Eve Online – Hardest MMORPG ever?

eveonlineRecently ive been trying Eve online in the hope to find a new MMO thats actually different from Wow,WAR and that other one A.O.C. The game is basically you build yourself a spaceship and then you go mining,trading or PVP’ing. Sounds interesting well it sorta is until you figure out that the game basically involves long journeys to other systems and a huge learning curve unlike no other game.

Forget how Wow leads you along the way teaching you slowly how the game works with Eve it feels like you need a degree in science or spaceships to figure out how the hell to fit your ship out. The learning curve is so massive compared to Wow that its just baffling. Eve is hardcore no easy mode here, your ships gets destroyed you lose it and get “podded”.

Maybe thats a bit harsh but the game is dull to be honest and very slow. Most of the time in the game is spent staring at the fitting out screen in wonder how the hell am i going to make this fracking ship fly.

Heres a graph of how Eve compares to other MMO’s of course is a joke but its fuuny and not far from the truth.

eve_learningcurve

Best of the Worst #4: Eircom – Blocking Access to the Pirate Bay

eircomI just went to visit the pirate bay website and found a message from eircom telling me that they are blocking access the pirate bay as of july.This is the first time i heard of this so i was a little surprised.

ACCESS TO THIS IP ADDRESS RELATING TO THE PIRATE BAY WEBSITE HAS BEEN BLOCKED

WHY?

On the 24 July 2009, an Order was made by the High Court requiring eircom to block or otherwise disable access by its subscribers to the website thePirateBay.org, its related domain names, IP addresses and URLs. The Court was satisfied that on the basis of the evidence presented by the record companies that the PirateBay website is a website that facilitates the exchange of copyrighted sound recordings without the consent of the copyright owners.eircom recognises the legitimate rights of the owners of copyrighted material and believes that individuals who share or download copyrighted material without the authorisation or the permission of the copyright owner are acting illegally.

The Order further provides that should the PirateBay website content be legitimatised in the future, then eircom has liberty to apply to the Court to have the Order vacated and access to the PirateBay website enabled.

eircom in compliance with the Order has agreed that access to the website the PirateBay.org, its related domain names, IP addresses and URLs from the eircom network will be blocked indefinitely from the 1st September 2009.

eircom would like to reassure customers that:

  • eircom will not monitor customer’s activities at any stage, nor will it place any monitoring equipment or software on its network in order to facilitate this block.

Of course there are ways around it and one of them i found from mulley.net which also mentions that other ISP’s in ireland are not as yet going to be restricting access to the torrent bay.

There are a few ways around it by using a proxy or you can use a website such as;

http://webmystore.com/

Taken from mulley.net

“Excerpt from UPC press release:

UPC can confirm it has received a request from solicitors acting on behalf of the Irish divisions of EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony music companies that UPC blocks access to the Pirate Bay website.

This request is separate to ongoing court proceedings between these same companies and UPC with respect to their demand that UPC take certain actions in relation to subscribers allegedly involved in illegal music downloads.

This latest request is apparently further to an unopposed court action between these companies and eircom whereby eircom was ordered to block access to Pirate Bay as of September 1, 2009.

UPC has informed the rightsholders that there is no basis under Irish law requiring an ISP to block access to certain websites and that it will not agree to a request that goes beyond what is currently provided for under Irish law.

See Adrian Weckler’s blog for more details. Eircom have confirmed it to him.”

A quick google got me news that this was announced back in February this year;
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/23/irma_demands_irish_isps_block_access_to_piracy_sites/

Is this the start of eircom stopping people from accessing the internet? It seems that this whole idea is the brainchild of the music industry who seem to have eircom “by the balls”.

Acer Aspire One – Fixing No Boot Problem

acer-aspire-one-blueA friend of mine has one of these very cool looking notebooks running Windows XP. However it developed a problem in that when you turned it on, nothing happened, you could however hear the hard-drive working away like it was loading up windows and then stopping.

After trying out the notebook on a PC monitor and trying to find a USB or network cable to use to connect to another working Laptop nothing seemed to work. So i said id take it home and mess around with it, messing around meant id try to get it to work even though i had no idea.

