Along these same lines, Amazon is opening new distribution facilities in TN near Chattanooga and are trying to avoid having to collect tax from TN residents. They are claiming that the center is just for distribution, that the actual sale takes place elsewhere. It will be interesting to see if the state goes along with this definition of a business presence since the new centers are expected to bring in 1,500 jobs or so. New Egg also has a distribution facility near Memphis and they have to collect tax, so I have to wonder what kind of outcry other distributors will raise if Amazon is allowed to avoid collecting taxes.
I would like to see them try to take Google to court with their vaults of money instead of single mothers and college kids that can't afford to fight back.
With the method that many items are smuggled into prisons I sure wouldn't be holding it up to my mouth to talk...
Re:Amiga had it first.
on
PC Virus Turns 25
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Even before that the Atari ST had a floppy boot sector virus that would invert your mouse - left and right worked fine, but up and down were reversed.
I remember seeing that message on the Amiga too. I had just bought one and some of the discs a friend had loaned me had that virus on it. It wrote itself to the floppy boot sector so it couldn't be removed from many discs without making them unbootable. It only spread if you warm booted, so you could still use the floppy if you turned the power off after running one with that virus on it.
I am wondering if this could be a response to e-book publishers. On Amazon's Kindle store, the publisher sets the price which results in e-books costing more than their physical counterparts in many cases. It didn't use to be that way until Apple came in and negotiated new terms with the publishers allowing the publishers to sell direct to the consumer, just using Apple as a middleman and Amazon had to follow suit. This was called the Agency Model.
I suspect Amazon's profits went down once they lost control of setting the price on e-books, if for no other reason due to reduced sales by people not wanting to pay the inflated prices, so I see this as making sure that they retain pricing control.
The biggest problem I see is that people could patch games to enable cheating on PSN which can be a huge problem on any online gaming platform. I believe that is one of the main reasons Microsoft bans modified consoles from Live, because once a platform become riddled with cheaters then people will avoid it. That would hurt more than lost game sales due to piracy.
There will be people that pirate games, but I believe that the majority of people are honest and will purchase what they play. If that wasn't the case, then how did iTunes just sell their 10 BILLIONTH song last year? Most of what is on their store would be available for free if you were so inclined to search for it. The average user will continue to buy games, while the more tech savvy ones may get them through other means. Look at the Nintendo DS, cracked wide open for years yet I saw games for it flying off the shelf last holiday season. Ditto the Wii, which can be softmodded.
The biggest advantage I have had since buying my Kindle is the adjustable type size. The older I get the harder it is to read small print and not every book is available in large type. With the Kindle I can change the type size and line spacing with ease to adjust to whatever is most comfortable to me.
I remember Rush Limbaugh urging people to vote Hillary on Super Tuesday in the 2008 primaries to keep her in the race. They figured that the internal bickering would be detrimental to the Democrats so they wanted to keep that going as long as they could.
Precision is also lacking. I can click on a much smaller area with the DS stylus than I can with my fingertip on a smart phone. The tactile feedback of real buttons as you mentioned is also missing, as well as your fingers obscuring a portion of the playing screen. Some of the best smart phone games I have played are ones that use the tilt controls such as Doodle Jump which eliminates the issues mentioned above by having very little on screen controls.
Where I work Adobe Reader is also installed and likewise I use Foxit at home. Just disable javascript in preferences. I have had it disabled for years and haven't had any issues displaying PDF files, though I do not fill out many PDF forms where it might be used. I guess I could always enable on a case by case basis if one actually required it but I haven't run into any yet.
When I googled the error I got it turned out my MTU was set too low (1300 for some reason) in the registry and GFWL was somehow the only thing that was unable to cope with that.
Thanks KDR, I hadn't tried that. I had checked my DSL modem and it was 1492 but hadn't checked the NIC in my PC. I set my MTU to 1492 on my NIC, same as my DSL modem. For some reason Windows 7 had it as 1300, the same as yours. Once I did that I was able to connect to GFWL.
The only game I have tried through Games for Windows Live is Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II and it has yet to ever be able to connect - it always returns error 0x81051911.
Actually the error number I get is 0x80151911. That's what I get for trying to post half awake at 5AM
The only game I have tried through Games for Windows Live is Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II and it has yet to ever be able to connect - it always returns error 0x81051911. The troubleshooting steps Microsoft has you go through include everything from port forwarding a half dozen ports to resetting your TCP/IP stack, yet I can play any other online game with no issues, including connecting to X-Box Live on my sons console.
