First: I continue to be shocked that AOL is still around.

Second, it seems those old familiar scams continue to haunt the online service. My local newspaper has a debunking of an email billing scam in which an email claiming to be from AOL arrives in the victim's email box. It says there's a problem with their account ... and that they should immediately e-mail AOL back with their account information, bank account information, etc.

At this point, I think it's safe to say we should be highly skeptical of any incoming billing e-mail, even ones we're expecting. Phishing schemes like this play with people's expectations -- they work by getting you to see what you expect to see. That causes you to trust the e-mail, and do things like mail in your credentials. If you get an e-mail from someone like AOL, your bank, Netflix or some other company you do business with, it's always best to login to their web site directly (not through any of the links in the email). If there really is an important message or account update for you, it'll be on their web site as well as in your e-mail. If you can't find it after logging in, call the company's customer service line.

An episode-by-episode guide to Stargate SG-1. Includes list of injuries suffered by SG-1, places visited, and various "Stargate-isms". It also offers detailed nitpicks of each episode, detailing problems with plots and production.

If only.

A private organization committed to the exploration, colonization and exploitation of Mars.

Radio Active #72 contememplates the best way to organize a geeky bookshelf, takes another turn at chess with kids, finds out that Neutron Lad has a lot to talk about, asks questions about Nuketown's long-dormant RADIATIONS newsletter and finally reviews Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, the latest edition of the venerable role-playing game by Wizards of the Coast.

I slacked on my own game review duties at Nuketown this week (though I did pitch a review to a new market) but thankfully others remained on the ball, yielding a number of new reviews.

There are two more Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition reviews out this week. The Geek Gazette offers some initial thoughts on the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide and rants about the necessity of buying both a campaign guide and a player's guide. This is undoubtedly great for WotC's bottom line, he argues, but no so great for players.

My understanding is that Wizards is scaling back its campaign offerings, so these may be the only two FR books you get this year. I have to think they'll publish additional Forgotten Realms source books in 2009, but at the same time they've been pretty upfront about releasing books for one campaign setting a year (FR this year, Eberron next, maybe Dark Sun after that).

I think the bigger question could end up being not "is this too much?" but "is it enough?"

RPG.net has a favorable review of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Reviewer Eric Christian Berg liked the ease of building encounters and the dynamic nature of combat.

TouchTerm is an SSH client for the iPhone/iPod Touch, based on OpenSSL and OpenSSH. Incorporates support for RSA/DSA Key-based authentication and public key distribution via e-mail.

As my group's D&D Dark City campaign winds down, the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game is ramping up. This week sees the group off because of a combination of family colds and Celtic Fest (which, given the rainy weekend forecast, will likely result in more colds, but I digress) but we've spent last few days thrashing out the KOTOR campaign. 

With Saga Edition rules and KOTOR campaign guide in hand, we've figured out some of the basics.

Prepping for my "Unification Day" adventure for the Serenity Role-Playing Game at Nuke(m)Con 2008 sent me wandering the web for inspiration, references and shortcuts.

Unfortunately, the official Serenity web site at http://www.serenity-rpg.com is dead, but it seems Margaret Weis Productions is working on moving material from the old site to their new one. The most important of these is the PDF of the Official Serenity Character Sheet. The site also has news on the new Serenity Adventures book, which features a number of related scenarios for the game. The PDF is available now, the print version will hopefully be out soon.

The official site is down, but the unofficial one at FireflyRPG.com may be the next best thing. It's got a beautiful poster map of the Serenity solar system, 3D renderings of ground and air vehicles, weapon reference cards, and deck plans for 28 different ships. There are also two rules quick reference sheets, but unfortunately during the playtest I found they had too many house rules to be useful.