The first thing i did and always do when there is a problem with anything is i Google it. So off i went to google and typed in;

“acer aspire one wont turn on”

Simple really i typed in the exact name and model of the notebook and what was wrong and the first result lead me to a site which had a fix;

Acer Aspire One BIOS Recovery

And by following the intructions it brought the notebook back to life amazingly and it only took about 5 mins, amazign what you find when you google it.

Windows Vista & Windows 7 Setup Problems -“unable to create new system partition or locate a existing system partition”

windows_vista_logo.pngI came home from college yesterday and decided for some reason to install windows 7 64bit that i had downloaded.  Having already tried out the BETA and RC1 (Release Candidate 1) i thought sure i may as well.  Already having Two versions of vista running 64bit and 32bit and well used to dual-booting windows what should have talking 40 mins ended up being a complete disaster and took much of the afternoon.

Having my main Vista installation installed on one of the many partitions on my hard drive, the drive letter being “F:”. I delete the C: drive partition and had planned to install Windows 7 over the C Drive.

For some unknown reason my PC was not letting me install Windows 7 or Vista. So when i rebooted back i got the message;

“BOOTMGR is missing
Press CTRL ALT DELETE to restart”

I kept getting the same setup error during the install process. “unable to create new system partition or locate a exsisting system partition”.

I tried everything to get windows back up and running, i still had a full working Vista isntallation sitting on one of the partition drives but i could not get to it for reasons i cant figure out.  Installation my main OS on a drive letter other than the C Drive was not good idea and this probably caused some of the problems. But the fact that i couldnt get any new Windows OS to install made things very difficult. Ive had this problem before and its got something to with the motherboard i have or the combination of SATA/IDE drives.

After about 6 hours of madness and throwing DVD’s into the PC including;

  • An atempt to recover the c drive with Norton ghost 14
  • Windows vista reinstall
    windows Vista Repair (which was the solution that is for the BOOTMGR is missing problem, which didnt work as Vista could not the see the Vista installtion i had).
  • windows 7 install
  • windows 7 Repair

Nothing worked, Vista Repair let me down big time and even my norton ghost which is usually very good at restoring backups wouldnt work.

So i picked up the motherboard manual and looked at the back of it to see if i had written down anything t hat might help and of course i did. “Disable the IDE Drives”. I did this and i got things working again.

There is something wrong with either the motherboard (The motherboard i have is a Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H), BIOS (latest version) or combination of SATA drives and IDE drives i have. I dont know what that problem is but im guessing its got something to with some settings in the BIOS. Im running my SATA Drives in IDE Native mode rather than i expect the better “AHCI Mode”.

Team Fortress 2 – Is Awesome

team-fortress-2Since i got bored of World of Warcraft after the last huge patch, (well i logged in and seen there was nothing do really apart from one new confusing Battleground) ive been playing Valves Superb Team Fortress 2.

Its a lot of fun with great choice of classes and maps. Ive been mainly playing the one map however CTF_2FORT on the same server for the last couple of months. Now anyone that knows that map knows its a very small compact map that doest give a lot of room to hide or run around especially when the server is a 32 player server.

Ive had some great games on that server and met some great people and some complete assholes of course. Most of the time im an “Engineer” building up my sentry gun and fixing other peoples. Nowadays im anything but an “Engineer”, been playing “Spy” quite a bit at the moment which is great fun if you get lucky and do it right.

Firefox – Must Have Addons

firefox_I love Firefox, the new 3.5 version is much better than previous ones as its much faster with less crashing. Firefox is great because its the only Web Browser i know that says “hey, view thew web your way and dont take no pop-ups or allow any addons to install with asking me first”. But yet still people use IE, im not saying IE ias bad recent versions have come a long way but i still dont trust Microsofts Internet Explorer.

The horror stories where people have lost there World of Warcraft Accounts,Steam Accounts etc are usually down to Internert Explorer and No FireWall and Anti-Virus Software.

So here im listing some of the addons/Extensions i uses with Firefox.

Security:

1) AddBlock Plus
Blocks annoying adverts,pop-ups etc.

2)NoScript
Blocks Dangerous scripts from running on websites that could potentially damage your PC.

For General Use:

1)Realplayer Browser Record Plugin
For easy Downloading of Youtube Videos. Plus the new RealplayerSP allows you to conver your downloaded videos to your Ipod.PSP,Phone and more.

