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The wall / window piece is now complete:

Sorry I can only manage to get two decent screens per post. Really enjoyed toying with the shadows from statues and placing blood decals.

I have no idea how the treads could ever work, so I am content to describe it as SORCERY!

I was thinking how far into industrial era the consumerism starts to drive some big numbers of major group society. Mass-producing of cheap things from celluloid (combs, kitchen utensils, etc.) making modern marketing and advertisement spread around streets and people's minds. Child labor and 12-hour shifts, seven days a week is one thing about factories dominating the world, but putting more modern image of a human in basically dark age grounded society needs some serious rethinking of the whole world set. And for now, a tank. With no context.

Been falling in love with decals of all sorts this past weekend. Grime, dirt, moss, and slime. Took areas I once considered boring and drab and really elevated them to a new level. I get the jokes when people say "needs more grime"; because it really does add layers of depth and atmosphere.

The Turret. VIDEO The Turret works with a little script with 2 functions in it. These functions are called by "atdm:target_callscriptfunction"s (the yellow cubes in the picture) and are triggered by "trigger_timer"s (the purple cubes in the picture). "trigger_timer"s can be triggered on and of by other triggers. In the spoiler I put the script, with, i hope, as many information you need to understand a bit what is going on, so you can adjust it to your needs. You can use the script as is and give your own entities the same names as the entities in the script. (Script is also in the Turret.pk4) In the Turret.pk4 is the mission folder with in it the map folder and the sound folder. In the map folder is the Turret.map file and the Turret.script file. They both have to have the same name otherwise the script won't load, and won't work. In the sound folder is the soundshader Turret.sndshd that is needed for the custom explosion sound I made (from a thundersound that is already in the game) to be loaded. A soundshader file is actually very simple to make, and adding custom sounds to your map is therefor very easy. The audiofile is in the sfx folder, that's also in the sound folder. Questions? Ask them. Have fun : ) Turret.pk4

Looking at the code, used_by_inv_id spawnarg is not read anywhere. I guess that note on wiki is a king of feature request. UPDATE: I don't see inv_id either.

This was a great mission, shooting way past what I considered reasonable for a "speedbuild"! If I had to choose, I'd say my favourite aspect is how it captures the same feeling as the great Thief 2 FMs: always another area or secret to find; being able to sympathise with inhabitants in their little sidestories; and how it doesn't take itself too seriously. What I also liked was how cold it felt. When you said it'd be a wholesome seasonal mission I was expecting something fuzzy warm like Thief's Holiday, but the street lanterns with their chill lights and the frozen breaths conveyed the exact opposite. Needless to say I enjoyed getting indoors to a well-stoked fireplace wherever I found one. Lastly, that "bag" was fantastic: both the idea and the execution, and I quite enjoyed climbing all over those good-looking custom assets (maybe here'd be a good place to ask if you'd offer your custom assets to other mappers?). Well then, many thanks to you both for this Christmas surprise, and I'd sure welcome more such cooperative projects!

Definitely, but I'm glad they do, otherwise we would never have the amazing mods and TCs we have nowadays. TDM being a perfect example as well, even though real life has the obvious priority for most of the 'staff' now.

Which foglight do you use? I typically use delta1_fog for both skybox and playable area. Also remember to declare a value in shaderParm3 property (Doom units) to define where the fog ends. Typically I use large values, like 3200.

If you have a 64bit Windows OS you already have KPP enabled by default. 32bit doesn't get this benefit. KPP is always a benefit to prevent rootkits, but that's only if they actually get that far. Place up some perimeter hardware and local software protection and you'll have some nuisance intrusions but you'll do just fine keeping most bad stuff out. Keep a decent AV/AS/AM protector on. This thread is pretty old in advice on what to use, but lately the better ones have consistently been Malwarebytes, Superantispyware, Vipre, Bitdefender, Sophis, Windows Security (built in). You can also add some ransomware monitoring like OSarmor and Acronis Ransomware Protection. Can't hurt. Also get a VPN for your more "sensitive" sites. Also PCs are so powerful today and with multicores the system isn't bogged down so much like they used to be, except only for active drive scanning and email monitoring. And some guy before mentioned the best protection is education. There is no greater truth than that. You can load up with all the protections possible but if you visit random sites by link hopping, you're still in worse shape than someone who has no active protection and only reads news and sports sites.

