Apple has released a device with only 4GB. My 3rd Gen iPod Nano, is a 4GB model of the two (the larger being 8GB at the time), circa September 2007. It was I believe $150, maybe $199 at the time, can't quite remember. But they have released something with that little storage, fyi.
Seriously? Check out some of my replies to job related topics on/. over the years. It took me almost 5 years after college to find a job in the I.T. field, and that job being at the bottom rung of anything tech related, telephone based technical support.
There are so many barriers, it's not even funny anymore. Most basic I.T. jobs are requiring a 4 year degree, 2-3 years experience, a spreadsheet listing's worth of Certifications, etc. Granted, I could have spent a few more years going to a nice 4 year college after having saved up the money working a retail job, to get that degree and such, but that's not really "entry level" at that point.
Maybe it's par for the course, or at least becoming that way, but lets not bullshit a bullshitter, there are obvious barriers in the I.T. field. And thats not even counting places that might secretly discriminate on age, race, etc (I've seen people in their 50's with a metric shit ton of experience be passed over for that 20-something who coasted his way through an Associates).
Some of us got into I.T. for the love of technology. Prior to the economy diving, I could have gotten a job at Wal Mart or some place. Yes, for vastly less money, but I'd rather work with technology at least in some fashion, I like problem solving. Maybe with work and effort, I can make a career of it.
I used to love it back in the day, removed all kinds of spywave, simple gui, updated easy enough, you ran it when you wanted, etc
These days it keeps half a dozen processes running in the background with more to be opened if you do any kind of scan. I realize having real-time protection is a nice feature, having to go in and auto disable all these is a pain. If you're still getting malware on the go, so to speak, from websites, and aren't using a browser than's got security or at least security add-ons (Firefox + Noscript + ABP + Flashblock) then I could understand the need for it.
Add in an anti virus software that does the same X number of processes in the background plus Ad-Aware thats way more bogged down software than ever. Ad-Aware used to be simple, clean and sleek, now it's just bloated shovelware (how quickly did they move from Version X to SE, to Version X.1?)
Stick with Spybot, Malwarebytes, HijackThis and a decent backup like Nod32, Avast or AVG, imho.
Spammers have been around since the dawn of selling virtual items and services in a MMORPG. People complain about having chat huds full of stuff? I remember begging NCSoft/ArenaNet to do something about this in the original Guild Wars circa summer 2005 when it was released, cause they actually had a limit of how many players you could/ignore
This is nothing new folks, it comes with the territory, especially in an Asian made MMORPG that has opened itself to a foreign audience. Honestly, stop complaining. Blizzard has the same issues with WoW, do I still complain about seeing spammers there? No, just like I didn't complain when they were in EQ, WoW, Diablo 1/2, etc etc etc
Does it suck? Yea it's annoying but its just part of the game. If it bothers you that much, don't play. Want to communicate with people in your party? Group chat, guild chat or Teamspeak/Ventrilo.
As for fixing it, some simple word filters and IP filters would work.
No I want an MMO. I don't mind progressing levels or getting loot, if it can be done in a timely manner. Rewards should be based on skill and achievement, not time invested. This is why Guild Wars really failed, in a lot of people's eyes, cause it was directly marketed as "Players are rewarded based on personal skill not time played". Yet when it came out, those who grinded through the PvE portion were vastly superior to those who just stuck with a PvP-specific toon.
Yes, what a lot of us want is something similar to Darkfall where gear isn't the end all be all of creating a toon nor is skills/abilities, it's often strategy and personal skill that wins. But as said, DF isn't in America yet.
As for full loot + easy high lvl access leveling PvP it's easy, they need to look at the way certain games handle player death and work around it. Case in point, one of the few cool features I do enjoy about Eve Online is limited character lives, if your pod gets trashed that toon is toast. There's risk but there is also great rewards in building it up. In Shadowbane, you could be PvP viable with slightly less than top tier end-game items BUT if you wanted those, you could attempt to fight others for crafting materials to make them or like UO, a thief class to steal stuff, etc
Done right, you can have full loot hardcore PvP with still meaningful PvE content if it's absolutely needed.
Before anyone says "Well..there's Darkfall". It's not available in North America yet, and even so it's still so new a lot of people are waiting on them to iron out the bugs before getting an account.
Aside from that, what hardcore modern day MMO's are there? Eve? Sure I love science fiction, a lot more than I do fantasy, but Eve while having hardcore pvp is also a grindfest, I absolutely hate how the skill leveling works, you're paying for a game to basically not play it. To reach end game high level pvp content takes forever
So what's left? I'll take an established IP if I have to but give me something that isn't a grind fest. Look at Guild Wars, while it turned out to suck cause of the "Faction Points" grind to begin with, the ability to great a max level character for PvP-only use was divine. Why can't other MMO's do this? Why as a PvPer do I have to suffer through PvE content? I'm paying as much as the next guy. I want full loot pvp, minimal "safe" zones if any, the ability to either quickly reach level cap or end game pvp content. Darkfall seems good but it's still in it's infancy. Mortal Online has some rumblings but that's still far to early to tell. And as much as I want hardcore pvp, I'm not gonna go back to UO after all these years.
