Information Technology

Windows 7 Ultimate 7057

2009-03-14T14:04:00.016-04:00

Hey folks it's me again. Today I'm here to give a sneak peek into Windows 7 Ultimate. Notice the picture above of the Task Screen or what you get when you hit Control, Alt, Delete when in Windows for those not up to snuff, and you'll notice the Windows Name on the bottom of the screen. Yes folks it's Windows 7 Ultimate. You can click any of the images for a much larger view. Enjoy.

The version I have is what everyone on the internet keeps calling the RC1 or known as Build 7057.

My VM setup was basic, created with only 512MB of RAM and 1 Processor.

Installation was a snap, especially for Windows, also considering the fact that I installed as a VM and not on a true system. Windows as everyone knows usually takes a good 60-90 minutes or so to install, but for Windows 7 on a VM it only took about 25-30 minutes. Vista could be the same in a VM environment and I've never really tested. I used what is known as quick install in VMWare Workstation thus saving most of the questions and answers which also helped with the speed of the install I'm sure.

Here is where I ended up, the good old desktop of Windows 7 Ultimate, you'll notice the version numbers etc. in lower right hand corner. Also notice the new Task Bar and larger icons.

Within no more than 30 minutes I was sitting in Windows and ready to start playing around. Rebooting takes about 2 minutes max and even from a cold boot, the reason it might take a bit longer is that I have an issue with my VM that ends up giving me 32 PCI Express Standard Root Port Devices which are all in conflict, without this issue the system boot time might be reduced by 30 or so seconds making Windows 7 very quick at booting and as mentioned before is astounding for Windows.

I can honestly say Windows 7 Ultimate is really not much more than Vista but on steroids, and what I mean by this is it looks exactly the same, but is much faster and robust, and remember this was with only 512 MB of RAM. I can only imagine how this would run on my normal system. I have 4 Gig on this system.

Lets just hope the speed of boot and the quickness of tasks are the same on a real machine as in my VM, and when the final release comes. If this is the case, Microsoft may finally have what they should have had with Vista.

Windows 7 Ultimate will be a huge success and one I would say everyone on XP and Vista should upgrade to with what I've seen so far. The speed of opening up tasks and windows was a snap unlike my Vista machine which is a complete dog in my opinion. On my Vista machine I'll click to open a program etc. and 10-15 seconds later it might open. With Windows 7 Ultimate these things instantly opened right up. As I mentioned above this is in a VM and I'm sure Vista may be identical in a similar situation, but I'm not here to test the differences. VM usually only has 20-30 processes max running and my Vista machine has upwards of 75-100, this would make for a huge difference between the two, that is for sure. Either way I'm really liking what I see with Windows 7 Ultimate thus far.

With the build I have, many have come to realize a little bug, it's called the Desktop bug and really is nothing more than desktop.ini file being in the startup which then makes notepad open it up since it's a text file and greets you upon entering Windows. You can fix this by removing the desktop.ini files from your profiles Startup areas, you can find the exact locations online by searching for Fix Windows 7 7057 Desktop Bug.

Now onto what little bit may be new to some. Pretty much all the same applications introduced in Vista are back, and some of the older programs are now updated. We see items such as Snyc and Snippet return from Vista. Sync is where you set up offline files and Snippet is similar to a cheap version of Snagit. Powershell is now part of Windows 7 Ultimate as well.

Here is a picture of Snyc. Nothing special or new to us Vista folks.

Below you'll see what Accessories are available in Windows 7 and you'll notice the new look of good old Paint and WordPad. You'll notice how the toolbars have changed to resemble what we've come to know as Ribbons in Microsoft Office 2007. You'll also notice Sticky Notes in the list, which is new and simply puts sticky notes on your desktop as if they were the real deal.

Another new item to Windows 7 Ultimate was what is called Action Center. Below is pretty much what you'll see when entering this. If you know Vista Ultimate you'll know most of what is coming with Windows 7 Ultimate, so really most of the things within this post are not new.

Below you'll see that IE 8 and Windows Media player 12 really have not changed much from what you currently see in Vista. You'd have to really dig deep to find the changes even between the two OS's. For the basic user, the differences between Windows Vista Ultimate and Windows 7 Ultimate probably will not be seenm but for those folks still locked in time with Windows XP, you'll end up getting lost with the new OS, really no different than going from XP to Vista. Us folks that always have the latest and greatest will seamlessly move from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Ultimate without a hitch.

Well folks I know it wasn't much, but it's a glimpse of things to come this Summer or Fall from our boys at Microsoft. No release date has been set but I'm sure it's coming. I think all of those who read my blog Windows 7 Ultimate is definitely an OS to all run out and get when it arrives, for being just a Beta or what they are calling RC1, this puppy flies and is one incredible OS. All I can say is I can't wait for it to arrive, this boy will have it upon release no doubt. Hope you enjoy this teaser and stop back I hope to have more about this and other things going on when I have time to do so. Thanks again.

The End... Outsourcing Wins Again.

2009-03-03T12:28:00.005-05:00

Here we are again, back to the unemployment lines with most of the US and now simply a statistic for the month of March and failed US jobs and the failed economy.

Well as of March 1st our jobs were not renewed, this all started with a month to month schedule after the new year and a knowledge transfer to our Indian counterparts. Our jobs have been outsourced to India folks. The end of another era for me. My first long term IT job lasted almost 9 years and this current one almost 2 years, short by just a couple weeks.

So as a contractor, 11 years of my life wasted for nothing more than a pay check in return, which I'm not complaining about, but no full time positions offered by the companies that I had worked for or other benefits, such as pension funds and the like. That usually is the goal of working as a contractor is that a company appreciates your work and time put in and brings you in full time for a bit of job security over being just a disposable worker (Contractor).

I had never been late and never missing a single day, and never took any vacation days within those 11 years. Well excuse me, except 3 vacation days taken for the death of my mother. With all of that said it turns out that I had both jobs ended because of outsourcing.

With the current economy who wants to pay the kinds of salaries we make to do our jobs in the IT sector? Now knowing that working in IT, this is usually the departments hit first in corporate America for cut backs and lay offs, only because they usually have the largest expenditures on most budgets.

Now with that said lets just say, "You do get what you pay for", and only time will tell with this next round and this companies first plunge into outsourcing.

The first round or job lost, my previous employer, now 3 years into their outsourcing routine. They have come to realize that outsourcing was the wrong way to go and it is failing miserably and getting worse day by day. Now for this company just taking the plunge, they will also follow that same routine. It seems these things always run on a 3-5 year cycle. Only time will tell if they go down the same path as other companies have in recent years in our general location and in the IT sector.

I started out in IT to get away from manual labor work which I had done for far too many years, it was finally nice to use my brain rather than bronze to get by. I can probably look forward to getting a job for much less but doing much more either in IT again or possibly heading back into the manual labor force, since our government is going to create 4 million jobs that will pay no more than 10-12 dollars an hour to kill yourself in a so called infrastructure job. Yeah I've worked my last 11 years to look forward to this kind of work again... NOT!!!

For now I'll sit back and collect for a while and finally take my vacation I've never taken, sure I won't really be going anywhere or traveling, but it will be simply some time off to reflect and maybe put some more posts out here on my blog.

Hope you enjoyed my latest entry and with nothing but time maybe I'll get my ass out here to post some more posts for your reading enjoyment.

Here we go again!!! Outsourcing 2...

2009-01-25T12:59:00.006-05:00

Hello once again. I can not believe I had gone a whole year without posting anything. Sorry for the delay, must have been a busy year. So here is a bit of what is going on in my life and in IT in general.

I guess this is what happens when you have a steady job and not much time for doing other things you enjoy doing such as playing Red Orchestra and it's (Darkest Hour Mod). For those who haven't frequented my blog will know this to me, is one of the best WWII First Person Shooter games available and a good way to relieve the stress that I may incur during a busy day.

The MOD (Darkest Hour) mentioned above is to be released in a more final form January 31, to my knowledge. Then of course my Wednesdays are tied up in the evening watching one of the most incredible shows on television (LOST)...

Now with that being said I thought I should relay other things going on, thus the title of this post. Here we go again!!! Outsourcing 2. Now for those that have read all of my posts should remember a few of them early on about IT in general and how I have perceived it over the last 15 or so years.

Here I am at another newer job from those I've posted about previously, I've been at this position for almost 2 years now and my previous job I had, was for a good 8 years. Now these jobs are jobs I'd stay at for the rest of my life if it were up to me, but in IT and as a contractor this is never the case. We also can't leave out the fact that Outsourcing is always taking place as well. With the current financial situations at many companies the fist place they go is their IT infrastructure and how they can eliminate many of those jobs to save money in these trying times.

So as of a month ago our department was pulled into a meeting which fell on a day we normally never have them. This meeting was to say "Well folks we are outsourcing the department". We then were told that a company would be taking over our duties and that we would do what we call in IT (Knowledge Transfer) for 3 months. With this being said it meant I would go from making a really good living to being one of those folks lined up on the unemployment line (Worst Case), or that I might have to move onto another job for another company as a contractor for much less than I currently make. To put things in perspective for those that aren't attuned to what being a contractor entails, this means you can go from making 100k one year to making NOTHING the next. It's the nature of the beast.

Now I've had two incredible jobs in the last 10 years, of course minus the BS that you always deal with on a daily basis with those you actually work with, and with this new job there were no shortages of having to work with idiots and those who follow the old adage, that I've posted before called the Suck and Swallow of IT.

Then you have the guys who are much further up the food chain, who never have a clue of what goes on down below, or what their employees jobs truly consist of, or who are the people really doing the work and creating the processes and the like.

Remember folks those that usually do most of the work are not the ones that get the credit for this, especially in corporate America and IT period. I've always been one to never miss work and have always done my job to its fullest but have never taken credit for something I hadn't done or have been a YES man, but yet those are the types of folks who always find themselves in the line, you'd think these folks would start sucking up. Not this guy, I'll be happier unemployed, knowing I never had to follow that route.

Now onto a short story to go along with this.

We recently did an integration project and put in several hours of overtime and had great success in this integration and when the end came, those who had actually done the work and put in the hours were totally left out of any correspondence and dinners etc. that were held for having such a complete success.

Only the higher ups, this being from full blown managers and higher, to PM's, to planners, and even folks that had NOTHING to do with the project, were invited and congratulated for such a job well done, but the worker bees were totally left out completely. A month after all of this, the department that had done all the work is the department being outsourced... Doesn't make sense does it?

Well considering the success of the integration was truly on the worker bees, by leaving them out entirely, probably made the higher up's wonder what does this department even do?

If they didn't even help in the integration, when it should have been that department who had done the work period, why do we pay these people? Our department would probably be one of the higher expenditures, because of everything we actually do, thus the reason we are probably now being outsourced... The only fact left out was we actually did do all the work on the integration and have done more than could have ever been expected by a group of our size. This is not a huge group but the work that had been done was more than any huge group would have normally produced.

With experience of being outsourced, or jobs moved to other countries for a leaner expenditure for companies, I always ask myself, "Will they ever learn???" At this point I'd have to say NO...

At this point the unemployment line is looming and from my knowledge will start on April 1st, unless something else within another department comes up before then and some of us can move into.

I can say though that when myself and another individual had taken on our position they originally wanted 12 people to do it and it's only been him and I all along and the rest of our department were never able to keep up with what the 2 of us had been doing for the last 2 years. We had come into this company and practically re-wrote their whole process on getting servers out. If you were to ask anyone though we had done nothing...

We had put out a few thousand servers last year and the people that got the pat on the back were the planners and project managers, who actually never touched a piece of hardware. These are the things that go on in IT and corporate America, that people like myself have come to really regret about the IT field. I could go on for days about this subject and even about my current position and all that has gone on over the last 2 years, but I have no reason to toot my own horn, I know the kind of work I do and how well I do it.

Now with more time to do things looming I may be able to post more on here and actually hope I can keep those who frequent here coming back for some more. I've always got something to say and stories to tell. Come back and I hope you enjoyed this latest rant, I'm sure there will be more to come. Stay tuned.

Open Source and Free Software

2007-09-16T12:04:00.000-04:00

Many people hear the name Open Source and are unsure what this is. Well folks, and in the most general of descriptions is, it's software out there readily available for download and is (FREE). Now the (FREE) part should have everyone changing or scrambling to get it, right?

For some strange reason it doesn't, and it's been said it's because people think free means cheesy or cheap or not up to par, you all know the old adage the more expensive the better. When it comes to software or Operating Systems etc. I can honestly say this is the furthest thing from the truth, heck anymore with just about anything. I fall into this same thinking when it comes to hardware whether it's computers, stereos, electronics in general, but I can say that the cheap DVD player I just got which plays everything is better than the real expensive Sony I got years ago and has so many more features it's ridiculous, I've actually started changing my thinking... With that in mind it's time to change your ways and look into Open Source.

Open Sourced means too, that others not just a single company creates the content of the software. What this does is it gives the whole community the option to create content for a particular program or change items etc. or even feedback from others or requests which everyone is looking for, can be implemented.

Have you ever wanted something in Windows, Office, or even Photoshop as examples, that just did not do what you want them to do or a feature that is just non-existent? Well those people out there in the world of the internet using those same tools want those same features or options you dreamed or wished were there and with Open Source this can happen. Folks with the knowledge add or create those things and implement them for you, you as the user now have that feature you've always dreamed about with a software program that is Open Sourced. Now these features are not added to those programs mentioned above but are included into a new package altogether and even sometimes better than the brand name applications.

The only problem now is dumping what you know and moving over to that program that is Open Sourced and learning something new. Usually what you did in those expensive packages work the same way in the FREE package, it's just knowing where to dig, once you know one program it's so much easier to learn a newer or similar program.

Ok, so I'll break these programs up into sections and describe some things about them, I'm no expert with any of these programs but I've used all of them and this is simply my opinion of them and that's why they are even on my list.

Now for all those users out there waiting to move over to Vista, you've seen all the negative press - I don't agree with it and I am a Windows user, but I do see the potential of other alternatives. I'm a gamer and this is really the ONLY reason I stay with Windows and of course this is what I support at my job and have for over 15 years...

Now I've always said this, if you give someone an OS that has never used Windows they'd of course never know the difference from one OS to another, if they could chat, get their email, look at pictures, make spread sheets, documents and the like. For those that have used Windows and use the basics only, wouldn't care either, as long as they can do what they are used to doing, it doesn't matter what they use. You can give them a Mac or even Linux and these same things will become common place to the beginner over time. We all got our start with Windows and had to learn it over the years it's no different with these other OS's. My aunt as an example has only ever used a Mac and would never use Windows and would do circles around us Windows folks with her beloved OS, why? This is all she's ever known. Catch my drift???

Now as you read this, the program name is a link to the page where you can download or learn more about the mentioned OS or application. Enjoy.

So first on my list is Linux and one that I use or have installed is Fedora Core 7 with 8 coming in the not so distant future. You can download this and put on just about any PC and even most hardware works, not like Vista where you would need the most modern of equipment and that doesn't even mean everything will work. Sure there are thousands of distributions out there but one I recommend is Fedora and that's probably because that's the only one I've ever used. You can get the ISO images here and the how to install and learn more here: Fedora Core 7

Another great feature about Linux over Windows is almost everything you'll ever need is already included from burning software, to Office style programs, programming, web design, email, chat, you name it, it's all there and can be chosen during the install. When software that is included has updates, it all gets updated with a form of Windows Update, so you always can have the latest and greatest and patches etc. Another alternative to Windows is a OS called ReactOS which is still in its building stages but is trying to be that free OS that is identical to (bells and whistles) that Windows is, for those that don't know anything but Windows this would be an easier transition. So that covers the OS, now your ready to move on to applications to do all those things you've always wanted to do.

Now these programs I'll be mentioning have Linux versions for some, but I'll be talking about the Windows based versions of them. Besides getting someone to change OS is much harder than changing to a replacement program or application.

So you need a text editor. This is where a program called Notepad++ comes in. This program is definitely something you'll want in Windows to replace Notepad. It's great for doing programming, text editing, scripting, html. Probably the best text editor available.

Next you need a photo editor something similar to Photoshop, well this little program is excellent for a replacement and it's called Paint.NET and is constantly being updated with new options and requested tools - it also has several plugins. Another great program for manipulating pictures and photos is Irfanview. Another well known one is GIMP to name another. There is also a program just for cataloging all of your photos with some manipulation in Google's very own Picasa software.

Maybe you want to delve into 3D animation and effects? The Open Source program for this is called Blender.

You need that Office Program right? Heck who can afford that? Well there is even a replacement for that called Open Office, this program has a replacement for Office's many programs except email. I'll add those replacements here in this section so that it fits in with Office replacements. There are two applications for email one being Thunderbird 2 and the other being Evolution.

Now you enjoy tampering with media files, converting, manipulating and so on, well there are several programs for this, depending on what it is you want to do. The first would be a program called Super another one being VirtualDub, these are great for converting and manipulation of media files adding sound and so on. Maybe you want to stream media over the internet or within your blog or website here is a program for doing that called Star Media Center - it's great with a TV Tuner card as well. I used to stream my tv over the internet and watch it from a browser at work, when I had to work weekends (Couldn't miss the game)... Maybe you want another media player and get away from that old Windows Media player then you'd want to use VideoLAN (It also streams as well).

Now everyone has heard of these and most are sick of Internet Explorer well there are a couple replacements for this as well, it all depends on your taste, personally I only use Mozilla Firefox, I'd put that as the number one choice, but you could also use Opera as another alternative to IE. What is great about Firefox is you can add extensions and plugins to the browser that can make it one incredible browser and experience. One great one to mention is FireFTP which puts a FTP client right in the browser and since I'm mentioning FTP I'll put all internet based items within this section. Another free client and a stand alone one at that, would be FileZilla and if you want to run your own server and don't want to use IIS there is FileZilla Server or Apache.

Then there are those pesky critters you get from browsing the internet such as worms and spyware etc. well there is even software for this in Spybot, this puppy will keep you clear of most of those nasties.

If you use Newsgroups there is a program called XNews and it does just about everything for you (no more encoding and de-encoding as with Outlook Express).

So you need a database instead of Microsoft's SQL you could use MySQL which is used with many other programs and to name one use, it can be used with your website to create a forum with another free forum software called PHPBB. There are several forum programs out there and most use MySQL, but database goes much deeper than just these types of programs.

Next you have to keep that computer running good right? Well then there is a defrag program for your needs called Ultra Defragmenter which does things like Diskeeper and Perfect Disk, but of course free or Open Source as well.

You need some burning programs right here are just a couple Burnatonce is one and ImgBurn to name another.

We can't leave out you programmers out there. Python is one of these programming languages building steam. C++ is another well known language and can be had with this program called Dev-C++. Now not really Open Source but free is all the Visual languages that can be downloaded from Microsoft known as their Express line, which comes in BASIC, C++, C#, J# and new Studio still in beta probably covering all of them. You can even program for the Xbox 360 with the XNA addition to C#. These of course are great for learning the Visual languages and teaching yourself programming in general, these are also the tools the pros use for programming. Finally I must say something Microsoft has done right. So all you script kiddies out there get programming. Grab a book online and get started.

