World of Warcraft - The best content I've found...

When you start playing WoW you will figure out quickly that you are but a wee noob and the only way to overcome such deficiencies is with knowledge.  Having said that I am going to direct you to and away some of the best information that I have found on the web and purchased in stores.

Let's start with my critique of the Brady Games Strategy guides that you purchase for a mint in the local Wal-Mart.  These guides actually are not too bad in terms of their layout and scope; however, they only come in handy as long as you are new to the game and really need some hand holding.  They also tend to become out of date very quickly as WoW is not a static world and every new patch brings more content and some class buffs and nerfs.  For example I have the second edition of the original WoW strategy guide.  With patch version 3.0.2 most of the information is totally out of date, it now lacks information for several dozen quests and on top of that its information about class skills and abilities is wrong because Blizzard nerfed and buffed and consolidated so many skills that the information is more likely to confuse you than actually help.  So on a scale of 1 - 5 I give it a solid 2.5.

Spugnort's makes some guides that are pretty interesting.  I purchased Brian Kopp's level 1 - 70 guide (which is a Spugnort guide) with lifetime updates.  It comes to you as a PDF file that you can download over and over again from Brian's website.  Unfortunately he figured out that lifetime updates means that he's going to be doing a lot of work for free with every expansion or content patch.  So he decided he was going to go from a print guide to an in-game guide that marks quests and gives you coordinates.  Unfortunately for Mr. Kopp I was promised lifetime updates with my purchase and now I have to shell out more money to buy the new in game guide because "It's a different product".  I won't give him one more red dime and he can kiss my pasty white, fat, stinky, hairy, asshole.  On a scale of 1 to 5 I give it a -3 for being a ripoff and false advertising.  I stongly encourage hitting the torrents and looking for pirated copies of his ingame guide if your so inclined because I certainly wouldn't pay for the god damn thing.... just as an aside using QuestHelper does the same thing and its free... and works better.  So yeah dude... fuck you... get a real job... quit ripping people off... and did I mention fuck you.

WoWWiki has gotten fairly impressive.  I appreciate their information on class skills, strategies for player versus player, and their content in general is strong.  The problem with WoWWiki is that it relies on the kindness of people to put information into the Wiki and then its not often checked for validity or mistakes.  The good part about it is that it tends to be pretty up to date when it comes to the information it does have as thier seems to be a core group of people who take their time to keep the Wiki updated.  I give it a 3.5 out of 5 and if they clean up some misinformation I'd give it a 4.

Thottbot - I like it.  I like it alot.  I don't really use it that much these days as I have other ways of getting quest information and mob locations, but if your stuck and need direction or if you want to do an alt-tab to do a price check on an item that you think Auctioneer might be wrong on then you can't go wrong by checking out thottbot.com.  It's an original WoW site... and love it muchly.... 4 out of 5!  HAZAA!

If you insist on paying for your strategy guides because you enjoy spending money and actually have some money to spend in this economy then you can't go wrong with purchasing any of the guides from Killer Strategy Guides.  Their guides are the best of the best that I've found.  They are fairly reasonably priced (right now I think you can purchase like 10 or 20 guides in a package for like 79 bucks.) and the content is wonderful.  Real strategies, quest outlines, cap information, damgage formulas, armor formulas, you name it and its in there somewhere.  I give their guides a 4.5 out 5.

Avoid websites that promise to make you 500 gold an hour.  Avoid websites where the lying bastard fucktards promise lifetime updates.  Avoid websites where the information hasn't been updated since Feb. 2007. 

World of Warcraft - My Toons and Some Strats

So let's get to the nitty gritty. I have several hobbies that I find time for... I love to draw in pen and ink, I love building scale model warships, and I love World of Warcraft. I consider WoW a hobby that I greatly enjoy. I've been playing now since June of 2007. In that time I have created (and deleted) a number of toons (your game characters) that I have enjoyed and loathed in equal amounts.

My current main is Thorlingus - the Dwarf Rogue (Pictured is Thorlingus (Thor) astride his flying mount Zoar*)

Thor is my current main. That means that he is the toon I play the most and will be my first toon to level 80. Right now he is in Northrend grinding through quests and ice trolls.

Thor is actually my third high level toon on the server I play on. I ran through two other high level toons including a Dwarf warrior and a Troll Hunter before I started playing Thorlingus and developing him as my main toon.

The History of Thorlingus :

So anyone who has played WoW knows that it takes sometime to get your feet under you and figure out what the hell is going on inside the game. My first toon was a Dwarf Warrior named Dwildin. Dwildin suffered from a variety of problems since he was my first toon. He was not trained in any of the minor professions (Cooking, Fishing, or First-Aid which is an absolute MUST HAVE for any warrior). I took Mining and Blacksmithing as my main professions (WoW note - you can have all 3 minor professions but may only have 2 main professions on your toon at any one time). That was really a mistake because in retro-spec I think Herbalism and Alchemy would have been a better choice since I spent most of my gold on healing potions.

Dwildin never really seemed to get to a point where he was specc'd properly or geared properly for that matter. I think it has more to do with my playing style than it actually had to do with the toon but Dwildin was created with little thought or regard to how I was going to play the game since he was my first toon and as such suffered from my unfamiliarity with the game.

Here is a list of the mistakes I made when starting out in WoW, I hope anyone who is starting a new toon finds this helpful.

1. I assumed that a warrior class toon was the equivalent of the Barbarian Warrior class from Diablo II. Nothing could be farther from the truth. There are no paralells between the Barbarian class of the Diablo series and Warrior class of WoW. Playing a Warrior in WoW requires a lot of thought and strategy. You have to plan a couple levels ahead in terms of skill points and gear. You are always going to need a healer class to accompany you at some point in the game, and no other class is as gear dependant as a Warrior.

2. I assumed that the auction system was an optional part of the game and just like in Diablo II... I could make most of my gold from selling my unwanted items to vendors. Nope. Turns out that the Auction House is a game within the game and if you really wanna make some cash you have to become very familiar with the auction house in the game and how that translates into cash for you to spend on new items. Go to www.wowinterface.com and download the Auctioneer Suite Addon. Learn, use it, Love IT!!! If you try to figure out the inner workings of the WoW Auction House system without this mod you are going to be poor, constantly reposting your auctions, and basically be behind the 8 Ball constantly when it comes to the Auction House.

3. Speaking of Addons... did you know that using addons in the game will NOT get your account banned as long as that Addon does not bot some part of the game for you. A bot is an addon that automates some part of the game that should not be automated. For example... there are bots that go around killing mobs for you and attempting to skin them... all without any interaction from the player... in fact the player may not even be at his/her computer. Botters are assholes who break the games economy and cheat by trying to earn experience and crafting material without actually having to put forth the effort. If you get caught botting you are going to be banned from the game... sad face.

That being said here are list of mods available from either www.wowinterface.com or from www.curse.com that will enhance your gameplay experience in WoW - all of these addons work with Wrath of the Lich King (patch 3.0.2).

Lightheaded - this is an in game quest mod that automatically downloads quest information and comments about quests from WoWHead.com. If your ever stuck on a quest of can't find a quest mob this addon adds a window to your quest log where all of the information about that quest from wowhead is displayed including coordinates and sometimes really good strategies... no more alt-tabbing out to the desktop to open up alakahzam or thottbot for quests.

QuestHelper - when used in conjunction with Lightheaded you have the ultimate in quest helping addons. What Lightheaded can't figure out QuestHelper normally does. This adds mob locations and quest object locations to your game map. If you want to level through WoW without running around in circles looking for mobs then this is the mod for you. Everyone should have this mod... everyone.

Cartographer - this is a map addon. It gives you way more customization of the games map and it also uncovers all of the areas that you haven't explored yet (you can turn this option off in the mods settings) but I appreciate it because I just want to know where to in a zone to find what Im looking for. It also integrates with QuestHelper and Lightheaded. This allows you to make the map smaller, larger, transparent, and also to add notes to the map.

Auctioneer Suite - Auctioneer is actually a series of addons that help you scan the Auction House, determine the market value of your sellable merchandise, whether you should auction it, disenchant it, or vendor it. It will also help you determine the moving price of items so that you can sell them for the maximum profit without having to repost items that won't sell constantly. Out of the box auctioneer comes with a data table with information about most of the items in the game. The more you scan the auction house the more auctioneer learns about the economy on your server... the better its advice and price points get. If you don't use this then your gonna be broke and everyone in the game is going to take advantage of you.

4. My final mistake and I think my biggest mistake was operating from the perspective that WoW can be played as a single player game... which it can be... you can level all the way from 1 - 80 without interacting with another player; however, WoW is best enjoyed when you are grouping with your guild mates or friends and doing a dungeon run or trying to complete a quest that requires more than one person. I don't do a lot in terms of grouping or dungeons but I can assure you that the game takes on a decidedly different flavor when you group up. In fact some of the best content in the game is found in groups.

