So, I was searching for some good DS games online to play next week during my trip to Washington, and after much random clicking, I stumbled upon something that dropped my jaw a few inches. There's a Super Nintendo emulator for the DS? You can play awesome old-school SNES games on a handheld device? WHY DIDN'T THE INTERNET TELL ME ABOUT THIS BEFORE?

I adore SNES (as well as DOS), in fact, you could consider me a 2-D elitist; I'm often heard mumbling things such as "Back when I was a kid, games had heart, games had substance. Every single mother fucking pixel." When I read about this SNES emulator for DS, I was excited, but cautious that the setup would be complex. Quite the opposite; setup was surprisingly very simple. Here's a quick guide:

(You need a flash cart + MicroSD card combo to be able to play SNES on your DS. A flash cart could be considered as a "hard drive" on your DS that can play various multimedia files.)

First, download SNES roms to your computer (I use coolrom.com). If neccessary, extract the downloaded rom file. You should have one .smc file per game.

Second, download SNEmulDS, the most popular SNES emulator for DS, to your computer, then extract. Connect the MicroSD card to your computer, and copy SNEmulDS.nds to the root directory of your MicroSD card hard drive.

Third, create a folder named "SNES" (without quotes) in the root directory of your MicroSD card hard drive. Copy your SNES roms (.smc files) into this folder. Place the MicroSD card into your flash cart, your flash cart into your DS, turn on your DS, and load SNEmulDS. Enjoy.

Full instructions on how to use and configure SNEmulDS

Game compatibility list for SNEmulDS

Note: It is only illegal to download/play SNES roms which are protected by the ESA. The roms available for download on coolrom are not ESA protected.

Some of my favourite SNES games; Super Mario RPG, Donkey Kong Country 2, Tetris Attack, Flashback, Prince of Persia, Super Tennis, Chrono Trigger. Fun fact: I burst into tears at the end of Chrono Trigger when Robo was reunited with his robot girlfriend, and consider that moment to be one of the most moving moments of my life! I'm strong and totally not a nerd.

 

Having recently hit 80 in WoW, I have spent some time setting up a functional custom UI for PvP (PvE is for wangs). Now, SOMEONE thinks my UI is totally stupid and crap, so I have decided to write up why my UI is the way it is. Additionally, I will go over the addons I find extremely useful for general WoW play, as well as addons that are absolutely essential, in my opinion, for better PvP performance. Although I am pretty nerdy, some addons I found daunting to setup and customize, so I am including links to excellent video tutorials if you need help getting started; these tutorials have helped me plenty.

I am right-handed and consider the bottom-right corner of the screen to be the most important area on-screen, the top-left corner least important, and the two other corners as well as the middle to be of mid-importance. It's much easier, and more natural for me to scan the bottom and right areas of the screen for important details. You will see that I have put not-so-important UI elements in the top-left area of the screen, such as the minimap and many non-combat abilities. More important UI elements such as combat abilities and their cooldowns, self and target unit frames, cooldown pulse icon, castbars, target buffs and party/raid information appear in the middle, bottom, right and bottom-right areas.

Unit Frames (I use Pitbull, Vuhdo and Gladius)

• Pitbull Unit Frames is a very robust addon that can be confusing and daunting to setup. I actually had to tweak Pitbull quite a bit to get it to look as simple as it does now; many of Pitbull's advanced (and personally I feel unnecessary) features have been disabled. Myself on the left, my target in the middle (my target's target sitting above my target) and my focus target on the right (I'm targetting and focusing myself in the screenshot). I don't like the look and positioning of the default Blizzard Unit Frames, and while I think Pitbull is definitely one of the most complex add-ons I've used, I think it is a very high-quality, customizable replacement. PLUS YOU GET 3D PORTRAITS WHICH ARE TOTALLY COOL. (Pitbull Video Tutorial)
• For party/raid Unit Frames, in the bottom-right corner, I use Vuhdo. I enjoy playing Alterac Valley and Wintergrasp, however, both can have a full raid of 40 players, and I don't fancy half of my computer screen being taken up by the health and mana status of 40 players. That's where Vuhdo makes a fine replacement to the default Blizzard party and raid frames; I can easily see the health and status of my party or raid in a tidy "grid", and quickly click on a "grid" member to perform a certain task. Vuhdo contains many advanced options, such as performing a different task depending on if you left, middle or right-click a player in the "grid". For me, left-click targets a player, right-click casts Renew on them. Vuhdo also contains many features useful for PvE raiding, but I won't go into that because PvE is for wangs.
• I tried ag_UnitFrames prior to Pitbull, and Grid prior to Vuhdo. I found both ag_UnitFrames and Grid clunky to use, and wouldn't recommend either.
• For Arena PvP, Gladius replaces most of Vuhdo's position on-screen (Gladius isn't shown in the screenshot). With the ability to target your arena enemies via a simple enemy Unit Frame, see enemy spell casts, health, mana, trinket usage and much more, Gladius is ESSENTIAL for Arena. I've just hit 80 and haven't done ranked 80 Arena yet, but Gladius has been very useful to me even in practise matches. Gladius is the replacement to Proximo, an addon that was very popular during the 70 Arena days. (Gladius Video Tutorial)

