Before continuing, this assumes that you have followed my previous guide to already get the World of Warcraft original game client.

Now, to get Burning Crusade click here, thanks to Toxic-Wow.net. Like before, this small file is only a downloader that will fetch the 1.15GB installer. Also like before, you should run the downloader as Administrator in Vista in order to ensure everything goes smoothly. Once it is done installing, you have Burning Crusade! If only it were that easy… there’s a few more things you have to do.

The update unfortunately resets your game to version 2.0.0, so you are going to have to reapply the patches. If you are like me and deleted them already, then you’ll have to download them again. In case you lost the link, click here to go to Blizzard’s official US Patch site. Get the 2.3.0 full patch, the 2.3.0 to 2.3.2 patch, and the 2.3.2 to 2.3.3 patch. Apply them all in order, running as Administrator for Vista.

Also, if you are using your own private server, there are other steps necessary to make the server BC-compatible. You are going to have to redo all your vmaps, DBC, and maps extracting. This process is detailed in Reaper-X’s Maps, VMaps, DBC Extraction Guide.. Just overwrite any duplicate files in your C:/wow/data folder with the ones newly generated by those steps. This time you won’t get an error for Expansion.MpQ file, since now you have the expansion.

There is one final step. You have to edit the mangosd.conf file. Search for “Expansion = 0″ and change it to “Expansion = 1″, then save the file. Now start up mangosd.exe and wait for it to parse all the new maps. When it is ready, do “setbc [username] 1″ where [username] is the username you use to login to WOW on your private server.

Step One: Getting, Installing, and Updating the World of Warcraft Client

Getting the World of Warcraft client is the easiest part of this tutorial, but it may also be the longest depending on your internet connection speed. I have Comcast that goes at roughly 8mbps, and the download still took me over three hours (granted, I wasn’t maxing out my connection — Blizzard’s web servers aren’t the fastest). The download is 3.15GB. To get the client, click here. What you download as a result from that link probably only took a second, but then when you double-click that file it will begin the true downloading process. I chose to save everything to a desktop folder called WOW.

Note: The WOW Client is the full game of World of Warcraft. It contains all the information the CDs contain when you buy the game in the store. Blizzard allows people to get this client for two reasons: 1) You can use it up to 10 days to connect to the Blizzard servers for free, so it acts as a trial version. 2) You may be downloading the client for Mac OSX or for Linux, and then using that to login to your existing account that is activated with a Windows access key (which comes with the retail version of the game). In our case, we aren’t getting it for either of these reasons, but keep in mind this is 100% legal. This is NOT a pirated copy of the game.

The next steps, however, can be considering illegal. It goes against the Terms of Service for the game, so if you are morally invested or otherwise opposed to breaking such agreements, please close your browser now and forget this ever happened. All instructions are provided for educational purposes only and I do not condone illegal activity in any way.

NOW that that’s taken care of, shall we get to the fun part?

With the client downloaded, open up whatever folder you chose to save it to. You will see a file called “installer.exe”. Double-click on that to begin the installation. In the splash screen that comes up, press “Install World of Warcraft”. They then force you to scroll to the bottom of the service agreement before pressing Accept. (Keep in mind, this is the service agreement you are breaking by using a private server). Finally, press OK to accept the default values for installation directory and to begin the process. The installer will copy all the files and tell you when it’s finished. This process took 7 minutes for me. VERY IMPORTANT! When it says the Installation is Complete, DO NOT press “Play World of Warcraft” or “Create a New Account”. This will attempt to connect you with the Blizzard servers, which, for the purpose of playing WOW for free, you NEVER want to do. Instead, press the X in the top right corner of the installer to quit the program.

The next step is to update the client to version 2.3.3. This is the latest version as of writing, and it is supported by the latest version of Reaper-X’s WOW Private Server, which is used in the next step to host your own private server. Keep in mind that if you intend to connect to a private server on the Internet, then you will need to have the right version for that specific server. Therefore, make sure you only upgrade to that version and NO FURTHER. However, most of the best ones nowadays support 2.3.3, so that is what we’ll do.

Click here to go to Blizzard’s official US Patch site. Download the following patches: Version 2.0.x to 2.3.0 Full Patch, Version 2.3.0 to 2.3.2 Upgrade Patch, and Version 2.3.2 to 2.3.3 Upgrade Patch. The Full Patch there is 692MB so that may also take some time on a slower Internet connection. The total download time for all three was 15 minutes for me. I recommend using FileShack. Even though you have to click through more than FileFront, they are super fast… it maxed out my connection.

