The game publisher known as 2K is having a 10th anniversary sale on STEAM. Most titles are 50%-80% off. Check it out and save!
Monthly Archives: March 2015
Unreal Tournament 2015
For all the old school UT fans – this is a revamped version of the game. Looks VERY pretty! Will be downloading this to test!
STEAM-OS – Linux Gaming
http://store.steampowered.com/steamos
This is something that gamers have been talking about for a while now. Gaming on Linux.
Worldwide there’s an issue with software piracy – while games are pirated too the OS (Windows) is one software package that’s pirated the most. Even people that legitimately own Windows crack it at times due to Microsoft’s activation and licensing model. While games are also pirated there are a lot of gamers that buy their games but not their OS.
Valve Corporation is probably most known for their Half-Life game series. They are also the makers of STEAM which is a content delivery platform for games. What this allows is reinstallation of all your purchased games at any time with all your serials and installation files held in the cloud on your account. This means no need to worry about writing down serials or making multiple copies of installation discs – just remember your STEAM ID and password.
While Linux users have been using tools like WINE and CEDEGA (now under the GameTree Linux umbrella) persons that are not very Linux savvy would have issues getting things working properly.
Why would you want to switch to Linux? Well – for one thing – Linux is FREE SOFTWARE. There’s no need to purchase the OS and since it’s community driven it’s got drivers for almost everything. Support is in the community. And (mostly) Linux just works.
Valve has taken a huge leap into developing on Linux and has now released STEAM-OS. This is a Linux-based OS that gives you the freedom to play games without worrying about your Windows license. This means less crashes and more stability overall – but since this is new and still in beta, don’t expect miracles. Some things may not work the way you expect.
Head over to their site and get the necessary tools to test it out. Please bear in mind that the installation of Linux will require some computer know-how and may erase all the things on your current system. My recommendation is to have another machine to test this. If you have some computer knowledge or repair knowledge then use a different hard drive – disconnect your primary drive(s) – then do the installation. Remember to check the requirements for the installation as there are two options available. One will require a 1TB drive while the other will be setup just like a regular Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) installation.
Personally I’m glad that Valve/STEAM did this – more power to the gamer!
ALERT – Superfish On Lenovo
SOURCE: http://www.avg.com/campaign-landing-pages/ww-en/lenovo-superfish
Based on the information on that link you should remove this software immediately if you own a Lenovo PC.
A copy of the information from the AVG website is below for your convenience.
How to remove Superfish
and its certificate from your Lenovo® PC
What is Superfish?
Superfish is a piece of software that Lenovo has admitted to pre-installing on many of its laptops to “enhance the shopping experience” of its users. However, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team calls Superfish a “man-in-the-middle attack” because of how it “intercepts users’ web traffic to provide targeted advertisements.”
Why is Superfish so dangerous?
Superfish snoops in on your web browsing and secretly slips ads into webpages. But the really dangerous part is that it’s pre-installed with root certificate authority, which allows it to impersonate any server’s security certificate.
If this certificate is compromised by hackers, you could be tricked into logging in to a fake website and giving hackers your password. Because of Superfish, any of your accounts—including encrypted bank accounts—could be easily compromised.
Which computers are affected?
According to Lenovo, Superfish may have been pre-installed
on the following models:
E Series:
G Series:
S Series:
U Series:
Y Series:
Z Series:
Edge Series:
Flex Series:
MIIX Series:
YOGA Series:
E10-30
G410, G510, G710, G40-70, G50-70, G40-30, G50-30, G40-45, G50-45, G40-80
S310, S410, S40-70, S415, S415Touch, S435, S20-30, S20-30Touch
U330P, U430P, U330Touch, U430Touch, U530Touch
Y430P, Y40-70, Y50-70, Y40-80, Y70-70
Z40-75, Z50-75, Z40-70, Z50-70, Z70-80
Edge 15
Flex2 14D, Flex2 15D, Flex2 14, Flex2 15, Flex2 Pro, Flex 10
MIIX2-8, MIIX2-10, MIIX2-11, MIIX 3 1030
YOGA2Pro-13, YOGA2-13, YOGA2-11, YOGA3 Pro
Will restoring from a backup help?
Superfish has been pre-installed by Lenovo. Therefore, restoring your computer to factory condition from either a backup partition or a backup DVD will not solve the problem if Superfish is also part of your backup. Superfish would only be reinstalled, too.
So if you ever use a backup to restore your system, you may need to again remove Superfish and its root security certificate from your system.
Accidental Spyware Installation
In a previous entry we talked about recent viruses and spyware that have been on the rise in 2015. Here we will go through the installation of a program that we want which is bundled with spyware.
PowerISO is a disc image application for managing ISO and other images. It can be used to modify an image (add/remove files) and mount images as well. The problem is that it has bundled spyware in the installer. While some installers may have good programs bundled, the fact is that you don’t want any third-party programs – just the one that you downloaded. So let’s start the installation from the downloaded file.
We agree to the license and continue.
This is something that we don’t want – so we skip.
We don’t want this either – so go to CUSTOM and uncheck this then hit NEXT.
TuneUp Utilities is a good piece of software and was acquired by AVG who makes an antivirus package. While it is good, personally I don’t trust installing through a third party – so uncheck the box and click NEXT.
After all of that we finally get to where the files will be installed – and hit NEXT.
Once it’s done – NEXT.
Once we get to this point we’re done! Set up the virtual drives if you want – select the files you want to associate with the program and integrate with the Windows Shell if you want. I’d recommend unchecking the update option so that you don’t accidentally download and install anything you don’t want to. Just repeat the steps above if you do actually update.
If the options have changed in any newer versions in the future then just be sure you uncheck and skip all additional installations.