I also saw it more like a "Hey guys, I am up to this now". Although I mostly ignored it, just as I ignored the WhatsAp status for a long time. But at some point, I found it was a rather unintrusive way of people telling what they are doing. You can ignore, if you want or look at it, if you don't.

Thanx greebo, and have fun coding!

TBH, i found that status stuff mostly a annoying "Look at me and my importance!" thing. Maybe it was meant differently. It always came across to me that way. Just my opinion. Maybe some simply abused it.

The white bricks? Yeah I agree. They need alignment anyway. I’ve held off on fixing that because I’m still not sure if that’s gonna be the final texture. I toyed with stucco and plaster but they didn’t look right. Gonna try a few more cobblestones and bricks.

Thanks for the hint, Goldwell! I had thought it might Thanks for all your hard work to make these missions, too!

Guys, this really looks magnificent! I think 10 minutes of my 2 hours stream I was playing with light and checking shadows https://youtu.be/gMAvaK2zqxo?t=5360 Soft shadows add volume to the scene it looks more natural and believable. Where can I read about stencil shadows and maps? From what i've seen map looks much better. Then why stencil exists? Now my tiny dream to see a daylight mission with the fast-moving sun that will cast shadows from every building and character.

@Dragofer Only 1 thing I can think of is copy the page source of your profile page and profile page /photo/, paste it in textfiles and share it with @Springheel so he, or some other admin/developer can take a look at it and see if there is something missing/wrong in the code. I use firefox and my page source for ... /photo/ is 1574 lines long when I View Page Source.

Very professional peter_spy nice job.

Like in all things where people are working for free and on their spare time be glad work is done at all. The things you really want to be implemented may never be, unless people with the knowledge and the free time do it, want to do it. But it never hurts to ask. If you don't mind the opinion of a random internet person, see the hidden content below to know more about stencil shadows and shadow maps.

Sundered is like Dead Cells with cooler visuals, but some camera problems and doesn't give you the long-term motivation like Dead Cells does. I never finished Sundered, I simply lost interest somewhere along the line. However, since it's free, it's definitely worth checking out. If it's either play this or Dead Cells, I would definitely reommend the latter though.

Nope. Add a path_wait after the path_sleep.

Fair enough. For whatever unknown reason, whoever created it decided not to have it show up in the Targets folder. Here's a picture of one I used in Somewhere Above the City, showing spawnargs. This one, when triggered every frame or so, resets the "target" spawnarg in VaultCamera4 so that it points to the entity target_null_7, which is moving around. This lets the camera resync its view in real time.

It's dead, Jim.

@Dragofer You are totally right. Wanting to println all 3 "strings" got me confused, for an entity can't be printed. I changed it now and it works. Working script:

That'd be a type mismatch because m_target_name is declared at the start as a string but should actually be an entity.

Also, you can make a repeating script to find and apply to all targets. In this case I just triggered the targets. float i; //integer entity target; //placeholder name for any targets found for( i = 0; i < numTargets( ); i++ ) { target = getTarget(i); sys.trigger(target); } If anyone could show me how to do this for other spawnargs than "target" I'd very much appreciate that.

Taking a closer look at your script line, the syntax is in fact off. It should be m_target_name.setKey(m_key, m_value). When you use a $ you tell the script to look for an entity in your map that's actually called m_target_name, but what you really want is to use m_target_name as a placeholder for whatever your init script found when it did getKey("target0"). That needs no $. Similarly for m_key and m_value, when you put those in quotations you're telling the script to literally set a spawnarg "m_key" with the value "m_value". But again, you want to use them as placeholder names so they should be input without any extra formating. $m_target_name.setKey("m_key", "m_value")

I think the wip maps were put up for adoption. Some of them were adopted for the campaign to begin with. I scripted a big campaign that really excites me, just called The Dark Campaign. Basically it opens with a siege of Bridgeport from the Jazirats (the Arab/Abassids equivalent), and the player is Pakdamani (Persian/Zoroastrin equivalent), which is Jazirat territory (but his ancestors left for Bridgeport to escape persecution) but most people in Bridgeport don't know the difference, so he's kept in the Jazirat quarter which is closed off like a ghetto. So the first mission, the player has to break out of the ghetto and try to escape the city (I like the image of flaming boulders from Jazirat catapults striking buildings as he's sneaking down streets to get out). But on the way out he gets tangled up in the battle preparations and things get complicated. But then again I script & map out FMs all the time. I probably have dozens of maps drawn out & stories written. It's the building part that's the trick!