Once they are all downloaded, run them in sequential order. Nothing special to note here, except that if you are using Vista you should run these updates as an Administrator. Once you have the WOW client 2.3.3, then you are ready to continue by either hosting your own private server or connecting to an existing one on the Internet.

Step Two: Running your own Private Server

Private servers are servers that emulate the Blizzard servers. They do not equal the Blizzard servers in reliability or functionality, but they come pretty close. They are a necessity to bypass the monthly fee of WOW. Most private servers available to the public are rather buggy and laggy, but again, you get what you (don’t) pay for.

Click here for a rather detailed comparison between private servers and official (Blizzard, monthly-payment) servers. I try to explain it in my own way below.

You may want to run your own private server. This server will have almost zero lag, since you are communicating with your own computer instead of over the Internet. The biggest drawback to this is obvious: you will essentially be playing by yourself. If you just want to play WOW for the questing and the role-playing experience, this isn’t necessarily a problem. However, keep in mind that half of a MMORPG is the MMO part — the part where you interact in an online world full of other people. With your own private server, that element will be nonexistent, so you will certainly be missing out on a lot of the experience. The best reason to run your own server, besides the no lag factor, is that you can modify the world to your liking. This means making a Level 70 character in an instant, creating hacked items that make you unstoppable, instantly kill the biggest bosses, etc. Or you can do things that aren’t such outright cheating, such as creating custom bosses or vendors. Think of your private server as a sandbox, where you can experience the world of WOW however you want. If you’re the type of person that can have fun alone in a sandbox, then that’s what this method is for.

If you don’t like the idea of hosting your own private server, then you can join one of the private servers available online. Most of these are still free, meaning there’s no monthly fee. However, there are other people on there. There are usually only a hundred or so people on at any one time, though, which can never give you the same experience as the Blizzard servers where there’s thousands on at a time. If you would prefer to join an existing server because you don’t want to go through the work to host your own or you want the benefit of having others to interact with, you can skip this step and proceed to Step 3.

Those of you still reading this section are here because you want to learn how to host your own private server. In order to do this, we will take advantage of Reaper-X’s hard work. Normally, you would have to acquire the Mangos MMORPG Server and then do a lot of difficult things in order to make it WOW-compatible. Reaper-X has created a package that makes all of this much easier, essentially taking all the hard work out while still giving you full control of the server. He has also made my job easier by providing a very good tutorial on how to install his private server. Instead of reinventing the wheel, I will simply link to his guide. You can follow his guide word for word. Step 6 of his guide is the same thing I will cover below in Step Three, so you can skip that for now if you don’t understand how he explains it.

Just a few notes to supplement Reaper-X’s own guide. For Vista users, MySQL’s configuration wizard may not start cleanly. You will get an error complaining about a “side-by-side configuration”. The solution is steps 4-10 at this forum post.

Another ugly Vista note… all of the BAT (batch) files that are used to extract the maps, vmaps, and dbc content from the WOW data folder need to be run as Administrator. Unfortunately, simply right-clicking them and choosing “Run as Administrator” doesn’t do it. You instead have to do it from an Administrative Command Prompt. To do this, press the Start button, and then type “cmd” in the search box. Instead of pressing Enter to simply launch the program, press SHIFT+CTRL+ENTER. This will launch it with admin prefs. Of course, you have to “Allow” that action. Once you have that up, type “cd C:\” to get to the root of the C directory. Then type “cd Pro” and press TAB… it will automatically fill in “Program Files”. Now you can press Enter. Then type “cd World” and press TAB… it will fill in “World of Warcraft”, so press Enter. Once there, now you can type “extract-map.bat”, “makevmaps_SIMPLE.bat”, or “extract.bat” depending on what you are extracting. Also, you will get an error during the extract maps step about expansion.MPQ, since we don’t have the expansion pack, but you can safely ignore that.

During the Reaper Mangos configuration step, make sure you set the Expansion variable to 0 if you followed the first part of this guide, since the client you got does not include The Burning Crusade.

Step Three: Connecting to a Private Server

Whether you have created your own private server in Step 2 or want to connect to a Private Server on the Internet, the process is simple. You have to edit the file called “realmlist.wtf”, which is located in the directory C:/Program Files/World of Warcraft/. (If you installed WOW to another folder, it will be there instead. If you have trouble finding it goto Start->Search and type in “realmlist.wtf” and make sure it is searching All Files and Folders in Local Hard Drives.) Right-click the file and select Open With. Choose to open it in Notepad. There will be lines for the official Blizzard servers. Delete those.