Off hand I can't think of any more at this point but these are just a few I use and have used for years. I could go on forever on software that is available as an Open Source alternative. Anything you can think of buying, there probably is an Open Source alternative for that item. Just search for an alternative for your favorite program and I'm sure you'll see something will come up. The list is endless and changing daily. Hope you've enjoyed this post and hope you try some of these goodies out. There are more to be had on the net, now get out there and start going Open Source or should I say FREE!!!

Create Incredible 3D Movies

2007-09-16T11:21:00.000-04:00

Sorry for not posting in so long, its been an eternity, I know. Just didn't have anything worth posting about. I've touched base on many things since I started this blog and wish I had more things to spark my interests and that I could post about. Internet statistics show that women take blogging more serious than men and they are constantly updating their blogs and that men usually just lose interest, well, they hit the nail on the head obviously. Alright now back to the posts subject.

So I'm sure you've heard about this or seen this on the news and floating around the internet, it was an incredible UFO movie supposedly taken in Haiti.

Pretty incredible huh???

Well it's been found out that this was a complete hoax, but what is more incredible about this hoax is that it was all created with a program you can download and use for free (With a watermark included) or you could purchase it so that the movies are then yours to share and do whatever you like (Without watermark). This program is known as Vue 6.5 (Current Version). Now when looking at this movie the only thing added to the fake is real sounds that were recorded but everything you see within the movie is computer rendered from the trees to the sky, everything.

Now if your interested in trying to create such incredible movies you can download the PLE version which means Personal Learning Edition from here: Vue 6.5 PLE

Now this version and other software on this site can be downloaded for free by clicking on the left link list and picking Personal Learning Edition then filling in your email on the bottom of page and you'll receive an email with a link for downloading the software. This software is Full Version, the only difference is you'll have a watermark in the lower right hand corner, that states it was created with Vue 6.

What is also nice about all of this is you can teach yourself how to become a 3D animator or movie maker at your own pace and by searching the net I'm sure there are tons of tutorials to teach you step by step. This software is used by many professionals for doing things you see in commercials, movies, games, you name it. If you look on YouTube where my link goes above you'll see several other movies the same individual created depicting UFOs over several other supposed islands.

I hope you enjoyed this new post and I'm waiting to see what you people start creating with this newly found tool. From time to time I'll be posting items I find free or open source on the net for those wanting to do things without digging into that wallet and are usually incredible tools for learning a particular genre...

The Best WWII War Simulation

2006-03-28T18:57:00.000-05:00

I've played many games before and have even reviewed some here on my Blog, but this is a bit of a review and some dirt on this awesome game. One game I have to truly say is different than all the rest. Now mind you this game started out as a MOD for Unreal Tournament and won Nvidias "Make Something Unreal" competition a few years back. They've since re-released this MOD into a full functioning and retail game and changed the name and added maps and features.

Tripwire is the company that has released this and it's available through Steam which is the same platform you can get Day of Defeat and Counter Strike and some other little known titles such as Half Life and Half Life 2. Now you've heard of all those games so now what makes this one special or different.

First if you are a Battlefield 2 fan this game is NOT for you. If you enjoy Call of Duty 2 or Day of Defeat then this one may NOT even be for you either but it might sway you. The reason I say this is because it's much different than any of these titles. Graphically it's a very beautiful game with a ton of detail and the gameplay isn't run and gun like many other games I've already mentioned.

The game I am referring to is Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45. This was originally the MOD Red Orchestra. They've since added a few more features and maps and of course the name change and it sells for a mere 25 bucks on Steam.

What is great about this being added to Steam is that when a patch comes out it will auto-update through your Steam client before you can even play it and of course with many of the games I mentioned earlier you can get those there as well for a few more dollars.

There are a few bugs with the game but with games such as Battlefield 2 with more bugs than a South American Rain Forest the few that this game has are barely noticed.

As I mentioned earlier it's different, a lot to get used to, first off when you fire your bolt action gun you have to actually fire again to use the bolt action to put another bullet in the chamber and when you run out of bullets you have to reload of course. There are machine guns and some semi-auto guns and you even have tanks and other vehicles. These vehicles aren't like Battlefield 2 either, they are far more Sim based. You don't just jump in and drive off. This game is also very much geared toward teamplay. Many of the vehicles have multiple seats and weapons and it's best to have a full tank when going into a flag zone. I just wish they could have or add air battles to this game and if they could then personally I don't think any other game could actually touch it.

Two of the bugs I'd like to mention is that when people stand in front of a doorway you can't pass them or push them out of the way. There are also times where you seem to get stuck on items such as tables, trees, and other things. Another one is if you are real close to an enemy and empty a clip at them you may not hit them at all depends on the distance from them. Not sure if the latter is by design. Stops the spray and pray play of many BF2 likes.

The great features are no bunny hopping, you can jump but like once, fatigue, and the more fatigued the harder it is to shoot, oh and I almost forgot to mention Iron Sights ONLY... No red X, just pure Iron Sights. Shooting from the hip works but is pretty much a lost cause unless you know how to pull it off properly. Need to look down your guns sight in this game even at close range. Also emptying a clip at someone will most likely miss them and it's because of the silhouette effect because of the recoil. You can also shoot the weapons out of the players hands, hit them in the hand with a cocked grenade and watch it fall beside them and watch them blow. You can call in air strikes but only after you use binoculars and picking a spot to hit but you are limited to the amount of times this can be done in a period of time. There are also the gore factors of dismemberment and blood.

It is team flag capture based game and there is a limit on the amount of reinforcements a team has and a time limit or whichever comes first. Don't worry you can respawn over and over to a certain extent. This is one of those games most people used to those I mentioned earlier, will I'm sure HATE, but once you get your first kill or see guys blowing up from a grenade or air strike you'll be amazed at the detail. The longer you play it, the more you want to return to it. There are classes as with all other games of this type and usually in most servers there are a set number of each. This eliminates everyone being a sniper (You BF2 folks know what I mean)... LOL.

All I can say about this game is it's awesome and for the true sim player out there this is one for you. You can't just play it once and for less than 15 minutes because I could honestly tell you that you'll probably think first off that I'm crazy and that the game sucks but believe me it beats all the other games out there and could do much more with more people coming over to it in the future. With it being on Steam they can add maps and other great items to it in time and of course crush what bugs may be in it. It also has anti-cheat measures of it's own and voice chat within the game to the public or the team. I can only say give it a try and don't give up too early. You'll see it is far more realistic than any other game currently available and definately one of the best WWII games currently available. If this were a review I would give it a

8.5

With the few bugs and no air battles is really the only reason it's that low... LOW??? As I said graphically it's great, sound is another plus, the gameplay at times a bit twitchy but for shear realizm (INSANE)... Get out there boys and girls and get your copy and I'll see ya on the battlefield.

Creating an Ultimate Boot CD or Thumb Drive (Pen/Flash)

2006-03-28T16:38:00.000-05:00

To get started here are the tools you need. I've supplied links to items you can get for free anything that doesn't have a link of course you should have a legal copy.

1.) Windows XP SP2 CD
2.) Barts PE Builder
3.) UBCD4WIN
4.) UBCD4WIN Drivers Pack 1.8 Final
5.) Windows 2003 Server Ramdrive files
6.) HP Flash/Pen Drive Format Tool

That's it, 6 items. Now to move on. First download BartPE Builder and install it, it will create a folder usually called pebuilder or similar depending on the version available, you can download a zipped version and create the pebuilder folder yourself and extract it there or use the installer or exe version. Once you have that installed now copy your XP SP2 CD to the hard drive this will save you errors later, call it whatever you like, example: c:\pebuilder\Win XP SP2 - this way everything is within one folder (Pebuilder).

Now create another folder called srsp1 in the root of pebuilder, example: c:\pebuilder\srsp1 and extract to this folder the Windows 2003 Server Ramdrive files. We'll come back to why these are needed later. These are NOT needed to create an Ultimate Boot CD but are needed for doing an Ultimate Boot USB Thumb Drive.

To build a default BartPE bootable CD then you can skip using any UBCD4WIN items. I'm going the extra mile here instead and giving you the Ultimate - who wants mediocre.

Now download the UBCD4WIN files and drivers and follow the instructions included as to how to install these, when clicking the exe files it tells you the path to choose for installation. Here is the simple lowdown on that. You will want to delete everything under the c:\pebuilder\plugin folder, leaving the plugin folder intact, then you'll extract the UBCD4WIN files to c:\pebuilder and it will auto install into the plugin folder. The UBCD4WIN 1.8 Drivers pack will be extracted to the c:\pebuilder\drivers folder.

Install the HP Flash/Pen Drive Format Tool - Well come back to this later also.

Now to create the UBCD4WIN you will run pebuilder.exe and agree and say NO to search for Source and on the top field you can click the button to the right and browse to your newly created c:\pebuilder\Win XP SP2 folder, everything else you can leave default, to enable or disable plugins you click this button on lower left and then highlight what you want or don't want and click the Enable/Disable button. Once this is done close back out to the main window and move the radio button to Create ISO. Now click Build and that's it and when it's complete make sure there are NO errors. That's it it's that easy to create and UBCD4WIN. Now use a burning program and burn your ISO image and you'll now have an ultimate boot CD. You can also if you are like me and use Firefox over Internet Explorer you can download the latest plugin 1.5.0.1 HERE. Under c:\pebuilder\plugin you can delete everything under the firefox folder and extract the .cab file into that folder.

Now to have even more fun lets create a bootable Pen/Flash Thumb drive. This is where those srsp1 (Windows 2003 Server Files) are needed. Now under the pebuilder folder are 3 files peusb.txt, peusb.cmd, and peusb.bin. If you can't follow my directions you can read the peusb.txt file and I've included everything in this Post so the hard work has already been done for you all.

If you haven't created an ISO yet and don't want an Ultimate Boot Disk but want to only do the Pen/Flash drive then you can do everything mentioned above but this time do not move the radio button to create an ISO image and leave it on NONE. You will have to remove many of the plugins by disabling them. This all depends on the size of your Pen/Flash drive. As an example I used a 256 MB Thumb drive and removed all the plugins except Firefox, I installed Ghost (Need a legal copy for this plugin), and left many of the smaller items, but I might add very few plugins can be used with such a small thumb drive. Size does matter here, you can test by toying around until you don't receive errors during the running of peusb. The larger your Pen/Flash drive the more you can have enabled. If you have a 1 Gig or higher thumb drive you can leave everything enabled.

Take your thumb, pen, flash drive and plug into your USB of your computer and note what drive letter it becomes. Now with the HP Flash/Pen Drive Format Tool you installed earlier run it and it should automatically find your Pen drive and you can choose how to format it - this is the part you MUST do. Format the Pen/Flash drive as FAT...

Run pebuilder so that it creates the BartPE folder with what plugins you wanted but this time it will not create an ISO image, just the folder - upon every run it auto deletes this folder and recreates it.

Now open up a command prompt to c:\pebuilder and here you type peusb -f (Drive Letter:) without the parenthesis and replace Drive Letter with the drive letter your Pen/Flash drive currently is. Watch for errors. If you don't run out of space or receive errors it should come back and state you are good to go.

Now there is a catch to having a BOOTABLE Pen/Flash Drive. First is having it formatted as FAT and second is that your computer has an option in BIOS to allow for booting off USB Devices. Not all computers, especially older ones are able to do this. This will need to be enabled or set within bios before it will work period.

Now here is another tidbit of information so that when you want to create say a CD instead but don't want to create coasters and want to test that it will boot and that it actually works. You will need to download another tool and save a web page as a favorite.

Here we go onto this other item that can be very useful especially for bootable ISO Images, not just a BartPE or UBCD4WIN bootable ISO or CD - example: Vista DVD.

1.) VMWare Player
2.) VMX Builder Page

Install VMWare Player. Now go out to VMX Builder Page and do this.

You can search for software based vmx builders but this page is actually very easy. Only issue is when you run the vmx file from the latest vmware player it will report that it's an outdated vmx file do you want to upgrade just say YES. Ok now back to the subject. Once at the vmx builder page you'll see where you can give it a name, name it anything you want. Now for Guest OS since you are using Win XP SP2 with your pebuilder.iso choose XP Pro from the drop down and only choose about a quarter or half of the amount of RAM you have on your system. Now you can enable USB by checking the box and check other items you'd like but the key is to pick IDE0:Master and for file name type c:\pebuilder\pebuilder.iso or where ever you saved your iso image to when built with pebuilder and of course the name you gave it. Next choose Device Type drop down to cdrom-image and check the box Start Connected. If you want network you can choose those also. Next - once everything is set up. Go to the upper Right hand side of the page and choose or click Generate VMX File, on the next page will be a bunch of text within a window. Right Click in Windows and choose Select All and Copy this text and Paste this into a text document and save it, but change the extension from .txt to .vmx.

Now you can open up VMWare Player and point it to your newly created .vmx file and it should boot up your pebuilder.iso image file or whatever iso image file you create and pointed to in the vmx file (If it's bootable) and bingo you now can test before you burn coasters. You can edit this same file and just change the path or file name whenever you create other bootable iso files or ones you may download. Thought I'd let you in on this extra little secret as well.

Well I hope you enjoy building your first BartPE CD or UBCD4WIN or even what I call the UBUSB4WIN. I also hope you enjoy the secret iso test items such as vmware player and builder.

Xbox 360 (Coming Games and a few Reviews)

2006-03-06T17:18:00.000-05:00

Well folks some games are finally coming out for the old Xbox 360. Most who have wanted one probably have gotten one by now, the 360 that is. New games will be coming out in the next month and March could be one of the biggest months for the Xbox 360.

Here is a list of games to be coming this month and into the next:

March 7
College Hoops 2k6
Burnout Revenge
Ghost Reacon Advanced Warfighter

March 23
Blazing Angels: Squadrons of WWII
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion Collectors Edition
The Outfit

March 28
Far Cry: Instincts Predator
Rumble Roses: XX
Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires

April 4
Top Spin 2
Tomb Raider

April 11
Major League Baseball 2k6
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat

April 20
Final Fantasy XI

Now with games like those listed, this could be two very incredible months for the Xbox 360. Now for games that have just been released which I currently own and have played.

Fight Night 3
Full Auto

Both games are great in their genre. If you love blowing up things and racing you can't beat Full Auto, the graphics are very well done and the destruction is a plus. The damage caused to things around the streets is just amazing. This game is just a sign of things to come especially with Burnout Revenge only days away (I know this one will rock), this series usually never fails me. If I were to review Full Auto I'd probably rate it about 8.0 and this is due to the sheer fun you'll have playing alone or online with others.

Now to my next game Fight Night 3. Graphically this is the game to beat PERIOD!!! This game which probably doesn't even use all the graphics power of the Xbox 360 is something you just have to see for yourself to believe, words can't even tell you how good it looks. This game shows what the system can do and let me just tell you if you enjoy boxing there is no game even close. I'd give this a 9.0 simply for it's graphics alone.

I can warn you though you may go through quite a bit of controllers with this one because of how they set it up for punching, blocking etc. It's really a cool way to have things and it's not EASY, no button smashing here that's for sure. Other sites rated this game as easy and I can't see where they got that from?

If any of the newer games even have graphics on par with Fight Night 3 it's going to start getting really, really sick in the near future. I mean the guys sweat, the fighters look incredible and even the backgrounds are well done and I can't say enough about the eye candy this game produces. I just wish there was more. To me boxing is ok but watching my buddy play someone online and listening to the trash talk that goes on and even watching my buddies punching the crap out of each other just adds to the enjoyment of this game.

I just hope a good WWII game or Flight Sim will have these kinds of graphics. Not sure how good the game The Outfit will be or Blazing Angels and another game Over G, I've seen some movies for all 3 of these games and they look fantastic. I'm really looking for a game like Battlefield 1942 with superior graphics and all the vehicle fun we've come to know and love with a game like that.

Well only time will tell what kinds of other games will make it to the Xbox 360 but I hope the way things are going currently and graphically especially will give us all something to start drooling over. Until next time.

Return of Comments!!!

2006-03-06T08:01:00.000-05:00

Well thanks to Blogspot seeing this becoming an issue and finally getting something to hopefully kill the old comment spam for good. I mentioned early on that I had to disable comments due to the overwhelming attacks that started hitting my comments on my blog. One issue is that for about 4 or more of my posts still will not have comments to those individual posts.

Either way they have since been turned back on and will be available from here on out unless for some reason it becomes an issue again with spam.

From what I understand is a BOT can simply find comments and guest books and simply spam the heck out of them and by implementing number or letter verification will eliminate these types of spam from generating.

After much reading it seems that only about 0.01% are actually manually submitted or generated. So having this new form of verification or having some form of moderation should eliminate it once and for all. Lets hope so.

I will be back with a new post soon. Hope you enjoy the return of comments and hope to hear from you all soon.

Xbox 360 Review Update

2006-02-01T17:37:00.000-05:00

I mentioned in my previous review if I noticed anything different or if I came across something with my tv settings that could make the games look better I'd return with my findings. Here I am to give you the dirt and it's not much different, maybe just a little.

First my tv has 4 settings for video (Vivid, Standard, Movie, Pro) it seems that when my buddies used my controller they've changed some of these settings by accident because normally I have it set to Standard. The reason why? Vivid, is just that, too bright and vivid. Standard is just right and Movie, and Pro just get darker. It seems my tv was set to Vivid which gave the cars in PG3 the cartoony look. After changing it to Standard, things looked much better.

Personally though I've played games on my regular Xbox in HD and must say that playing them in HD on my Xbox 360 isn't really that much different. As my buddy says, "What more can they do"? I guess I won't be happy until 3D is made to be almost true virtual reality.

For all you folks that have yet to get one it seems they are finally rolling into stores. From what I understand is that locally at our Sams Club they have shelves full of them, it of course just had a grand opening so that could have been the reason.

As far as the games are concerned I've since gotten all the rest of the games I felt were worth getting. I got Codemned by exchanging Quake 4 which came with my bundle - (Not a big Quake fan as I stated before), Need for Speed - Most Wanted, NBA 2k6, NHL 2k6. I will say this, the sports games on the Xbox 360 sure do shine. Just hope that the 2k7 of these will have specific Xbox 360 improvements graphically.

As a game player I play all my games on the highest possible levels of difficulty and must say King Kong is a breeze for what I've played of it and Call of Duty 2 doesn't seem to be all that challenging either, but this could just be me, I am sick when it comes to gaming. I'm still constantly downloading all the new Arcade type games as they arrive on the Marketplace and my buddies are into Call of Duty 2 and NBA 2k6 pretty hard. Of course COD 2 is a challenge for my one buddy and I constantly have to hold his hand through many of the levels but as far as playing many of the High Profile games I just really haven't played them much. Another buddy and I played Need for Speed - Most Wanted and it was quite enjoyable to play it split screen and so was PG3 (I still want my damage)... LOL.

I can't wait for Burnout (Best Racing Damage) and from what I've seen of Fight Night 3 this game may be one that finally shows off the incredible graphics the system is supposedly able to produce. Another item I find disturbing about the Xbox 360 is that most of the games just come above the required 720p for HD. Why can't game makers make them all 1080i then they'd all be backward compatible with the other HD standards??? At least a few have the 1080i rating.

