the promise of heterogeneous computing, then the announcement of C++ AMP is very, very big news.
Steam Now Offering Free To Play Games On Its Digital Download Service
Subject: General Tech | June 15, 2011 - 04:17 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: steam, PC, gaming, F2P
If you happened to open up the store page in the Steam client or glance at their website, you may have noticed that Steam has made a moderately big announcement. Valve's digital download service now supports Free-to-Play games, which are games that are free to download and play at the basic level; however aesthetic and other upgrades can be purchased via so-called "microtransactions". F2P games on still will be free to download and will not require a credit card to do so.
Steam seems excited about the new F2P games.
At launch, the service is featuring five new Free-to-Play games including Champions Online: Free For All, Spiral Knights, Global Agenda: Free Agent, Forsaken World, and Alliance of Valiant Arms. According to the F2P Steam FAQ, games in which you wish to purchase content will be done through the use of your Steam Wallet. Further, for any Steam account that does not have at least one purchased (non Free-to-Play) game or a funded Steam Wallet will be considered a "Limited User" and will be restricted in the community features that it is able to access. Specifically, limited users can create community groups, be added as friends, and chat with other users; however, they are not able to send out friend invitations or start chat sessions (a non-limited user must initiate chat).
In adding the new genre to its repertoire, Steam will greatly increase its digital games library and add more options for PC gamers. One game that I have not played in some time that I would love to see make its way onto the new Free-to-Play Steam selection is a FPS game called Crossfire. That game was a good example of Free-To-Play done right as even accounts that did not spend a dime where able to stay competitive. Is there a Free-to-Play game that you would like to see Steam feature, and do you think F2P will add value to the service? Let us know in the comments.
Gaming from E3, starring The Duke
Subject: General Tech | June 15, 2011 - 12:46 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: gaming, duke nukem, 10 commandments
We need a new joke, the poster boy of vapourware has actually arrived and no one remembers the Phantom console. You can catch up on all of the reviews of Duke Nukem Forever below the fold, but make sure you don't say anything mean about the game or the PR firm will get you. There is also a lot of previews from E3 to drool over, many new games offered teases of their unreleased products.
Before you take a look at the games, The Tech Report has recently crafted 10 commandments that all PC games should follow. Read through them and see which of the new games look to be following the reasonable requirements that they have listed.
It's beside the Any key, right?
"Picture this for a second: you just unpacked the latest PlayBox 720-X blockbuster game, Gran Gears of Duty Fantasy XVIII. It's a game so juicy and dreamy that it'll send you flying into all the colors of the rainbow, twitching and jerking with pleasure-induced spasms just from looking at the loading screen. Let's assume for the sake of argument that said game is a first-person shooter, like, oh, about 135% of recent releases. You insert the Megaray disc, go about the installation process, and merrily start to play.
All of a sudden, you notice the left stick is used for switching weapons. The right stick moves the character, and shooting is only accomplished by pressing it. The camera is moved with the directional buttons, and the triangle, square, A, and B buttons are used for your character's smartass quips. You enter the menu to change the controls, but you can only navigate them using the motion sensors. After five minutes of furniture-dusting motions, you finally enter the options menu and find out there are barely any options, and none that matter. Frustrated, you throw the TenAxis controller at your 4D TV screen and take the shiny disc out of the console to find out whether it will blend."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Duke Nukem Forever Performance Test @ TechSpot
- Wot I Think: Duke Nukem Forever @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Duke Nukem Forever Game Review (PC) @ HardwareHeaven
- Duke Nukem Forever: barely playable, not funny, rampantly offensive @ Ars Technica
- Duke Nukem Forever Review @ Techgage
- Skyrim's dragon battles top off impressive demo @ Ars Technica
- Asura's Wrath is effortlessly weird and weirdly awesome @ Ars Technica
- Gaming Friday – Bulletstorm @ ThinkComputers
- Serious Sam 3 adds no modern gameplay, thank heavens @ Ars Technica
- Star Wars: The Old Republic's lead writer on good Sith, evil Jedi @ Ars Technica
- Section 8: Prejudice Review (PC) @ HardwareHeaven
- DiRT 3 Gameplay Performance @ The Register
- Assassin's Creed Revelations: The Escape From Constantinople Q&A @ HEXUS
- CANVAS Teaser Is Sinister, Awesome @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Wot I Think: Red Faction Armageddon @ Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN
- Steam Now Offering Free-To-Play Games @ Slashdot
- JavaScript Gameboy Color Emulator @ Slashdot
- A character, not a voice: tuning the narration in Bastion @ Ars Technica
- Silent Hill: Downpour - Xbox 360, PS3 @ HEXUS
- Wii? Maybe U... But I'm Not Sold Yet @ Techgage
- Super Mario 3DS hands-on: the Tanooki suit is back! @ Ars Technica
- Dead or Alive Dimensions 3DS @ Tweaktown
- Duke Nukem Forever Xbox 360 @ Tweaktown
- Icebreaker Hockey for iOS: hockey stripped down to $1 perfection @ Ars Technica
A look at what ARM could be doing in your server room
Subject: General Tech | June 15, 2011 - 12:16 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: servers, calxeda, arm
ARM has assembled their own Super Best Friends in a team lead by Calxeda, and composed of Autonomic Resources, Canonical, Caringo, Couchbase, Datastax, Eucalyptus Systems, Gluster, Momentum SI, Opscode, and Pervasive. This places Ubuntu as the ARM OS of choice for the server room and as it includes companies developing applications for running Cloud services, not only Microsoft should be paying attention; applications like Amazon's EC2 could face new competition as well.
Calexda's current reference machines pack 120 server nodes with 480 cores in a 2U chassis, a density which even a 1W Atom is going to find hard to match and the 1W Atoms are still a ways away. They are planning on getting the machines out to clients for testing by the end of the year, Intel's time table is nowhere near that tight. Read more about the low powered battle for dominance at The Register.
"With Intel's top brass bad-mouthing ARM-based servers, upstart server chip maker Calxeda can't let Intel do all the talking. It has to put together an ecosystem of hardware and software partners who believe there's a place for a low-power, 32-bit ARM-based server platform in the data center."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- ARM Fellow takes the mic at AMD event @ The Tech Report
- AMD demos Trinity laptop @ SemiAccurate
- Epson WorkForce 60 Review @ TechReviewSource
- Chameleon WiGig gains momentum @ The Register
- Having fun with Microsoft Windows @ t-break
- Microsoft squeaks on Google Nortel sale @ The Register
- A tour of Zotac's Dongguan factory @ The Tech Report
Razer thinks small with their new Ferox 2.1 speakers
Subject: General Tech | June 14, 2011 - 05:29 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: audio, razer, ferox, 2.1
The Razer Ferox speakers are designed to be portable, a pair of satellites measuring 70x70x64mm (not even 3") which come in a handy carrying case. They sport batteries that should last about 11 hours that are recharged over a USB connection but still require a 3.5mm jack to carry the audio, something that did not impress t-break in the least. The sound quality was good for this type of speaker, which equates to unnoticeable bass and decent mid and high end when in use. If you usually use headphones and simply need a way to share your audio, as opposed to needing new speakers then check out the Ferox, otherwise Razer has better choices as do Corsair and other manufacturers.
"Razer is no stranger to high quality audio equipment, what with the number of high-end stereo and surround headsets over the past years. Their breakthrough hit, the Razer Mako 2.1 THX speakers were one of the best desktop audio speakers at the time, and are still hard pressed to beat till this day. And now with the new Ferox speakers, Razer has entered the world of mobile speakers with a big bang."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Radiopaq Duo Headphones Review @ Tech-Reviews
- Thermaltake Shock Headset @ Bjorn3D
- Apacer Audio Steno AU825 MP4 Player Review @ Real World Labs
- SteelSeries 7H Headset for iPod, iPhone and iPad Review @ HardwareHeaven
- Speedlink Xbox 360 Headset Adapter @ XSReviews
HP announces 11 models using AMD Vision Technology
Subject: General Tech, Systems | June 14, 2011 - 03:24 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: llano, hp
Level up! Llano life increased by 11 HP.
So, AMD is currently having a little shindig right now as you might be aware from recent news posts and news is just a leaking from the rafters. HP recently contacted us to announce that they just expanded both their consumer and business product lines to include 11 new models using "AMD's latest Vision Technology". What this means is we can expect a large array of products coming from HP that utilizes the latest generation of AMD CPUs and GPUs from their new Llano-based AMD A-Series product line. Expect a helping of Llano on your HP in the near future.
Getting TCP out of the strange loop it is stuck in
Subject: General Tech | June 14, 2011 - 12:02 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: http, tcp, spdy, Internet
Google has been working on SPDY, a new protocol which is intended to speed up HTTP without forcing changes to existing websites or protocols. This application-layer protocol sits between HTTP and TCP, replacing neither instead translating for the application layer and the transport layer to optimize certain parts of the transaction. Specifically they hope to allow multiple connections over TCP, something that up until now is provided by a workaround in the browser which creates parallel connections as well as getting servers to push data to clients more effectively. They are also working to reduce latency by reducing the size of the headers that are transported which will be very important in the near future, not only as a way to speed up SSL connections but to help with the increased size of IPv6 headers.
Up until now SPDY has only been available for Chrome and even then only for certain Google sites which utilize the new translation protocol. Now Strangeloop is offering an online service as well as hardware which will allow you to implement SPDY without the need to change your website or host. The Register covers the long overdue change to TCP here.
"Strangeloop – a Vancouver-based outfit offering an online service for accelerating website load times – has embraced Google's SPDY project, a new application-layer protocol designed to significantly improve the speed of good ol' HTTP."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Intel: Chinese microprocessor development inefficient @ SemiAccurate
- Intel new server platform expected to start large replacement trend @ DigiTimes
