Yes, you read that title right.  Though it has nothing to do with Labor Day really.  It’s to celebrate the 13th anniversary of C&C.

So celebrate!  Download C&C: Red Alert today and enjoy the nostalgia!

Or downlaod the original C&C that was released for the 12th anniversary here.

Oh happy day!  Oh, and happy Labor Day!

I’ve been using Grisoft’s AVG Free Edition for a few years now. I didn’t start there. Oh no.

First was Norton antivirus. It was okay … ish. But it really wasn’t stunning me. It let things through. It ran poorly. It wasn’t long before I was trying something else.

So I tried the next major name: McAfee. It made me long for Norton it was so bad. The resources that it consumed just to do absolutely nothing were stunning. My whole computer slowed down to a crawl. That went right out the window.

So, having wasted considerable funds on just antivirus software, I decided to give the freeware world a shot. I figured how much worse could anything there be? The two major pay-fors were utter crap. So long as a free AV package could meet the same low standard, I’d be sold.

That’s when I found Grisoft. I tried out one of their earlier versions of AVG Free. It wasn’t great, but it was better than both of the others. It used less resources and caught the same tests (from some old bad infected floppies) that I threw at it. There was one game where there seemed to be some programming collision and Grisoft would bring the game to a crawl after an hour or so of play, but later updates to AVG Free even fixed that. So it worked just as well as Norton as far as I could test it, but used the least resources out of all. And it updated itself daily. Who could ask for more?

Over the years it got better and better. Version 7 was a real treat. So much so that I was starting to consider actually buying Grisoft’s AVG package.

But then I “upgraded” to version 8.

And I use the term “upgrade” very loosely.

Because so far, it’s been total crap.

To start with, they totally screwed up the user interface. I think someone was trying to make it more modern. Instead they just made it even less intuitive.

Then there’s the updates. Or, more specifically, the lack thereof. Seriously. Literally every other day, somehow, the update process fails. Even right now, this very second, I’ve been trying to run it manually because the automated update failed. And I get only so far through the update process when BAM, their server fails. I know it’s not my server because I’ve tested it just to make sure. It’s not my server. It’s not my ISP. It’s not my firewall. It’s their server. It’s their product. It’s their failure. And I’m really f’ing sick of it. If they don’t sort this soon, I’m going to have to give up my years of loyalty to what was once a good product and go elsewhere.

But that’s still not all. There’s also the LinkScanner scandal. What do I mean? Well, Grisoft introduced into their AV product a new feature that pre-scans the links returned in common search engine searches. So say you search for something in Google. All of the results that Google gives you are pre-scanned by LinkScanner. This is a great feature for security. But webmasters pretty much hate it. Why? Because now all sorts of websites are getting what look like hits of real people reading their website. Only those real people aren’t real people reading their site. They’re just real people doing a web search, and those hits have nothing to do with people reading a thing. It’s all pre-scans for security. Good for web surfers. Bad for web sites. It costs websites bandwidth and very much skews their statistics to gauge their readership.

Well, supposedly Grisoft was going to neuter the LinkScanner to no longer pre-scan web searches. They weren’t even going to ask users which was better, or leave it up to them. Rumor was they were just going to disable that feature because of the noisy complaints of the very few web pages that noticed. (You can tell it was such a big scandal since so few administrators even figured it out.)

That was the rumor anyway. I’ve still to see it happen. Of course that could be because I can’t get Grisoft’s AVG Free 8 to update. But meanwhile, my web searches all still pre-scan the returned links. Which, by the way, I like. And yes, I do own InsanIT.net. I’m okay with this product. I even hope more AV suites offer something similar in the future. Anything that makes the web safer for surfers is okay by me.

But the point is, it’s a weird scandal, with a stranger lack of a resolution.

And, of course, there’s Grisoft’s AVG logo itself. A picture is worth a thousand words:

Does this logo seem in any way familiar? Well, considering that it’s just a Microsoft Windows logo spun around 180 degrees, it should look pretty darn familiar. Maybe Grisoft is intentionally trying to create a familiar feel, but I’m not sure which concerns me more, getting that close to a copyright and trademark infringement of a blatantly familiar logo, or that maybe it was just “by accident” and they’re really that uninspired over at AVG.

So what does it all add up to?

I used to be a big fan of Grisoft. At a time when Norton and McAfee were, well, less than stellar, Grisoft offered a completely free antivirus solution that was infinitely better.

But today, times have changed. And Grisoft? What things they have changed, have all changed for the worse.

They do not inspire in me the confidence to pay for their product. And their free product is just darn close to pissing me off for the last time.

These days, there are other fish in the sea. I’m thinking it’s time for me to head back to open waters and search for something new. And if you’re considering using Grisoft’s AVG, I invite you to do the same.