I had a major issue with Skype when I signed up with them in January. For $2.95 (in America) you can get their Unlimited, key fucking word here, Unlimited calling plan. $2.95 a month. I figure ok that's a great deal, low cost VoIP bandwidth maybe, so I signed up for that. Transaction went through just fine, within minutes I was calling family and friends across the country with ease from my PC.
Then my account shut down. I was talking to a relative and the call dropped. I attempted to call back, Skype came up with an error message saying I needed to purchase "Skype Credits". Which from reading the plan, I knew I didn't need. I thought maybe it was a bug or lag, so I relogged Skype, dialed again, same problem. I get more curious and hit the Skype support forum.
A few searches showed people with a similar error. Except it's not an error, it's Skype bending customers over a barrel. Apparently, there is a hidden clause, and I do mean hidden cause it is NO WHERE in their Terms of Service or any policies they have online, that states any account signed up with the "Unlimited" calling plan has a limit of 6 hours of talk time a day. Now you're thinking "ok that sucks but it's still good for $2.95 a month, free long distance, just call back the next day." WRONG. If you exceed your 6 hour limit, which YOU have to monitor yourself, your account becomes null and void. You can't use it anymore. When the next month comes around, the next billing period if you are using more than per-month payment, they will reset all accounts and you can then again use your account.. So I spent $2.95, talked 6 hours, then my account was just void for 31 days. This was not stipulated anywhere on their website and even their forum moderators who help people with technical support stated "Skype is currently working on revising our ToS to include this 6 hour limitation.".
Now again I know what you're thinking, if they didn't tell you about a policy for a service they offer, how can they hold it against you? They do. They will NOT issue you a refund, they will NOT make any exception about the matter, hell they act like the user is supposed to be psychic and know this. Granted, they may have updated their information since January of this year but at the time there were hundreds of threads on their forums about this, dozens of people out money. I had to resort to buying two more additional accounts since my first one got closed, just to make sure I had enough talk time per day. Every 24 hours the "limit" is reset so if you talked for 5 hours 58 minutes on Monday, Tuesday at 5pm EST it is reset so you can use it another 6 hours.. So my two accounts gave me 12 hours just ya know, to get around their HOUDINI-like ToS..
Last I saw several people were considering a class action lawsuit about it on their forums. If that ever happens who knows, I mean yea I know someone will mod this down and be like "QQ more it's only $2.95". Sure, that's a small fee for free long distance in North America but when you buy something labeled as UNLIMITED ya know, ya don't expect a 6 hour LIMIT.
YES! My best console memories, and indeed these beat out my memories of Atari 2600/NES/SNES/etc, are of my Dreamcast. By the time it came out in 99 I was old enough to start paying for games and stuff my self (around 18) and man.. I loved some of the titles for the DC. MvsC 1 and 2 were staples, I spent more quarters on them both in arcades than probably any variation of Street Fighter 2 in a decades time span. Crazy Taxi was so addictive, it was like the best game I ever bought for the DC next to MvsC 1&2 or Soul Calibur 1. Jet Set Radio was a nice change of pace with some simple yet beautiful graphics, Shenmue was THE rpg of the time period (I never really got into it, I have my copy still, but it wasn't my cup of tea).
I miss my DC, a lot. The controller was probably the best I've held on any console, it's library of games, while short, was awesome. While I am a PC gamer these days, I will totally think about buying a cheap 360 Arcade version just for MvsC2 and online multiplayer. I loved that fighting game, best 2D fighter in my opinion, ever.
I disagree. While it would be awesome to have pro level skill and be able to hang with the likes of fata1ity, zero, cooller or socrates, etc when you know you'd probably never be good enough to win anything spectating is fun as hell. I love being able to stream video online of high calibre matchups, just intense balls to the wall action of the best players duking it out for supremacy. I hate traditional sports other than a somewhat passive enjoyment of baseball but e-sports? awesome stuff. Counter Strike, Quake, Starcraft, etc just awesome to watch, especially if it's a game I play and know what the fuck they're talking about and understand the nuances. Some of us enjoy being e-sports spectators.
I've been wanting to try Entropia for a while now. My old PC was too far under spec to really run the game besides logging in and viewing a slideshow. My new PC easily meets the specs except..they don't support Vista O_O XP or below.. Which is quite sad since there are so few science fiction MMORPG's out there and even if only 100k or 200k of that 850k are active that's still quite a big enough player base to populate servers daily to warrant giving it a try.
As great as this would be for TF2, this kind of thing has plagued games like Counter-Strike 1.6 for years.. What's so special about TF2 they put in the work to fix it? This problem hinders pretty much all Valve FPS games (CS 1.6, CS:S, DoD, etc). I can refresh the server list for CS 1.6 and get a few thousand servers for the east coast under a certain ping with "Has users playing" check marked, and even the servers that are listed as having no bots and plenty of players are often empty or actually, full of bots despite the browser saying there aren't any.. Its a hassle having to view each individual server info I want to join, to see if someone's there, has a ping (isn't a bot) etc And this game is what, 8 years old? Come on Valve, if you fix TF2 push this fix to your other games..