As far as my original review, nothing really has changed, the games are still only just slightly above the Regular Xbox in HD if even noticable and the fun with the system is still to be found with the Arcade less expensive and far from High Production games... Only time will tell, I just wish as an addition they'd make the games that are multiplayer have more people, it seems no more than 24 is max at this point and most are like 8 player. It's Broadband speeds lets up the amount of players. Another great feature would be to allow Xbox 360 folks the ability to join PC games of the same name.

Personally I think a game like WWII Online, or Everquest needs to be ported over to the Xbox 360 where thousands can play all at one time. My nephew finally got his Xbox 360 and he mentioned that he's beta testing Final Fantasy XI (From some magazine) and it takes up 6 Gig of your 13 Gig Drive (20 - OS) and it's pretty much what I've just asked for, only question is, will they charge you 10-30 bucks a month? Not sure how they'll do this one, but I just wish with the yearly subscription you could get games such as this and on a console. Well enough for now and my review score still stands now that the graphics look a bit better than the original go at it. Just don't be shocked when you realize an Xbox in HD isn't much different than a Xbox 360 in HD...

My XBOX 360 Review

2006-01-21T12:26:00.000-05:00

Well folks it's finally arrived. Funny thing about it is, I only ordered it about 2 weeks ago and it came yesterday. My nephew who ordered his back in October from the actual store has yet to receive his. I ordered mine from www.electronicboutique.com, he orded his from the store and mine only took 2 weeks???

Well it arrived yesterday it is the premium system and was a bundle and cost me $912.00 with Tax and Shipping. For the bundle it was rather nice, it came with 6 games, dvd case, extra controller, and play and charge kit. As for the games they are Project Gotham Racing 3, Quake 4, Gun, Call of Duty 2, Perfect Dark Zero, and Madden 06.

I gave each a test run just to see what everyone has been talking about and I do have a Sony HDTV XBR34. I'll give you a quick answer (Not totally impressed)!!!

First supposedly PGR3 graphically was to be the most incredible of all the release titles, at least from the game review sites. I personally don't see all the hype? Also from the game review sites all this hype about how incredible Call of Duty 2 is and how subpar Madden is. So I took everything for my own ride and mind you I'm a gaming addict and I take graphics seriously, I'll run down each game later in short detail because this about the box.

Once unboxed and yes everyone has heard about the POWER BRICK (this is really the size of a real brick), anyway it has little feet on it so I can't understand how anyone could get this overheated or lay it upside down? I had mine running for 6 hours without a single hicup or issue. It was placed in a very open area and I lay my Xbox 360 down flat instead of standing only because of my tv stand and it has plenty of room to breath, this should also eliminate the disk scratching problem that has been reported. I could feel air coming from all different locations around the box and the brick so at least it can breath and does circulate air considerably and no scratched disks either.

First thing getting everything connected then starting it up. Just hit the big Xbox logo Button in the middle of the controller for about 3 seconds and bingo everything fires up. Next is getting your subscription to Xbox Live transferred over to the new system. This was painless and I might add the wireless controllers are awesome especially with the rechargable battery pack you can purchase, one comes with the system and with the bundle you get another for the other controller which is included with the play and charge kit. So I have now two wireless controllers with rechargable battery packs (Nice)... What is weird for all the years of playing with Wired Controllers you have a tendancy to want to move the cable while playing, you know when you get up or move so that you don't get tangled but yet there is NO wire there, I caught myself doing this quite a bit. One issue I did have was getting my other controller to even work (The extra controller). Supposedly you just hit the middle button until it lights up and hitting a small button on the 360 and then this little button on the top of controller and they communicate and are supposed to just work. Well hitting my middle button did not light up (Bad Sign), what I did to fix this was remove the rechargable pack and replaced with normal battery pack and was able to get it working so for anyone with issues just do this. Luckily the batteries are included with the controller and in the box for the boxed controller. None of this was life threatning and now to move on.

Hitting the middle Xbox Lighted button brings up the GUIDE which is just a menu that pops in from the left of the screen. It will show you a little battery icon in upper left corner so you know how your controller battery health is - this goes by which ever controller you hit the button on which is really neat. Just wish it was colored (it's just gray and hard to even see). The other items here are like tabbed browsing and has different pages for doing different things which is also a nice touch. I'm not going to bore everyone with all the details here, the review sites have already done all of that. To see what I mean go here: Screens, this is also a good site for everything 360...

The first game I test ran was Project Gotham Racing 3. The game looked as if the cars were Cell Shaded (Car-Toony) pun intended (LOL)... I set up my Xbox 360 to the HD Component Connections (Cheap compared to what you can buy for the regular Xbox) but hey it's free (Included in the box), well included with the 912.00 price tag... It may be that I need to turn down settings on my tv or something because many of the games I tested seem too bright or not graphically smooth or glossed over like you'd think they should be. I do have my tv set for 1080i the max and I set all the games to play in 1080i as well via the Xbox 360 console itself. I just may need to play with graphics settings that are usually done within the game instead of doing them to the actual tv or how the console handles the games. The game was cool though, graphically (It's not the best) but it was a true racer (I want damage), I hate racing games that don't simulate damage because of the damn auto-makers but either way it's a great racer and one cool feature I'd like to mention is you can go on Xbox Live in game and watch someone elses current race as if watching racing on your TV this was an incredible addition. So when bored just watch someone else race online... LOL. I haven't looked but this would be an awesome feature for sports titles period. Watch someone else get corked in say Madden. I didn't dig deep enough but I don't think this feature is in any other game as of yet?

Next I checked out Gun, (Different!!!) and graphically (Ok). A Wild West game, who would have thought? Now just a heads up if you get any of the games that have been released for every known system on the planet then the Xbox 360 is only going to polish this game a bit but the gameplay and graphically it's not really much better than the Xbox graphics. This is due to the companies coding the games. The key is getting games that are ONLY for the Xbox 360 to see graphically what a game should look like or what they system can produce. So I only know of like 3 or 4 games that fall under this catagory, one being PGR3, Perfect Dark Zero, and Dead or Alive 4. There may be others, just not going into great depth.

I then of course tried all of the other games except Quake 4, only because I'm not really a big fan and I'm going to try and take it back and see if I can exchange it for another game (going for Condemned if possible)... Well first I want to say Call of Duty 2 is also another game that doesn't graphically stun anyone and the surprise for me was the one everyone says doesn't show anything, was that of Madden 06, the graphics are breath taking and I wish all the others I have and tested looked this good. The gameplay though is terribly HARD, this is going to take some time to master or figure out for that matter.

The biggest surprise overall though is the Market Place (This is one of the Tabs) here you can purchase POINTS for real money of course and I spent another $60.00 bucks real quick for like 5000 points or something like that. Anyway you can use these points toward online purchases and these include skins for your screen and even arcade games and (Demos and Trials are FREE), what is also cool is you can try before you buy. I purchased every arcade item the system had to offer and I've come to realize that I enjoy these games more than the big release titles and big named games. Seeing some of these games that were made for HDTV are incredible, although being a bit pricey for an older game (Equates to 5 dollars a game I think).

Also having all or most of them for FREE with MAME32 and emulated by ROMS. You can read about this in one of my earlier posts. Back to the subject.

I found myself getting addicted to Geometry Wars Evolved and Hexic. Of course there are Spades, Hearts and some of the classics such as Joust, Robotron 2084, Gauntlet, Smash Tv - the classics are HD compatible, but not fully, but still fill 27" of my HD Screen and have been done rather nicely, this is because they aren't stretched to fit wide screen but the HD ones are, Geometry Wars Evolved is breath taking for such a dated game and being brought to widescreen and HD. (The good old days are back???).

Funny how the olders games actually seem more fun than the high priced and million dollar productions? These games range from 400 points to 800 points and can eat up that $60+ bucks quick or 5000 points. Here you can see for yourself what they have currently Xbox Live Arcade

Strange thing though is some of these games are not listed yet within the Market Place. I can't wait to spend another $60.00 today... LOL. I almost forgot to mention some of these classics can be played ONLINE... Of course you can't leave out those arcade games and I'm sure a Chess game is coming soon as well. This thing is only going to grow. With the Hard Drive they can start to have other games direct to drive once the technology gets better. I did have another issue with the market place and this was the fact that I tried to buy a skin and it was 150 points but yet it will not let me download it, it constantly fails and says try again later and this has still not downloaded but yet they have my 150 points (Sounds like those with BF2 problems, huh?)... LOL.

I will say this though the SOUND in all the games is top notch and sound incredible for every single game I've played even for the old classics. So if you are an Audiophile then the Xbox 360 is for you, and the sounds in game are in my opinion a 8-9 rating, as I said I care more about Graphics in my games and then gameplay comes in a close second, sound is the lowest thing I really care for. I'm a guy that usually disables music in all my games and crank up the special effects.

So my review is this. Until the games graphically get better and are made ONLY for the Xbox 360 and push the system further. I only give the system a 7 out of 10. I only had two issues, the controller one mentioned and the market place purchase that I haven't received yet and that's it so far.

If I were to rate each game they all fall into this same catagory. As far as the classics and some of the arcade games I give those 8 out of 10 not all though, depends on your tastes.

I haven't seen anything spectacular with what I've gotten other than the Madden Graphics and PGR3 being next graphically and then Perfect Dark but with all this hype and lines and robberies etc. to get a hold of this thing I can say this, just wait, is your life really worth it? I have one game on my normal Xbox that plays in 1080i and it looks no different than the games running on my Xbox 360 at that same setting. So is this thing really graphically better. (In my Opinion, NO!!!). Only time will tell and if I see anything extraordinary in the coming months, you can be sure I'll be back to let you know my feelings on those. I'll post more if I come up with anything causing my lack of SUPERIOR GRAPHICS but it's time to go play some Geometry Wars Evolved in HD... Until next time.

Remeber these opinions are mine and solely mine and this was with only 6 hours of game play and most of that being on Hexic for about 4 of that, so the high budget prodcution games were only tested quickly and so that I could post this review. So here is what I give it with the current games including the Classics. Here is my current breakdown for the System and combining all current games as one if they were all one game.

Graphics
7

Sound
9

Current Games
7.5

Overall
7.5

Outsourcing!!!

2005-12-05T21:54:00.000-05:00

Outsourcing - good or bad?. Well I've worked at the company I'm currently at on and off for about 5+ years as a contractor. I've written about this place in a couple of my posts already, so feel free to check those out to have an idea of what goes on and where I'm going with this. One being the Big Suck and Swallow in IT and another Here we go again, well actually why don't you just read all my posts from beginning to end??? LOL.

Well Outsourcing has since come to this company and was finalized on November 1st as far as all transitioning of full time and contract employees over to the outsource company, they've taken over their whole IT department from Network Team, Desktop Team, Server Team, Applications you name it, if it's IT it's now Outsourced.

Personally this really isn't any different to me only because I've been a contractor for this company for so long and nothing is really changing except who is paying our contract companies, this really has only hurt those that were FULL TIMERS and actually for those that didn't jump ship before the hammer fell and hung in there to see what might happen, these few have luckily been kept on, but are now no longer Full Time Employees, but contractors as well, but through the company that had taken over.

Now the problem with this approach is they kept all that they truly should have gotten rid of (Refer to my other posts)... They've transitioned all these people straight across the board over to their company - BAD MOVE!!! Now since I'm still just a contractor and the minority within this company these transitioned employees are still more or less FULL TIMERS, at least they haven't changed the way they work, they still do absolutely NOTHING and can get away with it while the contract employees going about 30 strong in an IT department of about 500+ are the ones doing most of the work to cover for those not doing any.

I think if the Outsource company would have just done a clean slate things would be so much better for them, because this would have gotten rid of all the politics that surround this IT department at this company but instead they've kept all their chiefs which then in turn keeps those no good Indians under those chiefs - there had to have been tons of protected people with this routine for years. An example within the departments I deal with daily is that out of say 60 full time employees they transitioned, only 10 at most were worth a transition. All of the upper management should have simply been replaced by their own management within the outsource company.

I actually feel sorry for this outsource company because they truly don't have a clue as to what they've gotten here. I like to use this analogy - Here is a company that makes some of the best apple pie (Outsource Company) and they order a huge shipment of Granny Smith apples and these apples have since been shipped and the company is just waiting for them to arrive so they can start producing this fantastic pie. The boxes take a few months to arrive and during this time the company is losing tons of money just waiting but knows they will get everything back and then some once they arrive. Finally after a 4-6 month wait the boxes of apples arrive, everyone is so excited, everyone comes together to unload these boxes from the many trucks that have arrived and everyone is standing around and they are about to crack open one of the boxes to see these most magnificent of apples they've ordered. Soon as the first box is opened to everyone's surprise is they are YELLOW, but wait not rotten YELLOW but LEMONS!!! Yes the company has just received a huge shipment of frigging LEMONS upon opening of every box they are all LEMONS...

Not sure about you the reader but I've never seen apple pie made with lemons? LOL.

This is what this outsource company is going to realize when they see what these transitioned employees they have try doing what is asked of them with their newly found responsibilities with the outsource company. Most of these people are lucky to even have a job in IT let alone the money they make and to have the few contract employees that have been covering for them over all of these years. I'd love to just have someone overlook each employees job in this place to see what really gets done and who really is doing the work without those people know they are doing it.

I had taken on a new position within the original company still as a contractor back in late July because a FULL TIME employee had jumped ship due to all the outsource rumors and they replaced this position with a contractor and I back filled the other contractors position. I was in their Support Center (Which is being totally outsourced to India come April 1st 2006) no joke here either - what an April Fools, but without the laughter. Luckily I took on this new position, possibly keeping a position longer with the new outsource company if it were to ever happen, which at the time was still just rumor and no definitive answer as to if it would ever happen.

The problem with accepting this new responsibility was 3 times as much work (Physically) for me and 3 times as much more responsibility and deadlines. I jumped in full guns only because the person in this position before me was at about a 10 dollar more an hour than what I had been making within their Support Center, anyway the new position was as their Server Specialist. I simply build all the companies servers, put an OS on them, troubleshoot any hardware or software specific problems, then I have to install or rack them within their Data Center, a far cry from being in their Support Center where I did my job without any thought what so ever - a no brainer for me anyway.

I also have to maintain all the racks within the Data Center as far as KVM switches, PSU connections, and all hardware within these racks as far as moving, installing etc.

Now this was August and at this point I expected to receive my much bigger pay check. Well somewhere along the line the Chiefs didn't just put me into the original persons position at his rate??? Now I was told my contract was up in August and they now needed to extend this contract, to hold off and they'd see what they could do about my rate, then the time arrived and I asked about it and it was like "Well with all this outsourcing stuff going on". I was like "WHAT???" wait a minute I just filled into a position to do this company a favor saving them the aggravation of finding someone to do it and at a rate even with the 10 plus dollars an hour would be much cheaper than anyone from the street would do with the knowledge or for what the job description would be and they've moved the other contractor over to his position (by the way where he is happy) which was no longer under this chiefs budget which means it had nothing to do about cost savings?

Of course I've been getting the run around now for some 4 months about outsourcing and this was their huge excuse as to why I haven't seen anything and as of November 1st the outsource company has taken over. Well to finish this off I'm in a holding pattern now waiting to see if my contract company can get me this additional money that the original company screwed me out of and now the outsource company will have to eat if I'm granted it. Now the best part about this is the 2 people involved (Chiefs) by not just moving me into this persons spot at his rate are now employees of the outsource company and if you think about it, they've screwed their new employer by not doing so... LOL. (MORONS!!!)

Well as far as outsourcing good or bad? For me it's now become BAD for the reason I had just mentioned I'm currently doing a job someone else before me was doing but for FAR less money and have to wait to see if the outsource company will step up and put me where I belong? Only time will tell, it's now a waiting game. I won't be seeing 4 months of back pay either I'm sure of that. I'll keep you all posted if this ever comes to fruition.

I'm sure most that read my posts are like boy this guy just likes to whine a lot or bitch but just read my posts and put yourself in my shoes. If I didn't have BAD LUCK I wouldn't have any luck at all. I'm just asking for what is rightfully mine and where I should be for what my job title currently is.

Outsourcing can be a good thing if handled properly and for this company, I think they've gone about it the wrong way. So in my opinion all outsource companies should head this and ask those that are contractors already at a company about what REALLY goes on and get the REAL scoop before doing any kind of transitioning of these FULL TIME employees. I wish our new outsource company would pull each and every contractor aside to get their opinions and I can promise you this post would be everything you hear from them as well. A true picture of what goes on in IT.

Well thank you for sticking through another one of my many rants and long posts hope you enjoyed it and stop back when hopefully my luck will change. Thanks for stopping.

Xbox 360 and HDTV

2005-11-26T15:29:00.000-05:00

This folks is the future of Video games. I've yet to land one myself, but from what I've seen, I must say this is one awesome system. First off as shown here this is the Premium Edition ($399) which comes with all the goodies that might cost you an additional 200 bucks if bought separately from what is known as the Core system ($299).

The Core system is like that Spike buck compared to that 10 point buck during deer season here in PA, you avid hunters out there know what I mean. The goal here folks is BAG the big one (Premium) all the way.

Now for those without an HDTV - get the TV first they are easier to come by... LOL. So on that note lets talk HDTV for a moment.

I just purchased my very first HDTV the other day and it cost me $2012 dollars (total) - The Sony 34XBR960 and for those that do not know much about TV's or HDTV for that matter. Nothing beats a Tube TV - many will argue this point, but they still to this day have the best visual quality over all the others, from Plasma, Rear Projection, DLP, LCD you name it. The only downfall of a Tube TV over the others is (Size) the largest tube from Sony is 36" but it's 4:3, this is another factor to reason with when purchasing your HDTV.

You have what is known as 16:9 (Widescreen) and 4:3 (Standard). For the best of both worlds you want to go with 16:9 and of course HDTV. With the model mentioned above it will stretch your 4:3 viewing on normal channels to 16:9 when you set up your Set top box (Cable Box) properly. Let me just say even though it does stretch them it still looks great, this is known as Upscaling.

The reason most will argue about the type of TV (Tube, LCD, Rear Projection, Plasma) is because most want Large Screens or Flat (Thin) this is where the others come in. This is so you can hang from a wall or have the largest size for a minimal amount of money. Most Rear Projection TV's are huge and cost about the same price as the largest tube TV. I could have gone with a 50" Rear compared to my 34" Tube for the same money and sacrificed the visual quality for size, but didn't. Now Plasma and LCD cost far more than either of the two I've just mentioned by about $1,000-$3,000 and this is also dependent upon the size. Who says size doesn't matter... LOL.

Now that you know the best way to go for HDTV, you need a stand to go with that TV. Now you can get the Sony stand that is perfectly made for this TV but will cost you about $350. This TV weighs in at 194 lbs, so go with a very sturdy stand.

The stand that is best for this system is the Z-Line Designs 36" 2359-1S model and will cost you anywhere from $90-$130 depending on where you buy it. Circuit City has it for the lowest price I could find. With the extra money saved on the stand you can get 2-4 more Xbox 360 games when you can actually get your hands on one. Below is what it all looks like tied together.

