November 27, 2016

Petition for Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Special Edition

Went2Play, a studio founded by Patrik Spacek has been working on a special edition of the classic 90s PC game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. It features remastered graphics and everything it needs to feel like a brand new game. Problem is, they don’t have the rights. Disney does.

There’s currently an online petition asking Disney Studios to give them the rights to release the game. Their objective is to collect 5 000 signatures in order to present the petition to Disney.

You can sign the petition here:
Give Went2Play rights to develop a IJ: Fate of Atlantis Special Edition!

They need less than 600 signatures as of now.

November 21, 2016

Master of Orion: Revenge of Antares DLC

The battle to conquer Orion is set to become even more challenging. On December 1, Master of Orion’s anticipated “Revenge of Antares” DLC will become available, giving access to independent civilizations, a new victory condition and more. The expansion also introduces three new playable races to the massive galaxy. Arriving in the DLC expansions are the Trilarians, Gnolam, and Elerians — formidable aliens that will open up new paths to victory as commanders strive for dominance of the galaxy.

Read more:
Master of Orion: Revenge of Antares DLC Announcement | Steam

November 15, 2016

Now That TwitterFeed Has Shut Down…

It came to me as a surprise to discover that TwitterFeed was permanently shutting down on October 31st 2016. They announced it in an email just a few weeks prior, out of the blue.

We’re writing to let you know that Twitterfeed will be shutting its doors on October 31st, 2016. It’s been one heck of a run and we can’t thank you enough for your loyal usage and support over the years.

Although they recommended in their email announcement to move to either Buffer or dlvr.it, I didn’t like the idea of moving from a free service to a paid one…

From what I can see, the best 100% free alternative to TwitterFeed is IFTTT. I’m able to achieve the same results with ease and it works great every time.

See you over at IFTTT.

November 1, 2016

Donated to Wikipedia Today

I decided to donate a few dollars to Wikipedia today in order to support it. It’s not much, but it’s my way to give them something back for all the knowledge and information they make available to me… and to everyone.

“Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That’s our commitment.”

https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give

June 27, 2016

The Legend of Zelda: 1st Quest

Last weekend, I beat the Legend of Zelda’s 1st quest on the NES. Last time I made it through the whole 9 levels was about 15 years ago. I still remembered pretty much everything, it’s like I never stopped playing at all.

I had to play using Zelda Classic, the open source PC remake because I didn’t repair my NES yet.

My USB NES controller is super cheap, so the D-PAD isn’t always as responsive as an original controller. That’s why I’ll wait until I repair my NES to beat the extra challenging 2nd quest.

To be continued!

May 26, 2016

Open Source Gem: WinDirStat

Every once in a while I like to share a good application I’m using on a regular basis. This one, I couldn’t live without.

WinDirStat is a Windows software that generates a graphical overview and comprehensive statistics of your occupied disk space.

At the office, WinDirStat is a great app to find stuff that doesn’t belong on your file servers, like MP3 music files and movies: You’re going to spot such data in no time! It’ll help you big time to clean up and tidy up your data.

You can download it here. It’s free and open source.
Download WinDirStat | SourceForge

May 6, 2016

How Many Posts Per Page Your Forum Should Have And Why

Depending what forum software you’re using, your threads will have a different number of posts per page. XenForo has 20 by default while vBulletin 5 Connect has 15.

What about your forum? Should you change that setting? How many posts per page should you have and why?


April 16, 2016

F-ZERO

After playing F-ZERO X the other day, I decided to go full retro and play its original SNES predecessor, F-ZERO. A true 1991 classic. I’ve been playing it quite a bit in the past few weeks.

After all these years, I think it’s still my favorite game of the franchise. The gameplay is fast, the tracks are unique, and the game is still exciting to play, 25 years later.

The game is incredibly challenging at higher difficulty levels, so replayability is pretty decent here. I remember beating the Knight and Queen Leagues on Master difficulty back then. But I was never able to beat the King League on Master, ever. I don’t play on a regular basis anymore, so it’s highly unlikely I’ll beat it anytime soon…

April 5, 2016

Here Is Why Focus Is The Key To Successful Niche Blogging

Today, we’re going to dissect and understand a key factor that can make you either succeed or fail at niche blogging. Obviously, there’s a ton of factors that matter, but this one is a big deal. It shapes the very way you’ll write each and every one of your articles.

