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An anonymous reader recommends a Computerworld article on a new report from Australian security vendor PC Tools. The company released figures on malware detection by its ThreatFire product, and in its user base 27% of Vista machines were compromised by at least one instance of malware. From the article:

“In total, Vista suffered 121,380 instances of malware from its 190,000 user base, a rate of malware detection per system [that] is proportionally lower than that of XP, which saw 1,319,144 malware infections from a user base of 1,297,828 machines, but it indicates a problem that is worse than Microsoft has been admitting to.”

Microsoft hasn’t responded yet to this report.

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After what many have seen as an eternity, Flagship Studios has finally released another patch for the single-player version of the Hellgate: London. Caution that the patch is a beta and not a final release. If you wish to install the beta patch there are a large number of fixes discovered and tested in the multiplayer version. Just be certain to back up your save games before installing beta patch.

Download Hellgate: London SP patch 1.2 beta (US)
Download Hellgate: London SP patch 1.2 beta (UE)

Also of note is that the Test Center server was updated with an early build of Hellgate: London Patch 1.3.

Hellgate: London SP patch 1.2 beta Patch Notes:

Hello Hellgaters!

We’re very pleased to bring our single-player gamers up to date with this patch. We’ve been putting a lot of focus on the online space where we get a great deal of testing done on our Test Center servers. The consistent feedback and requests to have these same improvement made available for those of you that enjoy offline, single-player gaming has not gone unheard! We’re still a small studio, so getting everything done as fast as you and we want to can be a challenge. So we greatly appreciate your patience while we got this patch into the development / test / release cycle.

You’ll find tons of bug fixes, skill changes, class balances, UI updates, graphic enhancements, and much more in this patch.

This Bonus Pack includes 3 new maps (well, 2 revived back to life for UT3 and 1 completely new map).

• Morbias is the deathmatch arena that started it all, perfectly suited for anything from small intense duels to chaotic free-for-all matches.
• The Unreal Tournament classic, Facing Worlds was one of the most played maps in gaming history, beloved sniper map.
• Searchlight is an intricate new capture the flag map designed for both z-axis rooftop runs and strategic indoor gameplay. Returning classics and fresh new designs let you experience Unreal gaming like never before.

DM-Morbias: The Morbias Station is a transport hub that focuses all traffic passing through Taryd’s jumpgates. The Station offers a terrestrial shuttle, storage facilities (with quarantine services for live cargo), and a social center where guests can meet incoming visitors or hold private meetings in a neutral setting.

DM-FacingWorlds: The Necris have forced their way into even the most revered of Izanagi landmarks. Their corruption has spread to the Temple of Facing Worlds, and one of its towers is already showing the effects of infection and decay.

CTF-Searchlight: The lighthouse serves as a beacon to this remote island, thought to be the ancient home of the Necris Prophet. The spiritual components of the Necris conversion are greatly misunderstood, and their power is vastly underestimated. Those who are willing to face the impact of their conversion often come to religious centers like this one to meditate.

This patch was created to address a few minor issues prior to the next release of America’s Army.

FORCE CLASS
We have enabled Global Forceclassing (FC) on honor bearing servers. Individual FC can still be used but not on honor servers. Using a Global FC on everyone levels the playing field for all. When using Global FC, honor is accrued at less than normal rates due to the fact that old maps were created with specific weapon loadouts in mind. Forceclassed Servers will show up in MBS with an (FC) preceding their name for easy identification.

USERNAMES
Spaces in user account names are no longer permitted. If you have an old account with a space it has been replaced with an underscore character (_) or in the case of conflicts a number. You should have received an email to your address of record indicating the change. All of your other account information was retained.

BAN SYSTEM
Ban system again supports banning by IP, MAC, or Name/PBGUID (for PB servers banning by NAME will result in a PBGUID ban instead of a name ban). Ban system now supports console commands to list ban lists in sets of 20 (or so) to allow “scrolling” through the list to locate banned players. The Admin Command Post only supports showing the first 100 ban entries but now has a wider list to show all the ban details. The Banning system was rewritten and includes the preliminary ability to download a ban list from a web server on game server startup.

The full cast has been announced for the upcoming Live-Action Street Fighter movie. We’ve known for awhile that Kristen Kreuk will be playing Chun-Li.

The movie will actually revolve around the story line of Chun-Li but expect Balrog, M. Bison, Vega and Charlie Nash to all make an appearance. 20th Century Fox is planning on a worldwide 2009 release.

