Gem TD Warcraft 3

Well one of my friends recently brought me back into the engrossing world of tower defense. We played multiple maps, but my favorite by far was Gem TD. It is an interesting take on tower defense. It is similar to many by creation of a maze to send the creeps through before reaching their target, however they have to reach 6 different arrows in order before reaching the final position. In Gem TD, you have to lie out 5 gems per round, then you pick which one you want to keep. The other 4 become mazing rocks to help create your maze.

My first time playing I didn’t do great but I didn’t lose either. However now that I’ve played through 3 times, I have greatly improved my strategy and on easy, I have done 282,502 damage to the final damage test.

The map can be found here - http://www.epicwar.com/maps/76458/

There is also a flash version of this game, which almost replicates it with very few differences. This can be found here - http://www.gemtowerdefense.com/

Finally, I have made a checklist for towers in this game, because it does get very confusing what gems make which special towers.

The checklist is either in full color, color coded for ease, or black and white if you want to print it. If you want an Excel or Numbers format of this, please email me at eqgelu@yahoo.com


Color

Black and White

New Firefox Update Out!

A new Firefox update is out, version 3.0.5! It has improved security and stability in this update!

No official release notes have been released yet, but when they are I will post them here!

Transferring Media to BlackBerry Storm with a Mac

Well I am a Mac user even though I have XP installed on Boot Camp, I tend to be too lazy to try and boot up and do things that way. Besides all my music and pictures are on my Mac hard drive. While it is possible to just pop out your MicroSD card and use the converter and a card reader to put it on your computer, you can also send media through Bluetooth.

I found this to be extremely helpful when I just wanted to transfer one song over to my Storm without restarting or pulling the media card. However, there is a certain way you have to do it.

On your BlackBerry Storm, you have to go to the media app, highlight whatever kind of media you want to receive from your Mac. If you want music, highlight Music, then click “Receive Using Bluetooth”.

After that you can send it easily to your device!

Good Luck and have fun with your Storm!

Need a Christmas tree but not the mess?

OS X 10.5.6 is here!

Well today Apple has released an OS update that many have been waiting for! This update has many modifications to Apple's core programs, such as iCal, Mail, and Safari.

Here is a copy of the update notes directly from Apple

Products Affected

Mail, Mac OS X 10.5, iCal 3.x, MobileMe Sync, iChat, AirPort, Safari

What's new in this update?

Address Book

* Improves reliability of Address Book syncing with iPhone and other devices and applications.

AirPort

* Improves the reliability of AirPort connections, including improvements when roaming in large wireless networks with an Intel-based Mac.

Client management

* Improves reliability of synchronizing files on a portable home directory.
* Fixes an issue in Mac OS X 10.5.4 and 10.5.5 in which managed users may not see printers that use the Generic PPD.
* Client computers that use UUID-based ByHost preferences now respect managed Screen Saver settings.

iChat

* Addresses an issue that could cause an encryption alert to appear in the chat window.
* Setting your iChat status to "invisible" via AppleScript no longer logs you out of iChat.
* Resolves an issue in which pasting text from a Microsoft Office document could insert an image rather than text.

Graphics

* Includes general improvements to gaming performance.
* Includes graphics improvements for iChat, Cover Flow, Aperture, and iTunes.
* Includes fixes for possible graphics distortion issues with certain ATI graphics cards.

Mail

* Includes overall performance and reliability fixes.
* Improves Connection Doctor accuracy.
* Fixes an issue that could cause messages identified as junk to remain in the inbox.
* Fixes an issue that could cause Mail to append a character to the file extension of an attachment.
* Addresses an issue that could prevent Mail from quitting.
* Improves reliability when printing PDF attachments.

MobileMe

* Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac automatically sync within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at me.com.

Networking

* Improves Apple File Service performance, especially when using a home directory hosted on an AFP server. Important: If you are using Mac OS X 10.5.6 (client) to connect to a Mac OS X Server 10.4-based server, it is strongly recommended that you update the server to Mac OS X Server version 10.4.11.
* Improves the performance and reliability of TCP connections.
* Improves reliability and performance for AT&T 3G cards.
* Updates the ssh Terminal command for compatibility with more ssh servers.

Printing

* Improves printing for the Adobe CS3 application suite.
* Improves printing for USB-based Brother and Canon printers.

