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Showing posts with label promo code. Show all posts
Showing posts with label promo code. Show all posts

Monday, April 24, 2023

BundleHunt 2023 Summer macOS App Bundle is live

 The Bundle Hunt 2023 Summer macOS Bundle featuring 45 macOS, Windows and Design Tools is now live.


 You can also save 20% off the normal retail price of CodeWeavers CrossOver macOS, Linux or ChromeOS when you use ( TOM23 ) as your promo code in CodeWeavers online store.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Mariner Software is having a 50% off spring sale

Mariner Software has a huge 50% off spring sale going on this and next week this is your chance save 50% off their great word editing, blogging, journal and recipe software.

Clear Insight Products has a really nice page setup about this sale and and Mariner Software. You should take the time and check the site out.

http://marinersoftware.com/products/?ap_id=twickline
Because I have been a fan of this software for so long Mariner sent me a promo code and have allowed me to pass it on to my Clear Insight Productions connections. 

This promotion is for a limited time though. At 11:59pm Central time on Sunday, March 27th 2016, the sale will come to an end. So visit the eStore and use PRN6 when you check out to receive your discount.​
“One of the best blog editors we’ve seen.”
MacWorld Magazine

"Really like this app a lot and always looking forward the next revision with its new features. I have been happily using MacJournal since the beginning. Sometimes I even get up to using it half of the days which is a lot for me."
Howard R. Lieberman
Chairman CEO
Silicon Valley Innovation Institute


"This is a thank you for a superb product. I am writing more than I have done for quite some time. It is journal writing and getting my thoughts down in words. I love that I can specify different types of journals and make sub journals. It is so easy and everything is in one place. This is so wonderful and everything is dated. I really appreciate the convenience and ease of using MacJournal. Later I may take a look at your stuff for writers. Thanks again."
Bicki Smith
MacJournal user

Friday, November 27, 2015

CrossOver 14.1.11 для Mac OS

 CrossOver 14.1.11 для Mac OS - Программа, позволяющая запускать многие приложения, написанные для ОС Microsoft Windows в Mac OS X, причём наличие при этом установленной Windows не требуется. CrossOver отличается от Wine более узкой направленностью: он нацелен на поддержку наиболее востребованных офисных и иных приложений Windows, таких как Microsoft Office разных версий, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Lotus Notes, Adobe Photoshop и другие. Но зато совместимость с этими приложениями тщательно тестируется и отлаживается, так что их работа обычно бывает стабильнее, чем в Wine.

А если вы используете этот скидочный код ( TOM23 ) вы можете сэкономить дополнительные 20% от $20.95 цене.

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

CodeWeavers Black Friday Cyber Monday CRIMBO25 Sale

Well it's that time of year again folks, Thanksgiving is in just a couple days and before the holiday has even began people are counting down the days until Christmas 2015. And one of the great things about the holidays is sales and more sales, sales on everything from gum drops to granny's bloomers.

And in keeping in the yule tide festive holiday cheer, the folks at CodeWeavers will have a little sale on CrossOver Mac and Linux for all your Windows applications, programs and games need's on Mac or Linux.

But why buy now? this is the perfect time to purchase for a couple good reasons.

  • CrossOver 15 for Mac and Linux will soon be released
  • Wine 1.8 will soon be released
  • CrossOver 15 will come with a modified version of Wine 1.8
  • CrossOver 15 will have limited support for Direct X 10 and 11
  • CrossOver 15 will have support for Pulse Audio
  • CrossOver 15 will support Microsoft Office 2013
  • CrossOver 15 will have a newly redesigned GUI
  • etc etc etc....

So if you need to run Microsoft Applications, Programs or Games  on your Mac or Linux computer this is the time to get CrossOver. You can purchase now and save 30% off the normal retail price and once CrossOver 15 is released in just a couple short weeks upgrade to CrossOver 15 :)

So how do you get this 20% discount? it's extremely easy just click this link and see your instant savings.