Ok now as I mentioned earlier I do NOT have the Xbox 360 as of yet, but let me just say the Xbox looks incredible on this TV especially when a game is created with 1080i. Most Xbox games are only 480p but I do have one in my collection to see the true horror or I should say splendor of HDTV gaming and that is MX vs ATV Unleashed. This game on this TV and at 1080i is something to see. As far as watching HDTV programming (There is a difference). Telling you about it isn't enough it's something you have to see for yourself.

Remember folks when you go to the store most TV's are all showing the same images or broadcast so this means you will NEVER really see the true HDTV aspect while shopping, unless the store has a specific HD signal for those specific TV's it's showing off, in most cases all the TV's are just showing the OLD Analog signal.

Back to the Xbox 360 to finish this post off. I was at Gamestop the other day and I was watching a kid play King Kong on the kiosk they had their and I must say it didn't look that good, these kiosks use a Samsung 17" or maybe even smaller but the contrast was far to low and the images were so dark it was hard making out anything to easily. I watched this kid play as a human and he tried taking on a T-Rex by punching him in the balls let me just say this is NOT a good idea. It was incredible though to see the T-Rex bend down and pick the guy up and shake him about then flip him into the air and chomp the sucker down (That'll Learn Ya) I said to the kid who gave me a angry grin - (What was this kid thinking???) LOL. I wasn't seriously impressed at this point and left the store with my HD connector for my Xbox instead, to hurry home and get it working to see HD gaming on my very own TV. You know that story already - (Looks great)...

The next day I went to Best Buy during lunch with a few buddies and it was actually the day of launch of the Xbox 360 (Tuesday 22, of November). I asked the clerk "well you wouldn't happen to have any would ya?" - he laughed out loud and stated they had 1,000 people outside around the building last night at midnight and a few waiting from the Sunday before (about 48 hours earlier) to wait in line for a mere 80 machines. I have to ask though what is Microsoft thinking, I mean you have riots, robberies, maybe even deaths caused by the launch of this thing??? Wake up Microsoft - if they wanted to do it right make a few million consoles before launch and guess what everyone would have one and they'd make Billions, like they really need any more?

Back to the story - me and my buddies tried out the kiosk at Best Buy with a much clearer Samsung than the one at Gamestop the day before. I picked King Kong of course to play (learning off of the stupid kid from the day before as well) and was Kong and I royally kicked that T-Rex's ass, then moved onto the next part where you swing from ledge to ledge chasing the girl of course, because she seems to always find her way into trouble. For a first generation game this game looked incredible in HD, you could even see the claw marks on Kongs back left by the T-Rex battle I had, and every hair on his body was clearly visible. I had pictures in my head of seeing it on my screen. Like many others I'll have to probably wait until the new year before I can bag one of these elusive creatures, the (Xbox 360)...

You've all probably heard of people having the BSOD or crash screen that the Xbox 360 produces and the other freezing issues many have been having with this new system. I can tell you that a cure was discovered why this was happening and for those that might read this and haven't heard about it already (It is the Power Supply), not the system itself. I guess this BRICK is overheating because of the way people like just throwing it onto their floors, funny thing about this is Microsoft already burnt down someone's house with the original Xbox you'd think they would have learned their lesson??? LOL. Guess not? So when you do finally bag an Xbox 360 be sure to keep the brick off the floor and suspended or free to breath plenty of cool air or else you'll also be crashing and possibly burning...

For those wondering about the games I can honestly say from what was released during the first round and what is known as first generation, there is nothing to totally impress at this point. Once the game developers play for the next year with this system the games are going to be so good I can't wait to see how good they can get. The game of games at this point and one to definitely get for the system is Call of Duty 2. This game for a launch title or soon to be released is the game to set the craze off. Sure other games already released look better than the basic Xbox but aren't really a huge step forward at this point but many are worth getting just to see it in action such as King Kong, Condemned: Criminal Origins (Though Short), Project Gotham Racing 3, Perfect Dark Zero, and of course the best so far Call of Duty 2.

Well happy hunting and hope everyone gets an Xbox 360 during this Christmas hunting season, just be a bit civilized and respect thy neighbor, knock off the fighting, stealing, and possibly killing to get one!!!

Until next time, Happy Turkey day and Happy first day of Deer and Merry Christmas...

Turning Off Comments!!!

2005-11-26T14:47:00.000-05:00

Wouldn't you know it, what you'd think would be a great thing to have on your blog is Comments?

A way to have people rebut what you say and a way to communicate. Well for some it's become another way to just ruin a good thing.

Well thanks to several idiots out there who now use that as a way to send SPAM and or self promotion of their own blog.

What has this world called the Internet come to? If it wasn't for SPAM, Virus, Trojans, Cheating, and Pop Ups. The Internet would be a great place to communicate. Instead we have to deal with each and every item mentioned above from day to day when just trying to read, game, or communicate with others when using the Internet.

I was getting multiple comments day after day from the same places only promoting their own blog, too bad that it takes morons such as this to cause everyone to shut off their comments to minimize the amount of spam that was being caused by it.

It is one thing to stop by someone's blog and comment and say good things or bad for that matter, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but to use everyone within a community to sale products or redirect others to their own blog to try to make a buck or to fill the administrators email up with constant posts always stating the same things, just becomes ridiculous.

So for anyone that was or looking at my blog on a routine basis and maybe even for a good argument. I'm sorry to report that I've since shut off comments so it seems you'll have to keep your remarks to yourself because of those few A-Holes that love nothing more than causing havoc on someone else's blog or the Internet as a whole.

You can't post an email address anywhere without constant spam, you can't have comments on your blog because of spam, you can't browse web sites without pop ups, you get redirected to trojans, virus, worms and the like.

Well at least I can say one thing about all of this - it is job security... LOL.

In My Opinion

2005-08-07T12:51:00.000-04:00

Now I hate to steer anyone wrong but with my troubleshooting of BF2 this brings me to something I'd like to talk about. Remember what was once called Y2K??? Well back in those days I was doing my computer thing but wasn't working in a Corporate Environment or I should say, where I've been ever since over and over again.

I was helping a friend during these times doing swimming pools to make some cash until another job in IT would come along. Now when it came to our customers. "Who would listen to the POOL GUY??? Anyway for a year I was constantly telling folks not to worry about Y2K that it would come and go like any other day. I even said I'd wake up that next day probably with a hang over and nothing would be different.

I'll never foget this one customer we had, had purchased something like 100,000 dollars worth of equipment and rations, you name it, he may have even built a bomb shelter in his back yard... I'm not kidding when I say this. I remember telling him what a waste it was for people to be so worried about such a thing and even told him I wish I could have a larger VOICE in the world to make it be known what a JOKE and money making SCAM this was all going to turn out to be... Well when it was all said and done, I downloaded a new BIOS installed on all my machines and spent NOTHING and he spent thousands upon thousands and who was lauging on that day... LOL.

This of course is now leading into my next topic which I should just put into another post but now mind you this is in my opinion and the reason for this discussion is all the flak I'm getting in the BF2 forums from those BS Degree, MCSE types, yeah the guys I put to shame on a daily basis.

Since day one of me buying and using computers, and as you all know I'm an avid gamer at heart and downloader. I've only had one virus on my PC and it was the old msblast or blaster worm. The reason I got this was because I had done a REPAIR installation of XP and soon as I hit the NET to ACTIVATE, I had it and knew I did soon as I got the old SHUTDOWN screen, and with my knowledge of Virus's - I bust them also for a living and did at my days working for Adelphia Cable Company early on in my Corporate Environment endeavors, knew to stop the SHUTDOWN with shutdown /a at the RUN. Then looked for the critter and kicked its ass. Ever since then and all of my days of computers have NEVER gotten anything else, unless it was doing something stupid on my part trying to figure out what made a few trojans tick, to lick them at a future time. Don't double click those damn files by accident... LOL.

So now where I was going with all this. Virus Scanners, Ineternet Security Software, Firewalls, Spyware, Adaware etc. For those who work in a Coporate Environment know not everyone who sits behind a computer knows anything about computers they know how to click and point, drag and drop, sometimes even turn them on. For these types of individuals yes you need Firewalls, Virus Protection and the like. Now as I've said many times I work in a LARGE corporate environment and I can tell you with all of these items in place it has more problems with these than I have seen in my lifetime without anything in place and purposely disabled. Working in their Support Center has me removing trojans and spyware on a daily basis. You may be asking how is this possible with all of the protection.

EASY!!! People just do NOT have a clue. People click on EVERY pop up they get, every link in email and simply go to sites they shouldn't be while supposedly working...

In my opinion also, some Virus protection companies have virus builders in their back pockets so let's ask this question, "Which Virus Protection would you buy? The one that finds a cure for that nasty critter first? Of course and why or how did they figure out that cure so quick (Usually a 24 hour period), the person is sitting at their office at their desk creating them while making a pretty penny for the Virus company. Isn't it usually ODD that those who do get busted doing things on their own and do their stint of time get hired by the big guys? If you can create a virus you surely can kill it...

So folks do NOT click that link you get for WINDOWSFIXER2005 you get in your email... LOL. Believe me some stupid person still will...

So when you are a HOME user and not in a Corporate Environment and you do NOT have a clue (YES BY ALL MEANS) you should have everything mentioned. Now to those that have a clue about computers, re-imaging of them and know what to click on and not to.

Everything mentioned herein are a COMPLETE JOKE. Firewalls especially. I've let a monitor tool run for months on my PC and believe me with everything I have running, WWW, FTP and some of the goodies I have and what people are out looking for. Would you believe over that amount of time NO ONE (YES FOLKS) NO ONE tries or tried hacking anything. Yeah every once in a while someone tries to create a directory on my FTP so they can try and run melicious code on my server but GOOD LUCK, Log files do come in handy and guess what I have your IP... LOL.

Computers are like anything else it's all COMMON SENSE. If you get an email from someone you don't know, don't open it. If you do download like I do scan each file with a virus scanner. Steer clear of P2P networks and if you still like them and use them just scan those files. I use Newsgroups - everything is usually scanned on way in and out because they do NOT want anything on their servers. I do not and never have Virus Scanners, or Firewalls EVER running on my PC except to scan those individual files. I set all the processes to Manual so they are only invoked when I want them to be.

Here are things to do. Use Firefox, if you still want to use IE turn the Security Settings to HIGH. Learn to use your CTRL key to get pop ups you want. Use something like the Google Toolbar, I use this also with pop up blocker active, I like google also for my searches and having the bar immediate on the browser, Firefox has it built in - google search and pop up blocking that is... Anyway having these set properly, you will NOT have scripts running just by going to web pages and you will not get pop ups, you'll see in IE when something is trying to get you on the address bar with a Huge Yellow Shield - if it's something you want use that CTRL key and let it fly. There are other types of pop ups and these are usually in a gray box and are really what are known as Server Alerts. You can disable these by going into your Services and Disable the Messenger Service. This has nothing to do with MSN or Windows Messenger. This is usually used to receive Net Sends and Server Alerts by IT Professionals, Network Administrators, and the like.

Here are things I DO use, Bazooka (Great for learning how to BUST spyware and trojans and how they work) you have to do everything MANUALLY, Spybot, Ewido, Adaware, but nothing runs until I run them. I want to add that Bazooka, Spybot are FREE. Ewido Security Suite in my opinion is the BEST of all of them put together and usually will find ANY TROJAN and will remove them and comes as a 14 day free trial and won't have you pay for it just to clean your PC. Give it a whirl and see what it can find. If you like it purchase it.

Now to emails, use your ISP's ONLINE email this keeps you from getting many of the items written about herein. If you do use an email client, such as Outlook, Outlook Express set it up to DELETE all emails except those on your Contact List. I do check my deleted items occassionally to make sure or add those I want to receive from. If you do NOT know who it is from do NOT open it. Use COMMON SENSE.

If you enjoy PORNO - DON'T - on your PC get a PORN MOVIE instead... My PC never sees porn and never will. I know this is hard for people with teenagers and college kids using PC's, you can set up parental controls to really piss off those guys. You can google for these types of IE add-ons, usually just a file you can import. It's actually kind of fun to do to friends - you'll know when they sneak to a site and scream... WTF... LOL.

The reason I bring this up also is because if you are a gamer and with my MANY YEARS of EXPERIENCE (Computers and Gaming) and use your PC mostly for such things, then having these Software Firewalls: Zonealarm, Hardware Firewalls: Routers (Block WAN Requests), XP Firewall. Will only cause more issues than what it's worth. Now people will say leaving your PC wide open will cause problems - have they ever tried to see that NOTHING will happen??? Never seen any, just vocally mentioned, by those that will state this, and these people probably never have either. For the novice setting them up PROPERLY is harder than just having them run period in default. Either way they bring more issues to a gamer than what I can post here and this doesn't always affect everyone.

People just use common sense and if even half of what I've mentioned here are followed you'll see how easy and FREE it is to stay clear of critters and hackers. I'll say this most hackers do NOT care what the common JOE has on his PC. They want Corporate Records they go after the big guy not some guy who plays games and uses his PC in the cellar. This is where Firewalls are a JOKE... Even a simple PING is considered an attack. Never put personal information on your PC, most gamers don't have any. What I mean by this is say credit card information, tax returns, social security numbers and the like - burn these items to a CD (especially Tax Returns) if done online. You should also approximately every 6 months, FDISK and FORMAT your PC and re-install everything clean. A typical SPRING CLEANING is always good for the PC. Well folks that was my OPINION... Hope you enjoyed and feel free to stop back when you get bored and want to see what the old Cellar Dweller has to say... Thanks again.

Sorry Folks...

2005-08-07T12:31:00.000-04:00

For those of you following my blog, I just want to say I'm sorry... I know it's been a while and with work it's kind of hard to find time to get out here to post something - my life is some work and some play so from work to BF2 and the occassional grass cutting.

Currently I'm back to the same place I've been several times before (The Power Company) in their Support Center which I've mentioned in earlier posts and seems to be my HOT topic. I am in a transition and will now be building all of the companies servers. So I guess it's a promotion and more secure than the Support Center job I'm currently holding, (Outsourcing) is in the works at this company for their IT department, only time will tell. One more week in there (The Support Center) and thank god, I'm out and to my own room, building, OS-ing, and racking of servers.

I've built many systems in my time for myself and many others and have spec'ed many others. A server though is a more glorified computer, that is for sure. A whole new learning curve. 4 processors in such a small place... LOL. Nothing hard when you've been toying and tinkering with computers as long as I have. I've already built 6 servers for them with something like 75 more to go. We'll see how well of a job I can do compared to the person who also moved onto a newer position within the same company doing SANS. For you novices that is MASS STORAGE. I wish I were the one on that position because that is currently where the money is at, we are talking 6 figures for some companies, EMC being the biggest.

I want to say I did NOT suck or swallow to get this position... LOL. The person recommended me to fill his position since he knew of my knowledge with many different items and knew I could handle it. Thanks bud for the confidence...

Well as I've always said in the past when I have time, I'll be posting but in IT it's kind of hard to think of things to talk about and let me just say with troubleshooting BF2 for others it might just give me some more topics to talk about and my next post will be about one of them. See ya at my next post...

Battlefield 2 Retail Version Review

2005-07-05T17:27:00.000-04:00

Well as you've already read in my Demo Review, I wasn't totally satisfied with it. The full Retail version is NO different. This game could be great and graphically it is awesome.

Many of the new features are great compared to the earlier games in the series, but with all the hype you would have thought this was the game to end all games? It is NOT. If I were to give it a score it would still be no better than what I gave the Demo. 7.5 out of 10. Too many damn BUGS!!!

There are more bugs in this game than there are on a bug light in late June. The strangest thing about these bugs is that you can set everything to maxed with a system similar to this listed below and play flawlessly in SINGLEPLAYER.

Asus A7N8X-Deluxe
AMD XP 3200+
1.5 Gig RAM
PNY 6800 Ultra

Now playing MULTIPLAYER? Which is what this game was made for, is another story. If I don't get a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), it will simply CTD (Crash to Desktop). LAG is another serious issue. Another strange thing is that even online the SOUND and GRAPHICS can LAG or I should say STUTTER, LAG is usually associated with LATENCY or your network connection. For the novice out there everything is LAG though... LOL.

My first suggestion to anyone getting this game make it run FLAWLESSLY in SINGLEPLAYER first. Once this is done then you should be good to go, but if and when you do finally go ONLINE and it stutters, lags, or blows up it's usually nothing wrong with your system or how you have it set up. EA is already releasing a patch this week which will clear up most of the problems, but with past endeavors I doubt it will.

Things to get it going in SINGLEPLAYER before you try ONLINE.

For everyone out there with this game the other thing to do just to run the game is edit your VideoDefault.con file and the line with RefreshRate in it change to 1 instead of 0. This will at least allow the game to run. If you hate watching the many movies and logos in beginning just rename the movies folder or delete it - to keep the files just rename movies, movies_, this will cause it not to call on that folder and it's files and will put you immediately into the game at the login screen.

For those trying to set up an account if you already have a GameSpy Account from years ago or period you can use it, if you try re-creating it with same name etc. you will receive errors. You can do this by RETRIEVING instead of CREATING.

If you have a Soundblaster Sound card then you can enable EAX, if not then DON'T. As you can see from my system specs above I DO NOT have a Soundblaster but built on sound which for the NForce 2 board was SoundStorm. You will also want to set it to HARDWARE - NOT - SOFTWARE.

Things to do in XP would be Disable Firewall. Make sure QoS Packet Scheduler is installed for your network card. Go to Start/Run and type the word gpedit.msc then to Computer Configuration then Administrative Template then Network and highlight QoS Packet Scheduler and on the Right Side Pane double click on Limit Reservable Bandwidth and Enable and change the 20% to 0. Turn OFF System Restore for all drives, Turn OFF the Indexing Service and set to Manual. Disable and turn OFF the Nvidia Display Driver Service. Set a Page file to a happy medium, I use 768 for both MIN and MAX. Defrag your system once this is all done. Have the latest bios for your system and drivers for both your motherboard, video, sound, network.

Set your Video Card Drivers to Application Controlled and set to Quality. In Game if you have graphics issues still you can Turn off AA in game and turn off Dynamic Lighting and Shadowing. Still have issues start lowering the graphics settings for everything else and last but not least lower sound settings.

You'll also come to realize when playing online you can NOT kill anyone. Even if you think you are hitting them, you probably aren't, you just simply have SO much trouble trying to kill someone. This can be seen just by watching peoples kill/death ratio, they are usually killed more than they have killed. The game is so frustrating.

If they get all the bugs worked out and listen to those that have bought the game, this may become a better game, that and the MODS being built may make it worth the purchase. If everything is fixed this may take the game up to 8.5 but still it's Battlefield. Nothing new, not ground breaking and don't believe all those reviews out there. Take it from a true avid gamer like myself before you purchase because this game will drive you to the edge with frustration.

To see all the issues check out this forum it's full of Good and Bad but believe me there is more BAD than GOOD, with the current state of this game.

Another classic is that they once had a forum link on their Official BF2 page but it's now gone (HMMMM???) They knew it was going to be ugly a head of time. I must say I posted about all of this before Demo was released on their BFV forum and people just laughed at what I had to say... Whose lauging now??? LOL...

