However a couple of problems may still lie after the upgrade and one of them I have noticed is the language translator plug-in called Global Translator by N2H. Though I upgraded the blog on the second day of the release of the WP 2.6 version I never noticed that this plug-in is not doing the job it has been assigned to do. Today I was chatting with one of my blog visitor and he notified me about the dead plug-in. I tested that out and infact the plug-in was sitting quitely without doing any job. While clicking on any language flag I was receiving this error “Sorry, the Google translation engine is temporarily not available. Please try again later or switch to another translation engine.”

I quickly checked many other blogs to verify if the plug-in has issue with WP 2.6 or it is issue with my WP installation. I saw that many of the blogs using that plug-ins and WP 2.6 combo has the same issue. That indicated that either those bloggers have not noticed the issue or they are not sure what is the solution. In order to isolate and correct the issue I tried the following:

Went into WP admin Panel and Settings and clicking on the Global Translator asked me to change the file permission of cache folder.

This plug-in utilizes a Cache folder located at wp-content/plugins/global-translator/ and the default permission for this folder is 755 but Wp 2.6 wants this folder to be World writable that means the cache folder should have permission of 777 and you need to apply this permission recursively so that the same permission will be applied to any child folder.

Changing the cache folder permission to 777 changed the error mesaage to Sorry, the Google translation engine is temporarily not available. Please try again later. But it is just a coincidence as my issue is still not resolved. Next thing I tried is changed from Google translation service to Babel Fish and I was able to see the plug-in started working. I quickly tried Prompt translation and all of them worked. So now I was sure that the issue lie with the google translator service.

If any one using the Google Translator service in the Global Translator plugin has got any success or know the trick to correct it please let me know as the Google Translator is the best among the all available.

Story:
Crysis is the single player game in which you will play as a role of United State Delta Force operator Jake Dunn, known it as, Nomad. Based on a fictional future where an ancient alien spacecraft has been discovered under the Earth on an island near the coast of Korea. Nomad will sent to the mysterious island to investigate an unidentified flying object that has crash in the area.

Game Play:
The game is set in three parts:
Part 1: It consists of battling through the jungle. In this first part of the game the meteor hits the island which cause the North Korean to take up the military presence and investigate the meteor crash.

Part 2: It consists of battling through the frozen jungle as well as the own aircraft carrier off the coast.
In this part, the meteor open up the flash that will freezes the entire island. The Aliens who are not reveled in the game story, use high tech machines to stop what little resistance the North Korean military is offering them, the US, North Korean and Chinese militaries’ begin to work together to fight them.
 
Part 3: one of the most interesting part, where fights on alien ship with so-called zero-G game play.
The game developer “Crytek” has stated the aliens themselves will not be revealed until the end of the game, giving them a certain extent of suspense.

Weapons:
The game has introduced lots of new technology weapons. The game has Pistols, RPGs, Shotguns, Miniguns, Sniper rifles, assault rifles, Sub-machine guns, Alien energy-based mini-gun like weapon, and he TAC gun (a nuclear missile launcher). One of the interesting part of the game or guns is once you acquired, then they can only be removed through death or scripted loss of inventory if in story mode.  Most of the weapons are adjustable in the firing mode single or a rapid-fire.

Technology
Crysis uses Microsoft’s new API, Direct3D 10 (DirectX 10) for graphics rendering, and includes the same editor that was used by Crytek to create the game.

It seems the previous post of mine about Google Doodle has been heard by Google and they have taken the measure. Which one do you see on your browser today?

Making a sequel

In video games, some developers meet these demands, and even surpass then such as Valve’s Half-Life 2. Other like Need for Speed: ProStreet, come up woefully short. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2- Ubsoft’s new iteration to its 2007 mega-hit tactical first person shooter – falls into the latter category. Its takes just five minutes if gameplay to realize that you are not server anything new from the last version.