You can share this page or the link on your site, social media accounts and let others know that there is a CrossOver Black Friday, Cyber Monday sale going on.
 
Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Friday, November 13, 2015

How to Install GardenCAD on Mac with CrossOver

We are asked about Windows software running in CrossOver all the time. The range of programs varies so much that it's always questionable on what it might take to get the application running. Most of the time, it's easy.

Recently, we received a request for a second look at GardenCAD and it's big brother, gCADPlus. To our surprise, the team for gCADPlus checked us out a few years ago and put together a handy walk-through for our product.

What they didn't know, we've made it easier than ever to install an unsupported program, like GardenCAD. To be clear, an unsupported program is a Windows program that has not been regularly tested by a member of the CodeWeavers team. Before we get too far, let's talk about what it takes to install an unsupported program.

First, open CrossOver (on your Mac today):

CrossOver Opening Screen
After you click on "Install a Windows Application", search for your application:

Search for gCAD
When your application doesn't show up, it's some "Other Application" that CrossOver doesn't know about... and that's okay. More applications than ever run in CrossOver.

There's no reason to give up here, make the selection of "Other Application" and open the next section of CrossOver, Select an Installer and click "Choose Installer File":

Choose Installer File...
Show CrossOver where your installer file is, highlight it and click, "Use this Installer":

Use This Installer
CrossOver will look like this:

CrossOver and gCADplus
Click Install!

For gCADplus, the installer starts, completes and gCADplus launches!

gCADplus Launches
And, it does things:

gCADplus in CrossOver
It really is that easy!

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Microsoft Office 2013 on Linux with CodeWeavers CrossOver

Microsoft Office 2013 (code named Office 15) is a version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2010 and the predecessor to Microsoft Office 2016. It includes extended file format support, user interface updates and support for touch among its new features. Office 2013 is suitable for IA-32 and x64 systems and requires Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 or a later version of either. A version of Office 2013 comes included on Windows RT devices. Mainstream support ends on April 10, 2018. Extended support ends on April 11, 2023.

Development on this version of Microsoft Office was started in 2010 and ended on October 11, 2012, when Microsoft Office 2013 was released to manufacturing. Microsoft released Office 2013 to general availability on January 29, 2013. This version includes new features such as integration support for online services (including OneDrive, Outlook.com, Skype, Yammer and Flickr), improved format support for Office Open XML (OOXML), OpenDocument (ODF) and Portable Document Format (PDF) and support for multi-touch interfaces.

Microsoft Office 2013 comes in twelve different editions, including three editions for retail outlets, two editions for volume licensing channel, five subscription-based editions available through Microsoft Office 365 program, the web application edition known as Office Web Apps and the Office RT edition made for tablets and mobile devices. Office Web Apps are available free of charge on the web although enterprises may obtain on-premises installations for a price. Microsoft Office applications may be obtained individually; this includes Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Project and Microsoft SharePoint Designer which are not included in any of the twelve editions.

In the upcoming release of CodeWeavers CrossOver Linux 15 we will see many new and exciting changes over the current CrossOver 14 edition that's available now. Don't get me wrong CrossOver 14 is a nice release and runs many productivity applications and games that we care about today.

CrossOver Linux 15 is a whole new ball game, it will come with Microsoft Office 2013 functionality, the beginnings of DirectX 10 and 11 support, a newly refreshed and modern Graphical User Interface (GUI) and incorporate just over a full years worth of Wine from WineHQ changes into the release. And most likely will ship with the upcoming Wine 1.8 stable release or a variant of that release.

Not only will we get a newly updated Graphical User Interface (GUI) we will also get a totally new version of Wine with many DirectX 10 and 11 enhancements. So the day of playing DirectX 10 and 11 games on Linux is soon approaching. I can only imagine the effects on work productivity as we will be like children in a candy store once again.

So on to the main article, this isn't a how-to or user guide but simply a news post. CrossOver 15 is still under extremely heavy development and testing. This news post is to inform everyone of a small sample of whats soon coming our way.