PlanetBattlefield BF2 Forum

Battlefield 2 Demo First Impressions

2005-06-11T11:46:00.000-04:00

Lets start off by saying with SO much hype was it really worth the wait? Ok now to start this off I have an account with Fileplanet where I expected to be able to get the game in like 3 minutes flat. Here EA put a gag order on fileplanet and made them hold off until the next day at 1:00PM EST. Almost 15 hours later of the others releasing it. Funny thing about this is Gamespy and Fileplanet are one in the same and they are one of the major contributors to Battlefield, they are included in the game for finding multiplayer games. All I can say here is way to go EA once again. Blunder after Blunder.

Finally after a whole night of trying to get it, mind you this is a 565MB download. I finally got it on a my Newsgroups, because of the speed I can download at. It took about a half hour once the guy who already had it from the 6:00PM release and finished posting it about 9:30PM. Getting it totally downloaded and extracted then the install - everything went what seemed to be flawlessly. Then came a reboot - you really don't have to if you already had DX 9.0C which if you have SP2 on XP you do. Another great thing is it hides the latest and greatest Nvidia Nforce Drivers within the install and asks you to install - say YES if you want the latest at 77.30. These are NOT WHQL though.

Ok after the reboot came starting the game. Guess what it blinks on and then back to desktop??? I'm like here we go again EA what a bunch of idiots. I then had to edit my Videodefault.con file to ShowAllRefresh rates from 0 to 1, as you do in BF42 and BFV, again this isn't fixed YET???

Tried it once again after the edit still NO GO, same result. I use a thing called Reforce to force in registry refresh rates for my monitor to lock 144HZ for 1024x768. I had to use this program and set everything back to DEFAULT. This and the edit of file mentioned earlier, fixed the issue and the game started. FINALLY... It was now about 10PM EST. Here is another great trick to get into the game much quicker instead of watching all those promo's and movies period. Just rename the MOVIE folder MOVIE_ with the underscore and the file can't call on the .BIK files so you get in instantly. You won't have movies in back ground either but who really cares?

Ok once into the game comes the REAL fun part, the set up of a joystick and mouse and keyboard. Not much different than 42 or BFV just a bit more complex. To erase a key setting just click on item and hit ESC. It at least tells you now where a same key is set so you can figure it out just use the ESC trick so you can set them until you get everything the way you perfer. Make sure you hit apply or it won't save, then you'll have to go back and do it all over again - I hit apply constantly just to not lose anything.

Now I set my Video card settings in Windows to Application Controlled on everything and Quality. No AF or AA are set in driver - just letting the applications control this. In game I set to Hardware for Sound and left EAX checked and maxed every setting possible out for graphics in game and saved as Custom. You then create an account with email and password and whatever name you want. Now comes up the first screen much more complex than BFV for choosing an online game. I also set my connection from LAN to Cable better than 256 or whatever it says there.

Now to the game, short and sweet - that's not my impression. It's much faster paced than a BFV, but it's very jumpy - not sure if mouse is set too sensitive or what but if I turned real quick it did a complete 360 and confused the hell out of me. I don't think anyone will get a ONE SHOT kill in this game unless aiming and hitting the HEAD with every shot? I was sniping and you can get a ONE SHOT KILL if you get a head shot. Tags are still going to be the way to play obviously - they light up you have a target. This game has a few more REALISTIC features like running then getting tired. Shooting is a bit odd and it uses short bursts and doesn't just keep firing until gun is empty - this takes some getting used to. I must have missed a button to change this but I only played for about an hour, unless it depends on the gun used. When I thought I should EASILY be hitting someone, it WASN'T. Not sure if it's just the graphics or LAG? YES folks this game still LAGS... BAD at times - I was in a game with 64 players and it wasn't TOO BAD, sure with 32 it will be much smoother and if NO 200 PINGERS are in server. At times it even locked up for a split second before moving along again. Graphically this is an incredible game, Realism it's still a GAME and more ARCADE than SIMULATION. You want SIMULATION get Operation Flashpoint 2 when it comes out for REALISM.

Getting points is much easier especially if you hurt someone bad and your teamate kills him you get points for the inury - I didn't capture a single flag because it's a huge map with 64 in it, and yes it is TEAM based no doubt, me being one of the most hated people online I of course was never HEALED by any medics. Weapons are easy to come by just steal a dead comrads when you are low, you can also get health this way. Now my personal opinion. This game is not much BETTER than 42 or BFV even with all the hype. It's NOT THAT GREAT. Now mind you this is only a demo and it has several issues ALREADY, I received a memory error during the game and it locked whole system up, and I had to do a cold boot to get back into Windows. The scary part about this is the FULL game is DONE by the most part and this DEMO is complete but of only one map and with all the issues I've seen already I can only imagine the BF2 Forum even though it isn't open yet - ONLY SMART MOVE BY EA. I must say I also called this FACT before it was released on their BFV forum that the BF2 forum will be identical to the BFV forum with all the BAD PRESS and people complaining... It's coming... LOL.

With everything maxed out and a half decent system the game LOOKS AWESOME and is pretty smooth at times but the HYPE does not match the game. It's in my book OOOK...

Don't ever believe all the HYPE and of course this is only my opinion. After playing some more - as I said I only gave it a one hour play and this is my FIRST IMPRESSION. I will post more when I do some testing in smaller servers about LAG, or any other issues that come up. It's definately worth the download but still not sure on the purchase of the FULL version, but I guess that's too late for me because I PRE-ORDERED... LOL.

Open Source Software

2005-06-04T21:26:00.000-04:00

Well since I like FREE I thought I'd post about the good old software and things I've come across within the Open Source world.

First off, for those that only know Windows OS, well let me just say that Fedora Core 3 and soon to be 4 is very nice, of course for you Windows folks you'd only be lost with this OS, maybe. It tries to be similar to Windows so people can catch on easily but it's not quite that easy, you'll have to ditch your Windows Ways and learn a bit about Linux.

You'll have to try for yourself, but unlike Windows, Fedora Core or should I just say Linux comes with EVERYTHING - from burning programs, Office style, graphics programs, programming tools, you name it, all built in or installs with the OS. No need to purchase thousands of dollars of items to do your every day computer living.

So lets make a list of some great software's that I've come to enjoy using and love messing around with. Now this isn't Linux software just because it's called Open Source. Everything but Fedora Core 3 can be installed in Windows for playing around with.

Fedora Core 3 will let you grab that old piece of junk PC you have laying around collecting dust, come to life again. Just download the ISO files and get burning and installing - I have it currently installed on a PC with a Pentium 3 600mhz with 512 RAM and it's pretty nice. So don't throw out that old PC just yet - have fun with it. A great learning experience. For the old folks this makes for a great E-Machine. Well here is my list of favorite Open Source projects to look at.

OS = Fedora Core 3

Browser = Mozilla Firefox 1.04

Photoshop type App = Paint .NET 2.1b

Programming C++ = Dev-C++

Bulletin Boards = PHPBB

Web Design = NVU

Database Server = MySQL

Broadcasting Media and Chat = Star Media Center

These are just to name a few that I've been messing around with. For those wanting to find other software or items I did not mention above, you can go to the best source on the net for Open Source - SourceForge this will point you to a list for whatever your heart desires.

Just with what I've mentioned above you can go without programs like Photoshop, Frontpage, Dreamweaver, Database Server items, IE, Windows, Programming in C++, and even WS_FTP-(just download an extension to integrate a FTP client right into Firefox - FireFTP),

I hope you download and try all these items and check out some of the other great things going on in the Open Source world by visiting Sourceforge.

You'll be amazed at what you can do with some of these. It's so hard to believe that anything you want to do or have ever thought of creating, may already be sitting out there and you can even suggest to those folks working on a particular project something for that missing item you wish the Big Guys had in their software etc. it may just get done or for that matter do it yourself.

Everything mentioned above can make your Windows and Computer life that much more fun. I hope you have as much fun as I do using everything listed here and then some.

Happy Open Sourcing... LOL. Until next time.

Creating an Online Forum - A HOW TO...

2005-06-04T21:03:00.000-04:00

I've been toying around on my regular web site http://www.cellar-dweller.com and thought hey, all these other sites have a forum so why don't I give it a shot? How hard could it be???

Well this post is going to talk about 3 major things PHP, PHPBB, MySQL and we'll throw in XP SP2, IIS for good measure.

For those of you out there not knowing what I'm talking about. Frequent any normal web site and you'll see that many have what is called a Bulletin Board or for us Techies (FORUM)... This is where you can post things sort of similar to this blog and it's comments.

Well first off I must mention that PHPBB does not support fully PHP 5 but since I never listen and I'm in IT, I'm a know it all... LOL. So I didn't listen, but hey it all works like a charm, only time will tell if a major issue comes up.

Here is my HOW TO for all you Web Design want a be's out there. Now mind you I NEVER played with any of these items until last week but here is my HOW TO. Hope this is informative and something you'll all give a try. Just install it locally and play around with it it's great. I created one at work pertaining to those I work with and the company I'm currently working for AGAIN, equals some good fun. Enjoy.

Feel free to copy and paste this section for safe keeping and I must say before posting it that isn't it funny how OPEN SOURCE is FREE and usually works much better than the things you pay dearly for??? Wow another subject - I'm on a roll read my next post about Open Source Software...

Ok sorry about that here we go:

Install everything

Install MySQL by running setup within mysql-4.1.12-win32.zip

Extract php-5.0.4-Win32.zip to C:\PHP

Install MySQL Administrator by running mysql-administrator-1.0.20-win.msi

Extract PHPBB2 to your Web Server root example: c:\inetpub\wwwroot\phpbb2 and rename to forum or whatever you like

Create a NEW System Variable called PHPRC with value of c:\PHP or where ever PHP was installed to

Copy php.ini-recommended and paste in same place and rename php.ini edit these lines only by using find

extension_dir = "c:\php\ext\"

doc_root = "c:\inetpub\wwwroot" or whatever your root is on server

uncomment by removing (;) from in front of extension=php_mysql.dll

Copy the file libmysql.dll to your system32 folder

Create a Schema with MySQL with the MySQL Administrator call it forum or whatever you like by clicking Catalog after logging
in and then highlight any schema on lower left usually test or mysql - Once highlighted then click in white area below the
highlighted item and pick Create Schema

Start up your webserver and have MySQL service set up and running

Go to Default Web site and right click and pick properties and select Home Directory Tab Set Execute Permissions to Scripts
Only and click configuration button and pick Add and point to C:\PHP\php5isapi.dll and .php and then pick Documents Tab and click Add button and type index.php and Add it and move to top with arrow on left

Create a basic text file in the root of your webserver called test.txt with this in it and then rename the .txt file test.php and use your browser and type http://domainname/test.php if you only see the code above then PHP is not installed or working correctly but if you see an information page full of information about PHP then it's up and functioning properly - check within it to see that all the proper paths are set for MySQL and that there is a section for MySQL and if there is then both PHP and MySQL are up and functioning properly

Now go to http://domainname/forum and it should auto bring up the Install for PHPBB2 fill it out and place all proper items in this and hit install and you should get installed successful screen

If you are doing this locally it will ask you to ftp or download your config.php - download and just move this file to your forum folder

Now log into your newly created forum with what you set up for your admin username and password and you may get another error about deleting two folders - just go to your webserver and delete the two folders it mentions Install and Contrib

You have now succesfully set up your PHPBB Forum

Written by Cellar Dweller

Well there it is folks a quick and straight to the point way of getting that forum you've always wondered how other sites got set up. If you want to get support head on over to

http://www.mysql.com

http://www.php.net

http://www.phpbb.com/

Here we go again...

2005-06-04T20:56:00.000-04:00

Well I'm back again I'm like a boomerang they keep getting rid of me and I keep coming back. I'm currently back to my original post all over again. Seems it keeps coming back to that. I am currenlty working in their IT department again but this time I'm back in their Support Center yes (AGAIN), supposedly until August but possibly longer depending on budget constraints. The other rumor or possibility is OUTSOURCING which I more or less am already. This won't really effect me too much I don't think but will definately hurt all of those FULL TIMERS... Somethings and most things never change it's 3 years later since I frequented their support center and it just feels like a day later... LOL.

Anyway off of that subject, I want to post about something I've been toying with. Time to move onto my next post... Sorry it's been so long since anything has been posted but I kind of ran out of things to keep talking about but heck the way this place keeps ditching me and bringing me back I may have material to keep this Blog going for some time... LOL.

Something to Ponder

2005-04-11T16:41:00.000-04:00

Ok I know this has nothing to do with computers or gaming but it's something I've always thought of, and always wondered why scientists never thought of??? I could be crazy... LOL.

As a child I was a huge Dinosaur buff and into astronomy and some things just get me thinking. I'm also a huge fan of the unknown or unexplained. So lets go to where no man has gone before... LOL.

Ok we've all heard that the extinction of the Dinosaurs was caused by this huge meteor that crashed into the Yucatan peninsula - supposedly. This map shows where it impacted.

impact Site

Now think of this. Supposedly some meteors are very magnetic (Right?). Ok now take the impact site and think of the meteor as a bullet entering a ball, of course the key is figuring out what direction it impacted and at what speed? My guess is that it came in on an angle and went into the crust from South West to North East which then would mean it probably rested deep within the crust in the area of the Bermuda Triangle or at least interfering with the earths magnetic field in that area and of course this is my thought only. My theory is that this is why strange magnetic forces are in the Bermuda Triangle and are either because of the meteor itself still in the crust or because of such a huge impact causing such an interference causing the earths magnetic fields to change. Here is a map to show the size of the impact scale.

Closer View of impact

With these maps and my theory now you too can ponder over this intriguing prospect... You heard it here first... LOL.

Where did it rest?

I do have another hilarious theory that I'll also share here with you and that is my theory of Spontaneous Human combustion. My theory is this phenomenon is REAL. It's really simple to know how it works and this is that human gas which is mostly a form of methane (You've lit farts before???)... LOL. Well there it is, that's it - now think of this you eat a huge pot of Navy Bean soup you go to bed and have one heck of a restless sleep of course letting it all out while you sleep filling the covers with this gas, well during all this restlessness you stir up static electricity which in turn lights the methane that has now built up under your covers and this spark smolders in your blanket which then ends up growing and burning you alive while you sleep of course you die and they find your half burned corpse and say OH MY GOD it's HUMAN SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION!!!

Now who says I don't know what I'm talking about???

Game Reviews

2005-04-11T12:35:00.000-04:00

For you Xbox and PC fans here are a few reviews for you. I can promise you when it comes to gaming I won't steer you wrong... Get it Steer... LOL. Guess you had to be here? Actually I will have more than just racing games. I'm just a big flight sim, racing, and FPS gamer, for those that don't know FPS=First Person Shooter. The games I will review are ones I've purchased and played and are newer, leaving out some of the older games which I have plenty of those also. Example would be Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam (which is my current favorite and most played), UT 2004, Star Wars Battlefront, Call of Duty, Project Gotham Racing 2, Toca Race Driver 2, Burnout 3 (A must have game) - this game is by far one of the funniest and I must say awesome crashes.

PC
Racing:

Nascar Simracing from EA Sports for the PC

This game doesn't compare to Nascar Racing Season from Papy but it is a very good game and a very close second currently. It has many flaws currently and with a patch due out before April 16th we can only hope it fixes all of those flaws. If this patch does fix those flaws, this game is by far the best currently available for you Nascar racing fans on your PC and may surpass NSR, but only if the patch fixes the flaws. I recommend this game with a bit of caution though and it's because of its current state.

Xbox
Racing:

These are the 3 best games for your racing pleasure currently on the Xbox.

Colin Mcrae Rally 2005

Nascar Chase for the Cup 2005

Mx vs. Atv Unleashed

With all of these games it gives you the variety you need in racing and I give all of these a big thumbs up. With these 3 games you have from Motor Bikes, to Nascar, to Rally Racing.

The game of the future for your Xbox which has yet to be released, but will definitely be a must have and that is Forza Motorsport. This is for those people that love the PS2's very own Grand Turismo Series.

For the flight sim fans I can only recommend 3 games currently and they all fall on the PC.

PC
Flight Sims:

IL2 Forgotten Battles

X-Plane

Lock On Modern Air Combat

IL2 Forgotten Battles with the Ace Expansion Pack is by far one of the best WWII flight sims available today and online play is incredible.

X-Plane is for all you REAL Flight Sim fans, this isn't really a game but the graphics, physics and flights are just to incredible to pass up. It has REAL weather, REAL locations and all in REAL time and you can actually build your own aircraft or wing and really test it and see if you can make it fly.

Lock On Modern Air Combat is just that, the best modern air combat game available but you better have one awesome system this game is a HOG. This game is probably the most computer intensive game available even more so than Battlefield Vietnam.

Online play is also incredible but the key to online play with this and IL2 Forgotten Battles is a cool program for all you flight sim fans and a must have, and can be downloaded from this link and is called HyperLobby.

Xbox
First Person Shooter:

Brother in Arms - Road to Hill 30

Splinter Cell - Chaos Theory

Well the first is one awesome WWII FPS for the Xbox you can't pass this one up.

Splinter Cell of course needs no introduction and I don't think they could ever screw up this series, it just keeps getting better. Of course I shouldn't speak to soon... LOL, we know how that can go.

PC
First Person Shooter:

Americas Army

Battlefield 2

Americas Army is really one awesome game and you can't beat the fact that it's FREE - get it and go through training which I might add is not always easy. Online play is also pretty incredible.

BF2 on the other hand with what I've seen, this might be the mother of all games and of course as much as I hate to say it more money for EA. This of course unfortunately a MUST HAVE - which will be released June 27th. Pick it up because I need more people to use as target practice... LOL.

The next option is pay to play which I'm not a big fan of and probably would never play. This game is one of the most incredible I've played during a 14 day FREE trial and only if it were a bit more fluid as the Battlefield Series (Arcade Like) graphically this game would or could not be touched by any other game PERIOD. This game is SO immense, words can't describe it. If you know Everquest? Well this is the WWII of Everquest. Don't get me wrong this game is graphically very nice but as a soldier it's not arcade style like a Battlefield Series game, it's so damn realistic, almost too realistic... LOL. This is what I've always dreamed all games should be, but as I mention if it was built on the BF2 engine and was as fluid that would be one incredible plus.

PC
Pay to Play:

WWII Online

If you have money to just toss away and you don't mind the monthly fee this is a MUST. You can fly, drive, walk but let me add this game uses real mileage so to walk from one town to the next might take you an hour, for real - so don't die... LOL.

I'll touch on three mods this time around only because I've actually only played these three.

PC
MODS:

POE: Point of Existence

Battlefield 1942 Maps converted to Battlefield Vietnam Engine

Red Orchestra

Now remember MODS are maps, weapons, vehicles etc. that the MOD Community create to add to a currently available game, so you must have the original game to be able to download the MODS(FREE) to be able to play them, yes folks MODs are FREE. The first and second being Battlefield Vietnam MODs, brings Modern Warfare to the BFV engine and they do a damn good job, so for those that want a taste of everything BFV might be the place to be here in the near future because of all of the Battlefield 1942 Maps being converted to the BFV engine so you could have 3 games in one just by owning only the one game BFV which can be found pretty darn cheap now a days. With the conversion team bringing all of those maps to the new engine and with POE and it's modern warfare and new maps might make this one of the better games to ever own. Now only if someone will bring all of 1942, BFV to the BF2 engine? Now that will or would be the greatest accomplishment and then making it that much more of a game. Just think of being able to pick your battles from WWII, Vietnam to modern warfare all with one single game. Only time will tell.

