Live Messenger; what the fuck is this?

http://imgur.com/AujLl.jpg

Okay, I think Microshaft has gone too far. I always knew I never will like them (unless they hand over their money to me). But this just reaffirms my belief. As this image shows, Microshaft has officially fucked the one thing that they might have had going for them. MSN has always been my preferred chat client, and not only because all the people I know use it (although that was a significant factor). But now they've gone and fucked it up.

I do not know a single person who uses any of the Live Messenger web crap. So in their genius they decided to make this an integral part of using the new MSN. What the fuck? If I want to know what my friends are doing I will check Facebook. Microshaft will never make anything that replaces, or even rivals Facebook, so they might as well give up now. I have never, nor will I ever, look at anyone's MSN profile. No one updates them and no one cares what they say. I did use my real name for my Hotmail address display name, but I can't any more since it will also be my MSN nickname. I guess no one will be using their Hotmail address for business purposes anymore.

Well, since I basically summed it up, I think you can tell I am quite pissed off about this. Here I was thinking that one of the most stable parts of my computing experience was safe...I am now off to find an MSN client that can actually be used.

June update (finally)

Please note my Lockerz link is still down. Please email me directly at <deleted>  AT gmail DOT com and I will get the email right away and will send you an invite. I am not sure if/when my Lockerz link will be up again since it is hosted elsewhere and I have no control over the hosting. I apologize for any inconvenience.

So quite a bit has happened since my last update. I recently got a job (at least I assume I still have it). It's through a temp agency, and I was told that, after working for a month, things are slowing down at the factory I work at, but they will call me in a couple weeks when they need me again. I hope it's true, because I have recently come to enjoy having money for a change. To celebrate, I bought a $900 laptop from Dell (although this was before I knew about the "slow down" at work). I have only had problems with the wireless card in this laptop. The battery also sucks, and doesn't hold more than a 30 minute charge at a time. I went all out on this laptop. It's got a 9 cell battery and a 500 GB hard drive. I figure I might as well since if I don't, it will be obsolete in a couple months anyway. I figured I'd get a new laptop now, while I have money, instead of waiting for this one to break when I don't have money. The thing that pisses me off is that Dell is super slow building their laptops, and they have the least detailed progress notes on their website. I can log into the Dell site only to be told every day that it's "In Production". I certainly hope it's in production, but I would also appreciate knowing what's being done and what stages of production have left to go. As one might recall from last Christmas, I had a problem with Dell. I ordered a laptop with Ubuntu on it, and they magically cancelled my order. I got pissed off, and just went out and got this one. I've decided to give them one more try, since they were really good to my girlfriend when her laptop started smoking (yes, literally smoking). They upgraded her laptop to a newer, more expensive model. I will update more as I can, but my laptop is expected to be delivered on July 9th as of now. I say as of now because it could change.

Another good thing coming from having money is the updates to my game collection. I got Singstar, Buzz Quiz World, Left 4 Dead 2, LittleBigPlanet, a Playstation Eye, and a controller/game combo package for the PS3 (came with a red controller and Resistance 2). All games I wanted, except for Resistance 2, which was a bonus. I am also going to acquire Mod Nation Racers tomorrow from someone on Kijiji. The guy is a douche who forgot to bring the game today to his work when I was picking it up, but I will go back again tomorrow only because he's selling it for $40 which is $10-$20 lower than the prices I've seen it at.

My Xbox 360 recently red-ringed. Yes, everyone who knows about the Xbox is saying "I told you so". But the fact still remains that it lasted for almost four years, and was one of the original "crappy" Xboxes, the ones notorious for red-ringing. So, I am still pleased with it's lifespan. I got a new console (just an Arcade, took the hard drive off the broken one). I do believe they have updated the components on Xboxes over the years, so this console should have better parts in it. I recently gave my broken Xbox to a friend to see if he could fix it, and he did. Apparently there was some soldering or glue that unstuck the processor from the component it was required to be in contact with. A very simple fix, but something someone would have charged $50 for, unless I ventured to do it myself. I don't think I could have since it took my friend and his friend all day to do it (one of them being very experienced with tools and machinery). I figured why should I let the console go to waste.

Well, it's late, I should go sleeping. Hopefully I will update more frequently in the future. I am pleased with the new layout editor that Google has added to Blogger.

not sure

Please note my Lockerz link is still down. Please email me directly at <deleted> AT gmail DOT com and I will get the email right away and will send you an invite. I am not sure if/when my Lockerz link will be up again since it is hosted elsewhere and I have no control over the hosting. I apologize for any inconvenience.