- Games co Epic resets passwords after hack attack @ The Register
- Research @ Intel: The cloud's future is many-core and GPU accelerated @ Ars Technica
- Planar structure extends lifetime of memristor @ Nanotechweb
- Nikon COOLPIX S570 12MP Digital Camera Review @ ThinkComputers
Intel announces Haswell's new instruction set for 2013
Subject: General Tech, Processors | June 14, 2011 - 02:47 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: Intel, haswell
Intel's new processor lines come in two flavors: process shrinks and new architectures. Each revision comes out approximately a year after the prior one alternative between new architectures (tock) and process shrinks (tick). Sandy Bridge was the most recent new architecture which will be followed by Ivy Bridge, a process shrink of Sandy Bridge, and that will be succeeded by Intel's newest architecture: Haswell.
I can Haswell?
The instructions added by Intel for their upcoming Haswell architecture are useful for a whole range of applications from image and video processing; to face detection; to database manipulation; to the generation of hashes; as well as arithmetic in general. As you can see the addition of instructions in this revision is quite wide in its scope. Keep in mind that the introduction of a new instruction set does not mean that programs will be optimized to take advantage of the added benefits for some time. However, when programs do start optimizing for the newer architectures it looks as though Haswell's new offerings will speed up otherwise complicated tasks into a single instruction.
What task would you like to see a speedup on? Comment below.
Sing the praises of this SteelSeries board in the key of mechanical
Subject: General Tech | June 13, 2011 - 01:52 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: mechanical keyboard, input, steelseries
Mechanical keyboards seem to be a hot topic, with round ups appearing to deal with all of the new boards coming out. Hardware Heaven chose to focus on one particular product, the SteelSeries 6Gv2 Mechanical gaming keyboard, which thankfully didn't take 'gaming' to mean sticking extra buttons all along the side. The Cherry Black MX designed keys are very common amongst these new mechanical keyboards though the n-key rollover, being able to hit an unlimited number of keys and have them properly register, is not something you find on all USB keyboards. The 6Gv2 can handle multiple keys for you circle strafers and replacing the Windows key on the left hand side with a 'media key' that is disabled in games is a very nice touch. Check out the full review at Hardware Heaven since there are some negative aspects to the design of this board.
"For quite some time the gaming keyboard market has concentrated on products which add macro buttons, re-assignments, profiles, USB and audio pass-through and weighted key actions to enhance the gaming experience. In addition to this we see branded products such as the Razer StarCraft 2 gear and SteelSeries Medal of Honor products however few manufacturers have looked to release high quality mechanical keyboards for the gaming masses.
There have been a few though and these have clearly made an impact with gamers as we are regularly seeing manufacturers launch their own mechanical gaming models. One manufacturer which has historically offered mechanical keyboards for gamers is SteelSeries and they are now back with a new model, the 6Gv2 which we have connected to our system today."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Steelseries Ikari Laser Mouse (White) Review @ t-break
- Cooler Master CM Storm Spawn Gaming Mouse Review @ Tweaknews
- SteelSeries Cataclysm MMO Gaming Mouse Review @ Real World Labs
- Zowie G-TF Speed Review @ XSReviews
Don't you love it when Patch Tuesday hits double digits
Subject: General Tech | June 13, 2011 - 11:47 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Tagged: microsoft, patch tuesday, security, windows, internet explorer, silverlight
Tomorrow will see the arrival of 9 critical security patches and 7 recommended ones, covering Windows, IE, Silverlight and Office. The critical patches all resolve remote code execution vulnerabilities, the recommended vary from the same type as well as privledge escalation and denial of service vulnerabilities. WinXP through Win7 as well as server OSes will all be affected so be warned that your Tuesday and Wednesday might not be very fun. Follow the link from The Register to see Microsoft's pre-release document for yourself.
Adobe, obviously not wanting to seem lazy, is also pushing out a patch for both Reader and Acrobat.
"Microsoft is preparing a bumper Patch Tuesday for next week, with 16 security bulletins that collectively address 34 vulnerabilities.
Nine of the bulletins earn the dread rating of critical, while the other seven grapple with flaws rated as important. All supported versions of Windows will need patching on 14 June along with various server-side software packages and applications, including the .NET framework and SQL Server. Internet Explorer, which is affected by two bulletins, will also need some fiddling under the bonnet."
Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Why Microsoft has made developers horrified about coding for Windows 8 @ Ars Technica
- PC Mark 7 Performance Review @ OCC
- PathScale Open-Sources The EKOPath 4 Compiler Suite @ Phoronix
- Samsung Galaxy Tab sneak peak at Dubai @ t-break
- HIS Solar LED Flashlight @ Benchmark Reviews
- Sumo Lounge Titan @ Phoronix
- Final Benchmarks Of Project Dirndl @ Phoronix
- Tablet Wars Single Stage Phase and Computex @ NinjaLane
- Win a HIS HD 5670 IceQ 1GB Graphics Card @ eTeknix
Mechanical Keyboards: Are they for you? Which one?
Subject: General Tech | June 13, 2011 - 04:15 AM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: mechanical keyboard, cherry
There is a large amount of choice when it comes to PC components and input devices are no exception to that assertion. You are probably well aware of the multitude of choices when it comes to non-standard mice in terms of number of buttons and resolution of the optical and/or laser sensor. Keyboards have their own higher performance counterparts as well: not just in terms of how many web and media function buttons can be crammed on them, but also how the keys themselves register a press. Recently Tom's Hardware reviewed a series of mechanical keyboards based on their switches and gave a lot of background information about what advantages and disadvantages each switch has.
Are you a mechanical keyboard virgin? Feeling the MX Blues?
(Logo from the Cherry Corporation)
My first couple keyboards were the old IBM model M buckle spring keyboards. Eventually when I got a later computer I moved on to the cheap keyboards and immediately missed my original mechanical keyboards. Years and a little shopping around later, I eventually settled on the Logitech G15v1 as my first attempt at a higher-end gaming keyboard. It was with the G15v1 that I experienced serious limitations to be had with some, particularly non-mechanical, keyboards: I am a left-handed gamer. The Logitech G15v1 was optimized for right handed gamers as a lot of arrow-key combinations with shift or control did not register by the keyboard; Logitech expected, when they designed the keyboard, that everyone's mouse would be on the right of the keyboard, and thus the further away WSAD keys would be used. Consider playing as a Scout in Team Fortress 2 but not being able to jump sideways and only being able to crouch-walk in a straight line. While each keyboard is designed with a different set of jammable key combinations it was events like those that led me to go overkill and purchase a mechanical keyboard with NKRO attached via PS/2 port.
Do you have any keyboard stories? Comment below. Otherwise, check out Tom's Hardware's guide and review to mechanical keyboards.
The Next Generation is 3D HD SMARTBoards
Subject: General Tech, Displays | June 12, 2011 - 05:56 PM | Scott Michaud
Tagged: SMART, 3d
SMART has been making interactive whiteboards for quite some time now. An interactive whiteboard is essentially a giant writing tablet similar to a Wacom. This tablet is also a projector screen which is often wall mounted but could be mounted on a cart. SMART Boards attach to PCs by USB and could attach to video and audio out if you purchase one with an attached projector and speakers rather than use your own. Recently SMART announced and released their fifth generation product line complete with a projector supporting HDMI input and active 3D technology.
(Image by SMART Technologies)
While I can see this useful for companies that are doing 3D technology during their company, investor, and vendor meetings it seems a little bit unlikely that active 3D will appear in the classroom. It seems quite difficult for me to imagine twenty to forty students each with their own active shutter 3D glasses atop the investment of the 3D interactive whiteboard itself. Also while it might be to support the 3D functionality of the projector it seems quite odd to include HDMI functionality and barely exceed 720p resolution (1280x800) in your highest-end projector.
Demand For IT Workers Remains High In US Despite Economy
Subject: General Tech | June 12, 2011 - 01:12 PM | Tim Verry
Tagged: US, technology, networking, IT
The US has seen a rather rapid rise in unemployment in the last few years as companies cut back on staff and computing costs. According to Computer World, Tom Silver has been quoted in saying "several years ago companies cut back pretty far, particularly in infrastructure and technology development." Silver further believes that the tech unemployment rate is half that of the national unemployment rate due to companies needing to replace aging hardware, software, and deal with increased security threats. 65% of 900 respondents in a recent biannual hiring survey conducted by Dice.com found that hiring managers and head hunters plan on bringing even more new workers into their businesses in the second half of 2011 versus the first half.
Workers with mobile operating system, hardware, and ecosystem expertise and java development skills are the most desirable technology workers, according to Computer World. Although anyone with an IT background and recent programming skills have a fairly good chance of acquiring jobs in a market that is demanding now-rare talent. Employers are starting to be more confident in the economy and thus are more willing to invest in new workers. In an era where Internet security is more important that ever, skilled enterprise IT workers are becoming a valuable asset to employers, who are increasingly fighting for rare talent and incentivizing new workers with increased salaries.
Even though businesses are still remaining cautious in their new hiring endeavors, it is definitely a good sign for people with tech backgrounds who are looking for work as the market is ever so slowly starting to bounce back. For further information on the study, Computer World has the full scoop here.
Are you in or studying to enter into the IT profession? Do you feel confident in the US employers' valuation of their IT workers?
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Pictured in Charcoal Navy.
Click here to return to lifestyle photo.
OGIO® - Juggernaut Pack. 411043
Zip through security with this pack that features a laptop compartment that lays flat on the screening belt.
Note: Bags not intended for use by children 12 and under. Includes a California Prop
65 hangtag.
Price starts at: $60.00
For detailed PRICING, please select "Add to
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subset: commoncrawl