It’s not exactly the newest MMORPG to hit the scenes, but it’s still a classic.  It’s Dungeon Runners!

If you’ve played any of the Diablo games, then Dungeon Runners is the MMO RPG for you!  And it’s free*!  But unlike most MMORPGs that take themselves far too seriously, Dungeon Runners is nothing but humor.  Seriously.  I’m not sure there’s a serious bone in the entire game.  From starting equipment quality of cardboard, to skill descriptions that make you laugh, to NPC voice impersonations like Krusty the Clown and Arnold Schwarzenegger (”Please excuse me while I gargle.  Aaaargh aaaaa aaargh aaa.“) you’re going to laugh your butt off.  Which, considering your oversized hiney has been sitting around in a chair playing MMOs all day, that’s a really good thing!

The classes are Diablo, with a whole Fighter, Ranger, and Mage as a selection.

The play style is Diablo with its point and click overhead view system.  (At least it also adds WSAD.)

Even the quest system is Diablo.  If you’ve played a Diablo game before, then you know how to play Dungeon Runners.

Okay, so why the asterisk?  The Dungeon Runners webpage explains the asterisk as that you still have to pay for your own internet connection.  Other than that, it’s free to play.  Well, that’s only partly true.  Yes, it’s free to play, but with a few expected handicaps.  For starters, free players are submitted to advertisements.  It’s no big deal, but you should know that even if you play for free, someone is paying for you to play.   Next up on the asterisk list is that you are limited from using the most powerful items in the game.  It’s not a worry unless you’re really going to play this game a lot and you just can’t live without the Über Rare Big Axe of Bigness.  Also on the asterisk list of handicaps are how your potions stack when you play for free.  Or in other words, how they don’t stack, so you take up more inventory space.  And for that matter, the best healing and mana potions can’t even be used by free players.  Plus you get less storage space in the bank.  And 15% less gold.  And finally you need to trade more “King’s Coins”  for super-gear than pay-players do.  Oh, and no voice chat.  As far as I know, those are all of the limitations on free players.

As you can see though, while it sounds like a lot of limitations for free players, they’re all very minor limitations.  They really don’t do much to affect your game play.  And you can easily start out playing for free to get the full experience of the game before you decide to buy it or not, which I think is a brilliant idea.

One weird advantage for people who actually buy the box from a store is not only all of the limitations on free players are removed as if you’d registered and set up a pay account, but also you get a Bling Gnome to follow you around, collect money for you, and eat items that you don’t want to automatically convert them to gold.  Plus buying the box gives you six months of payed-for access.

So how does it play?  Dungeon Runners is loads of fun.  You can solo like the best of them.  Or you can join a party and group battle your way through dungeons.  All of the dungeons are “instanced”, which means once you leave the main town and delve into that dungeon, you (or your party) are the only ones in that dungeon.  So there’s never any camping.  There’s never any strolls through the part of a farmed-out area.  It’s all you, all the time.

Another nice (in my opinion) innovation is that there basically is no player-economy.  There’s no crafting.  There’s no auction house.  There’s no player-stores.  There’s no trading of money.  So all of those players out there just farming items and money?  They’re not there!  It’s an interesting solution to that common MMO problem.  Now, for some it’s a bit of a slap in the face.  You can’t sell your neat finds for loads of gold.  But you’ll find that unlike most MMORPGs, in Dungeon Runners you really don’t need to.  There are enough item drops to net you all of the neato items and loads of gold that you need.

So when all is said and done (and I believe a lot was said here) I give Dungeon Runners a raving nine gnomes out of ten!  Why not ten out of ten?  Well, honestly, I think the classes are a bit limiting, as are the choices in character appearance.  It’d be nice to see a little more work put in there, maybe in an expansion.  But it’s so small a point that it’s really only one point out of ten.  The rest, is gold!  I invite you to try Dungeon Runners today.

So it’s finally here: Machines that can copy themselves. Machines that can build little baby machines. One step closer to a human-free world and RepRap is leading the way.

Okay, so it’s hard to be scared of something that looks like a tinker-toy creation. It’s not the most intimidating of devices. It’s basically just a 3D plastic printer for rapid prototyping. Still, it marks an important step in the evolution of machines, which is a machine capable of self-replicating. It’s robot sex! Mechanical “life” is finally mirroring that aspect of biological life. And in so doing is one step closer to not needing us humans.

Still, while scary when you think of an evil (or at least “logical”) malicious AI, it’s also one step closer to nano-engineering. A building machine builds a smaller building machine. Which in turn builds a smaller one. Each scaling down allows the next scale to build with even more accuracy on a small scale. Until after several iterations, low and behold, the machines are building on a nano scale.

Okay, so RepRap is not there yet. But something will be, some day. And soon.