Specs :

Distro : Ubuntu Linux 14.04.3 LTS
CrossOver Release : 15.0 pre release build
Microsoft Office : Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013

You can go to MSDN and download Microsoft Office Professional Plus and get a free 60 day trial here. After you have registered and got the download it's time to run the install with CrossOver Linux 15 on your Linux Computer. Keep in mind this will install and run on any of the popular modern Linux distributions, Ubuntu is in no way a requirement.

CodeWeavers CrossOver 15 Software Installer


CodeWeavers CrossOver 15 Software Installer Office 2013


Starting the Office 2013 install on Linux


Microsoft Office Professional Plus License Agreement

Choose your Office 2013 installation


Office 2013 install has finished


Now the real fun begins, time to run Microsoft word 2013 for the first time on Linux.


Microsoft Word 2013 is now running on Linux, Thank You CodeWeavers!


PowerPoint 2013 running on Linux with CrossOver Linux.


Hello from PowerPoint 2013 on Linux with CrossOver Linux.


Microsoft Excel 2013 on Linux with CrossOver Linux.


Microsoft Outlook 2013 on Linux with CrossOver Linux.


Microsoft Publisher 2013 on Linux with CrossOver Linux.


Wow, was that fun or what? and this is just a small sample of what's to come in the upcoming CrossOver Linux 15 release. If you want to help support future Wine development and CodeWeavers just go over to CodeWeavers online store and pick up your copy of CrossOver for Mac or Linux. When you use promo code ( TOM23 ) you will receive a instant 20% discount and help support future development. I know you want to play some DirectX 10 and 11 games on your Linux or Mac computer.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

CodeWeavers is now on VOAT

I just setup a voat subverse for CodeWeavers if you want to come join the conversation and see how a proper Reddit should be managed VOAT is the place to be.

CodeWeavers sells a proprietary version of Wine called CrossOver for running Windows applications and games on Mac OS X, Linux and Android.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Monday, November 2, 2015

Mariner Software Mariner Write 3.9.5 has been released

Mariner Software Mariner Write is your Mac OS go-to word processing tool! Professional writer, educator or student, Write has all the functionality you need for that important letter, technical paper or research project. Elegantly efficient and powerful, Mariner Write turns out great looking documents. Create customized headers, footers, endnotes or footnotes. Easily define styles; use keyboard shortcuts for repeated tasks. Use Mail Merge to automate a mailing. Write possesses a powerful Find Dialog, an intuitive Font Panel and much more. Mariner Write empowers you to create your own word processing environment so you can produce documents that are clean, consistent and professional.

What's New

Version 3.9.5:
  • Fixed an issue with the Print dialog when running El Capitan.

Requirements

  • Intel
  • OS X 10.7 or later
You can use any of these 4 coupons in Mariners online store and save between 5% and 25% off the retail price of new purchases or one of the 5 pack bundles.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Mariner Software MacGourmet 4.2.2 has been released

Mariner Software MacGourmet is a recipe management application that allows users to create, edit, and scale new recipes or import recipes from their favorite websites, then share them via email, Facebook, and Twitter. For more core functions, try MacGourmet Deluxe.

Features
  • Chef’s view for distraction-free cooking
  • Add images to your recipes and to the steps, as well as to your Beer, Wine, and Cheese notes
  • Use the Ingredient search or let MacGourmet suggest a recipe for you

What's New

Version 4.2.2: Note: Now requires a 64-bit Intel processor.
  • Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.

Requirements

  • Intel, 64-bit processor
  • OS X 10.7 or later
You can use any of these 4 coupons in Mariners online store and save between 5% and 25% off the retail price of new purchases or one of the 5 pack bundles.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Friday, October 30, 2015

CodeWeavers CrossOver 14.1.11 has been released

I am delighted to announce that CodeWeavers has just released CrossOver 14.1.11 for both Mac OSX and Linux . CrossOver 14.1.11 has important bug fixes for Mac and Linux users.

