Kelvin's Blog

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts is the next chapter in the critically acclaimed Company of Heroes series. Players take command of the German Panzer Elite as they struggle against the might of Operation Market Garden, or lead the British 2nd Army in the vicious battle for Caen, France. The standalone title features two unique armies with full length campaigns, new multiplayer modes, Microsoft DirectX 10 support, mission persistence, improved vehicle and soldier AI, enhanced physics, and a dynamic weather system. Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts is fully compatible with Company of Heroes, allowing players to wage war with four unique armies.

Developer(s) Relic Entertainment
Publisher(s) THQ
Designer(s) Josh Mosqueira
Series Company of Heroes
Engine Essence
Version 2.301
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release date(s) NA September 24, 2007
EU September 28, 2007
Genre(s) Real-time strategy
Mode(s) Single-player, Multiplayer
Media DVD, Steam download

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# WinRAR provides complete support for RAR and ZIP archives and is able to unpack CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, 7Z, Z archives.
# WinRAR offers a graphic interactive interface utilizing mouse and menus as well as the command line interface.
# WinRAR is easier to use than many other archivers with the inclusion of a special “Wizard” mode which allows instant access to the basic archiving functions through a simple question and answer procedure. This avoids confusion in the early stages of use.
# WinRAR offers you the benefit of industry strength archive encryption using AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with a key of 128 bits.
# WinRAR supports files and archives up to 8,589 billion gigabytes in size. The number of archived files is, for all practical purposes, unlimited.
# WinRAR offers the ability to create selfextracting and multivolume archives.
# Recovery record and recovery volumes allow to reconstruct even physically damaged archives.
# WinRAR features are constantly being developed to keep WinRAR ahead of the pack.

What’s New In Version 3.71

1. Archive names in rar.log error log file always include
the full path.

2. WinRAR tray icon is compatible with high DPI display modes.

3. If you modified a file in archive with encrypted names using
an external editor, WinRAR will not ask for archive password again
when prompting to update a file. It will use a password which
you entered when opening an archive,

4. Bugs fixed:

a) switch -tl and “Set archive time to latest file time” option
could fail in previous version. Sometimes they set archive time
to current system time instead of latest file time;

b) if -ag switch mask contained archive number, month and minute
characters, WinRAR placed ‘I’ character instead of minute value
into generated archive name for archive numbers exceeding 1;

c) high ASCII names in ISO files using ISO 9660 format without
Joliet format extension were displayed incorrectly;

d) WinRAR could crash when decompressing some of corrupt RAR archives;

e) if “Turn PC off when done” option was set in “Convert archives”
command, WinRAR turned PC off after converting the first archive
in selected group instead of after converting the entire group;

f) if user specified a non-existent destination path in SFX archive
in Vista, SFX could enter into infinite “create new SFX window”
loop;

g) WinRAR could fail to unpack an individual file from subfolder
of ACE archive using the drag and drop.

Archive file formats supported are ZIP, RAR, ACE, CAB, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, BZ2, UUE, JAR, ISO, 7Z and Z.

Developed by Eugene Roshal / Alexander Roshal
Latest release 3.80 / 30 September 2008; 19 days ago
Written in C++
OS Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Linux (Wine required for GUI), OS/2
Available in Multilingual (46+ languages)
Development status Current
Type File archiver
License Commercial proprietary, Shareware
Website Primary: www.rarlab.com
Secondary: www.win-rar.com

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This is repost of APPLE Assassin’s Creed with updated link.

Earlier sometime ago, I watched Assassin’s Creed trailer and thought that it is a superb game with cool graphics. I get a little disappointed when knowing that this game was released in both PlayStation 3 and XBOX 360. Guess what? Early last month, Assassin’s Creed has been released for the PC platform!

Assassin’s Creed redefines the action genre. Assassin’s Creed merges technology, game design, theme, and emotions into a world where you instigate chaos and become a vulnerable, yet powerful, agent of change. The setting is 1191 A.D. The Third Crusade is tearing the Holy Land apart. You, Altair, intend to stop the hostilities by suppressing both sides of the conflict. You are an Assassin, a warrior shrouded in secrecy and feared for your ruthlessness. Your actions can throw your immediate environment into chaos, and your existence will shape events during this pivotal moment in history. Next-gen gameplay – The proprietary engine developed from the ground up for Xbox 360 allows organic game design featuring open gameplay, intuitive control scheme, realistic interaction with environment, and a fluid, yet sharp, combat mechanic.