X-Files I'll give you cause it went downhill after Mulder left, and the ending, while kinda cool learning the date for something important to happen (not gonna post a spoiler for those that never saw it) had you going "huh?"
But Lost and Buffy? It was around season 3 that they announced their plan for a total of 6 seasons, with a clear cut ending, no movies after the show's over or anything. By the end of 6 seasons, it would be wrapped up quite nicely.
And Buffy was just stellar tv. Yea I'm a biast Whedon fan but damn, you're telling me season 7 of Buffy wasn't good? Even if it felt like it was dragging on past it's time, each season had a logical reason to continue. Seasons 1-3 high school, Season 4 and 5 college/home life/dealing with several deaths. etc etc It even had a logical conclusion that you always wondered about since season 1: "If there are so many demons, vampires etc in the world, how can ONE Slayer take care of them all?" Answer: the ending of season 7.
Oh and not to be a dick, don't mod down for it but, if Buffy over stayed it's welcome, then how come the Buffy Season 8 comic book series is selling like hotcakes? It's Dark Horse's best selling series, ever (even more than Witchblade). And they've already announced a Season 9 comic series once 8 is complete.
The eBay/craigslist crackdown thing caught my eye. I can't say I know alot about MAPS and selling stuff but assuming you aren't a dealer who sells multiples of an inventory, bulk items, etc you should be able to sell for whatever price you want on eBay right? If I, as an individual, choose to sell a brand new Apple Macbook Air that I no longer want on ebay for half of what it costs in an Apple Store or online, I should be legally able to do this right?
Haven't had luck finding a job with no degree
on
IT Job Without a Degree?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I'm in the same boat as the article poster, in a similar manner.
I couldn't really afford an ivy league 4 year college, and I had to leave community college before my first year was done due to an illness in the family. A few years later I went to a local trade school, that was accredited, in the tech and IT field. I learned a good deal, even though I knew a certain amount already of what they were teaching.
They offered a Associates Degree program you could do, after you graduated, online. This was not covered in your initial tuition cost or factored into any student loans you got, so if you wanted the degree program it would come straight out of your pocket. Long story short, I couldn't afford this program, still can't.
As for certifications, I trained in what they called the C.E.T program (computer electronics technology). Not really IT (that was a different class path) but focused on hardware repair, PC repair, etc basically all the shit you need to be the local tech support in an office or "The Geek Squad". So I could get by with just the A+ and if I really wanted to look good on paper, the Net+. On the plus side, I aced the course that taught you about the A+ cert, so I got a voucher for one-free attempt at taking the test (it's like what, $150-200 normally?) Needless to say I still have the voucher. Why? Well the A+ textbook they gave us to study is a huge book, and as the professor explained not all the stuff we covered in class and other classes would be on the A+. For example we stuck with Windows 2000 mainly as the OS of learning. We never covered XP, Server, etc which were the big thing at the time (2003-2004). So I never took the test. If I failed, I'm out the one and only free voucher. If I fail and attempt it later, that's money out of my pocket. Money I don't have, at all.
So after I graduate I got six months to find a job before I gotta start paying student loans back. The school had a job placement option which was practically guaranteed. They never found me a job. I looked myself. Locally all places want a degree, or 3-5 years experience even on Entry Level jobs.
4 years later I'm still unemployed, and my student loans that were $3,500 I owed in summer of 2003, are now over $15,000 due to interest rate and non payment.
Yea if it were bad enough a normal person would break down and take a shit job at Walmart or your local McDonalds. Sadly I am not able to stand on my feet for more than an hour or so without getting extreme pain in my lower back, ankles and feet. Not just pain that makes you think "damn this is sore, but I gotta tough it out for 8 hours then go home". It's pain that is like "holy fuck, if I don't sit down in a minute I feel like my bones in my feet are going to shatter". (Let's not get into seeing a doctor, that's something for a whole other discussion).
So while I could easily work say, an office IT/tech job where I'm not on my feet for 8 hours minus a lunch break, I can't fill store shelves at Walmart, even part time, without the absolute need to sit down and rest every hour or so.
Luckily I have family to fall back on, other wise I'd be homeless, starving and not posting on/.
I knew going in, degrees matter. Sure they don't really mean squat in the "real world" but when it comes to a job, the more good stuff you have about you on paper, matters. Sadly, I just could not afford to get a degree. Couldn't pay for it out of my pocket and couldn't get any more student loans at the time (long before my dues went from 3k to 15k).
Get a degree if you can. It's a hassle, it's just a piece of paper, but that piece of paper can make the difference between you saying "So, your cd rom drive is acting up?" and "Would you like fries with that?"
The only way to play the demo is, and IANAL, kind of illegal now. The demo for L4D was removed from Steam the day the full game launched. If you google it, many people missed out on the demo and now have to buy the full game if they want to try it.
