World of Warcraft – Alts

I’ve hit level 50 with my main character now. Whilst I want to get another 10 levels and start on the BC content, I have found the gold I make farming with this character, particularly on recipes, enables me to spec out my alts like never before.

So I started a hunter. I already have him up to level 12 and besides being a bit time consuming, its fun. Playing a hunter is like being in a 2 man group all the time. The pet tanks, and I get my range attacks taking down the target before they hit me.

I also have a lvl 24 pally whom I’ve spec’ed up the same. A lvl 21 Guardian Blade is the two handed sword of choice for my crusader, though it costs 15 Gold on my server from the AH.

I’ve found that having my main as an enchanter means I can also buy the items I want, enchant them and mail them on. The only problem remains: when if ever will the main get to level 60, or even 70!

MSIEXEC Complete Install

If you want to install an MSI with no user intervention, and scripted, you can use msiexec. But what if you want to do a complete installation on the product, instead of a typical installation (which would be default)? Put this in your script:

msiexec /i yourpackage.msi /passive ADDLOCAL=ALL

ADDLOCAL=ALL is the key to a complete install. Enjoy your automated windows installation.

Gates vs Jobs

Of interest to most “Tech” people out there would be the chat between Steve Jobs (of Apple fame if you are from under a rock) and Bill Gates (of Microsoft fame if you are not in the know). This occurred at the All Things Digital conference, and is now available for your aural or visual pleasure on the iTunes Music Store in the form of an audio and video podcast.

3D Cards and WoW – the 7300 GT TDH

I recently upgraded to a 22″ widescreen monitor. To drive this monitor in a Digital fashion, I jumped from a Geforce 3 series to a Geforce 7 Series with a Dual Link DVI connector. It turns out the monitor wasn’t dual link, but this review is on the card, not the monitor. The old 3D card was some major brand, I can’t remember which, and since I was upgrading an existing AGP card, I had to choose a replacement AGP card as well. The new one is one of the last AGP models available in the shops for an “entry level” card. It’s a Leadtek 7300 GT TDH.

The visuals of this card are a vast leap in terms of what the old one offered. I can also drive my 22″ screen at 1650 x 1050 resolution, practically full HD (though the computer struggles decoding 1080i). One of my other strong factors in buying a new card was for the World of Warcraft (WoW). I play it casually, to unwind from the real world . I have seen the in game visuals jump from slow and nice to fast and brilliant with the 7300 GT TDH. Below is a set of in game screenshots, showing what the game looked like before and after the upgrade. The lack of motion does the pictures no justice at all.

Before	After	After Battle

In the both after shots, a good deal of the quality comes from the fact that this card is fast enough to allow AntiAliasing to be always turned on, even at high resolutions.

The only problem I have had with the card is that it requires a dedicated Molex power connector attached to it, and even though I exceed the mandatory minimum 400Watt PSU, I still get the occasional error saying “Your card is not receiving enough power”. In fact it drew so much power initially, I had to take one of my HDDs out and put it in a USB enclosure.

If you have an AGP slot, a decent computer and a powerful enough PSU, $130AU for this card is worth the upgrade to tide your system over until you are ready to enter the realm of PCI-Express motherboards and 3D cards.

iTunes now with 256Kbps DRM free goodness

A friend recently said he had been steering clear of the iTunes Music Store because of the low bitrate. This is even though he uses an ipod, mac and iTunes. I personally have purchased over 300 tracks at the previous 128Kbps bitrate, and up to now, have been happy with the quality of these AAC song files.

Now apple have released a (so far limited) portion of their catalogue, being from EMI at 256Kbps, and DRM free to top it off.

This audio review on digg says “Comparing these two compression rates was tough, even when using a pair of state-of-the-art Ultrasone headphones. In our decidedly unscientific comparison, we listened to all the tunes at both compression rates in A/B comparisons with those phones, with iPod stock earbuds, on our kick-ass car stereo, and on our reference Dolby 5.1 system.”

Will this be enough for people who previously avoided iTMS to give it a go, maybe not for whole albums, but for the one or two songs they might want to buy in a pinch? Will this be just easier for people to purchase a single song at a decent quality, instead of wasting 1/2 an hour searching through limewire or other sites for the song they want?

Time will tell.

read more | digg story