You mention Star Wars: Galaxies on a PC gaming forum and you can be pretty sure of certain reactions... One camp will roll their eyes and post, not again... One camp will come along with the, yeah, it s a shame what they did to the game after CU and NGE, but I still play it because well It s SW:G... You had skill trees you had to work through as a melee or social profession... Hours and hours of harvesting and work, and yet, you weren t truly holed up in one set in stone profession... You could mix and match and do as you like, ending up with a pretty much customized class suited for your playing needs... But the one thing that SW:G is missing at this moment more than anything is the community... I wrote a post several months back about why I think SW:G is slowly declining after the loss of it s core community , so I won t rehash it any further than mentioning it here... … View Post »

I already had a pair of older 130GB hard drives I was using, an old DVD-ROM to load the thing and all the extra stuff Id need, so I was ready to roll... The very first problem I ran into was one Id read about and was prepared for should it arise: power ... The Shuttle K45 has a dinky little 100W Power supply... I began the load using a 450W power supply I had laying around and just routed the cables into the case for the time being... I had everything loaded up in a short couple hours and began the process of transferring the backup of my server (on my gaming PC) back to its new home... Everything had transferred fine and the system was humming along it was also hot as hell ... I knew having the newer power supply in the case would give me an exhaust fan, which the case did not come with, but the system was just plain hot, and most of the blame came from those old hard drives... So back to Newegg I went (you can almost hear the bat man scene change music)!... … View Post »

I recently passed a gigantic monster of an SUV (not just a tall car) covered with Liberal Anti-Oil stickers, including one that says Let McCain Start Drilling in His 7 Backyards... Liberal America: home to our intellectual elite, for sure... On the other hand, I was recently told by a co-worker that we shouldnt vote for Obama and that, and these are her words, Id vote for the devil before voting for Obama; hes the anti-Christ!... … View Post »

Alrighty, kids, we re about 80% into our better computing lifestyle and so far we ve focused pretty much on the computer, now it s time to grab the mirror and take a good hard look in it... All of what I previously posted is completely useless unless the talking monkey sitting at it (that would be you ooop oooop) doesnt know some basic rules when it comes to actually using the dang thing.... Viruses spread because people don t take a few moments to check attachments before running them, people download dubious software from unheard of sites and then wonder why they have 5,000 pop-ups... Part III The user... Get your fingers off the download attachment button Lets get one thing straight first: Your mom is your computers mortal enemy... Bonzai Buddy and similar on screen diversions like cute little screen savers also apply here ... If I can t easily identify all the parts of a car, I don t go around ripping off random parts I don t know the use of and try to shove them into my engine, you shouldn t do the same to your computer... Following any or all of these should guarantee a faster, smoother experience with your computer and a much longer life between reloads which even a well kept computer will likely eventually need... … View Post »

Your heart is pounding, you have visions of all the wonderful comments and fun conversations had within every post... You spend hours reading other blogs, visiting to see what they re using and what s cutting edge... You download plug ins and add ons and extensions to help promote your web blog, give a little back to the commenter and just to have some neat touches to your site... Your site is slower than that old lady in front of you at the coffee shop... There are hundreds of pages of advice on what people will tell you one must have in order to have a successful web blog... I m not saying that you shouldn t experiment and enjoy yourself by trying out what s hip, happening and out there what I am saying is that when it comes to the core plug ins to use with your weblog, make sure they are all the plug ins you absolutely cannot live without and make sure you aren t compromising the speed , in addition to the performance of your site !... We kept the c ore group of plug-ins that seemed the most important to us as well as the main group of plug-ins almost everyone in the blogosphere appeared to recommend the most... After running down the list and cutting away what we don t need, we have noticed a significant rise in kick-ass speed and performance, and that s something of a relief for us... … View Post »

In the last part of this guide, I spent some time laying the hardware foundations of your computer system... Start the system off properly by removing as much of this excess fat as you can , getting to the delicious meaty center that we all want and need... Remove programs you have no intention of using , don t know how to use, or are out of date and you ll have yourself one kick ass geek steak of a machine... When all of this is done (and it might take a while) then go to the appropriate websites and download new drivers for every piece of hardware in your system and install them one at a time, with a reboot in between each install... Keeping these up to date can not only improve speed, but can also improve stability and the performance of certain games can be significantly improved... Sound Card/Chipse t whether your Sound card is built into your motherboard or a secondary card like a Soundblaster X-Fi, making sure you have the latest and greatest is always a plus... There s disk Indexing, Search/Speech Bars, along with a slew of other pretty-pretties that are all about as useful as an anchor on your car... Some of these services are really important and do critical things like allow connection to the internet... … View Post »

Everyone knows that my love for Clog, fresh and new as the spring daisies (or a mid summer s night) is far better than Adam s... I can even prove it in a series of heart-wrenching haiku I just wro spent several hours slaving over!... Awesome I love you long time clog-man Adam stands no chance You can plainly see that my dedication and devotion, on the purest level, is by far superior and not cheapened by falsities... … View Post »

I wasnt always a customer service manager... In a former life I worked for and at one point, owned a small, honest , computer repair business; working on everything from large office networks to private home computers... Unfortunately, as usually happens with any good business, the market became crowded and turned into the abusive used car lot that is computer business today... Heres the thing, though: About 90% of the money I make and the tricks I use are basically the sort of thing that anyone can do ... There are billions of guides available on the internet for people that are technically minded, but this guide is not for them... Video Card/GPU The right Video card for our computer is not the top of the line... Maintenance Much like a car engine, the number one enemy of computer hardware is heat ... Inside a case, this heat is normally dissipated with fans moving air through the case and over little fins of metal called heat sinks... … View Post »

Of course, I am going to have to take over the world one picture at a time, slowly, so as not to arouse too many suspicions... And so, I entered the Contest to Win a Camera, a point and shoot, or a kick ass camera bag ... While a second camera would be divine and probably make me wet my pants with glee and then do a little chicken dance of triumph that would help people question my sanity even more I desperately need a new camera bag and would love to have the one advertised as award for third place!... … View Post »