The illegal part is, while the game is no longer listed in Steam, you still have the game installed. If you run the exe, you can play the single player demo only. I say kinda illegal cause if Valve doesn't want you playing the game on Steam, I doubt they want you playing the single player either and will probably update Steam to remove it (it was removed cause the demo is rather open ended and could easily have new maps made for it, detracting from sales of the full version. You could still technically do this for the single player too).
So the linux guys are in the same boat as a lot of us wanting to test the game before buying it (assuming they even support Linux in the full version).
I'm 27 with 20/20 vision and I can't tell the difference really between HD and SD. I mean yea, in a good quality screen shot of both compared side by side, I'll notice a slight quality enhancement in HD. But you put a HDTV next to a SDTV and play the same movie in both formats, with stuff moving around on screen etc I probably couldn't tell ya which was which. There just isn't that much of a quality jump to make it super obvious.
As opposed to some other games? The one thing I hate about popular PC shooters on the PC is, aside from some kind of Favorite function for your favorite servers, what's your other option for finding a server? Pinging a server list. Which sure is fun in CS 1.6 or CS:S. Waiting for thousands of servers to load in the list then select a server, even with specifics set (location, map, etc)
I know, not the same but similar so much that a few minutes wait time between matches ain't so bad. Maybe it's a little slower than console users are used to for a FPS online but for PC that's about par when you consider in pinging the master server list, finding and selecting a server, etc (not counting any Favorites option)
I'm kinda in that boat. Economy has hit me hard so a quick fix for having no PC I bought an eMachine (browsing and browser games). Sadly though it came with Vista Basic Home, it didn't come with a restore disk, the "restore" is a hidden partition that I have no idea how to access from dos, cause it's not even listed as a drive or partition of any kind. And of course asking Gateway is a hassle since their 1-800 isn't even listed in what little documentation comes with the PC, you have to find that on their website, which is a problem if you can't use Windows;o I'm using AVG but until this issue is fixed I'm not updating definitions.
Hell, I was just getting into the Internet and it's series of tubes back in 1997. Can't say I was ever around for the old school BBS days but I was certainly around for the days of dial up and Netscape being the browser of choice compared to IE.
Glad to see/. is still going. Been reading it a few years now. Best site for geek related news in my opinion. It's not bloated or anything compared to other sites and it hosts stories on damn near everything geek related, video games, science fiction tv shows & movies, computer stuff etc It's like the best summarization of the internet in one site. An aesthetically pleasing layout, not a ton of intrusive ad's or flash banners, simple and to the point. Really enjoy it;) Here's to hoping we get another 10 great years.
Maybe the console geeks can explain this one (I haven't really been into consoles since the N64/PS1 days). Most stuff on consoles these days, requires a HDD. Not a huge one but at least something, as a starting off point. For various online content downloads, certain titles that need to install stuff for faster loading etc right?
So, why is MS releasing SKU's that are HDD deprived? HDD's are insanely cheap these days. You can pick up what, a nice 80GB HDD from Seagate or Maxtor for $40-50 USD these days. Yet the price point on the SKU's seems to not really match that of the pricing of HDD's, as they tend to scale way higher for much less HDD space. If HDD's are cheap, why not put in a high capacity drive for the same price or less? It's plausible, there are devices on the market to be used, hell I'm sure they could get a bulk deal from a manufacturer quite easily.
I've always enjoyed watching the Korean players go head to head in competitive Starcraft, cause they are the best at it. Nothing is quite as insane as seeing Slayer_Boxer go absolutely apeshit on someone with a few dropships and siege tanks. Some of the tactics and strategies they implore are so far from anything anyone else probably thought of in an RTS. It really makes for entertaining viewing. Some games obviously don't, I think really it comes down to more fast paced RTS games and obviously FPS games that make for great virtual spectator sports.
Mainly free to play MMO's at the moment. Mainly been playing Shadowbane for the last year and a half. It does have a Mac port as well as it's original Windows client. I also play other games, CS 1.6 (rarely), Natural Selection (HL1 mod), TFC once in a blue moon, Gunbound, etc
Half Life 1 may have a Linux client, considering it is one of the most popular PC games of all time (note, I am not sure but I wouldn't be surprised if it did). But I mainly play Shadowbane, which despite being released in 2003, is a rather intensive game on the old PC. Not graphically just that the client requires a lot of RAM and CPU power when there's hundreds of people on the users screen at one time. So large scale pvp can be rather laggy on my seven year old machine. I average 20-25 FPS with my current XP install, running just mIRC, Ventrillo and X-Fire (sadly X-Fire has no Linux client either).
I will be considering Linux in the future at some point. I mean XP is nice, and I do enjoy it more than 98 SE, but as time wears on Windows is just...not worth it. I mean Vista has been out for over 6 months (counting being released to businesses first) and XP is still over $200 in most discount stores such as Wal-Mart or Target. Vista offers nothing new I want, I just need compatibility with the applications I use and hardware. I mean between Debian, Red Hat, Mandrake, Ubuntu, etc I'm sure one supports my hardware, that I'm not too worried about. I just wanna be able to play and use my software I do now, without a performance hit because I'm kinda backwards engineering software to run on a different OS.
