How To Hide A Blog Post

You can not actually hide a blog post. However, their are ways to make it hard to find. Here is what you can do:

Hiding A Blog Page:
Hiding a blog page is simple. To do it all you need to do is replace the Link Roll that Blogger automatically places on your page when you create a page. Simply set the option to No Link's, I will do it myself. Then the page is successfully hidden. Unfortunatly this hides all of your pages. To solve this you want to add your own links. Go to the Design page and Add A Gadget. Then choose one of the many link options availible and put the pages you want unhidden in it. Your all done.

Hiding A Blog Post:
This is a little harder to do. This method does not hide your blog posts entirly it just makes them hard to find. To do this write your blog post as normal. Then click Post Options at the bottom of your editor window. This gives you a bunch of fun options to choose from. You can tell it to allow comments or not. Edit how the post interprets HTML and change how your post will appear. Select Scheduled At under the Post Date and Time option. Then all you need to do to hide your post is type a date that has already happened. For example a date from 2010 or 2009. This will place the post there in your link roll. This effectivly hides your post. However, people will still be able to find the link if they navigate to the date of your post in your Blog Archive or through a Search.

This is the only way I have discovered to hide a post using Blogger. Hope it helps.

Denying Experience

Denying creep (minions) is not possible in League of Legends. Mostly this is because it is weird. Who goes around killing their own teammates? No one. It's cause it's weird.

Anyway. There are plenty of ways to get ahead in the experience column.

1. The first method is simple. I like to call it Creep Blocking. basically it is when you force enemy champions away from the battling creep. This is easily accomplished as a ranged hero because you can simply attack the enemy and harass them until they run away.
2. The next method is not really a method at all. The strategy is called last hitting. As you may (or may not) know. You only gain gold on creep kills if you score the killing blow. To last hit effectively you want to sit back waiting for a minion's health to drop to a low enough level before you stab or shoot it to kill it. This gives you the gold you want. Doing this effectively can result in a lot of extra gold on your side.
3. Sometimes it is best not to kill minions. Usually this occurs at low levels. Say the enemy has not shown up to the lane yet. in order to deny them some experience you simply sit around and only score last hits. This will result in a few of your minions dying. If they die before an enemy champion shows up then they are out that experience and your already ahead of them.
4. After you have ganked an enemy lane or simply gotten rid of the enemies in the lane and you have some time on your hands. You should attempt to push to the enemies tower. This does two things. First, the minions die to the tower and deny the enemy both gold and XP. Second, you can deal significant damage to the enemy tower.

While none of these methods will result in a huge difference in level or XP they can result in enough to change a fight. An extra level means one more ability and extra stats. Usually (but not always) you will find that the higher level team has a higher KD and, more often than not, ends up winning the game.

Keep this in mind when you play a game: Harass often and harass with force. An enemy that is always on the defensive is a broken enemy.

Also, I just found this LoL Rap. I find it... interesting.

League of Legends - Basic Strategy

Yesterday we covered some of the minor things in LoL: Chatting, and vocabulary. Now it is time to do some of the more advanced stuff. Today we will be covering some basic strategy. Unfortunately LoL does not support replays yet so I can't give you any in game examples.

Juking
The brush in LoL provides many great opportunities for unique strategies. One of those strategies is juking. How this works is simple. When running from a foe you enter a bush and wait there. They will likely attempt to run through the bush as fast as possible. Using this to your advantage you can run back towards them extending your lead ahead of them again. This strategy is only worth it when you are closely trailed.

Flash
Flash is a versatile summoner spell and can be used to enter or exit battle quickly. This is only part of it's uses. For running away ghost provides a much better and longer way of getting away. However, Flash can be used to close distances faster and surprise enemies who think they are getting away. What makes Flash so useful however is that you can use it to cross small borders and walls. For example on Summoner's Rift you may use Flash to cross into the base at any point. You can also use Flash to cross lines of trees when running through the jungle.

