Here are some of the pictures I took for the newspaper last weekend, while there was a festival in town. Since they are made for print, they might look a bit too sharp for a computer monitor, but bear with it

The artists are: Adiam Dymott, Bullet, Coldspell, Jerry Williams, Sonic Syndicate, Sonic Syndicate (yes, twice), Turbonegro and Turbonegro (twice).





I hope you like them!

Hans

June 22nd - June 28th


01. World of Warcraft
02. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Multiplayer
03. Call of Duty 2 Multiplayer
04. Counter-Strike: Source
05. Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne
06. Battlefield 2
07. Guild Wars (+1)
08. Call of Duty: World at War Multiplayer (+1)
09. Silkroad Online (+4)
10. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (+1)
11. Team Fortress 2 (+1)
12. Prototype (-5)
13. The Sims 3 (-2)
14. Eve Online
15. Combat Arms
16. Left 4 Dead
17. The Lord of the Rings Online
18. MapleStory (+3)
19. Counter-Strike 1.6 (-1)
20. Call of Duty Multiplayer

The intense battle between Prototype and The Sims 3 is stlil going on. After last weeks total domination by Prototype, this week, the tables have turned. Or well. They haven't. They've just moved a little.

Prototype took a real dive, but just managed to stay above The Sims 3 in the charts, which is sort of worrying. What will happen next week? If The Sims 3 stays put and Prototype drops more, it'll end up below The Sims! To prevent this from happening, I feel it's my duty to encourage all you Prototype players out there to play like never before. This is for a very important cause, so if you want to take time off work, they can't very well deny you, can they now?

Last weeks new appearence, America's Army 3, left as sudden as it entered. So, what about it? Well, there really is nothing to it. I won't say too much about it, I'll rather just state the facts. It's no longer here.

Two games did quite well here on the charts this week, and that's MapleStory and Silkroad Online. Why do you think that is? Could it be due to summer, affecting people to play different types of games compared to what they normally do?

And on that bombshell, I'll leave you for now! I'll be back l8er.


Hans

Hot news! Just moments ago Xfire version 1.111 beta was put publicly available for anyone to test. That's a nice version number, so many 1's, after all, Xfire is the #1 chat program for gamers. Very soon after posting this the beta version should be updated to be of version 1.111b. That's 'b' like 'beta'. B-b-b-beta. Well, actually it means that it is second beta release of this version, the first one (1.111a) is missing the up-to-date xfire_games.ini file, so the 'b' release is to fix that.

Note: First I'll list the changes in the beta, at the end of this post is instructions on how to access the beta.

New in Xfire 1.111 beta:

• Updated Xfire In-Game main window
  
• Xfire In-Game Chat Rooms tab
  
• Caps lock functioning in-game
  
• Custom status clearing bugs should be fixed
  
• Ability to cancel call by pressing the button again

Here you can see a preview of the new Chat Rooms tab in the main window of Xfire In-Game:


It is much cleaner than the previous way where Xfire would spam join links for each saved chat room. Don't you agree?


Also for those who like to yell a lot, CAPS LOCK NOW WORKS IN XFIRE IN-GAME CHAT WINDOWS! In an unrelated note, I did not use Caps lock to type in that, I kept Shift pressed as I usually do. Caps Lock is like nonexistent to me.


Some people reported problems with Xfire clearing their custom status texts when they started or stopped playing games. As the notes say, this problem should be fixed. The extra word, "should", receives emphasis because this bug has had several different forms (clearing status when starting a game, clearing status when exiting a game, clearing status after broadcasting, etc.) so if you were one of the people who suffered from your status text clearing by itself, make sure to test the beta and report if it is still broken so it can be fully fixed!

Last in the release notes is the change that is my favorite: ability to cancel calls by pressing the phone icon. The only thing better for me would have been to remove the button...

June 29th
Xfire insider newsletter

Oh. Wow! There's a newsletter coming today!

I wonder what it might be about this time.. Regardless, I figure it's totally awesome. Like it always is...


Wohoo, insider!




