Poor France. The nation known mostly for its food and wine only has a few major sporting events to call its own, yet we — great, fat and lazy America — have pwned its most iconic one for seven years. That legacy could still live on — if you don’t mind shelling out 99 and sweating all over your living room floor, that is. Powered by Google Maps and touted as the official trainer of Le Tour de France, comes a Pro-Form training bike so hardcore, it even simulates potholes. Ok, we made that last part up, but it does allow you to feel the burn of 24 pre-set courses, or one of your own punishing design. For the ultra-committed indoor enthusiast, there’s also Intelligent Wind Resistance and a 20 percent incline / decline feature that’ll match the ups and downs of real life outdoor cycling without the hassle of the actual outdoors. Honestly, it’s a bit much and we can’t really see this thing taking off with the New Year’s Eve resolution set, but if you’ve always wanted that biker’s derriere, this is your trainer.

Google Maps-powered training bike simulates Tour de France, refuses to speak English originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jul 2011 07:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Pro-Form  | Email this | Comments
Engadget

CCP Games’ flagship EVE Online is run on one of the largest clustered super computers in the world, with five thousand star systems and a few million unique objects in play at any particular time. Their server system is so strong that they schedule a 60 minutes down time every day to run backups, and the system can deal with up to 25,000 players ( and occasionally more ) without falling down. This quick EVE Online guide will cover why one can’t run these instances yourself.

Thanks to the large size of the database that players have interaction with, EVE Online doesnt lend itself to non-public server play, and there are no EVE Online private servers.

In large part, the absence of EVE Online private servers is good for the overall play of the game. Much of the appeal of playing the game is the sheer number of players working at the same time on the universe. Because EVE Online runs on a single cluster, there’s never a choice, like in Warcraft, or City of Heroes, to choose which server you are going to be on based totally on the server your buddies are on. You are either on the Tranquility server ( if you use English interface ) or the Serenity server ( if you are using the Chinese language interface ), and there are customarily 10 thousand or even more players on at the same time to have interaction with. There is a 3rd server run by CCP, the test server, called Singularity, and they like to recommend that everybody set up an account there to check things and provide input into the next development of the game.

By contrast for World of Warcraft, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of private servers out there, that will let anywhere from 100 to perhaps a thousand players log in concurrently. For WoW, this is a chance to “grind in private” ; if you attempted doing that on EVE Online, you’d have a tough time hooking up with other players at all, due to the huge size of the database to explore.

In a real sense, non-public servers for MMOs are a perilous thing for the corporations that produce the games. Those games are expensive to pen, costly to maintain, need paid staff to keep on top of things, and need a continuing development budget and promoting plan. The subscription model you pay is what keeps the game being developed ; setting up “hacked ” MMO private servers simply hastens the day when the company publishing the MMO can’t sustain the operation any longer, and has to close things down. The specifics are covered in most good EVE Online guide.

Fortunately for CCP, an EVE Online private server is a tricky thing to line up for a home user ; most people don’t have home-run clusters of high end PCs, each with sixteen gigs of RAM, to attempt to cause it to happen.

Owning a small business in today’s economy can be a challenge no matter how long the company has been around. People are not spending the money that they used to and heaven forbid any equipment goes on the disabled list. When the printer goes out, there is no need to take out a small business loan to replace it. Instead, get the Okidata C5300 Printer to save your small business some money.

It is more difficult for companies that do not have the means for storage to be able to save all of their files. A corporation does not have these limitations as they can afford to purchase all of the high tech gadgets that can keep their files in order and do not always have to print everything out. This is the reason why many smaller companies have to rely heavily on their printers and cannot be without one for any length of time.

Most small businesses do not have the funds for more than one printer and the Okidata C5300 Printer is the perfect option as it can be networked and used by all of the employees. This feature is a huge plus when there is only one printer available in the office and everyone needs to use it. Even those who do not have a great deal of computer experience can easily set up this printer for networking.

Companies do not have to worry about their employees standing around waiting for their documents to print. Laser printers tend to print much faster than inkjet printers so the documents come out much quicker. Once the documents are sent to print, they are usually done by the time the staff is at the printer to retrieve them.

While being able to print quickly is a definite advantage, there is less toner usage per cartridge and document than other printers on the market today. This means less changing of the toner and more printing for less money for the company. An Okidata toners package will last up to a full thirty days without needing to be replaced and in some cases longer.

There is no lack in quality even though the printer is so speedy when creating documents with this printer. No matter what media is used, it prints with great quality and there is no blurring of photographs or high color graphics. Every person who sees the quality offered with this printer will be amazed.