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text:
This is something I did a few years back.
Turned the Family, Ballas and Vagos in to Motorcycle Clubs.
I ain't figured out how to change the opening theme music yet.
If anyone got something they wanna share, Mods, Ideas and such....Just let me know.
As some famous once said....
Thank Ya, Thank Ya Very Much
SOBMC (Sons Of Bitches Motorcycle Club)
Started by RangerRon, Jan 31 2013 07:39 AM
1 reply to this topic
1 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 1 guests, 0 anonymous users


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IT could have been an Easter miracle but the mystery of a "disappearing" $30,000 watch from the wrist of the most senior member of the Russian Orthodox Church has actually been explained by modern technology - and left the church rather red-faced.
In what it described as a "blunder," the church admitted that an official photograph of Patriarch Kirill, the leader of Russia's Orthodox Christians, was doctored to show him without the expensive Swiss-made Breguet timepiece, The (London) Times reports.
The watch was first spotted after photographs emerged of the patriarch meeting recently with Russia's Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov.
When journalists brought attention to it, the patriarch said he only wore a cheap watch given to him by outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev and any pictures of him wearing the Breguet must have been faked.
The mystery then deepened when a photograph - with said watch clearly visible on the patriarch's wrist - was found on the church's own website. In an apparent attempt to spare the patriarch's blushes, staff quickly did some photo-editing to "remove" the watch.
The effort backfired however, with the watch's reflection remaining clearly visible on the surface of a polished table at which the patriarch was sitting. A video of the meeting also emerged, clearly showing the Breguet.
After being mocked in various online forums, the church eventually admitted that an over-zealous member of its press department had made a "ridiculous mistake" by manipulating the photograph.
"One of the basic principles of our work," it said, "is a general refusal to use photographic editing programs to change the appearance of a picture ... this question will be thoroughly investigated and those responsible will be severely punished."
The church added that the photograph had been restored to its original state and apologized for the "blunder."
There was no explanation, however, for the patriarch's original denials.
He has already been the target of widespread criticism after publicly endorsing incoming president Vladimir Putin in last month's election, calling his 12 years in power a "miracle of God."
Originally published as Church airbrushes out leader's $30K bling


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Man United outbid Atletico & Monaco for Benfica's Nico Gaitan, but it's not enough [Record]
According to Portuguese paper Record on Friday, Manchester United have posted an official bid for Benfica's Nico Gaitan.
Unfortunately for the Red Devils, that bid has however been rejected by Benfica as it fell short of the player's €45m release clause.
Noticeably, this is the second tie this week in which Louis van Gaal's side have been linked to Gaitan, amid reports that Benfica are attempting to lock the Argentine attacking midfielder down to a new contract in Lisbon.
26-year-old Gaitan's current deal expires in the summer of 2016, and the suggestion is that is Benfica cannot get the player to commit to the club now, they may be forced to sell him at this junction in order to get top dollar for their star.
In that regard, Record detail that Man United's offer for Gaitan was more than bids tabled by rival suitors Atletico Madrid and Monaco, however the offer was still not enough for Benfica to agree to.
It seems that the only way Man United will get the deal over the line before the transfer window closes will be to offer the €45m as stipulated in the South America's contract.
Man Utd have made a bid for Nico Gaitán. The bid is higher than what Atlético/Monaco offered, but still not the requested €45m. [Record]
— Jan Hagen (@PortuBall) August 22, 2014
Gaitán's agent is expected in Lisbon next week. Benfica want to renew and Man United need to offer €45m to get him. [Record]
— Jan Hagen (@PortuBall) August 22, 2014
Record unreliable? They were the one to break Man United's bid on Marcos Rojo. They don't always get things right, though. That's for sure.
— Jan Hagen (@PortuBall) August 22, 2014
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The Vancouver Canucks have a new face in their pre-season roster.
Veteran defenceman Dan McGillis joined the team yesterday on a professional tryout. The 35-year-old has 56 goals and 182 assists with five NHL teams.
His most recent team was the New Jersey Devils where he played 27 games in 2005-2006.
Aaron Miller missed training camp because of abdominal surgery. Sami Salo fractured his wrist in the camp-ending scrimmage. Willie Mitchell is suffering a groin pull.
The Canucks played the Edmonton Oilers last night and visit the San Jose Sharks tomorrow and Anaheim Ducks on Sunday. Regular season begins Oct. 5.


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Debate blog: Jobs, health care top questions
Credit: Staff graphic
Welcome to the debate blog where academics and politics converge.
Students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell are already warming up their fast balls to pitch questions to the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate for the Oct. 4 live-streamed debate co-sponsored by the Herald and UMass-Lowell (7 p.m. / bostonherald.com). Here's what students are saying:
|The article you requested has been archived


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Concerned Women of America, a 500,000-member organization of social conservative women, provides further proof that Herman Cain is taking Texas Gov. Rick Perry's support. Its Legislative Action Committee has been doing online polling of its members since August on their choices for the GOP presidential nominee. (About 110,00 took part in the poll.) On September 20, Perry led the pack with 25.6 percent. Cain was at about 10 percent and Romney was down below 7 percent. On October 3, its poll shows Cain with over 36 percent of the polled vote. Perry and Romney are both below 10 percent.
Executive director Penny Nance emails me: "Conservatives, especially women, are very ambivalent about the GOP field. CWA polling shows that they currently overwhelmingly prefer Herman Cain now that he has staked out a positive plan for the economy rooted in conservative, free market principles." As for the leader in most public polling, she writes, "Deep doubts about Mitt Romney continue as now Cain has almost pulled even with Romney on the question of who do people think will win the nomination. That is a significant shift from previous surveys which showed while most preferred someone else they thought Romney would win. The ground is shifting."
We've seen this before in the race. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) entered strongly, but Perry entered and stole nearly her entire base of support. She still hasn't bounced back. Now Cain's snatched these same voters from Perry. Neither Perry or Cain have been able to reach outside that base. Hence, Romney continues to coast.