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Apple has released a device with only 4GB. My 3rd Gen iPod Nano, is a 4GB model of the two (the larger being 8GB at the time), circa September 2007. It was I believe $150, maybe $199 at the time, can't quite remember. But they have released something with that little storage, fyi.
Forgo the laptop, the only thing you needed with traveling is a towel.
"No barriers to entry".
/. over the years. It took me almost 5 years after college to find a job in the I.T. field, and that job being at the bottom rung of anything tech related, telephone based technical support.
Seriously? Check out some of my replies to job related topics on
There are so many barriers, it's not even funny anymore. Most basic I.T. jobs are requiring a 4 year degree, 2-3 years experience, a spreadsheet listing's worth of Certifications, etc. Granted, I could have spent a few more years going to a nice 4 year college after having saved up the money working a retail job, to get that degree and such, but that's not really "entry level" at that point.
Maybe it's par for the course, or at least becoming that way, but lets not bullshit a bullshitter, there are obvious barriers in the I.T. field. And thats not even counting places that might secretly discriminate on age, race, etc (I've seen people in their 50's with a metric shit ton of experience be passed over for that 20-something who coasted his way through an Associates).
Some of us got into I.T. for the love of technology. Prior to the economy diving, I could have gotten a job at Wal Mart or some place. Yes, for vastly less money, but I'd rather work with technology at least in some fashion, I like problem solving. Maybe with work and effort, I can make a career of it.
I used to love it back in the day, removed all kinds of spywave, simple gui, updated easy enough, you ran it when you wanted, etc
These days it keeps half a dozen processes running in the background with more to be opened if you do any kind of scan. I realize having real-time protection is a nice feature, having to go in and auto disable all these is a pain. If you're still getting malware on the go, so to speak, from websites, and aren't using a browser than's got security or at least security add-ons (Firefox + Noscript + ABP + Flashblock) then I could understand the need for it.
Add in an anti virus software that does the same X number of processes in the background plus Ad-Aware thats way more bogged down software than ever. Ad-Aware used to be simple, clean and sleek, now it's just bloated shovelware (how quickly did they move from Version X to SE, to Version X.1?)
Stick with Spybot, Malwarebytes, HijackThis and a decent backup like Nod32, Avast or AVG, imho.
Spammers have been around since the dawn of selling virtual items and services in a MMORPG. People complain about having chat huds full of stuff? I remember begging NCSoft/ArenaNet to do something about this in the original Guild Wars circa summer 2005 when it was released, cause they actually had a limit of how many players you could /ignore
This is nothing new folks, it comes with the territory, especially in an Asian made MMORPG that has opened itself to a foreign audience. Honestly, stop complaining. Blizzard has the same issues with WoW, do I still complain about seeing spammers there? No, just like I didn't complain when they were in EQ, WoW, Diablo 1/2, etc etc etc
Does it suck? Yea it's annoying but its just part of the game. If it bothers you that much, don't play. Want to communicate with people in your party? Group chat, guild chat or Teamspeak/Ventrilo.
As for fixing it, some simple word filters and IP filters would work.
No I want an MMO. I don't mind progressing levels or getting loot, if it can be done in a timely manner. Rewards should be based on skill and achievement, not time invested. This is why Guild Wars really failed, in a lot of people's eyes, cause it was directly marketed as "Players are rewarded based on personal skill not time played". Yet when it came out, those who grinded through the PvE portion were vastly superior to those who just stuck with a PvP-specific toon.
Yes, what a lot of us want is something similar to Darkfall where gear isn't the end all be all of creating a toon nor is skills/abilities, it's often strategy and personal skill that wins. But as said, DF isn't in America yet.
As for full loot + easy high lvl access leveling PvP it's easy, they need to look at the way certain games handle player death and work around it. Case in point, one of the few cool features I do enjoy about Eve Online is limited character lives, if your pod gets trashed that toon is toast. There's risk but there is also great rewards in building it up. In Shadowbane, you could be PvP viable with slightly less than top tier end-game items BUT if you wanted those, you could attempt to fight others for crafting materials to make them or like UO, a thief class to steal stuff, etc
Done right, you can have full loot hardcore PvP with still meaningful PvE content if it's absolutely needed.
Before anyone says "Well..there's Darkfall". It's not available in North America yet, and even so it's still so new a lot of people are waiting on them to iron out the bugs before getting an account.
Aside from that, what hardcore modern day MMO's are there? Eve? Sure I love science fiction, a lot more than I do fantasy, but Eve while having hardcore pvp is also a grindfest, I absolutely hate how the skill leveling works, you're paying for a game to basically not play it. To reach end game high level pvp content takes forever
So what's left? I'll take an established IP if I have to but give me something that isn't a grind fest. Look at Guild Wars, while it turned out to suck cause of the "Faction Points" grind to begin with, the ability to great a max level character for PvP-only use was divine. Why can't other MMO's do this? Why as a PvPer do I have to suffer through PvE content? I'm paying as much as the next guy. I want full loot pvp, minimal "safe" zones if any, the ability to either quickly reach level cap or end game pvp content. Darkfall seems good but it's still in it's infancy. Mortal Online has some rumblings but that's still far to early to tell. And as much as I want hardcore pvp, I'm not gonna go back to UO after all these years.
well it could be recreated from a prop to a real time traveling device on some far away island...er..wait..not that Lost..