I am saving up my Lockerz points for a Mac Book Pro, but I don't think I will get it anytime soon, if at all. Lockerz needs to hurry the fuck up and launch because I am sick of competing for redemptions. I don't even try to redeem anymore because of it. But they will launch soon.

I am enjoying my new PS3. I got an HDMI cable and it didn't work. There was an extreme yellow tint to the image when using it, so I think that the HDMI port is fucked. I got a component cable and it worked, which made me happy. Now I have a beautiful picture and it's lovely. I got Burnout Paradise, which is a fucking awesome game. It is so fun and addictive. It goes far beyond the traditional racing/car game. I also got Fairytale Fights (which is okay but could be better), TV Show King (a quiz game that I got because my friend has it), LittleBigPlanet (which is just plain awesome, although severely frustrating sometimes), and the God of War Collection (which includes GoW 1 and 2). I got GoW Collection and LittleBigPlanet for $40. They are usually $30 each, so I got a nice deal (Best Buy had a sale this week).

Other than that, not much new technology wise. Might be switching internet providers since the one we have is using shitty Bell crap equipment and I am sick of being throttled between 4pm and 3am every day, especially since that's my main gaming time. We also only get 5 mbps (when it's not being throttled), which is super lame. The one I am looking at gives us 10 mbps and doesn't use Bell's equipment for more than the last mile of the connection. One of my friends says that they were told it is Bell's equipment, so I will have to ask about that again. We will see.

Lockerz invite link down

If you are here for a Lockerz invite, or wish for one, my link is down for some reason. It is being fixed, but there is no way of knowing how long this will take. So, if you want a Lockerz invite, please email me at <deleted> AT gmail DOT com. Please email me from the email address you wish for your invite to be sent to. I receive email on my cell phone so it will get to you within a few minutes. If it doesn't, please be patient because it is likely Lockerz having the issue (it happens relatively often). I am sorry about this, there's a whole bunch of server bureaucracy bullshit behind it.

New PS3!

I had another one of my spontaneous urges to acquire something technological in nature, and this time it was a Playstation 3. I bought it off a guy for $200 (they're $300-350 new). The awesome part is that it is one of the original PS3s which include backward compatibility with PS2 games. This feature was removed in the newer consoles much to everyone's dismay. The old consoles also come with a smaller hard drive, only 40GB. But the guy who I bought mine off of upgraded his hard drive to 120GB! So I believe I have one of the ultimate machines available. The only downside is that it has been repaired before. Hopefully that means it's less likely to need it again, but we'll see. The guy said the problem was something common; some of the soldering or something in the machine melts and stuff comes loose. All it needs to be fixed is someone to open it and stick everything back together.

If anyone is interested, my Playstation Network name thing can be found to the right of this post in the sidebar. I don't currently have any games but plan on borrowing some from a friend this week. Hopefully I can get some trophies and make my trophy card look a bit better.

The only thing I am really not liking is the fact I cannot add my credit card to my PSN account. I think it might be the card or something since it hasn't been working with my cell phone bill either. Lets hope some stupid piece of shit technicality won't prevent me from paying my phone bill on time.

I am also trying to sell my Blackberry on Kijiji but no one is biting so far. I think my price is worth it, because I am including some accessories with it. But people are cheap and annoying. I might lower it like $20 or something. We'll see.

iPhone again, iPad wtf?

As I mentioned last entry a while ago, I got an iPhone. I was really sick of my Blackberry not being able to play music, which I was under the impression that it could. Everytime I'd go to change a song it would freeze or skip, or just crash in general. I got fed up and just went and got an iPhone on Telus. I was with Virgin before and decided that I would cancel my plan (I was paying too much anyway) and switch to Telus. So now I am paying $15 less a month for basically the same thing. I've got the favourite five plan. I had ten contacts before, so I have less free contacts, but it's made up for by included picture and video messaging. I didn't even use all ten contacts anyway, not enough people call me. I have unlimited texting anyways.

But I have to say the phone is wonderful. It can do everything and has become a super awesome entertainment device for me. It's great because it's an iPod and a cell phone in one, plus other things. The idea of getting the iPhone was because using a phone for voice calls for me is basically a secondary function. The primary functions are texting and data, so it works out great.

