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I Remember The Oregon Trail

By on Jul 28, 2007 in Blog Posts, Games | 1 comment

I Remember The Oregon Trail It was the early 90’s and I was in middle school looking forward to only one part of my day – the lucky few moments when I led my virtual family in a trek across 19th century North America to find a better life in the West. It was a hard journey, fraught with danger and disease, but with a little luck and enough time to finish I just might achieve victory over The Oregon Trail. It may not seem possible that a game created in 1985 could have been this epic or enduring, but I assure you it was and is. I had never played a game that was so customizable (you could name all five of the family members!), nor as deep (never before had I seen so many choices to be made in a game). My fellow students and I experienced this classic on the classic Apple IIc in a small computer lab at what was then S.P. Morton Middle School. Though not cutting edge, the...

The Nightmare That Was Empire Earth III Beta

By on Jul 25, 2007 in Blog Posts, Games | 0 comments

Last Friday Fileplanet released the Empire Earth III Beta to subscribers. After downloading the 2.4 GB installation file and installing it I was met with a surprise. Sierra, the publishers of this “game” had implemented a system where, prior to actually being able to run the game, you must first download the executable from a website. When prospective gamers visited the site and entered their license key they were greeted with a database error telling them to try back in “some minutes”. After repeated attempts to retrieve the necessary executable from the website, the site locked me out and disabled my serial number. I reviewed the Beta forums to find that this was a common happening and that almost no one could actually play the game.The Beta remained on the Fileplanet home page on Friday and through Saturday until it was finally removed on Sunday. Sierra has...

Vote for me!

By on Jul 21, 2007 in Blog Posts, Internet | 0 comments

Maximum PC has put together a contest where the winner gets a shiny new computer. It’s a “megatasking” contest, i.e. doing as many things as you can in one minute. I put together a video and uploaded it to YouTube, but I need votes from my friends! I’m being sabotaged by my competitors who are giving me 1 star votes to keep me from making the finals (I have to be in the top five to make it).Click here to view the video!You have to have a YouTube account (free) to vote. Thanks for your time – I know I can count on my friends to put me on top!

My Da-Lite Experience

By on Jun 12, 2007 in Blog Posts, Hardware | 0 comments

Well it took over two months but I am happy to say that I now have a new Da-Lite Contour Electrol to replace the previous one, which suffered from horrible ripples. As you can see from the previous link, the screen had developed rather severe ripples which made viewing bothersome. I went back and forth with Etronics.com (who I purchased the original screen from) and Da-Lite for 11 weeks but finally managed to get the replacement shipped to me at no cost! Da-Lite actually covered all of the expenses, which is really something to take note of. I estimate that the cost of the replacement as well as the shipping was around $1,000 which they paid for despite my original screen being past the warranty date. Kudos and thanks to Da-Lite!

Married!

By on Mar 15, 2007 in Blog Posts | 1 comment

For those who don’t already know, Jennifer and I were married Monday of this week in Las Vegas. We’ve both been very busy since the wedding and no, we haven’t won any money. The odds are more than a little against you in Vegas.The wedding wasn’t a drunken, spur of the moment decision – we planned it a few weeks ahead of time. We had no guests present at the wedding, so don’t think you were left out! Jennifer and I are very happy together and excited about our life together.

Goodbye PCLinuxOS – Hello openSUSE!

By on Feb 7, 2007 in Blog Posts, Software | 0 comments

After years of pimping out PCLinuxOS to my nerdy friends I am now officially bringing out a new girl. Her name is openSUSE, and although I’ve talked about her in the past, she is now here to stay.I was a big fan of PCLOS. They had a great community and a rapid development cycle – two vital features of a Linux distribution. Now the community has turned into a dark circle of high level Linux users who attack users with questions and are too quick to tell you to Google for answers. E-Mails to the developers now go unanswered, and they took FAR too long to release the beta of the new edition, PCLinuxOS 2007 Test Release 1 (over four months, without a word as to the cause of the delay or the release date). Not only that, but for several months they disabled updates via Synaptic (the automatic updating program used in PCLinuxOS .93), which essentially forced you to manually...

Apple’s NEW iPhone – Remember the ROKR

By on Jan 12, 2007 in Blog Posts, Hardware | 1 comment

I’ve owned a ROKR since it was released and disliked it since the very first day I had it. Its software is buggy, the MP3 “iPod” like player is slow and misses the wheel, and the phone is simply mediocre on every other level.I find it sad that all of the media outlets are ignoring the fact that Apple pulled out the same dog and pony show a few years ago in September 2005 when they launched the ROKR with Motorola. All of the events were there – a big keynote by Steve Jobs with the Motorola CEO coming in (this time it was Cingular’s guy), a Cingular only party on the service front, and a phone no one was able to review until the consumers could actually buy it. The iPhone could very easily be as buggy and overpriced as the ROKR was – just be warned.-SC

My Little World

By on Nov 2, 2006 in Blog Posts | 1 comment

Things have been busier than ever lately – with no end in sight. Shopunitednetworks.com is coming along well as is normal local business. Some time soon I’ll post a nice article about the things I’ve learned about selling online.-SC