Now you can put your new entry. If you have created your own private server, you would put a line with “set realmlist 127.0.0.1″. If you are using an Internet public server, you will use their URL instead. For example, a popular one is ToxicWow, which you would set to “set realmlist logon.toxic-wow.net”. Speaking of ToxicWow, they have a great picture tutorial of this process in case you are lost. Just click the “Change your realmlist” link and there will be a nice tutorial.

Keep in mind you can only use one at a time. If you want to use both ToxicWow’s server and your own private server, you will have to edit the realmlist.wtf file before you open the game to contain only the one you need at that moment. I am thinking about creating a program that will make switching this very easy, but right now it’s not a priority. I’m going to be too busy enjoying my private server.

If you have followed all the steps so far, you should be ready. Start up World of Warcraft, agree to the service agreements (which you have broken by using a private server), and then login using the GM account you setup. You can then create your new character and start playing WOW (by yourself or with the few people on the private Internet server). All for free !

I have bolded one title from each letter group (e.g. Pulp Fiction for P). The two letters I’m not really happy about are K and Z. Z, especially, is now Zodiac but only because I don’t have any others. Any suggestions?

ALSO… I am currently missing a movie for the letter Q and U, which kind of takes away from the point of “Movie ABCs”. Let me know if you have any suggestions. I am probably going to go with Usual Suspects, The if I don’t find a better alternative.

Just a quick note: These are only the movies I have on my external drive. This is by no means supposed to be a comprehensive list of movies I approve of; in fact, many of the movies on this list I don’t even like that much (evidenced by the rating of 5 or 6).

Here is Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Beta 4 optimized for Intel! Click here to download it. Click here for The Burning Edge blog which has release notes for the trunk builds.

Check out this site for a nice tutorial on GBA emulation on the iPhone (thanks to the gpsPhone program):

http://appleiphoneschool.com/gpsphone/

This tutorial has some spots where it says to upload files via SSH. You can learn how to do that by following this tutorial on the same site:

http://appleiphoneschool.com/openssh

Overall, that entire site is great for iPhone/iPod Touch beginners.

NOTE: I may say iPhone in this tutorial, but I really mean iPod Touch. Once they are jailbroken, they’re essentially the same thing, except you can’t call people with an iPod Touch.

The process of jailbreaking is fairly easy. I could explain it all here, but there are much better tutorials out there, so I will merely link to them.

Warning: Continuing and following the steps in the linked tutorials will involve Restoring your iPod. This means all songs/videos/etc. will be deleted from it. This shouldn’t be a problem if you have them on your computer as well, but it may be a slight inconvenience to re-sync multiple GBs of music. Just realize that you will lose all songs/etc. during the procedure (specifically the downgrading portion, which IS necessary).

Before you can jailbreak, your iPod Touch needs to be in version 1.1.1. Most new iPod Touchs (since December) come with 1.1.2 pre-installed. This means you can’t jailbreak. HOWEVER, it is possible to jailbreak simply by downgrading to 1.1.1. The process to do this is described here. This is a great tutorial, but it is geared toward Mac users. For Windows users, you would follow everything exactly the same except instead of holding the OPTION key down while pressing Restore in iTunes, you would instead hold SHIFT. That is all there is to it. You will now have version 1.1.1, and now you can finally jailbreak.

To jailbreak, follow this tutorial from the same blog. I am going to summarize the steps just to make it clear what is going on.

Step 1. Install AppSnapp. In this step you are essentially pointing the iPod Touch’s browser to “Jailbreakme.com” and pressing “Install AppSnapp” at the bottom of it. If you have a strong internet connection with a good signal, you should have no problem getting the progress indicator discussed/pictured in the tutorial. Once that occurs, an “Installer” button will be part of the iPod’s main menu.

Step 2. Preparing for 1.1.2 upgrade. In this step you use the “Installer” app that you now have to install the OktoPrep application. The installation of this app prepares your iPod for the 1.1.2 update. Remember I said that 1.1.2 doesn’t support Jailbreak? Well, it doesn’t UNLESS you first goto 1.1.1 and run OktoPrep, which is what this tutorial makes you do.

Step 3. Update to 1.1.2. Now you use iTunes to update to 1.1.2, now that your iPod has been prepared to allow jailbreaking in that version.

Step 4. Performing the 1.1.2 jailbreak. This step is a little tricky because it requires you to download and run a Java application. The article is geared towards Mac, but in Windows this step is completely different. It requires that you have Java. Mac users have Java installed by default, and so they don’t have to do anything. However, most Windows computers don’t have Java. You will need to get it from Sun Microsystem’s website here. Install it and then RESTART your computer. After that is finished, download the application referenced in the tutorial. It is a zip file, so unzip it normally. In the folder that results, there will be a file called “windows.bat”. Running that will launch the application, in which case you can proceed as described in the tutorial… pressing the “Jailbreak!” button. It pays to be patient at this point as your iPod will restart multiple times and iTunes on your computer may have a few errors… just ignore it, as soon everything will be good. Once your iPod fully boots up without restarting, and you get to the point where you can use the menus, then you are DONE!!!