What’s new in the game?
First, instead of the character of the Logan Keller, you play as Bishop, team leader of the covert US counter terrorist unit known as Rainbow. You and your team –mate are put into a series of missions that can rarely be told apart from each other, let alone from the Vegas. That pattern is the same: Go into a shiny Las Vegas building, kill terrorists, climb up the stairs or rappel down. Kill some more terrorists, and repeat this monotonous set of action till you complete the mission.
And Vegas 2 asks of you to continue with these tedious tasks for a total game time of 8 hours. Apparently, Ubsoft has no mercy.
The other new addition from the first Vegas is the ACES system, or “Advanced Combat Enhancement and Specialization”. In regular parlance, this is basically a skill upgrade system that rewards you with points for your style of combat.
If you tend to play the role of a sniper, you will earn more “Marks-man” points. Tactical, mid-range shooting will give you ‘Assault’ credits, while your ‘Close Quarter Battle’ rating will go up if you get in your enemy’s face and proceed to smash it in. Depending on your style of combat, you will unlock special guns and tons of accessories as you ht certain levels of points.

Same old:
Apart from the change of character and the ACES system, not much in the game is different from its predecessor.
What is bugged me is the most is that a Tom Clancy game could have such repetitive and boring writing. If you have played Vegas 1, then the storyline here will give a feeling of déjà vu, in fact, I would wager that you guess where the plot is headed by the end of the first level itself.
It really is a whole new level of repetition in sequels when the storyline is almost the same as the first version of the game. It’s befuddling how an author of an author if Tom Clancy’s level could write this echo of his own script.
In the end, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 comes off as nothing but money spinner for Ubisoft. Now, it would have made sense if Vegas 2 was priced lower, or was bundled with other game, like Half Life 2: Episode Two in The Orange Box. But as a stand-alone, full-price game, this is among the worst deals in recent releases.
The first was a better game, and if you do want to experience Ubisoft’s Vegas universe, you might as well pick that up, and give Vegas 2 a miss.

System requirement you can play this game:
Hard Drive: 7 GB, Ram 1 GB, 128 MB Shader Model 3 compliant video card.

Why Google is abandoning Adsense Referrals?

The answer to this question from Google goes like this:

We’re constantly looking for ways to improve AdSense by developing and supporting features which drive the best monetization results for our publishers. Sometimes, this requires retiring existing features so we can focus our efforts on the ones that will be most effective in the long term. For this reason, we will be retiring the AdSense Referrals program. If you have any additional questions, please visit our Help Center.

Infact Google wants to promote the newly acquired DoubleClick Performics Affiliate operations (Acquired in March 2008). And wants to share a pie of affiliate marketing market. So beware all other affiliate marketing giants there (remembered how Google grasp search engine market when there was hardly a taker to buy their project).

You may look for the following alternatives:

Google Affiliate Network:
The DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Network will now operate as the Google Affiliate Network for advertisers targeting users located in the United States. Similar to the AdSense Referrals program, the Google Affiliate Network enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. Further details can be obtained from Google Affiliate Network page.

AdSense for content ads:

If using less than 3 Adsense for Content on page you may replace the code for Adsense referrals with another Adsense For Content ad units. (Do this as long as it does not irritate your readers). If do not wish to do this then simple remove the code as Adsense for referrals will not display any ads after August and the space on your site will be blank.

That’s not the case in Sega and Secret Level’s Iron Man summer blockbuster starring Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, allows player to don  the boozy billionaire’s suit if armor and reach mach speen, as well as blast foes with missiles, repulse shots and that oh-so-devasting unibeam.
Iron Man devotes a bulk of screen time to stark building the armor that will make him even more infamous, the Iron man game spends only two levels on suck developments. The rest of the interactive experience is focused in flying around and blow stuff up. Interesting? Nope. Fun? Absolutely, for a little while, anyway.

Iron Man heavily relies on Stan Lee’s original source material to expand upon director Jon Favreau’s big-screen take on stark, taking gamer beyond the film’s Middle East and Los Angeles locales. However, because of some playground-like game play, plot never becomes an integral cog in this machine.
Every level of Iron Man is open, which allows winnable superheroes to seek and destroy robust battalions of enemy tanks, turrets and helicopters in any order they desire. However, such action quickly becomes repetitive, interrupted only by brief tussles with Iron Man foes lifted from the comics, such as Titanium Man and Whiplash. The game’s ability to alternate among flying, hovering and battling on the ground is overly ambitious. The ground is overly ambitious. The awkward control scheme ends up diminishing any joy of becoming an “Iron Man” who can rise more than 30 feet off the ground. In the heat of combat, Stark looks more like he’s having a surface-to-air seizure than battling as A One Man Army.

