Category: Spore

Backup your Mozzila Thunderbird profiles

Paul

So you have all this mail you want to back up in case something terrible happens to your hard drive.  So here is ways to backup your email and other programs in Vista.  I think Vista has a new way of keeping program profiles in an hierarchical setup.  So what is the HIDDEN directory it is:

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C:\Users\[USER]\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles

Now as you can see your Thunderbird profile is in a hidden directory in the AppData Directory.  You can easily get to the hidden directory by typing %appdata% {enter} in the search bar of Vista.  Now How do you backup and restore.   The program I use to backup is GoodSync.  I send the data to the cloud and when I need it I can restore it back to the directory. Now what about restoring, if you have to do a complete re-install of Thunderbird you can always copy over the back up to the Thunderbird Profiles directory and install Mozilla Thunder bird and it should see it.   If by chance you load up Thunderbird and you have to re add everything you would have to delete everything in that directory and then restore from the back up.

It is also a good idea to backup all the roaming directory from time to time.  This way you have every important program needed in case of a problem with your drive.    These are just a few tips and tricks to keep your data safe from having problems in the long run.

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Is Spore Worth 49.99?

Paul

So I been doing a little digging and trying to find out what the heck people are complaining about and I found some great reviews telling me exactly why people hate EA.  They don’t necessarily hate Spore or Will Wright, but the Security around The Spore game.

So In a couple of these comments.  These reviews talk about Creating the creatures and All.  I’ll submit some of the reviews that I thought was relevant and let you decide for yourself.  I would however wonder the one big question?  Is Spore Worth the Money?   Here’s the details that I know of right now:

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  1. You can only install it 3 times before you have to call EA to get an override code.  (Although I heard rumors that if you unistall it, you will get a credit for an Install)

  2. You can not Install new hardware or upgrade your hardware because if you do, it’ll count as an install, According to this one person.

  3. The game only allows 1 login per Install.  So you can’t have more than one character and one universe according to this person.

  4. Part of the Copy Protection prevents you from taking your saved games off your computer and taking it over to your friends house, according to this Person.

  5. On the Mac Version, it tends to breaks subsequent versions of the system services according to this one person.

According to Amazon the reviews aren’t pleasant.  I tend to agree does this mean there are going to be even more people pirating it because they don’t want the DRM or Is EA going to send out a patch to fix this.  I am curious as to see how EA responds to all this NONE TOLERANCE to DRM.

After seeing all these reviews of Spore, I tend to agree with everyone.  I’ll probably wait and see before I buy my copy.  All the reviews however don’t look promising or even makes the games look like it wouldn’t be fun.

Spore Creature Creation — Unleashed

Paul

I’ve been playing around with Spore Creature Creation a couple days.  I must say for the so called Demonstration game is not bad.  It actually works quite well at making basic creatures.  I made some basic creatures myself. Some of the creatures I’ve made should be able to survive when Spore goes online.  One of my favorite ones is Natsela, although the generic name generator is kind of lame.  I like the way you can upload little videos up to YouTube.  The Creature creation is really nice to make the creatures. The videos that I uploaded to YouTube can be seen HERE.

My Dinosaurs:

As you can see, I’ve made some other types of dinosaurs and this one is one of the ones, you won’t want to meet in person.  Although, the sophistication of this creature isn’t as much as others have created in the full version, I think I could start off with this one and actually be quite happy with him.  When the game goes live I’d evolve him into a fearsome dinosaur, and would be able to fight of others without much trouble.

My stalking Dinosaur

I also have some theories as to why they released the Creature Creator early.  I know some people have thought about this themselves and know that it’s all just speculation and theories but I wouldn’t mind seeing the game when it comes out.  Are they, also going to release a demonstration or a Trail version of the full game.  I would say they are because they did the demo version of the Creature Creation.

Now what about these theories I have.  Here are some of them, and I am sure you will like them.  The reason they released Creature creation early is so they have a base line of creatures to use when the game go live.  This means that if you start playing with this creature when you start they have other creatures to draw from to help populate the game and make the game play even more enjoyable.  Now that comes with a price.  You will probably have limits when you first begin because you did not start off as a single celled organism.  Essentially making the game play fair and making sure there is not any cheaters trying to create a powerful creature and swooping down killing other peoples creatures.  I say the more complex the creatures are going to be the more chance of you having to fight off attacks of the AI, they probably made an +2 attribute for head monsters that will be retrieved from the sporepedia and then it will add the attributes to it to make it even more powerful.  So I was thinking starting off from the beginning to get used to how the game reacts and all.  Then once you get used to it to load up your creature and try it out.

Now on a nicer note, I love to see the creatures everyone else is making to just seeing the creativity of the community.  I also like the animated Avatars you can make with them.  Like these two:

Now if you like the avatars and want to create your own all you need to do is look for it.  I love the avatar selections, If you have an avatar you want to show off use the comments and show yours off.  If you dare.