When it comes to time management, the Okidata C5300 Printer with Okidata replacement toner offers so much for any small company because the employees do not have to wait long for their documents to be printed. Another plus is that the Oki C5300 printer toner lasts a long time so it does not need to be changed as frequently. This saves employee time and time lost when documents are not printed in a timely manner because of the lack of toner. Get your small business on track by having this printer networked for all your employees.

In EVE Online, you can’t build things out of nothing. Effort must be given with regard to gathering resources in order to fortify a fleet. Gathering resources can be attained thru the process of mining. EVE Online mining involves a procedure of extracting raw materials known as ore from asteroids found in asteroid belts or ice in ice belts. Mining is all about employing your mining laser modules to these asteroids and filling up your cargo with ore. This ore can be refined into minerals that are mandatory in building equipment for your fleet or can be sold at the market for profit. However , there are a few EVE Online mining tips that you ought to know to make every mining session count. This EVE Online guide will give you some ideas.

Starting Low-Grade

If you are mining for the first time, know that you’ll start with a low-quality mining laser and like most other mining lasers, a single mining cycle takes only a minute. Since your current mining laser won’t get you any good quality resources, let quantity matter for the meantime and start stocking up some common ores at the low-grade asteroids. This is the safest route to go as well as valuable ore spots tend to be guarded by vicious pirates that may make short work of your puny ship.

A Little Spending

The money that you made from the tutorial mode can turn out to be awfully useful when it comes to EVE Online mining. You can buy a Miner I which can gather more ore units while using up less CPU at the same time. You may also opt in purchasing a survey scanner if you happen to feel you need better chances in finding the ore that you wish to mine. What’s critical is that you spend that cash on mining to make things easier.

Security Precautions

EVE Online Mining is unquestionably no walk in the park so for safety, make sure you look for systems with a variety of around 1.0 to 0.8. It should additionally have no more than 30 pilots in it. If you find that the current system that you’re in has been drained from other players, you’ll have no option but to travel. When carrying out your mining expedition, try and keep it less than 5 gate jumps away from your original location.

Remember to bookmark any good asteroids that you find particularly if the place is far so you can travel back easily. From there you should be stocking up plenty of ore that you can put to some serious use. Hopefully this EVE Online guide has given you some useful ideas to kickstart your mining career.

If you have ever played EVE Online, you actually know what an addiction-forming game it can be and how really enjoyable it is. After a bit of time and exploration nonetheless , you could be concerned that you’re getting into a rut. Maybe there’s a task you want to perform, or maybe you would like to know better combat methods that will enable you to survive better in player vs player interactions. Maybe you’re curious to find out how the folks that are pulling in the kredits are doing it. Here is where a good guide can really help you out. An EVE Online guide is a way to get some tips and tricks that aren’t always apparent at first glance.

The very first thing to consider is where you are at and what you need your EVE Online guide to do for you. Are you totally new to the game and are you looking for a way to work out what’s going on? The game is basically engineered to make this time period a bit easier on you by offering you tutorial missions. Tutorial missions go a good distance towards getting you comfortable with the game mechanics and the game world. You may also find that for tutorial missions, you don’t have to worry about ship repairs and you may even make a clean sum of kredits as well .

When you’re hunting for something beyond the basics, your best bet is to go surfing and see what is available. If one actual maneuver keeps slipping away from you, or you keep getting stymied by the same, it could be time for you to have a look at the forums. On the forums, you will find that the area marked within EVE is dedicated to helping folks work around things precisely like this, and you will find that if you’re looking for an EVE Online guide, this could be a place to start.

The third area that you could have concern with is that you would like to bulk your ability and your capability when it comes to something similar to mining. When there’s an activity that you would like to get good at, you could have a look at where you are and where people who have been playing the game for a bit are, and feel daunted, remember that it is possible for you to get there too. Do a fast Google search, and chances are, you will find a great EVE Online guide which will tell you precisely what it is you need to know. The best EVE guide will give you not only precise things you can do, but also show you what general trends and techniques you may use.

Finding a good EVE Online guide can be critical to your gameplay experience, so take time and discover what you can when it comes to this fascinating world!

Urban Tool touts geeky gadget holsters for hipsters
Are you a geeky male hipster with an ironic, badly trimmed soul patch? Do you have an (understandably) depressed girlfriend who routinely refuses to lug around your tricked-out and tattooed Apple gear? read more
Read more on TG Daily

Apple delays white iPhone 4 in manufacturing glitch
Apple said Wednesday on the eve of the launch of the new iPhone that the white model would not be available for a month, the latest manufacturing glitch for the California gadget maker.
Read more on AFP via Yahoo! News