The creation of Thorlingus:

Thorlingus was my first planned toon. That basically means that every aspect of his creation was planned by me from his race to his current spec - everything was mapped out in advance to help me achieve the highest level of playability.

I chose a dwarf because of their racial ability... they have the ability to turn themselves into stone which negates all diseases, bleed, and poison effects from my toon. At lower levels its not really that helpful... however... from level 70 - 80 when you get poisoned... by anything... bad things happen... so it seems like I use it whenever the cool down on it is up. It has saved my butt on several different occasions.

I decided to play a rogue because of their high damage output, and because of their ability to sneak around the game world. Throw 3 points into Master of Deception and you can sneak past almost any mob in the game. This is great for when I decide to run a lower level instance on my own and I only want to whack the bosses and not the trash mobs. Rogues also have a combat kit full of stuns and sneak attacks which increase their DPS (Damage Per Second) and ability to break and run.

I knew from experience in the game that I was going to have to stack gear with agility bonuses and then focus on stamina bonuses, chance to hit, crit rate, and armor penetration... all in that order. I also knew to avoid gear with only one bonus type on it... so that really helped me focus on what gear and item enhancements to purchase. That being said I really haven't purchased that much from the Auction House (AH) because most of the quest rewards in the game are as good if not better than most of the shiny things in the AH. Controlling my spending also helped me focus on purchasing other necessary in game items - for example when I turned 70 I was able to purchase my flying mount, and when I turned 77 in Northrend I was able to purchase cold weather flying... both of which cost around 1,000 gold.

I know that previous to the Wrath of Lich King expansion that my chance to land a critical strike was capped at 19% in world dungeon instances and 39% in the regular game world. I found this information out by researching several different websites before I even started my toon so I knew what the chance to crit was going to be (Rogues live and die by their ability to proc crits... the more... the better)... I have no idea if that's changed... and at this point I really don't care because I'm still leveling through to level 80 (as of this writing level 77)... when I get to doing end game dungeons and raids I will worry about what the caps are as I start to pick up epic gear.

I am a big fan of toon planning... but that's because I am an asshole and very anal retentive. I recommend doing some planning for anyone whose starting a new toon and wants to know what they are getting into before they jump into the game.

Finally you may have noticed that my caption notes my flying mounts name as Zoar... and yes that is a shameless plug for the 1980's version of the He-Man Cartoons... I did it because I can. Later.

A Tale of Two Computers

So I have a friend (hard to believe right). He wants to build his daughter and her husband a new computer for Christmas. So I asked what do they like to do. He says the husband games, his daughter does some basic photo editing and email, word docs, etc.

So to recap lets remember Joe-joe's rule of thumb. Video editing and photo editing (intense photo editing) requires more Processor cores. Gaming systems tend to be dual core because games don't scale well over two processors. So in order to satiate his building goals I am going to present a couple of different builds. One AMD Quad Core, One AMD Dual Core, One Intel C2D, and One Intel Dual Core... for a grand total of 4 possible configurations all under $500.00. I am also going to state what I like about the feature set of each component. Enjoy.

System Name: AMD Quad Core Galore
Allegiance: Decepticon
Primary Function: Games, Photos, Video, Content Creation.
Overkill for: Word Processing, E-mailing, Those without broadband access.

GIGABYTE GA-MA770-DS3 AM2+ I like this mobo. It was tough to find a decent motherboard for such a low price but I like it. It utilizes AMD's 770 Northbridge and the 600 series South Bridge. The one thing I look for is how the back panel is organized and the layout. I check to see if anything has been tacked on or if anything looks like its unnecessary or potentially legacy. They include a serial/com port which I think is unnecessary but they include a firewire port and 6 USB 2.0 ports. It supports 4 SATA drives and is capable of a couple of basic RAID solutions but nothing exotic and I seriously doubt anyone looking in this price range of mobos would be looking for RAID solutions anyhow. With a flat price of 78.99 you can't go wrong.

AMD Phenom 9600 Quad Core CPU - I like this cpu. AMD is practically giving the damn thing away for free. It features four cores, hyper transport, and the latest SSE and MMX instructions. for $119.00 you really can't go wrong. There are faster processors, but none that are cheaper in the quad core range. It's also the boxed edition so it comes with a CPU fan and heatsink. So no need to buy an after market product. A solid deal.

OCZ Gold Edition DDR2 800 - You know I think you can get RAM out of vending machines its so cheap right now. Especially DDR2 because DDR3 is currently hitting the market with a vengence due to the release of the Core i7 intel chips. So this DDR2 800 memory has gold heat sinks with a giant Z on them. They are rated for 800mhz operation and by god they only cost $22.99 with a $10.00 rebate!!!! They are only $12.99 if you cash in the rebate... lol... $12.99 I might just order some to have laying around.

Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4850 - as with any system that your building the more you spend on a video card the better off your game performance is going to be. This is one of the latest generation cards. It supports High Definition Video and will play the latest games (though only at lower resolutions). For $149.99 its a good buy. With a $15.00 rebate its a great buy. It supports Direct X 10.1 and the driver support from ATI is competent.

Now I think this is as far as my friend wanted me to go in terms of the equipment that I reccommend. But if your reading this and want more info on what I suggest for cases, power supplies, and other peripherals scroll down to the end of the page. As it stands this build costs a grand total of $371.96 plus shipping. Combine that with $35.00 in rebates and the grand total comes out to be 336.96. Not bad... not bad t'all.

Name: AMD DUAL CORE KILLA
Allegiance: Decepticon
Primary Function: Games, Web surfing, CD/DVD Burning, multiple doc editing
May be underpowered for: Serious Photo editing (using multiple layers and multiple masks) serious video editing (using a professional program like Adobe Premiere or Illustrator).

I'm going to recommend using the motherboard from the previous build since I looked at Gigabytes website and their model GA-MA770-DS3 AM2+ has very good compatibility with a range of AMD procs giving you a fairly rich upgrade path. It looks as though gigabyte offers fairly competent support for their bios's as well.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200 (2.7ghz) I like this processor. It runs fairly fast, comes in a box with a heatsink and fan. and is available for $65.00. No that is really not a typo. The god damn thing only costs $65.99. For real.

Stick with the RAM from previous build

XFX GeForce 9800 GTX+ - I don't trust nVidia Mobo products these days, but their video card products... those I LOVE!!!! This thing is awesome bringing the best of this years early technology to the consumer for 184.99 with a rebate of $30.00 that makes it only $154.99. I love XFX and I run one of their 8800 GT cards at home. My card runs like a scared convict going to jail, and its a generation cycle older than this card. They also warranty the cards for a lifetime.

The new Core i7 is going to be out of reach for most people until the middle of next year when the 1066 Core i7's are released. Until then the Core 2 Duo (or C2D) procs are solid buy on the performance front. On with build!

Name: Intel C2D Delight
Allegiance: Autobot
Primary Function: Warrior, Online Gaming, Photo editing, light video editing, and light content creation
Weaknesses: processor intensive calculations such as major photo editing or recompiling, intense video editing and heavy content creation.

Asus P5QL-E Socket 775 P43 - This mobo is from Asus. As far as I am concerned they build the best, most solid, most compatible, easy to use, boutique motherboards in the business. When I personally build a machine I alway, always, ALWAYS purchase an Asus (pronounced AY-soos) mobo as the solid foundation from which to build a mighty computer. It is running on an Intel P43 chipset which ensures compatibility with the current Wolfdale C2D chips. Throw in onboard sound and LAN and this mobo is solid. This motherboard is one of Asus's value boards featuring lots of extras for a reasonable price of $124.99.

Intel E7300 C2D Wolfdale - This proc has 2 processor cores that run at 2.66ghz. It has 3megs of high speed cache that is shared between the 2 processor cores. This is the penultimate value because its only $119.99, comes with the heat sink and fan, and has all the features of a proc that costs 100 dollars more. Once again I recommend shopping around on this one. I link it to TigerDirect.com but the price on this thing fluctuates between 120 - 150 dollars.

Feel free to to peruse my other blogs for my recommendations on power supplies and cases.  My buddy said he was going to pick up a thermaltake case for his build... I personally prefer antec cases and I swear by their power supplies.  In the Intel build you could also swap out an Intel Dual Core (which is actually a C2D proc (Identified as the E2xxx series)that has been gimped with only 1 meg of cache.  They are very cheap... about 65 - 89 dollars depending on the procs clock speed and whether it comes with a fan.  I think for the money though that the E7xxx series is about as low as you should go at this point. 

Other really good resources for determining what you should buy are the holiday builders guide at Tomshardware.com.  Also the builders guide at Maximumpc.com and finally the reviews at sharkeyextreme.com and anandtech.com.  PEACE Y'ALL.

Hey, Let's Shoot for a Build of the Month...

