For those of you who are not so tech weary or into PC gaming at all, Steam by Valve would be the tool to get you interested. Steam allows for users to download the application free from the "Steam Powered" site. This application allows for:

Finding new games

Watching trailers

Trying demos of hundreds of games

Plenty of discount prices

AAA titles easily accessed

Incredible packages with incredible savings

Increased multiplayer functionality

Support forums

As said by Jesh, Steam is like the Xbox Live of computer gaming. Initially Steam was a small program for Valve developed titles but lately it has grown larger than that and harbors many "Game of the Year" titles such as Call of Duty 4, Half Life 2, Bioshock, Fallout 3, and many other expansive titles.

With an easy to use interface, Steam allows for even the un-tech savvy to enjoy gaming at their desktop. If you are still unsure if this is right for you, plenty of "indie" titles are around for the more casual gamer with hits like Trackmania, Bejeweled, and Audiosurf (personal favorite).

Visit the Steam Forum today!

pc technology gaming related steam bioshock call of duty

News has just been released of a Rockstar Copyright FAQ detailing the restrictions and information about installing GTAIV on your computer. As I just noticed on the GTA4.net fansite, a brief outline of what is mentioned is listed below.

• Activation via Internet (1x per system, no limits, Fallback for systems without web access)
• Copy protection Securom: The original disc is required for playing (Execpt: Download version of GTA 4, for example from Direct 2 Drive)
• Requirements for playing (singleplayer): Games for Windows Live account for saving/achievements (1x free creation), original disc, Securom runs in the background
• Requirements for playing (multiplayer): Active internet connection, Games for Windows Live account, For uploading videos: Rockstar Social Club Account.
• If you don't have web access or don't want to connect your gaming PC to the Internet, Rockstar wants to offer a not yet specified system to activate GTA 4 via another PC with web access. Details are supposed to be available on launch.
• For the normal GTA 4 (PC) version with disc installation, activations are unlimited. But the original disc is required for playing.
• This does not apply for legally downloaded versions of GTA 4: Depending on the vendor the following is possible: Five parallel installations with the possibility to revive a "free” installation, if an old installation is deleted. For this purpose the customer has to have web access with the PC GTA 4 is installed on.
• Those playing GTA 4 with an illegally hacked version have, according to Rockstar, to fear that the game will not be fully playable.
• If you change two major components of your PC (like the graphics card or the CPU), you will possible have to reactivate GTA 4.

For a more detailed analysis, please visit the PCGH site.

gta iv news rockstar windows pc pc gaming related

The Midnight Hour

This just struck me, so it probably makes no sense, but I'm currently in the middle of my 'Midnight Hour'. I'm guessing most people have this. It's an hour, usually late at night or early in the morning, when time seems to last forever, or just seems to fly by.

I'm guessing most people have a 'Midnight Hour'. I find my Midnight Hour is when I'm either lying in bed, trying to get to sleep, or when I'm on the computer at Midnight, trying to stay awake.

Basically, it's a period of time where you try to do anything to get rid of your boredom/go to sleep, and you end up just lying down, staring into space. And you start thinking. You don't need to even be thinking of anything in particular, just staring into space.

And the strangest ideas hit you. The strangest concepts, like my 'Midnight Hour'. The different things you think, and worry about, or are angry about just fly across your mind. It's effectively a day-dream, or a non-minded brain storm - when anything or everything is possible.

Right now, I'm sitting at my laptop, wanting to go to bed, but I can't, because I'm not tired. And I keep finding myself zoning out, thinking of all these odd concepts. And I find it's usually when I'm in this mode, I get my best ideas for stories or general things that I try to use.

Does anyone else ever find themselves zoning out, with time either waiting or rushing past, just thinking? Nothing else, just lying back, thinking about anything and everything?