GFWL is a POS and I won't buy any other game that requires it.
I would like to see the test fade be an option you could disable in Google. Sure, there are ways to stop it using an extension or disabling javascipt, but it should just be a simple want/do not want in their Search Options page.
Didn't Sony get a tax break in Europe because they were able to claim that the PS3 was a computer because of the Other OS functionality? The tax rate on a console was higher than a computer.
I would have to agree. Your technique might not be correct, but it's the results that count.
My first computer was an old Atari 800. The right shift key quit working after a couple months but I continued to type on it for several more years. To this day I still shift with my left hand. It might not be the correct way to do it, but it has not affected my speed or accuracy in any way.
Besides the already mentioned inability to resell or give away a game when you finish it or no longer want it I have seen other issues that aren't discussed as much.
Patches
A couple issues here. Currently there are quite a few games on Steam that have retail patches available but have not been patched on Steam. Usually you can't use the retail patch on the Steam version. There is also the issue of community patches, like for Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Since the community patch isn't an official patch it will not be offered on Steam, even though it fixes many issues with the retail patches after the developer stopped supporting it. There is a nine page topic on the Steam forums. Unpatched Games on Steam Forced patches is another issue. There have been cases where they broke something and you are unable to back out. It can be a hassle having to download hundreds of megs before you can play a game. I have run into that several times, just having a few minutes to play a game and then having to download forced updates before I can start.
Bandwidth Caps With many ISPs considering or already implementing bandwidth caps, having to download huge games, especially if we are talking PS3 Blu-Ray, will use up your allowance pretty fast.
I was thinking the same thing, though I wonder if they would do justice to the series. Keep it in an isometric perspective but change to mouse driven Diablo like controls? Or switch to an over the shoulder 3D or a FPS perspective? I still play them in DOSBox but the keyboard controls would have to be redone to really appeal to a new generation.
I have some several CDRs that I burnt from 1994 to 1997 with a Pinnacle Micro RCD-1000. It was the first burner I can remember that was under $2000. The media was Verbatim with the gold dye. Back then they were about $12 each in packs of 10. They have been stored in CD booklets and kept in a cool, dark location.
Every one of them still reads and verifies when I use my Plextor DVD burner - I just tested them earlier this year while backing them up to a hard drive. However, only about half read without errors if I use the other DVD readers that I have, including Samsung and Asus or the other DVD burner which is a Pioneer.
I had hoped that they would do like Apple this time and offer a family pack license. I can get Leopard with five licenses for a little over $130, less than half the cost of a second standalone copy. With four PCs in my household (my game PC, wife's, and two the kids use), even the cheapest upgrade option is nearly $500 if I upgraded all of them.
Meridian 59 was a MMORPG that predated Ultima Online by over a year. I beta tested it in 1996 and it was released in that year, where Ultima Online was not published until the following year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_59
I am assuming that the other interested parties were US Congressmen...
From arstechnica.com:
That "misunderstanding" went all the way to the top. Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY) last week announced his plan to introduce a bill placing limits on the ability of companies like TWC to cap its connections, especially in areas where it was a virtual monopoly. But it took a heavier hitterâ"in this case, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)â"to make TWC change its ways.
I think if a store sells used games such as Gamestop does then they should not be allowed to open a display copy for any reason. Twice I have had issues with buying new games from them that had been opened. I bought my daughter a new DS game for Christmas. It was the last copy they had of that title and I remarked then about the case being opened and was told if they didn't remove the game it would get shoplifted. Upon playing it on Christmas day we found saved games from months before on the cartridge. I had paid for a new game and got a used one instead. Another time my son had bought a previously opened game that had 2 DVDs. We didn't know that at the time. A week or so later while playing he is prompted to insert disk 2 which was not in the package. We took it back to the store and they had the second disk still behind the counter. Both times they made good, swapping out the used game with a new one for the first incident and giving me the missing disk on the second, but Gamestop lost me as a customer. I was not compensated for having to make a return trip to the store due to their negligence. I now buy new games from Amazon and if I were to buy a used game it would be from Craigslist where I get a decent price, not $5 off full retail.
