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Guild Wars’ first expansion has gone live and is now available for purchase from the Guild Wars Store at Plaync.com for $39.99.

Eye of the North advances the story and opens an unexpolored area of Tyria. The expansion also includes 18 multi-level dungeons, 150 new skills, 10 new heroes to aid you in your adaventure and 40 new armor sets.

“We think fans will find a lot to love in Guild Wars: Eye of the North,” said Mike O’Brien, co-founder of ArenaNet. “Not only do we go back to the original Guild Wars lands and stories to wrap up plots and themes fans have clamored to learn more about, but we’ve also built a bridge to the future through the Hall of Monuments. This will give loyal players a way to preserve what they’ve accomplished in Guild Wars over the past two years, and reclaim the legacy of their favorite characters in Guild Wars 2.”

Guild Wars 2 is expected to be in public beta in the second half of 2008. A cool addition with the expansion is the ability to take your armor sets, pets, and titles earned into Guild Wars 2.

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Activision announced today that they have signed an agreement with Scholastic Inc., to distribute two new titles to the DS. I SPY Fun House and Animal Genius will be released in North America for $29.99 and be rated E for Everyone.

“Scholastic is a worldwide leader in children’s publishing and education and we are delighted to have the opportunity to team up with them on these games,” said David Oxford, SVP for Activision Publishing, Inc. “I’m confident that the collaboration between Activision and Scholastic, will offer consumers exciting interactive entertainment experiences.”

I remember in elementary school running home with the Scholastic order sheet ready to order everything on it. My favorite school day was the day we received those orders. Scholastic did a great job with quality products to encourage reading to kids and it’s great to see them continue that trend into the video game industry.

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Gamecock and Auran announced today the ultimate battle where two elite gaming clans will face off in the new Player versus Player MMO, Fury.

Pandemic is a leader in the World of Warcraft Arena will battle against Flow Gaming which is one of the top FPS clans in the world. The match will be this Friday at 7pm. You can watch the game match video at fury.esportstv.com

“This is the beginning of something monumental,” said Tony Hilliam, CEO of Auran. “FURY bridges the gap between MMOs and FPS’s and we‘re confident it will make the perfect addition to the competitive gaming environment. This is will be our first showcase of the game in the competitive space and we are honored to have two top e-sports teams on board to fight it out. This will be the perfect lead-up event to our $1 Million Fury Challenge Open Beta event that starts September 15.”

I’m really curious about Fury. It sounds like an interesting mix between the two worlds of MMO’s and FPS. For me it will come down to controls. Because I’m horrible at FPS as it is, Fury could turn out quite difficult for me to play, but we’ll see!

Fury is scheduled for release on October 9. Visitors to CPL Dallas will be able to get hands-on-demos and talk with members of the Auran and Gamecock team.

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After four years of providing safe, reliable access to publicly available Windows updates, AutoPatcher has been shut down. AutoPatcher provided a safe and easy way for users to download Windows updates without connecting to Microsoft’s servers. This came in handy if you wanted to update multiple computers. You could download AutoPatcher, put it on a disc and install it on PCs before connecting them to the internet, thus avoiding any vulnerabilities that may exist in pre-patched systems.

Apparently Microsoft has sent a takedown notice to the developer, saying that Windows Updates should only be downloaded from Microsoft’s servers.

The developer says he has no grounds to challenge Microsoft, and so the AutoPatcher project is for all intents and purposes dead.

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There are so many online resources for productivity, I’ve had to cut back on my work time to keep up with it all.

However, that is not a long-term strategy for continued employment, so I had to wrangle a little control of the time I do have in the day. In keeping with the theme of the “TMI” post from yesterday, here’s my humble offering to the world of managing the information that is whizzing toward my head.

I call it the “Dr. Pepper Method.”

I process my inbox three times a day – at 10, 2, and 4. By not processing until 10 a.m., I force myself to do something productive at the beginning of the day. Nothing jumpstarts a positive habit like getting something done early. That also gives me time to respond to the ‘urgent’ things before lunch – although I am moving to the notion that if it really were urgent, they would have called me instead. The 10 a.m. process run gives me a couple of things to do before and after lunch, and helps me adjust the agenda for the rest of the day.

At 2 p.m., I do another pass. It doesn’t take as long, and is long enough after lunch that I repeat the good habit of “doing something” before playing with e-mail. It’s a good reset, and a chance to check document revisions and followups from the morning session.

Finally, at 4 p.m., I get a chance to finalize a few small tasks, and use the afternoon e-mails as a guide to setting my morning priorities for the next day.

And, it’s easy to remember.

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With the ability to scan your RAM, Registry, hard drives, and external storage devices for known data-mining, advertising, and tracking components, Ad-Aware 2007 easily can clean your system, allowing you to maintain a higher degree of privacy while you surf the Web.

Ad-Aware 2007 includes a redesigned engine, improved code sequence identification, incremental definition updates, one-click Web-history cleanup, multiple browser support, and other new features. Version 7.0.2.1 adds Windows Vista (32-bit) compatibility.

Download Ad-Aware 2007 7.0.2.1

• A setting was added to prevent the Media Library of the Windows Media Player 11 from beeing shared on the network
• A few things have been fixed to ensure the Vista compatibility.

Download XP-Antispy 3.96-6 (English)
Download XP-Antispy 3.96-6 (Other Lang)

Changes and fixes in v 1.04

• GameSpy reporting and server info fixes.
• Added clean versions of landscapes without backdrop buildings for
  modders
• Tutorials updated.
• Servers with unknown ping moved to bottom when sorting on ping.
• Server Screenshot function updated.
• Player list id number corrected in the console.
• Server password settings fixed.

Download Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1.03 to 1.04 patch
Download Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1.0 to 1.04 patch

We have had some recent reports that Acer has been growing, but up until now I just can’t seem to still think of them as anything but another little guy. That has just changed, since Acer has purchased Gateway for $710 million, which is set to double Acer’s current 5.2% market share.

The deal is expected to be completed in December and has already had the approval of both Acer and Gateway boards. Gateway shares have seen a 99% decrease since 1999, however it seems most people still know Gateway for the famous cow spot boxes, and according to the CEO of ACER those will remain.

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