Don't forget to port it to Unreal engine.

Shadow maps require much more video memory. Also, they are less tested and have both general and TDM-compatibility issues. Then open world, online multiplayer, PBR\RTX, etc, LOL

Stencil shadows is the original shadowing method used in the engine. Shadow maps were implemented by TDM team quite recently. Both types have their advantages and disadvantages.

@R Soul It can't be downloaded anymore. Can you re-upload it? This is a mf good looking set of buttons. Sorry I wasn't looking. Have downloaded it now : ) And if you might have time to much, I would like a 5 button version for my diorama ^^ https://streamable.com/7xy8n With your custom square buttons it already looks very good:

HI all. I decided TDM needed a big red button, so I made one. I also thought the sound could be better, and I found something good on freesound. The metal housing texture was made using several from TDM's existing set. The red button texture is rubber from textures.com Download: http://www.mediafire.com/file/hhe6yecs8cgvcm6/RedButton1.7z The object comes with a prefab so that the new sound and relative positions of each part are correct. It's location will be mechanical\switches\RedButton1 The button has a NoDraw plane. At the moment TDM doesn't allow skins to replace nodraw, but if that problem gets resolved, this button will be ready.

Not sure if there are any Minecraft players on this forum, but I thought I'd share my Thief-inspired map anyway. While it does not take place directly in the Thief universe, I've included some nods to the series, like Heartless Perry's pawn shop, Trickster's forest, a Keeper compound, Thieves guild, Hammerites, Mechanists, City watch and Garrett's place. There is a questline at the museum which is about retrieving seven legendary items for its collection. One quest has you finding the Keeper compound and another one requires you to do some jobs for the Thieves guild. There's also a mission which takes you into long forgotten Hammerite crypts. Download: http://www.mediafire.com/file/em6mky6qu676cz2/oakhold-2.0.zip/file It currently works in Minecraft version 1.14.4 only. I recommend pureBDCraft resource pack and Optifine to help with FPS and dynamic lighting. https://optifine.net/ https://bdcraft.net/downloads/purebdcraft-minecraft/

As the holiday season is concluding, I will be getting back in the saddle with regards to this project. I'd like to thank Dragofer and all the others for their suggestions so far. Keep at it ! We still need to trim them down eventually, so that we have plenty of varied lines, but not too much, and then I'll move on to try some recording. On a sidenote, I am already starting work on another vocal set, this time for a merchant type character. Wanted to already back in December, but I was just too busy with life and other stuff.

Working on several missions that will rely on 2.08. Yay! Getting treatment for my cancer that has decided to attack after 11 years of remission. Boo! Enjoying my 2-month-old grandson. Yay!

Yup, the main idea is to create a standalone set, not to complement the current model base. Of course mappers can always scale down the textures and lower the fidelity of the materials, but that's completely up to them. But the lighting is indeed quite sterile, it's what I use to test a default material behavior. This would probably be something closer to actual WIP environment:

A cool scary mission, but sadly I had the same problem as others here in that the door to Olivia's room was not open. I got stuck completely until I checked this thread and noclipped through the door, so you need to fix that fast! I had a similar problem with the closet on the ground floor, the skeleton blocked the door and it couldn't be opened. It worked after a restart, but you might take the chance to fix that too. Last not least it fealt strange not having lockpicks and the doors being unlocked by the ghost instead! Why not make all doors without keys pickable? I don't think the story would change much and I wouldn't feel like the stupiest thief ever, having lost his lockpicks :)!