A while ago - July 1st
Xfire Pro Voice Sponsor

This week, we don't have just one thing in the schedule. But even if we have a few more things, it doesn't mean that the Pro Voice sponsorship is any less awesome. Because, it really is. G O U S E P R O V O I C E!


Click here for all the info on the Warhammer Online Pro Voice Sponsorship.


Voicesome.




July 6th
Xfire Release 1.111

Would'ya look at dat'. New release. Not shabby, not shabby at all!


Release me!



Dear diary:

I worked like 40 hours during the weekend, and today I pulled a 14 hour shift, so I'm totally super tired. Will you forgive me if I come back and post the pictures tomorrow, instead of today as a I promised?


Hugz and Kizez.

Hans

Today was a sad day in many ways. For some people the most remarkable thing was the confirmation of death of Michael Jackson. For some other people (including me) there was another sad event today, our boss Nicolas left Xfire today to find some new adventures in the big world. I wish him the best of luck!

If this was the first time you read that Nicolas left Xfire, then the rest of this post is especially for you. The subject "Don't fall behind!" refers to this blog. As you will find the latest Xfire related news and other interesting information from this blog and it's not even always tweeted (did I get it right?), you might want to have a way to keep up to date on what is going on here.

The way you can keep up with the posts to this blog is by so called RSS technique. RSS is abbreviation for "Really Simple Syndication", and like it's name says, it is really simple! (for more information about RSS itself, see wikipedia)

So how does RSS relate to keeping up with this blog, then? Here's roughly how the plan works:

1. You subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog
   
2. Your RSS client automatically asks Xfire website if there are new blog posts
   
3. You can at any time check the RSS status to see if there are new posts and can easily read them

Simple isn't it?

Well, if you are wondering what the "RSS client" is that I referred to, then I'll tell you. It's a program that can use RSS feeds and display them to you. Finding one of those clients is not difficult; you are most probably using one right now! Most web browsers these days have RSS support built in.

Considering over 50% of people visiting Xfire's website are using Firefox (the last I heard from the web team) and Firefox has RSS feeds built in, chances are good that you already have a working RSS reader in hand. Other browsers such as Opera and the latest version of Internet Explorer also have RSS feeds supported.

To get started, just click here: http://www.xfire.com/blog/theblog/rss/

If your web browser supports RSS...

Today is the day that Nicolas Cerrato leaves Xfire. And, it's a very sad day for all of us. He's been my boss for the last two and a half years or so, and he's been working at Xfire for five years. I think that everyone at Xfire can agree that it's a shame to see him leave.

He's been a great mentor, guide and a good friend so far. I wish him the best of luck with his future work, and I'm sure he'll succeed at whatever he wants to do.

Once again. We'll miss you, Nicolas! Pleaseeeeeee come back!

Hans

Sorry, but I think I'm going to have to pull a small video post on you again. I'm totally busy with taking pictures at the festival that's taking place right now in town. I've been working all day, and just got home an hour ago. And, I need to get up again in six hours from now to continue working.

Here's one of the pictures I took today, by the way: http://i39.tinypic.com/27wvdhu.jpg (It's sort of big!). I took the picture for an interview, and it's the Swedish artist John ME. He's actually quite good, so if you get a chance, listen to him.


Xfire video of the week -
Bounce kill by yatzzY



Hmmm. It sure looks like there's something messed up with the gravity settings there. But judging from the comments, this is possible without altering anything. So, it's just a plain ownage kill!

I'll be back with some more pictures on Monday!

Hans

June 15th - June 21st


01. World of Warcraft
02. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare Multiplayer
03. Call of Duty 2 Multiplayer
04. Counter-Strike: Source
05. Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne
06. Battlefield 2
07. Prototype (+6)
08. Guild Wars
09. Call of Duty: World at War Multiplayer
10. Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (+1)
11. The Sims 3 (-4)
12. Team Fortress 2 (-2)
13. Silkroad Online (-1)
14. Eve Online
15. Combat Arms (+1)
16. Left 4 Dead (-1)
17. The Lord of the Rings Online (-1)
18. Counter-Strike 1.6 (-1)
19. America's Army 3 (NEW)
20. Call of Duty Multiplayer

Fine, fine! I won't go on with my blabbering about female versus male games. But, it does look like Prototype has beaten The Sims 3 hands down.

