Copy protection crap needs to stop

Ramblings, Technology 2 Comments

I recently bought a game… which is something I rarely do. But this game was good enough that I actually bought the game. The game is Crysis… and I want my money back. Not because of the game itself… the game itself is awesome. But I want my money back solely due to the copy protection crap they’ve laced the game with.

I have had nothing but trouble with the copy protection on this game. Half the time when I try to open the game… it wont because the damn copy protection software crashes for some reason. And it wont run correctly until I reboot. That pisses me off because rebooting is a task of which I prefer not to go through very often.

The point is… the software industry is punishing their customers with this copy protection crap. And, obviously… the copy protection doesn’t even work! Because before I bought the game, I downloaded it and had far less trouble with the cracked version of the game (except I couldn’t play it on-line, obviously).

Software industry… stop it. It’s just ridiculous.

I want to learn Ruby on Rails

Technology No Comments

I’ve begun learning Ruby on Rails. I’ve finally found some good resources for doing so, and hopefully they will turn out to actually teach me something.

So far I’ve learned that the render_text method is depreciate and the modern equivalent is along the lines of:

render :text => “Hello World!”

or

render :inline => “Hello World!”

With this new knowledge, hopefully I can do some cool stuff with this new found… obsession I guess you could call it.

If you want to watch some of what I am doing, trying view here. It may or may not work, depending on whether I am currently playing with it or left the server up.

Nose bleed to ER

Personal No Comments

This Wednesday was very unique. I was awoken early to my mom calling me from somewhere. She asked if I was up, then her phone died. About 10 seconds later, I get another call, assuming it was her I picked up and with slight anger said “hello.” I then heard someone else’s voice, to which I had to actually wake up and be attentive to. They informed me that my mom’s phone died but that she was at Sam’s Club and having a really bad nose bleed. They were trying to contact my dad at work so he can come and get her, but if they couldn’t contact them, I guess they were willing to drive her home (we’re 5-7 minutes away). I more or less said “OK” and proceeded to get up.

I went and told everyone that was still at the house about the call so they can watch for her coming home. Eventually my dad came home with my mom (whose nose was still bleeding for about an hour now). My dad was caring for her and he told me I had to leave a little earlier to go get the other car that was still at Sam’s Club, and then I’d be off to school in that car. Well… OK.

I went to school, had a fairly crazy day there, but that’s not the point. I got out of my physics lab a little late, so I stayed on Campus to eat dinner instead of going home like I usually do. So, I was in the line for Subway and I got a call… It was from my mom’s cell phone. I pick up and my mom told me to go home as soon as possible (after my night class) and “take care of the kids” because she was in the ER. This news consisted of a slightly cliche “take care of the kids” statement, but it sorta took me back a little. Apparently, her nose bleed was a little more than that.

Later that night her and my dad came home. She had an apparatus on her face with tubes going up her nose. I was told the point of it was to basically hold the blood in.

Now, you have to understand something; My mom hates doctors. She doesn’t believe in seeing doctors unless they are absolutely needed. To me, if a nose bleed lasts probably over 2 hours, I would probably declare I need to have it checked out. My mom waited about 11 hours before seeking the ER. So, when I hear news that she is in the ER, I know something has to be wrong.

I’ve been told that they diagnosed her with Hypertension; her blood pressure is extremely high from what I’m told. So, she’s on some medication for that now and she has to take it easy. When my dad was telling me this, he really made it seem like I cause her a lot of stress. This situation here is sort of a big thing in this house. Honestly, my parents practically look for any and all reason possible to, in a way, disrespect me as a person. For example, they basically think I’m a terrible person because I like a little more cheese on my spaghetti. The fact that I take more cheese than they see fit is something I’ve had to deal with my whole life. But the nature of this “issue” is so stupid, yet my parents, especially my mom, take it so seriously. My dad has actually been yelling angrily over my taking of too much cheese.

Where is this going? Well, that stupid example is just one of the many things that my mom gets very upset over. Upset-ness = stress. This is something I’ve been trying to tell her for years. It’s clear that she is a highly stressed person, but I’ve been telling her for years to calm down over stupid, nit-picky things like spaghetti cheese. Does she listen? No. But now that there has been an ER visit, maybe she’ll start to listen to that a little more closely.

As evidence of that so far… this morning I over-slept and missed my first class. Usually, my mom would be all over me about that, but today she never said a word. Perhaps she just didn’t realize, but usually she’d be all over the fact that I’m not out of the house by 10:30.

iPhone roadmap

Technology 2 Comments

Last night I watched the March 6 Apple Event in HD based on the iPhone’s software roadmap.

Let me just say that I am shocked and amazed at what they are doing in terms of software for the iPhone. They have truly opened up the ability to make the iPhone the greatest mobile device on the planet. For games, for music, for very good web applications in your pocket. The iPhone will truly become a very powerful device to have with you. I am seriously excited to see what great applications come to the iPhone.

I am even thinking about becoming an iPhone developer, just to play around with what it can do. The price to be such is just $99. When he was about to announce the price, I said to myself that it’ll be $500. So… I was pleasantly surprised to hear $99, something that everyone can afford.

That said, I have about 11 months before my contract is over with Verizon. I am seriously considering getting an iPhone. The only thing more I can hope for will be that Apple spans out to more phone companies… such as Verizon.

Finally got uGuru monitors working in Vista

Computers, Technology No Comments

Today I thought I would just look into this one more time. Since I installed Vista on my aBit AN8 board, everything, yes everything, has worked flawlessly except for the proprietary uGuru monitoring of temperatures, voltages, and fan speeds. Well, today I finally have that working, meaning my vista desktop is working the full 100%. And no, I’ve had no issues with Vista that aren’t normal to any other versions of Windows… so shut up with that “Vista Sucks” crap.

The solution was actually very simple:
1) Forget about getting aBit’s uGuru Utility working… it wont.
2) Install SpeedFan
3) Finally know your system status!

Who would have thought that a third party program would be able to read a proprietary system monitor better than the proprietary system creators can do?

Now you know.

Oh, and here is a screenshot:

SpeedFan

As when I used XP and what seems to be standard on most aBit boards… none of the readings are very accurate. Apparently the CPU temperatures are low by 13C and none of the voltages are spot on. I have a very good power supply that I know puts out a rock steady 12V, so yes… that reading is definitely off. The fan speeds are actually correct, though. But at least I have a ballpark idea on everything else; Better than nothing.

New Server

Computers, Technology, Weblog 2 Comments

I have upgraded my server’s hardware!

The server went from this:
-Pentium III Slot 1 550Mhz
-3×128MB SD-RAM
-160GB IDE Hard Drive
-10/100 Ethernet
-Trident Graphics Card
-Ubuntu 7.10 Server Edition x86

To this:
-AMD Athlon64 3000+ 1.8Ghz (With C’n'Q)
-2×512MB DDR-266
-200GB IDE Hard Drive
-10/100/1000 Ethernet
-No Graphics Card
-Ubuntu 7.10 Server Edition x64

This, obviously, will provide much better performance for everyone, especially me. In addition to that, it is also rolling on its own dedicated UPS, which should allow it to stay up longer than it did when it was sharing an UPS. The goal with this rebuild was to bring better performance at the roughly the same power usage. Although I don’t have the tools to easily test its usage, it is my expert opinion that the power consumed by this server is approximately the same as the last server. This means it brings better performance per watt which makes it more green than the last server.

As always, you can check out the server status here.

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