Team Building
Teamwork is what makes a good team. Without it you will not win the game. Building your team is what you need to know how to do. A good team should have a balance of Magic and Physical Hero's. A good team should have a tank, nuker, assassin and fighter. Balance is what makes a good team. A team that has too many physical damaging champions can be easily defeated by armor. Conversely a team of too many magic users can be defeated with magic resist. This is why you need to create a team that works well together. For example a team of Lux, Rammus, Katrina, Malzahar and Pantheon is fairly well balanced. However a team of Rammus, Allistar, Pantheon, Akali, Blitzcrank is clearly too focused on physical damage. The other team buying thornmail could easily defeat this team.

Ganking
To execute a deadly and efficient gank, teamwork is the most important part. Target the damage dealing nukers first when ganking. Ryze, Malzahar, Annie and Ashe are all extremely weak and easily killed in the first few seconds of a gank. Killing these strong but squishy characters quickly can make you win a fight you might have lost. Teamwork can win or loose a fight for you. A team with no teamwork will always lose to a team with teamwork. Remember this and even if you are fighting a losing battle you can win the fight with Teamwork.

Well, thats it for this tutorial. We will be covering even more strategies tomorrow so stay tuned. 

Guide To League of Legends - Getting Started

This week is all about teaching people how to play League of Legends. As a player myself and a huge fan of DotA I can't say how awesome I find the game to be.

This however is not a "this is what League of Legends is" or a "start playing League of Legends" list of tutorials. This is going to introduce you to how to play League of Legends. The terms you need to know, the strategies and how the game works. Hopefully after you have read all the articles you will know how to play the game.

Terms
Here is a breakdown of all the terms and phrases you will hear and see while playing League of Legends. If you don't know these then you need to learn them, they are critical for your survival.

•  MIA - Whenever an enemy is not visible they are MIA. If they run into the brush or are changing lanes, they are MIA. If they run out of your sight and disappear, they are MIA. Whenever a champion goes MIA make sure to call it so your teammates will not be flanked.
• Mis - Short for missing. The same as MIA.
• RE - The key to calling MIA's is being as early as possible so your allies have the highest chance of being able to escape a gank. If you call an MIA and the champion returns then typing RE lets your allies know that the MIA has returned.
• Gank - A gank's definition can change depending on the team size and who your playing with. For general purposes though a gank is whenever an unevenly matched fight occurs. for example a 2v1 is a gank. Additionally a 3v2 is a gank. So is a 3v1, 5v1 or any other combination that is similar. When it comes down too 5v4 the line becomes blurred. Usually though a gank is when a champion is swarmed by enemy hero's and overwhelmed.
• Tower Dive (Also called Turret Dive or just Dive) - This is when you run into the fire of an enemy turret or tower to kill an enemy. This is relatively risky, especially at low levels when only a few hits will deal lethal damage.
•  KS or Kill Steal - When one player deals a large majority of damage and another champion shows up and deals the killing blow. You want to avoid this if possible because usually teammates will not be happy if you do. As a general rule do not take a kill but remain close enough to execute the killing blow should the enemy slip away.
• AFK - Away From Keyboard. Usually this means someone is taking a shower, eating or just left. An AFK player may also occur if someone decides to leave their champion without leaving the battlefield. Usually this occurs when someone has just given up and doesn't want to suffer the consequences of a leave.
• Leaver - Someone who leaves the game.
• Lat or Latency - This is the number of milliseconds between packages received from the server. In none nerd speak: a low latency means you are connecting to the server quickly and receiving plenty of updates. A high latency means you are connecting to the server slowly and receiving limited updates. For example a latency of 100 (a good goal) means that you receive 10 updates a second telling where everyone is and relaying your moves to the other players. A latency of 2000 means that every 2 seconds you are sending a message to the server. This causes severe lag.
• FPS - The Frames Per Second or number of times per second that the screen is updated. 30-60 is a good goal for this.
• Squishy - Describes a character that is very weak or easily killed. 

