Firefall dev diary features Orson Scott Card, reveals planned free manga comic

Here's the latest developer diary for Red 5 Studios' Firefall, which outlines the general backstory for the upcoming free-to-play co-op multiplayer shooter. Red 5's CEO Mark Kern, who served as team lead on a little indie title you may have heard of called World of Warcraft, walks us through the tale of Crystite and a dying future Earth, beset by an alien race called the Chosen.

He also introduces writer Orson Scott Card, who talks about how he put the story together for what's "essentially ... a post-double apocalyptic world." Card's also working on a manga with his daughter Emily Card, to be published free on Red 5's website in conjunction with Udon Comics.
The manga is supposed to be available sometime before the game is due out later this year.

Firefall dev diary features Orson Scott Card, reveals planned free manga comic originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 02 Jul 2011 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blog Post: Windows Server 2008 - Access Based Enumeration

L?Access Based Enumeration (ABE) � una feature molto utile ma poco conosciuta ed utilizzata, essa permette di nascondere ad un security principal (utente o gruppo) tutte le cartelle o file a cui non ha accesso.

L?ABE � gestita dal File System e sostanzialmente agisce durante l?enumerazione del contenuto di una share; molto semplicamente quando un utente richiede il contenuto di una cartella condivisa, l?ABE non restituisce gli oggetti (file e cartelle) sui quali esso non ha il permesso di lettura (READ).

Possiamo quindi vedere questa feature come una sorta di filtro dinamico applicato alle cartelle condivise, che agendo sui permessi (DACL) dei vari oggetti gestisce la ?visualizzazione? del contenuto.

L?ABE va abilitato sulle singole cartelle. Di default in Windows 2008 l?ABE � attivo su tutte le share create tramite interfaccia grafica, ma non sulle condivisioni create tramite command prompt ?NET SHARE?.

Per abilitare/disabilitare/verificare lo stato dell?ABE si deve utilizzare la console ?Share & Storage Management?:

Seguono alcuni esempi del suo utilizzo.

Esempio 1 - ABE sul contenuto di una cartella

La cartella ShareRoma2 contiene fisicamente due sottocartelle:

sulla cartella fisica HiddenForUser neghiamo la lettura all?utente User

Quando l?utente User accede alla share (Sharing2 � un DFS target che punta a ShareRoma2), la cartella HiddenForUser non � visualizzata:

� importante notare che pur conoscendo il PATH reale dell?oggetto, non avendo i permessi necessari, l?utente non � in grado di accedervi.

Esempio 2 - ABE sul namespace DFS

Un?utilizzo molto diffuso del ABE � in congiunzione con il servizio di namespace distribuito (DFS-N). Essendo il DFS un sistema distribuito e quindi un insieme di pi� server che concorrono allo stesso obiettivo, per gestire l?ABE non � possibile utilizzare gli stessi strumenti che si usano localmente ad una singola macchina.

Ad esempio l?ABE va abilitato a livello di namespace e bisogna utilizzare la console di gestione del DFS o il comando dfsutil:

dfsutil property ABE Enable \\domain.int\namespace

Questi strumenti garantiscono che le impostazioni siano applicate a tutti server che partecipano al namespace.

L?ABE attivato su di un namespace DFS, agisce sul contenuto del namespace stesso, in particolare sui vari link alle cartelle condivise (target folders).

Riprendendo l?esempio precedente, all?interno del namespace abbiamo due link:

Per nascondere sharing2 ad un utente specifico, come ci siamo detti basta negare il permesso di lettura:

dfsutil property sd deny \\domain.int\namespace\link User:R

Il risultato � il seguente:

Il link alla cartella sharing2 non � pi� visibile!

A differenza dell?esempio precedente, L?ABE a livello di DFS non inibisce l?accesso alle risorse; se l?utente conosce il PATH reale vi ci pu� accedere direttamente.

In questo esempio possiamo accedere a \\gian.int\gian-ns\sharing2 digitandolo manualmente.

Tuttavia al suo interno non vedremo HiddenForUser in quanto � ancora attivo l?ABE a livello locale. Oltre a non visualizzarlo non vi possiamo neanche accedere per via dei mancati permessi.

A livello NTFS il comando dfsutil ha modificato i permessi dell?utente sul LINK fisico (C:\DFSRoots\sharing2) su tutti i server che mantengono il namespace.

Seppur possibile modificare manualmente i permessi sui link fisici � sconsigliato, in quanto i link all?interno di DFSRoots vengono ricreati ad ogni riavvio del servizio DFS e i permessi non aggiunti tramite il comando dfsutil non vengono ripristinati.

Per concludere, vi consiglio di utilizzare maggiormente questa feature in quanto semplice ed utile per creare delle viste per l?utente finale.

Vi ricordo che sui sistemi Windows 2008 e successivi l?ABE � abilitata di default e le cartelle replicate tramite DFS-R mantengo i permessi durante la copia tra le varie macchine, semplificando cos� la gestione del contenuto delle cartelle.