I'm annoyed, this has got me all interested in stuff. I suppose, in the Midnight Hour, you'll think anything.

other the midnight hour midnight psyhology

Okay, so sad thing is that HTML and CSS is greek to me at this point in time, so my blog is going to appear pretty bland. If anyone can link "For Dummies" for me that would be grand. So this is where you all come to be exposed to the mind and works of one of the greats, eh?

other

Wow, so I'm surprised that Neoseeker has added a blog option to their site. I'm unsure whether to move my blog to here or to stay at my current one at http://www.machienzoprimos.blogspot.com.

other life neoseeker

I've already noticed a trend in the blogs that have been posted. They've mostly all been about games, or the holidays. Well, I wrote one a couple days ago about the holidays, I guess I'll talk about video games. This will more or less be a weekly feature about games I've been playing or awaiting.


I've been playing tons of Counter Strike Source lately, over 30 hours in two weeks. So, Counter Strike is an extremely fun game that I'd urge all of you to try. It's a multiplayer game, first person shooter. You can play with anyone online, and it's amazing, granted you have fast enough internet, so just get it already. You don't need an amazing computer to run it, since it runs off of the source engine, so it's pretty good. Other games to run off of the source engine are: Half Life 2, Day of Defeat, and the recent release, Left 4 Dead. These games aren't really graphics hogs, so you shouldn't expect to need an amazing video card to play, just decent.


Also, I've eagerly been anticipating the release of Grand Theft Auto IV on the PC. I won't be able to get it on launch, more closer to Christmas time. It'll be a sweet Christmas this year, Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3, Call of Duty 5, and Dead Space are all coming my way, and I'll have $170 to buy some games myself. I'll probably be buying The Orange Box, Grand Theft Auto 4, and some other games will probably catch my eye by then too.

pc gaming related

A couple of days ago i decided it was about time i started getting myself into a Christmassy mood, seeing as it is a mere 2 days until the first door on my advent calender needs to be opened. The best way to do this, i thought, was to watch some Christmassy movies. It just so happened that The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause was on TV, Four Christmases had just come out in the cinema and i dug out my copy of Bad Santa on DVD (which i hadn't watched yet).

Now, could i get much more Christmassy than that, movies that mention Santa Clause and Christmas should get me firmly in the mood. But no! None of these films left me with that nice, warm feeling that you get inside when you realise Christmas is just round the corner. I was bitterly disappointed. It also didn't help that The Santa Clause 3 must be one of the worst movies ever made. Four Christmases denied that Santa exists! I don't want that from my holiday flick, i want to be assured that a fat little man in a red suit carefully places my presents under the tree. The word "*bleep*" and its variations are used 147 times while "shit" appears 34 times amid a total of 243 profanities in Bad Santa...what!?

It then dawned on me, that i couldn't name a good Christmas film to come out this decade. This made me sad. So i had to watch Miracle on 34th Street to cheer me up, my favourite Christmas movie of all time!

Feel free to tell me what your favourite Christmas movie is.

TTFN

movies

Tofay I made a caterpillar out of wood and then I pretended it was an aeroplane a bit faggy I know but I used my imagination none the less and I had a few minutes of fun. I think that the art of imagination is being lost in todays youth, maybe it's because of upbringing maybe because it's of T.V maybe it's because of video games, but I think what's killing our imagination is our peers. It would seem people are to scared to voice there imaginings because they don't want to be called a fag or a tosser or anything.

musingsthoughts

Ughthfhffhf...so it's the day after and I feel like shit. My head is spinning and the heater is unusually loud...and focusing on objects takes work.

Anyway, despite what you see in movies and shows, the whole 'raw egg in your drink' thing does not help hangovers. So, I figured I'd take a moment or two and disclose the incredible secret of ginger tea and its power...which is enough to gather a religious following on the note of it's hangover curing capability.

Note that ginger is a natural antioxidant and is used with thousands of herbal remedies. It also has a decently strong taste and, if you're not a cook, should consider purchasing yourself a stick of raw ginger and seeing what sort of use you can use it for.

How To Make Ginger Tea

You can purchase boxes of ginger tea in stores. Don't do it. The quality of much more poor than something you can make yourself in, literally, 3 minutes or so.