Builder Compound Pack will help you create better environments for your Builder-themed map sections! The aim of this experimental package is to provide high-quality models, materials, and other assets that don't put a big strain on the idtech4 engine. This early version is slightly more bare-bones than I wished for, as some modular sets (e.g. the roof) proved to be too complex and unfit for general use. Don't worry though, the set will be updated and expanded in future releases. Version 0.46 is up Download link (80 mb) Tweaks – Arch door and arch with hinges models have been removed. They were just static models, not actual door entities, and they weren't super useful, e.g. hey couldn't act as visportal closing entity due to gaps and transparent parts. – Detail texture stage added to selected materials (mostly those you can get very close to). As you approach a surface, you should see a slightly grainy layer that enhances the details. New content – Door01 and door01_frame have been added to both models and entities. This is a basic door for this corridor section. By default, it's locked (with easy lock) and AI will notice if it's left ajar. You may want to disable the latter (set ShouldBeClosed to 0) if you have a section with many AIs and doors, as it will probably disrupt AI patrolling too much. The frame will work with walls that are 16 units thick. Both door and the frame will work with grid of 8 and smaller. You can use the grid of 4 to change the door position within the frame. Look for grooves in the frame model. First of all, launch the map to see a simple section that was made with these assets. Use the menu or type map bc in the console to start the map. Noclip though the north wall, if you want to get to the staging area and see all pieces used to make this section. General info and tips: Make sure you have Rotate func_* entities around origin (Ctrl+R) enabled (Dark Radiant top icons) to use models efficiently. All models have custom pivot / origin point placement to make them snap to grid and geometry really fast. If you have keyboard shortcuts configured for RotateSelectionX/Y/Z and FloorSelection, placing these models around the map will be a breeze. I also recommend having shortcuts for SelectNudgeUp/Down/Left/Right, so you can move models in ortho views without using a mouse. DR detects models in a weird way, e.g. if your model is one-sided, or has some faces turned back to the camera in ortho view, selecting and moving it around will be difficult. Using keyboard is often more seamless and precise. You can select a model in perspective view, and then move it around in X/Y/Z plane using keyboard. Optimal scale for tileable materials is 0.125. This provides good pixel density vs repetition. Materials are optimized to be used both with and without post-processing, and the default gamma of 1.2. In some cases, specular hotspot might look slightly overblown with post-processing enabled. Correct look without post-processing was the first priority. Same principles apply to using lamp. The main idea behind this set is that you can use simple brushes for walls and floors, and wall panels have proper offset, so you don't need to use special surrounding BSP behind them. You can place panels right where your walls are, and there will be no z-fighting or clipping. Assumed basic measure for a corridor is 192 x 192 (length / width), but you can go lower if you don't plan to use arches and metal doors. The smallest wall panel piece is 24 units long. Use brushes to create basic space, then adjust it to what you can make with wall panels (combinations of 24, 48, 96, 192 etc.). DR's measurement tool is your friend. Default grid for placing most pieces is 8, but it goes down with smaller / more complex models and setups. One special case is matching metal doors to arch with hinges, this needs grid of 2. That's a mistake on my part. I didn't think of better pivot placement until it was too late. The example map contains a "staging area" where you'll find grouped arch, hinges, and doors, so you can use that as a template. As per The Dark Mod license, you may modify this pack's contents, although I'd advise against it. Most textures are compressed in lossy DDS format and compressing them again will result in loss of image quality. If you want to make changes, need alternative versions of a model or material contact me first. I'll see what I can do. Last but not least, I hope you'll find this pack useful and fun to work with, as I had plenty of fun while making it I already have a long list of models and features to include in subsequent releases, but I'm always open to feedback and suggestions. Thanks! Credits: Springheel, Obsttorte, Spooks, nbohr1more, STiFU, Destined and other TDM Forum members: guidance, encouragement, and fruitful discussions Epifire: asset feedback and critique The Black Arrow: inscription texts Plans for upcoming releases: Corridor: - Fixing the wall panel collision model, so strafing along it isn't wobbly Done. - Roof modular set Done. - Making metal door an entity with proper sounds and open/close times. Done, made proper door instead. - Floor switch model/entity for metal doors - Window set Done. Roadmap: Modular, deco, and loot models for themes like (TBD): cellar, library, workshops/factory, high priest chambers.

How to use a hidden securitycamera to trigger a something like a trap or an alarm: The funk_securitycamera can trigger anything triggerable just using clrl + k (first select the camera, then what is has to trigger and then press ctrl + k), and it can look through a patch ^^ .. so can be hidden. I made a little setup with the funk_securitycamera and a statue that guards the place: https://streamable.com/aqht0 - soundlevel is low - the thing covering the camera is a simple patch. https://ufile.io/750gxqeb - .map file. So the eyes I made there are really ugly but there is a purpouse to have eyes that are clearly visible and light up: the player is warned that something is watching.

Done and very nice indeed.

Buttons made smaller: Each button is a distinct model, with its own place on the UV map to allow for subtle differences in each button (marks etc). Depth and side detail added: My next task will be to make a single one. Hopefully I can find space in the current UV map without having to double its size. edit: the blender file, which contains the high-res objects that generate the normal and AO maps, is nearly 300MB.

