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.