I normally keep this site dedicated to work related posts, but I needed *somewhere* to post the result of the beta ending event.

It has become something of a tradition for MMOs that are ending beta to have a special event. It serves two purposes. First, the testers get something special to experience, something that probably won't be repeated again in the normal operation of the game. Second, it attracts a huge number of the testers at once, a great way to ensure that your scaling can handle a real world load.

I mentioned before that I’m using Privoxy because I prefer Chrome as my primary browser. That said, Firefox remains my second line browser and AdBlock Plus is simply the best ad blocker out there. Recommended. As I said before, I white list sites I want to support (and which don’t provide an alternate revenue model). The reality is there are some sites I use obsessively and only block the most obnoxious advertisements from.

If you are doing virtually anything with LINQ, you owe it to yourself to get LINQPad. The basic program is free and makes experimenting with LINQ actually fun. For a few dollars you can register it and get auto-completion as a bonus. Frankly, I would have registered it without any perks because it is just so addictive.

Yesterday I talked about Firefox’s Web Developer package. One point I wanted to make clear is that it is a great “kitchen sink” for getting started, but also that there are better tools for doing specific tasks. One of those “better tools” in the CSE HTML Validator. The program does all of the validations that the “Tools” menu in the Web Developer does and more. I have been using it to clean up web pages for many, many versions now and if my goal is to do more than a few pages worth of validation I reach for it first.

The number of spammer accounts was so high that I have pretty much nuked all accounts except those I know personally. If you had an account, feel free to sign back up (there is now a captcha on the signup, hopefully that will stem the flow in the future).

Automated signups fortunately rarely influence the site as I have comments set to be moderated unless I authorize a user. If you want to be authorized, simply comment with something sane a few times and I will unblock the moderation.