Mac customers with active support entitlements will be upgraded to CrossOver 14.1.11 the next time they launch CrossOver Mac.  Linux users can download the latest version from https://www.codeweavers.com/.

Change Log For CrossOver Mac and Linux :

 14.1.11 CrossOver - October 29, 2015
  • Application Support:
    • Fixed a problem with the Steam store.
  • Linux:
    • Fixed installation problems on systems running Security Enhanced Linux.
Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Скидка 15% от Codeweavers CrossOver

Вы можете сэкономить 20% от CodeWeavers CrossOver Linux для Mac и с промо-код на кассе ( TOM23 ) в CodeWeavers интернет-магазине. С CrossOver вы можете запускать приложения Microsoft Windows и Linux игры на Mac или без необходимости в лицензии Windows.

А если вы используете этот скидочный код ( TOM23 ) вы можете сэкономить дополнительные 20% от $20.95 цене.
 
Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.
 

Friday, October 9, 2015

Wine преминава към фиксиран цикъл на версиите и се интегрира с Wine-staging

Създателите на проекта Wine утвърдиха прехода към фиксиран цикъл за формиране на стабилни версии, с период от 12 месеца. Всяка година в средата или края на месец септември, сорс-кода ще се архивира и работата по него временно ще се прекратява. След кратък стабилизационен цикъл, в края на есента, ще бъде публикувана поредната стабилна версия. Първата стабилна версия от новия цикъл ще бъде компилацията Wine 1.8, която се очаква да излезе след няколко седмици.

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=cxrossiya


Поддръжката на стабилната компилация ще се осъществява чрез bugzilla. За всички Linux дистрибуции, в които не са предвидени инсталационни пакети с Wine, ще бъдат разпространявани готови бинарни пакети.

Освен това, официално бе съобщено за започване на съвместна работа с клона Wine-staging, в рамките на който се разработват неофициални разширени компилации на Wine, включващи пачове, които не са приети в оригиналния Wine. Wine-staging става част от WineHQ обществото и ще бъде включен в основния цикъл на разработване във вид на експериментални пачове за предварителни тестове, преди техния сорс-код да бъде включен в основния проект.

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=cxrossiya


Wine-staging ще допълни текущите стабилни и експериментални версии на Wine и изцяло ще бъде интегриран в структурата на WineHQ. Официално, в средата на Wine-staging ще се тестват и настройват рисковите допълнения, които още не са напълно готови. Тези експериментални пачове ще бъдат отбелязани със специалния таг Staging.

А если вы используете этот скидочный код ( TOM23 ) вы можете сэкономить дополнительные 20% от $20.95 цене.
 
Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.
 

Friday, October 2, 2015

CodeWeavers CrossOver промо-код CXROSSIYA был продлен

Здравствуйте,

Наша 20% купон на скидку код ( TOM23 ) не был удлинен до 20 октября 2016 года Этот код действует для клиентов в России и на Украине и действует в течение 30 мгновенного% скидка Codeweavers наградами CrossOver Mac или Linux. Просто введите код на кассе в магазине и нажмите кнопку Применить.
 
 


Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



Thursday, September 24, 2015

Executando o CrossOver 14 Linux para uma melhor experiência com o Wine

Para uma grande quantidade de usuários de Linux e Mac a realidade é que sempre vai existir um programa de Windows que eles ainda precisam usar quase que diariamente. Para muitos a resposta é o Wine, permitindo que programas sejam utilizados com um certo nível  de sucesso em seus sistemas compatíveis com Unix. Infelizmente o Wine não vem com nenhum tipo de garantia de sucesso para uma determinada aplicação, também não possui nenhum tipo de suporte além da comunidade de desenvolvedores, ou um desenvolvedor muito dedicado. Vamos ao Crossover.

