Chris

Damn right!

Some of you may have seen some random spam topics this week, full of links/images for porn and/or pharmaceuticals. This is just a quick post to explain this shit to those who aren't aware of these sorts of forum 'attacks'. NOTE: There is no need to reply to an obvious spam bot. Simply report the post and all moderators will then be aware of it via the report system. Basically, sad people trying to earn a bit of money by way of spamming, write scripts for bots that sign up to thousands of forums and post a single post with a shitload of links to porn or pharmaceutical (drug) websites. Websites and forum softwares combat this with CAPTCHA images - basically an image with a word written in an abnormal way, making it hard for computers to read through character recognition. Though as software becomes more powerful, they gradually find ways to read the images, and so we see waves of spam bots registering again. That's what happened this week. We and thousands of other forums started seeing spam bots registering and posting again, and IPB rather quickly put out a patch a couple of days ago to improve their CAPTCHA images. Unfortunately they weren't good enough. So today, a proper update was released, version 2.3.6 implements reCAPTCHA which you may well have seen on other websites. It's incredibly hard for computers to read, and at the same time, their service helps to digitize books, read more on the wikipedia article I just linked to or on their official site if you're interested in how it works. This should be effective immediately, and I imagine it will take an incredibly long time for someone to figure out a way for computers to pass this. In case you're wondering, this isn't something new that we've had to deal with, and it's nothing personal either, it happens to all forums. We've had to deal with it in the past, before IPB2.2 came along with an improved CAPTCHA function, it got pretty bad and there was loads registering every week. Luckily IPB improved the CAPTCHA enough that these spammers bot scripts couldn't read the codes and thus couldn't pass the registration process. During this time we also banned loads of free webmail services that they used for the email link verification that you must click, again narrowing down the amount of bots that managed to register. That's what happened again this week. Banned a new chain of freemail sites etc. Anyway, shouldn't see any spam bots for quite some time now. There may well be a few that slipped through and haven't posted yet, but we'll act on those ASAP. Enjoy the spam-free forum! P.S. The almighty ban list shows how many we dealt with this week. Not to mention about 20 I found that hadn't validated yet, I deleted their accounts. If this is war then I believe the current score TGTAP 3 - 0 Spam bots Win.

Done. Assuming everything's done here I am closing the topic.

They supposedly aren't retroactive, not just on GTA IV but all games that are now adding them. Meaning you'll need to play through the game again if you want them.

Rumour has it that a trophy patch for the PS3 version of GTA IV is coming soon, and a few PS3 sites have managed to get their hands on the list of what you'll be able to get. The list is actually the same as the Xbox 360 achievements as most people assumed it would be should a patch come forth, with the addition of a platinum trophy for "Taking A Liberty". See the full list on our GTAIV trophies page, which we'll update soon with the proper icons. Still no word on an exact date for if/when these will be available. Source: PS3trophies.co.uk

Yeah, quite a compliment actually.

Italian magazine The Game Machine have brought to light some minor new details on the PC version of GTA IV: The replay editor can record, save and edit the last 30 seconds of the game. Once you have saved your video, you can open another piece of internal software in order to change the point of view and add special effects. The montage editor allows you to edit various replays into a single sequence, add audio tracks from the official soundtrack of the game and add effects like transition from a sequence to another. You can then upload and publish your videos to the Rockstar Social Club to share them with the world. The GPS map has been improved. You can now point and click with the mouse on a specific location and make notes or add images to personalize it. Improved streaming will be possible with the power of todays processors. If you have seen cars on the road that matched the car you are driving, this has been somewhat fixed. More pedestrians and vehicles will be visible. Thanks to gta-series.com for the news.

Abyss is a pile of shite. Use Apache 2.2, seriously.

Dunno about the first two actually. Kinda like how CS3 was both faster and less cluttered than CS2. With CS4 taking advantage of 64bit I can only see it as being a big improvement over CS3, I think RAM usage will stay pretty much the same. Content aware resizing is pretty awesome though - not the #1 feature most graphic designers want I'm sure, but it's gonna be pretty useful. Chances are if you're a heavy user of photoshop then you have a decent PC. People who complain are generally kids who can't afford good hardware. I'm pretty sure no one on this forum has ever paid for software. Everyone knows how to acquire things on the internet, seriously I've no idea why you lot are complaining about price, no need to pretend you bought it anyway Rumour says companies like MS and Adobe actually release their shit in torrent form, because they know that way they'll get it popular. But won't they lose money? Not in the long term no. Users will go on to become professionals using said software and will purchase volume licenses or whatever... not in all cases of course but it's kinda logical in a way.