Slashdot Mirror
Along these same lines, Amazon is opening new distribution facilities in TN near Chattanooga and are trying to avoid having to collect tax from TN residents. They are claiming that the center is just for distribution, that the actual sale takes place elsewhere. It will be interesting to see if the state goes along with this definition of a business presence since the new centers are expected to bring in 1,500 jobs or so. New Egg also has a distribution facility near Memphis and they have to collect tax, so I have to wonder what kind of outcry other distributors will raise if Amazon is allowed to avoid collecting taxes.
I would like to see them try to take Google to court with their vaults of money instead of single mothers and college kids that can't afford to fight back.
With the method that many items are smuggled into prisons I sure wouldn't be holding it up to my mouth to talk...
Even before that the Atari ST had a floppy boot sector virus that would invert your mouse - left and right worked fine, but up and down were reversed.
I remember seeing that message on the Amiga too. I had just bought one and some of the discs a friend had loaned me had that virus on it. It wrote itself to the floppy boot sector so it couldn't be removed from many discs without making them unbootable. It only spread if you warm booted, so you could still use the floppy if you turned the power off after running one with that virus on it.
You can get Arx Fatalis at Good Old Games for the required data files
I am wondering if this could be a response to e-book publishers. On Amazon's Kindle store, the publisher sets the price which results in e-books costing more than their physical counterparts in many cases. It didn't use to be that way until Apple came in and negotiated new terms with the publishers allowing the publishers to sell direct to the consumer, just using Apple as a middleman and Amazon had to follow suit. This was called the Agency Model.
I suspect Amazon's profits went down once they lost control of setting the price on e-books, if for no other reason due to reduced sales by people not wanting to pay the inflated prices, so I see this as making sure that they retain pricing control.
The biggest problem I see is that people could patch games to enable cheating on PSN which can be a huge problem on any online gaming platform. I believe that is one of the main reasons Microsoft bans modified consoles from Live, because once a platform become riddled with cheaters then people will avoid it. That would hurt more than lost game sales due to piracy.
There will be people that pirate games, but I believe that the majority of people are honest and will purchase what they play. If that wasn't the case, then how did iTunes just sell their 10 BILLIONTH song last year? Most of what is on their store would be available for free if you were so inclined to search for it. The average user will continue to buy games, while the more tech savvy ones may get them through other means. Look at the Nintendo DS, cracked wide open for years yet I saw games for it flying off the shelf last holiday season. Ditto the Wii, which can be softmodded.
The biggest advantage I have had since buying my Kindle is the adjustable type size. The older I get the harder it is to read small print and not every book is available in large type. With the Kindle I can change the type size and line spacing with ease to adjust to whatever is most comfortable to me.
I remember Rush Limbaugh urging people to vote Hillary on Super Tuesday in the 2008 primaries to keep her in the race. They figured that the internal bickering would be detrimental to the Democrats so they wanted to keep that going as long as they could.
Precision is also lacking. I can click on a much smaller area with the DS stylus than I can with my fingertip on a smart phone. The tactile feedback of real buttons as you mentioned is also missing, as well as your fingers obscuring a portion of the playing screen. Some of the best smart phone games I have played are ones that use the tilt controls such as Doodle Jump which eliminates the issues mentioned above by having very little on screen controls.
Where I work Adobe Reader is also installed and likewise I use Foxit at home. Just disable javascript in preferences. I have had it disabled for years and haven't had any issues displaying PDF files, though I do not fill out many PDF forms where it might be used. I guess I could always enable on a case by case basis if one actually required it but I haven't run into any yet.
When I googled the error I got it turned out my MTU was set too low (1300 for some reason) in the registry and GFWL was somehow the only thing that was unable to cope with that.
Thanks KDR, I hadn't tried that. I had checked my DSL modem and it was 1492 but hadn't checked the NIC in my PC. I set my MTU to 1492 on my NIC, same as my DSL modem. For some reason Windows 7 had it as 1300, the same as yours. Once I did that I was able to connect to GFWL.
The only game I have tried through Games for Windows Live is Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II and it has yet to ever be able to connect - it always returns error 0x81051911.
Actually the error number I get is 0x80151911. That's what I get for trying to post half awake at 5AM
The only game I have tried through Games for Windows Live is Warhammer 40K Dawn of War II and it has yet to ever be able to connect - it always returns error 0x81051911. The troubleshooting steps Microsoft has you go through include everything from port forwarding a half dozen ports to resetting your TCP/IP stack, yet I can play any other online game with no issues, including connecting to X-Box Live on my sons console. GFWL is a POS and I won't buy any other game that requires it.