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
O CrossOver tem sido o principal fundo de recursos para o projeto Wine por muitos anos, ele oferece uma versão personalizada do código do Wine e inclusive com suporte garantido a uma variedade de aplicativos -- uns jogos, uns softwares de escritório e produtividade, uns utilitários.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
O Wine atende as necessidades de muitos usuários, de forma gratuita, mas para aqueles que precisam de uma mãozinha ou para aqueles que não se acham capazes de configurar sua instalação do Wine para uma determinada situação o CrossOver é uma boa escolha.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
Por US$ 59,95 o CrossOver conta com um instalador automatizado para muitas aplicações, além de integração com o gerenciador de pacotes do sistema para garantir a instalação de dependências que as camadas de compatibilidade podem requerer -- como codecs, bibliotecas para áudio mp3 e vídeos mpeg, ou fontes de texto específicas.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
O comprador também pode optar por comprar suporte telefônico direto direto com a equipe do CrossOver, de forma a garantir que os programas rodem em seus sistemas. E não é só isso, toda compra do CrossOver vai diretamente para o desenvolvimento contínuo do Wine uma vez que o CrossOver emprega muitos dos contribuidores e desenvolvedores, assim como todas as correções feitas no código, "não importa o quão pequena", são sempre enviadas ao projeto do Wine em si. Ao comprar o CrossOver você contribui diretamente com o Wine.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
Para mim, o maior e mais importante recurso é a integração com o gerenciador de pacotes. Todas as minhas aplicações principais (Microsoft Office, World Of Warcraft, Warcraft 3) e as outras funcionam muito bem com a versão base do Wine. Mas toda vez que troco minha distribuição do SO eu sempre preciso analisar e instalar todas as dependências do sistema, como as versões de 32 bits do gstreamer, lipmpg, mp3, entre outras. Já com o CrossOver assim que um programa sendo instalado precisa dessas dependências ele me avisa dos pacotes necessários.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
Para usuários avançados comprar o CrossOver pode não ter um benefício direto. Mas para aqueles mais leigos com a computação, ou que querem ajudar o projeto do Wine, então comprar o CrossOver é uma maneira simples de contribuir.
https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
O CrossOver tem se mantido funcionando muito bem através dos anos, mesmo lembrando do CrossOver Office 5 de mais de 10 anos atrás e também do CrossOver Games, que foi integrado ao CrossOver atual.

https://www.codeweavers.com/store2/?dealcode=weaveme
 

Os mais novos cupons de desconto do CrossOver são ( TOM23 )  que garantem 20% de desconto tanto na versão Mac quanto Linux!
 
Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Friday, September 4, 2015

CodeWeavers CrossOver 14.1.6 ChangeLog

CodeWeavers recently released CrossOver 14.1.6 for Linux and Mac. Gaming performance continues to advance with this release. Their are important fixes for Mac OSX El Capitan RHEL CentOS and Ubuntu in this release. The full change log is provided below.

 You Can use promo code TOM23 in CodeWeavers store and save 20% off the normal retail price.

  14.1.6 CrossOver - September 2, 2015
  • Mac OS X:
    • Fixed a problem which caused CrossOver to crash on El Capitan when selecting a bottle in the GUI.
  • Application Support:
    • Fixed a bug which caused Mamut Business Software to crash during installation.
  • Linux:
    • Fixed a problem which caused CrossOver to fail to load libX11 on RHEL / CentOS 6.7.
    • Fixed a problem in which CrossOver would complain about unmet dependencies of libosmesa6 on Ubuntu 14.04.3.
Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Running CrossOver 14 Linux For An Easier Wine Experience

For a large portion of Linux and Mac users the reality is there will be some Windows program that they will still have to use on a daily or near-daily basis. For many the answer is Wine, letting them use their applications with a variable amount of success on their new *nix system. Unfortunately Wine doesn't come with any guarantee of support for a given application, nor is there any level of support from the developers beyond the community, or a generous developer. Enter CrossOver.
 