Parental Controls

* Addresses an issue in which a parentally-controlled account could be unable to access the iTunes Store.
* Includes general fixes for time limits.
* Resolves an issue that prevented adding allowed websites from Safari via drag and drop.

Time Machine

* Fixes issues that could cause Time Machine to state the backup volume could not be found.
* Improves Time Machine reliability with Time Capsule.

Safari

* Improves compatibility with web proxy servers.

General

* Includes Mac OS X security improvements. See this website for more information.
* Addresses inaccuracies with Calculator when the Mac OS X language is set to German or Swiss German.
* Improves the performance and reliability of Chess.
* Improves DVD Player performance and reliability.
* Performance improvements for iCal are included.
* Fixes an issue when running the New iCal Events Automator action as an applet.
* Adds a Trackpad System Preference pane for portable Macs.
* Improves compatibility with smart cards such as the U.S. Department of Defense Common Access Card.
* Updates time zone data and Daylight Saving Time rules for several countries.

BlackBerry Storm OTA Updates!

Well the new Storm update has been available for about a week now and it is awesome! It fixed a lot of little bugs like the sometimes temperamental accelerometer. You can download it now over the air.

To access this go to Options ->Advanced Options -> Wireless Upgrade

Wireless Upgrade is at the very bottom of the Advanced Options List, however if you are like me, it initially does not show.

There is a fix for this though!

To make it appear you need to go to Options -> Advanced Options -> Service Book

Then HIGHLIGHT Provisioning [OTASL]

While highlighted, click the BlackBerry button to pull up the menu

Now go to Delete, when it asks are you sure, click Delete

Now hit the Blackberry Button again and click Undelete

For some the Upgrade now appears, however I had to do a reboot and it was there!

Hope that helps solve the confusion of the OTA update!

BlackBerry Storm Tips

Well so far I have found many useful tips for the new BlackBerry Storm, so I’m going to begin posting these as I find them out!

BlackBerry Storm – Epic in a Phone

Well I finally got my BlackBerry Storm, and all I can say is, it’s AWESOME! It’s everything I expected to be and more. It may have a few little bugs but hey what phones don’t when they first come out. Yes people complain, “there are no apps, we want apps” well think about it. Did the iPhone have apps when it came out…no, not at all. Those came out more than a year later with the release of the iPhone 3G. You can’t expect BlackBerry to just magically create and awesome phone and a full on app store, while making the BlackBerry Storm’s firmware perfect. Well you can, but if that was to happen, the phone would never be released! They may have brought it out one update too soon, but hey we’re lucky now we can update things, unlike in the past where once you got a phone, you never updated it…ever.

I have used my iPod Touch a ton. I used it so much I would carry it around with me in my pocket with my other phone. I knew I needed to get a smart phone and without the desire to switch carriers, the announcement of the Storm was amazing to hear. Unfortunately, the Storms were way under shipped so I had to check back daily, and I finally got it last Tuesday! Opening the box, and seeing the amazing design, all black, was awesome. I have now gotten so used to using my phone for music and calendar and all that, that I forgot my iPod Touch at home when I came back up, and I didn’t realize I left it there for an entire week!

Now to reviewing the device. I love it. It did take me about a week to get used to typing on it, and now I type faster on it than on my iPod Touch. When I show my phone to people they try just tapping and the typical response is “oh this phone sucks, it doesn’t respond to me clicking it”. I then tell them to push the button and they are always astonished about how weird it is. Unfortunately now, so many are used to the iPhone, they aren’t willing to change or accept the change the Storm made, which is why many people dislike the device. Everything has worked perfectly. Even on my Mac, without using bootcamp, I can sync it thru VMWare Fusion to the BlackBerry Desktop Manager. I now have my calendars syncing thru iCal to Google Calendar to my Phone, all wirelessly, all automatically updating. If one changes, it will reach all others in under 15 minutes, however you can always force sync it. One complaint I have is that it takes a freaking long time to power on, however you never really need to turn the phone off. I’ve actually heard that you shouldn’t turn off the phone from various sources. Documents to Go, an app that comes on the phone, doesn’t like reading my documents from my Mac, but that isn’t a huge deal to me. Texting is a breeze, syncing contacts works amazingly well. The browser may run slow at times, but I mean it’s a mobile device, you can’t expect T1 speeds on it! I hope you enjoyed my review, if you ever try one, give it time, don’t expect the iPhone experience because it isn’t an iPhone, it is a totally different phone than you have probably ever experienced!