Battlefield 3 only has four classes, down from seven in Battlefield 2. However, roles have been combined, rather than outright eliminated. The Assault class picks up the eliminated Medic’s healing abilities, although DICE insists it’s still the same old “frontline run and gun class” and players needn’t equip life-giving gear if they want more death-dealing tools instead. “It makes sense that the class on the frontline will be able to revive fallen team mates,” DICE explains.

Engineers are largely the same as ever, able to repair vehicles, and armed with carbines and RPGs.

The Recon class is still a snipe-o-man, though he’s picking up some new toys and tricks DICE isn’t willing to reveal just yet. “Recon traditionally has been seen as just a sniper,” senior mulitplayer designer Alan Kertz said. “We wanted to change that perception, so we’ve built several completely new teamplay oriented gadgets specifically for the Recon class so he can be a team player, even if he’s sitting on the top of Wookie Mountain.”

The light machine gun-wielding Support class, ditched in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, returns with some new mechanics. LMGs can deploy bipods when you’re prone or crouched behind suitable waist-high cover, stabilizing the gun to boost accuracy and lessen recoil.

LMGs will also be handy for laying down suppressive fire, a new mechanic usable by all classes, but perhaps most powerful with machine guns. “When you lay down fire in close vicinity to an enemy, the incoming barrage will show up as a graphical blur effect on his screen to stress him and let him know it’s not safe to pop out from behind cover,” DICE explains. “Just as importantly, this mechanic also affects his character’s in-game firing accuracy, making him less of a threat by using real world tactics. Better yet? You get team play experience points for doing so!”

“Supported shooting with Bipods and Suppressive Fire finally allows us to achieve an obvious difference between Assault and Support, since the heavy LMGs are not terribly mobile,” Kertz said. “When deployed with a Bipod, they become an incredibly powerful force. Suppressive Fire forces the enemy to keep their head down and lets the Support gunner pin his enemies in place so teammates can flank.”

[Source]

Man up, and take it to 1080p FS and put the headphones on.

Upgraded to IE9 to test it on a Vista 32bit box.  Went to Adobe’s site to grab the Flash Installer AND Uninstaller: (in FF)

Installer

Uninstaller

Closed my browser and went to the Downloads Folder and ran the UNINSTALLER.  Then ran the installer (10.3+ player for Flash).

Launched FF to test = perfect

Chrome = perfect

IE 9 = Did NOT install flash.  Adobe’s site displayed no flash installed message.  So APPARENTLY IE9 in all it’s glory, BLOCKS the install that ALL the other browsers use.  I keep IE on default config settings (nothing is custom), so this is what your general consumer/customer would see.

Reading up on some forums it looks like you have to point IE9 to:

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/

Then it will TRIGGER the Need to install Flash. Which it does in Browser.  Then all was well.

Not sure why this happened but I thought I would share.

Their Q/A about what was going on exactly:
[Source: Macworld: http://www.macworld.com/article/159501/2011/04/apple_location_data_response.html]
by Lex Friedman

About iOS 4.3.3 Software Update
(666.2MB)

This update contains changes to the iOS crowd-sourced location database cache including:

• Reduces the size of the cache
• No longer backs the cache up to iTunes
• Deletes the cache entirely when Location Services is turned off

[Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1358]

Ran across some useful information in a forum today and thought I would share it.  Conversation stemmed from someone asking how big of an SSD would they need to have a dual-boot config laptop.  Every OS has extra stuff you don’t need so the following things were suggested to slim down the size. [Source]

When installing Mac OS X, click on “Customize” and remove X11 (if you won’t be using any applications that require it), any additional languages that you won’t need, and printer drivers that you won’t need (these can be downloaded from the internet later on if need be). That’s really all you need to do to slim down Mac OS X.

For Windows:

Disable System Restore and Previous Versions

1. Click on the Start button, right click on Computer, and then click Properties.
2. On the left hand side of the System Properties window, click on “System Protection”
3. Select the partition that Windows is installed on (typically “C:”), then click on “Configure…”
4. Select “Turn off System Protection”, then click on OK.

Remove SP1 un-installation files

1. Click on Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and then click on “Disk Cleanup”.
2. Select the partition that Windows is installed on (typically “C:”), then click on OK.
3. Select “Service Pack Backup Files”, then click OK.

Disable Hibernation

1. Click on Start, All Programs, then click Accessories.
2. Right click on Command Prompt and choose “Run as Administrator”.
3. If you are prompted, provide consent or the appropriate credentials.
4. Type the following command into the command line: powercfg -h off
5. Press Enter.

FOR OSX you can also use the Sourceforge applicaiton “GrandPerspective”

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

“GrandPerspective is a small utility application for Mac OS X that graphically shows the disk usage within a file system. It can help you to manage your disk, as you can easily spot which files and folders take up the most space. It uses a so called tree map for visualisation. Each file is shown as a rectangle with an area proportional to the file’s size. Files in the same folder appear together, but their placement is otherwise arbitrary.”

BF3 In Game SS, Single Player (PC)

Video: http://www.shacknews.com/game/battlefield-3/videos

RPG Blows up car next to you...this is what you see.... OUCH.

Hands on Intel……

1. You will get an email from EA with your REDEEM CODE.  Write it down.

2. I checked PB Setup and there were no updates today (Dec 18th)

3. Launch the game. Goto Vietnam and it will ask for your CODE (its not case sensitive).

4. RADIO info: You CAN change the radio in ALL vehicles, but you will have to ASSIGN a key for it.  By Default its NOT set.

5. If you want Localized audio from players you will have to set that as well as it defaults to the character’s foreign language.

6. Flame thrower does NOT burn down LARGE trees.  Just the smaller bushes.  Doesn’t burn down shacks either. Still useful for clearing out cover.

7. Boat have 3 character positions only.

8. There is a COMPASS!!!!!! (FINALLY).

* Create a free Find My iPhone account on any iPhone 4, iPad, or iPod touch (4th generation) running iOS 4.2. Once you create an account on a qualifying device, use your Apple ID and password to enable Find My iPhone on your other devices running iOS 4.2. Find My iPhone is not available in all countries.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/find-my-iphone-setup/