You know... AMD is damning the torpedoes and going full speed ahead with their tri-core phenoms. Now for those of you not in the know the tri-cores are actually a phenom quad core with one core disabled because its defective. So you basically are buying a defective quad core... but the price... the price is right, and the mobos are modern. Lets look at this deal from the crew over at CompGeeks

CompGeeks - AMD TriCore Barebones - This has everything you need for a small form factor system... minus the case and OS. A 500 gig Hard Drive, 1 Gig of RAM, on board sound and HD video, a DVD Burner... all the SATA Cables, and basically everything you need. For 250 and some pocket change. You just can't go wrong.

Take a look at my other posts for some ideas about cases. Basically stick with Antec or Shuttle.

For an operating system I would really suggest Linux. Or an OEM copy of Windows XP PRO or Home (if you have an extra 150 to drop).

I'm going to experiment with Linux in the next couple of weeks. I plan on blogging my experience. Really, I would use Linux before Vista, no I don't hate Vista. I like vista... its a bloated resource hog though and as a gamer... sometimes old school gamer... I know everything I own works with XP so that's what I'm sticking with. Later...

Awe Yeah... The Fatness is Back...

So I have not been good about posting. Past couple of weeks have been hell and I just realized that I hate the clicky noise this god damn keyboard makes whenever I hit the god damn space bar key. Though it is an ergonomic keyboard and I must say it is very comfortable... Yet I digress.

Here is some food for thought. Did you know that last week the United States basically socialized its entire banking system. That's right folks... Marx and Stalin are laughing their asses off right now because by bailing out the banks that failed the government is taking on all of their bad assets... thus removing the banks from the risks of bad mortgages... thus if our government owns all the bad debt... and banks own all the good debt... back in the ole country that equals socialism.

Q: But Joey, what about all those bad mortgages?

A: People with bad mortgages are stupid fucktards who deserve to have their asses kicked. There is plenty of blame to go around but come on people, if you make 45,000 a year and you want to buy a house for $120,000... there is no way that you are ever going to be able to afford to make your payments, and your taxes, and eat... all at the same time... oh and forget about upkeep and maintenance...

Q: But weren't they misled?

A: Only because they wanted to be misled. Banks, realtors (most of whom have a special place reserved in the 9th level of hell), home sellers, and buyers were giddy over ARM (adjustable rate mortgages) and flush with a seemingly never ending cash flow. Having an ARM was likened to leasing a vehicle... it allowed you to purchase caviar for the price of beer... and similiarly people weren't going to keep their homes any more than they'd keep a lease vehicle. People would buy their homes, renovate, sell it before the ARM kicked into a higher interest rate and walk away with more cash in their pockets than they started with. It was a win-win-win for everyone involved. For banks their was an endless stream of people who qualified for ARM's, for realtor's there was a never ending flow of houses on the markets, for home sellers there was a never ending supply of buyers, and buyers were deluded into thinking that the American dream could be had.

Q: You are an asshole and you are making light of people's hardships...why?

A: I'm not making light of anyone's hardship. People who are losing their homes and are caught in upside down mortgages are pitiful; however, it is a problem of thier own making. They allowed their realtor who is a supposed professional to show them houses that were in their price range... of course you start out at 50 grand. Your realtor shows you the single wide 1972 flood trailer sitting perilously on the side of a hill with the wheels still under it. They convince you that this is what you can expect in your price range. If you insist on seeing more houses they will show you every peice of shit they can find until you agree to look at that nice 90 grand home in neighborhood that actually has a lawn and indoor plumbing. At that point you're at the end of your rope emotionally and are making decisions purely on instinct rather than good sense. They convince you that you can afford it if you save, avoid unnecessary expenses (such as hygeine), and grow your own food. Any reputable bank will try to help you out. Good banks steer people away from ARM's and towards first time homeowner loans. ARM's are ok as long as you know what your getting into. Unfortunately people simply allowed themselves to be taken for a ride.

Q: What happened??? How did it all go so wrong???

A: Well let's start with my personal favorite ideal... the ideal that markets want to be free and that supply and demand should dictate price. This is a very capitalist ideal, and just like anything else a free market needs to be totally free to dictate its own terms... that includes silly things like government oversight and regulation.

I hate socialism. I am not a socialist or communist... I am however a realist and I know that the more you deregulate a market, the more opportunity there is for people who are in positions of power to abuse and manipulate that market.

The idea that markets simply ebb and flow according to supply and demand is completely stupid. Completely and totally stupid.

Lets look at our friends at the bank shall we. So we deregulate the banking system... thus allowing them to be free... free to allow the market to dictate the price of their stock, the amount of money they to invest in loans, and the amount of money they have on hand to bet on risky ventures that have the potential for high return. So they do... and as long as the market hums along with high employment, high consumer confidence, and unrestrained spending everything is fine. In fact in good times the CEO's of these banks look like geniuses and lauded for their insightfulness and capacity to bet on a hot market.

The problems really started in the housing bubble that occured sometime in 2002. It was during this time that pundits and sensible people started questioning the value of homes in some markets. Apparently no one noticed the remarkably high amount of ARM and other high risk assetts some banks had on hand. Of course its not like they had to disclose such things what with deregulation and free markets... they could cover it up as long as though high risk ventures didn't begin to default at an alarming rate.

Banks thought they were safe betting on bad mortgages because historically people have been willing to sell thier souls before they would let their homes go; however, they apparently misjudged the psychological effect that masses of people losing their homes would have on the populace as a whole... nor did they realize just how badly people were struggling with maintaining their middle class life styles.

I read an article about 6 months ago, and it was a fairly inocuous article on MSN Money about how some people were forgoing paying on their mortgages in order to keep up with their credit cards. The reason being that people were using the credit cards as part of their cash flow and using them to pay for essentials such as rent and utilities. The article continued on to admonish such people for using their credit cards so foolishly and how running up high debt on your card was a major financial faux pas. It missed the bigger picture... credit cards? Instead of mortgage? What the fuck? Is that possible? How desperate must people be? This is a trend of desperation not impulse buying... it demonstrates a massive paradigm shift in the way people are thinking about their homes, their credit, their lives... holy shit... I knew then we were fucked.

The real nail in the coffin came with the spike in gas prices, consumables, groceries, a melt down in the domestic automotive industry, which sent ripples through the financial sector. As people starting losing confidence in the value of the dollar and began saving more instead of spending it sent the consumables market into a tail spin. Companies that couldn't hack it folded up and sent workers to the unemployment line. As more people lost their jobs and their source of income... defaults started to increase... as defaults started to increase banks ran out of buyers because they suddenly had massive quanities of product (sellable homes) on their hands and not enough buyers. These bad loans caused banks to freak out and suddenly they did not want to loan money to each other anymore. If banks don't loan money to each other it reduces the amount of credit available to the consumer. Soooo... unless you have a perfect credit score you can't get credit, since no one has a perfect credit score no one can get credit, so no one can make major purchases like houses or cars, if you can't get a loan to buy a car then the car maker can't make money, and you wind up in a vicious cycle of people needing credit and not being able to get credit.

So the market is dictating terms right now, but not the terms that people who work in the financial industry want... so they want bailed out of their stupidy and greed... and really that's what were talking about here... banks who made loans to people who knew they were never going to be able to pay them back, realtors who went out of their way to ensure their commission was fat and healthy, mortgage brokers who orchestrated these exotic loan deals in what I'm sure will wind up being a criminally negligent set of class action lawsuits, and stupid, uneducated, uninformed, and impulsive consumers who chose to look the other way or convince themselves that they could afford a house payment that basically took an entire paycheck.

K... I'm done bitching now. L8R

One for the money, two for the show... look out Warcraft cause here we go...

Temptation... I am yours. It has been many sad moons since I last logged into WoW. In that time I have desperately sought finding some way... perhaps some other video game that could take its place. Alas... I have failed. To the tune of more than $100 in the process of trying to find something I could play that engrossed and entertained me as much as WoW.

I will never get to end game. I know that; however, I have made my peace with that. I realized during my hiatus that I could play the first 30 - 40 levels over and over again. The quests, the puzzles, the gear, the phat loot. Aye, I just couldn't stay away anymore. I have decided to make a couple of changes in the way I play I though.

I am only going to play with store bought Warcraft cards that are pre-paid for 60 days. That way if I decide to take a break I can just let my subscription expire and purchase a pre-paid card when I want to play again.

I'm going to drastically cut back my playing time.

So what games have I tried. Shit dudes what game have I not tried... here is a short list...

1. Fate (nice, but too simple)

2. Titan Quest (Diablo II clone dressed up in the Greek Pantehon of Gods... not bad, actually quite good, but very repetitive... too repetitive for my liking)

3. Guild Wars (Oy D'Vey, what was I thinking)

4. Dungeon Runners (a very friendly MMORPG that sort of takes aspects of other MMO's and spoofs them... very entertaining, but again... very simple)

5. Elder Scrolls Oblivion (the enemies level up with you? What the hell am I doing here? WHY DO I KEEP DYING!!!) GOD DAMMIT!!!!

6. Sacred (GOLD)... Another Diablo II clone... this one is crash happy with funky over animated and over stylized graphics (and all the carchters look like they have wedgies... most disturbing).