Which, for me as a fan of action style games, is great news! I bet Prototype will start dropping pretty soon though, since I'm guessing it has very limited replayability.

Team Fortress 2 seems to keep dropping, but I'm guessing it will start to settle somewhere around place 15-16, and stay there, at least until the next addition of new content.

Oh, and we seem to have started tracking
America's Army 3, which is great news for all you fans out there! Make sure to start playing it if you don't want it to drop out next week, though!

Well, I think I'll keep things short this time. I've got a bunch of stuff to do tomorrow, so I really need to get to bed now. Have a nice day, everyone!

Hans

Oh gosh. I've been playing so much Final Fantasy VII the last few days that I've completely lost track of time. Instead of doing important stuff, like cleaning my apartment, washing clothes and working with stuff I should be working on, I've been running around trying to save the planet with Cloud!

It really is a great game, but boy do I not have the time to be playing it right now. But, It's my own fault for loading it in the Playstation, and expecting to be able to resist the urge to play. It's just not possible.

Actually. I'm so stuck in Final Fantasy, that even today's animation will be from Final Fantasy. At least I think so...





Cool. The guy totally goes flying. Sort of looks like Cloud from FF VII. Or Tidus from Final Fantasy X.



A while ago - July 1st
Xfire Pro Voice Sponsor

Would you look at that? Only one thing in the schedule right now. Well, it's no small thing, so I guess it will keep us happy for a while. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's the Warhammer Online Pro Voice Sponsorship, that brings you free super high quality voice chat totally free. You know, like I've said the last ten weeks or so.

Click here for all the info on the Warhammer Online Pro Voice Sponsorship.


Voicesome.



Dear diary:

This weekend there's a festival in town, and I'm going to be taking pictures for the newspaper. Some pretty decent artists, although most not that well known outside of Scandinavia, are coming. Some of you might have heard of the Norwegian band Turbonegro though. Pretty cool stuff, and I'm sure they're very entertaining to photograph.

Go ahead and check out the festival website if you want to know what other artists that are coming. I'll make sure to post some of my pictures here early next week, so please look forward to that!


Yours truly,

Hans

So Tuesday there was update to the Xfire client, now there is another update, to the Xfire website!

Quick changelog (main things):

• http://www.xfire.com/countries/ now has correct links to CIA World Factbook
  
• http://www.xfire.com/clans/ has a new style to list the clans and guilds you are in
  
• http://www.xfire.com/games/ uses AJAX to load the game list dynamically
  
• http://www.xfire.com/profile/ has a new style to display friends
  
• http://www.xfire.com/people/ has a friend finder (only gmail now)
  
• Avatars linking to profile pages are now clickable in Internet Explorer

More detailed info:

The World Factbook was recently updated, changing the URLs of country information pages. The previous country links at http://www.xfire.com/countries/ therefore ceased to work, but are now updated to once again link to correct pages.

Recently Xfire published unlimited clans to give the possibility of group masses of people without size restrictions for events and similar purposes. This made it possible for one to be a member of more than 5 clans at a time (current limit for normal clans). The original Clans main page was designed for maximum of 5 clans, though, so it has now been updated to a new style to be able to correctly show all the clans you are in, even if you have more than 5 of them.

The clan listing can also be seen on Profile pages in a similar style. Part of the new website version is also updating the quick listing of friends on the profile pages to make them be of the same style the clans are displayed there. When you view someone's profile page, you now see 5 random friends of them.

The full friends list is still under http://www.xfire.com/people/ (that link shows your friends list, add username there to view someone else's). The friends page was also updated. It now contains Friend Finder function, similar to those found on Facebook and other services, that lets Xfire to go through your e-mail history and compare the e-mail addresses from the messages to Xfire's database and therefore help...