Eve Online – The 48 Hrs Hump

Well,I’ve been playing EVE for my first 48 hours,so here are some basic thoughts and advices.

Now,the small review – The game is rather engrossing and some people might upgrade short of the 14 day trial period(in my case – 1 day into the trial I upgraded).The good thing about this type of upgrade is that your 14day limited account is transformed into a 14-ish + 30day full account,which might be quite enough to make the 300mil ISK you need to get an in-game extension without forking money! The graphics of the game are quite stunning,especially when taken into consideration that even my old laptop runs it without noticeable lagging at Full-res and High-detail! Another bonus is that especially if you do mining a lot,the CPU is hardly taxed,so you can enjoy a movie or a e-book or even a second game,while you Alt-TAB from time to time,so you can check if your cargo hold is full. I am yet to scratch one of the epic arks,but even the low-level intro missions are enough to get you fully engrossed in the game. That’s positive side of the game,now the negative – BEWARE OF THE ASSHATS. That’s the biggest drawback of the game – you’ll be pounced upon rather quickly by no-life’s,which might sour the enjoyment of the product. Ignore them and follow some simple rules and you’ll be ok. Random idea- RTFM a lot!

First off,Ignore EVERYONE initially and NEVER respond to provocation. Example – If you’re tracked in a high-security system and some locks you,Don’t fire! You’ll be committing suicide!

2.Don’t mine and then jettisoning your stuff thinking that you can retrieve it later. It’ll either be stolen,or worse,you’ll give someone the choice of attacking you when you retrieve them,bc it voids the “security” of the high-sec system. That’s why mine and haul should be done

3.Avoid Low-Sec systems like the plague

4. Mining is tedious,but makes money!

5. Do the tutorials and Career Agent missions early on,because it gives you access to ISK,ships,skills and mods

6. Stockpile 300 000 000 ISK for a PLEX early on

7. Keep your head down,but finding a corporation is a good idea.

8. When in doubt- Ignore or avoid long-term players

9. Always read the Documentation when you buy something,because it’s more than likely that you can’t equip them outright

 

Well,that’s the first impressions from the game… Will play more and blog about it

bk109 out mining,and mining and BOREDOOOOOOM,mining

AMD-V in Compaq 615 (and other HP Notebooks)

To all those NAY-sayers out there:

Only thing needed was(shockingly) the latest available BIOS…

The Microsoft Hardware Virtualization detection tool also confirmed it,so… Enjoy,folks!

bk109 out

Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 24 hours test

Hey,folks,Guess what! The Broadcom STA bug is still there… The good news,however,is that it’s solvable by the same tutorial i posted earlyer.

Now,Impressions – It’s definitely evolving quite nicely, but as of A3 daily from Monday,it’s somewhat unstable! Especially yelp… In any case, No real show-stoppers at the moment, but a major hurdle for now is getting the fglrx drivers to work with Lucid, but at least the default drivers in X.ORG support desktop composition,so the eyecandy is there!

Now, the look and feel of Lucid is definitely an improvement, but it does need some fine tweaking, but after 24 hrs it’s a marked improvement over Karmic. The only small thing needing some getting used to is the Window control buttons being moved in the upper left section of the window, but it’s not really even an annoyance…

The verdict – A3 is surprisingly stable, but I’d like to caution would-be adopters to wait till at least the first beta rolls out. That or be prepared for some bugs,but all in all, i’ve seen worse RTM’s than this (Windows ME,folks!) … Actually, scratch that – install it,try it, test it, report bugs if you find them, because “Uncle Tux NEEDS YOU”!

bk109 (filling) out (a bug report again)

PS. I just like to show off a bit:

Lucid Lynx First impressions

Howdy folks,I just wanted to make a couple of observations of my first experiences with Lucid Lynx Alpha3.
First showstopper bugs - None up to now,which is creepy due to past experiences with 'stable' versions of Ubuntu. No problems getting both the B43 and the STA driver to work in LiveCD mode from the start. Internet works, Audio works, Bluetooth works...
And second - Visuals. I have to admit that they are a refined version of Karmic, which is good, because there were some good ideas in there, but the execution was a tad ... lacking. All in all,it's a big improvement,though the repositioned Maximize/Minimize/Close buttons might take a little getting used to.
Now,the annoyances - The Random SNAFU start so beloved in 9.10 is still here, which is not that good. I had 2 good starts of the LiveCD and one random black screen. Also of some note is that for now at least unetboot doesn't handle lynx dailies, but it should be solved soon.
All in all, I'm going to try this A3 and I already signed up on launchpad to do some testing for the community
bk109 out

Small annoyance with Compaq 615 and/or other Win7/Vista Laptops

So, Last night I was surprised to find a notification in my laptop that my battery needs replacement! So,at first I was rather concerned, because after all it’s a relatively new laptop,so why the battery should warrant replacement 8-9 months after its manufacturing date. That’s why I downloaded the good ol’ sp41862 (the HP battery tester for the XP)… Good news,the battery is Good, bad news, the Windows battery meter had for some reason become uncalibrated…
Good news,the remedy is astoundingly simple,nay,DUMB!

You just start Windows, disconnect the AC and use the computer till your battery dies and your computer shuts down and/or hibernates. Plug the AC back on,turn the laptop on and Presto! The battery meter should be calibrated and charging. Specifically on the Compaq 615, you should just wait till the Red/White led near the adapter plug turns off, start the HP battery tester and if it confirms that the battery level is 100% as the in-built Win Meter,your battery is good and you shouldn’t get any shocks anytime soon!

Quick piece of advice though- IF you keep getting a quickly discharging battery warning (ie battery life for a battery at 100% to be <50mins the problem might actually be with the battery and not in the meter. In that case ACT NOW and go to your authorized tech center and get an replacement. The good thing is that if the machine is younger than 12 months you should be eligible for a free replacement battery.

bk109 out