The third MOD mentioned is the best MOD ever for any game PERIOD. This MOD is for Unreal Tournament 2004 and for those that know about UT2004 it's futuristic mayhem and all out slaughter fest. Add this MOD and now you add ONLY WWII the Germans vs. Russia and the maps and the realistic changes from the original game are to much to mention or describe, talk about a complete overhaul of a game, that is what RO does to UT2004. Hope they can figure out how to get planes going or a flight system... If you own UT2004 this is a MUST have MOD.

Well I think that is enough for now, I hope to post more in the future as new games arrive and I can get my hands on them to give you a real gamers take on them. Happy Hunting.

Back Again...

2005-03-27T21:54:00.000-05:00

Sorry about that folks. I'm currently unemployed again, my days are up at the company I've worked at many different times the individuals I was filling in for have returned, I've been now thrown to the trash as always. Now to think of some things that I can post about?

I can say one thing my Comcast connection is still yet to be fixed, it's now been 3 months to the day and counting. They came the other day and replaced all wiring and even the modem so that they could cover their asses locally. They mentioned that on Friday March 25th my line would be moved to a new blade. If they had really done this it DID NOT work. A company as huge as they are and you'd wonder how they could run a network so screwed up? I'm not alone on this problem either, many have posted on their forums once I started it going, about the PING PROBLEM.

For those that stop by frequently a new version of MAME32 was released over the weekend, now up to v95.

You can pick it up here: MAME32

Also a new version of Windows Messenger was released taking it up to 5.1 but what is odd about this is I've been using this version for months and it wasn't a beta but the version number is the same but the date of release was changed?

You can pick it up here: Windows Messenger 5.1

For those with Nvidia Video Cards here is a leaked version of 76.41

You can pick it up here: Nvidia Nforce 76.41 beta Drivers

For you Battlefield Fans BF2 will be out on June 28th and for those that don't have a clue check out this site it has it all.

Check it out here: Total Battlefield 2

For those playing BFV some day, and when, no one knows for sure we may see all the Battlefield 1942 maps converted to BFV with better graphics.

Check it out here: Battlefield 1942 conversion Team Site

XBOX 2 will be called XBOX 360 rumors have it. You can follow many of my links on my blog to some really great news sites and to read all kinds of goodies.

Well I think that is it for now. Just wanted everyone to know I've returned and I hope to post stuff when I can and more frequently. I think I'm going to do game reviews also, at least for games that I purchase, either for the XBOX, PC, you name it. When it comes to gaming this is one thing I'm hip on and I won't steer you wrong. I just need material damn it... LOL.

Comcast Internet Connection

2005-03-12T00:10:00.000-05:00

I've now had my high speed internet connection for approximately 4 years maybe even 5. It started out as @home then it went to ATTBI and it is currently Comcast. The reason for this post is about an issue I've had during this 4 year or more period that only arises when they upgrade their system (Network).

First was when they went from @home to ATTBI - I'm a big gamer so lets get that thrown on the table, if you haven't noticed I'm number one in the world in Battlefield Vietnam by my ranking on the bottom of my blog. This will dynamically update to keep you up to my current position if it should change, which I'm sure it will.

Back to the subject. Anyone with any networking knowledge knows that PING is everything to gaming or online play in general. Well a few years back when @home switched my speeds from STANDARD to what was known as PRO - faster speeds - they upgraded their network and I starting getting god aweful gameplay online, LAG. 56k never gave me any lag? After doing a bit of testing etc. I noticed that when I would PING my default gateway - not my internal one but the external one on their end I'd get PING from 8ms to 300ms and sometimes higher with the occassional 20%-100% packet loss. Now mind you, this is NOT good - terrible fluctuations.

On a perfect network you should be able to PING your default gateway and maintain a PING of 0ms - 20ms without fluctuation.

After 6 months - yes folks 6 months the PING problem just resolved itself and I never received an explanation and this was after several visits from techs, calls to help desk, modem swap outs you name it. This then was resolved for about a whole year and gaming was great again. The next part of the story.

@home now becomes ATTBI and I go from PRO to ULTRALINK this including another upgrade to their network. I start receiving the good old PING problem all over again and my gaming goes to shit. I go through another 6 months before the issue gets resolved AGAIN, still without explanation...

You'd think by now with all of the support calls, chat and tech visits, and all of my nasty chats they'd remember the cure or resolution for this? The techs would just say well you have your speeds (which really I didn't, about 3/4 of what I should have) and then they started with WE DO NOT SUPPORT PINGS!!! Another good one is that we don't support home networks. Of course if you can't fix something you can't support it, LOL.

They of course weren't finished yet they went from ATTBI to Comcast and of course this included another major upgrade to the network. I now was good for another year after they fixed it for the second time but it always seems to just resolve itself? So at this time I had my connection for a few years but with it taking 6 months to resolve each time my years of usage have now been cut in half. At least for what I use my connection for (Gaming). Now this was the third upgrade to the system (ATTBI to Comcast) and every single time they've upgraded, I started getting a PING problem. Oh yes folks this took 4 months to fix from this upgrade, hey at least it was cut by 2 months from the previous accounts.

So I go along for like another year without a single issue with PING, gaming becomes great again and I make it to number 1 in my favorite game Battlefield Vietnam. Oh I'm not done yet, they still have another upgrade to go Comcast does away with their Ultralink or Pro accounts, whatever they called it, and creates a new Silver and Gold package which includes twice as fast speeds as before for half as much money.

I'm like great I will now have 6MB downloads and 768k uploads. I'm like this is incredible and I'm now paying half of what I did for 3MB down and 384 up. Would you believe it though, what do you think came along with all this great networking and upgrades? Yes folks the PING problem is back and it's now been 2 months since this current upgrade and I'm still waiting for a resolution. This now has gone probably as high as it possibly could without me calling the president of the company to get it fixed. I've had several tech visits, tests, networkers you name it working on this issue but as of today I'm still waiting to get it fixed before I lose my ranking by not playing my favorite game. I know being number 1 isn't everything in life but I've worked hard to get there and don't want to lose it because of my damn connection problems.

I've tried playing and do so on occassion, it's not always there, mostly screwed up during peak hours, but damn it's so hard to play 3 times as hard as normal. I'm sure a heart attack or anuerism is in my future if they don't get it fixed soon. Nothing worse than knowing you are better than most people but yet your connection keeps you from displaying it. If they get it fixed soon they may beat their record of 4 months but as I said it's now going on 2 months.

Verizon supposedly is going to have FTTP (Fibre to the Premesis) by the end of June to all of those with Verizon phone service in Pennsylvania. This is what they will be offering for those with similar issues I have with Cable.

This is what they will be offering:
$39.95 (5MB Downloads and 2MB Uploads)
$49.95 (15MB Downloads and 2MB Uploads)
$149.95 (30MB Downloads and 5MB Uploads)

Yes folks that is what Verizon is supposed to be offering to anyone that has (Fibre to Curb)implemented within their area. Those are T1 to T3 speeds for a 10th of the price of the true T1 and T3's costs.

You want to host games those are the kinds of UPLOADS you need to create an incredible server. If history repeats itself by the time Comcast resolves my issue this should be available in my area. Where do you think I'm going???

M.I.A.

2005-03-11T23:37:00.000-05:00

Yes folks I've been Missing in action. As I mentioned in an earlier post I've since returned to the company I wrote my original post about and one of my others.

I've now filled in for the one individual for his 6 weeks of absence and then I was off for one week and I started to write this post but got side tracked for some reason. I'm now back to that same company again for another week and 3 days for another individual who is currently off. I've been there a total of like 8 weeks and have resolved a few issues that it seems they had been working on for a few months.

Pretty sad I go into this place create a simple batch file to install all Windows Updates which I spoke about in an earlier post and my file corrects an issue they've had for some time and even had a project created to try to fix it - the issue was within one of their companies softwares.

What makes this even funnier is I was in the room with all those who have been working on this and just joking while installing a workstation, I told them "Ahhh, I could fix their problems in like 10 minutes". Never really thinking I could, was just teasing them, they just laughed and said they still haven't figured it out in months and pretty much a, "yeah right".

A few days later while talking to one of them they mentioned that the workstation I had placed over there didn't have the issue but all of the laptops did? I then had them test on a laptop I had just put a loadset on and ran my batch file on and it worked fine, no issue, then the light bulb went off in my head. I then ran my batch file on all of their laptops and the issue was resloved.

Of course the 8 year contractor and several other full time employees the next day put emails out stating that I found a resolution but of course they dug deeper to find out what truly fixed the issue, which I didn't really care because my batch file fixed it regardless, they had to add what they had done by digging into all the hotfixes I installed just so they could have some credit, so more or less the heros ended up being the 8 year contractor and a full time employee who was working on the issue for several months, not me. I pretty much got drilled to what now has been broken that my batch file was used? Either way, now they've since started upgrading all of their loadsets and using my batch file to get everything up to date, more or less doing what I said should have been done all along. You're welcome once again.

Just yesterday that same contractor who should be considered a full time employee since he's been there almost 8 years as a contractor if not longer. He was trying to fix a loadset and was unable to get USB 2.0 working on a Windows 2000 machine, after about an hour or so of toying with it with another person I stepped in and about 10 minutes later USB was working the way it was supposed to.

Sometimes I just get home and ask why am I the one that can't get a job anywhere in IT and why am I the one always on unemployment. Yes I'm a loose cannon but at least I get the job done and try to help anyone and everyone the best I possibly can...

A8N and SATA CDR and DVDR lock ups???

2005-02-10T07:10:00.000-05:00

I've been doing a lot of reading on the internet about people who purchase a CDRW or DVDRW and it's SATA and try using this on their Nforce motherboard. The system may lock up when insterting any kind of media, from CD, CDR, DVD, DVDR, etc. This occurs even with a new firmware upgrade, latest drivers and bios applied to the system.

What is funny about all of this is my brother built my ultimate PC that I posted earlier about and he got a Plextor 716SA DVDRW. He stated as soon as he placed anything within the drive the whole system would just lock up and that he'd have to eject the media, this happened with an Audio CD, and a Game CD.

Well the wheels in my head started turning again and I thought about something I ran into a while back. I had Alcohol 120% installed on my PC and had about 5 Virtual Drives set up and any time I'd try using Roxio Media Creator 7 my whole system did this exact same thing. The funny thing about this problem was there was nothing to be found on the internet about this, at least a cure, but many had the same kinds of issues. I came along and saved the day for Roxio and you may even find my cure on their site within their support forum for this.

I thought of the AutoPlay feature that is on all Windows Systems. What you have to do is go to Start then Run and type gpedit.msc which will bring up the Group Policy Editor. Once you make it into this little guy. You go to the User Configuration area and click on the Administrative Template and highlight System. On the right side you will see many items you can enable and disable. You will see one called Turn Off Autoplay. Double click this item and pick Enabled, in the window below this option is a drop down for choosing CD ROM Drives or All Drives, choose one, then Apply and OK. Once this has been done when you enter any media into your drive it will not be Auto read and the Autoplay feature is now disabled.

I'm not sure why this was ever a problem or issue but I think I'm the only person to ever even think of this as a cure especially for the Roxio problem. I attached to my brother via NetMeeting and he shared the old desktop for me and I went through this process for him and now his system no longer locks up when entering media into his new SATA DVDRW drive.

He hasn't tried burning anything yet so I'm sure other problems will arise and I'll post anything that comes up as updates to this.

The only thing about turning this off is now when you enter say that new game CD you just bought you won't get the Install screen instead you'll have to open up Explorer and double click on your drive and then it will Autoplay and you won't get that damn nag screen anymore about what do you want to do now that blank media has been inserted, it just acts like nothing is there. It is and can be explored and autoplayed if double clicked on in Explorer.

I hope this post helps anyone with the Roxio and Alcohol problem with Virtual Drives and possibly help those wanting that new shiny Plextor SATA DVDRW drive or any SATA CDROM or DVDROM device on their new Nforce 4 motherboard.

I'm Back...

2005-01-29T13:10:00.000-05:00

I just returned back to the IT field within this last week and the funny thing is it's back to the original place I wrote about in my very first post, and still as a contractor, of course. It's been 1 year and 1 month since I've worked there and it's as if I never left and it's a day later but with total disorganization. Many faces have changed over the last year and the routines and policies and the corporate overhaul are still moving along.

Some things haven't changed, those sucking their way up the corporate ladder are still trying to work their way up even higher. Things are still run half ass, those I talked about are still there and doing what they do best. Only those who obviously weren't sucking properly or even swallowing for that matter no longer work there. The few people that I do respect and work with daily, somehow have survived and know how to hide from the corporatemongers and are getting by just showing up and following the rules and policies that have since been implemented. More cuts are in the works and many are just simply jumping ship before it reaches the deep blue abyss.

I'm happy to be back don't get me wrong it's a job and a pay check. I'll probably only be back for a short time because they have me filling in for a guy that needed surgery. So a possibility of 4-6 weeks and if an EOL rollout is done maybe longer? As I said nothing has really changed, what did I expect? Now there are more policies, more paper trails and more chiefs and less Indians.

Heck you can't even breath without someone asking what are you doing? I was simply thrown to the wolves since I've been there before, now mind you it's been a full year since I've been in this place. They were like, here you go, just do it and here you go, here you go. Since I haven't been there within this last year none of the things I had done to make life easier was kept up to date and instructions and software locations were just simply let go.

I have a tendency to make things work as simply as possible not only for myself but for others, there is nothing I hate more than disorganization. While I was there I kept a list of all software and links to the setups of this software and instructions for all of this software and as I said now none of these links function and the instructions are totally botched.

Not sure if you've ever been asked to do something you have no clue of doing? Well this place loves nothing more than doing this to all the tech's that come in to do their EOL process. For those of you that didn't read my first post this is End of Lease. This company leases all of it's hardware for a set number of months and then everything then needs replaced with new. Last year this process was totally put off and all leases extended.

My question is, do Corporations ever look at the long term? Obviously not. Yeah they saved huge last year by not doing a EOL process but the funny thing is when it does come time to do this, instead of doing say 200-300 pcs per quarter it will be quarters with 1200 or more at a pop. This also means more tech's to do so and with everything else let go, instructions, software locations, policies, routines or should I say anything that was done to make it easier. It's going to be one huge debacle, I'm sure.

While I was in their support center they did something similar they got rid of all their EOL tech's that had been doing it for a few quarters and now had it down pat, and these guys actually enjoyed doing the EOL rollouts, they knew where the software was and just had all the processes down and routines down and knew how to get to all the locations, but at a nice bill rate. They replaced them with nickel and dime tech's to save money, by taking bids by contract companies for the lowest bill rate. Haven't you ever heard? You get what you pay for...

In the long run with support costs to fix all the screw ups because these guys didn't have a clue of the normal processes for doing EOL and were thrown to the wolves it ended up costing two fold. So much for savings. I can't complain it was just job security in my case.

Another thing they constantly say is how can we make this process easier and more routine? I had all of this taken care of for those tech's they had originally, and with me keeping tabs on all the software installs and instructions and bios updates for all of this being on my computer. They'd attach to my PC create bios disks, install what they needed or at least have instructions on how to install certain items. If all else failed they could call me, and if it wasn't for what I called my STUFF folder these poor tech's would have all died of confusion, and shot nerves.

Think of say 15 tech's running around doing images on new pcs and backing up the clients old pcs then doing installs on peoples pcs and not knowing or ever seeing some of the software before, that they needed to re-install and the proper processes to set up a computer on this companies network etc. This is what is going to happen when it comes time to do this again and probably those tech's brought in will have never worked here, making it that much worse.

On my first day back while I had time to breath I created a simple batch file that would install all the Windows 2000 updates from the Windows updates website because while trying to do this on my first PC I had to re-image it took several hours because I had to go out to Windows Update and it took hours to download them all, (Loadbalancing on network) and then hours to install them. I cut these hours down to a 15 minute running batch file. I downloaded each update needed to a local folder on my PC and then of course created the batch file to run all of these in the proper orders and bingo when the PC reboots and you go back out to Windows Update, nothing was needed to download and since everything was now on the local network the installs flew by. I'm just that kind of guy always thinking of the little guy anything to make everyone's life a little easier.

It's simple things like this that can make a tech's life easier and if they would have a central location for all of the software seen or used by this company and instructions, anyone could come in and do this job without even batting an eye. Someone could create MSI installs of everything they use, a simple batch file for others, and instructions for the harder to install items. This would be to easy. See when myself or anyone of these other guys would state something like I just did above you'd be drilled over with all kinds of questions and concerns instead of just getting the ball rolling and getting the job done. If it isn't a full time employee or a second level persons idea it's just gone through one ear and right out the other.

Just by my creating of this batch file and having all the files installed, I'm the one that will get the grief because I did something without consulting a second level or full time guy about doing it. They don't care if it saves you 4 hours to re-image a machine and that I've now cut that down to a half hour, that doesn't matter, it just wasn't one of their ideas or they state they have been to busy to do it themselves. One little thing that I find funny is I created a batch file a long time back for them and it's used on a daily basis and soon as I got back I checked it and of course it still has who created it within the text of it - Me. I sign every file I create. They don't realize that, but it's still there and used daily by the company. LOL.

I have eyes constantly watching over me because they consider me a loose cannon already. Why they think this is beyond me? I'd never do anything to tamper with the system or to lose my job by doing anything illegal. I'm just trying to help and make life easier for everyone and if that is what is being a loose cannon, so be it.

Most probably ask why do I keep going back to this company? Well it's very local for me, it's a good pay check, it is a great place to work by the most part and those I enjoy seeing on a daily basis are there, it has more good than bad. Living near Pittsburgh and all corporations and good jobs being in the city you have to travel 30 or more miles a day, pay parking, traffic, you name it, it's just a royal pain. This company is in a rural setting, free parking, and is only 12 miles away. Where would you rather work??? Well that would just about cover it and I am a glutton for punishment. Until next time.

Ultimate PC Building Revisited

2005-01-21T11:42:00.000-05:00

Where to start on this one? My post about building the Ultimate PC still holds up as being one of the most TOP of the line PCs you can build today, but this PC comes with many issues that have yet to be resolved either by Bios or Drivers from the manufacturers. So be warned about building the most incredible system of the future just yet.

If you remember in my earlier post I mentioned that you could add up to 4 Gig of RAM within this system as (4) 1 Gig sticks? Well at least the specifications say you can have up to 4 Gig of DDR RAM? This is where the first issue with the A8N-SLI Deluxe comes in. Originally when I made my post the Kingston RAM I mentioned stated on the QVL list as being capable of being installed with 4 sticks at 1 Gig each and would be in Dual Channel mode. Now the funny thing about this is that if you go to their site now for this motherboard some things have changed???

This picture is directly from their manual - look at the 1024 Kingston RAM and where they have dots for A, B, C which means (4) 1 Gig Sticks are compatible. You can click image for larger view.