I had a major issue with Skype when I signed up with them in January. For $2.95 (in America) you can get their Unlimited, key fucking word here, Unlimited calling plan. $2.95 a month. I figure ok that's a great deal, low cost VoIP bandwidth maybe, so I signed up for that. Transaction went through just fine, within minutes I was calling family and friends across the country with ease from my PC.
Then my account shut down. I was talking to a relative and the call dropped. I attempted to call back, Skype came up with an error message saying I needed to purchase "Skype Credits". Which from reading the plan, I knew I didn't need. I thought maybe it was a bug or lag, so I relogged Skype, dialed again, same problem. I get more curious and hit the Skype support forum.
A few searches showed people with a similar error. Except it's not an error, it's Skype bending customers over a barrel. Apparently, there is a hidden clause, and I do mean hidden cause it is NO WHERE in their Terms of Service or any policies they have online, that states any account signed up with the "Unlimited" calling plan has a limit of 6 hours of talk time a day. Now you're thinking "ok that sucks but it's still good for $2.95 a month, free long distance, just call back the next day." WRONG. If you exceed your 6 hour limit, which YOU have to monitor yourself, your account becomes null and void. You can't use it anymore. When the next month comes around, the next billing period if you are using more than per-month payment, they will reset all accounts and you can then again use your account.. So I spent $2.95, talked 6 hours, then my account was just void for 31 days. This was not stipulated anywhere on their website and even their forum moderators who help people with technical support stated "Skype is currently working on revising our ToS to include this 6 hour limitation.".
Now again I know what you're thinking, if they didn't tell you about a policy for a service they offer, how can they hold it against you? They do. They will NOT issue you a refund, they will NOT make any exception about the matter, hell they act like the user is supposed to be psychic and know this. Granted, they may have updated their information since January of this year but at the time there were hundreds of threads on their forums about this, dozens of people out money. I had to resort to buying two more additional accounts since my first one got closed, just to make sure I had enough talk time per day. Every 24 hours the "limit" is reset so if you talked for 5 hours 58 minutes on Monday, Tuesday at 5pm EST it is reset so you can use it another 6 hours.. So my two accounts gave me 12 hours just ya know, to get around their HOUDINI-like ToS..
Last I saw several people were considering a class action lawsuit about it on their forums. If that ever happens who knows, I mean yea I know someone will mod this down and be like "QQ more it's only $2.95". Sure, that's a small fee for free long distance in North America but when you buy something labeled as UNLIMITED ya know, ya don't expect a 6 hour LIMIT.
YES! My best console memories, and indeed these beat out my memories of Atari 2600/NES/SNES/etc, are of my Dreamcast. By the time it came out in 99 I was old enough to start paying for games and stuff my self (around 18) and man.. I loved some of the titles for the DC. MvsC 1 and 2 were staples, I spent more quarters on them both in arcades than probably any variation of Street Fighter 2 in a decades time span. Crazy Taxi was so addictive, it was like the best game I ever bought for the DC next to MvsC 1&2 or Soul Calibur 1. Jet Set Radio was a nice change of pace with some simple yet beautiful graphics, Shenmue was THE rpg of the time period (I never really got into it, I have my copy still, but it wasn't my cup of tea).
I miss my DC, a lot. The controller was probably the best I've held on any console, it's library of games, while short, was awesome. While I am a PC gamer these days, I will totally think about buying a cheap 360 Arcade version just for MvsC2 and online multiplayer. I loved that fighting game, best 2D fighter in my opinion, ever.
I disagree. While it would be awesome to have pro level skill and be able to hang with the likes of fata1ity, zero, cooller or socrates, etc when you know you'd probably never be good enough to win anything spectating is fun as hell. I love being able to stream video online of high calibre matchups, just intense balls to the wall action of the best players duking it out for supremacy. I hate traditional sports other than a somewhat passive enjoyment of baseball but e-sports? awesome stuff. Counter Strike, Quake, Starcraft, etc just awesome to watch, especially if it's a game I play and know what the fuck they're talking about and understand the nuances. Some of us enjoy being e-sports spectators.
I've been wanting to try Entropia for a while now. My old PC was too far under spec to really run the game besides logging in and viewing a slideshow. My new PC easily meets the specs except..they don't support Vista O_O XP or below.. Which is quite sad since there are so few science fiction MMORPG's out there and even if only 100k or 200k of that 850k are active that's still quite a big enough player base to populate servers daily to warrant giving it a try.
As great as this would be for TF2, this kind of thing has plagued games like Counter-Strike 1.6 for years.. What's so special about TF2 they put in the work to fix it? This problem hinders pretty much all Valve FPS games (CS 1.6, CS:S, DoD, etc). I can refresh the server list for CS 1.6 and get a few thousand servers for the east coast under a certain ping with "Has users playing" check marked, and even the servers that are listed as having no bots and plenty of players are often empty or actually, full of bots despite the browser saying there aren't any.. Its a hassle having to view each individual server info I want to join, to see if someone's there, has a ping (isn't a bot) etc And this game is what, 8 years old? Come on Valve, if you fix TF2 push this fix to your other games..