Step 5. Install Apps. At this point, your iPod Touch is jailbroken. You have gotten past the hard part. Now you just have to use the Installer app to install more programs. I recommend getting SummerBoard, which makes it easier to manage the main menu when it gets huge from all your new apps. Another must-have is Apollo if you use IM a lot and Tap Tap Revolution is a great game. iBlackjack is another favorite, which is a well-done blackjack port for iPhone.

To get the iPhone Apps (Google Maps, etc.) on your jailbroken iPod Touch, go here.

Any questions.. ask in the comments. I did this successfully on my first try, so it’s not hard at all with the above tutorials.

To get a better idea of which one is more popular, one has to consider market share. That is, how much percentage of all consoles sold is a particular one. For example, right now Wii has 42% market share, 360 has 41%, and PS3 has 17%. These numbers alone do not help understand what is going on, until one compares the market shares for multiple times. So, one could check at the market share one week, and then again four weeks (1 month) later. With this data, they could see how fast each one is growing in terms of market share. This value tells the true story of what is going on, and how popular (how fast it is selling) each console is.

I started recording data in August, and have compiled some final data as of today, December 19. The data shows something that I always knew but that most people refuse to believe. Put simply, the PS3 is selling faster than 360. Everyone knows the Wii has been destroying everyone (it sold more in 1 year than 360 did in 2 years, and it’s only getting crazier), but I have included that data as well.

What I did was calculated, using Numbers (Mac’s new spreadsheet program, comparable to Excel), the market share at various dates. I then used formulas to figure out how much it changed from one data sampling to another (very simple in spreadsheets… just =C1-B1 stuff). The problem, however, is that I took my data samples at random dates. Therefore, there is no set interval between them. Because of this, I divided the market share change by the amount of days that had passed to get what I call the C/D value (Change in Market Share per Day). Finally, I averaged the C/D values from all of the data sampling days and got an average change in market share per day value for each console. The numbers confirm what I said above.

The PS3 market share has been changing by 0.006% per day (meaning it increases by that amount). Xbox 360’s market share has been changing by -0.031% per day (meaning it decreases by that amount). Finally, Wii market share increases by 0.025% per day. So in other words, Wii is selling the fastest, followed by PS3, with 360 trailing. What this means is that eventually, PS3 market share will surpass Xbox 360.

I did some calculations and found that the day this occurs will be 628 days from today. 628 minus 365 (because 2008 is a leap year) is 263, which is how many days into 2009 this day will occur. The 263rd day of the year is September 20th (on a non-leap year like 2009). Therefore, September 20, 2009, the Playstation 3 will have sold more units than the Xbox 360. I’m too lazy to figure out how many units this will actually be, but I’m not sure you can even do that with this data. The good part about this data, though, is that market share is all relative. Therefore, even if all consoles sell like crazy during the Christmas season, their market share changes don’t fluctuate (assuming they all sell equally during the holidays as they normally do).

That was a really long-winded way to say to everyone that the PS3 is selling better than 360, despite Halo 3 being released. That did nothing to help 360’s sales. For those that can’t read, are too lazy to read, or like pretty pictures, here is the same information displayed graphically.

NOTE: All data taken from NexGenWars

So, I decided to do what I always do when Firefox doesn’t work nicely for me: build it myself from source. I loaded up the Terminal (which looked a lot cooler with the Red Sands theme that is one of the many options in the Leopard version) and used CVS to pull the latest Mozilla source code. The reason I went with the latest and not the 2.0.0.9 stable release is because I had gotten used to 3.0, and can’t go back. It’s just nice to have the cocoa widgets; the page tagging is also a great feature. (Before Leopard, I was using El Furbe’s builds. His nightly Intel builds simply save a lot of time.. you get the latest without having to spend 30 minutes every day rebuilding the latest sources. Anyway, that’s where I got introduced to the awesomeness that is Firefox 3.0.)

The result is Firefox that works well under Leopard. It is optimized for Intel as well. If anyone with an Intel box and Leopard wants a good working version of Firefox, this build should do the trick until El Furbe starts doing Darwin 9 builds, or until Mozilla gets its act together with it’s stock builds. Without further ado, here is Mozilla Firefox 3.0b2 optimized for Intel! Click here to download it. Click here for The Burning Edge blog which has release notes for the trunk builds.