Step 1:
Take your clove of ginger and wash it. It's really not a huge deal sense you're going to be cutting off the skin anyway, but it's always nice to do when purchasing anything from the local grocery store.

Step 2:
Now you're going to want to cut the skin off your ginger as that part doesn't help your condition nor does it taste very good. In fact it's pretty yucky, don't use it. You might find it to be a bit tricky due to the unusual shape of the clove but it's not too difficult to do.

Step 3:
You should now have a giant piece of skinned ginger and it's smell should be hitting your nose about now. Good, eh?

Chop up the ginger into thin slices. The goal here is giving it as much surface area as possible. Note that chopping your ginger into fine little blocks works but you'll have a bit of trouble trying to drink your tea without those blocks getting in the way. It's better to have larger pieces with a larger surface area.

You've seen people chop up banana's in slices, right? Imagine making each slice of the banana as thin as you can get it, that's how you should chop up your ginger.

Step 4:
Now simply take your chopped ginger and put it in your cup of hot water. Because the pieces are relatively large and ginger is heavy you're not going to need a filter or anything as it'll just fall to the bottom. Let it steep for about five minutes or so and you're on the way to recovery!

Additional:
I usually like to put cream in my tea but I've noticed it doesn't work as well with ginger. Instead, try replacing it for honey...works quite well if you ask me. Just depends on how you like your tea, really.

musingsthoughts

I've come to the conclusion that most people on msn are idiots.

Not all of them, I'll make that clear - some people on msn are very nice to talk to. But I always find there's a few dumbasses who seem to never get the picture.

There's 3 types of msn annoyances.

1: People who types like 'Hi m8, wuu2 - u gun movii 2nite?', which is both hard to read and really annoying,

2: The people who continue to send you winks/stuff to be downloaded, despite you saying you don't want it, and

3: The idiots who post 'r u der, r u der' every freaking second, and keep nudging me.

Maybe I'm just adding the wrong people.

---

OK, maybe I should say something worthwhile in this blog rather than just a general, every day common stereotype moan.

I think I have a small problem, in which I laugh hysterically when I am performing in Drama, or just speaking to the class in school. It's usually at the worst time too - like today, in R.E., I laughed when I was told to explain what to do about Child Labour. It's not really good when you're standing up, laughing for no apparent reason whilst 25 other kids look at you and think you're a dick.

It's nearly Christmas - I know it is, the adverts have started. I feel let down by this Christmas for some reason - not only has my Tottenham advent calender not got a number 25 door, I just haven't really felt that excited for Christmas. I'm not really excited for my birthday either - strange for me, I'm usually really excited.

But I don't know what it is about this year. Maybe I'll feel more festive when I get to the 20th or so. Maybe I'm growing up.

...Crap.

msn star of spurs idiots christmas other

I figure that it's time I bring out my Christmas list for this year. I'm going to break it down into two categories: Realistic things and unrealistic things. The latter will be the really expensive things that I wouldn't ever really get for Christmas, or things that I wouldn't be able to use if I got them.

Realistic Items:

Animal Crossing: City Folk - I'm not going to lie here. I haven't touched my Wii in a month or more. In fact, it actually was packed away in its carrying case until yesterday when I considered playing it, but then settled on one of those "Plug-N-Play" Pacman games instead. Anyway, at this point it's pretty clear to me that I'm in need of a solid Wii game to keep me interested in the system, and City Folk is that game. I know it is not much of an upgrade from Wild World, but I am still an avid Animal Crossing fan and I can't wait to mess around in the City. Once I get my WiFi fixed I'll be sure to pick up Wii Speak as well, so I can actually interact with my friends online.

Guitar Hero: World Tour - Yes, I know that there have been some issues with the drums, and the game lacks polish, but I shall remind you readers that the only next gen system that I own is the Nintendo Wii. This means that my options are pretty limited in terms of band games. And from what I've heard, Vicarious Visions has put tons of cool features in this game, and has made sure the the Wii version did not get completely screwed. And so I am still excited to get my hands on this game, if only because of the inclusion of Float On.