The only thing I wish I knew before I activated my iPhone and set it up was that installing the firmware upgrade was going to prevent me from jailbreaking it. I would have kept the old firmware that came on the phone so I could have jailbroken it. I now have 1.1.3, and only firmwares up to 1.1.2 can be jailbroken; as in they haven't figured out how to jailbreak this OS yet. I've read in places that people are saying it's "impossible", but nothing is impossible. I want to jailbreak it to be able to customize the icons on the home screen (which Apple doesn't let you do, you have to keep their apps on there even if you don't use them). I personally will never use the Stocks app, so I would like it gone to give me more space. Also, I use a different weather app than what comes with the phone. It's also taking up space. Not to mention the fact that jailbreaking allows you to install free apps that perform many of the same functions of the ones you have to pay for on iTunes. Obviously Apple doesn't want this because they think they will lose money from people who are installing these free versions of apps (I say "think" because likely these people won't pay for them anyway, whether or not they get free ones or not).

Despite all that, I am loving my iPhone. Although I really hate the hold Apple has on their market, I am still willing to use my iPhone proudly since they haven't done anything too atrocious yet. Hopefully Apple doesn't go that route, and if they do, I hope something as widespread and comparable to the iPhone comes out.

On that note, here is an article: the new version of iTunes what isn't mentioned in this article is that every update of iTunes does something to block jailbreaking further. Needless to say I will NOT be updating iTunes.

That brings me to my next point of wonder: what the fuck is the point of the iPad? Basically to me it's a giant iPod touch. Won't people look a little retarded walking around using that as their music player? It's not like it can be used as a phone or anything useful other than playing music and maybe some apps you can use over wifi. Not to mention that it's huge, but that goes without saying. Basically you have to lug around a laptop sized device without laptop capability.

There are other issues with the iPad, such as the actual software components themselves. Even though I would never buy one of these anyway, and hopefully no intelligent person would (they cost around $500 for something you could buy for $300 that does the same thing, which is an iPod touch), people have issue over what kind of hold Apple is seizing over the usage of their products. See this petition for an example. I really hope despite all of this digital restriction that the hackers figure out how to do what they want soon. Oh well, I know I won't ever be buying an iPad.

I've always been a fan of Apple's products, both genuinely and because they are the main opposition to Microshaft. I really hope they don't do anything to change that really soon. As easy as it is to hate money grabbing corporate pigs, I don't like doing it (although some might beg to differ) because it severely limits my options. But at the same time I am not going to knowingly give my money to companies that fuck their customers over and use any means to get people's money. I have a huge problem with companies who do that. As soon as the customer becomes less than first place in the hierarchy of priorities, that's when companies need to either change or quit.

iPhone

I broke down and got an iPhone. I am such a nerd. I have had the itch to get one for a while now and got pissed off that my Blackberry was fucking up when listening to music. I am now a Telus customer. More later.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

my non-digital hobby

Everyone in this world likely has more than one hobby. Some are related to each other, some are not. Along with computers, the internet, and technology in general, I have a more "classic" type of collection, a collection of something that is, in contrast to technology, very old. I like to collect playing cards. I have no idea why or how this hobby got started, but I have liked playing cards for a long time. Something about the fact that they have so much history behind them and have persevered through centuries, and still can be customized to modern times while maintaining their integrity. That's really the only analysis I can give. I also noticed that there were many varieties of playing cards, and I wished to own as many of them as possible. I found a local magic shop not too long ago, and in the magic world it seems this hobby is really quite common (the shop owner showed me some parts of his personal collection, including a deck that goes for around $300). So, to many people's surprise, I am not a magician. Nor am I excessively enthusiastic about card games, although I do enjoy them but don't play very often (mostly because of a lack of people who wish to play with me). My next step, other than spending money on more cards, is to find something nice and presentable to store my playing card collection in. Right now they're just sitting on the dresser which is rather unsightly and impractical. And it will be especially important now since I have more cards on the way. Much to my delight I found a magic website with an excellent selection. I also found out that I had some extra PayPal money sitting in my account... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the inevitable result :)

random update while procrastinating

As the title says, I should be doing other things. I should have been doing other things for the past four hours, but my brain is set on playing computers. I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my netbook (the netbook which I wrote about in a past entry). Ubuntu Netbook Remix is a version of Ubuntu that is optimized for netbooks, and has the priority of battery life and low CPU usage (since netbooks are typically not as powerful as regular computers). If you have a lovely netbook, you can go here and download UNR if you're curious. The best part is that it auto partitions. I wrote about my struggles with partitioning a while back when I first installed Ubuntu on a machine, so this is a nice breath of fresh air. There is also a Windows installer, but I tried it and it gave me some error that it couldn't obtain the ISO file. If you do decide to try Ubuntu, it's really easy to install, but despite that, if there are any problems (and this goes for anything post-installation as well) go to the Ubuntu Forums and make a post with your question. They are very good at answering questions, and can dumb it down if you're like me and are not a turbo computer user.