Chat Control and Emotes
 While chatting your character has a few select emotes that they can use. Additionally adding certain strings of characters at the beginning of a message will have certain effects.

• "/d" or "/dance" - Your champion will dance.
• "/t" or "/taunt" - Your champion will taunt the enemy.
• "/l" or "/laugh" - Your Champion will laugh.
• "/j" or "/joke" - Your Champion will tell a joke.
• "/r" - This will reply to the last person who sent you an out of game message. For example "/r Who?" would send a message of Who? to whoever sent a message to you last.
• /ignore" - Use this to ignore a certain player.
• "/all" - Sends a message to everyone. This is the same as Shift + Enter. 

Anyway, I hope that helps and stay tuned for more updates to learn how to play League of Legends.

Make It Move

This is going to be a quick tutorial on making an object, a prefab and assigning a script to it.

Alright starting from where we left off yesterday. Select the code you have in your game. Set it's position to 0,0,0 and rotation to the same. Now select your camera and set it's position to 10,0,0 and rotation to 0,0,0. This should have your cube in the center of the screen when you start your game.

Now Create a folder in your game assets menu and call it prefabs. Not right click on the folder and select Create -> Prefab. This creates a blank Prefab or Object Template for you. In your scene Hierarchy view select your cube and drag it onto the new Prefab you have created. Now whenever you want to create a cube all you have to do is insert your newly created prefab. Simple! Name your prefab whatever you want by right clicking and selecting rename. I used "Ship".

Now create a second new folder and call it Scripts. Within this folder we want to create a new JavaScript code. This is found under Create -> JavaScript. Now open your code and paste this code into the text editor:

var vspeed : float = 3;

var hspeed : float = 5;

var vvel : float = 0;

var hvel : float = 0;

var fric : float = 2;

function Update () {

hvel += Input.GetAxis("Horizontal")*hspeed*Time.deltaTime;

vvel += Input.GetAxis("Vertical")*vspeed*Time.deltaTime;

if (!Input.GetAxis("Horizontal"))

hvel /= fric;

if (!Input.GetAxis("Vertical"))

vvel /= fric;

//Update Position:

transform.position.z += hvel;

transform.position.y += vvel;

}

Save this code and rename the script as "FlightControls" (No Space!). Now we want to make our cube/ship run this script so that it flies around the room. To do this is very simple. Select your prefab object and then drag the script you created from the Asset menu to the Object Properties menu (the farthest one on the right). Just drop it on the object and it should be added to the object.

Now delete the cube you have in your game. To get it back simply drag the prefab you created onto the game scene. You should see a cube around your mouse as you do this. Once you have placed it make sure that you have set it's position to 0,0,0.

Now run your game.

You should have a cube that you can move with WASD or the Arrow Keys around your room. If you run the cube off the screen then don't worry you can always restart the game.

The movement controls in the script are controlled in the script. However, if you look at the script, you will see that the W,A,S,D or any of the arrow keys are referenced. This is because Unity maps key axis for you in the Input menu. To access and change these settings is very simple. Just go to Edit -> Project Settings -> Input. Then click the arrow next to Axes to open the menu and view all possible Axes the script could have used. Arrow keys in Unity are referenced by their direction. The Left Arrow is titled "left" (without quotes) while the Right one is titled "right" (Again without the quotes). This means that you can easily change the controls of your game without having to fish through your scripts.

Thats all for today. It looks like Tutorial Week might have to be extended seeing as tomorrow is Friday and we have barely gotten to the programming yet... I guess I have the time.

Lights, Camera, Action!

Time to start our little game.

First off you are going to need to open Unity. Once your done give yourself a nice pat on the back. Step one complete!

Now we want to start a new project called "Overload". Click on File -> New Project. This opens the New project dialog. Find a place you want your ame to be located in. Make sure it's something easy like:

C:\My Games\Unity\

You don't something that is so hard to find you have to spend 10 minutes getting there because you will be going there a lot. Something like this is very, very bad:

C:\My Games\ABC\123\DoRaMe\Lalala\Unity\New Folder\WTFisThis\gameFold3r

In side this folder make sure to create a new folder titled "Overload", "Unity Tutorial" or something you will remember. Navigate inside this folder and click the Select Folder button.

