It’s a hard job, but someone has to do it…
Good game in the tank
Hopped in a tank in COD WAW this evening and did rather well!
Then into a game with mike and his pals against zombies and we kicked ass until level 10!
Battlefield Dukes of Hazzard
(via)
David’s Stats Rant
Worth watching when you come out of yet another game with a negative KDR because you’ve been rushing and rushing and playing for the objective. I’ll always be happy when my KDR approaches 1 after a game but this is Bad Company 2. Your win/loss ratio is a lot more important in my opinion (and mine is a healthy 1.45 or so!) If you really want to massage your KDR, just go use an aimbot.
Read his post too. I can’t imagine how frustrating that game must have been for him and the guys.
Odd games of bad company 2!
Wow! Where did the day go? Last night’s games were decidedly odd. I joined Mike on a game of rush and the first thing I noticed was my lack of weapons! They were all gone!
I’d heard of this happening before but not experienced out myself. Yikes! Luckily after the first game they came back.
Still, the server we were on was buggy. Thankfully not laggy but at the end of each round our medals were duplicated! Weird!
It was a good night. We defended port valdez on the first base and I even went flawless, 10-0! I pity the other team. My team pushed almost right into their spawn.
I also got a platinum medal for the AN94! First weapon I’ve done that on.
Unfortunately there was a share of C4ing and using mines to destroy the MCOM stations. Even on my own team. Grrr. We didn’t need to do that.
Easy Setup for WP Super Cache
One of the things that has bugged me about the WP Super Cache settings page was how it was laid out. Well, the next version of the plugin will display a simplified settings page to new users. If you’re upgrading, you’ll get the same old page as ever, don’t worry.
This version also adds a new method of serving cache files. It uses PHP, but serves supercache files. So, it’s a halfway house between using mod_rewrite (difficult to install for some users), and the legacy caching of WP Cache. That caching will be what is activated for users who use the simplified settings page.
There are lots of other bug fixes. The cache tester works if WordPress is installed in a sub directory, the admin page is separated out into tabs now to make it easier to find things. Error messages show up as “update messages” at the top of the browser now, making it easier for new users to figure out when mod_rewrite rules need updating and when other house keeping tasks need doing.
The code is red hot, liable to bend and break and may cause problems but it works fine here and on a test multi site install but I need testers to hammer on it and do things I don’t expect. If you’re brave, grab the development version off the download page. Thanks!
Android Battery Saving Tips
Battery usage on all so called “smart phones” is almost universally woeful. Big high-res colour screens, fast processors, sound, wifi and 3g networking all consume gobs of battery power.
Here are some battery saving tips for Android phones. I’m going on a long flight in a few days time so I’ll be trying these tips out before I go!
- Go into Settings->About phone->”Battery use” to see what’s chewing up your battery.
- Turn off haptic feedback. That’s vibration alerts when you press your screen. Turn off vibration as a notification too.
- Apparently 3G uses more power than wifi so make sure wifi is always on. (Settings->Wireless and network->Wifi Settings->Advanced->Wifi sleep policy and select “Never”). My Galaxy S switches to 3G when the screen blanks by default but apparently this is a big battery saver. Only when you have a wifi network around I guess.
- Always press “BACK” when you want to exit an app.
- Turn off GPS. If your phone uses the cell network to find your location turn that off too.
- Turn on power saving, and reduce the screen timeout so it goes black faster.
- Turn off wifi when you leave your house or work. That stops your phone trying to connect to a network.
- Turn off bluetooth when you don’t need it.
- Turn off 3G and use 2G. (Ugh, slow!)
- Turn off background data and syncing.
- Turn down the brightness on your display.
- Don’t use your camera.
- Don’t use a live wallpaper, what’s wrong with a static picture?
- Don’t use a homescreen widget that pulls data and updates all the time.
- Task manager are generally frowned upon but some apps misbehave and don’t close properly. “Watchdog Lite” is a useful app that tells you how much CPU each app running on your phone consumes. Beware closing apps too much. They may look like they’re running, but they’re not. Android keeps them in memory, so they start up quickly next time.
- Get Juice Defender off the Market. Besides a ton of battery saving features, the like of which I’m still trying to understand, it has a handy widget that will disable mobile data completely. Nice!
I’d love if Android phones totally disconnected from the Internet when I closed the browser, Tweetdeck or whatever app was using the network. My old Nokia 5800 did that. It connected each time I opened the browser and had wonderful battery life.
So, what other tips can you suggest for power hungry smartphones?
Update! With wifi and the 3G radio on the other night 6% of battery was used over about 6 hours. I switched off wifi and 3G (using Juice Extender) and the phone only burned through 2% of battery power over the same period last night.
Smoke rocked the games of Bad Company 2 …
Smoke rocked the games of Bad Company 2 we played last night. David and I joined a game of rush and I was mostly assault, and smoking it up on defense and attack for most games and it paid off. We won every game played I think!
On past experience I remembered running out of smoke grenades, even with an ammo box at my feet so I equipped the extra explosives perk giving 4 grenades. I was able to lay down a never ending barrage of smoke to protect us. We successfully defended on the first base on White Pass and Laguna Presa.
The enemy were down to about 30 tickets on White Pass. They had blown the MCOM station on the ground and did some serious damage to the walls surrounding the upstairs one. We had clear line of sight out to the construction site, and of course our backs were exposed through the window behind us. Eventually, the enemy took out all the cover inside the room too, and did arm it a few times. We had a few medics on our team who did sterling work reviving me after a few 40mm grenade deaths. We didn’t have a wall, but we did have smoke, and because of it the attackers couldn’t see into the room. We successfully defended by the skin of our teeth. Thanks David, Wiid, Ogga and later Tye for some superb games.
Oh, i’m 10 kills away from a platinum on my AN94. Wooh.
Can’t say the same thing about World at War. The evenings seem to bring on the loudmouthed idiots. Screaming, shouting, playing music through the intermission. Each time I’ve played earlier in the day that has never happened. Perhaps the kids are still asleep or at school. So, for the next session of Call of Duty I’m going to use a Skype session if possible, or at the very least mute VOIP. If you play WAW with me DM me on Twitter and we’ll sort something out.
We didn’t do so well at WAW team deathmatch. I read yesterday that Treyarch don’t try to match players of similar skills and I’d believe it.
Check out David’s post about the night’s gameplay too!
Update! David posted a great video of our attack and defence on White Pass. Like him, I was amazed when we won that game defending Alpha!
Rage quit in COD 4!
They quit, not us! I was enjoying that game too. Next game was the complete opposite. We got mauled but we stuck with it.
In other news I joined arkanoid for a game of conquest in bad company 2 and did fairly well!
Lost in little big planet
A familiar face in little big planet. John locke and the rest of the cast of Lost make an appearance in a Lost inspired level.