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Facebook became as popular as it has because of dumb corporations. Years ago every company jumped on the facebook bandwagon and made a facebook page for every single product, show, movie, etc. I would see billboards on the freeway advertising a product and at the bottom there would be "facebook logo / product" or "facebook.com/nbc" or some crap like that. Companies decided they no longer needed to make their own websites any more. They would simply make a facebook page for everything! They would promote the hell out of their facebook pages through advertisements so they could get as many "likes" as possible. By clicking "Like" on a facebook page, it meant that you would see all of that company's posts in your timeline. NBC took down their own official forums and took down most of the websites for their shows in favor of all their hundreds, possibly thousands of facebook pages. Years later facebook had an IPO. They now have stock holders that want the company to make money. First facebook let companies that had "Likes" post advertisements on people's friend's feeds as if that person's friend made the post. Facebook stopped doing that after numerous complaints during the last presidential election. So here it is now.. for the last year+ Facebook has put a new money making strategy into effect. All those company's pages out there with their thousands and millions of likes are now all restricted. Even though these companies and individuals invested time and money to promote their facebook pages so they can keep in contact with their customers and fans easier, Facebook itself is using that against them all. Including us. Whenever you make a post to a facebook page, Facebook has a link that says "Boost Post". "Boosting" a post for money will allow me to forcefully place my post into the time lines of the people that have liked my page. "Promote a post" is also available for regular users that have massive followers like George Takei. He has even commented that only 10% of people who follow him will actually see his posts unless he "Promotes them". We have a Facebook page with 39 likes: https://www.facebook.com/ancientclan A few years ago, I would post links to it when we did updates. We would often have posts seen by around 30 people, which was fine. People who actually liked the page got to see when a new article was posted. That was the whole point of me making a page for the site. As it is now, Facebook Pages are completely pointless money pits for Facebook to capitalize on. If you don't pay Facebook money: You don't get any views: I was one of the two people that saw this post that I made over 2 weeks ago. Facebook Pages are pointless. I'd say I feel bad for NBC and all those other companies that invested their time and money into their Facebook Pages, but I'm not. They are the ones that made facebook as popular as it is and now they are paying for it. Eventually companies will start focusing their time and effort into their own actual sites again because it'll become cheaper to do that than pay facebook buckets of money for every post they make. And guess which companies still advertise their facebook pages on billboards or in TV commercials? Hardly none, if any, are still dumb enough to promote another company's website that will lead them into a blackhole of facebook payments. Anyway, the point of this topic is to announce that I will no longer be updating the Ancient Clan Facebook page. Facebook might get around to changing their policy for smaller pages, but until then I have no interest in "Promoting" or "Boosting" anything. Feel free to follow us on twitter or just check back on the site once in a while to see our new posts and articles. https://twitter.com/ancientclan And of course: http://www.ancientclan.com/

I started using Windows 8 tonight.. I watched the "Getting Started with Windows 8" videos and I now know how to actually navigate, switch and close apps, get to the control panel, etc.. and honestly, this OS would be fine on a phone or a tablet. But on a full PC, this OS sucks balls compared to Windows 7. To see what apps are all open and to be able to right click and close those apps, you have to move the mouse to the top left corner of the screen and then move the mouse down the side in a kind of crappy emulated swiping gesture. This also applies to the right side "charms" menu. The "metro" tiles that everyone knows as Windows 8, is a menu of apps that can be modified to have different tiles, but it cannot be removed or even have the computer boot to the desktop. On a tablet this would be fine, but I'm currently not interested in accessing Window's app store, installing apps and other programs that want to harvest my data.. I simply want a powerful PC for work and gaming. Without a touchscreen for a PC, this operating system is horrible. The shittiest part is that all the settings, control panel, etc. that is the core of Windows 7 is there, but Windows 8 wants you to ignore the hardware and potential of the system and instead sign into your Microsoft account and keep up to date with your friends and tiles. I'm currently doing all my windows updates and then I'll be upgrading it to Windows 8.1 which will allow me to boot to desktop and it'll have a start button with quick access to the control panel and all the other administrative options I actually used the start menu for. However, it still doesn't have an "all programs" list in the start menu, which means I'll have to use the search function to find my programs if I don't have shortcuts on the desktop for them.. and I will still have to turn on the "Metro" tiles, right click on a blank area and then click "all apps" to see the apps which are separate from normal programs. Once I get these updates done, I'll try to change some settings around to see if I can get this computer running more to my liking.

Here is the email I received from vbulletin: The vbulletin team announced that vBulletin 4.0 would come out by the end of June 2009. It is October 14th today and with an announcement like this and a new website, you would think vbulletin 4.0 has finally been released! But no! It is still in alpha testing, there is no demo available and I have been given the opportunity to purchase the upgrade to the suite for the $130 discount for only 16-17 more days. And they still have not announced when the vb 4.0 version will even come out. And even though I bought the blog add-on for $50 a year ago, I get the same discount price as someone who only owns just the forum license. wtf. When my license support renewal is up, which last year would have costed me $40 for updates, will now cost me $195 for the new license if I haven't paid the $130 or more by then to download vbulletin 4.0 which may still not be out by then considering they are 4 months behind schedule with no product. So. We will probably continue running vb 3.8 until we find another alternative or vbulletin changes their pricing structure (which I'm sure they won't). I wouldn't mind paying for new forum software, we've spent plenty on vb over the years with renewal costs and one time purchases. But I can't justify staying with the company because of the part I have put in bold above. If we use just the forums and pay the initial upgrade price of $195 or so in january and switch to a free blog system because the version we have won't be compatible with vb 4.0... we'll still be stuck with another issue. Once vb 5.0 comes out (which should be 12-18 months according to a staff member), we'll have to buy a brand new vbulletin license for version 5 at the full price of another $195. And assuming a new major release then comes out every 1 or 2 years, it'll be hundreds of dollars every year or two just to keep using this software that still doesn't do everything I want it to do. I'm really starting to hate vbulletin. If I want to stay with this forum software, the only way I'll save money is by paying the cheaper upgrade cost of $130 which gives me the entire suite, but I only have 16 days to make my decision or pay $200 in January and only get the forum software. WTF! Anyone have any forum or blog recommendations? I was thinking about invision power board, but they're in the process of releasing a new cms like system and I don't know if that will be bundled in with their current suite. But even ipb is $250 for the suite with $60 renewal costs. But even that price is better than the new vbulletin price structure. Apparently, I have to make a decision within 16 days. *kicks vB in the balls*