How to find out someones hider nick

August 21st, 2010

People talking about privacy and hiders and other stuff. But it's to easy to find out someones hider nick. Here is a simple howto.

There is no way to hide, if you follow the following steps.

  1. Open leaderboard (http://leaderboard.alleg.net) in a bowser, don't close it or refresh it, see below.
  2. Wait until the hider, you wanna find out, finished a game.
  3. Take a look at the in-game stats and remember the following things of the hider:
  4. Rank (easiest way to reduce players)
  5. Kills
  6. Ejects
  7. Base kills (even better, because less people have them in a game)
  8. Station captured (even more better than base kills)
  9. Wait a few minutes, until leaderboard got updated (5-10 minutes after the game finished).
  10. Now open the leaderboard in a different tab/window.
  11. Compare changes between old and updated leaderboard.
  12. Bingo


If you put leaderboards into MS Excel/OO Calc, you can also use functions which make it even easier.

PS:
If someone has a hider on leaderboard he doesn't use, wait until Sunday for squadgames (people play them mostly without hiders) and compare results.


Edit:
Now with images. ;)

Ingame stats:


Leaderboard changes (animated, switching between a version before and after game):

Posted in: Allegiance | Comments (0)

New graphic card

May 4th, 2010

After 6 months of trouble between my ATI Radeon HD4870 and Vista/Win7 driver model, I gonna replace the card..

Just spend 220 Euro on a stupid "silent" Nvidia Geforce GTX 260, since I have no trouble with my notebook GPU...

Call me stupid, whatever... I've just got enough from graphic artifacts and bluescreens.

Posted in: Stuff | Comments (0)

HighRes Smoke

April 18th, 2010

This image shows the difference between old texture (lower right corner) and the new one:


Download:
highres_smoke_texture.zip (48 KB)

Install:
Just extract the archive into you texture directory (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Allegiance\artwork\textures).

Posted in: Allegiance | Comments (0)

FreeAllegiance and totalitarian regimes

March 11th, 2010

I were bored today and reading some stuff on Wikipedia. So I found the following break.

Totalitarianism:
Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of an official all-embracing ideology and propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, a single party that controls the state, personality cults, control over the economy, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of state terrorism.

Let's check these statements:
  • all-embracing ideology
    More or less true: Holding all keys (FAO forums, ASGS, lobby and autoupdate server) without giving someone else access.
  • propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media
    True: There is only one medium - FreeAllegiance.org.
  • a single party that controls the state
    True: There is only one head administrator and he nominates/appoints his Zone Leaders.
  • personality cults
    True: Head admins always have their own personal cult.
  • control over the economy
    True: Game-servers need to be add to a white-list.
  • regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism
    True: There is enough censorship within FreeAllegiance.org forums.
  • the use of mass surveillance
    Not used, but possible: TAG most in-game chats.
  • widespread use of state terrorism
    More or less true: Winning games by banning the other team happens sometimes.


So FAO fully meet demands of totalitarian regimes...

Posted in: Allegiance | Comments (0)

Fixing stuff on Christmas Eve

December 24th, 2009

Today I finally fixed my graphic card problems...

Everything started about a month ago, after I updated my graphic card drivers from Catalyst 9.10 to 9.11. Suddenly I had artifacts everywhere on my screen:

  • Taskbar was flickering from time to time
  • Desktop image wasn't shown correctly from time to time
  • Images with my browser had artifacts
  • Allegiance had a ton of artifacts
  • Other 3D games had different artifacts


Earlier today I downgraded my drivers from 9.12 to 9.10. It worked for 30 mins without problems, but than everything become like before.

My next suggestion was that the GPU got overheated. So I installed FurMark. Again artifacts showed up.

I opened my case and there was a LED glowing on the Sapphire Radeon HD4870 512MB (with Zalman VF900-Cu cooler). I had no idea what it would mean, if LED D601 is on.

So I searched a bit on the web and found out that this LED hows a critical Core power fault?! WTF is that?

So I unplugged all power cords and plugged them in again. Suddenly the LED is off, after I turned my PC on again.

Everything is fixed?! I hope so.

Merry Christmas.

Posted in: Stuff | Comments (3)

Home Server

December 8th, 2009

I'm currently looking for some NAS or server solution for my small home network.

I finaly ended up at the TEO website.

They sell a nice Intel Atom based server, which needs only 11 watts per hour. It's called TEO XXS.



This means that the running costs will be less than 20 Euro per year (server running at full load).

Maybe I run Windows Home Server on it, so I have a simple backup solution and can also access the server from the Internet via SSL, but LINUX is also an option, even if I'm no real fan of it using it at home.

Posted in: Structured cabling @home | Comments (0)

I've got holes!

November 12th, 2009

I drilled today holes for the socket. I had two cable detector, both failed. A pin which holds a electric cable into position, saved my from cutting it. :unsure:

I failed to find a place for the socket in the kitchen, but I haven't found one. :glare:

Next step will be cutting cable vaults into the old plaster outside, before the new isolation will be installed on it.



There will be two sockets:
One for satellite television (ductwork to roof) and the other one for network and telephone (2 cables to 19" rack at basement). The hole in the middle is needed, because the CAT.7 cable has a bend radius of 4 cm.

Posted in: Structured cabling @home | Comments (0)

My current project

November 6th, 2009

While my parents and I renovate our home (new roof, new windows and thermal insulation), I decided to install network and telephone cables into each room, better known as structured cabling.

Today my I finished my first step, installing the 19" rack. I hope the hole(s) I made for the about 25 cables is large enough.

Posted in: Structured cabling @home | Comments (0)

How FAO really works

October 18th, 2009

The nobodies let you play and are like every other community member...

Posted in: Allegiance | Comments (1)

Autoupdate problems

September 7th, 2009

During the recent months, we had a couple of problems, getting new files on AU.

Nobody really noticed it, until there was a broken file pushed via AU, the IC Garrison (without any working launch and docking bays) on May 19th. The file was fixed in a couple of hours (minutes). Server administrators fixed that problem server side, so players and drones were able to dock (without autopilot) on the IC Garrison again. Players needed to download the fixed version themselves, if they wanted to use the autopilot again, most of them didn't. Finally, on July 1st, the fixed version was on AU.

Another example, CC_06:
It was ready for AU since August 11th, but was pushed on September 3rd.

Or FAZ R5:
Imago said he's finished with R5 development, there is no more testing. I haven't noticed any new development/testing since August 19th. What are we waiting for? It will fix lots of problems, like the incompatibility of many new drivers.

There is nothing more important for this community, than having an active administration. One head administrator is not enough...

Posted in: Allegiance | Comments (8)