The base texture is metal\flat\simple_grey01. I applied a subtle Gaussian Blur. I might also have lowered the already low saturation. The detail was made by creating 3d shapes. A few posts above you can see the main border. The repeating ovals were made from squashing and chopping a high-res sphere and then having the object repeat itself. The corner pieces, and the pattern in the semicircles, were traced over images I found online. My initial intention was to find black and white images, use Inkscape to convert them to SVG, which Blender can import and store as its own native curves object. The face triangulation led to very poor results, so I used them solely as a visual reference and traced my own shapes around them before bevelling the edges and applying a subdivide modifier. This object now has over 3 million triangles. That object was used to generate two images: Ambient Occlusion and a Normal Map. Sample of the high-res AO map: I shrunk that down an added it to the base metal texture (low opacity). The specular map is nothing special, just a high contrast version of the diffuse.

WIP: This is using the original buttons, but I think they're too big. To fit in to the object I initially made I've had to squeeze them together more than I'd like. I'm in favour of making the buttons smaller, but I could instead make the panel taller to give them more space. Any preference?

Yes, I can make them smaller. In Blender I'll scale the backplate to some width, and the depth and height will be relative to that. Here I've highlighted the dimension I'm asking for. Not width as it is now, but the width you'd like it to be.

I have come to dislike the film for 3 main reasons. 1. It craps all over the established Star Wars universe. 2. It ignores or dismisses major plot points established in The Force Awakens. 3. The film constantly builds up to moments that have no payoff or meaning. 1. It craps all over the established Star Wars universe. If you're going to create a movie in an established universe, you should be obligated to follow the established rules of that universe. a) This movie changes what the Force is and how it works. Leia's "superman" flight was patently ridiculous. We've never seen the force used that way before. We've never seen the Force used to create illusions before (illusions that can actually be physically touched, additionally). And somehow, the Force has become something that anyone can use with no training at all. Remember how much Luke--who was strong in the force--had to train with Yoda before he could lift a single rock? Even after months of training, he still couldn't lift his X-wing. Rey, who has two lessons with Luke, is able to lift twenty massive boulders and hold them all in the air at the same time. A little kid, with zero training, is able to use the force to grab a broom?? Even Anakin, supposedly the most powerful Jedi ever, never did anything like that as a kid. b ) The movie completely destroys the character of Luke Skywalker. Luke, who risks his life because he sees a spark of goodness inside his father (the most evil man in the galaxy), is going to murder his nephew in his sleep because he feels some darkness in him?? Give me a break. c) The "Lightspeed as a weapon" moment was cool, sure, but it kind of raises the question of why that has never been done before? Why bother getting the plans for the death-star? Just hyperspace a ship with a volunteer through it. It changes the way the universe works (and from a story point of view, if they could do that, why not do it with one of the earlier ships that just got blown up anyway? Lightspeed your medical frigate and the chase is over). d) The movie destroys the concept of heroism, good guys and bad guys, arguably the main themes of the Star Wars universe. There are no heroes in The Last Jedi. Fin tried to have a heroic moment to sacrifice himself to save his friends, but that was taken away from him (in a ridiculous moment where he is accused of acting out of hate rather than "protecting what he loves"). Po is accused of being a "hothead" when he tries to save everyone. Luke is just a bitter old man. Rey is more concerned with Kylo, who she barely knows, than with helping her friends (although she still manages to somehow get to the right place to save them, easily, at the end). No one in the galaxy is willing to answer the Rebel's distress call. And we also have the moment where we see that the Rebels buy their weapons from the same evil capitalist bastards as the First Order, so they're really just all the same, right? You'll blow up them today and they'll blow up you tomorrow, it's all hopeless and meaningless and part of the anarcho-capitalist machine. The scene where Luke looks at his light-saber and then contemptuously tosses it over his shoulder, basically encapsulates how this movie treats the universe that spawned it. 2. It ignores or dismisses major plot points established in The Force Awakens. This is the second movie of a trilogy. You can't just ignore things the first movie does and still be a successful sequel. But this movie consistently does. a) Biggest question of the first movie was, who is Rey? Everyone seems to know her. Kylo implies on multiple occasions that he knows something about her; Snoke seems to know something about her; she can sense Luke's lightsaber and then it seems to speak to her; she is better with