Category: Reviews

Chase’s Online Payment Scam

July 22nd, 2008

I made a payment online to our credit card through Chase Online but it turned out it wasn’t enough so I went back to edit the payment. Well I can’t edit, cancel or add another payment for another three days. So I call their customer service line and they confirmed the same thing. I can’t make another payment for another three days! I asked the customer service agent if there were any other options for payment and the only other way was for me to make the payment from another checking account or to call back when I get the finance charge.

What a scam, prevent people from making their payments and get them with a finance charge. I love this world.

Anyone else disappointed iPhone’s 2.0 update?

July 22nd, 2008

Glad I am not the only one disappointed with the performance after the 2.0 update.

I’ve been using the phone every day for about a week now and it just isn’t up to the great expectations set by the first version. Everything feels so incredibly fragile. iPhone 2.0: The glory wore off in wash - (37signals)

Is Grand Theft Auto worthy of all this praise?

June 18th, 2008

GTA 4I can’t be the only gamer who doesn’t understand all the high praise and perfect scores this game is getting. 10/10?, A+? Since when did game reviewers becomes such fan boys that they can over look so many frustrating flaws?

First let me say that I respect the game and the series immensely. I get it. Its fun to be in a living, breathing city that is this life like and be able to wreck shit. In GTA4 the city is even more believable. Its really an amazing world. What I don’t get is how gamers can suffer through such terrible gameplay in order to experience it.

I want to play this game so badly that I throw fits in anger trying to get past missions. Why bother I keep asking myself. Tonight was the last straw, I think I am going to stop bothering and trade it in.

The basic reason is the same reason I never got very far into the other GTA titles. The control sucks!

Tonight sent me over the edge during a mission for X. I pick him up. Drive five minutes across town. Get some guns in an alley. Go up a huge elevator. Snipe some guys on a construction site. Raid the construction site and kill some more guys only to die because I got stuck behind the wrong cover point or couldn’t run fast enough to somewhere I could get away.

I went through this sequence three times, each time dying because of the awful controls. Not because of any reason I could control myself but because the game just doesn’t work.

This is a common problem because the cover system, aiming and running just don’t work. Yes I said the running. Have you never heard of analog control Rockstar? Where if you push harder on the stick your character runs harder? Or how about not forcing the camera to snap back when I try to get a better view of who is shooting at me?

Back to tonight. The straw that broke the camels back was when I was chasing down the last guy I had to kill. I tried climbing down a ladder but fell instead, next I tried to climb up another ladder but couldn’t. All this with just a tiny bit of life bar left. Nikko just would not climb the ladder. After fumbling with the ladder the enemies I left behind came behind me and killed me. All this cause the game wouldn’t work.

The funny thing is I had way more fun with Saint’s Row than this game. I put in more than 40 hours into it and loved almost every second of it. The game suffers from the same repetitive gameplay, but the control actually works.

You’re not allowed to call Twitter users attention whores if you have a blog!

May 1st, 2008

I love that people with blogs call those who use Twitter attention whores. I don’t see the difference between Joe Schmo with a blog and a Jane Doe with Twitter account.

Twitter is good for a number of things, if they are attention whoring so be it.

  • keeping up with friends you don’t see every day
  • meeting up with friends
  • posting quick thoughts that are on your mind that don’t warrant a blog post
  • sharing a cool thing you saw while walking
  • keeping up with news sites, products etc

Sure you can send a text message, but Twitter is for something completely different.

Google adds Outlook Syncing to Calendar

March 13th, 2008

Its true and it seems to work perfectly. This makes my life a little easier until June when Exchange support is added to the iPhone. Now I can sync my work calendar to GCal, suck it down to iCal at home, then sync it on to my iPhone so I can be in the know when not in front of Outlook in the office. I like to wake up and know what is on my agenda for the day.

Thanks Google!

iPhone Joy

February 14th, 2008

I recently bought an iPhone, so recent that it was just three days before Apple released the 16 gb version.

When I first approached AT&T about exchanging it for the new version they they told me there was a 10% restocking fee. I waited so long to buy it…more on that some other day. Well I took it back today, ready to pay the 10% and the luck of the draw gave me a salesperson who did not charge me the fee! I don’t know if she just didn’t know any better or if she felt my pain. Regardless, I am a happy customer.

I love my iPhone, in fact this was posted from it… While I was pooping. Sweet.

Mail and Address Book: Switching to Mac Delight #4

December 10th, 2007

One of the greatest things to me about using OSX is the integration between Mail, Address Book and iCal. I can hover my mouse over an address, date, phone number, etc and add it to Address Book, or iCal right from Mail. It saves a lot of fumbling around, looking for your contact or the right calendar. Its brilliant.

Inconsistant Home and End Keys: Switching to Mac Annoyance #4

December 7th, 2007

This is the one of my main annoyances about using a Mac. The home and end keys do not work the same in all applications! Depending on the app they go to the beginning and end of a line, sometimes to the end of the page, sometimes they do nothing! When they function as Apple intends, to go to the end of a document, your cursor remains where it was! I can’t remember the last time I ever wanted to go to the end of a document, but leave the cursor where I just was.

I have pretty much gotten used to using command left or right to go to the beginning or end of a line of text, but I still miss the way home and end keys work on a Windows machine.

iSync: Switching to Mac Delight #3

March 14th, 2007

Today I opened iSync for the first time and decided to give it a quick run to see if I could get it to sync with my phone, a junky Motorla. I originally bought the phone so I could sync my contact and calendar from my Windows PC but found out Verizon wanted me to pay for software to do it. F-that.

Enter iSync. I registered my phone with iSync, told it what to sync and let it rip. Low and behold. It worked. Well done.

Backing Up, Restoring and .Mac: Switching to Mac Delight #2

March 14th, 2007

When I originally switched to my Mac I just took over some one else’s account, installed Boot Camp etc. When I installed Windows I did so with another copy that was already installed, so I was never able to activate it. One month later and I decided to not only re-install Windows, but to install OS10 from scratch as well. In this past month I have merged my contacts into Address Book and created calendars in iCal.

That is where .Mac came into play. I created a trial account, downloaded Backup 3 and started getting into it. I read a number of articles that ripped Backup 3 to shreds, but also learned that most of the issues being ripped have been resolved so I went for it, backing up my documents and personal settings like Address Book, iCal and my Cyber Duck bookmarks.

After the very long but easy install of OS10, I set up my .Mac account in the os and downloaded my calendars and contacts. Low and behold it works! Very easy.

I am currently restoring my backups from DVD and its all going very smoothly.