CrossOver has been the main financial support behind the Wine project for several years now, they offer a customized version of the Wine codebase and even claim explicit support for a variety of applications-- some games, some productivity software, some utilities.
 
For many users Wine meets all of their needs, free of charge, but for those who want that extra hand, or who don't trust that they'll be able to configure their wine install to meet their situation, then CrossOver is a nice compromise. 
 
For $59.95 USD, CrossOver will give you an automated installer for many applications, as well as integration into the package manager for dependencies that the compatibility layer might need -- such as codecs, mp3 and mpeg libraries, or specific fonts.
 
The buyer can also opt to buy phone support direct from CrossOver in order to get their applications working on their systems. That's not the only thing though, every purchase of CrossOver goes directly to the continuing development of the Wine project as CrossOver employs many of the contributors and developers, as well as contributing every fix they develop, "no matter how tiny", directly back to the Wine project itself. By supporting CrossOver, users support Wine.

For me personally, the biggest and most helpful feature is the integration with the package manager. All of my main applications -- MS Office, World Of Warcraft, Warcraft 3, and others all work fine in the base version of Wine. But anytime I swap a new distro to try out I always have to go back through and install all of the system dependencies, such as (32bit versions of) gstreamer codecs, libmpg, mp3 support, and others. But with CrossOver I get prompted to install those packages the moment I try to install a Windows application that has those dependencies declared. 
 
For advanced users, purchasing CrossOver may not have a direct benefit. But for those who are less technologically minded, or that want to help out the Wine project, then purchasing CrossOver is an easy way to support themselves, as well as support the wider community who benefits from the Wine project.
 
CrossOver has managed to work fairly well over the years, even going back to CrossOver Office 5 from 10+ years ago as well as CrossOver Games, which has since been integrated into CrossOver itself.

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac for only 69 cents for three more days

With the Pay What You Want bundles, you can get something incredible for as little as you want to pay while making the world a better place. And if you beat the average price, you’ll receive the fully upgraded bundle!

10% of the profits from your purchase will go towards Creative Commons, who develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.

Make the Top of the Leaderboard at ANY point during the sale and gain 5 entries to our exclusive giveaway! Make it onto the leaderboard at ANY point during the sale and gain 1 entry to our exclusive giveaway!

OK, why am I saying for 69 cents, well actually you could pay 10 cents for the total bundle but I have faith that most will pay the average or higher and the current average for the 10 apps is $6.91 so therefore a whopping average of 69.1 cents each!

What's in the bundle you ask...


But if you should be so unlucky to miss this out on this pay what you want bundle deal you can always find a CodeWeavers CrossOver Mac promo or Coupon code here for great savings!

Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.

Monday, August 17, 2015

World of Warships on Mac OS X with CodeWeavers CrossOver

It's no longer a secret that we've been doing work for Wargaming, Inc., the makers of the hugely popular World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and the forthcoming World of Warships (which is currently in open beta). We're doing the Mac port of World of Warships, and we've gotten to the point where it's in good enough shape that it needs some serious testing. And who better to do some serious testing than a naval historian who's written a book on the Battle of Midway, and who is an adjunct lecturer for the U.S. Naval War College, and given talks at Pearl Harbor, the National WWII Museum, the Nimitz Museum, and blah blah blah? Yeah, ummm, I guess that'd be me.



WoWS Splash Screen
Splash screen for World of Warships, running on my Mac. Late-war Nagato-class battleship, so pretty...

So, first things first: from a purely technical standpoint, our Mac port is going to be great. I've played the game extensively on Windows and on my Macbook Pro, and there's no perceptible difference in game play. None. If anything, with my Mac's SSD drive, it plays better on the Mac than at home on Windows. No graphical glitches, no performance issues, nothing. It works very, very well. When my ship sinks on my Mac, it sinks exactly the way it ought to on Windows: broken, capsizing, and in flames. And that's not just hype.



Me, sinking...
Me, sinking: broken, capsizing and in flames... but at least I killed the pesky destroyer that killed me...