 Now you want to select the components that you want included in your game. We will not be using any of the default things so leave them all unchecked for this tutorial. However if you are curious what this does then select the Light Flares option. This loads premade "Flares" that you can stick on lights (more on that later).

Now you should see a nice gray screen on the top left, a grayer screen on the right and another few panels below the big gray screen. You should also see some fun buttons on the top of the screens.

Now I'm going to tell you what each of these areas do. PS: I'm sorry about the color job. Apparently I didn't save the cool looking one so I went back and redid it. It doesn't look nearly as good... my bad.

• Orange: This section is your standard buttons. File, Edit etc. You can change the Layout in Window and use the Game Objects and Components parts to add them to your game or object. Also the Assets menu will allow you to import and handle your games assets.
• Red: These are your game testing controls. You have a play button (if clicked while playing stops the game), a pause button (guess what that does) and a step button. The play and pause are pretty easy to use. The step is harder. It runs a single frame of your game and then pauses it again. This is pretty much the "Hyper Slo-Mo" version. You can use this to debug or to see how your code works every step of the way.
• Blue: This is the Game Screen. This window provides a view into the world of your game. While what you see here will not always appear that way ingame you will be using this screen to set up almost every part of your game. From level design to visual effects.
• Purple: This will provide details on the Item selected in the Yellow section of the menu. This screen shot shows the script that the current file "FlightControls" contains. This menu is customized to the object selected.
• Cyan: In this screen you see absolutely nothing. But if you select a graphic, model or material this will show you a preview that you can rotate and play with to see how everything works.
• Yellow: The yellow menu is a list of all game Assets your project contains. This is your game. All the data (models, textures, scripts, worlds etc) are all located here. Needless to say this can get extremely cluttered if you don't organize it. How you organize it is up to you but I recommend keeping all objects, prefabs, materials, scripts and such in different folders. It makes things easier.
• Green: This section is all the objects in your world. This gives you a simple display of all the objects in the game world. It is very handy when you start creating new objects in-game and want to make sure they go away (we will be covering this shortly).   

All right. Now that you know where everything is, lets make something simple.

You will notice that your game already has an object in it. The object titled "Main Camera". For sake of tutorial purposes we are going to delete that object. Click on it in the bottom left box. Notice that it will show a camera preview and four lines will come out of the object. These lines are the cameras sight lines. The Preview box shows a quick preview of what the camera will see when the game starts. Also notice that the inspector (right menu) is full of fun information that you don't understand. Fun huh? This displays the objects positions in space, it's rotation and scale (for camera's the scale means nothing). The other menus will be looked into in later tutorials. For now just hit the Delete key (NOTE: This is different than the backspace).

Now you can't see anything! Why did you do that! You can't have a game without a camera fool. O well, I guess your just learning. Let me help you fix that. Click on the GameObject menu at the top of the screen. Select Create Other -> Camera. This will make a new camera and select it for you. Notice the objects position is some crazy coordinates. Lets change that. Set the camera position to 0,0,0 (X,Y,Z). Now for fun lets change the camera's rotation. I'll let you choose how you want to point your camera but to do it we will not be typing it in. See those 4 buttons above the Game View? The Hand, The Compass points, The rotating symbol and the scale symbol. Choose the one you think will work and watch as your camera is surrounded by orbs. You can click on these and drag to rotate your camera to whatever position you want. Do so now.

Now lets add cube to the game. Go to GameObjects -> Create Other -> Cube. This will make and select a cube for you. Set the cubes position to 0,0,0 and look at your camera preview (Your camera should be inside your cube). What do you see? Nothing. This is because you are inside the cube. To solve this Select the second of the four buttons (the one to the left of the rotate command) this will create 3 arrows around your object. They allow you to move the object along it's X,Y and Z axis. Using this and some logic drag the cube into the view of your camera. Now hit play. You should see something like this:

Your cube hardly looks like a cube right? Well we can fix that. Lets add some lights!