Action Bars (I use Bartender4)

• Bartender allows you place your action bars anywhere you want on your screen, resize them, make them vertical or boxed, hide unnecessary default UI elements related to your action bars (bag bar, menu bar), leading to a cleaner interface with less clutter. Bartender has many advanced features, including profiles for different characters and stance-changing. (Bartender Video Tutorial)

Cast Bars (I use Quartz)

• The default cast bars just aren't customizable, and the cast bars that come with many unit frames (including Pitbull) aren't much better. So, I deactivated the cast bars that come with Pitbull, which aren't very good, and installed Quartz. The best thing about Quartz is that it accounts for lag, so, when you cast a spell, you will see when exactly you can stop casting and still have the spell go off, due to lag. This in my opinion will only make you a better PvPer, as every 1/4 of a second counts in PvP. Quartz is very customizable; you can have castbars in different sizes, positions and textures.
• I use Quartz to show 3 cast bars; self, target, and focus target. As shown the in screeshot, the self cast bar isn't as important as target or focus target, so it is moved to the left side, above the self unit frame. You can setup Quartz to show many different types of cast bars. (Quartz Video Tutorial)

Auras, also known as Buffs and Debuffs (I use Elkano's BuffBars)

• The default list of buffs and debuffs existing on the player aren't bad, but, as a defensive and offensive dispeller Priest, I need to clearly see my target's buffs and debuffs. More importantly, I really need to be able to scan a list of buffs or debuffs for one in particular, very quickly. That's why I love Elkano's BuffBars - I don't have to scan through the default list of tiny icons to look for one buff or debuff. I can scan text, which is much easier for me. While some important icons are easily recognizable amongst others, other important icons don't stand out very much due to their colour scheme/graphic.
  
• Quickly scanning my target's buffs/debuffs is more important than scanning my own buff/debuffs, so I have placed the more informative target buffs/debuffs in the top-right, and short-hand self buffs/debuffs to the left. (Elkano's BuffBars Video Tutorial)

Cooldowns (I use OmniCC and Doom_CooldownPulse)

• OmniCC simply adds, in large text, the cooldown of an ability in your action bar. Configurable.
  
• I LOVE Doom_CooldownPulse and consider it to be the most helpful PvP addon. Whenever an ability comes off cooldown, the ability's graphical icon pulses for a configurable amount of time in the centre of your screen. Simple, easy, almost essential. (Cooldowns Video Tutorial)

Other Misc. Addons (I use Mik Scrolling Battle Text, Chinchilla Minimap, Titan Panel and Prat)

• MSBT is an improvement to the default combat text. You can customize what you want to see in regards to combat information, and the position of scrolling text. (MBST Video Tutorial)
• I'm not keen on the default minimap and its positioning (default position is top right, which I consider to be far more valuable screen space than top left) and Chinchilla Minimap is a great replacement. With Chinchilla, I've moved the non-important minimap to a more appropriate position, changed its appearance to something nicer, and cleared the minimap of unwanted buttons.
• TitanPanel, along the bottom of my screen, really isn't that neccessary, I mainly use it for latency/memory and Wintergrasp information. Previously, I had removed the default menu bar which included a button link to latency information, so I needed a replacement.
• Prat is a chat addon that improves on the default chat in many ways. I use Prat mainly so I am able to scroll chat with my mousewheel.