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BOLTON, ENGLAND, December 13, 2012 – This time of year is prime winter woolly season as people pull on jumpers, cardigans, scarfs and hats to keep warm. While they're easy to wear, woolen clothing is notoriously difficult to wash. In the past the only option was to hand wash them, but with the advent of washing machine technology there's a whole host of programmes which can gently care for your clothes. If you want to keep your winter woollies in optimum condition Appliances Online, the UK's leading online white goods retailer recommends opting for a washer dryer with a specialized wool programme. Wool programmes are designed to gently care for delicate clothes as well as ensuring that they don't shrink.
Appliances Online stock a wide variety of washer dryers which include a wool programme, like the top rated Hotpoint Aquarius+ WDF740P Washer Dryer. Competitively priced at £350, the Aquarius+ can wash 7kg of clothes and dry up to 5kg. Alongside its wool programme it also offers a delicate wash and 60 minute fast wash for smaller loads. Out of 117 customer reviews this machine received a 4.3 out of 5 star rating. One customer, pleased with their purchase, said "this washer is perfect. The washing and drying times can be adjusted to be much shorter depending on temperature selected, I am very, very happy with it."
If you want more options for your various fabrics then invest in the MieleWT2780 freestanding washer dryer. With 22 different washes, ranging from standard cotton to trainers and pillows, you're sure to find all your clothing and linen needs sorted. This machine also comes with an A energy rating, making it 20% cheaper to run than a standard B rated model. Rated 4.7 out of 5 by customers this machine comes with Appliances Online's free standard delivery.
If you're investing in quality wool clothing this winter then invest in a quality washer dryer to ensure they're properly cared for.
Appliances Online is the UK's largest online appliance specialist, selling more than 30 brands and over 4,000 products. The website is part of the DRL group of companies and boasts over 300,000 sq ft of warehousing, which is bigger than three Wembley stadiums.
For further information please contact:
Amy Boff, Marketing, Appliances Online
Appliances Online
c/o DRL Limited
Aspinall House
Aspinall Close


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Travelers' Health
Helping to reduce illness and injury in U.S. residents traveling internationally or living abroad, through alerts, recommendations, education, and support to travelers and health care providers, based on the best science.
The Division of Global Migration and Quarantine's (DGMQ) Travelers' Health Branch (proposed name) monitors, analyzes, and reports occurrences of diseases and events of global public health significance.
Areas of focus include:
- studying and monitoring illness and injury among travelers
- health communication and education
- collaboration with external partners
- monitoring disease outbreaks and other health threats around the world that may affect travelers
The branch provides travel health advice, including vaccine recommendations and requirements, to international travelers and the health care providers who advise them.
The Travelers' Health Branch also plays an integral role in CDC's global emergency response efforts. The branch is responsible for developing and distributing event-specific advice regarding the risks of travel during an emergency, such as the H1N1 influenza pandemic, the Haiti earthquake and cholera outbreak, and the Japan earthquake and radiation release.
The Yellow Book
CDC Health Information for International Travel, commonly referred to as the " Yellow Book," is the definitive U.S. travel medicine reference for clinicians advising patients before and after travel and is a renowned reference throughout the world. The Yellow Book is published every two years and can be accessed for free online (www.cdc.gov/yellowbook or purchased through Oxford University Press or other online booksellers.
Travelers' Health Website
CDC's Travelers' Health website (www.cdc.gov/travel) provides outbreak updates and travel notices, travel-related disease information, and destination-specific recommendations for travelers and their health care providers. The website contains information for specific groups of travelers, such as children, study-abroad students, humanitarian and emergency response workers, and special needs travelers. Additional resources include podcasts, presentations, and a registry of U.S. clinics that provide yellow fever vaccine.
Yellow Fever Vaccine Online Training
The "Yellow Fever Vaccine: Information for Health Care Professionals Advising Travelers" course provides information on the history and study of yellow fever, vaccine recommendations, the pre-travel consultation, and the process of becoming a designated yellow fever vaccination provider. Several types of continuing education credits are available for this free course, which can be found at www.cdc.gov/travel-training.
The Travelers' Health Branch is made up of two teams that work together to safeguard the health of international travelers…
Health Communication and Education Team
The Health Communication and Education Team informs and educates a wide variety of audiences through traditional and innovative communication channels.
- Develops travel health guidance and recommendations for common diseases and health risks in international destinations, as well as for disease outbreaks and event-related risks
- Conducts audience research and evaluation to assess the need for and impact of travel health messages
- Develops and maintains the CDC Travelers' Health website (www.cdc.gov/travel), which is consistently among CDC's top five most visited websites (approximately 26 million page views in 2012)
- Publishes CDC Health Information for International Travel (the "Yellow Book"), the official U.S. government travel health recommendations
- Communicates travel health recommendations through social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook
- Develops maps of travel health risks, including maps of the distributions of diseases and at-risk populations, as well as transportation patterns
- Answers questions from the general public through the CDC-INFO call center and e-mail box
Surveillance and Epidemiology Team
The Surveillance and Epidemiology Team maintains travel-related health information from around the world and monitors data sources to identify risks that may impact the health and safety of globally mobile populations.
- Conducts studies of diseases spread through travel to increase knowledge and improve the accuracy of travel health recommendations
- Partnered with the International Society for Travel Medicine to establish the GeoSentinel Network Surveillance System, a worldwide network of more than 50 travel and tropical medicine clinics on 6 continents that collects health information
- Uses GeoSentinel data for monitoring travel-related illnesses and emerging infections, health alerts and advisories, and real-time reporting of disease events
- Establishes partnerships with consortiums of travel medicine clinics in the United States, including Global TravEpiNet, to assess pre-travel health care
- Fulfills CDC's yellow fever regulatory responsibilities by maintaining the U.S. yellow fever registry, a national database of health care providers registered to administer the yellow fever vaccine
- Participates in intra-agency and international collaborations on yellow fever vaccine safety, global yellow fever risk classification, and vaccine recommendations
- Page last reviewed: December 23, 2016
- Page last updated: December 23, 2016
- Content source:


