toadlife

What do you mean it doesn't work at all? It does exactly what it is supposed to do - blocks unsolicited incoming traffic. If you are referring to outbound blocking, that is feature which is overblown anyway, and for the average user would only be a hinderance.

Yeah, I should have said if you don't have any other sort of firewall, don't just disable the XP firewall to get a game working. I have the XP firewall turned off, but it's because have a BSD machine that acts as my DSL router/Firewall. If you have another software firewall already, or have a hardware based firewall, then by all means disable it.

For heavens sake, do not turn of your firewall just to get a game working. If the firewall is not letting these games work, then it is because the games are trying to open up a port and listen for incoming connections. If you have problems with a particular game, simply insert an exception in your firewall for the game in question. It will allow the game to do it's thing.

YES!!! The Original GTA was one of favorite games of all time. Unfortunately, the original version works like crap on Windows 2000/XP (it is really jerky, even on a 2ghz machine for no apparent reason). Downloading now.

Well my opinion that our policies are the thing which pisses people off is based upon the premise that we have the power needed to impose those policies. How much military power China has, and how they would compare to the U.S. in some theoretical war is irrelevant. If you want to think that the U.S. is not the pre-eminent economic and political super-power in the world today, then go ahead. I'm rather perplexed at the fact that you are arguing this silly point with me. My opinion of my country's status, both economically and politically in the world won't change by the <s>fact</s>, errr, opinion that the average Luxenbourg resident is wealthier than the average U.S. resident. It's obvious that I've struck a nerve with you by stating my opinion, and there is nothing I can do about that. Allow me to don my politicians hat and rephrase my point, so that it strikes as few nerves as possible... People don't hate the United States because of it's wealth or power; They hate the United States for leveraging her wealth and power to force political and economic policies upon other nations. There. I said it without any reference to how the U.S. ranks in the world.

I completely understand, and stand by my original point. perhaps you should reread my two posts on page three. Again, you are have completely missed the point I was making, and now seem to be putting words in my mouth. There is nothing more I can add, as I have already made my point back on page three.

Which is why I like the idea of an EU Military. It would help to balance the power in the world and keep certain politicians in the U.S. from being so "trigger happy".

Ridiculous. So are you inferring that Luxembourg has more economic power than the United States, and Bermuda, The Cayman Islands, San Marino, Norway, and Switzerland are all right behind the U.S. in World economic clout? You are an economist??

What about this truth bothers non-americans? I'm talking economically, which I think is pretty good measuring stick for world political power. Here is a good link which spells it out. Bringing up "Wealthiest and most powerfull stuff" is not a matter or pride or arrogance, it's a matter of fact. Note that I never said that Americans Enjoy the highest quaility of life in the world. Raw economic power and quality of life have little do with each other.

Remember the saying by Lord Acton "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Given the correctness of that statement, and the fact that my country is the wealthiest and most powerful on Earth at this moment, the world has good reason to look upon my country's political leaders with skepticism. One of the things that has bugged me (a U.S. citizen), is the idea that "[insert anti-U.S. group here] hates the U.S. because of our freedom/wealth/power". That's 100% bullshit. [insert anti-U.S. groups here] hate us because of some sort of policy decision we have made which negatively impacts their lives. And for that I must say with all seriousness: Vote for [insert Bush Opponent Here] in 2004!

I like my country - guns and violent crime included. It makes for good local news. One thing Denoir.. Your statements infer that in some other countries (*cough* U.S. *cough*) violent crime is mostly random non-personal violence. You are making a broad generalization, which seems to be borne out of your contempt for 'gun cultures'. I would venture to say that cases of gratuitous violence commited by criminals in the U.S. are just as rare as anywhere else. Even in my gun crazy country, you'll find that there is almost always a personal motive behind any violent act. Yes - overall there is more violent crime in the U.S., but I think I has more to do with the skewed priorities of our criminal justice system, and capitalistic tendencies than with anything else.

So? The windows firewall only blocks incoming traffic, so if your firewall querys you more than two or three times, then you need to look into exactly which programs are asking for server rights and why. That can be turned off. Don't use IE. It still is and will allways be an insecure browser. You are uninstalling a major security update to Windows because of "problems" which can be fixed with a few clicks? What will you do when a critical security update that requires SP2 is released?

I've been running the public betas (RC1 & RC2) for about two months now. I've had no problems. I just installed the 'final' version, which is almost identical to RC2. Here are the main things that it adds: * Updated firewall which blocks by application as opposed to only ports. * Firewall turned on by default * "Security center" which interogates your AV/Auto Update/Firewall settings and bugs you if you don't have them all enabled/up to date. (the nagging can be turned off) * Native Pop up blocking in IE that works properly * Much stricter security settings in IE (this will end up breaking many activeX based apps) * Better support for updating - future windowsXP patches should be much smaller in size. * DEP (hardware based buffer overflow protection) support for Athlon64 chips and *future* Intel chips. Those are the main things that I noticed when using it. I'm sure there are quite a few other internal changes. Lots of applications are sure to be broken by this service pack - but that's not neccesarily a bad thing. ;)

I got an email from someone saying that the Lojack 2 crashes OFP with the newest BAS RAngers. It's should jsut work, but apparently there is some sort of compatibility issue. Since the issue has been forced, I'll probably end up updating it so it works with the new BAS rangers.