Yeah the list goes on from there. Now mind you I am also a hardcore strategy gamer. I love Company of Heroes, DoW 40K, Age of Empires III, etc, etc, etc,... but they can't take the place of a good grind, or dungeon run, or even good quest line with an interesting story.

Lookout WoW... FAT JOEY IS COMING HOME... k... l8r,

DRM, Spore, and the Piracy Conundrum

Ah hell. I hate DRM. I hate all forms of DRM. DRM = Digital Rights Management. Apparently, EA's new video game Spore is well truly DRM"d to death in its PC release. DRM has been around for many, many years now and some of it is unintrusive and some of it hoses your system. Sony used to utilize a root kit for some of their DRM needs; however, someone caught onto what they were doing... then all of the anti-DRM grognards summoned thier unholy powers and smited the evil taint of Sony's DRM root kits (that we're actually installed when you tried to play a regular CD from an artist on Sony's label)... That made Sony angry and they defended themselves under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act... they said circumventing their DRM would not stand... SUMMON THE LAWYERS!!!

Unfortunately for Sony... their DRM root kit damaged some people's computers... it was ok until some very rich dude's computer got hosed and he summoned a 35th Winged Horror (aka... a High Priced.. Experienced Law Firm that specialized Corporate Sabotage) and filed a class action lawsuit against Sony on behalf of everyone who'd been hosed by their crappy software. Sony suddenly realized how truly screwed they were because anyone who'd bought a Sony label CD could be included, and even if they fought it in court it was gonna cost a small fortune for experts to testify that Sony's CD's did no harm... so they backed off thier stance, reigned in the lawyers, and started appologizing profusely... eventually I think they may have settled the class action suit if it wasn't dismissed or hamstrung in the court systems...

Sony wasn't screwed because of the DRM but really because it installed without the user's consent. There was no terms of service agreement or license agreement that appeared when you put a Sony CD into the computer... instead the software installed suripitiously without the user having any control over it. That makes it malware and that makes it a no-no.

Ok, so what does that have to do with Spore? Well... its like this. You see when I buy a videogame for my PC I expect there to be some draconic form of DRM installed with it. I realize it is the price I pay for being a PC gamer (Console gamers are just as screwed with DRM but are oblivious to it as most of the DRM controls are built right into the consoles firmware).

My take on all these DRM schemes is that PC game publishing is a risky business. At one point PC game publishing and programming was cheap... now its a multi-million dollar (perhaps billion) dollar affair. The days of three guys in their dorm room programming a multi-player Quake clone that becomes a huge commerical success is gone. PC game designers have to hire writers, programmers, artists... the expense is astronomical... and I think PC developers and especially their publishers fear a phenomenon that I call the MP3 effect. You see the MP3 effect is what happened when people realized they were getting ass screwed sideways by major music labels charging twenty some odd dollars for CD's (which cost pennies) and turned away from legitimate music purchases and started pirating music from Napster (only noobs pirated music from Napster... the real black hatters went underground to the newsgroups and chat channels...)

Digital distribution completely fucked big music's business model. Imagine if you will a triple A title... lets say... Elder Scrolls Oblivion... now imagine that you work for a major game publisher and your well being, financial security, and life style maintenance depends on selling as many copies at retail that you possibly can. My biggest fear would be that those damn evil hackers manage to crack the games DRM before the game can hit critical mass in sales. The result in these doomsday catastrophe's is always that the game is cracked so no one buys it at retail because they can get it online from the torrents or KaZaa or Limewire... thus your company enters a cash flow black hole... spiraling slowly into the toilet of certain death.

Here is the crux of it... in my very humble opinion... people who are going to steal content are going to steal it no matter what kind of DRM is wrapped around it... for some people defeating the DRM scheme is not just a matter of principle.. its a personal challenge... in my mind game publishers punish honest customers by forcing draconic DRM down thier throats... and the pirates still pirate. Just like people who pirate music... they are going to do it no matter how many lawsuits the RIAA files... sooo...

That's what I think... don't like what I think... who fucking cares... get the fuck off my god damn blog and make your own ya fucktard... k... l8r.

The Shameful Bleatings of a Cheap Bastard

Ahhh, free software. You know I remember when I was but a wee lad in my undergraduate days working in the lab at the State University that I attended. Free software was something to be feared and mocked... it caused more trouble than anything else and often caused Windows 98se or Windows ME (shudder) to have compatibility problems that often resulted in blue screen's of death... loss of data... hard lock ups... virus infestations... and I'm sure was responsible for a couple of people who couldn't afford better to get booted from the institution.

Yes friends free software was known to bruise fruit, abuse animals, and cause harm to small children... I knew that free software was gaining in acceptance and quality when Microsoft... some years back... alluded to it being anti-capitalist. Anything that Microshaft paints as hurting its business model definately needs to be investigated.

Sooo.... on with the free software picks...

Foxit PDF Reader - Adobe Acrobat reader is free, but it still sucks a big fat donkey shlong. The fricken download is like 70 megs big... adobe insists on wrapping itself as tightly to your Windows installation as any virus program. It's also slow, bulky, crash happy, and unnecessary. Fox it reader is small (about 3 megs) uses almost no resources and is fast, fast, fast... hey did I mention it was fast? Download it... love it.

DriveImage XML - I like Norton's Ghost. I hate how much it costs. Enter DriveImage XML. Free for private non-commercial use. This is the BEST Back up software I have ever used and it has saved me on more than one occasion. I make weekly back up images of my entire hard drive to an external SATA drive. It only takes an hour or two and is a good bet against disaster.

K-Lite Codec Pack - You know what I hate more than Windows ME... Windows Media Player post version 6.0... The software is crap-fucking-tacular. In fact Media Player is so bad I can't really think of a way to describe what a truly putrid peice of dog shit it is. If you are a power user or a friend of mine (which you must be if your reading this blog)... then you must free yourself from the shackles of Media Player and download a truly potent and useful series of codecs that comes with its own player (Media Player Classic - an enhanced version of Windows Original Media Player).

Auslogics Disk Defragmenter - Windows Disk Defragmenter sucks. Windows Vista's disk defragmenter sucks worse than Windows XP's. Windows XP's Disk Defragmenter is actually a neutered version of Disk Commander - licensed from Acronis. Auslogistics disk defragmenter is solid, fast, small, and customizable. Just use it.

Aus Logics System Information - Need more detailed information about your hardware? Sick of using Windows XP System Information? Need more information than you can get from System Information... sick of having to constantly start and then screw around with SANDRA? Then by GOD!!! Download this right now... generate a comprehensive report and delve into your systems innards... You know I just realized that I am really fucking boring... sad face.

CCleaner - Software that dost not sucketh the holieth hand grenade. Use this in conjunction with DriveImage XML, Threatifre, Windows Defender, Spybot S&D, and Auslogics Defragmenter and your system will be healthy, wealthy, and wise. This software cleans up all the cruft... missing dll's, extensions that are broken, registry entries that are orphaned, crap files from that porn flick you downloaded two months ago... good stuff... get it now.

Benchmarking software - You know there are times when I want to upgrade my systems. I'm a huge over clocker and have been over clocking my systems since 1998. I like to tweak and tinker with my system to get optimum speed and performance. Sometimes you make a change and your not sure if it really makes a difference... or it makes a difference but your not sure if the tweak justifies the spike in tempreture or instability. That is where benchmarking software comes in... now you could spend a lot of money on very expensive system benchmarking software... but I would rather just download the software to test the components I want stressed. So here is my list of benchmarking software that I think every geek needs to have installed or have handy.

Prime 95 - This program is ancient but still very very relevant. It actually is used to find new Prime Numbers; however it also has a torture test option that lets you benchmark your computers processor, RAM, or both. This is the perfect software to test the stability of your over clocking adventures or if you think you have a proc or RAM on the way out this is also a good way to stress test those components and see if they are on thier last legs. If you have dual core processors then you have to open two instances (or four instances)of Prime 95 (one for each proc) This is done by simply copying the .exe file from installation directory and creating a new folder and placing the .exe file into the new folder. When I test I usually set it to run for 24 hours... if it can survive 24 hours your overclock is damn stable... so you can over clock some more!!! WooHoo!

HD TACH - From Simpli Software... free Hard Drive testing, through put... random reads, short bursts, long reads, etc, etc, etc... Go ahead... see if your hard drive's performance is efficient or if you have room for improvement.

There's more but I gotta goooo... l8r.

The best free software that money can't buy!!!

Yes it's true. I am a cheap bastard. I hate spending money on things, especially software... especially software that should have come with the operating system (anti-virus software). Now most people get their software (such as Office and Anti-Virus packages) with their new computers so they don't worry about the cost of said software. I however build and trouble shoot my own computers and I have done so for years. In that time I have tried a variety of free software packages and I can honestly say that the crop that is out right now are some of the finest pieces of software that you can find. Some of these actually rival their very expensive commercial rivals.