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" From Sid Meier, the creative genius behind some of the most critically acclaimed computer games ever produced, comes Civilization III. Experience a game of epic proportions where players can match wits against the greatest leaders of the world in an all-out quest to build the ultimate empire. This highly addictive journey of discovery includes exciting new features that build on and enrich the Civilization experience. Now there are new ways to win, new pathways to explore, strategies to employ and more powerful tools to build and manage. "
* Prices may differ from that shown
Sid Meier's Civilization series will always have a special place in my heart. I've played all iterations except the latest (Civilization 5), and it's only my utter hatred for the intrusive and irritating Steam client that stopped me from buying that. But that's fine. Civilization 3 is a game surpassed only by Civ 4, a game so perfect I find it hard to see quite how they can improve upon it.
Civ has the same sort of format. You choose a particular Civilization and guide it from humble tribal beginnings through the renaissance, industrialisation and the nuclear age through to ultimate victory. In this instalment you can win through a cultural victory, military (Domination) victory, successfully sending a manned spacecraft to Alpha Centauri or Diplomatic victory. This provides a welcome balance, allowing for a number of varied types of gameplay. Each Civilisation has two particular abilities, including specialised units.
The world is made up on a grid of squares representing land and water. Land tiles can be improved by workers, depending on what it is. Grassland could be irrigated and then hold a farm. Mountains or hills, mines. This is on top of existing productivity or natural resource that tile already has. Roads and railroads can also be built, increasing production and easing movement of your units across it.
All this requires the ultimate precursor, the building of cities. Each city has to be at least 2 tiles away from each other. Ideally, you're going to want more than this as each city can draw upon up to 20 surrounding tiles, dependant on population. Food is used to grow cities. Shields (production) are used to build everything from movable units to buildings and wonders. The third element produced by tiles is economy. A city's economy can be split between research, tax and luxuries. The balance is crucial, and may shift. One of the main aims of city development is keeping your citizens happy.
Citizens become unhappy for a number of reasons. Being shelled by an unfriendly power doesn't help, but general unhappiness is caused by famine, religious unrest, insufficient sanitation, boredom, lack of luxuries or envy of another civilization. When the bulk of the population are unhappy, the city falls into disorder and nothing gets done, stored or sold. Leave a city in this state for long, and the population will start destroying city improvements. Get your balance right though, and Citizens celebrate your rule, boosting the economy.
All a city's inhabitants are labourers, but you can take away labourers by making them specialists. Entertainers, scientists or tax collectors. It takes no great leap of the imagination to figure out what each one adds to your city.
A city can contain a whole host of improvements, dependant on technological advancement and size. These can have military connotations, from city walls to keep raiders out, to barracks to train veteran troops, to missile batteries and more besides. They could have religious connotations, from Temples to Cathedrals. They can buff research through universities or commerce through banks, or population boosts through granaries and hospitals, reduce pollution through recycling centres or mass transits or general happiness through theatres and coliseums. Police stations and courthouses reduce corruption. Each improvement requires financial upkeep, so things can get dicey when your finances are in trouble. This richness of choice, effect and counter effect is what makes Civ so chest thumpingly addictive.
You are going to want to expand as soon as possible, ideally by finding and building on the choicest tiles of real estate. Expand too quickly, and your new cities are vulnerable. Expand to slowly, and you can find yourself fighting a loosing battle with vastly larger empires. Wonders are back again, though this time around you have small wonders as well as wonders of the world. Small wonders can be built once by each civilisation, whereas their bigger brothers can only be built once per game by any civilisation. If an opposing civ builds one of these, the only way you're going to get your mitts on it is by capturing (not destroying) that city.
Scientific research is as important as exploration, settlement and city development. Scientific advancements lead to new units, improvements and wonders. Technology can also be traded with other civilisations, though be careful you don't give away something great for something not.
Another new feature is culture. Your city's culture expands out influence to nearby tiles. A common strategy is to build culture generating improvements in cities bordering other civs. Whereas a war can grant you cities, they are often in ruins. Use culture to conquer, and you get everything as is. The older the city, the more turns it has had to build culture. A 2,000 year old temple for example, will have generated more culture than a fifty year old university.
There is a host of different military units, on land, sea and air. Fortifications can boost defenders. Artillery can bombard from a distance. ICBMs can ruin your whole day. That enemy sub off your coastline could be carrying tactical nukes. Some units will require not only technological advancement, but relative resource availability.
The only real caveat owning Civ 3 has, is the sheer amount of time that you will be spending with it, and the fact that Civ 4 goes one better. With the addition of so many different ways of winning, the replay ability factor is huge. An unreserved four out of five stars.
I sometimes have trouble getting into real time strategy games. Very often I want to get straight down to the action. However, from the first time I played Civ III, I was hooked. I got introduced to the game by a couple of friends, and after playing a game, which lasted several hours, I realised how good the game was.
The game allows you to choose from a wide variety of different tribes and countries, such as England, Russia and the Aztecs. You start the game with a worker and a warrior, and from there you set about building towns and cities, exploring the land, finding other settlements, advancing technology, creating alliances and going to war.
While you start with very limited technology, you can slowly start to advance your technology, either through learning it, trading knowledge with other tribes or being given the knowledge from settlements. As you advance you can begin to create new warriors and ways of travelling. But to do this you also need to find resources, meaning that you must explore and create links between all of your cities. This can be time consuming but very rewarding.
Very often you will find other tribes either requesting things from you, looking to make a trade, or informing you about your troops being on their land. You have the choice of sorting these things peacefully or by going to war. If you go to war you can request alliance from other tribes to fight alongside you. Once in battle you can try and take over their land, either choosing to take over their towns or destroy them once you succeed. You can also choose to completely wipe out the tribe or sign a peace treaty to end the war.
During the course of the game everything will advance, towns will sign their allegiance to you, your towns will sign allegiance to other tribes, and eventually one of the goals will be reached, either by reaching a certain population, owning a certain percentage of the world, wiping out all the other nations, winning the space race or by score if the game reaches its limit.
Overall Civilisation III is an extremely addictive, incredibly fun game.
Well Civilization 3 follows the same sort of gameplay style as the previous 2 games of the series, slow, tactical and strategic, requiring good thinking in order to win on the highest difficulty levels.
Probably the most notable update is the graphics, units and cities now have a more 3d look to them, and the terrain also looks more realistic, instead of being squares, the terrain is curved. Despite this improvement the system requirements are very low, requiring only a 300MHZ processor and 32mb of RAM.
Some of the units have changed, although it still retains the usually units, the technologies are also similar, with the addition of a few extra ones, to support the extra units and buildings you can produce.
Some civilizations were removed from the game, there are only 16 civilizations present in Civ 3, whereas Civ 2 featured 21 civilizations.
A new and fairly significant feature added in civilization 3 is Culture. Certain buildings will increase your cities culture rating, the higher your culture is, the faster your influence for that city will expand, with the right settings, highly cultural cities can take over less cultural cities, this can be done without provoking a war. Culture can also be used to gain a cultural victory condition if that setting is selected. Cities with a city wall cannot be taken over by culture.
Another notable feature in civilization 3, is the addition of unique units for each civilization, this includes the F-15 fighter for the USA, Panzer Tank for Germany and the like. There are a few other additions for civilizations, such as each civilization have 2 different civilization styles which give them certain abilities.
Personally I liked and disliked the extra sophistication of this game, so its up to you whether you prefer Civ 2 or Civ 3, but I like the simplicity of the 2nd one myself.
A big downside is the complete lack of multiplayer, get the Play The World expansion for Hotseat, E-mail, LAN and Internet Play.
This has got to be the best strategic game of its time. So much as gone into the making of this game it is untrue.
The game is like a mass of intrigue , knowledge and discovery.
You can either play the game itself or play scenerious.
Firstly you choose which great leader you are going to be :
options = Elizabeth I , The Bismark , Ceasar and many more.
Then you have to lead your civilisation from the begining to to the present and become the winner from a number of factors for example the most powerful , most advanced , largest etc.
Its not easy because you are the decision maker and money is involved. You have a treasury to spend on armies ? Science ? or entertaining your people ? Will you improve your towns and create cities ?
If you have a weak army you will be destroyed. If you do not entertain your people they will leave you and join a rival civilisation making them stronger. If you do not invest in Science then you can still only build Cavalry units when your rival can build tanks. Decisions , desicions.
The game also offers you opportunities to trade goods that are found on your land this will create extra revenue for your civilisation but your rivals will also have goods like Ivory which your people demand to have. You will have to create trade , treaties , protection packs and later on in the game start espionage missions as more and more advanced technoligy is gained by your rivals including Stealth fighters and nuclear missiles.
Your cities can be improved by building Temples , Cathedrals ,Aqueducts (early on). Each improvement having a purpose some improvements will make your populations happy , some will educate your people ( University , Library ), some buildings will prevent disruption , starvation and corruption.
Later on in the advanced years your cities will need airports , mass transit systems , the possibilities are endless.
Just like reality this is what this superb game offers. It gives you a real chance of living through the ages and discovering what it takes to be a great leader.The game is also educational and definetly historical.I could write a full book on the game because it has so much depth.
When you finally have the satisfaction that you have won after weeks and weeks , hours and hours you will then discover the other levels you have to get through to be the ultimate. I am at the second to the top level and it is killing me but I love it.
If you do get stuck on this game you can find forums and followers on the internet and from these you will get useful tips and support. Sid Miers has got a huge and growing fan club
Sid Meirs should offer one million to the first winner of his next game the world will be hooked.
Please be patient when you first start to play and you are learning the ropes because at first it will appear slow going for you because there is so much to learn but once you grasp it you are off. the game comes with a full help screen which describes absolutely everything that is part of the game it is just like an A-Z and believe me you will need it.