I am pleased with the progress of Ubuntu. I used it before, but stopped using it due to hardware problems (as in it wouldn't recognize my wireless device). This problem has been fixed, and the only problem I have is that the sound doesn't work on my desktop, but it sounds to be an easy fix. I am too lazy to do it now, but we will see in the future.

I really hope that someday Ubuntu, or Linux in general, kicks some Microshaft ass. The monopoly and money grabbing has to stop. Microshaft likes to rip people off every chance they get. Having to pay hundreds of dollars for an operating system that is inferior is retarded. Also for an office suite...although I use OpenOffice anyway, which can be downloaded for free here. OpenOffice is made by the people who made Java, and it's a totally free version of Microcrap Office. It is compatible with Office files, although there are occasional instances where things display strange, and it's more like pre-Office 2007 (which is better, in my opinion, since Office 2007 is something people should be wiping their asses with). The only reason I do/would willingly use a Microshit product is that there is no other acceptable alternative, I get it for free/can steal it, or other products are not compatible with Microshaft's products. The reason my stuff needs to be compatible is because I am in university and need to hand in digital documents. If they don't open on the teacher's computer, I am basically fucked. Most software is really good at compatibility (open source programmers are awesome for making things that are free and useful), but occasionally something doesn't work.

The main thing that is keeping Linux based operating systems from taking off is the fact that they take a lot to configure. I am not a power user and I still needed to take about two hours to configure my netbook to be usable to me. That is also a generous amount of time since I know what I am doing. Most average computer users don't know anything about the concept of a package manager, and the average computer user makes up the majority of the computer market (hence the term average). Ubuntu is slowly getting close enough to becoming an OS that is usable for the average person, but it still has a long way to go. I am in no way saying we should take away the customizability of Ubuntu, since that is part of what makes Linux great, but it should have more things that work out of the box (like hardware, basic plugins, etc.). That also doesn't mean that power users have to use Ubuntu, since other Linux distros might be more suited for heavy computer users who know a great deal about Linux and computers in general. Another reason why Linux isn't taking off, which I don't know about for sure but I am guessing, is that Microshaft doesn't want people knowing about it and what it can do, so they do things to prevent competition (why else would Microshaft have a near monopoly on the operating system market?). Some might think I am paranoid for thinking that, but I've been quite surprised by some of the things I've heard of large corporations doing.

Anyway, the world of Ubuntu will unfold before me (as I am typing this on my old desktop with Ubuntu on it), and I am enjoying almost every minute of it. If you have some kind of interest in computers, and computational diversity, try it, it's ridiculously easy to install. You don't even have to install over Windoze if you don't want to (I have a partition on my HDD just in case I absolutely need something from Microshaft). It is very rewarding for me so far :)

Live Messenger scam, beware!

Please pay attention to the people who might be adding you to MSN Messenger. I recently got two friend invites, one from the email address ZulaMatise7427@hotmail.com, and the other FredricBringhamxr6588@hotmail.com (please feel free to spam those email addresses as much as you like). I opened up a window to ask who the hell they were, at the same time, and got the same responses from them in the exact same order, all of them trying to hint for me to click a link to "watch them on cam". If you get this, please do not click on the link!! I haven't done it but I can almost guarantee it will lead to spyware, viruses, adware, malware, or all of the above. What's better is that the "girl" says that they need your credit card information for "age verification". The reason why I am posting this is, unfortunately, some people are probably stupid enough to click the link and do what the "girl" tells them. It will likely be some disgusting perverted guy who thinks he is finally getting lucky...but anyway, the other reason why I posted it is because it is extremely likely these are not the only email addresses used by the piece of shit who's idea it was to spam people on MSN. Even more likely since I just blocked and reported the above email addresses, so likely the thieving piece of shit will make other accounts. I just find it quite sad that it will likely work with some retarded, horny victim....