This is directly from the A8N-SLI Deluxe Manual

Here is their revised page on their site - look at the Memory QVL

http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli-d/overview.htm

Now on this chart for the QVL of RAM they removed a V from the third column where originally in the pdf format they had a Dot in that column for the Kingston 1024 RAM, so my question is why the change???

My brother actually built this system down to the very last nut and bolt so everything within my original post has been created. He put in his (4) 1 Gig sticks and yet the system sees all of it but the OS was only seeing 2 Gig? He tested all the RAM individually and they are all functioning properly and are in working order. Well after him mentioning to me about this, I went to Asus's site to see if there was a bios setting or something, and that was when I stumbled upon the newly refurbished site for the motherboard and checked the QVL list to see that all of a sudden it's been changed? I then pointed my brother in that direction and stated if I were him I'd call Asus and ask what the hell is going on because this system was built on their original specifications? He ordered the exact RAM that is listed in the above chart from their manual for that very reason to have 4 Gig running in Dual Channel mode.

The only way this motherboard can handle 4 Gig of RAM is with (4) 1 Gig sticks because I've yet to see 2 Gig sticks and with this motherboard having 4 slots for RAM this would be the only way to get it that high.

My brother states that the system and bios see all 4096 of memory but Windows is only seeing the 2 Gig. So this could be a limitation of the OS? Remember Windows 98 couldn't see over 512 unless you edited one of the .ini files. Now I'm really going to have to learn some more... lol.

Now comes the second issue with this Newest Technology called SLI. My brother bought (2) Asus EN6800 PCIe Video cards so that he could embrace this new incredible technology. Notice that these cards are neither GT nor Ultra just vanilla 6800. Now originally on the Asus site any SLI capable video cards could work with SLI as long as both cards were exactly the same. Now they have a QVL list of cards that wasn't there originally. Now mind you it doesn't even have listed its own 6800 vanilla card just the GT and Ultra versions? Anyway don't get me wrong these cards do work in SLI mode but from what I've been reading all over the NET that a serious issue occurs with the 6800 Series of cards, meaning vanilla, GT, and Ultras. My brother tried playing his favorite game which is Battlefield Vietnam and both cards work great in Single card mode so there is absolutely NO issues with hardware with his system and he is using the latest and greatest of drivers and has the latest bios which is what any Techie will tell you did you check this and update these?

Here is a link to a great article mentioning the problems with the 6800 series of cards:

6800 SLI Problems

The answer is all hardware, drivers and bios are perfectly FINE and installed properly. What he stated is that the screen has a fuzzy or messed up line that crosses the middle of the screen as if electrical interference as seen on say a TV with a neighbor with a bad spark plug on his motorcycle passes your house. I've yet to try newer beta drivers with him to see if any of this would fix the issue but from what I've been reading all over the NET this is a known issue but only with any 6800 series of cards? I also told him to contact Asus once again because these are their video boards as well as their motherboard. I'll post back with any results that I can come up with on this story or anything found out from Asus.

He is very happy with the system, its stability, and speed, definitely it's the top and the fastest system he's ever had or for anyone to have for that matter. Currently he is running the system with only 2 Gig of RAM showing and with the cards SLI turned OFF and using only (1) 6800 card. The only regret he has is that he bought the extra video card ($399) and the extra 2 Gig of RAM ($465) and until Asus comes up with a cure to rectify this problem he spent almost $900 dollars with what the specifications stated could be done with this motherboard and set up.

I'd just like to say even though this is the latest and greatest technology and yes it's in its infancy this would still fall under FALSE ADVERTISEMENT. Either by Asus themselves and Nvidia, something needs to be done or there are going to be a lot of computer enthusiasts very upset with their purchase.

More as news becomes available. I currently have sent my brother WHQL 71.24 Nvidia drivers to see if the SLI problem can be fixed with Battlefield Vietnam with these yet to be released officially from Nvidia.

Update: Ok from a lot of reading and many comments I've come to the conclusion that the RAM is being seen properly from the OS but it seperates the RAM into (2x2) 2 Gig configuration this being 2 Gig for Kernel and 2 Gig for Application Space which equals 4 Gig, this is OS specific. This will probably be the case until Windows XP 64 is released or if he would install Windows 2003 Server Enterprise or Linux. As far as the video drivers are concerned they did NOT do the trick. So there still is an issue with 6800 Series and SLI function next he'll be trying a BETA Bios from Asus to see if this problem is fixed.

Support Center from Home

2005-01-16T18:30:00.000-05:00

Have you ever tried walking someone through doing something on their computer but yet they don't have a clue about computers and you wish you were sitting right there in front of their PC so you could just do it yourself? This post will explain how you can.

In one of my earlier posts I mentioned how I introduced this to a company and changed the way they do tech support now because of this. This program has been around for years and I'm not sure how many have ever thought of using it the way that I have (I'm sure plenty)? If not, then my mind really does work in mysterious ways. I've been using these tools for over 12 years now on the internet with friends and family, but never got to use or should I say test them until 5 years ago on an enterprise set up and after doing all my own testing and usage of it, what a change it made for doing support and thus the reason of this post.

Back in the beginning of Windows a little program was created for conversing, doing white boards, sharing files, and even to share a program for that matter, and was included in (All) windows and some had shortcuts to it but others had it buried within the operating system. You could also go out and download newer versions as they became available.

The program I'm talking about is NETMEETING. For those with XP you can also use Remote Administration or Application Sharing to do this and I will explain both Netmeeting and Application Sharing within this post.

I mentioned in my very first ever post how I introduced something that was readily available to a real world support center, a free and easy tool for doing support. This post is going to touch on this software and others I use on a daily basis to do support for friends and family without ever leaving my home.

The first of these tools is what is known as NetMeeting and is included in all Windows OS either hidden or just not known on how to start (no shortcut). No matter what Windows OS you are using if you were to go to Start then Run and type CONF (this being short for conference) it doesn't need to be in caps, into this area I'm sure NetMeeting will start within time. If for whatever reason it isn't installed onto your system it can be downloaded and installed on earlier versions of Windows before Windows 2000 by going to this site:

Netmeeting 3.01

Once it starts and if it hasn't been set up you will be asked several questions, you can simply put a period into every field and then click NEXT and any box that you see UNCHECK them and keep hitting NEXT until you get to FINISH. This is how you tell someone to set it up that isn't computer literate. If the person has a clue they can just follow the prompts and fill the information out and go through the Audio Wizard, etc. This can also be done anytime by going to Tools then Options and filling in information and checking boxes etc. Later. Once it is up this is what you'll see.

NetMeeting as seen in XP

This is how you connect to someone if on a local area network or internet. You simply type the persons IP address into the top field and hit the call button or top button on right. You can get a persons IP by hitting HELP and About Windows Netmeeting on top and it will display a persons IP and they can give it to you so you can call them. If you know your own they can call you also, either way it works. If both parties have sound and a mic you can talk to one another if set up in Audio Wizard and you can even use a web cam and do video chat. You can do a whiteboard, share files, share application with this nifty little tool. I use the latter for doing support.

As seen in this next picture is what comes up when you click the lower left hand button for sharing applications.

Sharing Screen

Now for doing support you don't need audio or video all you care about is seeing what the client is seeing. The other problem with using over the internet is if the client is behind a firewall or on an internal address behind router. This is where knowing what an internal or external IP address is? Do your homework on these items.

Netmeeting can be done with dial up, cable, dsl, or on a local area network. If you work for a company anyone on the network can connect to one another because all IPs can be seen internally and if up and on the network. This is how I introduced it to the company I worked for. If you asked the client what their IP was and they said 169.*.*.* you knew they didn't have network connectivity, and you wouldn't be able to connect no matter what. If their IP was say 10.*.*.*, or 192.*.*.* then you were in business whatever IP address scheme your company uses. Of course using those IPs with someone on the internet won't work the same. If you see any IP from a friend that resembles those mentioned they are probably behind a router. If they are like 24.*.*.* or 65.*.*.* then their PC is on an external connection and could be contacted or connected to without incident.

If you use a router and your PC is on an internal address it would need forwarding to be used or UPNP enabled. This way the person calling you would connect to your router and it would forward to your internal address or if a DMZ was configured. You can google all of these terms.

For those having a clue, you'd need to know that external address to work. Those not having a clue you'd need to start reading about all those terms I just mentioned. This is all router stuff. If you were the support contact for a small company say, you'd allow yourself access externally to the internal network of the company. This way a client could connect to you and vice versa.

Once all the networking issues were resolved you'd be in business and can start supporting your company or your friends on the internet.

To do this you just have the person highlight the item you want them to share in the window and click the SHARE button. In the case of Support you want them to share their Desktop. You have them click the Allow button then to check Automatically accept requests for control. Now all you have to do is double click your mouse and you are in control if they want control back they do the same.

Now this is where you could teach someone how to use say Excel, what I call How To sessions and walk them through what you are doing or how to use something. You can check the system over and find trouble spots or fix problems just by being connected. Where this is a better program from say SMS is that all you need is an IP address, so it could be done as an administrator to get a machine back on a domain if all securities etc. Are allowed. Just this fact alone allowed our support center to resolve hundreds of tickets a month they couldn't do before. With SMS if the machine was off the domain you couldn't rejoin it because you couldn't connect to it because it was based on its computer name, the ticket had to be passed on to Second Level for this or you had to try walking a client through it but you didn't want to give that client a username or password of someone with higher security rights - usually a person had to go to it manually with proper rights.

With Windows XP it's added many other features that are really just NetMeeting by a different name or similar in design and this would be Application Sharing or even Remote Administration. Remote Administration is more complex method and for the enterprise but to do exactly what I'm talking about but without the use of NetMeeting. I won't be touching much on Remote Administration but the use is endless. Windows Messenger actual uses NetMeeting for the same task it's known as Application Sharing. You can add contacts in Windows Messenger and with a right click on their name and picking Start Application Sharing you can connect and see the exact same screen above for sharing the desktop. With everything that comes with Windows XP if a company goes to this OS the support tools are all right there under your finger tips and sitting right in front of you in more ways than one. Just depends on what way you want to have your administration as an enterprise.

Support from home can be done with all of these when configured and set up properly. With email, file sharing, application sharing, you name it, support is endless. Those doing support never need to leave their homes.

Even a meeting can be conducted and displayed to a group with NetMeeting or a room allowing multiple connections at once. For teaching say in a class with multiple computers, students just connect to your PC with IP and you can show them all how to use whatever it is you are teaching and following your every move without the use of a chalk board. If I have 4 people that want to learn how to say add hardware to a PC with Device Manager they all just connect to my IP, I accept all 4 people and just go through the motions and all 4 people will see exactly what I'm doing and can learn.

Another software you can add to this mix is that of Citrix where it has a server at say an enterprise with all the enterprise software on it. As with my company I used VPN to connect to this Citrix server to use ARS (Remedy) to put a support ticket in and this would then go to the proper support group if I couldn't fix it myself. This is what else could be used to allow anyone from home to do what they do at work without actually going to work. VPN is another creature all it's own and can make all of those in IT from ever leaving home. With VPN and all the items I mentioned here for support options you can't go wrong.

Everything within this post is FREE except a VPN server and Citrix. With the other tools mentioned they are all included within your OS and if you have Windows, a network connection or the internet they can all work to your advantage.

A company just needs to have the proper people setting it up and willing to allow their employees to work from home and trusting their support staff. They'll see that the money saved by doing this and the employee to employer relationship changed. The company just wants the best support available and the employee just wants a good pay and a pay check, both of these can be accomplished.

Tech Support Company of Future

2005-01-16T13:58:00.000-05:00

Tech Support - what a royal pain? I'll explain in this post what I want to do or see in the near future with the technologies that are available today. Anyone with the money or the vision to create such a Support Company, feel free to comment and lets get to work on it, I'd be more than happy to be a part.

I can't believe that Microsoft themselves doesn't come up with this form of support for their own OS and other software, the money that they could gain by doing support for EVERY company in the world using their software would be astronomical, not like they need anymore money or anything. It could become the Microsoft Support Center - a world wide support company, besides, it is their OS and what about Office, programming etc. Who knows it better?

One thing I've always wanted to do was create a large tech support company with employees who would never leave their homes but get paid a 40 hour work week. Telecommuting the way computer jobs should be and the way it was meant to be. Think of it, no travel, no traffic, no baby sitters or day care, no boss breathing down your neck, log in during your hours of work, log off when the day ends. Using your own knowledge, phone, and computer and receiving a pay check at the end of the week.

All of those working for this company around the US or World for that matter could work together by having a tickets system or forum where questions could come in and be left in a queue to be picked up or taken by someone from the support group or multiple people. More complex calls could go to those that would know the resolution, more or less everyone networked together so information could be exchanged easily or a call forwarded to proper support staff. When forwarding these calls it would be calling someone of knowledge at home waiting to resolve the issue as support staff does daily while sitting in the work place. This company wouldn't be an actual building as such but thousands, millions, of homes across the world with someone of knowledge there for your computer knowledge picking. I go to sites daily and help people out or at least try to in forums by answering their questions, why not get paid for it?

Customers hate nothing more than sitting on hold or getting busy signals (Always). People go to current forums or newsgroups but never get the answers to their questions. With millions sitting at home with the knowledge to support many things, software, hardware, etc. Could be set within particular groups and pay scales for that knowledge. You can't leave out time zones either. When I'm in bed, others on the other side of the world are wide awake and into the next day already, meaning never a busy signal and always someone to answer and possibly get your problem solved. You could also have HOW TO and explanations shown to you. Say you want to know how to do a certain function say in Excel? Someone with the knowledge of Excel could walk you through it either visually or vocally. It could also be used for learning or teaching experiences. I think this form of support could become even larger than Microsoft itself and be an even richer company overall. All the technology for such a support company already exists.

Companies would buy into support contracts and all (INTERNAL) IT - Support Centers would become obsolete. The cost savings to employers would definitely be decreased. Everyone that would work for this huge Support company would be a contractor and staying at home. The technology is already here to get this ball rolling. All companies go to outsourcing because of it's money saving factors well this is outsourcing at a whole new level. I don't know of anyone who wouldn't want to stay at home and collect a pay check for doing what they already do by driving 40-60 miles a day - minus - (Risks, Mileage, Traffic, Weather conditions, Parking and Travel costs). You also have people that may supplement current incomes on weekends by doing this, so even the weekends are covered. All hours are covered because people could pick or choose what hours they want to work. You do away with overtime, you set pays per knowledge and complexity and it could be lower than what a company pays already for such support without the knowledge, more or less companies that have people running their support and not really having a clue.

You can take this a step further. Dell, Gateway could hire this company as they already do in some cases (Sub-Contracting). If you want to travel? In your local area they would simply contact one of these support staffers by phone and you'd go to the house of the individual who needs say a new hard drive installed, you've seen the Geek Squad. You could have hourly workers or a pay per work basis. There could be a huge directory of contractors who could do this function or both, during their work hours and those who just want to do vocal or connected support. You would have support staff in every state and every county, and country for that matter, if properly set up. Ones that could travel or do home support and those only doing phone or networked support (Internet). Those at home also are using their own equipment no costs for companies for these computers, the contractor is responsible for his own costs if this is the job he wants.

How about getting someone you can't understand? Example have you called Dell or Gateway from the US and gotten someone you could NOT understand and they tried walking you through fixing your problem (Impossible). In the early days of computers I learned more out of anger of Gateways support staff that I did everything myself and learned countless things on my own. With this set up you could get a English speaking US citizen actually from your area giving you tech support and he could connect to you instead of walking you through it, problem solved.

The support phone number would allow you to choose the language you want and location. Other example if you live in the French Quarter in Louisiana you could get another person that speaks your language, from the French Quarter. With all the different dialects just within the US alone is a problem, this is now solved because the way people speak from say New York to those in the South you get a support staffer in your area - much easier communications.

You can have this in so many forms, you could have a website that people go to and pay per incident at a reasonable cost with credit card or pay pal account. Have a phone number that a person uses for their company alone and a support staff configured for that company only paying a monthly or yearly fee. An 800 phone number for anyone needing support they can use and choose the support they want and it is given to them via the phone or internet and paid for by credit card.

If you like the way your Support Center is already? You use those individuals and give them VPN access and this allows those workers to do what they do now, but from home. Doing all of these mentioned above with the person doing the support, never leaving their home.

I worked in a support center for a company and there was nothing I couldn't do from home that I did there. I answered the phone, took the call, connected to the person and fixed if able, or sent a ticket to next level with software such as ARS and the use of Citrix. These then were picked up from a higher level support person. There was say 15-20 people within the support center and you could just hire these individuals giving them VPN access to their company and these people could do everything securely from their own homes getting the same results with less hassles and costs from both the company and the employee. Making for a much better relationship. I was able to even do this while I worked at this company because everything was already there to do it when set up properly, I would have just needed a way that the support phone line would ring my home phone or a dedicated line.

You can also do away with some of the Chiefs you have within your company saving so much more money with this model. I have many friends that could do this easily with the proper connections and set up saving companies thousands if not millions in support costs. With all these new technologies and communications software's you can have a support center run from your home fairly easily. The problem is how do you get paid to do this?

This is where a huge support company comes in with the same vision as I have and the companies willing to pay this support company for its support or even hiring you as a support representative alone as their support contact say for a small legal firm or something. It comes down to how will they contact you and how will you connect or fix their problem? You answer your phone, get the question or problem, either walk the client through the resolution or connect to them with available software or forward to someone else who has the knowledge to handle a particular software or problem. Then getting paid for this support either on an hourly basis or incident basis.

Just think of all the people that get on a computer and something goes wrong and they have no one to contact to help them through their problem regardless of how minor and at 24/7? If everyone knew of a single phone number or company (such as Microsoft) that they could call or go to internet (Web Page) and ask or get support, don't you think this would be incredible? As an employee don't you think sitting at your computer at home as I do daily for say 12 or more hours a day and actually having the ability to get paid doing it would be another incredible thing?

Here is a link to a site that seems to be doing what this post is about:

http://www.workingsol.com/home.htm

How big and how well it works is another story. I've had this idea for years since my first days with my Gateway and toying with everything that was included with Windows and this will be touched on in my next post.

The wave of the future is NOW and all the things are in place to allow all of this to happen. The big question is WHEN and WHO?

My next post is going to go over the way I could do support from my home with what is available for free today and will explain sort of what I touched on with this article. With this post and my next you should see where I am headed with this. Just need some way of getting paid or someone with a vision to get it started???

Ever Changing Computer Standards

2005-01-13T20:33:00.000-05:00

Well I've told you how to build the most ultimate computer. Now with the motherboard mentioned comes a whole new bunch of standards. You may be asking what do I mean by standards?

Every year or say 6 months, the computer industry comes up with something lets say latest and greatest known as STANDARDS that they want all computer builders to incorporate. Standards could be looked at as improvements over what is old and out dated, obsolete. As a quick example ISA slots were replaced with PCI, PCI Video to AGP Slot (Video Only), USB 1.0 is now USB 2.0. These are just a few.

The reason for this post is to point out a few things people should know about building a new computer and that they may over look. My brother actually built the system I posted about earlier down to the last nut and bolt. This is where he mentioned something to me that I was shocked to learn actually. So as I've said you learn something NEW everyday in the computer field.