Nintendo DS Lite - You are probably wondering why I would be wanting a Lite right after the announcement of the DSi, and I am not completely sure myself. But, I do know that the battery on my original DS is failing, and I am only getting one hour per charge. And honestly, after hearing about the poor quality of the pictures from the cameras, I've realized that paying that extra 30 bucks for DSware is pretty ridiculous. So I am going for a DS Lite.

Unrealistic Items:

Xbox 360 - I was extremely disappointed to learn that my brother was selling his Xbox 360. But, since he bought it with his own money, I had no say in the matter and soon enough it was gone. And so now, in the midst of all the high quality titles being pumped out on the system, I am forced into staring at my Wii, hoping that somehow I will magically obtain some Wii points and finally relieve me of this drought that I've experienced.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - Whenever my friends talk about how much fun they had in Zombie Mode, I can do nothing but sit in my chair and squirm. The game looks awesome, and I am itching to get my hands on it.

Mirror's Edge - Wow. This game looks absolutely breathtaking, and I am sure that I would enjoy it. I am anxiously awaiting the day that I get to play it.

Left 4 Dead - Co-operative zombie killing? That just sounds awesome. I picture something like Dead Rising, but with first person mechanics and a friend that can play with you. It's everything I wanted in a game, and Valve is at the helm. How awesome is that?

So, there you have it. As you can tell, I'm experiencing some buyer's remorse with my Wii purchase, but I haven't completely lost hope yet. However, I am now much more inclined to go purchase a 360, if only my budget would allow it.

gaming related christmas wishlist nintendo wii nintendo ds xbox 360

If you've been to Loungin' since July, you may have noticed the drop-down list in the forum header that allows you to change how you and only you view the forum. This gives seekers a great opportunity to view forums in a different light without annoying other people with their choice. The best part is that your choice is saved for the next time you view the forum, assuming you have cookies enabled.

Since the feature hit Loungin' I've had a few PMs from moderators who want to do the same thing in their forum(s), but I haven't had a good answer for them...until now! I intend for this post to walk you through each step required to add this feature.

Step 1. Build Your Themes

Obviously in order to have a theme selector, you have to have themes! tekmosis gives a good introduction to theme making here, but there is one thing you have to keep in mind. Instead of creating your theme like this—

code

<style type="text/css"> /* YOUR THEME DETAILS HERE */ </style>

You'll need to put your theme in an external .css file. For example, if this were what I used to put in the forum header—

code

<style type="text/css"> body { background-color: black; } </style>

Then all I would do is take the text between the style tags and put them in a file and save it as something like MyTheme.css. Remember, don't put the style tags in the file!

Here are some examples from Loungin': Dark Knight, Aya Pink, Shane Blue


Step 2. Upload Your Themes

You'll next have to make sure that your themes are accessible online. If you don't have a way to host CSS files online, I'd recommend signing up for an account at Lycos; afterwards navigate to the WebFTP area and upload your files that way.


Step 3. Upload the Script (Be Nice to Ren of Heavens)

Ren is your friend when it comes to uploading scripts for your forum. If you ask him nicely to upload this script for your forum, you'll be one step closer to having your dynamic themes.


Step 3b. Modify Your Forum Header (Optional)

If you intend for the themes to change your forum header as well, you will need to ensure that your header has an ID attribute with the value "theme_header". For example—

code

<img src="https://i.neoseeker.com/m/31026_photo.gif" id="theme_header" />

Step 4. Add the Theme Selector to Your Forum

Let's review quickly. If you've reached this point, this means you have at least one custom theme you'd like to use, and you also have the script uploaded in your forum. Assuming that's the case, let's move on to the last part: the theme selector.