This is all just evidence of what this world is coming to. People are getting more and more creative with ways to scam other people. The more outlets for communication and monetary transaction there are, the more ways people can get fucked by other people. What's even worse is that in a lot of cases the law can't protect you, either because the scam activities cannot be traced back to anyone, or the simple fact that the offenses took place on a website hosted in another country. The law does not transcend international boundaries, and unfortunately the citizens of some countries think it is acceptable to scam people outside their legal jurisdiction, therefore proving just how slimy they are. But no one is off the hook, I very much think people who fall for things like the bot thing truly deserve it. Really, how stupid do you have to be? One of the biggest reasons people keep scamming, I imagine, is because it works! Especially when it comes to people being led by their genitalia and not their brains, or people who are retarded enough to actually believe they are personally being contacted by a Nigerian prince to store his billions of dollars of savings in exchange for a hefty sum of his cash. Does Nigeria even have princes? I will have to look that one up.... (EDIT: I believe I am right in saying they don't, although other African countries might)

My point in this is that I think people should be given IQ tests in order to be able to use the internet. Knowing all of the damage that things like computer viruses, and the cost of the consequences of online scams, I think it would do a great service to the world if people using the internet were more focused on integrity, rather than just crackz and cumshots. I personally enjoy a nice, clean internet that I can travel around without needing to hold a hunting knife in my pocket while doing so. People need to be smarter when using the internet, and not fall for all of these scams, pyramid schemes, chain letters (it's basically the same principle as scams), and the spreading of false information (which is dangerous). If it looks, feels, or seems too good to be true it is! If it is from a "legitimate" company (companies can be just as big of scammers as anyone), you are likely not reading things in their entirety, and the company will find a loophole with which to rip you off. I could definitely go on about this topic for pages and pages, but I will keep a lid on it.

it's been a long time; my virus

So it's been a while since I've updated this thing. I guess I just haven't been very talkative lately. I have been quite busy with school since September, so that might account for some of the lack of posting. I have also moved since then, and that made things a bit chaotic.

I have been having some problems with this laptop lately. I tried installing Windows 7 a few months ago, and I noticed that it slowed the internet on my laptop down to a crawl (I was getting maybe 1.5mb/s download). It definitely had something to do with my laptop in particular, and I am sure it was the wireless (since it was saying something about not having a correct driver). I said 'fuck that shit' and uninstalled Windows 7 and reinstalled Vista (which was a severely annoying process, of course). The problem went away for a bit, and then I installed some updates for Vista, and it happened again. Most of the updates were insignificant (like Windows Defender updates), but there was one that was a Platform Update (the KB number ended in 44) that was the likely cause since it was the only thing that had more than just minor updates (and I believe I read something in the description about it having to do with the wireless). At this point I had Vista Home Basic back on my computer, and I had access to a free copy of Vista Business through the university (which is how I got Windows 7), so I decided I would install that. I installed it and everything was okay for a while. After a bit, the internet slowness started again. I have been looking into it ever since. Lately, according to other customers, my ISP has been experiencing some problems with lag and stuff, but that doesn't completely account for it (other computers in the household are not experiencing the same problems this computer is). Combining whatever the problem is with the problems the ISP are having leads to me being very, very pissed off. I have been told everything from "optimize your internet" to "powercycle your modem and router", but neither has worked.

Now I will bring up the virus/malware my computer seems to be infected with, which may or may not be connected to the internet problems (I would like it if it was since that would mean I know the cause of the problems). I noticed that recently, whenever I do a Google search and click on a link in the results, it will redirect me to some advertising page. It is really annoying because it happens 2 out of 3 times I search. I have done virus scans, spyware scans, a rootkit scan, etc. but nothing has come up so far. I've also cleared my Windows and browser cache, my cookies, my recycle, etc. I currently have a thread going on in the Tech Support Forums here, in case someone who is reading this is having the same problem. I really hope it does something to improve the problem with my internet. But it seems to me like my investment in Norton has been pretty useless, since it hasn't even picked up on whatever is wrong with my computer. I keep reading that one of the main culprits for viruses is uTorrent and BitTorrent. I would really, really hate to have to give up downloading torrents. But I doubt I would give it up. I just need to stop downloading pirated software.

On a pretty random note, I have decided to install Ubuntu on my desktop again. I installed Win XP Professional on my desktop (I had dual boot Ubuntu and Win XP Home) because it was also free from the university, and I had to reformat really badly, and it installed over Ubuntu for some reason. It's going to suck having to configure it all again, but hopefully they have improved it since I used it last. I am most worried about the wireless support, since I could not get it to work last time, and I don't have the option of using a wired connection with where the computer is located. So, hopefully that goes okay.

Well, I am bored. Slightly hungry as well. I also must check on my Ubuntu download. I have been hanging around on the DSL Reports forum lately for some reason. It is a good place for DSL broadband internet questions, concerns, reviews and other stuff. It is the unofficial support forum for my ISP and they're really quite helpful. It's Canadian and American, so I highly recommend it if you're having problems with your internet. They do non-ISP caused problems as well.