So is the game fun? Yeah, sadly, it really is. And I say "sadly," because, believe me, I need a good game to chew up my time like I need a hole in the head. (I am, after all, working on my next book.) But Wargaming has done a really good job injecting a sense of realism while tempering it with game balance as well. This is, after all, a game, and it's meant to be fun. Having done play-testing on some "hyper-realistic" games (including 360 Pacific's horrifically bad Gulf War simulation "Patriot"), I can tell you that games are supposed to be fun, first and foremost. "Realism" is nice, but "fun" is nicer. And this is a great mix of both.

So, for instance, if you're a hardcore Imperial Japanese Navy fan (which I most certainly am), you'll see a mixture of the perennial favs (battleship Fuso, heavy cruiser Mogami, and of course the mighty Yamato) mixed in with a bunch of never-built oddities. And you might be tempted to say, "The cruiser Zao? The carrier Hakuryu? What the hell were those?!?" Really, what those are, are conveniently vague placeholders that give Wargaming the wiggle-room it needs to make sure that things are reasonably well-balanced between tiers of warships.



Target in sight!
Come to me, my prey... just a little bit closer...

The equipment, likewise, "feels" realistic, even though it kinda isn't. So, yeah, if you're playing a battleship, you'll notice that your main armament has a much flatter trajectory at medium range than, say, a cruiser's armament (which is fair enough). But then again, if you take a look at the range of Yamato's main guns, 26.6km, you'll see that that's about 60% of their real-life maximum. All the weapon ranges are downscaled in this way. Likewise, ship speeds (and certainly acceleration) are all scaled up, so that players feel like they have mobility around the battlefield. In real life naval gunnery, encounters often felt as if they were being waged in slow motion, although some of the encounters in places like the Solomons could be comparatively fast-moving and short range. However, even a real-life brawl like the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, which was very fast to develop, and about the nearest thing to a knife-fight we got into in the Solomons, lasted for nearly 45 minutes. World of Warships encounters are all brawls of this type, but they typically take about 15-20 minutes apiece. That's a nice chunk of time: long enough to be interesting, but not so long that your wife will yell at you for being an hour late to dinner.

There's a lot more terrain on World of Warships ocean than there was in most real-world naval encounters as well. Most of the games I've played seem to be fought over the remains of some ancient, sunken volcanic calderas. (I had no idea that that many ancient sunken volcanic calderas even existed in the world.) In the game, you routinely use small islands to shield your maneuvers, or to sneak up on your opponent, or to get the hell out of the way before that enemy battleship over there unloads on you. That's "fun," but it ain't very realistic. In fact, no naval officer in his/her right mind would be willing to drive a ship into any of these horribly constricted maps festooned with toothy rocks and volcanic peaks. But then again, such maps are fun as hell, and it's a hoot to drive your Kuma-class T4 cruiser through there like a Porsche taking the curves on Hwy 1. What's not to like?



Into the valley of death...
Notice the terrain all around me? Yeah, there's a lot of that.

I also appreciated the fairly realistic tradeoffs being made between the various nationalities that reflected their "feel." So, you like torpedoes and speedy warships? Then go with the Japanese all the way, but don't expect to have super great survivability. You're into gunnery and protection? U.S. Navy, baby, but you have to get used to the fact that your plodding South Carolina is going to take a lot longer to get into the fight than my zippy little Kuma.

This brings up another point: the individual types of ships also feel and play differently. And this is good, too. So, for instance, with a battleship, you really have to think ahead to what you're going to be doing a minute or two from now, because your ship is slow, your turrets are very slow to train to new bearings, and your reload time is slow as well. So, you have to look down the road and think to yourself, "Yeah, he's going to be around there, and I need to be facing this way in order to unleash a broadside, but, oh, wait, there's going to be that island in my way, so I'd better adjust my course now." This is why I primarily play cruisers, not battleships. "Yep, everything's goin' great... mhmmm... my 6" guns are nibbling that guy to death… oh crap, torpedoes! Turn around NOW and run like hell!!!"