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" Brand: Asda / Type: All Purpose Cleaner / Category: Cleaning & Disinfectant "
When I was at university halls of residence I was a very messy chap, My room was a state and the sink needed a clean desperately! One day i decided that It all needed a good clean and a good tidy. I got on the bus and went down to my local asda looking for something cheap, I wasnt too sure what i needed! I then spotted this on the bottom shelf and it was only 25p for a large bottle. I read the front of the bottle and decided it was worth a try, I also gave it a sniff and it was lemony fresh. I bought two bottles and went back to halls. I found it worked well and was amazing value, I will now go into more detail on the product.
It has to be one of the most ugly looking things I have owned. Its a tall white bottle with a tacky label on it. I certainly didn't buy it for its looks, but whats inside the bottle is the thing that counts. There is nothing on the back of the bottle, just plain. there is a handle which allows you to pour and a cap, there is hardly anything to say about the bottle!
The cleaner:
its a multi purpose cleaner, the bottle says it can be used for - cooker tops, worktops, sinks, bathroom, basins and stubborn stains. you can also use it on tiles, walls and paintwork. It tells you not to use it on carpets, polished furniture, aluminium and wood. It can be used on so much and is a really useful thing to have in your cupboard. You may not be thinking... does it work? Well I can tell you that it did for me, I found it works best when diluted in the sink, I use a multi purpose cloth to clean down surfaces. It definately cleans and also leaves a fresh smell! It may not smell as good as other products on the shelf, but I found it was pleasant. I dont see the point in spending lots of money on an expensive cleaner, we use this at home all the time. Its perfect for the bathroom as you can literally use it on everything, it gets rid of marks on all surfaces. Its great to use when cleaning the bath tub and the sink. I use it on the toilet seat too. The bottle doesnt last very long as there is only 750 ml of liquid. We tend to pick one up every 2 weeks, it doesnt cost the earth!
I would recommend you try this as you will be suprised how cheap it is. Its worth the money and leaves a nice smell. I will continue to use this in the future!
This gets 4 stars from me :)
Thanks for reading my review, hope it helped.
We have bought some of Asda's own brand no frills all purpose cleaner for the home. This is a truly massively impressive large bottle of liquid cleaner which costs less than 30p. The plastic bottle is white with bits of green (like all Asda economy range products) and it has a screw top lid and a carrying handle to the side so it won't slip if your hands are wet whilst using it.
This stuff is so very versatile and can be used on a huge range of different household things. For example, we use it to clean the kitchen floor, the kitchen worktops, bathroom and kitchen sink, the back and front doors, the conservatory floor and outside panes aroudn the windows, the toilet, the kitchen table - you name it, we use it!
We find it has been very useful for getting out more stubborn stains such as when the little lad spilt his Ribena and it splashed up the kitchen wall. The other half just used this diluted on a hot wash cloth and it came off no bother at all. It is definitely worth the small price of twenty odd pence.
The smell is nothing special and is probably the only downside to this product. However, although it's nothing special, it is nice enough, if you know what I mean and I am happy to use it as it is not an unpleasant smell, just a little bit weak - I personally prefer a more industrial pine smell and this does NOT give off that kind of smell - it is much more discreet.
Overall though it is a very good product and one which I am happy to buy again and can thoroughly recommend.
Spending money on cleaning products is not something any of us like doing. But imagine if you only needed to spend twenty six pence on a bottle of all purpose cleaning fluid. Asda have rivalled Tesco with an even cheaper cleaning product, their All Pupose Cleaner with a lemon zest. I am glad it is lemon flavoured, as too many cleaners have a grotty smell.
No points for the bland bottle, which is basic and dull looking, but this saves on the cost, so you cannot complain too much. To pour the stuff, simply open at the lid and use the spout. When I tried this, I poured in about a capful into a sink of water. You are supposed to dilute the liquid first. Stubborn stains might require more than one capful.
I used it to clean the kitchen floor to begin with. It delivered a decent enough clean and did not leave any streaky bits. The lemon smell did come through, though I felt it could have been more potent. It was just lingering in the background. For a surface wash it was fine and left the tiles looking good though.
It did not perform quite so well on the hob, where the mixture failed to penetrate stubborn stuck on dirt. I had to do a fair amount of rubbing to get this to work properly. The next area it was used on was round the bathroom sink and bathtub. It worked better here, tackling dried water marks with ease and leaving a pleasing finish. I came to the conclusion that the cleaner worked better on lighter surface stains rather than on stuck on dirt and lumpy bits!
For the price it is good value if you want to do light cleaning and the viscosity of the liquid is pleasing enough to deliver cleaning on many household surfaces. Branded makes perform better on hobs and microwave dirt, but for floor cleaning, this would be worth investing in.
Both me and mate went on a long holiday in January It lasted over a month actually lol. Prior to that my mate had left her home empty for six months after her marriage ended and so the house stood desolate for months not to mention after our long holiday she stayed in her caravan not far from where I lived. I had a big bust up with my parents and decided that was it I wanted out for a while and in the end we decided to put the caravan back into storage and come to the house for a while, before it goes on the market so she can sort out her business before we both decide our next moves.
However we got to a house with a broken boiler, so no heating or hot water, the shower (which was electric) broke down suddenly and her ex had ransacked the house leaving it in a really poor state and little rats were everywhere!
It meant not only did we have a lot of clearing up to do we also needed to go to a supermarket and stock up on loads and loads of cleaning items. This place turned into a complete flurry of activity trying to sort it out I can tell you!
Not having a lot of money between us either and unexpected costs appearing such as buying a new shower and getting it fitted we had to buy cheap. Like I say we needed a lot of stuff to clean a house of this size and this was one product we thought would be cheap and cheerful and being all purpose that we could use in a variety of places and in various ways!
The Packaging:
750ml white plastic bottle with a screw on/off cap/lid to the top of it and an integrated handle to the right hand side of it. On the front of the bottle all the information is stated on a white and green label and I am told that it is Asda, Smart-Price, All Purpose Liquid Cleaner and I'm told how to use it, ingredients and warnings are listed as well as cautions and the size being stated (as I've listed already) and of course contact details for Asda are given. It's a cheap looking bottle but for the pennies it costs you do get a lot of product and to me it's always the product that counts rather than the packaging after-all!
Directions For Use:
Use for cooker tops, worktops, sinks, baths, basins and stubborn stains.
Undiluted: Apply direct onto surface or onto damp cloth and clean immediately. Rinse with clean water. For large areas - especially floors, walls, tiles and paintwork. DILUTE 2 capfuls to 1/2 a bucket of warm water (1 capful is approximately 10L).
Using It:
Well we were impressed after reading on the bottle where you can use it as it really is a very versatile product indeed. We pretty much used this liquid everywhere in the house but not on glass and/or mirrors. We used it neat and diluted (as the instructions explained us to on the bottle). It is a thin and watery light yellow transparent liquid with a faint hint of sweet unnatural lemons to it. It looks like a cheap liquid really and smells as such too!
We used it on worktops, sinks, toilets, skirting boards and even mopped the floor with it diluted and sure it worked ok really. Not greasy or anything we found it not to foam up and sure it got things clean.... with elbow grease. However I found when I tipped a little bit of it in things like sinks and baths it was so runny it had ran away before I managed to hit it with a cloth to clean using it! Also if I put some on stubborn stains it never moved them itself and I couldn't just rinse messes away like I'm used to with say Mr Muscle or Flash or something like that, I really need to work with it.
Like I say though it works well enough though expect to use a lot of neat product for really dirty, scummy things and the fragrance really isn't great or long lasting but it certainly does help clean things. Personally though me and my friend are in agreement this is kinda like false economy due to the amount you need to use and you may be better buying something higher priced and to use less of it!
Not recommended but if your interested in trying it at 26p a bottle it's worth giving it a go to see what you think!
Only available in Asda stores.
Sometimes shopping in our mammoth Asda/Wallmart superstore can be really frustrating. After making my way up and down aisle after aisle I had still somehow managed to walk past one of the most important things on my shopping list, I needed to replace my bottle of all purpose cleaner.
I know it may seem trivial to some but I find all purpose cleaner invaluable, the cleaner can be used on the majority of surfaces, it is easy to use and it usually leaves no greasy or sticky residue behind it.
When I eventually made my way back to the household cleaning aisle I noticed that Asda were charging £1.22 for the 550ml sized bottle of Flash all purpose liquid, normally I expect to pay about £1 for the same sized bottle in Wilkinson's, so in for a penny in for a pound I decided I had nothing to lose by trying out the Asda Smartprice all purpose cleaner.
The 750 ml bottle of Asda all purpose cleaner only cost me 26p , so I was not hoping for miracles. The miracle certainly did not come disguised as the plastic bottle, the plain white plastic bottle with the familiar green and white writing on is pretty plain to say the least but 28p is not going to provide you with a swish bottle and we have to accept that fact.
The screw top bottle is well shaped , the handle is large and comfortable and the liquid pours well when you tip the bottle.
Some liquids are a nightmare to pour and I have often ended up spilling some along the way.
The Asda all purpose cleaner is like tinted water but it smells quite pleasant. The liquid viscosity is on a par with that of Flash but I would say that the fragrance is by no means as strong. I could smell the lemon but the smell was sweet and mild .
On the labelling it says that the all purpose cleaner contains a number of cleaning agents and perfume.
I love the smell of Flash all purpose cleaner and I feel that the fragrance is half of the attraction, once you have wiped and washed using lemon cleaner that usually makes the floors and surfaces feel AND smell clean.
I always put a bit of all purpose cleaner in my washing up bowl and then add some nice hot water in readiness to wipe the kitchen worktops over.
When I use Flash all purpose liquid cleaner the waters smells really good but after adding some of the Asda all purpose cleaner the fragrance is not a patch on the flash . But I am forgetting to take certain facts into account, the Asda liquid is around one third of the price of the Flash all purpose cleaner !
I wondered how the skin on my hands would feel after being immersed in the cheaper liquid but I had no after effects in any way. I use rubber gloves if I am washing the kitchen floor but when I wipe the worktops over I usually just wring the cloth out without using gloves.
The Asda all purpose liquid cleaner works well, the surfaces and worktops looked every bit as good as they normally do, the one major difference was the lack of lemon fresh `zing`.
Normally after wiping the kitchen over I feel a sense of achievement but using the Asda all purpose cleaner didn't give me that same feeling.
To round off I would say that the Asda cleaner works but that is as far as it goes.
I will finish off the bottle, maybe I will relegate it to the bathroom where I use air fresheners etc so that the lack of fragrance isn't so noticeable.
Next time I run out of liquid cleaner I will make sure that I walk up to Wilkinson's for a bottle of Flash.