X-Files I'll give you cause it went downhill after Mulder left, and the ending, while kinda cool learning the date for something important to happen (not gonna post a spoiler for those that never saw it) had you going "huh?"
But Lost and Buffy? It was around season 3 that they announced their plan for a total of 6 seasons, with a clear cut ending, no movies after the show's over or anything. By the end of 6 seasons, it would be wrapped up quite nicely.
And Buffy was just stellar tv. Yea I'm a biast Whedon fan but damn, you're telling me season 7 of Buffy wasn't good? Even if it felt like it was dragging on past it's time, each season had a logical reason to continue. Seasons 1-3 high school, Season 4 and 5 college/home life/dealing with several deaths. etc etc It even had a logical conclusion that you always wondered about since season 1: "If there are so many demons, vampires etc in the world, how can ONE Slayer take care of them all?" Answer: the ending of season 7.
Oh and not to be a dick, don't mod down for it but, if Buffy over stayed it's welcome, then how come the Buffy Season 8 comic book series is selling like hotcakes? It's Dark Horse's best selling series, ever (even more than Witchblade). And they've already announced a Season 9 comic series once 8 is complete.
Talk about some "monstrous" bad web security.
The eBay/craigslist crackdown thing caught my eye. I can't say I know alot about MAPS and selling stuff but assuming you aren't a dealer who sells multiples of an inventory, bulk items, etc you should be able to sell for whatever price you want on eBay right? If I, as an individual, choose to sell a brand new Apple Macbook Air that I no longer want on ebay for half of what it costs in an Apple Store or online, I should be legally able to do this right?
I'm in the same boat as the article poster, in a similar manner.
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I couldn't really afford an ivy league 4 year college, and I had to leave community college before my first year was done due to an illness in the family. A few years later I went to a local trade school, that was accredited, in the tech and IT field. I learned a good deal, even though I knew a certain amount already of what they were teaching.
They offered a Associates Degree program you could do, after you graduated, online. This was not covered in your initial tuition cost or factored into any student loans you got, so if you wanted the degree program it would come straight out of your pocket. Long story short, I couldn't afford this program, still can't.
As for certifications, I trained in what they called the C.E.T program (computer electronics technology). Not really IT (that was a different class path) but focused on hardware repair, PC repair, etc basically all the shit you need to be the local tech support in an office or "The Geek Squad". So I could get by with just the A+ and if I really wanted to look good on paper, the Net+. On the plus side, I aced the course that taught you about the A+ cert, so I got a voucher for one-free attempt at taking the test (it's like what, $150-200 normally?) Needless to say I still have the voucher. Why? Well the A+ textbook they gave us to study is a huge book, and as the professor explained not all the stuff we covered in class and other classes would be on the A+. For example we stuck with Windows 2000 mainly as the OS of learning. We never covered XP, Server, etc which were the big thing at the time (2003-2004). So I never took the test. If I failed, I'm out the one and only free voucher. If I fail and attempt it later, that's money out of my pocket. Money I don't have, at all.
So after I graduate I got six months to find a job before I gotta start paying student loans back. The school had a job placement option which was practically guaranteed. They never found me a job. I looked myself. Locally all places want a degree, or 3-5 years experience even on Entry Level jobs.
4 years later I'm still unemployed, and my student loans that were $3,500 I owed in summer of 2003, are now over $15,000 due to interest rate and non payment.
Yea if it were bad enough a normal person would break down and take a shit job at Walmart or your local McDonalds. Sadly I am not able to stand on my feet for more than an hour or so without getting extreme pain in my lower back, ankles and feet. Not just pain that makes you think "damn this is sore, but I gotta tough it out for 8 hours then go home". It's pain that is like "holy fuck, if I don't sit down in a minute I feel like my bones in my feet are going to shatter". (Let's not get into seeing a doctor, that's something for a whole other discussion).
So while I could easily work say, an office IT/tech job where I'm not on my feet for 8 hours minus a lunch break, I can't fill store shelves at Walmart, even part time, without the absolute need to sit down and rest every hour or so.
Luckily I have family to fall back on, other wise I'd be homeless, starving and not posting on
I knew going in, degrees matter. Sure they don't really mean squat in the "real world" but when it comes to a job, the more good stuff you have about you on paper, matters. Sadly, I just could not afford to get a degree. Couldn't pay for it out of my pocket and couldn't get any more student loans at the time (long before my dues went from 3k to 15k).
Get a degree if you can. It's a hassle, it's just a piece of paper, but that piece of paper can make the difference between you saying "So, your cd rom drive is acting up?" and "Would you like fries with that?"