the force than any untrained user we've ever seen. Clearly there is a story there, right? Nope. She's just a nobody (which makes her even more of a Mary Sue). b ) Snoke. Who is this super bad guy who has somehow managed to recreate the Empire and turn Kylo to the dark side without even meeting him? How did he get so powerful in the dark side of the force? Where did he come from, since all the Sith were supposedly dead after Return of the Jedi? Clearly there's a story there, right? Nope. He's just a plot point and now he's gone, so don't worry about it. c) The Knights of Ren. Remember them? There's a story there, right? Nope. Just forget you ever heard of them. d) Remember how the rebels blew up the First Order's super weapon? That must have really impresssed people and gotten them a lot of attention, right? Nope. The First Order is still super powerful, and the rebels have fewer ships and friends now than they did in Return of the Jedi. e) Wow, they finally found Luke! Remember how he left a secret map so they could find him if they ever needed him? Remember how people died trying to find and protect that map, because it was so important to find him? Clearly there will be a story there, right? Nope. He's on the island to die, not to help. Why did he leave a map? Just forget you heard about that. 3. How many things in the movie actually work or result in a meaningful accomplishment? Beyond being a bad Star Wars movie, the movie was just bad story-telling in general. a) The movie begins with this dramatic space battle where they (rather implausibly) take out a major First Order ship. This results in...nothing. No one celebrates, because lots of people died. The First Order isn't crippled in any way; they continue to pursue the rebels without pause. b ) Rey and Kylo spend the entire movie talking to each other; Rey leaves Luke to go "save" Kylo; Kylo kills Snoke rather than kill Rey; they have an (admittedly awesome) fight together, and this results in ...nothing. The moment the fight is over, Rey and Kylo immediately go back to fighting each other again and before you know it she's back in the Falcon fighting with the Rebels and he's chasing them, just like before. This was a massive story opportunity completely wasted. c) Yoda appears and helps Luke burn the Jedi books, giving a big speech about how pointless they are (and presumably they ARE pointless, since no Jedi we've ever seen has learned about the force by reading anything). What a dramatic moment of destroying the past, which results in...nothing. The books aren't actually in the tree, you silly viewers, they're in the Falcon! Because Rey valued them so much she stole them?? d) Luke has this awesome scene with Kylo at the end, and for a moment he seems like the Luke Skywalker we knew. He gives a callback speech about being cut down and then we learn Luke isn't even there...so he can't be killed by Kylo anyway. What a cool new power! This will set up a final confrontation between Kylo and Luke in the last movie right? Nope, it results in...nothing. Luke just dies because reasons. Why bother having him do this projection thing if he was just going to die anyway? (And what the hell was with the illusionary dice he gave to Leia?) e) The entire Las Vegas planet plot. Goes absolutely nowhere and accomplishes nothing, other than letting some animals loose (though they didn't free the slaves, amusingly) and showing how evil income inequality is. You're welcome, SJWs. f) Rey's moment in "the cave". Luke sees himself as Darth Vader. Most dramatic part of the movie. Rey sees herself, over and over and over again. (There's a message there, I'm sure). Rey is warned not to go in there. It's a scary place full of the dark side. But she risks it anyway and accomplishes...nothing. There's nothing down there. Silly viewers, you thought you were going to see her parents? Suckers. I could go on, but you get the point. Kylo Ren says, "Let the past die. Kill it if you have to." Well, mission accomplished, Rian Johnson. Yeah, I wouldn't expect people who haven't seen the movie to post in a thread discussing the movie...?

This is so true. I'm on Linux now for most of the tasks, but before that I used XP for everyday work (and fun). The only trouble I ever had was the famous Blaster worm in 2003. Seems like I kept my system mostly unaffected by just following some easy rules: Create an extra account for non-administrative tasks and use it for all day tasks. If you are logged in as admin, do not surf the web. There is a crappy built in firewall in XP. Use it. Don't use IE, update your browser from time to time. I didn't want to waste resources on any backgrounding antivirus software. Once or twice a year I used to run a complete virus scan on my harddrive from a trusted unaffacted system (a bootable CD that came with a magazine), just to be sure everything is still safe. The biggest Issue I think is the first one. Windows makes you work as an admin by default. This is a first big step in the wrong direction and it can not be compensated by other software like an AV-Guard. --

Well, what's on my mind is that yesterday my power supply kicked the bucket, and after much troubleshooting, discovered that it took my video card out with it. Spent all day yesterday running around for a new PSU and GPU, but I did find a video card that is far better then the one I had, so that's nice.