Fat Joey's Free Software Picks -

CDBurnerXP... (just click on the link to get it) This is a robust CD/DVD Burning program that takes the place of Nero or EasyCD Creator. The main difference is that Nero is the 800 pound Gorilla that comes with 2 applications that you use regularly and 48 that just don't seem to have a point. CDBurnerXP is small... uses almost no resources... and is easy to use. Try it.

OpenOffice... (once again, just hit the jump to get it) Sick of giving your hard earned green backs to Microshaft for their craptacular office product? Open office is what your looking for. I use it as my primary office application. The program is robust, customizable and constantly improving. After you set the program up remember to go into each program's options and set it to save to microsoft compatible extensions such .doc and .xls... no one will ever know your not using microsoft products.

Threatfire Free Edition... I used to use threat fire in conjuction with AVG 7.5 Free Edition. Now I use Threatfire all by itself because the current version features a virus scanner. Threatfire is a small peice of software that actually detects virus behavior and alerts you with a warning notice. This makes up for the short comings in Windows XP's Firewall application. I no longer recommend AVG products as the current version 8 seems to be flakey and is also more intrusive and resource hungry than previous iterations of AVG's software.

Windows Defender... Download it, use it, love it. Good software from Microsoft that's free. You'll have no combatibility issues here. Though I wouldn't recommend using it alone. That's where my next pick comes in.

SpyBot S&D... Good software. Robust. Good Hueristics. Detects and removes some viruses as well as adware and spyware. Use this in conjunction with Threatfire and Windows Defender and you should be in good shape. (remember to run update once you install this software). Also remember that you can avoid a lot of spyware and viruses just by using good browsing habits. This includes avoiding porn sites, websites that ask to install ActiveX controls and opening e-mail attachments (even from people you know) I never open attachments, ever.

BitTorrent... Ummm... I use this to download legal copies of free Linux distributions. Yeah... that's right... Linux distributions ;) If you download... Ummm... Linux distributions too then you should just download this little gem. It is vastly improved in the past year and is a superior product compared to other torrent downloading programs. If you use a nVidia motherboard then no torrent program will work the way its supposed to until you uninstall the firewall software that automatically installs when you install your drivers... hit the forums at nVidia.com to see how to disable that nightmarish program and make your torrents work flawlessly. I also have a batch file executable program that I wrote that will disable it for you if you can't figure it out. I'll only post it if someone asks for it though.

I'll have more free picks later. Right now I gotta go... L8r.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot... or better known as WTF

So, I get deals e-mailed to me from compgeeks.com, and newegg, and I get about four per day from TigerDirect.... today though I checked my mail and nearly shat myself.

Check this deal out... FOXCONN Intel 975X Mobo It's only $39.99!!!

Shit I'm gonna buy one just so I can say that I bought a 975 mobo for less than 40 bucks. Yep. I remember when that mobo cost almost $300.00.

Now that mobo was released in late 2006. You see the story behind the 975X (X= EXXXTTREEEMMMEAHHHHHHHHHHH) is one of heart break and pain for people who purchased the 955X chipset just a month before the 975's hit the street (I was one of the people that bought a 955X mobo just mere weeks before 975 hit the door).

The 975's were later replaced by the P35 and X38 Chipsets (3x chipsets got the same amount of love as the 955 chipset as they broke the record for shortest shelf life), they were replaced within three months by the p45 and X48 chipsets.

Basically Intel had to play around with their mobo's voltage regulator's and some bios tweaks to get the Core 2 Duo line working correctly. Now I'm not sure but I am almost positive that the 975 supports the early Core 2 Duo line procs... that means any proc that is a 4x00 or a 6x00. I'm still researching it but I would bet real money (and I'm going to) that the C2D procs will work.

Just to give anyone who reads this an idea of how much money they are saving and what a profoundly good deal this is check this out: Intel 975 Retail Mobo

I rest my case. K... Done bitching.

Stealing Content in the Year 2008

K - so let me sum up the basic premise of this post. Basically there is this guy named Jeffery Howell, he is being sued by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) because he shared music files over the old KaZaa network. Howell couldn't afford an attorney so he defended himself (never a good idea), but in any event he won a major victory last April when he presented the legal argument that just sharing a file over a network was not copyright infringement. His basic argument was that his shared folder automatically turned on the content sharing and just sharing those files did not constitute copyright infringement. Technically this is a very good argument because he argued that he did not intend for those files to be shared, and people who downloaded the music are actually the ones committing the copyright infringement because their intent is to steal the copyrighted material from him.

Everything was going pretty good until the RIAA lawyers were able to prove that he deleted his shared folder, formatted his hard drive, and utilized a file shredding program to completely destroy every last trace of evidence. Uh-huh, Mr. Howell then enjoyed himself a lovely trip to screwedville as a judge found him liable for the file sharing... oh and evidence tampering. Nice. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) thinks he may have faired better if he'd have been able to secure legal counsel (WELL DUH!!!)... but lets get to the crux of the matter shall we. If you steal content (especially music) in the year 2008 then you are stupid... damn stupid.

See there are so many legal ways to get your hands on music today... or any kind of content really... that using some ole busted file sharing network like KaZaa or Limewire is just stupid, and inreality you are just asking for trouble. Want to avoid trouble... take my advice:

1. Use iTunes. $.99 per song. C'mon already, just pony up for the content. I know that Apple utilizes some freakish DRM scheme that locks iTunes music to their player. Most people use their player anyway. Getting around the DRM scheme of on iTunes music is easier than most people think anyway. There are all kinds of converters out there that can strip the DRM off the music and convert it to MP3... Just google it and I'm sure some will pop up. In any event you can do whatever you want with it because YOU BOUGHT IT!!!

2. Go to a record store where they buy and sell used CD's. Take 50 bucks with you and load up on Albums, then take them home, rip them to MP3, turn around and sell them back to the music store, buy more albums, rip them to MP3, wash... rinse... repeat.

3. Buy a subscription to one of the webs subscription services website. Rhapsody seems pretty popular. I've never used it but I know some people have because they're still around and selling subscriptions. Investigate it... it might be the right fit for you.

4. Everyone... and I do mean almost everyone has that friend who is a freak and loves every form of music. They have a CD collection that makes the one in the Library of Congress look smallish in comparison. Ask them if you can borrow some of their CD's, rip them to MP3, and then return them and get a couple more. Most people love sharing music with other people. My brother in law and one of my best friends have huge CD collections that I can get access to at any time I want. I'm sure you know someone out there who has lots of CD's in their collection. Tap into your resources.

Now the RIAA may have beat Mr. Howell, but his case is representative of something that needs to be discussed. You see the United States Government made it so that the RIAA could sue individuals with impunity. Now most people who get sued by the RIAA settle for a couple of grand normally, but really... was this really the intent of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. I don't think so.

The RIAA isn't going to get a whole lot from Mr. Howell... the guy can't even afford legal counsel, and though I foresee a bankruptcy in Mr. Howell's future his case is indicative of the plight of Middle Class Americans everywhere. We're screwed so shut up and deal with it. Yep, no one is going to protect us so you better grow a brain and start doing things to protect yourself. Quit stealing content on KaZaa and Limewire and start utilizing other resources. K... I'm done bitching. L8r

BUILD OF THE WEEEEEEEKKKKK.....

K... here we go with this weeks uber build... Gotta tell ya, there are some awesome back to school deals floating around out there.

On a bright note - NewEgg has stopped collecting tax for the greedy miscreants that supposedly run New York State so this week I'm gonna give the Egg some much deserved love. All of these deals are available on the NewEgg Website... lets roll!!!

FoxConn - P45A-S (Intel P45 Chipset) Socket 775. Ok... Foxconn??? Yep, Foxconn is my mobo of choice for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that this mobo has all the connections and power you need... nothing fancy, nothing destined to break or blow out... Foxconn has a reputation for sticking to the manufacturers reference designs to the letter. The fact that they don't do anything fancy and the price point make this a winner... the price... $119.00 (109.00 after a 10 buck mail in rebate)... even at 119.. a solid buy.

Core 2 Quad 6600 - Quad Core + G0 stepping = overclocking Nirvana. Intel Quad Core... less than $200.00... (189.00 to be exact)... Buy it. Today.

Antec Sonata Plus 550 (includes 550 Watt Power Supply) - Whenever I build a new system or if I spec one for a friend, if they have enough money budgeted I insist on a solid case and power supply. It doesn't get much better than Antec. We could argue the point all day, but Antec power supplies, cases, and hardware in general are simply the best. In fact currently I'm running an Antec 900 Gaming Case with a 550 Watt Modular Antec Power Supply. Quality and reliability... a steal at $179.99.

Logitech G5 Laser Gaming Mouse - 7 buttons, on the fly sensitivity adjustments, a weight cartridge for adjusting the weight and heft of the mouse (I prefer a heavier mouse believe it or not), super precise scrolling, decent software, honestly for $43.99 you can't beat this!

Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 - Spectacular... simlpy spectacular. If you are a touch typist then you need to get one of these. Your hands will thank you for it. When your gaming or typing this keyboard is the perfect blend of comfort, responsiveness, and ergonomics.
at $54.99 its a great buy.

Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR2 800 - 4 Gigs of DDR2 for 64.99 after rebate. Yep. I'd buy it.

Seagate Barracuda 750 Gigs - Yep its $99.99. For 750 gigs... I'm serious when I say buy two. Buy two so that you can run one as your main drive and the other as your back up. Because if you ever lose 750 Gigs of data... there is no way that your life could not be screwed.

HP Black model 1070 DVD Burner - It's retail which means it comes with burning software. at $31.99 you could buy the OEM version and save four bucks but if you do then you are an ignorant fucktard and should get the fuck off my blog. I DO WHAT I WANT!!!

ATI 3870 Video card - ATI's last generation video cards are still on the pricey side but I found this one for 129.00 (109.00) after a $20.00 mail in rebate. I can no longer in good conscience recommend Nvidia products. There are way too many G8x and G9x parts failing... Even if some of it is over hyped why take a chance. The ATI parts are cheaper anyhow.

Logitech Z-5500 505 Watt 5.1 Surround Sound Speakers - Ok, so I have a friend who is a major audiophile... if he is not using these surround sound speakers then he is a total lamer. These speakers are consistently rated the best of best across a variety of different hardware websites and although I would never spend $232.99 on a set of speakers there are those that would... and if your going to go for it you might as well go for the gusto!!!!

Creative SoundBlaster Titanium PCIE 1.0 edition - I hate on board sound. You should too. On board sound has snaps, crackles, and pops because it shares the south bridge bus lanes with at least a couple of USB ports. This is the ultimate in sound production. Is it a little much. Sure. If you like lots of options for your sound then this thing is trick. It also uses a PCI-E 1.0 slot (the short PCI-E slots) which means we finally have a use for those slots. Yipppeee!!! (oh yeah... $184.99)...

HP w2207 Widescreen Monitor - I will personally vouch for this one. I own one. It is FABULOUS!!! Right now its very expensive (at over $300) but I got mine for 249.99 with free shipping so wait for a sale. If you buy this monitor... you'll hate using big CRT's or smaller monitors... yes friends... it is that good.

Windows Vista Home Premium 64X - Take the plunge dude... if you buy the components I list here and then shackle them to a 32bit operating system I'm gonna hunt you down and kick you in the nads. 64 bit is the future. The driver support has improved dramatically, you can address more than 2.5 gigs of RAM, and can expect about a 10% performance boost between the 64 bit and 32 bit editions. Legal Operating systems rock... I hate Micorsoft too, but their shit works... check it out for $109.99.

That's it folks. NewEgg thank you for not collecting taxes for the greedy state of NY. I heart you. New York needs to find some other way to make money other than to keep taxing its residents to death. How's about a pay cut for them fat, over paid, fucktards that run this ignorant state... I can't fart without being taxed for it. k, I'm done bitching... later

One Week without WoW

Today I have been off of WoW for one week. I have not played it at all in that time. I can actually say that it's quite refreshing because I am starting to realize all of the other good stuff that I have been missing out on. I picked up a copy of Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion Game of The Year Edition for my PC. It comes with the original game and both expansion packs. The game is beautiful, engrossing, and large... very large... but I can hit F5 to quicksave anywhere at anytime and go do something else. It is a huge releif believe it or not.

So to add more angst to my WoW withdrawl... Gamespot posted an article featuring the Wrath of Lich King's Dungeons and Enemies. Check it out here: Gamespot WotLK. In all honesty it doesn't look bad. The forum trolls at Gamespot all hate WoW, but that's because its easy to find fault with something that is sooooo popular. It's popular because it does a whole bunch of things well. Other MMO's just can't compete with the frieght train that is WoW.

What does WoW do well? Well, for the uninitiated it is very noob friendly. The quests in the game are semi-linear, but they do an excellent job of bread crumb questing you from one major area to another. The game is frickin huge, but lovingly crafted... there are no dead zones... every zone is either lush or arid or both and brimming with enemies, friends, NPC's, and crafting items. In my estimation level's 1 - 35 offer some of the best content in the game... the quests are plentiful, the area's beautiful, and enemies are always within a level or two of your own... I think the grind from 36 - 60 sucks, and the grind from 60 - 70 redefines misery. Unless you like grinding... which some people do... so that makes 36 - 70 a great experience.

WoW is inviting, noob friendly, the enemies drop just enough loot and items to keep you coming back for more. There is also the crafting mini-game, dungeons (if you can find other people to run with who aren't complete fucktards), and the idea that anyone can become an elite player as long as your willing to invest the time and commitment. At lower levels it is attractive and friendly to casual players ( there must be a lot of them because I doubt that there are 11 million hardcore players playing WoW).

If you've never played WoW you really should try it at least once just to experience what the big deal is about. Check out the Gamespot article and give it a read... good stuff... until we meet again... l8r.

Linux for the masses

Linux, my secret love, my secret pain. I enjoy using the open source operating system, especially the Ubuntu distros. I would like to use Linux as my primary operating system - for all my mission critical needs. Unfortunately I can't use it as my primary operating system... in fact I can hardly use it as little more than a novelty before switching out of Linux to Windows XP to get real work done. Linux has come a long... and I do mean LONG way since the early days of Mandrake and Lin4Win... but it still has a long way to go... here is what I think Linux distros could do to make the transition easier.

1. Linux installs easily enough; however, if you encounter a problem you are screwed. After you get Linux installed prepare for the esoteric process of installing your videocard's 3D drivers. Not that'll do you much good since getting games to play on Linux is a god damn nightmare. Soooo... 3D drivers need to be installed from the get go by the installation program. A recovery console (GUI based) for fubar'd installations needs to be implemented, and finally someone has to come up with something better than WINE for playing Windows based games.

2. Give me something I don't or can't make Windows do. I can download free programs to make Windows look however I want. I can tinker with the start menu, sort folders, download windows search for uber fast searches, download Desktop sidebar for weather, clocks, and other widgets. I can download free firewalls, virus scanners, spyware scanners, and other tools to maximize my performance. Linux is free, and comes with some nice tools, but honestly its nothing I can't make Windows do... Linux is more secure... but c'mon... that's because about 10 people use Linux and everyone else uses Windows or Macs.

3. Esoteric command lines suck. I don't want to /dev or /bash or /mount to get something to work. Especially /mount... that is stupid. Command lines are stupid. I gave up command lines when I graduated from Dos to Windows 3.11. Using command lines does not make you cool or an uber geek, they make you a stupid lamer for not using a GUI. If Apple can make Mac OS X work on a Unix derivitive without the need for command lines then the Linux community can too. Linux should just work, there should be no need for intrusive or obtuse command line terminals to get your hardware, networking, or other necessities to work.

4. Itunes... yep I said it. Itunes. Linux does not support Itunes... I could get my music from somewhere else... Rhapsody maybe... but since I have already sunk money into itunes the thought of switching to a different service just makes me angry and sad. Native support for Itunes, that would be great.

Here is the crux of it. I can pay a premium for a valid licensed copy of Windows XP... in reality I would rather pay the $150.00 premium for an operating system that I know works with all of my hardware and software. I can shell out $150 once, then load the operating system with good, solid, and free software such as Open Office, CDBurner XP, CCleaner, AVG or Threat Fire, and still be able to play games, surf the net, and have a generally good user experience.

Yes I could pay nothing for Linux... since I am a gamer I really can't do anything with Linux so I get what I pay for. I think the biggest problem is that Linux grognards and afficiandos really want to keep Linux out of the hands of the common folk so that they can continue to lift it up and expound upon how secure and stable it is... and how easy it is to use... as long as you have a PhD in Computer Programming and are very familiar with Unix based command lines.

C'mon!!! If Apple can make a Unix derivative work for Mac OS X then the Linux community can make something just as good and stable with the ability to be compatible with more mainstream software.

K, I'm done bitching... l8r.

Intel's AMD Killer

Nehalem... that's the code name for Intel's next major core upgrade due out sometime between now and the end of the year. Officially its being called core i7. Based on some of the white papers I've seen and the information that has been leaked to the press... I think Intel's new procs are gonna cause a major price war.

See here's how I see it. Right now AMD's only attractive point is price. They can't run with Intel in terms of shere numbers and power so they compete at the price point. Now don't get me wrong... AMD's quad and dual core line of products are good parts; however, Intel's Core 2 and Core 2 Quad are better parts. When Nehalem hits the streets it's gonna cause the current crop of Penryn processors (the current 8xxx series of Intel procs) prices to drop right into the basement... maybe even the sub basement, or the cellar, perhaps the first ring of hell... who knows... irregardless its gonna cause AMD some pain.

See, if they can't compete on price... they really can't compete... and in my humble estimation they are already giving their quad cores away. Prices are hitting all time lows for the AMD Quad Cores and if Penryn comes down in price... well... the consumer will make out good... as long as AMD doesn't go out of the consumer market in the process.