The drop-down list is very easy to make; the template looks like this:

code

<select id="theme_selector"> <option>Default</option> /* Additional Themes */ </select>

For each theme you want to add, follow this pattern:

code

<option value="THEME_KEY" csshref="CSS_URL" headersrc="FORUM_HEADER_URL">THEME_NAME</option>

1. THEME_KEY: A one-character piece of text that identifies this theme. This means that each theme in your forum must have a unique THEME_KEY.
2. CSS_URL: The URL for the CSS file you uploaded in Step 2 for this theme.
3. FORUM_HEADER_URL: If you want to change the forum header to match your theme, put the URL for the new image here.
4. THEME_NAME: This is what people will see in the theme selector, so make it a friendly name like "Aya Pink" or "Shane Blue".

Here are some examples.

Loungin'

code

<select id="theme_selector"> <option>Default</option> <option csshref="http://neoloungin.makesgirlscrazy.com/AyaFix.css" value="a">Aya Pink</option> <option csshref="http://neoloungin.makesgirlscrazy.com/EnigmaS.css" value="e">Enigma Maroon</option> <option csshref="http://neoloungin.makesgirlscrazy.com/KjgFix.css" value="k">Kjg Blue</option> <option csshref="http://neoloungin.makesgirlscrazy.com/QuiertaS.css" value="q">Quierta Purple</option> <option csshref="http://neoloungin.makesgirlscrazy.com/ShaneS.css" value="s">Shane Blue</option> <option csshref="http://neoloungin.makesgirlscrazy.com/Black.css" value="b">Gun Metal</option> <option csshref="http://neoloungin.makesgirlscrazy.com/Poison Ivy.css" value="g">Poison Ivy</option> <option csshref="http://neoloungin.makesgirlscrazy.com/Sour Line.css" value="l">Sour Lime</option> <option csshref="http://neoloungin.makesgirlscrazy.com/DarkKnight2.css" value="d">Dark Knight</option> </select>

HTML/CSS & NeoHome Help

code

<select id="theme_selector"> <option>Neoseeker Theme (Default)</option> <option value="d" csshref="http://members.lycos.co.uk/suffusion/dynamic_themes/devpenTheme.css">DEVPEN Theme</option> <option value="t" csshref="http://members.lycos.co.uk/suffusion/dynamic_themes/tornsTheme.css" headersrc="http://members.lycos.co.uk/suffusion/dynamic_themes/torn_htmlforumbanner.jpg">Torn's Theme</option> </select>

Afterwards, the theme selector and the script should work together to give you your custom themes.

---

I hope this helps! Feel free to post any questions or comments you have here.

neoseeker forum themes theme switching web development technology neoseeker related

We have blogs now? We have BLOGS now? We have frickin' BLOGS NOW?

Most excellent, I can bitch somewhere where no-one but me will care. And maybe the odd person who for some reason actually finds me funny, but how likely is that?

So, yeah, I'll probably just be using this space to bitch about how much I think everything sucks. Or possibly how awesome I think something is, but considering how much more attention negative media gets, expect bitching. But hope for a little ray of sunshine in the back of my mind if you really want more positive news. Or, you know, just ask me nicely and I'll see what little hope I can whip up.

Also expect me to use this for any opinions on games/books/etc I have that are too informal for a review.

other

Dear blog, my name is 1831 (with a 1, not a one) and I am 15 years old. Today Synergy said she loves me, and even called me babe! I'm so excited. Tomorrow i'm going to ask her out. Synergy is a really cool chick, and I hope that one day we will spend our days informing people on how Fallout 2 is so much funnier than Fallout 3, which sits in a comfortable position above the Elder Scrolls games but below the first two Fallouts. I would say'Bethesda has done an admirable job, but there are a number of key flaws, such as crappy perks and your SPECIAL stats really not affecting much, as opposed to Fallout 2 where they could really *bleep* you up!' and then Synbunny would say 'I agree with this. Also, I am a total whore', and I would say 'but I love you anyway, darling xoxo'. Wish me luck! :):)

musingsthoughts

You know what I hate? Internet slangs and memes. They're just so stupid and you'll never see me use them, not even on something like MSN. Not to mention, they are so overused these days. There's no point in them, other than laziness or just trying to be funny. I actually have used them a few times now and then a long time ago, but I regret it now. You can say it's "fun", but I don't see any fun in them.

musingsthoughts