Gianluca Bertelli
Support Engineer
Microsoft Enterprise Platforms Support

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Happy Canada Day from Xbox Live! Here, have some Gold

Happy Canada Day weekend! Xbox Live is celebrating the unification of North America's great upper frontier with a free Gold weekend for all Canadians, starting July 2 and ending July 4.

All Gold features are unlocked for Canadian Live members this weekend (that means right now), so get down for your country's birthday with that one game featuring Canadian soldiers. You know that one with the people.... There has to be one, right?

[Thanks to all the Twitter followers who confirmed this one, and to @Aveelo for the picture!]

Happy Canada Day from Xbox Live! Here, have some Gold originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 02 Jul 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Leak Alert: Gears of War 3 emerges on torrent sites [Updated]

An unfinished developer build of Gears of War 3 has been leaked online, according to NeoGAF and supported by YouTube footage, including the above video showing a "Beta" Gears of War 3 loading screen and campaign footage.

The leak is a JTAG version of Gears 3, meaning it will only play on specially modded or dev-kit Xbox 360s. These are commonly difficult to come by, but just because you can't run the leaked code (you can't, right?) doesn't mean other, far less scrupulous people aren't capable. YouTube and video-streaming sites will most likely contain early videos of the game, so shoot your computer screen now if you don't want to see 'em.

We've reached out to Epic Games for comment on if, and how, this will affect Gears of War 3's development and release.

Update: Dana Cowley sent us a joint statement from Epic and Microsoft about the leak:

"We have seen the reports of Gears of War 3 content being propped on the Web and working closely with our security teams and law enforcement to address the situation. This content is not from a final build and is not representative of what fans will enjoy when the game launches worldwide on September 20, 2011."

We have removed the embedded video at Epic's request.

Leak Alert: Gears of War 3 emerges on torrent sites [Updated] originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 02 Jul 2011 19:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Copper ETFs Gain as Grain ETFs Suffer

Hard Assets Investor submits:

By Sumit Roy

It wasn?t much, but commodity-related exchange-traded products saw their second straight week of net inflows last week. Investors added a modest $28 million to the space. In turn, total assets inched higher, to $160.4 billion.

None of the individual sectors saw any outsized flows. Energy led with $46 million in inflows, followed by broad market (multicommodity) ETPs. Precious metals, industrial metals and agriculture saw outflows of $17 million, $13 million and $11 million, respectively.

The energy behemoth Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (NYSE Arca: XLE) continued to recover from recent withdrawals, as investors plowed $219 million into the fund, allowing it to take the top spot for the week.

The Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSE Arca: GDX) and the SPDR S&P Metals and Mining ETF (NYSE Arca: XME) followed, with $123 million and $94 million in inflows, respectively.

At spot No. 4 was a familiar name?the

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With Wii U, Mario will use two screens and Zelda won't look like this

Yoshiaki Koizumi, producer of the Super Mario series, has his team working on a new Mario game for the Wii U, even though he didn't know what Nintendo's new console would even look like prior to its unveiling at E3. In an interview with Wired, Koizumi said now that he knows what the Wii U can do, he wants to "create a console game where two people are playing at the same time but can't see each others' screens." You know, much like how the internet operates, but without all those messy tubes.

Legend of Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma also spilled some secrets about the HD demo Nintendo used to show off its new graphics -- mainly, don't believe everything you see. "You probably remember that when we introduced the GameCube, we showed a somewhat realistic Zelda demo," Aonuma said. "And what we actually created was the cel-shaded Wind Waker. So when we show a graphic demo, people think, 'Oh, this is what the next Zelda will look like,' but that's not necessarily the case." Secrets and lies, Nintendo. Secrets and lies.

With Wii U, Mario will use two screens and Zelda won't look like this originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 02 Jul 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blog Post: Secure Deployment using ClickOnce

ClickOnce is a deployment technology that enables you to create self-updating Windows-based applications that can be installed and run with minimal user interaction.  So in that case security is critical.

ClickOnce overcomes the following issues:

• Difficulties in updating applications. With Microsoft Windows Installer deployment, whenever an application is updated, the user can install an update, an msp file, and apply it to the installed product; with ClickOnce deployment, you can provide updates automatically. Only those parts of the application that have changed are downloaded, and then the full, updated application is reinstalled from a new side-by-side folder.

• Impact to the user's computer. With Windows Installer deployment, applications often rely on shared components, with the potential for versioning conflicts; with ClickOnce deployment, each application is self-contained and cannot interfere with other applications.

• Security permissions. Windows Installer deployment requires administrative permissions and allows only limited user installation; ClickOnce deployment enables non-administrative users to install and grants only those Code Access Security permissions necessary for the application.

Consider if you are attempting to create a training game for a sales force and you need to update the game to reflect business requirements. ClickOnce will help you securely deploy these kinds of applications.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/t71a733d.aspx

 

To determine your deployment scheme take a look at the following url:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/71baz9ah.aspx

Testing your Click Once is fairly easy, there are a number of free for 90 days hosting services for .NET based websites, and for the network if you have two computers you got it made.

Give it a try, you could actually make money off this if you set it up right.

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