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All quotes by Bill Halpin
(8 quotes found)
"It's the biggest game of the season. They are a very good team. And there's the rivalry. It'll be a barnburner."
"Unfortunately for us, we don't get up for Modesto. Our biggest rival has always been Sierra. Anytime you play somebody you've beat quite a few times, they're going to come after you."
"You have to give Modesto credit. They had girls in foul trouble and we couldn't take advantage of that. They deserved to win."
"I'm just trying to help coach her a little bit. She's doing so well in her age group, with a little coaching, she could do so much better."
"I can tell you that she can beat a couple of those younger kids. They're not great swimmers, but she'll beat a couple."
"She doesn't understand that she's a rallying point for us. Because we've got a woman who's four times older than you doing stuff. She's a motivating factor."
"She's probably our most versatile sprinter. She's one swimmer I can plug in wherever and count on a win."


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Bike tracking
I saw a thing on MSNBC where they set up bait bikes for would be theives - and then were able to track their stolen bikes on a google maps type map. Spiffy. I want to know how I can do this for my bikes. I have a plan for it.
It looks like it is possible, though probably more expensive than you would want because it is a subscription service, much like a cell phone.
Nero Global Tracking http://www.neroglobal.com/news_gps_t...tolen_bike.php says it can be done, but it may not be cost-effective at $30 per month for a service subscription.
Pegtech http://www.pegtech.com has a system, but has no prices listed which implies "If you need to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it."
Meanwhile, as I searched for info on the Internet, I found some humorous bait-bike news
From boingboing.net 7/9/2004:
"I remember the Toronto cops once tried a bait-bike and were quite successful, snagging dozens of bike-thieves in a short time, but had to give it up because the bait-bike got stolen while the cops were busy arresting someone for trying to steal it."
From dutchnews.nl
'Bait bike lost already
Thursday 21 June 2007
"A bike fitted with a hidden transmitter and used as bait by police in Nijmegen to catch thieves has disappeared, just two weeks after being put into action. Having been used to catch three bike thieves during its test period, the bike was lost on June 7, the police said on Thursday, and is probably in the Waal river. When the bike showed it was moving, the control room monitoring it notified the police, but it disappeared off the radar while on the river bank. Police dredged the section of the Waal without retrieving the bike."
Google gps+dog. Should work for bikes. Don't know how the prices compare.
Awesome. I'm designing a system to rent bikes that I'm going to outfit with some theft-'proof' equipment and would rather that I could track it while it was out on rent in case someone tries to remove it from the city, for example.
So let me see if this works. You lock the bike up securing the front and back wheel then you tie fido to the downtube and give s/he the command to guard. Am I right on this? I don't think anyone is going to mess with your bike if you're gone for 10mins or more. Probably have a lonely fido tho.
I actually want it so people can find the rentals as the system I'm going to set up may depend on that.
Road Warrior is good, but Mad Max is better.
|All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:56 PM.


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Madwoman Stoned Crying Baby Girl To Death In Aba Abia State After Twins Delivery
August 4, 2014 – Madwoman Killed Her Crying Baby Girl In Aba Abia State Moments After Giving Birth To A Set Of Twins
An insane woman over the weekend caused stir at a refuse dump very close to AGIP filling station at Alaoji along the Ikot Ekpene Road near Aba when she killed her own baby.
According to eyewitnesses, the unidentified young lady delivered a set of female twins on a refuse heap on Saturday unassisted.
Due to the labour tension, she fell asleep and the cry of one of the babies woke her up.
In anger, the insane woman took a stone and hit the crying baby on the head and she died instantly.
The sad incident forced onlookers to alert the police who came to rescue the other one.
Sensing that the life of the second baby could also be in danger, residents of the area alerted the police and the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) for Ogbor Hill Division, Mrs. Helen Nze, was said to have led a team of policemen to the refuse dump.
The police rushed the baby that was still alive to a private hospital, where she was cleaned and given medication, and deposited the dead one in a mortuary.
It was gathered that an unknown person impregnated the woman, in her mid 20s and whose name could not be ascertained as at press time, late last year.
So sad! May the soul of the innocent baby rest in peace.


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Anthony L. Izzo passed away Friday June 22, 2007 in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
He was born July 20, 1941 in Seneca Falls, New York to the late Frank and Louise Izzo. He served in the U.S. Air Force. He was resident of Lubbock for 36 years. He was employed by Methodist Hospital as a Medical Engineer. After his retirement he spent the winters in Pharr, Texas and the summers in Ruidoso, N.M. He was in Ruidoso at the time of his sudden illness.
Those left to cherish Tony's memory are his children, Tony and his wife Darla Izzo, Christine and her husband Michael Berveiller, all of Sierra Vista Arizona and Theo Izzo of the Dallas area; his siblings, Vic Izzo, Karen and her husband Steve Hill, and Ronnie and his wife Marge Izzo; grandchildren Mandy, Tamara and Myranda Berveiller and Chelsea, Krystal, Megan and Andrew Izzo also to include his companion Bell Raines.
Services for Tony will be at 1 p.m. Thursday, June 28, 2007 at Resthaven's Abbey Chapel with Dr. Ken Horn officiating. Interment will follow in Resthaven Memorial Park under the direction of Resthaven Funeral Home. The family will receive friends at the funeral home Wednesday from 6 to 7 p.m.
© 2017. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


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Greg Sundberg
Greg Sundberg is entering his ninth year as the Executive Director of the Grizzly Scholarship Association and the second as Associate Athletic Director for External Operations at The University of Montana. He is responsible for managing the GSA membership as well as overseeing the day to day operations of the development, marketing and sports information. Prior to becoming the Executive Director of the Grizzly Scholarship Association, Greg served as the Assistant Director of the GSA, Director of Marketing and Assistant Director of Marketing in athletics at The University of Montana Greg is a native of Montana and a 2001 graduate of The University of Montana, where he received a bachelor's degree in business administration, with an emphasis in marketing and a minor in communications. Greg earned his master's degree in business administration at The University of Montana in May of 2003. Greg is married to Jaclyn and they have a 5 year old boy named Drew and a 2 year old boy named Grady.