The only way to play the demo is, and IANAL, kind of illegal now. The demo for L4D was removed from Steam the day the full game launched. If you google it, many people missed out on the demo and now have to buy the full game if they want to try it. The illegal part is, while the game is no longer listed in Steam, you still have the game installed. If you run the exe, you can play the single player demo only. I say kinda illegal cause if Valve doesn't want you playing the game on Steam, I doubt they want you playing the single player either and will probably update Steam to remove it (it was removed cause the demo is rather open ended and could easily have new maps made for it, detracting from sales of the full version. You could still technically do this for the single player too). So the linux guys are in the same boat as a lot of us wanting to test the game before buying it (assuming they even support Linux in the full version).
I'm 27 with 20/20 vision and I can't tell the difference really between HD and SD. I mean yea, in a good quality screen shot of both compared side by side, I'll notice a slight quality enhancement in HD. But you put a HDTV next to a SDTV and play the same movie in both formats, with stuff moving around on screen etc I probably couldn't tell ya which was which. There just isn't that much of a quality jump to make it super obvious.
As opposed to some other games? The one thing I hate about popular PC shooters on the PC is, aside from some kind of Favorite function for your favorite servers, what's your other option for finding a server? Pinging a server list. Which sure is fun in CS 1.6 or CS:S. Waiting for thousands of servers to load in the list then select a server, even with specifics set (location, map, etc) I know, not the same but similar so much that a few minutes wait time between matches ain't so bad. Maybe it's a little slower than console users are used to for a FPS online but for PC that's about par when you consider in pinging the master server list, finding and selecting a server, etc (not counting any Favorites option)
I'm kinda in that boat. Economy has hit me hard so a quick fix for having no PC I bought an eMachine (browsing and browser games). Sadly though it came with Vista Basic Home, it didn't come with a restore disk, the "restore" is a hidden partition that I have no idea how to access from dos, cause it's not even listed as a drive or partition of any kind. And of course asking Gateway is a hassle since their 1-800 isn't even listed in what little documentation comes with the PC, you have to find that on their website, which is a problem if you can't use Windows ;o I'm using AVG but until this issue is fixed I'm not updating definitions.
Hell, I was just getting into the Internet and it's series of tubes back in 1997. Can't say I was ever around for the old school BBS days but I was certainly around for the days of dial up and Netscape being the browser of choice compared to IE.
/. is still going. Been reading it a few years now. Best site for geek related news in my opinion. It's not bloated or anything compared to other sites and it hosts stories on damn near everything geek related, video games, science fiction tv shows & movies, computer stuff etc It's like the best summarization of the internet in one site. An aesthetically pleasing layout, not a ton of intrusive ad's or flash banners, simple and to the point. Really enjoy it ;) Here's to hoping we get another 10 great years.
Glad to see
Maybe the console geeks can explain this one (I haven't really been into consoles since the N64/PS1 days). Most stuff on consoles these days, requires a HDD. Not a huge one but at least something, as a starting off point. For various online content downloads, certain titles that need to install stuff for faster loading etc right?
So, why is MS releasing SKU's that are HDD deprived? HDD's are insanely cheap these days. You can pick up what, a nice 80GB HDD from Seagate or Maxtor for $40-50 USD these days. Yet the price point on the SKU's seems to not really match that of the pricing of HDD's, as they tend to scale way higher for much less HDD space. If HDD's are cheap, why not put in a high capacity drive for the same price or less? It's plausible, there are devices on the market to be used, hell I'm sure they could get a bulk deal from a manufacturer quite easily.
I've always enjoyed watching the Korean players go head to head in competitive Starcraft, cause they are the best at it. Nothing is quite as insane as seeing Slayer_Boxer go absolutely apeshit on someone with a few dropships and siege tanks. Some of the tactics and strategies they implore are so far from anything anyone else probably thought of in an RTS. It really makes for entertaining viewing. Some games obviously don't, I think really it comes down to more fast paced RTS games and obviously FPS games that make for great virtual spectator sports.
Mainly free to play MMO's at the moment. Mainly been playing Shadowbane for the last year and a half. It does have a Mac port as well as it's original Windows client. I also play other games, CS 1.6 (rarely), Natural Selection (HL1 mod), TFC once in a blue moon, Gunbound, etc
Half Life 1 may have a Linux client, considering it is one of the most popular PC games of all time (note, I am not sure but I wouldn't be surprised if it did). But I mainly play Shadowbane, which despite being released in 2003, is a rather intensive game on the old PC. Not graphically just that the client requires a lot of RAM and CPU power when there's hundreds of people on the users screen at one time. So large scale pvp can be rather laggy on my seven year old machine. I average 20-25 FPS with my current XP install, running just mIRC, Ventrillo and X-Fire (sadly X-Fire has no Linux client either).
I will be considering Linux in the future at some point. I mean XP is nice, and I do enjoy it more than 98 SE, but as time wears on Windows is just...not worth it. I mean Vista has been out for over 6 months (counting being released to businesses first) and XP is still over $200 in most discount stores such as Wal-Mart or Target. Vista offers nothing new I want, I just need compatibility with the applications I use and hardware. I mean between Debian, Red Hat, Mandrake, Ubuntu, etc I'm sure one supports my hardware, that I'm not too worried about. I just wanna be able to play and use my software I do now, without a performance hit because I'm kinda backwards engineering software to run on a different OS.