PC vs MAC... Fanboys... Flame ON!!!

So I am an avid reader of MaximumPC, but if you didn't know MaximumPC has a sister publication called MacLife. Apparently the boys at MacLife were feeling a little cheeky earlier this week and posted a write up on thier website titled "25 Reasons Non Mac Users Should Shut Their Damn Pie Holes". Short of raping their mother's in front of them... there really isn't anything they could have done that would be more offensive to a PC fanboy.

Give it a read, its actually pretty funny... well... not to be out done the boys at MaxPC lobbed a grenade in their direction with this follow up post - "Mac Users are Whiny Losers, Love Maximum PC".

And so it was... god said... let their be a fanboy flame war... and so it was. Then god said let the fanboys recruit their friends, family... and oh wait... fanboys don't have any friends... and thier families have disowned them. Hmmmm. Then god said let the fanboys make scripts to run the same post over and over again like 300 times... since no one likes them and no one cares. And so it was... the flame war between Mac and PC fanboys flamed hot... and the flaming was good.

Give both posts a read their actually pretty funny stuff. L8r

Breaking WoW

Ok, so I have been playing World of Warcraft (WoW from now on) for over a year. It has been fun up until recently... let me explain what has happened to help me break my WoW addiction.

1. I have 2 level 60+ characters in Outland, and there they sit. I hate Outland. It is so far and away such a different story and landscape in Outland than in the original 60 levels of WoW that I just can't get into it.

2. I cannot find any good parties to do high end content with. I catch pick up groups (aka PUGs) every now and again but they suck and we never get very far into the raid or dungeon. Blizzard also does little to encourage more PUG's or get guilds that regularly run the high end content to pick up new guildies and train them to run the high end content.

3. Blizzard does a piss poor job of keeping griefers and gankers off the damn servers. There are way too many twinks and way too many people clogging up the trade chat with stupidity rather than selling items and trying to progress in the game.

4. I consider myself a semi-hardcore pc gamer. I work as a professional and have a life, marriage, job, and other responsibilities outside of WoW, but I have a high octane gaming rig and love to spend my free time engaging in WoW and playing role playing games, but I know that I'll never be able to do any of the high end content because the game servers operate on West Coast time, and I live on the east coast.

5. I was on the Antonidas server, and I can tell you that our economy is beset by gold farmers. I hate the games economy and even though I feel I somewhat mastered it by using the auctioneer add on I still was never able to get ahead and buy the items that I needed for my character.

6. Finally, I love WoW... but it does nothing that has not been done before by other games. WoW has no end, it just keeps going and when you run out of stuff to do or get stuck you create a new toon and just start going again. It is a horrible time sink for a game that has no end and no justifiable pay off as far as I'm concerned.

7. Honestly I've had my fill of the grind that never ends. When your not grinding mobs for xp or a quest your grinding an item or a consumable to get your profession level up. When your not grinding your profession level your grinding a mob that you know drops a rare drop item to sell at auction. When your not doing that your grinding for reputation or reward with one of the games many fickle factions.

So there you have it. I'm officially done with WoW. I canceled my subscription this morning and when I want to play again I'll buy a 60 day game card from Walmart or Sam's Club.

I plan on playing some different games. I may bust out Diablo II (especially since DIII was just announced), I'm thinking about picking up a copy of Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion and NeverWinter Nights II. There are so many games that I want to try but haven't because WoW turned into such a time sink.

That's it for now... l8r

Mini Computer... OY!

So my last blog post was dedicated to my brother in law who wants a stand alone desktop to supplement his Sony Vaio laptop. My no-brother-good-in-law of mine doesn't have a lot of space, so he needs a space conscious system that is both powerful, scalable, yet svelte and easily movable. Hmmmm... well if you want to save space the only way to go is with a Micro ATX (mATX) system, and if you want to build a powerful mATX system then you need to start with a solid foundation and a case that can accommodate modern parts (especially a modern power supply). Now he could always just order one of those slim design systems from a major retailer such as Dell or HP. The problem with this is that these slim systems are meant for small office work stations; slim line machines are not meant for home users who have a variety of tasks they need to perform such as gaming, photo editing, video editing, and gaming!

Believe it or not there is quite a few choices when it comes to building a small form factor computer, but the best of the best is Ultra's Micro Fly series of cases...

This little case is quite robust, it comes with a 500 watt power supply and all the features most people would want for only 59.99.

Now we need a mobo... I looked at a lot cases and motherboards while I was speccing this system out. I found this little gem at TigerDirect. This is an XFX Geforce 8200 mobo bundled with a retail edition of the Athlon 64 X2 5000 BE.

First I like the layout. Second I like that it has 4 RAM slots instead of the usual 2 for a mATX board, finally I like the back panel connectors which are just crazy!

Yes my friends that is a diagnostic LED panel on the back. HDMI connections, DVI, VGA, RJ 45, ESATA, onboard sound... yep their all here. Isn't it pretty... oh and bundled with AMD proc it's only 149.99 (currently it also has a 10.00 rebate... w00t).



Ok, now for the dilemna, video cardage. We need power, yet we also need to be reasonable; both in terms of power consumption/noise, and thermal management. Let's go over our options:

1. Geforce 8800 GT - the 512meg version of this card is the sweet spot. I use one personally and I love it; however this card is now officially 2 generations old with the 9 series and the 2xx series now considered the high end. The 256meg version of this card is gimped when AA and AF effects are enabled prices range from 120 - around 200 depending on the brand name and rebates.
2. ATI - Radeon 3850 ATI has finally come around with the 4xxx series of cards and have taken to slash and burn pricing when it comes to competing with Nvidia. The 4xxx cards a touch on the pricy side if your on a budget, they are hard to find for less than $180; however, the Radeon 3850 can be had with rebates for less than $100 - check this one out ATI 3850




















My choices for for hard drive, DVD burner and CPU Cooler are noted well in my previous blog post. They remain the same for this build. For those of you who are wondering I know that we could save some money by going with an OEM DVD Burner; unfortunately, I don't feel like tutoring my brother in law on how to use freeware DVD burning and CD Burning applications. If I go with the HP retail drive you get the software thrown in as a bonus.

The total on this build is around $505.00, the cost comes from the fact that you have to buy smaller components. This build also has 40.00 in rebates which should cover the shipping. Well that's all for now... Peace... L8R

Hey, Hey.. It's the Build of the Week - Titled No Sale... No Problem

Ok, so a little over ambitious on my part to have a build of the day... hows about a build of the week. So what if you want to build a machine on a budget but can't find any sales. No problem you just have to know what your looking for and be able to adjust your expectations accordingly. The general rules for building cheap are simple -

1. Buy parts that are within your budget - today we're gonna look at what 500 dollars will buy you.
2. Motherboards are very important - a good motherboard with lots of options can make up for the shortcomings in other parts of your system.
3. Cheap cases are ok, cheap power supplies are not... this is a truism
4. A fast processor is nice, but not necessary; however, being able to upgrade the proc when you can afford it is.
5. A cheap 40 dollar video card is better than integrated graphics any day of the week. This is a truism.
6. Never, ever, ever, ever... put the side of the computer on until after you've booted the computer for the first time. Putting the side on will anger the pc building gods and they will smite you for your arrogance.

Here's my 500 dollar part list... ready... this is an AMD machine...

ECS - A770M-A Motherboard - I like this mobo. 69.99, it supports phenom quad cores... PCI x16, ESATA... onboard realtek sound... this shall certainly get the job done.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000 Black Edition - 69.99 A perfect compromise betweem price and power. This is the retail edition boxed version of the x2 5K; however, they apparently don't sell it with a fan... which is a bummer... but no prob... we can squeak one out at the end.
Maxtor DiamondMax 21 500GB - Terabyte hard drives are all the rage; however, 500GB is the sweet spot for price/performance/storage capacity. This little OEM Maxtor unit with 16megs of Cache on board will only set us back the tidy sum of 69.99 ;)
HP DVD1070i 20X DVD-Burner - it burns cd's - it costs 39.99... it retail so it comes with the burning and lightscribe software... nuff said.
2 Gigs, PC 6400 DDR2 from Patriot. Patriot makes good stuff... its only 49.99. It goes fast. This will get the job done nicely.
PNY XLR8 8800GT Video Card - PNY makes some good stuff. I use an 8800GT personally, I got mine when they were 300 dollars... this one isn't even half that much coming in at 119.00. These video cards are inexpensive but have high end features. First of all the 8800 GT is based on G92 chipset. It has 512 Megs of memory onboard with a 512 Meg bus controller. That equal performance, power, and running games like WoW at high settings with all the eye candy turned on and games like crysis being very playable at lower resolutions.
Ultra Defender ATX Midtower case with 430 Watt Power supply. Ultra makes good stuff. Your basically paying for the power supply. The case is an extra bonus. It also comes with a 120mm case fan and while not tool free, it certainly looks to have all of the basic features you would want from a standard barebones case.
CPU Fan - el cheapo grande!!! - What the hell were on a budget here. This thing is not going to allow super fast over clocks... be grateful this thing even runs when you plug it in. Not perfect but it will get the job done for now ;)

And our grand total is: Drum roll please............................. $494.92

Tada!!!

