Wooters Consumer Blog - Ipod, Credit cards, Car Stereos, Cigars

I know, it’s a stretch of a statement but come on this game is great!  From the first time I sat down and started playing this thing I could not stop.  I have never been a very big fan of the turn based games but this game is different.  From the battle scenes to the faction upkeep there is always something that needs to be done.  When this game first came out it was an instant hit.  Copies were flying off the shelves as gamers were hooked on the game play and battle scenes.

Then Kingdoms busted onto the scene and it was donned the best game of 2005 almost instantly.  With all new factions to control, including the Mayans, Incas, and other native American tribes the options were endless.  All new powers were to be learned from these new factions, and ways of battle.

Above:  Battle Scene of archers firing away.

As you can see in the picture above the graphics are flawless as well (As long as you have a good video card, I would recommend at least a Geforce 7 series or higher).  There are different zoom levels that can be achieved during battle scenes and while you are over the faction map.

Above:  The Faction Map

Some of the different factions include: Germany, Spain, Moors, England, France, The Holy Roman Empire, Denmark, Milan, Poland, and many others.  It’s fun to see what each faction has for strengths and weakness.

Above: Battle Scene - Overtaking a Castle

One of the most fun things to do is to besiege a castle.  You build besieging equipment such as ladders, battering rams, and large structures for climbing enemy walls.  Taking over the castles is reason enough to play the game in the first place.  You can either starve out the enemy or attack them at the walls.

Overall this game gets a solid 8/10 rating form us here at Wooters! enjoy!

Upon the arrival of Microsoft Windows Vista last year many people were either scared or just plain not ready for it.  If you ask me they released the software way too early for their own good.  Just when Windows XP was getting good and stable they want to throw a rather non stable power hungry monster on us.  This Operating System(OS) relies upon a heavy processor and at least 2 gigabytes of Ram to run applications smoothly.

Above: Vista Ultimate Retail Version

Upon the release of Service Pack 3 on XP they were just getting ready to release Service Pack 1 for Vista.  Why you ask?  Let me preface by saying that I have been running Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate since it’s inception so I have some background on it.  Let’s just start with some of the initial problems with Vista…

1.  4 GB sticks of Ram would crash my start up screen, yes you guessed it… as soon as I made it only 3 sticks it ran just fine.

2.  Don’t even try to run SLI with Vista, because it will not work!  Huh!? Are you kidding me?  For all of us gamers and heavy graphics users this is a must.  I have to be able to run my 8800GTX cards side by side to hit over 100 fps on most games and graphics apps.

3.  A lot of games were not compatible with Vista… They are now coming out with more and more patches for these games but when it first came out, good luck with playing a lot of em.

4.  Heavy, Heavy processor useage!  My processor was running so hot you could fry an egg right on top of it!

Above: A screen shot of Vista using Aero

These are some of the things I ran into but I’m sure there are and were many more.  The service pack did not fix all of these issues either.  All in all Microsoft pushed us too hard and too fast onto Vista.  I think I’ll stick with my other 3 machines running XP in the house until it is no longer supported or the machines die.  Whichever is first.

For those of you who are web design/or web management people you may already know what open source is.  Open source is is a development methodology, which offers practical accessibility to a product’s source (goods and knowledge). Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations.

“Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.

The open source model of operation and decision making allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, and differs from the more closed, centralized models of development. The principles and practices are commonly applied to the development of source code for software that is made available for public collaboration, and it is usually released as open-source software.”

Now with that I give you one of the best open source software packages around PHPBB.  This is an open source forum software package that is second to none.  Admin’s are able to create forums, catagories, layout and much more in this software.  A great source of information on this software is PhpBB Plus.  The site has been around for a couple of years and has gone over some major overhauling.  Give it a good look and if you like it download the free software for your site.