Upgradable enhancements and unique objectives give the game hefty amount of reply value, unless the arcade-like game play is completely off putting from the start. Hardcore fans can try unlocking suites like the Extremis and Hulk buster, as well as an exclusive “Ultimate” and silver centurion suit, for the PlayStations 3 and Xbox 360 versions, respectively.

Downey, Terence Howard and Shaun Toub from the film provide their voices in the game. Much like the movie, Downey delivers his lines with bite. His wisecracking asides are one of the most engaging part of the game. That’s more good news for the scene-stealer but not for gamer hoping for a completely fleshed out interactive Iron man experience.
Finally Iron Man can fly in the game.

Based on more than a dozen reviews compiled by Metacritic, an aggregator of gaming reviews, the PS3 version has scored a perfect 100, while the Xbox 360 version has achieved a 99. IGN.com had a valid point when it stated that GTA IV gives us gamers characters and a world with a level of depth previously unseen in gaming. “It elevates its story from a mere shoot-em-up to an Oscar-caliber drama,” its review read.

Contrive

For those who have not been following the development of the game and the numerous reports we published, GTA IV revolves around Niko Bellic, a Eastern European who lands up in Liberty city to fulfill his “American Dream.” The rest of the story like in other games in Grand Theft Auto series is all about guns, Cars, Prostitutes and music!

Liberty City

The whole game is set in this fictional New York lookalike city, which has many of its landmarks like Central Park, Empire State Building, Manhattan Bridge and yes, even the Statue of Liberty. The size of the city is not as big as the one in San Andreas but it will enable one to move around the whole city without hitting the load screen.

Improvements from The San Andreas

GTA IV has been improved vastly since San Andreas. Apart from graphics, the major change has been in the controls which are now smoother than in the past. They have gone from slightly choppy to extremely smooth. Niko uses a cell phone and can also use computers in the game to contact people and even surf the internet.

What happens – When Caught, Shot at:

When caught by the police, Niko might be imprisoned for a while. The time duration depends factors like wanted level and the kind of crime committed. It is also possible that Niko is shot at during his escapades. In such situations, he can go to nearest hospital and get himself cured, In case he is shot during a fight, he will awaken on a hospital bed!

PS3 version of the game needs to be installed while the Xbox 360 version is simply plug_and_play.
The game doesn’t allow custom sound tracks, the huge number of radio stations within the game is good enough!
Remember the concept of “bullet-time” from Max Payne? GTA IV has it too!

GTA IV – Expectations
Analysts are expecting the action-driving video game—GTA IV to sell more than 90 million copies and top last year’s record $300 million first-week sales of Halo 3. It is also expected break opening week record set by box-office smashes such as Spider-Man 3 ($337 million in the USA) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End ($309 million)

My blog was hosted at Hosteasi, a Canadian hosting company, but without my knowledge (none of the other clients were also informed) the owner of the company sold Hosteasi and all the hosting account were disable. Later on when I contacted the new owner, I was informed that I have not paid for the service so my account with all the content has been deleted. Can you imagine how I must have felt after this news. I did not have a back up of my content so I lost everything.

All the posts indexed by Google are now inaccessible. However I was managed to recover some important and popular topics from cached mode of Google. Now I have been signed up with a very reputed and good hosting company from United Kingdom and their servers are located in data centers across USA. This provider seems to be very caring and trusted. I will give them a 4.5 out of 5 from my experience with them till date. Now I have redesigned the theme of my blog, which is based upon the Blog Oh Blog V2 and I have renamed this theme as Blog Oh Blog reloaded. I will release this theme to day and describe more about the functionality of this blog in the next post.

I am also going to post all the recovered post in this blog and will provide a redirection for the already indexed pages in Google. Check back soon to see the full fledged Techie Zone.

Also check out soon for the new book authored by me “How to start your own blog and earn money”. Sign up for the RSS subscription to this blog to be notified of the release date and to receive a free copy.