This computer will be able to do it all and do it with aplomb. There will be no issues with gaming or word processing. Plenty of power for right now and a rich upgrade path for the future. Scalability is what you need to aim for when your on a budget. I think we've accomplished this nicely. Please leave me your thoughts. L8R

Sloppy blogging Fat Joey

So, here I am attempting a little me time to blog. I've been busy lately leveling up my WoW dwarf rogue to level 57, and I'm almost to 58 so I'm beginning to think end game. Unfortunately anyone who has played a WoW toon past level 50 knows what a time sink the game becomes. It literally can take days to level a toon to the next level.

So while this is only a quickie blog I wanted to share some of my experiences with WoW and MMO's in general. The MMO market is really starting to heat up. There are a lot of different MMO's out there looking for you to join up and plunk down your hard earned cash.

I've heard some really good things about Age of Conan. I haven't tried it yet but my understanding is that its got quite the growing fan base. I am waiting to see if it continues to grow or if it takes a hard right turn into hardcore territory. If it goes hardcore then it turns into something that is unfriendly to new players, and becomes the stomping grounds for grognards and elitists. Without being newb friendly a MMORPG won't grow. So I'm going to wait and see.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning recently fired up its beta servers. The game is supposed to ship September 18th. Considering they just fired up the closed beta I do not know how they intend to have the game or the game servers ready by the launch date. Warhammer is a huge property... frickin huge... if Mythic pulls it off they will literally have the ability to print money. Unfortunately... I'm thinking that Mythic is going to rush the product out the door to try and beat World of Warcraft - Wrath of the Lich King out the door.

WoW is the MMO for people who don't like MMO's. It's super noob friendly, has a huge game world that was lovingly crafted, and releases content patches on fairly regular basis. So I be a thinking that Mythic has their hands full.

MMO's like Lord of the Rings Online and even Dungeons and Dragons Online have developed small niche fan bases. I would love for Warhammer to become mainstream, because the lore, history, carachters, factions, and races are all so memorable and in my mind are held in the same esteem as Tolkien, Bradbury, and Arthur Clarke's creations. So I've got my fingers crossed that Warhammer will be the new WoW of MMO's... if Mythic doesn't drop the ball, or screw up the launch, or forgets to turn on the AC in thier server room, or makes you buy the game at retail and a week later download a four gig patch to make it play... you know... the shit gaming nightmares are made out of.

Hey... Blogging Time

Whoa... check this out from Tiger Direct - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=4086974&sku=P450-9110%20C&SRCCODE=WEM1670BY&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM1670-_-components

Looks like a good deal right. It's got a quad core CPU, Nvidia Mobo, 2 Gigs of RAM!!! But its not such a good deal... why not... well lets start with the case - the case is el cheapo... hard core el cheapo... like its not even worthy of being called welfare.. that case is so poor it cannot afford the r on the end so its poo.

The mobo is a dirty skank - a micro ATX board with a lamo chipset (630i)... only 2 gigs crucial RAM, but its the DDR2 667 or (4800 DDR2) cmon RAM is soooo cheap! Finally there is the power supply. My guess is it would make a better boat anchor than anything else.

I can do better than this... I can do it peicemeal... watch and learn -

First off the motherboard should be robust. No cheaping out here. No if you want performance and stability and the ability to overclock then by god almighty you need a right proper motherboard. - This is a Gigabyte EP45-DS3R mobo... it utilizes the new P45 chipset. The P45 Chipset is the mainstream chipset where as the X48 chipset is the top of the line performer. This thing is only $149.99. I like it... lots of expansion ports, nice features, dual gig lan, oh its so pretty for such a low price... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3969362&CatId=3790

Now lets stuff a quad core in there. This Q6600 is the same on as in the build that tiger direct is selling... only its OEM, so no box or fan... no worries though... well get to the fan in a bit... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2643933

Ok, now for some RAM. I chose to stick with 2 gigs of RAM. This RAM though is from OCZ, has a wicked cool heatsink config, and is PC9200 DDR2 - thats PC1150 for those of you keeping score. For 60 bucks after rebate... sick: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3079599&CatId=2531

A heatsink and Fan - this is a golden oldie, a favorite of builders round the web - I present the Zalman 9700 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118020&Tpk=zalman%2b9700 - Is it as cheap as I'd like, nope, but were talking about protecting a major investment here. You need a CPU cooler that can get the job done and maintain decent thermals then this is what you want. At 79.99 it is pricey, but I use the 9500 version of this cooler and it has never failed me - ever.

Now we need a case. You need to evaluate your needs when buying a case. Do you want to run a noisy machine, or silent machine, a blazing fast silent machine (these do not exist by the way), what do you want? How much room do you have? Tower or desktop (good luck with finding a decent desktop) How much power do you need? Do you want to buy your own power supply or use the one that comes with the case? What about a clear side, hows about LED's, thermal management, fan's, fan controller, how many external drive bays do you want? Yeesh!!!

Here are some basic rules that most people follow - first of all most people do not want their computers to stick out. Most people like it when their computer blends in with the rest of thier electronics equipment - so this normally means a black colored case. Most do it yourselfers understand the value of room for case fans - since 120mm fans move the most air with the least amount of noise you want to look for a case that supports 120mm fans in both the front and back of the case. Next you want to think about mobo size, most mobo's are ATX size or mATX (micro ATX), If you buy an ATX compatible case your probably safe. A power supply is the heart of a computer - bad power supply = fried equipment. Here is just a short list of the problems that a piss poor power supply can cause.

Random Lockups
Random Restarts
Poor 3D performance
Overheating parts
Poor thermal management leading to hardware failure
Ruined or zapped equipment
Miscellaneous BIOS resets
Poor overclocking performance
Inexplicable random internal component failure/crash

Yeah... don't skimp here. Behold the Antec Sonata 500 with 500 Watt Antec Power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024

It's 100 bucks with the power supply. Its not tool free, but real men don't need drive rails ;) Anyway its quiet, will fit most mobos, has room for some 120mm fans, and is well built by a reputible company.

Ok, so the I'm not even close to 299 or even 499 on this one - I am however, impressed with what you can buy and the featues that you can get for around 500 - 600 bucks. Peace!!!

August 1 - Build of the Day

As promised - its Friday, August first. I've been scouring the Internet looking at my favorite shopping sites to bring ya all a build with the best bang for the buck. Today's Build is named - Broke as a Joke. What do you do when your broke but need a new rig... check this out...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3949938&Sku=A455-2810%20G

Your also gonna need a CPU fan - check hit the jump and peruse this one - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2604150&CatId=2545 - Oh yeah... its cheap BABY!

Yeah... 200 bucks for a complete system (give or take about 30 bucks). Is it top of the line... nope... that 3800 proc is not about to light the world on fire. Integrated video as a general rule of thumb always sucks (no matter who makes the video chipset). The hard drive is small, the case is cheap, the power supply.. generic... so whats so good about this?

Well... the motherboard is an Asus (pronounced A-Soos). They make some of the best equipment that I've ever seen. Here's a link just for the motherboard from Tiger Direct just for the mobo - this gives good shots of the overall layout and connectors -

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=3574530&sku=A455-2810

For a micro ATX board this thing is feature rich... 4 USB Ports, Integrated 10/100 Ethernet, SATA that is RAID capable, a full size PCI-E x16 Slot... which means when your budget allows it you can upgrade to a Geforce 8 series or 9 series video card.

Sometimes its not about performance out of the box, but scalability later on.

This build is so scalable that you can spend as little or as much as your budget allows. Drop in a AMD Athlon X2 6000 proc, a Sound Blater X-Fi Gamer, and GeForce 9 series or ATI's new 4800 series of cards and you'll have yourself a nice gaming machine.

or

Forget about the proc upgrade, drop in a 1 Terabyte drive - I like this one: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3346290&Sku=TSD-1000AS add a TV Tuner device - http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2942132&CatId=1427

Then pick up a decent PCI-E (like an el cheapo ATI 2400 HD) video card and BAM you've got yourself an entertainment PC.

What about an operating system?

Well if your computer literate and not afraid of new things you can download a free copy of Ubuntu Linux while you save for a copy of Windows Vista Premium (the lowest version of Vista that I would recommend).

If you have an old Windows XP installation disc (that is not part of a restore disc but stand alone) you can install that and then call Microsoft's activation hotline. They have been really good about activating the operating system on machines even when its already been activated as long as you only use the OS one machine. Just tell em your last computer caught fire and you really need them to activate the OS. I haven't heard of anyone having a problem with it.

Finally - there's torrents. You know what I mean. I'm not going to explain it or link to torrents on how to get there but if you know what I'm talking about then your probably all set already.

That's it for today - l8r