First lets add a spotlight from the Camera. A flashlight if you will. Select your Camera and click on the Component Menu and navigate to Rendering and select Light. This will create a sphere of light emitted from the Camera. But we don't want that! You will notice that a new menu was added in the Object Inspector (the Right Menu). The new menu should be called "Light" and you should notice that an abundance of menu's is available. All you have to do is select the "type" option and click Spot. This will change the light from a sphere of light to a cone of light. Much better for a flashlight. Note: If you selected directional this will apply light across the entire Scene. You probably don't want that.

Now your cube should have some life! To make this look better make sure your cube is farther away from the camera than the above screen shot and that you can see at least three sides. Unfortunately the free version of Unity does not allow you to use Shadows. This means that you are going to have a rather unrealistic amount of light in your scenes. If this bugs you try a different engine or make use of Projectors and Blob Shadows (Not covered here). Or you could find some money and buy Unity...

That's all for now. I'm trying to install new drivers and they are screwing with my display. I can't even open Unity anymore. If you are having trouble or something doesn't make sense then make sure you comment below with your questions.

Next time we will write a script and import our ship!

Also, I hid the Wallpaper Wednesday Secret Link in here somewhere. Can you find it?

Their is 15 of them!

Designing Your Ship

For the game you will need to create a spaceship you want the player to fly. I will be uploading mine once I finish texturing it.

Here is a screen of making it. I have a few textures done from just quick sketches in Paint.Net.

A little more than a simple car.

The ship is an interesting futuristic design that just sort of happened. If you have any suggestions their is a comments field below. I should have the textures done sometime tomorrow.

We should get to some coding and actual tutorials in a day or two. I already have added basic flight controls and missiles. Now for your main guns and enemies (at least as far as the coding goes) then we can start adding some more... interesting... features.

If you want to create your own model for use in the game feel free to go ahead. You can use blender or find the model on Turbosquid. You will have to change a few things mentioned in the tutorials when we do Particle Systems and Weapons but otherwise a custom model will work fine.

Building Up Static

It's time for tutorial week!

The week will be divided into steps. Each new post will be a new step or process. If you already know how to do something (or just don't want to listen to me) you can click the Next Post button at the bottom of the page.

The game we are going to be creating is, at the moment, called Overload. Were going to make it in Unity. The game is going to be a side scrolling shooter.

What you will need (Total Cost: Free!)

• A copy of Unity (The free version will work fine). Get it here.
• A Web Browser. Any one will work.
• A Turbosquid Account. We will be using free models from this site. Sign up here.
• A Photo Editing Software. Paint.Net, Gimp or Photoshop will work.
• Some Time.

If you need any more resources I will be uploading them. Additionally I will be uploading a finished version of the game once I have finished it.

Important: If you ever want to suggest something than just let me know.

League of Legends - My Shaco Guide

 I play LoL... a lot. Though hardly as much as some other people. One of my main hero's is Shaco (because who doesn't like a deadly clown assassin?) and I have been told I'm good with him so I'm going to write this guide to (hopefully) help you get good with him as well.

My Items:

• Start Every game with a Cloth Armor and 5 Health Pots. Shaco is relatively squishy and this helps solve that. This build also sets you up great for farming minions and jungeling as Madred's Razors is only a small way away.
• Once you get enough gold you want to finish your Madred's Razor and start working on your boots. You are going to want a lot of attack speed for this build to work so you will be building Berserker's Greaves.
• After you have your boots start working on your Phantom Dancer. You will want to start out by building Zeal first before buying the other two items for it.
• Next build an Executioners Calling. This gives Life Steal and increased Crit Chance (this is even better when you get an Infinity Edge) 
• After you have your first Phantom Dancer and Executioners Calling what you build is up to you. Their are three things I would recommend: Infinity Edge (For crazy crits), Madred's Bloodrazor (If your playing against tanks) or another Phantom Dancer.
• Infinity Edge:
• Pros: Increases Crit Damage
• Cons: Expensive
• Madreds Bloodrazor:
• Pros: Great for Damage, Good vs Tanks
• Cons: Items cost a lot to get
• Phantom Dancer:
• Pros: Move faster still, Increases Attack Speed and Crit Chance
• Cons: Attacking a ton is no good vs a tank usually.

