Here I’ve edited those podcast episodes so that only the Backlog segments are left. I didn’t have enough space, so I had to use RapidShare.

• Beyond Good and Evil (70 MB)
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (90 MB)
• Indigo Prophecy (95 MB)
• Psychonauts (104 MB)
• Shadow of the Colossus (98 MB)

If you liked 1UP FM’s Backlog I suggest you check out Game Club on Rebel FM where they continue the tradition.

I found out that the problem was antialiasing. The difference between having it on or off is very noticable on most games, framerate-wise, but in Trine it’s the difference between crashing every ten minutes and running smoothly.

So disable antialiasing if you’re having problems.

If that doesn’t work, check the official forums.

After reinstalling the Creative drivers, it worked just fine.

You need to register at ubi.com for it to work. The password form don’t accept certain characters, so I wouldn’t use non-alphanumeric characters if I were you.

If you get a PunkBuster error while loading an online map, you must update it (PunkBuster, not the game). For some reason it didn’t work updating it with the PBSetup client, so I had to download the actual update instead. Go to the Far Cry 2 page on the PunkBuster website, download the latest file for your operating system, and put it in the “Far Cry 2/bin/pb/htm” folder.

Edit: Do not ask me for a CD key.

Unrelated picture

After I downloaded and installed Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista Home Premium (x64), it could no longer play sounds. If I for example tried to play an mp3 file, WinAmp would start, but the song wouldn’t begin.

I reinstalled the drivers for my Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty card, and sound now works as it should.

There was nothing about sound card drivers in Windows Update (possibly because they weren’t really new), and I found no errors in the Device Manager.

Creative sound card drivers: http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/

I have had no other problems after installing SP1 — yet.

On a semi-related note: I recommend using a program called X-Fi Mode Changer, which makes changing modes (Entertainment and Gamer) less of a headache.

After doing some research on e-mail encryption (OpenPGP, GnuPG, etc.) I accidentally came across PasswordSafe, by Bruce Schneier. It was a neat program designed to store usernames and passwords securely. I added some of my passwords to try it out, backed up the encrypted file …

Then, a couple of hours after trying PasswordSafe, I stumbeled upon KeePass, another open-source program, similar to PasswordSafe, except that it most notably packed more features. Instead of using Blowfish, it uses AES or Twofish, which doesn’t say that much to me, but these algorithms are supposedly very good, so it makes little difference. After trying out these two programs, I can wholeheartedly recommened them both, but I think KeePass is superior, because it has more options available to you. My only gripe with it is that the developers refuse to add an e-mail field. A shame, really.

I got two KeePass databases now: One for the accumulating website usernames/passwords I have gathered throughout the years, and another core database with only a few, very important passwords stored inside. I only have to write down the master password for the latter and I got it all covered. Just remember: if you want to do this, to make a long and complicated master password, write it down, and back up the encrypted database file on a removable disk!

Download KeePass for Windows (unofficial ports to other OS, like Linux, available).

Of course, then I had to reinstall Windows XP, all the games and software, patches, hacks and fixes, and customize and tweak everything so that it would be like it used to, lest I’d go crazy. The task was so daunting, however, that I just installed Windows, and let the then-new hard disk collect dust for a couple of months … till I stumbled upon HDClone.

HDClone lets you make identical copies of your hard disk for free. At least there’s a free, stripped-down version of it: you can only copy from small drives to a bigger ones (not the other way around) and SafeRescue and verifying mode is missing.

Copying everything (free version copies 0.3GB/min) took over four hours, but it was well worth it, because everything worked like I expected it to. Of course, you could argue that I should have formatted, because of all the junk that accumulates in Windows over time (I’ve had the same installation for about three years), but since I’ve had so few problems with it, and that it would take so long to reinstall everything, I decided I could easily live with it

By the way, Hitachi Deskstar hard disks are even more silent than Seagate Barracuda, so I can definitely recommend them if that sort of thing is important to you.

Snailking

One of these artists is Ufomammut from Italy. They sound like a fusion between Kyuss and Isis. I could probably have come up with a better comparison if I was more savvy, but they do in fact list the former as an influence in one interview I read.

The most conspicuous quality on their second album Snailking is the immense sense of atmosphere: it’s omnious, otherworldly and dark. I think it tickles the ambient fan in me, as I really love artists like Lustmord and Robert Rich.

The song “Hopscotch” manages so sound heavy and catchy at the same time; the hauntingly beauitful “Lacrimosa” is aptly named; “Braindome” is eerie and almost comic, and the immensely mighty “God” evokes some truly awesome moments. I’d love to see parts of the 28 minutes-long “Demontain” in a sci-fi movie: in my mind I see an emormous starship slowly droning its way through a portal, leaving for another dimension or perhaps time travel.

Highly recommended.

Official Ufomammut website