PB blog: IT stuff, ogame and various

The best action against Internet Explorer that I’ve ever seen

At first I thought that this site was a scum:

I seldom receive chain mails to forward in order to receive 100$ USD from Microsoft for each e-mail sent. Common… Ridiculous.

I logged in my Google AdSense Account, checked under “Products” and found under “Referrals” (besides “Google AdSense” and “Google AdWords”) the new product “Improved web browsing”.

Of course “Improved web browsing” is about Firefox. Google recently decided to promote Firefox in his homepage. And i guess it was not just because the open source world rules. It’s because of the revenue.
Think about the typical M$ users: they use Internet Explorer and they install MSN Messenger, which installs the MSN bar, which includes MSN Search.
If people search using MSN Search they see the M$ banners and adwords, not the Google ones Thus, Google gives to the referrer 1$ but will earn a lot of money from the banners showed in the google searches (made with the google toolbar integrated in firefox) instead of the MSN one.
The creator of Explorer Destroyer was quite smart to create such a script. He won’t earn anything from the users that already have an adsense account (like my case), but he will probably earn something from people switchng to Firefox using hi banner and because he has a referral banner to “AdSense”, which is needed to participate to the initiative. Google gives 100$ to the referrer if a subscriber to adsense will make 100$ in the first 120 days (3 months).

Personally, with my small website I did 100$ after one year, but with some luck the creator of explorerdestroyer.com will get some more money because of this funny and useful initiative. Easy. He is a genius.

I personally hate Internet Explorer. I did several websites and I always had to insert a “hack” in my code in order to make the site render as it renders using the other browsers such as Firefox, Opera, Konqueror etc.

Conclusion: I think that every person that hates Internet Explorer (as I do) should put the banner in his personal website or personal blog.

adsense

firefox

ie

April 30, 2006, Category: IT stuff, Personale

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Joint Ops is still actual

Joint Operations (search for “joint operations” in gamespot.com), aka Joint Ops, aka J.O., JO or JOE (Joint Ops Escalation) is still “actual”, even if it’s 2 years old. To demonstrate it, not only the huge list of servers on novaworld (ok, sometimes they are “empty”), but also the maps and mods that you can download and install to make Joint Ops look different.

Mods

The Reality Mod (Download Reality Mod at Filefront.com) makes the game more realistic, realistic ammo counts, realistic sounds etc.

The International Conflict Mod (IC mod) (see IC mod movie) is actually the most famous. It gives you more realism, new weapons, new (more realistic and powerful) sounds and new textures for buildings and terrains. J.O. Mods at Filefront.com: download the version 1.13 and the patch “113 to 121″. Take a look at my list of IC maps on del.icio.us.

I’m looking forward to see the Urban Mod. Check the Delta Force Barracks: urban mod video.

Maps

Delta force Barracks: Joint Ops Escalation: this is my favorite site to download maps. I prefear COOP game and almost every day you can find a couple of new maps. My favorite ones are the CQB (close quarter battle) during daytime. I hate the night and I hate bad weather. I like desert maps but I don’t have many. I also like the maps where you have your base under attack and you must defend it. Usually these maps are hard and you die lots of times, but it’s also funny to play with a big team. I can’t understand why people leave my server when a map like this is loaded

If you want to create a map you can try with N.I.L.E. Take a look at the Delta Force Barracks Maps and Terrain Forums. Personally I don’t have a lot of time but i managed to create (with NILE) a simple arena map with 200 terrorists to kill, just to see if I was able to create something. It’s not that difficult, but you need a lot of imagination and a lot of time. If you want to recreate e.g. the town or village where you live, you’ll probably need to take a look how to create a terrain. Personally I’d like to recreate my village, or my school and create a mission on that terrain .
f you want you can monitor the maps I download, check my list of JOE maps on del.icio.us.

Conclusion

Even after 2 years Joint Ops is still funny and playable. The longevity is with no dubt thanks to the map makers that take the time to create new great ones, to the mod makers, that create such funny mods (the new IC mod sounds are great, the AK47 sound is my favorite and I always use it even if I don’t like terrorist weapons ).

2 years ago I paid it about 80 CHF (JO) + 40 CHF (JOE) = 120 swiss francs. Now you can find Joint Ops Combined Arms (JO + JOE) on Amazon for 17$ USD. If you haven’t yet bought it, what are you waiting for?

Update 29.4.06: IC mod movie

3dshooter

game

jointops

April 27, 2006, Category: Personal, IT stuff

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Thunderbird: Sending of password did not succeed.

I’ve just changed my yahoo (mail) password. I’ve opened Thunderbird and clicked “Get Mail”. Instead of getting a warning telling me that the password is wrong, and asking me to insert a new one, I got this warning:

Sending of password did not succeed. […]

I got this error using Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 under Windows XP (no SP installed).

I googled around and found that some people had a similar problem: see GmailForums: Can’t check/download messages with thunderbird 0.8.

Some people say that the solution is to delete the TB profile and to reinstall TB from scratch. I think that these people are simply crazy. It’s not a solution to reinstall everything from scratch just because you changed the password and TB doesn’t prompt to insert a new one (well, of course, this problem really suck but I guess it suck more to lose a lot of time to recreate your profile etc.).

Here the solution that worked for me:

1. If you have more than one e-mail account and you didn’t to a backup of your passwords, go in the “Tools” Menu > Options > Passwords > View Saved Passwords > Show Passwords > Yes > take a screenshot or write them in a safe place.
2. Close TB. Enter your profile folder and move these files in a backup folder: 12345678.s, cert8.db, key3.db (12345678 can be a different number for you).
3. Open TB: you will get prompted to insert the passwords for your accounts. I still got an error message “Sending of password did not succeed.” for my yahoo account, but I clicked again “Get Mail” and I received my messages. Now it works.

Explanation: TB will recreate the 12345678.s, cert8.db and key3.db files. In case of problems you can restore the files that you moved in a backup folder before (1).
My comment: shame on TB for such a bug that made me lose about 1 hour of work + another 30 minutes to write this guide for unlucky people that get the same issue. I was thinking that TB would be smart enough to recognize a wrong password and ask the user to insert e new one.

bug

password

thunderbird

, Category: IT stuff

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