Anyway, the game is a hoot. I'll be playing more of it, and can't wait to see it released. If you're a naval history fan, whether you're running Mac or Linux, I think you'll really enjoy it. And if you see "JonnyKaigun" out on the servers, you know who he is now...

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Thursday, August 6, 2015

CodeWeavers CrossOver 15 status update Office 2013 Steam and Wargaming fixes just to name a few

 The last two and a half weeks of testing were heavily occupied with attention to World of Tanks and World of Warships.

World of Tanks, now with LED lights!With World of Tanks we began by triaging a crash that started with the 9.9 update. We fixed the issue quickly and sent a new build to Wargaming. We followed this with a fix for a severe drop in frame-rates with the 9.9 update. A fix for the frame-rate issue and a mouse offset issue is on it's way to Wargaming now. We continue work on a rendering issue that lights up the garage as though it were decorated with blue LED lights on Intel based systems.

For World of Warships we spent a majority of the time working with the black screen a user would be met with upon login. The problem is related to Wine Bug number 35397. With more testing and development, we hope to send the fix upstream. This means we fixed it easily for Wargaming but to ensure we don't break other applications in Wine, we need to complete the patch by adding tests and additional cases.

Following that, our normal cycle of testing did not reveal new regressions with the latest version of Wine.

We reproduced a crash reported in our forums with El Capitan and CrossOver 14.1.4. We confirmed the crash in our development branch and opened a bug report with Apple regarding the crash. This crash is caused by an exception in code that only occurs when using El Capitan.

We confirmed that Apple fixed a rendering issue with the release of El Capitan that affects Banished.

We reviewed Wine bug number 34041; we confirmed that Skyrim continues to hang on exit both with CrossOver and the latest version of Wine, 1.7.47.

For CrossOver 14, we tested fixes with Microsoft Office 2010's behavior on dual screen systems. This includes full-screen maximize/minimize behavior of primary and secondary screens on Gnome Classic and Gnome Shell with Metacity and Debian 7. Additional testing was performed on Debian 8 with dual screen systems. This work will be included in CrossOver 15 and any future updates of CrossOver 14. We also retested the behavior of inserting Word and Excel objects in PowerPoint 2007.

For CrossOver 15
  • We confirmed a fix for Microsoft Office 2007 & 2010 installs where the contents and control panel would scan forever and never load.
  • We confirmed a fix for a bad case on bottle renaming where pressing ESC would rename the bottle in the GUI but not the system. Pressing ESC now completely cancels the bottle renaming process.
  • We confirmed a fix for a bad behavior when CrossOver was minimized to the OSX dock. It now maximizes with a single click, the same behavior as native applications.
  • We confirmed a fix where CrossOver could not download specific files based on a feature in the Mac frameworks via the user agent string. CrossOver on OSX now uses the same method as Linux for downloads.
  • We confirmed a fix for PokeXGames where a proper username is now used in the registry setting so the game can rely on it.

Magenta SteamDwrite has been completely merged into Wine with this update, this means that more people can now contribute to the work that still needs to be done for implementation. It also means that we changed how the development of branch of CrossOver is handled. We now build with dwrite for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately some titles break with this configuration, namely Steam. However, the work to make Steam functional is ongoing and we have confirmed that if Steam is not functional by the time CrossOver 15 is released, we can adjust this setting specifically for Steam.

Direct2D implementation was also merged into Wine this week. More people can now contribute to the work that still needs to be done.

As dwrite and direct2d were submitted to Wine, we performed a series of tests to ensure that Office 2013 applications remained as functional as they have been in the past weeks. This means that each application launches in the very least. In some cases that success is short lived as the application crashes quickly. Our developers have a sense of humor with this:

Ship it Quick!
With extreme caution, testing of Office 2013 can now take place with Wine and with development builds of CrossOver. Many installers do not yet work, patience.  

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