The really cool thing about RepRap though is that it’s basically open source. And since it’s basically capable of building copies of itself, it theoretically is poised for a nearly free economy. And once everyone has their own RepRap? Why then anyone can basically download free instructions to build something, tell their free RepRap to build it, and … wait … where’s the economy? That’s right, it’s free.

It’s a neat idea. I hope it catches on and the potential matches the idealism some day soon.

A lot of people out there are happy(ish) to spend hundreds to thousands of hard-earned dollars on a computer. Mostly to use that internet / interweb / world-wide-mish-mash thing. Yet most don’t take even the simplest basic steps to protect their computer and what’s on it from the evil hackers of the world. Here are some easy tips for basic security:

Tip 1) Password

How often do you boot up your computer, straight into Windows, without ever entering a password? Most people set this up by default. Sure, it’s super-easy for you, but that also makes it super-easy for a hacker! One simple way to make breaking into your computer a little more challenging is simply to add a password to your account. Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> User Accounts. It’s that easy.

Tip 2) Anti-Virus

If you don’t have any anti-virus software, you just might get a visit from Aunty Virus. Oooh. But you don’t have to spend a fortune on anti-virus software. There are plenty of free options available that update daily, automatically, and are just as good as the biggies. Personally, I’ve been using Grisoft’s Free AVG for years. It’s free for personal use. It’s non-invasive. It’s easy to set up and use. It updates daily. Who could ask for more? There are plenty of other options out there. I haven’t tested them, but I’m sure they work too. Just remember, for anti-virus to really work, every so often you have to run a scan. You can run the scan manually. You can schedule one to run automatically. But if you schedule it to scan automatically, you have to remember to leave the computer on then. Anti-virus works by reading every file on your computer, searching for hints and traces of known virus code. If it can’t search, it’s not going to find, and you’re not going to be protected. Plenty of anti-virus packages can be set up to automatically scan files that you download and files in your email, but that’s not always enough. Every so often you just need to run that scan on your whole computer, just in case.

Tip 3) Firewall

Hackers don’t just get in when you download something. They also can break in over your network connection. These days with computers being automatically connected to a high-speed internet as soon as they turn on, this can be a real danger. It’s like leaving a big wide door open on your house and just daring someone to not drop it and check out your goodies, whether you’re home or not. Windows XP (after service packs) and Vista at least finally come with a built-in Firewall. I can’t say it’s the greatest firewall, but it’s something. If you have nothing else, turn it on! Or grab a nice free firewall. Depending on your computer you might have one built in, like my nVidia ethernet controller coming with nVidia’s ActiveArmor Firewall. Or there are free ones like Check Point’s Zone Alarm Free. Plenty of people swear by it, and anything is better than nothing. You wouldn’t leave the door to your house wide open all the time, don’t do it to your PC either. Close the door and even add a lock.

Tip 4) Wireless Networking Security

Wireless technology is great! It lets you run all sorts of computers and devices like Playstation 3s on the internet without having to run cables everywhere. It makes geeks sad, but it makes everyone else happy. You just bring home the wireless router box, plug it in, and tada! Easy-peasy. But just as easy as that was to set up, it’s that easy for someone else to use your wireless connection! Read the book that comes with your wireless router and learn the simple power of wireless security. Just like everything else, without even a simple password, you’re just leaving things wide open for anyone to use. The ancient security protocol for wireless is called WEP. It’s crap. Don’t use it. If you can, use WPA2, the second -more secure- version of WPA. If you have older devices however, you may have to resore to standard WPA. Whatever. Use something, anything, just so long as it’s not wide open.

Tip 5) Anti-Spyware?

Plenty of people will tell you that spyware is bad. And some of it is. And if not ‘bad’, the rest of it is at least not helping you. But what exactly is spyware? While most people can agree generally what spyware is, when you get down to the nitty-gritty, not everyone agrees exactly where the line should be drawn. This is why it gets very difficult to recommend a good solution. What one anti-spyware software might consider harmful, another might not. Which is right? It’s hard to say. Security experts will hate me for this, but unlike my other suggestions, this is one I say you should try different packages and just decide for yourself what is enough. Maybe one day the security field of anti-spyware will be further along, but right now I just find it too murky to definitively say you need this, and Product A, Product B, and Product X are good solutions for you.

* Caveat: This is not advice from a security professional. This is not sufficient action to make your computer entirely fool-proof. This is easy general practice good advice for achieving a basic level of security that should protect your computer from the majority of risks. If you want to do more, learn more. Security doesn’t just happen, you have to understand it to make it happen. And even then, no one is 100% safe. To paraphrase something I heard a long time ago on computer security: The only safe computer is one that has been secured, removed from all networks, unplugged, and buried in the ground. And even then I’m not so sure.