How not to kill a computer...

I just read a great article over at pcstats.com with some great tips on how to prevent a disaster from happening, One tip I a really liked was this one-

It's unknown how many fatalities LAN parties contribute to the global toll of computers, but it's got to be a large number. Moving your computer too often is a recipe for disaster. ... If you've just transported your system any distance, take the cover off and check inside to verify that your expansion cards, memory, heatsink and video card are still seated correctly. Doing this before you power on your system can substantially increase its lifespan. Also, don't drop it.

[link]

VALVe and nVIDIA Team Up

VALVe and nVIDIA are partnering up to offer an exclusive demo of Portal...

The most recent Steam Hardware Survey shows more Steam gamers play on NVIDIA GeForce hardware than any other graphics platform. In an effort to further support this popular PC gaming configuration - Steam games plus NVIDIA hardware - Valve and NVIDIA have entered into an agreement to collaborate on development, distribution, events, and more.

Effective immediately, all NVIDIA gamers may receive a free copy of PortalTM: First Slice, a special version of the award-winning new game from Valve, by visiting www.steamgames.com/nvidia1 and "Taking the Test." Steam will then auto-detect the presence of NVIDIA hardware and make Portal: First Slice available immediately, free of charge. To make it easy for all NVIDIA customers to redeem this offer, a link to the Steam offer will also be included in all NVIDIA drivers.

"More Steam gamers, including myself, play on NVIDIA hardware than any other GPU," said Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve. "That's a testament to the company's long history of innovation and quality. By working together with NVIDIA to expand our development, distribution, and marketing efforts, we're increasing our ability to serve the millions of NVIDIA customers logging onto Steam and help us prepare for our next generation of content."

Throughout the coming year, the companies will also be working together to support competitive gaming events for Counter-Strike® and Team Fortress® 2 and will continue to work together to define and support the breakthrough features of tomorrow's games and graphics hardware.

"Valve's endorsement of our technology and tools is yet another example of how the world's leading gaming companies are working with NVIDIA," said Roy Taylor, vice president of content relations at NVIDIA. "Portal is the hottest new, award-winning title from Valve, and we're delighted that Valve will offer First Slice exclusively to GeForce customers."

Portal: First Slice is now available to all NVIDIA customers. For more information about the offer or to take the test, please click here.

VALVe also threw in some extras too, the exlusive deal also includes Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, and the very addicting Peggle Extreme.

With the announcement of this deal, it must mean that VALVe's previous partnership with ATI has expired. ATI had been best buddies with valve since before the release of Half-Life 2.

For now it seems that VALVe's previous offer for ATI Users is still alive and kicking - which means at LAN Parties most poeple will be able to join in on playing Half-life 2 Deathmatch with out needing to buy the game.

Another year Done

My busiest semester yet is over and another crazy one is on it's way but before it comes I hope to get a bunch of stuff updated on this site, so look for new content soon and the announcement of LAN-O-THON v4.5.

RHA LAN-O-THON v4.0

Whew, after months of planning and two days of settinging up LAN-o-thon fianllay happened. Thanks to all those who came! We had some interesting challenges this time around like the visit from the campus the campus fire marshal and the head of resident building maintenance and the hl2dm tournament server crashing but we pushed forward and had a decent event. The tf2 action was awesome and every one had a great time playing it.

Our next event will be late febuary. I will post the date once it is finalized

RHA LAN-O-THON v4.0

RHA LAN-O-THON v4.0 will be October 26, 2007 at 7:00 pm at the University of South Florida (Tampa Campus). It's the 9th largest university in the US and you've probably never heard of it



It's going to be a 50 seat BYOC. USF Students Only and those who live on-campus have priority.

Games we will be hosting servers and tournaments for-
-> Counter-Strike: Source
-> Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
-> Day of Defeat Source
-> Team Fortress 2

We will be providing at least 25 temporary Steam accounts with the above games for the event.

This is a social event, so feel free to just to play WOW, surf the internet or just hang out but a computer is required to enter.

We are interested in having other games at this event but we are limited by man power. If you would like to manage a server for another game, please message me and we can work something out.

Registration has finally started!! So head over and Sign Up.