Not really the place to ask about this sort of stuff. Assuming you're not trying to advertise your site then you may want to ask in our computer/tech forum for help from people who have administrated forums before. You could also try the official phpBB forums if you need help using the software.

Actually they're not but I can change it manually for you. Should have them linked but it's complicated because of authors who aren't members of the forums, and for search reasons too, would mean an extra lookup in the query.

Those sites are so inaccurate it's stupid. I can tell you for a fact it's way off. From the figures you gave, page views are under-estimated and value and daily ad revenue are over-estimated. If I were earning that much from this site I wouldn't need to work/go to uni and also I'd remove some of the ads... At least the ad revenue I personally get is, I've no idea what amount of money is made from the big ads, but I don't receive it, that pays for the server.

ITT too many people watch MTV. Also, no one has any idea what sort of stuff is on said channels in countries other than their own so lol at this topic. I live in the UK so the only things I watch on TV are comedy and news, all my TV shows are unfortunately American so they're viewed by alternative means.

This actually sounds pretty roarsome. I'm a fan of Codemasters' racing games anyway so I'll definitely be buying this.

If you saw the news we posted yesterday regarding the Social Club giveaway, there's a bit more to add to the story. A press release from Take2 today announced that you also have a chance to play against members from the GTA IV development team! Good luck to all those eligible. Playing against some of the team members was a great thing that I and some of the other fan site webmasters got to experience shortly before the game was released back in April, now you too can have that same opportunity.

Rockstar Games have announced via the Social Club a new giveaway with some awesome prizes. As part of the Xbox Live Weekend, you could win a home entertainment system valued at $6,100. Additionally, one one runner-up will receive a GTA IV-branded Xbox 360 Elite and a whole bunch of other GTA IV merchandise. The contest is only open to US and Canadian residents aged 18 and older. To enter, all you have to do is simply login to your Social Club account from September 19, 2008 until the end of the LIVE Weekend on September 28, 2008. Full terms and conditions can be found here.

BAAAAWWWWWW. Well there's no way I'm actually gonna make a "No 'I got banned from GTAF' topics" rule. So we'll just close the topic every time someone makes one.

Lol shit I'm late, but then I didn't have Internets so yeah Happy birthday mate!

The official Games for Windows website has added a page for GTA IV. On it they've included the recommended system requirements for the game, no minimum specs have been included though so we may have to take this with a pinch of salt for the time being. Here's what they're suggesting: Not sure if your computer is up to the task? For some weeks now we've had a thread on the forums for just that. Will my PC run GTA IV? Here you can post your specs and read our own best estimations at the specs, and some of our more knowledgeable members will do their best to advise on any upgrades we think you may need. Thanks GTAGaming. EDIT: The information appears to have been removed from the Games for Windows site. The reason for this is currently unknown.

I'll try this out some time next week and see what it's like. I can't see myself giving up Firefox though. Too many valuable extensions I use every day. 75% still use IE? So 75% of Internet users are idiots. Though, looking at it an alternative way. 75% of Internet users are keeping IT support employees secure in their jobs! Guess that's good for everyone's economy. IE usage on TGTAP is down to about 50% though which is great to see. It's good that we've been able to promote the usage of alternative browsers in forum topics and such.

Dude that link you posted is the virus, lol. It's a virus-anti-virus. Not a real program. I removed the link in case some dickhead here clicks on it. 1. Norton is the real malware as well. Uninstall that shit right away, it doesn't detect shit and the fact you got infected is enough proof. Download a good free AV program, I recommend AVG. 2. Turn off Windows Defender because it doesn't really do much anyway, and it's not a good idea to run multiple programs that do the same task. 3. Install AVG and scan your computer. It should detect all the malware and you can quarantine it. Post back once you've done that and myself or someone else will tell you what to do next based on your results.

Yeah there's no lag difference. Go wired if you can. Wireless is just convenience really. e.g. if your router is in another room. It works flawlessly, yeah it's pretty expensive, but it's so convenient, for me at least. So it was worth it for me.

Nice collection of mods you've made. I approved all of them.

Andy Murray lost. Fuck. But he did so awesome to get to the final, beating Nadal and everyone else. He's already doing better than Henman which is great to see.

Wow thanks for all the bday greets everyone. I'm back from Spain now, obviously, was good I guess... apart from the fact I had my wallet stolen Was alright though, about as good as a family holiday gets. Probably one of the last one now seeing as I'm 20! Kinda weird not actually being a teenager anymore, not that I feel any different, I just sound old and stuff