 That about covers the build. Once you get this far in if you haven't won yet then build a different one of the three final items. If you lack creativity then build three Phantom Dancers and watch your opponents shudder (not the most effective but definitely the most amusing method).


Runes:
 For runes I build AD, Armor and Cooldown Reduction with Attack Damage Quints. I prefer to take the strait bonus rather than the scaling one because my strategy involves getting ahead fast. That's about all you should need to know in order to get it right. If not, here is a pic:

 

And that about sums up my runes.


Summoner Spells:
I take ignite and flash. Ignite is great and can be used to add extra damage and reduce healing on tough opponents. Flash is a second deceive that allows you to cover most of Twisted Treeling in a matter of seconds.


Play Style:
 Shaco is a great hero for 3v3. Thus I primarily play on Twisted Treeline to better out manuever my opponents. This advice is mainly for those that play 3v3 though some of it can be carried over to 5v5's on Summoners Rift.

Should you take top? Yes and no. If your team lacks a carry than yes you should. However if you are playing with skilled players and have a Trynd or other carry let them take top.

If you do take top then do some dancing around hitting whoever your against with an occasional poison dagger. Once you reach level 2 and if the enemy is not a tank you should be able to deceive behind them (make sure your behind to benefit from Shaco's passive) and attack. They should start running away almost immediately. Keep hitting them without throwing your dagger. Finally when it seems they might get away throw your dagger to finish them off. Always cast ignite immediately after you start attacking them from behind (not before because it breaks stealth) to maximize the damage they take and reduce effects of potions the enemy should have. Also remember during this first kill that you have a second deceive (flash) hidden up your sleeve. If the opponent dodges out of reach or spins away then flash up to them and finish them off.

After the first kill you should do fine. Whoever your against will leave you alone since they will be lower level than you and you will now own the battle.

Map Awareness goes hand in hand with a 3v3 Shaco. If you play Shaco you need to know where everyone else is. If your allies get ganked you have the resources to get to them in five seconds and eliminate the entire enemy team. You need to be able to take advantage of that. Shaco is capable of deceiving over walls in the Twisted Treeline and, since the bottom lane is easily ambushed, Shaco has the resources to leave the top lane and kill an enemy that has pushed to far (anywhere beyond midway) before the top lane can call MIA. You need to learn how to employee this skill and use it too your advantage.

Shaco also has a powerful ultimate that can make him easily take out towers. Use your clone to tank the damage from a tower as you bash it to pieces. You may need to do this a few times per tower but in the end a dead tower is a dead tower. Remember: you can control Shaco's clone with the Alt key. Rather than run away with a clone following use the clone to harass or misdirect the enemy. A clone bomb can do significant damage and if two Shaco's run in two different directions they are almost impossible to kill.

Shaco is also capable of soloing the dragon by level 9 and the Lizard by level 6. Once you reach level 9 wait for your ult. Jump to the dragon and hit him while deceived. Cast your Jack in the Box and clone and destroy the dragon. When done right you take no more than 200 dmg (although you lose your clone). Start taking the dragon at every possible instant you can. This gives your team a huge boost over the enemy.