The process is a little different this year because with more people, comes a need for better planning. Our registration form this year is collecting more info so we can prepare better event. We are interested in finding out what games people want to play and such. This time around we are trying to take security seriously, so again this year, we will be signing computers in and out of the building but we will have a better system and as another defense, we are only allowing people who bring a computer to enter.

See you there!

LAN Party Friday!

Wow, the LAN Party is this week. I've been working hard getting everything ready to go. I got a bunch of temporary accounts from valve this week so any guests who don't own Team Fortress 2 or any of Valves other multiplayer games will be able to play them free and legally. This ought to be a great event! See you there!

ps. Early registration ends Wed!

Updates

Sorry for the lack of updates, my life has gotten really really busy. Architecture, as predicated, has consumed my life and now, I have almost zero free time. I'm still going to make LAN-O-THON v4.0 a great event, I'm devoting every spare moment this week getting ready for it.

This past week our box of goodies from Alienware arrived and earlier this week, more stuff should be arriving. I post pictures soon.

Please sign up early as it will make check-in for the event go a lot faster for everyone. We need help setting up on the 25th so if you're available stop by the RHA office around 1pm or Cypress E later in the night.

See you there!

Registration Starts

Last week, Sign Up for the LAN Party Started. So if you want a seat saved for you, GO! before they are gone.

Weekly Update 9/3/07

LAN-O-THON v4.0 News
In the mail Friday, I got our first box of goodies. The nice people over at Vroom Foods, who make FOOSH™- Energy Mints and BUZZ BITES™ - Chocolate Energy Chews sent us a bunch of samples to give out. Everyone is going to a sample of the BUZZ BITES in their goodies bag and you'll also have a chance to win more in the raffle and other events.

In the next week, I hope to launch the official registration for LAN-O-THON v4.0. This year we are doing things a bit differently. After last years large number of no-shows, a different system was needed. On our site soon, there will be a registration form in PDF format that you will need to print out, fill out and drop off at a yet to be determined location.

Orange box is finished.

In an interview posted on the web today, Gabe Newell himself said that all thee games were done. The Half-life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal box will be released on Steam October 10th at 12:01 (Pacific time). I quoted some of my favorite parts:

Game Informer: So how are things going with the development of the Orange Box?

Gabe Newell: Good. We ship to retailers on October 9. October 10 at 12:01 we let it go on Steam, and it’ll probably show up at retailers Europe on the 12th.

GI: Are all three of the games pretty much finished?

Newell: Yep.

GI: So you’re just bug testing, and everything is in its final phase?

Newell: Yes.

GI: Will it be available separately on Steam?

Newell: We’re going to announce specific stuff. But we’re probably going to have a bunch since there are no shelf-space issues on Steam, so we’ll have a bunch of different offerings. All the multiplayer products, all the single player products…So we’ll just try to figure out the most popular ways that people will want to buy it.

GI: Obviously, with Episode Two, I don’t want to get any spoilers out there. The tone seems to be, at least with what we’ve seen of the trailers, a lot darker. Like, this could be the Empire Strikes Back of the Half-Life trilogy. Do you think that’s safe to say?

Newell: Yes. I think that we tried to make it darker and also have more of an epic feel so that’s translated into the settings and some of the events that have happened. It’s got to be dark before it gets better! (laughs) That’s the rule of trilogies. This is the middle act. This is where all of the problems get worse. The depth of your problems becomes much clearer before everything gets resolved in the third act.

GI: To you have a target date for Episode Three?

Newell: No, we don’t have a target date.

GI: That’s probably a safe answer. (laughs)

Newell: If we did, would it matter? (laughs) Have we done right yet?

GI: No. (laughs)

Newell: I think a target date is when people can start yelling at us with more ammo. (laughs)

[Read More]

A new video of HL2.2 was posted online ****contains spoilers****.

How to: Setup a Dedicated FreeBSD Web Server

Ok, you may be asking- Why Use FreeBSD instead of one of the many Linux distros like Ubuntu or Fedora? Well, these distros are great for desktop use but they are not as reliable, stable or as fast as FreeBSD is in the server environment. The only downside to FreeBSD is that it doesn't have the snazzy installers the others have and at first glance, it can be a little daunting to install but don't worry this guide attempts to make it easier. I use FreeBSD because it's what my web hosting company uses on their servers. I like to test my web applications on my own server before making them live on the web and I like it loose software license, it allows virtually unrestricted re-use and modification of the source code for any purpose, Apple's OSX was derived from it.