Here is the cast so far:

• Chun-Li: Kristin Kreuk. Plays the role of Lana Lang in the WB television series Smallville .
• Balrog: Michael Clarke Duncan. The Island (2005), Sin City (2005), Daredevil (2003), The Scorpion King (2002), Planet of the Apes (2001), See Spot Run (2001), The Whole Nine Yards (2000), The Green Mile (1999), Breakfast of Champions (1999), Armageddon (1998)
• M. Bison: Neal McDonough. The Hitcher (2007), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), The Guardian (2006), Timeline (2003), MinorityReport (2002), Band of Brothers (2001)
• Vega: Taboo. Member of popular R&B music group Black Eyed Peas and recipient of three Grammy Awards.
• Charlie Nash: Chris Klein. We Were Soldiers (2002), American Pie (1999)

I think Kristen and Michael Clarke Duncan are both great choices. I am unfamiliar with the others and think perhaps Chris Klein might be the weakest link, but the movie does have potential since they are going and getting pretty good actors instead of B list celebs.

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StarCraft II continues the epic saga of the Protoss, Terran, and Zerg. These three distinct and powerful races will clash once again in the fast-paced real-time strategy sequel to the legendary original, StarCraft. Legions of veteran, upgraded, and brand-new unit types will do battle across the galaxy, as each faction struggles for survival.

Featuring a unique single-player campaign that picks up where StarCraft: Brood War left off, StarCraft II will present a cast of new heroes and familiar faces in an edgy sci-fi story filled with adventure and intrigue. In addition, Blizzard will again offer unparalleled online play through Battle.net, the company’s world-renowned gaming service, with several enhancements and new features to make StarCraft II the ultimate competitive real-time strategy game.

Features:
* Fast-paced, hard-hitting, tightly balanced competitive real-time strategy gameplay that recaptures and improves on the magic of the original game
* Three completely distinct races: Protoss, Terran, and Zerg
* New units and gameplay mechanics further distinguish each race
* Groundbreaking single-player campaign
* Vibrant new 3D-graphics engine with support for dazzling visual effects and massive unit and army sizes
* Full multiplayer support, with new competitive features and matchmaking utilities available through Battle.net
* Full map-making and scripting tools to give players incredible freedom in customizing and personalizing their gameplay experience

Disk fragmentation leads to system slowdowns, PC crashes, slow startups and shutdowns. Auslogics Disk Defrag® is designed for fast optimization of modern hard disks.

Hard disks are by far the slowest component in your computer. CPU and memory work much faster than hard disks because they do not have moving parts. Therefore fragmented disks often become a bottleneck of the system performance.

Besides causing slowdowns, fragmentation makes the hard drive disk heads move frequently when reading files which leads to freeze-ups and system crashes. It is important to keep your disks defragmented and optimized as much as possible.

- Improve computer performance and stability
- Increase your productivity - no more waiting for files to open
- Defragment disks in only a few minutes
- Useful disk fragmentation map and detailed fragmentation report
- Windows XP Home and Professional, 2000/2003 and Vista supported

Version 1.4.12.293 Changes
* improves an installation
* fixes bugs

Download Auslogics Disk Defrag 1.4.12.293

The Crysis 1.2 Patch is now available for download. The patch addresses the performance of Crysis, contains many bug fixes and also some new features like auto team balance (Players will now be moved from full teams to the opposing side when dead if the numbers are unbalanced), Logitech G15 display now fully supported in MP and SP and Added mod loader to the main menu.

Patch 2 Changelog:

Optimizations and Stability
*Corrected a number of memory leaks with FSAA modes.
*Optimized Object Motion Blur for DX10 Very High Spec
*Destroying objects will now properly remove their decals from the world under DX10.
*Fixed a number of memory leaks with some procedural vegetation and destroyable objects physicalization.
*Fixed issue in windowed mode where the map or weapon attachment UI cursor can leave the game window.
*Fixed potential server exploit that could cause servers to crash
*Fixed crash with AI triangulation in the editor

General Fixes/tweaks
*Added new effects for vehicle shattering after being frozen
*Player movement will now be cancelled if the player is shooting while moving in prone mode.
*Fixed issue where player will exit VTOL from closed rear hatch irrespective of seat.
*Continuously firing the VTOL machine gun in 3rd person mode no longer causes the VTOL to descend.
*Fixed an issue where vehicle 3rd person camera could break when switching the player “ControlledTurret” flag while using the gun.
*Fixed identical swimming sounds being used on surface, underwater and swimming in different directions.
*Frogs will no longer block the player’s view after being picked up
*Fixed an issue where in unarmed mode, the character’s arms will suddenly reappear and disappear when picking up and dropping an object.
*Fixed health recharge rate when computing drowning damage.