2) Google Toolbar
For quick links to Gmail and other Google Features.

3)FlashGot
For quick downloading of Files great for use with GetRight.

4)Scribe Fire:
For quick easy access to posting on your Blog.

5)XMarks:
This would be number one only yhat it doesnt seem to wrk well for me and just crashes firefox. It keeps a backup of your Bookmarks on the XMarks server.

Game Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum

I just played the demo of this game on the Xbox 360 and im just stunned, from the first screen of the demo its just so authenic to the recent Batman movies from the music to the great story and atmosphere. I rarely bother with demo games for the Xbox 360 but from the 2 mins this game started it was obvious that this game was something else.

Before i played the game i heard good things, but i like to sample a game first and “Batman: Arkham Asylum” is a superb game which is both fun and looks great.

Check out the review from gamespot.com;

Best of the Worst 3:The “Life” Doctor

lifedoctorThere are many people in this world and there are people like the “Dundalk Demorats Life Doctor” AKA Gary Mc Laughlin. Firstly how this idiot calls himself a “Life Doctor” is beyond me, this complete asshat has no place giving advice to anyone.

If you were to read the utter shite this gobshit tells people its laughable. In fact i have pissed myself laughing at the replies to people contacting him with a problem looking for some help or advice, what he serves in reply is nothing but insults and put downs. Take this example where someone contacts him looking for advice;

I want to follow my dreams of becoming a singer

Dear Gary, first of all, this isn’t just a question. I feel no one understands my feelings or who I am.

I want to be someone that I know can follow my dreams. I’m probably not the first to write in for this. How crazy do I sound?

Sorry but I want to be somebody. How do I get somewhere? How do you follow your dreams? I need to sing and I want to be big
I just need to let everyone know because I’m sure I can do it. My mother reckons I cannot sing at the moment and tells me to

keep it to myself, but I am determined to prove her wrong and show that I can do it. What advice can you give me? Should I cut

her out of my life and follow my dreams?
Katie, 24

Dear Katie, unfortunately for you, I am sad to have to be the one who tells you this, but you are a nobody right now and

chances are, you will probably stay that way unless you cop on.

Writing into my problem page will not make you a somebody either. I mean, God help your mother for having to put up with you.

I read your letter which took me two minutes and already I’m fed up of you.

You have a dream of becoming a singer but the one stumbling block is that you’re a crap singer. Hmmm, bit of a stumbling block

do you not think?

You don’t need to sing in front of Simon Cowell in order for him to tell you that you are a pathetic singer.

Save the flightfare etc, as I will tell you for free. Your rubbish and you have more chance of getting a recording contract

than I of getting my own TV show like my mentor Dr Phil.

So let’s go over your points Katie, you feel no one understands your feelings or who you are. Of course they don’t because

most people are not psychos and demented people like yourself.
You want to be somebody.

That’s great and dreams are a brilliant thing to have. I am all for them and encourage people to have them but it is just a

pity that your dream is rubbish and will never come to fruition.

So move on and think of something different and quit wrecking your mother’s head, and mine for that matter.

As for cutting your mother out of your life. You would not be doing yourself a favour, but you would be doing your mother a

favour as it would finally give her some peace and quiet.

My advice is to reach for that rainbow Katie but in future, if you need any more career advice, please do not email me because

to be honest, I don’t like wasting my time answering to idiots.

Best of the Worst #2: Dominos Pizza – Food Poisioning

n6657899956_3260Firstly i want to say that Dominos Pizzas are superb. Ive been ordering their Pizza’s for a few months until about a month ago now. I usually get the same order which as 2 portions of garlic bread. Their garlic bread is very tasty just like the pizzas, however the last two orders i made left me with stomach cramps and on the toilet for at least 40 mins.

The first time i put it down to something else i ate however i had not eaten anything other than the Domino’s pizza i had ordered that day. Anyway to cut a long story short i ordered again two weeks later and ate the garlic bread first this time and i had the same symptoms i.e stomach cramps and diarrhea.  Since then ive not ordered from Domino’s and wont be anymore. There is something wrong with their food which i think is the Garlic Bread which is a shame really as its nice Pizza but i don’t want or should have to spend 40 mins in the toilet for eating there food.