Game Features
- Four PC-exclusive investigation missions make the game an even better experience than its console predecessors, including the Rooftop Race Challenge, a race to a specified location and the Archer Stealth Assassination Challenge, where the player must assassinate all archers in a certain zone to help out fellow Assassins.
- Experience a living, breathing world in which all your actions have consequences. Crowds react to your moves and will either help or hinder you on your quests.
- Eliminate your targets wherever, whenever, and however. Stalk your prey through detailed and historically accurate environments. Scale buildings, mount horses, blend in with crowds.
- This game immerses you in the Holy Land of the 12th century, featuring life-like graphics, ambiance, and the detail of a living world.
- Find action blended with fluid and precise animations. Use a wide range of medieval weapons, and face your enemies in sword fight duels.

Minimum System Requirements
- OS: Windows XP / Vista
- CPU: Dual core processor 2.6 GHz Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ or better recommended)
- RAM: 1 GB Windows XP / 2 GB Windows Vista
- VGA: 256 MB DirectX 10.0–compliant video card or DirectX 9.0–compliant card with Shader Model 3.0 or higher
- SB: DirectX 9.0 or 10.0 compliant sound card (5.1 sound card recommended)
- HDD: 8 GB free space

Just look at the plot, it’s like during the ancient ages. But I kept wondering why is there the “tech effect” around?I didn’t read more about this game. So not until yesterday when I watched Orange tried to play the game, I get the answer to my question. It’s actually a plot is something like that…

The overall story within Assassin’s Creed is set in September 2012. Desmond Miles, a bartender, has been kidnapped by unknown people prior to the start of the game, and is brought to a building belonging to Abstergo Industries, where researchers are working on a project involving a machine called the Animus. The Animus is able to extract memories from the DNA of the user, passed on from descendant to descendant, allowing the user to replay those memories as if he were there himself. Desmond was “chosen” for the project due to his relationship to his ancestor Altaïr Ibn La-Ahad… [Source]

Here’s some high defenition screenshots of the game. (Click the image for larger view)

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This is a forwarded email from APPLE. As much as I like it, let this be a warning to the others who like to drink fresh sugarcane aswell.

Please take 2 mins to read this.
This email was sent by a friend whose father is working with the Ministry of the Environment in S’pore.

Health News – About Sugar Cane Drinks

A friend whose father works for the government health inspection passed on his info. Their job is to inspect all hawkers, their cooked food, their store hygiene, etc. They found sugar cane juice has the highest content of bacteria among all food. In fact, it has exceeded the set limit.

Hence, these guys had to find out why. They went round all sugar cane stores and watched the way the hawkers handled their sugar cane, wash their glasses, their entire procedure. But they couldn’t find the problem.

One day, they stayed till closing time and discovered some shocking facts! Whenever, the hawkers closed their stores, they would wash the floor with detergent.. As we know, the remaining sugar canes will be placed at the back of the store, vertically standing and as sugar canes are very porous, they tend to absorb whatever liquid around them. Besides the soapy water, the dirt on hawkers’ boots, cats’ urine, etc, will all be absorbed?? Now, whenever I eat at a hawker centre, I would warn all my friends about this and of course I stopped drinking my favorite sugar cane juice.

A friend, who loved sugar cane juice, was pregnant. She was always drinking sugar cane juice. Anyway, one day she miscarried and the fetus was already like 6 or 7 months old, I think. When the doctors did an autopsy to find out why all of a sudden the fetus had died inside her, they found traces of some chemical substance, which was found in cat urine. Large traces of it.

While it would not be able to harm adults, it was extremely toxic to babies, what more a fetus? So they tried to determine how this cat urine thing could have ended up in the fetus. This meant that it had to be digested by the mother, right? And the only logical conclusion they could come up with was that since these sugar cane juice stall holders just leave the canes lying around on the wet and dirty floor, it would not be impossible to think that stray cats could have peed on those sugar canes or near those sugar canes. So think carefully the next time you order that favorite sugar cane juice!

Please pass this on to everyone you know in S’pore & M’sia. Let’s take action to make this world a better & safer place for all of us & the generations to come..

Soapy water, detergent, cat urine.. please take a good look at your hawker stall the next time you want to drink fresh sugarcane. I know I will.

Are you ready to play around with lots of creatures? Are you ready to create your very own creatures? EA games has released a new series of PC game known as Spore.

Take a look at the following video review from GameSpot.

Create your own universe, create your own creatures and start the amazing journey with Spore!

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