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DIRECTV Holdings LLC Announces Redemption of Notes
DIRECTV (NASDAQ: DTV), today announced that it will redeem for cash all of its outstanding 7-5/8% Senior Notes due 2016 (the "Notes") on May 15, 2012, at a price of 103.813% of the principal amount, together with accrued interest to the redemption date.
The Notes were issued pursuant to an Indenture dated May 14, 2008, as supplemented (the "Indenture"), among the Company and DIRECTV Financing Co., Inc., as co-issuers, the guarantors named therein and The Bank of New York Mellon Trust Company, N.A., as trustee.
As of April 13, 2012, $1,500,000,000 aggregate principal amount of Notes remain outstanding. On and after the date of redemption, the Notes will no longer be deemed outstanding, interest will cease to accrue thereon and all rights of the holder of the Notes will cease to exist, except for the right to receive the redemption price, without interest thereon.
Posted-In: News Financing Offerings
© 2017 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.


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Big 12's best
Nebraska quarterback Eric Crouch and Oklahoma punt returner Jarrail Jackson were named Big 12 players of the week for offense and special teams, respectively. Kansas State linebacker Mark Simoneau and Nebraska strong safety Mike Brown shared the defensive honor.
In the Huskers' 37-0 rout of Texas A&M, Crouch ran for a career-high 137 yards and a touchdown. Brown was credited with nine tackles, two interceptions, one sack and a pass breakup.
In Oklahoma's 37-0 shutout of Missouri, Jackson returned six punts for 126 yards, including a 70-yard touchdown.
Simoneau keyed a K-State defense that allowed only 10 rushing yards and 214 total yards in a 20-14 win against Kansas. He was credited with 12 tackles, including four behind the line of scrimmage and two sacks.
Playing for something
Kansas coach Terry Allen has gotten the most out of his team after a 2-5 start. The Jayhawks have played their best football the past three weeks in easy victories against Missouri and Baylor and a 24-17 loss at Nebraska.
''We thought we had a chance to be a middle-of-the-road team,'' Allen said. ''Our bowl hopes have been extinguished. But I still think we're playing pretty well now and people can see what we're saying.''
Kansas faced the disadvantage of playing its first three conference games against Colorado, Kansas State and Texas A&M all on the road. No other Big 12 team has three consecutive conference road games at any point in the season.
''We've let them know about that in the league office,'' Allen said.
Copy 'Cats defense?
Kansas State limited Iowa State star Darren Davis to 18 yards on 15 carries last season, which has some relevance to the Iowa State-Oklahoma game this week in Ames, Iowa. OU's co-defensive coordinators are Mike Stoops and Brent Venables who were assistants the past few years at Kansas State.
''We're not K-State. Obviously our defensive system is similar, very similar,'' Sooners coach Bob Stoops said. ''We've done about all the same things we were doing as well as what Mike and Brent were doing there. Our structure is similar without question. Whether we can do it as well or not, we'll see.''
Simoneau making his mark
Kansas State linebacker Mark Simoneau might lose out on individual postseason awards since he doesn't draw as much national attention as Penn State linebacker LaVar Arrington. But Simoneau is playing as well as any linebacker the Wildcats have this decade, according to head coach Bill Snyder.
''I look hard for (his) mistakes, and there aren't any,'' Snyder said. ''They just don't show up. He's a young guy that prepares himself so very, very well. He's playing as well as any (linebacker) I can remember us having.''
Silent Smith
After a 37-0 Saturday to Oklahoma, Missouri coach Larry Smith made only a brief statement to reporters and then left without taking questions.
''I was very angry and very upset,'' Smith said. ''I could say things I would regret later. Making one general statement about the game was the best thing I could do.''
Smith was asked what he would tell fans who thought they deserved a post-game explanation.
''Sometimes you just don't get one,'' Smith said. ''I have to make judgments and do what I think's best for the particular situation, and that's what I'm going to do.''
Different folks, different strokes
A key component of No.5 Kansas State at No. 7 Nebraska Saturday is the matchup of ace punt returners David Allen and Bobby Newcombe.
Their special teams take different approaches. Whereas K-State deploys Allen in a single safety look, Nebraska sends two players deep on punt returns and even used three deep last year.
''We were not able from that alignment to have a great deal of pressure on blocking kicks,'' Nebraska coach Frank Solich said.
''This year, we've gotten away from three deep and got our hands on eight different punts to deflect it or block it. We've added another dimension to our punt return game.''
It's no secret that Nebraska does not want to kick to Allen. But if they fail, it's not necessarily from ineptitude.
''You can talk about kicking it out of bounds or kicking it away from him. That doesn't always happen,'' Solich said. ''I've seen him race from the middle of the field to the out-of-bounds line, catch a ball and take it all the way back. So you need to be ready to slow him down.''
Compiled by staff writer Don Williams
© 2017. All Rights Reserved. | Contact Us


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CANTON -- The Canton Day Care will hold their annual craft and collectors show on March 15 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Maplewood Campus, 205 State Street Rd.
The event will feature a raffle for a 42" John Deere Lawn Mower, or $1,000 in cash, to benefit the Canton Day Care Center.
The lawn mower will be provided by LeBerge and Curtis.
Tickets are $5 each or three for $10.
The drawing will be on March 15 during fair.
For tickets, contact the day care center at 379-1829 or [email protected].


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Platteville scores first, but Whitewater responds
Trailing in the first half to a surprisingly game UW-Platteville team in a conference opener, the Warhawks� response was about what one would expect.
Platteville�picked to finish last in the league in the preseason poll�twice took the lead on the defending NCAA Division III national champions. The Pioneers trailed by just four points in the second quarter when they blocked a field-goal attempt and threatened to regain their advantage.
But on Platteville�s first play after the block, Whitewater junior linebacker Greg Arnold came free on a blitz and blasted Pioneers quarterback Nick Anderson on a designed draw. Anderson fumbled, Arnold recovered, and a mere three plays later the Warhawks were in the end zone.
That score started a string of 42 unanswered points as Whitewater whipped the Pioneers, 49-17, in the annual George Chryst Memorial Bowl at Pioneer Stadium.
�We don�t really see that a lot,� Whitewater quarterback Matt Blanchard said of his team trailing in a game. �That was a great moment for our team.�
Whitewater (4-0, 1-0) likely would have won Thursday night�s game either way, but Arnold�s defining moment showed the Warhawks can deliver when a big play is needed, not just when they�re rolling all over opponents.
�It was a huge momentum swing for us,� said Arnold, who was named the Warhawks� defensive player of the game by the media. �(The play) just opened up like a floodgate, and I was able to get in there.�
Two plays after Arnold�s hit and recovery, Blanchard�his team�s offensive player of the game�fired a third-down strike over the top of the defense to Adam Brandes for a 33-yard score and a 21-10 lead for Whitewater with 2:13 left in the first half.
That was the first of three touchdown passes for Blanchard, who also ran for a score and completed 24 of 30 passes for 337 yards. Whitewater�s running game has dominated most of the team�s headlines early this season, but Blanchard was brilliant this time.
�He made some plays (through the air), and he made some plays with his feet,� Platteville coach Mike Emendorfer said, joking that Whitewater coach Lance Leipold is to blame for Blanchard�s lack of big numbers so far this season.
�(Blanchard�s) problem is he hasn�t played much this season. Whitewater keeps blowing teams out too fast. That�s Lance�s fault,� Emendorfer quipped.
Aaron Rusch caught nine passes for 123 yards, and Brandes five passes for 104 yards and a pair of scores.
The Warhawks� running game also was just fine. Levell Coppage rushed for 134 yards and two touchdowns, and Booker Stanley added 94 yards and a score.
Whitewater took the opening drive of the second half for a score and a 28-10 lead. Platteville (2-2, 0-1) turned the ball over on its next two possessions, and the Warhawks turned both into touchdowns, and the rout was on.
The negatives for Whitewater were two blocked kicks�Platteville also blocked a second-half punt and returned it for a touchdown �and 11 penalties for 106 yards.
�To win by this margin and get a win on the road in this league is difficult,� Leipold said. �We know there are things we need to get better at.�
Last updated: 3:21 pm Thursday, December 13, 2012