When it comes to the end game remember that Shaco is a powerful dodger. I have won multiple games where I have run circles around the enemies Nexus at 100 health or less while casually dropping hits on it as well. When you play enemies that must use skill shots to kill you (Lux is a good example) than you will want to use all your resources to stay alive as long as possible. As soon as you enter a patch of brush drop a Jack in the Box. When someones following you Deceive over a wall or back the way you came. Use your daggers to slow an enemy for a short time while you make your getaway (this is particularly effective vs melee hero's) or your clone to confuse them. Shaco is the #1 getaway champion in League of Legends and you don't want to die more than you have too.

I hope this helps all of you noobs (or not so noobs) that want to play Shaco. He's a fun hero... trust me.


If you don't play League of Legends make sure to join the fun here.

Tutorial Week is on the way

Next week at Beneath The Wake (right here) each day a tutorial will be posted.

At the moment these look like they are going to be based on creating your own game in either Game Maker, Esenthel Engine or Unity. If you are interested let me know which engine you would prefer.

The Tutorials are going to cover:

• Spriting and Model Making in Maya/Blender and Paint.Net
• Basic Programming
• Creating a Game
• More Advanced Programming
• Other Features (Time Keeping, Surfaces and more)

The game you create will depend on the Game Engine that I choose. However you should make sure you vote in the poll to the right on which Engine you would prefer.

Game Maker will cover coding in GML.
Esenthel will cover coding in C++.
Unity will cover coding in Java.

Light Cube

So I was browsing my Rainmeter RSS (Learn more about rainmeter here) when I saw this.

If I have the time I might have to try to make one of these things.

I have zero skill in making things like this but I don't care. It looks fun so I figure now is a great time to spice things up. If I finish this it should make my dorm a lot cooler.

If you are interested in learning more check out these sites:

• The Original Article: www.lifehacker.com/5741171/diy-led-cube-is-a-geektastic-and-addressable-light-source
• The Tutorial: www.instructables.com/id/Led-Cube-8x8x8/

It looks bad ass am I right?

Tips to Improve Your Blog

Here is a few tips and tricks I have picked up along the way that you may find useful to improve your blog.

• Advertising. I recently did an article about blog advertising. Read it. Forums, Reddit and Facebook are great places to get more people to show up.
• Keep Your Ads out of people's way. Sites such as Infolinks and more provide an out of the way link that only interested users will use. Placing thousands of ads may sound like a good idea but it keeps people from wanting to come back. People visit blogs for information not ads.
• Themes. Lets face it, the stock blog templates are boring. However you can find some great free ones to give your blog some attitude at btemplates.com or by using google. These templates vary in columns and more and can be easily uploaded to your blog.
• Content. Make it interesting and make it easy to read. Spelling errors, huge sentences and flashy pictures can get in the way of people reading your blog posts. Keep it clean.
• Keep your blog up-to-date. Try to post a new article every day. This tells people that your still their and are still keeping the site up. This is easiest to do if you set aside a small amount of your day (say 15-30 minutes) to post on your blog. Try to keep this time similar every day as you will find it easier that way.
• Check out the help sites. Their are hundreds of "How to blog" sites that explain everything in this article and more. These sites will give you the advantage you are looking for over the blog next to yours.
• Look at other succesful blogs. Look at the featured Blog of Note. These sites are choosen for a reason! Try to mimic what they do and you will see results.
• A domain name helps make your site/blog look more legit. Not saying that it isn't.

Here is a list of blogs that I recommend looking at:

1. Rorschach Redemption - A blog about what he enjoys. Notice how he interacts with his users. You should try to do this too.
2. Tech 'n Things - This blog has a focus. It shows you how to do what you don't know how to do.
3. ¡Viva Suciô! - This is an original blog that twists your reality into something not entirly unlike a pink chicken.

Here are two sites you may want to use for tips and tricks in the blogging world:

1. Blogger Tips and Tricks
2. Blogger Tutorials

Custom Apps for the Zune HD or Zune

 Alright, yesterday I posted about trying to get custom apps on my Zune HD. I was successful, well at least partially. You can find out how to run custom Zune Apps on your Zune by visiting this site: http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/download-xna-applications/47143-howto-deploying-apps-zune-hd.html. The page describes how to do everything you will need to do.