Step 1
This point is where I found that this FreeBSD Install Guide over at openaddict.com was far better than what I was writing. So use it! (It's like they read my mind... scary!). I still plan on making a video version though.) The guide takes the long way to install but it will give you the best results. You'll come to love the command line.

USF Architecture is Sweeeeet!

I just finished touring what will be my studio space for this semester and it looks great. By the number of desks, there should be around 16 students in the class, a great number compared to some of my past classes. I also took a peak in some of the other rooms. The wood shop looks cool with a bunch of different tools and next door, the computer lab is brand new with big monitors and fast computers. I can't wait for class to start!

Meet the Soilder

Valve has released another one of their great promo video's for Team fortress 2.


There's also an HD Version

New Address!

If you're a frequent visitor you may have noticed our domain name changed. the blog now has a more official sounding address of http://inside.lanothon.org and the main site for the event registration is http://www.lanothon.org keep in mind that I'm cheap and this address redircts back to the old address of http://lan.mcdportal.com. I'm giving google apps a try and having gmailfor our domains email. The DNS record is still updating so email won't be working for another 24 hours.

Weekly Update 8/18/07

LAN-O-THON v4.0
While I was away, I got two more offers for sponsorships. I don't have anything to confirm yet though. I started work on some ads again. Hopefully I will have some ready to post soon after classes start.

Inside LAN-O-THON
I'm still working on more site content... I know I'm slow.

The LAN Party Initiative
I setup a group on the steam community for our group, check it out

It's good to be Home

After traveling for two weeks, It's nice to be in my own bed. My trip was great. I visited Budapest, Hungary; Vienna, Hallstatt, and Salzburg in Austria, Munich, Germany, and flew out of Zürich, Switzerland. I also quickly visited New York City during our 8 hour layover at JFK. I am working on getting some pic posted and working on a Weekly LAN Party Update.

Steam- Update News

Weekly Update 7/28/07

Ok this has to be my slowest week yet. Honestly I've done squat. Well I did a few small things- I got the logout button working on my new site. I played around with phpbb3. attempted to install ubuntu. (microsofts vm'07 hates it, got a different vm to try). I help my cousin move. (I'm still tired from that). I went to the gym. I got a slurpee. (Where would I be without those delicious smooth frozen caffeinated drinks?) and I'm going to sleep.....

ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz.......


O wait! I can't sleep!!!!!!!!! I have to pack for my vacation!!!!! My family is spending 2 weeks in Europe!!!!!!! (Ok. If I keep this up, exclamation points are going to be an endangered specie) I leave next week. If they have internet I'll post some pictures. We're going to Budapest, Viennia, München, Zurich and a bunch of cities in between. Btw, On my Birthday, I'll be in München ( probably without internet) so thank-you in advance for all of you who will write on my facebook page.

Game server Memberships

As you may know,The LAN Party Initiative is sponsoring a couple of game servers. To fund these, I'm selling 4 levels of memberships- Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum.

Bronze $3 for 3 months
Reserved Slot on one server

Silver $3/month
Reserved Slot on both servers
Immunity from the crazy admins
ability to kick nonmembers
ability to play sounds.

Gold $6/month
Everything above and ...
Temp ban players
Manage maps
trigger map votes
ability to hard restart the server.

Platinum $12/month
Ability to permanently ban users
Full Mani-Admin tools
(below- one server only)
Have rcon access
Have root server access
Ftp access to add maps

If I sell out of reserved slots, I will buy more slots for the server.

Buy for three months and save 11.11% (aka. silver for 3 months = $8)

Please paypal the money to crocodolljr@cfl.rr.com and include the membership level you want, your gamer handle and steam id in the message box. If you don't know your steam id, see the link below. Please

allow me at least 12 hours to set up your account.

http://support.steampowered.com/cgi-bin/steampowered.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=112

Thanks
Matthew

Suprise Revealed

I have been hyping this surprise for quite a while now. With a little luck and a lowball ebay bid
I am the proud owner of 4 Chauvet Intimidator 2.0, a USB to dmx adapter and plenty of cable. Below is a quick demo by one of the lights.


This video is a better demo.

One more quick demo. This is one features a possible scene from my LAN Party light show.


See this page for more info on the lights.