It's Over

5 November 2019

This video proves why I'll never be a YouTube star :) I don't want to say much more than thank for you for all of the wonderful emails and kind thoughts, and thank you for visiting the site for 15 years. The site will go offline in the next few days, but I'll be around. Take care guys!

Site Update

1 November 2019

This is becoming a bit like the Twelve Days of Christmas, with an update each day leading to site closure. We've already had kangaroos a-lazing, and newshounds a-snooping, what's next? Seriously though, I'm not trying to drag this out for attention, but I do plan to leave the site up for at least another week so that any latecomers can see for themselves what's going to happen, and anyone who wants to quickly grab a portion of a guide, or convert a guide or two to PDF, can do so more easily than downloading the site achive and rummaging through it.

Importantly, I also want to announce that I've changed my mind regarding the TweakGuides.com domain name. I've realised that given it's simply two common words joined together, and is more descriptive than unique, it would be unfair of me to just sit on it. Accordingly, I promise that if, before the domain needs to be renewed (1 April 2020), a person or persons can produce at least three good quality, comprehensive guides on popular game(s), piece(s) of software, and/or for some aspect of Windows, then I'll transfer the domain name to them at no charge. I'll be the final arbiter of who deserves to get the name, and I reserve the right to keep it in lieu of an appropriate candidate. I'll mention this again on Twitter to remind everyone, probably in late February next year.

Lastly, if you haven't already seen it, the TweakGuides Nostalgia article I wrote a couple of months ago, combined with the Nostalgia Redux editorial I wrote on Site Updates, is a good way to get across the early history of the site, and some of the games that inspired it. Though highly self-indulgent, I'm going to write a similar brief article covering some of the highlights of the site during its peak years, with a few tidbits you may not have known about, as a way of reflecting on the good times. That'll probably be up in a couple of days, or the Eighth Day of Twexit, as it's now known. I'll have a proper farewell message for you shortly after that, to thank you for your support, and bring things to an official close before the lights go out.

Site Update

31 October 2019

With regards to queries about using the site name and/or continuing the site somewhere else, possibly along with the site assets I've released, I would ask that you respect the fact that these are things I own the rights to, and consider part of my online identity. I won't be passing them on, or allowing them to be reused by anyone else; they're being retired. However, I do not own any rights to the concept of tweaking, tweak guides, game guides, etc., or any variant thereof, so anyone who wishes to continue in that vein has my blessing, as long as they don't implicitly or explicitly state that it has anything to do with TweakGuides. Focus on providing detailed content, rather than "brand", and you will be noticed.

Update: As to who currently puts out guides that I could recommend, I feel that both Andrew Burnes, with whom I worked while at GeForce.com, and who is still there, along with Sean Ridgeley, another GeForce.com guide writer at one time, both do a good job. For general Windows news and tweaks, check out TenForums, Winaero and AskWoody, they seem the most knowledgeable and factual.

I gathered news for my daily updates typically via a collection of 18-20 sites at any one point, almost all of them the actual source. So for Intel driver updates for example, I'd regularly check the download pages for the storage drivers, the wireless drivers, the chipset drivers, etc. Same deal for AMD, Nvidia, Windows updates, and so forth. There is no consolidated listing of updates, whether site-based or mailing list, which I can provide. That's not how I did it. To create your own list, you will need to bookmark the manufacturer/developer's downloads or release notes page(s) relating to the software and hardware you use.

Site Update

30 October 2019

Thank you for all of the wonderful emails and tweets! I still have a few more things to do before the site is finally shut down. Meanwhile it's turning into a bit of a wake, so let's lighten the mood a bit with a video I tried to take of some exciting kangaroos for a friend overseas... it didn't go well.

Site Update

29 October 2019

I'm posting this on the front page because, if you haven't heard by now, TweakGuides will be closing down shortly. The reasons are given in the last Site Update, a permalink to which is provided here. I've decided that there's no point dragging things out as originally planned, so I want to wrap things up within the next few days, and the site will then go offline permanently.

As promised, I've archived the entire site and I am providing it to you for free under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution International (CC BY 4.0) license. This basically means you can copy and redistribute the material as you wish, as long as appropriate credit is given, the Readme.txt and License.txt files are included, and any changes you make are clearly indicated. The full TweakGuides Archive (975MB) is currently on Mega, but you can re-upload to better file sharing sites/methods as you see fit.

As a bonus, I include a copy of the mythical, never-released, Far Cry 3 Tweak Guide (317MB), the guide I wrote but couldn't put out, resulting in my falling out with Nvidia, as chronicled in My Nvidia Story. I figure they'll let it slide all these years later if I finally let people see that it did exist!

I'll hopefully be able to prepare a proper farewell message for you shortly; for now, please accept my thanks for your well wishes, and your patronage over the years. I'll be around, whether on Twitter, or some other corner of the Internet. I might even be able to give you something new and interesting to read at some point in the future, let's see what happens :)

For site-related information and opinions go to Site Updates & Editorials

For previous news items go to Archived News

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.