Now for the setbacks:

• Since the Zune was not designed for this and it is not Microsoft Supported you risk getting a virus.
• You need to download over 200 megabyets of software.
• Their still are not that many games out there (only a hundred or so, I didn't count)
• When you close an XNA game or app on your Zune it will restart. Like turning it off and turning it on again. This means you lose the songs you were listening to.
• XNA games lack the ability to run 3D. Even though the Zune fully supports 3D images.

Their is a light at the end of the tunnel however. OpenZDK was developed by some hackers over at zuneboards.com. It allows you to use 3D and avoid the problems you face when running an XNA game. I have yet to try a OpenZDK game/app yet so I can't say if they are worth it or not.

Anyway, if you want custom apps on your Zune then you know where to go. Thats right, right here.

Finally you can see a list of all the games I found here: http://www.zuneboards.com/forums/download-xna-applications-207/.

Currently Zuneboards is the only site I found for these hacked games. Enjoy.

Add Your Site to the Blogofractal

I did some thinking and some wondering and a little dance and I had this idea: do I really need to write about all the sites on the blogofractal myself? I came to the answer of no.

So here is how to do it:
I set up a "secret" email that you can use to submit any site you please.

To learn how to take advantage of this and submit your own blog or somebody else's please read the page for submitting Blogofractal sites here (http://blogofractal.blogspot.com/p/submit-site.html)

Feel free to submit your own site if you like.

Favicon's

If you just visited this site you will notice something is new. I have created a custom favicon for it. You can create your own favicon for your blog and here is how:

1. Find the image a roughly square png,gif or jpeg.
2. Go to this site: http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/
3. Select your favicon in the browse pane.
4. Click "Create Icon"
5. You should see a demo of your favicon below.
6. Now click Download Favicon
7. Go to your blogger page
8. click on Design and Edit HTML.
9. Press ctrl+F to access the find menu.
10. type: /head into the find pane.
11. Go a little above /head
12. paste the following code: <link rel="shortcut icon" type="image/x-icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
13. go to picasa.com and upload your new favicon icon.
14. Replace "/favicon.ico" with the image URL of your uploaded image.
15. Save the Template.
16. View your blog to make sure it worked.

You have your own icon now!

The current image I have for my site is currently just a temporary one. It will probably be used for my Blogofractal. For those that don't know it is a Mandelbrot Set one of the first computer fractals.

Also remember that you need to put the code at the bottom or it will be replaced by bloggers default.

Hope that helps, enjoy.

Run Multiple Operating Systems at Once

So you want to run Windows 7 and Ubuntu at the same time? No problem.

All you need is a disk of the operating system that you want and a copy of the free VMware Player. This allows you to run multiple Operating Systems at once by opening a window in the default (boot) OS and allowing you to have as many open as you wish.

Once you have installed your Virtual Machine on your computer you just need to start it up and stick your second Operating System's Disk or ISO in your drive. Then just setup the machine and your ready to go.

You can even customize how much RAM and Hard Drive space you want to donate to your Virtual Machines.

What this means is that you can easily switch Operating Systems without having to reboot your computer. It's easy to do and simple to understand.

It may also be a good idea to make a clean install of your default OS and use that to test new games and more that you download from the internet. A Virtual Machine is isolated from your computer and thus any virus that crashes your Virtual Machine will not harm your computer. Instead it will simply cause the program to become unresponsive and a simple ctrl+alt+del can fix that.

Get your VMware Player here.

Email All in One

This is just a quick tutorial on how to compile all of the mail you get, from multiple emails, into one inbox.

First off you need a gmail account: gmail.com. Next you need to click "settings" at the top of the page. Next you need to go to the "Accounts and Import" tab. Once there you will need to scroll down to find "Add POP3 email account". Then all you need to do is enter your account info and gmail will do the rest.

This service works for most email providers. So if you want you can add your email from college or another account. It's up to you.