The majority of PCs they sell have Windows installed...
I would like to see the test fade be an option you could disable in Google. Sure, there are ways to stop it using an extension or disabling javascipt, but it should just be a simple want/do not want in their Search Options page.
Didn't Sony get a tax break in Europe because they were able to claim that the PS3 was a computer because of the Other OS functionality? The tax rate on a console was higher than a computer.
http://kotaku.com/179245/why-the-ps3-is-a-computer-sony-dodges-euro-tax-men
I would have to agree. Your technique might not be correct, but it's the results that count. My first computer was an old Atari 800. The right shift key quit working after a couple months but I continued to type on it for several more years. To this day I still shift with my left hand. It might not be the correct way to do it, but it has not affected my speed or accuracy in any way.
Besides the already mentioned inability to resell or give away a game when you finish it or no longer want it I have seen other issues that aren't discussed as much.
Patches
A couple issues here. Currently there are quite a few games on Steam that have retail patches available but have not been patched on Steam. Usually you can't use the retail patch on the Steam version. There is also the issue of community patches, like for Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Since the community patch isn't an official patch it will not be offered on Steam, even though it fixes many issues with the retail patches after the developer stopped supporting it. There is a nine page topic on the Steam forums. Unpatched Games on Steam
Forced patches is another issue. There have been cases where they broke something and you are unable to back out. It can be a hassle having to download hundreds of megs before you can play a game. I have run into that several times, just having a few minutes to play a game and then having to download forced updates before I can start.
Bandwidth Caps
With many ISPs considering or already implementing bandwidth caps, having to download huge games, especially if we are talking PS3 Blu-Ray, will use up your allowance pretty fast.
I was thinking the same thing, though I wonder if they would do justice to the series. Keep it in an isometric perspective but change to mouse driven Diablo like controls? Or switch to an over the shoulder 3D or a FPS perspective? I still play them in DOSBox but the keyboard controls would have to be redone to really appeal to a new generation.
I have some several CDRs that I burnt from 1994 to 1997 with a Pinnacle Micro RCD-1000. It was the first burner I can remember that was under $2000. The media was Verbatim with the gold dye. Back then they were about $12 each in packs of 10. They have been stored in CD booklets and kept in a cool, dark location.
Every one of them still reads and verifies when I use my Plextor DVD burner - I just tested them earlier this year while backing them up to a hard drive. However, only about half read without errors if I use the other DVD readers that I have, including Samsung and Asus or the other DVD burner which is a Pioneer.
I had hoped that they would do like Apple this time and offer a family pack license. I can get Leopard with five licenses for a little over $130, less than half the cost of a second standalone copy. With four PCs in my household (my game PC, wife's, and two the kids use), even the cheapest upgrade option is nearly $500 if I upgraded all of them.
Meridian 59 was a MMORPG that predated Ultima Online by over a year. I beta tested it in 1996 and it was released in that year, where Ultima Online was not published until the following year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_59
I am assuming that the other interested parties were US Congressmen...
From arstechnica.com:
That "misunderstanding" went all the way to the top. Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY) last week announced his plan to introduce a bill placing limits on the ability of companies like TWC to cap its connections, especially in areas where it was a virtual monopoly. But it took a heavier hitterâ"in this case, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)â"to make TWC change its ways.
I think if a store sells used games such as Gamestop does then they should not be allowed to open a display copy for any reason. Twice I have had issues with buying new games from them that had been opened. I bought my daughter a new DS game for Christmas. It was the last copy they had of that title and I remarked then about the case being opened and was told if they didn't remove the game it would get shoplifted. Upon playing it on Christmas day we found saved games from months before on the cartridge. I had paid for a new game and got a used one instead. Another time my son had bought a previously opened game that had 2 DVDs. We didn't know that at the time. A week or so later while playing he is prompted to insert disk 2 which was not in the package. We took it back to the store and they had the second disk still behind the counter. Both times they made good, swapping out the used game with a new one for the first incident and giving me the missing disk on the second, but Gamestop lost me as a customer. I was not compensated for having to make a return trip to the store due to their negligence. I now buy new games from Amazon and if I were to buy a used game it would be from Craigslist where I get a decent price, not $5 off full retail.