Let’s get straight to it!

March 28, 2016

XenForo: Block Spam With No Add-ons

I used to have quite a bit of spam on a forum of mine that is powered by XenForo. Real people were registering and posting crap on my forum every night. All of them were able to get through the countermeasures that were in place at the time. It stopped instantly when I found what I’m showing you today.

Thanks to this useful tip from a fellow XenForo admin, I was able to solve the problem in a simple and easy way. I just had to take a few minutes to properly set up XenForo’s stock spam management tools. No need for any additional antispam add-ons or anything.

If you’re running a XenForo powered board, make yourself a favor and check it out, it’s worth it.

Block spam COMPLETELY with no addons | XenForo Community

March 17, 2016

4 Reasons Why Your Forum Needs a Blog Section

If you own or administrate a forum community, someone at some point asked you if it was possible to have blogs. Is a community blog section a good addition to a forum? It depends on a variety of factors, let alone the fact that in the end, it’s up to you – the admin – to decide whether or not it makes sense for your community to have its own blog section.


I had to go through that dilemma quite a few times in the past, as a community admin. I’m going to share with you what kind of pros I came up with on the way. Here are some of the best reasons why your forum message board should have a blog section.


March 10, 2016

Myst

Talk about some Retro Gaming!

I’ve wanted to play this game for ages (!) but never got to it for some reason. With the new Obduction game coming out in June, I figured it was time to dive right in and start with the first Myst game.

I decided to get my hands on RealMyst: Masterpiece Edition. It’s the 3D remake of the original Myst. Myst being a 1993 game, it’s pretty obvious that it doesn’t run that good on today’s computers. I tried it because it was my first choice, but it was pretty unstable on my Windows 7 system. That’s why I had to go with RealMyst.

I’m usually a fan of old (and old looking) games, but I have to say that RealMyst looks amazing. The atmosphere the game has under this 3D engine is very impressive.

I made my way through 2 ages as of now. Most of the enigmas need you to make use of your logic and common sense, which is absolutely compelling.

For $17.99, you get RealMyst Masterpiece Edition on GOG:
http://www.gog.com/game/real_myst_masterpiece_edition

March 9, 2016

MadAdsMedia Review: CPM Ads Network

MadAdsMedia is a CPM ads provider for website publishers who wish to monetize their websites. They offer CPM ads only, so no CPC here. I've been personally working with them for more than a year and they are, by far, the best Adsense alternative I could find. Let's see why.

Requirements

Their minimum requirements are reasonable: 10,000 page views per day. They're looking for well designed sites with friendly content. They're a pretty good fit for medium to big sized websites that seek to generate passive revenues.


March 4, 2016

A New Updated Theme!

For the first time ever, my personal blog has a light style. It feels fresh, actual and very different from what I'm used to. I like it!

I grew tired of darker styles because they rarely age well and have to be replaced over and over. Dark styles, when not done properly, will easily make your website feel like a dark and lonely, obscure corner of Internet. You definitely don't want that.

I also decided to move from Open Sans to Lato for a more formal feel, I think it does the job pretty well!

March 1, 2016

Reasons Why Your Forum Shouldn't Have a Blog Section

Back in the days when vBulletin was popular, every clever forum admin would buy the vB Blog addon to allow their members to have their own personal blog inside the community.

That was indeed clever in 2008, but what about in 2016? Should you provide your forum members with a place to have their blog, within your community?

I'm not so sure anymore, here's why.

February 4, 2016

Rubular: A Regular Expression Editor

I didn't have to fiddle with a regular expression in ages, so tonight I had a hard time figuring out how to extract precise parts of a string in Python.

http://rubular.com/

Thanks to this online editor, I was able to work my way through it quite easily.

January 25, 2016

Which Type of Forum Admin Are You?

Taking care of an online community is no small task, especially on the long run. That's why you gotta be up to the challenge as a forum admin. While some us prefer to lurk in the shadow and let their forum evolve on its own, others are going to be part of the community, just like any other member.

It's pretty easy these days to start a community and make it somewhat active. But are you going to be able to keep up with it and make it happy and active for the years to come? It's likely that after the honeymoon is over, your overall behavior and presence as an admin will change. Perhaps it already has...

Which type of forum admin are you?