Out of simple curiousity, I have placed a new poll item on the front page of my site that has to do with Operation LoJack and this situation. Feel free to cast a vote.... http://ofp.toadlife.net/

A Mac version eh? It would sure give Mac gamers something to talk about.

Hi guys, Trademark law is funny in that trademark holders have no automatic protection for their marks. The LoJack corporation's lawyers are simply doing their job. I, however, vehemently disagree that I am violating their trademark by using the term LoJack in one of my missions. Trademark infringement relies on several factors. Here is a good resource on the basics of trademark infringement: http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/infringe.html Some quick points on why I hold the opinion I do: * There is no connection or similarity whatsoever between the "goods" (Operation LoJack) I offer and the goods (The LoJack vehicle recovery system) that the LoJack corporation offers. Operation LoJack is an interactive story which centers around a hostage being rescued, and the LoJack vehicle recovery system is a physical electronic device that is installed onto a vehicle. * I am not selling, nor have I ever sold or made any money from Operation LoJack. All of the work I have done around the game Operation Flashpoint is no more than a hobby of mine. There is no commercial service being offered. * Operation LoJack does not contain any wording which is likely to confuse consumers as to who owns the right to the LoJack trademark, or which services are being provided. Text within the mission refers to the term "LoJack" as a "prototype of an experimental tracking device". This tracking device in my story is mentioned as having the "codename" of "LoJack". Using the term "LoJack" as a "codename" for the device in the story is no more than a play on words to make the story believable. Regardless of the strength of the LoJack mark, my mission is not in any way likely to cause confusion among consumers. * The quality, or usefulness of my mission does not in any way rely on the use of the term "LoJack". The term is used for purely literary purposes. * My mission is nothing more than an interactive piece of literature, and I have every right to use whatever term in the title and contents of my mission that I please. Numerous pieces of literature contain titles that contain *very strong* trademarks. Please refer to this link regarding this issue: http://members.authorsguild.net/trademark/disc.htm I'll be formally replying to them via legal means (certified mail). Meanwhile, Operation LoJack is still hosted at my OFP site. [edit=baaad spelling]

I think Longhorn has been pushed back to 2006 so Microsoft can put more time into their feeble effort to secure Windows XP.

Yeah that makes sense as my DSL service is called "SBC Yahoo DSL" ;)

MY ISP, SBC just increased the size of the email account I get with my DSL service to 2GB - and that's accesable via POP/IMAP. Of course I don't use it. My various toadlife.net accounts have 3.2GB of space avaiable -and I've never really used more than 10 megs at a time in my personal email accounts. :P You get what you pay for.

What? How would they 'win'? If you're talking about an attack with nukes, nobody would have won, but the chance either side lauching such a strike was extrememly unlikely due to MAD. If you're talking about a convetional attack/invasion, I have to ask, what have you been smoking? He also layed more debt on the U.S. citizens than any other president in history. Around $1.6 trillion. To this day, Reagan's fiscal policies are hurting the U.S. economy by forcing us to pay more taxes to fund the debt. I agree that he showed good leadership in the foreign policy department, but I think he could have done it without doing such severe damage to the economy - damage that continues to resonate in our economy to this day.

Yes the BMP was probbaly around 60-100 meters away. THe error happened right as my gunner was shot. I was driving away from the BMP which had been disabled and one of it's crewmembers shot my gunner. It was the TOW 2A. as for the missle power - this happened to me even if I shot at the BMP from very far away - like 300-500 meters. But when I was the tank and the AI was the TOWA2, one missile would take me out. I'll have to give it another go tonight. Regardlesss it's pretty darn cool 'hack' on ofp.

Ahh yes - the good ole' divide by zero error! http://www.toadlife.net/stuff/forum_pics/MCAR_b2_error.jpg The missiles seem extremely weak - it took 3 of them to cause a BMP crew to exit and two more to make the BMP explode. Sometimes 5 missiles would fail to destroy a BMP - attacking anything heavier than a BMP was useless. This was the case for me with every model. Another thing. The AI will only fire if they are a certain distance away. I know this is by design, but the closest fireing distance for the AI seemed to be a little too far.

Since the X-box is not much more than a stripped down PC with Win2k installed, all that would be required to play X-Box games on your PC is an emulator that runs on top of Windows. I don't think Microsoft would have trouble coding one. I think it's a good idea.

He also co-wrote WarDay if you ever read that. Good book. EDIT: Whitley Streiber Books The book refered to is Communion. When I was a kid (12 years old) I read Communion (link). It was one of most fascinating and riveting books I've ever read, and it left me with an intense need of a night-light in my bedroom for a week or so after I read it. Regardless of how you take it, Strieber tells an excellent story. Even hardcore skeptics can take enjoyment from it. I'll second your recomendation of Warday. I read it around the same time I read communion - another fantastic read.