I saw BlogRush for the first time on Phil’s new blog Tech Fires, and I was a little curious. Then I followed the link from his widget, and I started to get really excited. This is really a great idea, and I wish I had thought of it.

You display a widget on your blog, much like the one pictured below. The widget has 5 links in it, which open up in a new window if one of your readers clicks on it. Every time you have a page load, a link to one of your posts is displayed somewhere else.

That’s right. One page load = one link. What is even better is that when you sign up, you choose a category for your blog. Your widget shows links from that category, and your link is displayed on other blogs in that category. In other words, your link is being displayed to readers who are already reading topics close to yours.

Now I thought that was well worth putting the widget on my site. Then I found out that BlogRush also acts like a pyramid scheme.

For every person who follows your referral id, or clicks on your widget, and signs up, you get a credit. Every page load they have, you get your link displayed on another blog.

The referrals from your referral count for you too, down through 10 generations of referrals. After so many generations, it isn’t one for one, but it is still better than nothing.

The only thing that I didn’t like is that you can’t choose a size for the widget. That is why it is a little larger than my sidebar. I was planning on resizing the sidebar’s a little bit anyway, I’ll just have to do it sooner. 

Posted in Blogging, Promotion, Recommendations, RSS, Web Tools, widgets 3 Comments »

The big news this week, at least on the personal side of things, was the release of the Fortress Forever. I have been waiting for it for so long, and so far I’ve played a little over 6 hours.

I didn’t realize it until Monday the 10th, but the mumbler has returned! Art has returned from China with his lovely bride. I was heartbroken while he was gone, and not only didn’t I get his emails and blog updates, but his server was down, so I couldn’t even look at his blogs at all.

Art always refers to me on his blog as “MBM” for “my buddy mike”. I even have my own tag on his blog. One of his blogs is called “Incoherent Mumbling“, also accessible from www.mumblr.com, so I decided that I am going to start referring to him as “the mumbler”. At least sometimes.

Also it turns out that while I was goofing off all weekend, Phil from Thought Sparks has been busy launching his new blog, Tech Fires. Read his announcement for yourself. Phil’s been churning out some really great tutorials lately, so I’m really interested to see what he puts on his new site.

I’m also really interested in one of his widgets, it points to BlogRush. Looks like a syndication widget that gets you syndicated on other blogs as well. Looks pretty neat, I’ll have to go check it out.

In Tech News, one of the bigger stories this week has been the release of the iPhone software unlock, which I think I have covered enough for the week.

Also, last weekend I realized that football season has started again! What was I doing to miss that? I’m not a huge football fan, and as a matter of fact, last year was the first year that I watched more than the Super Bowl in about a decade.

If your curious, I’m a Denver fan, since I lived here for about a decade now, I should probably root for the local team. I also cheer for the Patriots, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh.

I also made a few minor changes to the blog, I added my Pownce feed, the MyBlogLog widget, and also some more adsense ads.

I’m looking forward to a more productive week, thanks to all of my readers, and to everyone who commented on the posts this week or provided me with valuable feedback.

Remember, you can reach me on Pownce, if you are on it, as well as my blog log or on email. My email address is “mike” at this domain name (port16.com). Feel free to drop me any thoughts or comments. 

Posted in BlogNewsandUpdates, Foretress Forever, FPS, Hacks, Pownce, The Mumbler 3 Comments »

It looks like Steam has some new community features, which were actually made live on August 6th, but these were new to me.

Each steam account gets their own web page, just like any other social networking site, and it shows your rating for the entire world to see.

The picture that you see at the beginning of the was my rating before I started played much last night. From what I have been reading, the rating is based on how many hours you have played steam games, not how many frags you have, or anything like that.

Back when I was playing Team Fortress for Quake, there was a server in Utah that kept stats, you gained more points by fragging higher ranked players than you did for lower ranked players. You also lost more points for being fragged by lower ranked players than you did for higher ranked players.

You can see my stats, and all that good stuff, on the Port 16 Steam ID Page.

I love Fortress Forever. Great job guys!

More later.

Posted in FPS, Games, Steam, Uncategorized 2 Comments »

Here is the download link from File Planet - The file is about 555M. If you don’t want to register with File Planet, use one of these ids.

Fortress Forever is a Half Life 2 Mod, for Team Fortress Play. Now, if you are pretty new to first person shooters, Team Fortress is, in my opinion, the best game modification in the history of time.

Players choose a “class” of player, such as sniper, medic, etc. Each class has strengths and weaknesses, and every player usually has their own preference.

The game play is usually a capture the flag scenario, with some players defending their base, while others attack the enemy’s base.

The team with the highest score wins. If there is no score, or a tie, usually the team with the highest number of kills wins.

Half Life 2, Episode 2 is supposed to include the much waited for Team Fortress 2, which will look more like a cartoon than the original’s dark and gritty feel. Personally I think I’ll like Fortress Forever better, since I am such a big fan of the original.

Right now I am waiting on File Planet’s FTP servers, and I think I am going to be waiting for awhile.

If I am ever able to download it, I would love to play it tonight. I would be willing to bet that the servers will be just crammed for at least a few days.

Update: The wait wasn’t too bad. But don’t try to refresh that window, or you’ll end up starting over.

References:

Fortress Forever Site

Posted in Foretress Forever, FPS, Games, Half Life 2, Team Fortress 4 Comments »

The iPhone Software Unlock that I posted about yesterday appears to be working great. Engadget is listing all of the countries and providers that have been confirmed so far. Although there are some disputes in the numbers, there are a whole lot of them.

Engadget is also stating that the fix is “Store persistent”, which means that even after the phone is wiped out, the fix stays there. I’m not sure if there has been an apple update since the fix, and I’m curious to see if Apple can get rid of it. 

If they did, I think it would be a matter of days before another fix came out.

Thanks to “the mumbler“ for pointing me to the story.

References:

iPhone now software unlocked in 32 countries and 69 carriers – EnGadget

Posted in Apple, Hacks, iPhone No Comments »