Category: time

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.

Having trouble with I-tunes Here is way to fix the problem:

Paul

I’ve been having problem with I-Tunes lately and I wanted to talk about how to fix the problem that come along with using it.

Err = 8008 [A corrupt file that can’t be completed due to some kind of glitch in downloading the file. It can happen to anyone at anytime.]

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To Fix the problem here are the steps you must do:

  • Go to the I-tunes Music Directory – C:\USERS\[USERNAME]\MUSIC\ITUNES\ITUNES MUSIC\DOWNLOADS

  • Look for the corrupt files, depending on the problem you can expect to see two or three directories. Find the one directory that has the corrupt file and delete the whole directory.

  • Once that is done load up I-tunes and go to the Store Tab and Check for Purchases.

  • This will get I-tunes to download the file again.

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Vista TV Ads Leave me Confused!

Paul

Bill Gates and Vista Ad:

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So I’ve just got done watching this.  I wanted to point to show people this ad and ask people what the heck are they trying to do.  Is this like an epic AD start off where they have to meet each other first?  I don’t see any real relevance to Vista other than the end of the Commercial!  If I was Bill Gates I’d want to have a really good writer making sure there is some kind of relevance to Vista.  I can only hope they get better over time.  If they keep these this type of acting, these ads won’t get anyone to buy Vista let alone Windows!!

Fixing the Adobe Problem!!

Paul

If your have been having problems with Flash Players stoping after 2 seconds of playing.  I have a few ideas to try to get rid of the problem.  It used to happen all the time with Vista in the early days.  Here’s what I did to occasionally get the flash player to work:

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  • Cleaning out the Prefetch Directory! — Having seen this from time to time. If you have programs startup that might need to be refreshed this will refresh them so that they run like new. You occasionally can get programs that will load in a odd way and this will fix that also.

  • You want to be more anonymous? — Cleaning out your cache on your browser can sometimes fix the problem. It’s like anything else it can sometimes be corrupted.

  • Some Important programs to prevent yourself from having viruses and Malware!! — Having seen this with my own two eyes, if you have a viruses or malware on your system that too can cause problems with playback of flash media.  So just double check making sure you don’t have any viruses.

  • Adobe Flash tips and Tricks! — Also having found this out.  Adobe actually keeps the flash video on there servers cached or sometimes somewhat buffered to help with playback.  Clean the cache out at the source sometimes fixes the problem also.

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Now having used some of these tricks to get flash players to run has on occasion worked for some strange reason or another.  Although I don’t know if this will fix the 2 second playing video problem I get the feeling it should since in theory it has everything to do with cache and corruptions of the files. If you can come up with some other tips or tricks to fix the problem let me know!!

Hulu United States Only — FAQ

Paul4 Replies

In a Comment on there Hulu Blog,

August 16th, 2008 at 08:52 AM Umm, when exactly did Hulu decide to shut its doors to everyone outside of America? The site’s title is “Watch your Favorites. Anytime. For Free”. I’m sorry Hulu, this is a complete lie, as anyone viewing your site outside of the US is banned from viewing your videos. All the time. So that you know, I intend on writing a letter to Joss Whedon asking that he pull his Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog video from your network and redistribute it to a video site that isn’t run by people who embrace the philosophy “Defective By Design”. That way, the thousands of other people wanting to see this video, like me, don’t have to resort to downloading the thing via the piratebay.

Well, This is something I wanted to discuss for everyone who reads my blog why Hulu isn’t allowing anyone outside of America to see the videos.   It’s all have to do with there contracts they have with certain providers.

Let me explain it to you another way, Hulu is now being watch all over North America.  Hulu is obligated to make sure no one out side of the US can watch these movies because they have “NO RIGHTS” to share this with anyone out side of the US.  When Hulu makes deals with these major distributors, they sign a contract.  In the contract somewhere at sometime, they are explicitly forbidden to stream this material outside of the US.

Is there ways around this?

Having experience in the computer repair and understand of what is required for someone to get around this type of “Protection” is somewhat hard.  Here is the reason, when Hulu banned people from watching outside of the US they did so by banning a group of Internet Protocols.

Here are Three ways at which I know you can watch HULU programming.  Be advised that these are ways to get around the protection and by doing this, You hold me not responsible for any and all actions.  I talk about this because it would be unfair not to, I’ve got to have some responsibility to my readers.

  • USE A PROXY Server in the United States —  Now this one is the hardest because I don’t know of any.  I am not going to do your homework for you, but I will say there has to be several in the US.  Be Warned that using this will greatly reduce quality and speed.  You will sooner or later be found out and blocked, so use this one is at your own risk.

  • Ask Major Media Distributors to join HULU — Writing to them and asking them to join Hulu will increase the likely hood of them opening up the resources to let people view outside of HULU.  You see the other distributors have the rights to distribute outside of the US.  If you get them to come to Hulu, you will be giving them the power to allow certain content to be streamed outside of HULU.  If you want to contact the distributors and ask them to join Hulu, by all means go through the IMDB and look for the distributors you want on HULU and find out how to email them or Snail Mail them!!

  • USE an VPN to Access HULU — This one is like Proxy Servers but this one is most often used by people who are traveling outside of the US.  That’s right if your company has a VPN inside of the US you can watch shows.  This too could get your IP banned from Hulu, although I tell you this for those business men and women who are traveling and live in the United States and Military people too.  Has all the same flaws as Proxy, will slow you down, and quality will take a hit also!!

These are just a few of the ways you could stream information from HULU but use at your own risk.  If you have any other comments to add just go ahead and add them.  I want to hear what people think or what they want me to talk about.