He tells me that he got a power supply but it only has a 20 pin connector on it but the A8N has a connector with 24??? Now I'm like "Really?"... I stated maybe it's something new (Standard)? I've never heard of anything different than just AT and ATX power supplies.

So I do a little research and server motherboards have had the 24 kind for some time and some Intel motherboards but what is funny is you can't find a power supply that has a 24 connector - barely and not totally true, but hard to come by. So I'm here to warn you about your computer building to know everything about what you are building. From my reading it states the new boards are going to this (Standard) because of the PCIe Bus. Needing more power thus using a 24 connector instead of 20. You can buy adapters that convert from one to the other or after some reading you can still use the 20 connector on a 24 connector by placing as far RIGHT as you can leaving 4 slots open. This picture will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

20 Pin Connector on a 24 Pin Connector (New Motheboards)

You can also buy converters as I mentioned, like shown here.

20 to 24 Pin Converter

If you are lucky enough you can find some power supplies that have a connector for both or one strictly for the new standard or if you can't, you will in some time. I remember when I bought one of the first motheboards ever to have SATA on it and I had to wait a month just for the power converter from 4 pin Molex to SATA to become available.

Since I mentioned SATA or Serial ATA there is the regular SATA and soon SATA 2 which is just faster than the original. Of course these have replaced IDE, EIDE or ATA and Ultra ATA. These are what you attach your Hard Drives and CDROMS to. So when choosing a Hard Drive you have to know what your system is supposed to use, 33, 66, 100. Here are some good links to see these standards.

Ultra ATA here:
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ultra_ata100.html

Serial ATA here:
http://www.sata-io.org/satatechnology.asp

Here you can see the differences of the cabling and the connectors you'll find on the motherboard.

Difference of Cabling from PATA on left to SATA on right

Parellel ATA on Motherboard

Serial ATA Connectors on Motheboard

Making for a much more open case with the new cabling and cooler for that matter. A happy computer is a cool computer. I always hated those bulky gray cables of course they make round ones now but still a pain. It took them long enough? Now someone needs to engineer up a new way to put heatsinks and fans on the CPU rather than those pain in the ass retention clips. I'm working on it and hopefully I'll make billions on it some day, I have ideas but you have to go with what is already there on all motherboards and perfect it.

We can't leave out something else for SATA that is new is NCQ or (Native Command Queuing) here is a link to an informative pdf of this new improvement to SATA.

Native Command Queuing

Our next standard hitting the market is what is called PCIe, PCX, PCI-Express these all really being the same thing. This is to replace PCI and AGP over time. Currently it's replacing the AGP slot but there are network cards based on PCIe also. So in the near future there may be no such thing as AGP or PCI, only time will tell.

Here is a great link to teach you everything you ever wanted to know about AGP:

http://www.ertyu.org/~steven_nikkel/agpcompatibility.html

Now you may be asking what is PCIe or PCI-Express? Everything you ever wanted to know about this can be found on this incredible article. Explains far more than what I can type about.

http://www.d-silence.com/feature.php?id=252

So last but not least you have networking and what has come to be known as Ethernet and Gigabit LAN. We all know what Ethernet is but what exactly is Gigabit LAN?

Another great link for the explanation of all of these is found here, this will fill any Network Gurus mind.

http://www.arcelect.com/ethernet.htm

Of course you have many other things I haven't even touched on, but usually still are part of those mentioned here such as RAID and of cousre a difference between say a Sound Card, Built on Sound and RAM (All those numbers and letters), 2700, 3200, 4000, DDR, DDR2, DDR3. Those are for another post altogether besides my fingers are tired and I think I will end on that note. Hope these links and some of what I've said will open up your eyes to how a computer can change from one month to the next or from year to year. It's an insane market, no wonder things become obsolete the second you buy them. Remember Floppy drives - who needs them - you have a CDROM and RE-WRITABLE CD's to do the same thing or just a bootable CD. Either way happy reading and with all those links and some of what I posted should keep you busy and learning none the less. Until next time. More subjects, hmmm?

Newsgroups (Who needs P2P???)

2005-01-09T11:58:00.000-05:00

Newsgroups? P2P? Many are probably asking what are these? Newsgroups are similar to a forum, a blog for that matter, pretty much a meeting place. P2P or Peer to Peer, is a way individuals can connect to one another as if networked together for sharing files, ideas, and music, remember Napster? This topic though is about Newsgroups only.

You can get to newsgroups from your ISP who usually has a news server you can set up (Free) or you can use a Newsgroup Service (Giganews for a monthly or yearly fee) these can be accessed by your basic email client usually Outlook Express and other software just made for newsgroups (XNews, Agent, Newsbin), I'm sure there are many others?

These software's are what are called Newsreaders and pretty much are just ways to make your newsgroup browsing an easier process. Some of these readers require a fee because it is software. I use XNews it's free. These are what Front Ends were to emulation, a graphical user interface to make it easier to do the things needed to accomplish your goals, pretty much doing everything for you. Here is what a newsreader looks like.

Xnews

One thing about newsgroups is you can post anything you want, good or bad, people can reply good or bad. Some newsgroups are beneficial for those with health problems, computer problems you name it. You simply ask your question and individuals who frequent the group may reply with the answer? Most large companies have their own newsgroups with people there to answer incoming questions similar to a forum, just another medium.

You can learn quite a bit from newsgroups. Just about any topic thought of has a newsgroup associated with it. Within your newsreader you search for a topic such as mp3 and this would bring up any newsgroup with mp3 in it's name. You then subscribe to the group you are interested in (no fee associated just a figure of speech). It then would place this subscription on another page within the newsreader for easy access and add to your other subscribed newsgroups (Favorites would be a good example).

There is so much to learn about newsgroups that it would take a 100 page blog to touch on everything. I'll try to touch on the basics and what I can before my fingers fall off. As mentioned earlier newsgroups are free from most ISP (Internet Service Provider) and for a small fee by other news services (Giganews). The differences between the two is of course money, available newsgroups and last but not least, a retention period. What I mean by available newsgroups is that some servers filter out say porn, warez, cracks, things that may be deemed illegal or obscene by your ISP (looking out for your well being), LOL. Retention period is the length of time a news server will hold on to a particular post. Most ISP forms have a retention period of about 24-48 hours, then everything is lost to the great newsgroup gods in the sky, keeping their servers clean. As far as news services (Giganews) have a retention period of months. Retention is a big factor in finding what you want because if you do not read your subscriptions every single hour or day you may miss what you've been waiting for, that answer to your question or that post to your REQUEST (about this in a minute).

There are different forms of newsgroups some are simple text and others are binary which has both. Common sense tells you what text is, but what about binary? Binary is what makes up everything in computers and software - ones and zeros - programming, or life in general. Remember the movie (Matrix)? This post isn't about Binary though sorry. Binary newsgroups are those that turn that text into binary code and vice versa. This allows people to post software, mp3, movies, books, you name it. Now I mentioned Request earlier if you look at the picture above you can see someone placed REQ: within their subject line, this tells you that someone is looking for something and can you fill his Request? If so and you have it, you could post an ISO image or CD Image of this file regardless of size.

Most posts on news servers have a 15MB limit, but no limit on the amount of posts. In effect you can take say a 500MB file and post 15MB pieces of it to the group which would equate to 500 divided by 15 giving you the amount of posts needed = 34 posts, the technical term for this is ENCODING (Taking the binary file and converting it to binary text). Yenc and UUencode are two forms of doing this process of Encoding and Decoding. With the use of certain newsreaders this is done for you when posting or when downloading a post.

In the early days you had to use a program that would do this for you before you could post, but this has since been added or controlled by the newsreaders. Example if you were still using Outlook Express as your news reader which Downloads and Decodes the files to a text file if Yenc'ed. If it were Yenc'ed you'd have to use Yenc32 to turn that text file into it's proper form the actual file, which became a long and drawn out process. You can google about this item and uuencode.

So now you see 34 posts all stating the same thing? Once all of these posts are downloaded or what is known as DECODED (Taking the binary text and converting it to a binary file) say a 500mb ISO. This is very complicated stuff and this is where the newreader comes in and many other pieces of software so with say XNews it doesn't matter if it's Yenc'ed or uuencode it does the work for you. In XNews it's as easy as selecting all the binary posts all 34 of them and hitting F4 function key. Depending on where you Decode these items to, you may see 34 rar files upon completion. Now knowing about rar and zip files or (ARCHIVES) is a completely different subject and at times some downloaded files may not be complete thus needing another piece of software for repairing these archives by the use of Par and Par2 files or posts.

These are those pieces of software needed to accomplish your newsreading experience. Learn everything you can about all of these. You can choose the newsreader you desire, of course these are what I use.

Xnews:
Here is a How To and Download Site:
http://www.slyck.com/xnews.php

Winrar:
This can do just about every format of archive which is needed to extract those downloaded binary files whether in zip or rar form from newsgroups and the internet or p2p:
http://www.rarlab.com/index.htm

QuickPar:
This software is what is needed if you download zip or rar files that are not complete and someone posts Par or Par2 files which actually will fix those corrupt or incomplete files:
http://www.quickpar.org.uk/Download.htm

Once you've mastered these three pieces of software you will see how easy it is to get what you want and when you want it. This pretty much equates to why do you need Peer to Peer? As I mentioned earlier you can get anything and everything, software, ebooks, mp3, movies, books, nothing is left out here. Who says it cost 100,000 dollars for a BMW - if it could be posted in binary and decoded it would be free.

You can also get online newsgroups which I will not touch much on and these usually require a fee or sign up but it's no different than browsing the internet or forum. To learn more about this you can read this article.

http://www.cyberfiber.com/articles/web_based_newsgroup.htm

A few key points about newsgroups (NEVER) use your real email address because a lot of spammers take these from places like this and use them for their spam attacks. Actually never use your email online period unless you truly want to be contacted by someone or site. You may be asking what about virus's? Most servers don't want them either so the posted files are scanned when being posted then scanned again once you download if you use this kind of software and if something does get posted of worry someone will warn you of it with another post. Either way you have risks just use common sense.

Here are two of my favorite binary sites that I frequent. I mentioned in one of my earlier posts about emulation and getting ROMS well this is what you've been waiting for.

MAME ROMS:
alt.binaries.emulators.mame

Anything Software:
alt.binaries.cd.image

As always this is just a brief take on Newsgroups but believe me once you get started you may never turn back. It is very rewarding and time consuming but well worth the effort. You can google as always about anything mentioned within my post and I hope you've all learned something with this post. Remember we are all FREE why not get it FREE.

Game Emulation

2005-01-08T15:30:00.000-05:00

For you gamers out there this post is for you. Many may have never heard of emulators or emulation. This is where this post comes in. A Game Emulator is a program that uses ROMS to emulate the real game that we've all come to know and love either Arcade Games, Console Games you name it. These emulators give you the REAL game, not say Pac Man from the Arcade to what Atari did to it on the home console, eeek what a nightmare.

This post will be about the best of them, and that is MAME and it's front ends, there are so many emulators to speak of, ones for the Intellivision, Atari, Apple II, NES, SNES, XBOX, PS2 and anything you like - start googling (Game Emulation).

The most famous of these Emulators is what is known as MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulation). For you Windows people this comes in the flavor called MAME32 and MAME32 Plus which are just different (Front Ends) to the emulator, you can pick and choose what front end you prefer - I prefer MAME32. There are plenty of others.

You may be asking what is a Front End? This is the graphical user interface created by someone, to accomplish in the easiest form, the use of emulation - makes it easy on the user, as Windows did for DOS, catch my drift? If not you can google all these terms from my blog with my google search bar.

The Front End MAME32

With picture above you can see a screen of how the actual game looks on right - (It's the REAL DEAL).

ROMS are what make the emulator emulate the actual game and these ROMS are usually the exact same code that was placed on chips within the actual arcade machine. This information is somehow taken from these chips and put into a readable form by the emulator. Most ROMS are simply zip files that contain the information or binary of what was on those chips, video, sound, button presses, coin slots, dip switches etc. You simply take these zip files and place them within the ROMS folder in your MAME32 folder without unzipping them and the emulator will read the zip file and it's contents by its name. The front end does everything for you it's just a matter of knowing how this all ties together. You can learn anything and everything about MAME from these two links.

http://www.mame.net/

http://www.classicgaming.com/mame32qa/

For those that are my age. Remember all those quarters spent in the arcade back in the early to mid 80's and for those still doing it today? With the onset of home console systems (XBOX, PS2) rivaling what can be done in arcades, this has since changed and most of these games have vanished and so has the arcades.

MAME currently has approximately (5000) ROMS and these are exactly how you saw them when they were in the arcade. Of course getting these ROMS is another process in itself because of legal ramifications and copy rights. Some sites outside the US host them for a fee you can download them with a paypal account. Some people host them themselves by ftp or web sites. My way of getting anything and everything is by the use of Newsgroups and I'll be creating a post on this great little secret later. Now back to emulation.

Once you download the emulator and extract to your favorite place on your hard drive it consists of several subfolders and depending on the front end used allows you to spiff up the front end with screenshots, icons, marquees, flyers and the like. Always leaving everything in zipped form you just place in it's proper folder.
You can click on Front End picture above and see a larger picture of it and see what all the bells and whistles added to it can accomplish.

Those taking the information from chips to file form were unable to extract some sound for some of the games this is where Samples come in and these have the exact same name as the ROM but must be placed within the Samples folder instead to give certain games their sound. Most games have been emulated exactly and these are not needed except for a few. Out of the (5000) games in ROM form not all are working or replicated exactly due to encryption and other factors. Most of the most famous of games are out there and if you name it, I'm sure I'd say yes it's out there.

This hobby has a tendency to take you away from doing your work and what is great is that it can be run in a smaller window which can easily be minimized. Who the heck wants to play Solitaire when you can play Pac Man, Asteroids, Galaga and so on. This post won't be as long as others only because with the links included and Google you can learn about emulation until your hearts content.

These ROMS are free as is the Emulator, its just a matter of finding and downloading everything you want. You will never find the ROMS with the emulator because of legal ramifications so by having both on your hard drive and the fact that you should own the actual game to have legal rights to it - is entirely up to you and solely falls on your lap - this all can be read usually within the Readme.txt or Help file in the Front End.

Not all of my posts will be completely informative because with Google and Links included within my posts more can be learned by the true experts, these are just my take on some of the things I'll be posting on. I'll be posting more and more on the things of interest to myself and I hope you agree are worth the read and want them to keep coming. My next post will be about Newsgroups (Who needs P2P (peer to peer))... I think I'm becoming addicted to Blogging. lol.

Building the Ultimate Computer

2005-01-07T01:42:00.000-05:00

Many people today want to have the most incredible and up to date system. I'm here to point you in the right direction to building that monster machine you've always wanted. I'll include links to purchasing these items, pictures, and descriptions to the most current of items needed to build this creature. Current prices can be found by following the links. This system will run you around $4000 but it's well worth it because you may not need to update for some years to come and this would max this baby out and give you the bragging rights for the fastest and best PC that you can actually build yourself.

PCs today are made up of certain components, here is a list of what must be purchased to build a PC with a few suggestions which are what I recommend and manufacturers, everyone has their opinions, these are solely mine - This will be an AMD system only:

Motherboard - Asus, Abit, Gigabyte, MSI
CPU - Central Processing Unit - Pentium 4, Athlon 64 - Intel, AMD
Memory - RAM (Random Access Memory) - Corsair, Kingston
Hard Drives - SATA (Serial ATA) - Seagate, Western Digital, Maxtor
Video or Display Adapter - Nvidia, ATI - PNY, Gainward, Asus, MSI
CD-ROM, CDR, CDRW, DVD, DVDR, DVDRW - Plextor, LiteOn
Sound - Soundblaster, Motherboard (Already Built on) - Audigy, Soundstorm, Realtek, Intel
Case/PSU (Power Supply Unit) with 500+ Watt - Antec
Monitor - CTR, Flat Panel - Viewsonic
Mouse and Keyboard Combo - Microsoft, Logitech
OS - Windows XP Pro SP2, Linux

Most PCs today are excluding a floppy drive because they pretty much have become obsolete.

We'll start with the motherboard, the latest technologies is what is known as 939 and 478, processors are also based on this number so when purchasing items make sure you are purchasing the proper ones. These come in so many flavors and are all based on the amount of pins, 939, 940, 754, for the AMD processor. Socket 478 for the Intel Processor. I'm only including the latest and greatest though and only using AMD.

The reason for this is because, AMD for price and performance as compared to an Intel based system. Personally it is as good, if not better processor in many benchmarks and currently is the reigning champ overall, and the inclusion of 64 bit over 32 bit - the wave of the future. I've also included links to my favorite of online sellers.

Motherboard

Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Price: $200
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=240418

You can read about all the incredible features this board has by following this link.
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8nsli-d/overview.htm

Notice by the picture there are two slots for Video Adapters these are the new standard of PCI-E or PCX which stands for PCI Express - the old AGP standard will soon be going by the way side. The reason for two is the new SLI (Scalable Link Interface) feature of adding two of the exact same kind and SLI compatible video cards that can work together as one. Look for this emblem on compatible video adapters.

Scalable Link Interface

More can be read about this new incredible feature here: http://www.nvidia.com/page/sli.html

Next you would want the processor that would be tops for this motherboard and that would fall into the 939 Athlon 64 FX-55.

CPU

Athlon 64 FX-55 Price: $880
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80723-R

RAM would be the next item to add to your motherboard and with this board you can have up to 4 Gig of RAM or should I say (4) 1 Gig sticks of PC 3200 DDR (400) - At the bottom of the page on the motherboard link above on Asus site you will find what memory has been tested with board by pressing the Memory QVL button.

Of course RAM comes in many shapes and sizes and (DDR 400) Dual Channel is what you are looking for and it may not be on the QVL list from Asus but there are so many kinds to choose from and the risk of compatibility is the only thing to really worry about this also depends on whether you are going to overclock or not and this is where other numbers come into consideration 3200, 3500, 4000? Most sites can answer your RAM questions before purchasing. With most ram coming in what is called matched pairs you can get two 1 Gig sticks and what I've listed is compatible and tested with board with (4) 1 Gig sticks running at Dual Channel.

Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2/2G 2GB Kit DDR400 PC3200
Price: $470 x 2
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=80098-50

Next comes the Hard Drives with the newest of standards being SATA or Serial ATA which has since taken over for the PATA - IDE - EIDE or Parallel ATA. Remember all those big bulky gray cables in your PC? Those have since been replaced by small flat rigid red cables the size of a smashed ethernet cable (CAT 5). The thing with building your system is money and how much do you want to spend and how much storage do you really need. Believe me there is no such thing as to much. So depending on what you do and what you store depends on the price you want to spend on your hard drives. Personally I'd rather have multiple hard drives because if you put all your eggs in one basket - or should I say when the hard drive fails and you only have one, now what? For the price of one super huge drive you can get multiple smaller drives that cost less than that one large drive with actually more storage. This is the way I go about building systems. With RAID and other features you can have up to like 8 drives in one system of course doing RAID is for another story altogether. Seagate in my opinion is by far the best maker of hard drives and I'd say 200 Gig of storage is a good starting point if you would like more just add another one. Pesonally I'd go with 2 of them.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST3200822AS 200GB Serial ATA
Price: $135 x 2
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=101562

Video Adapters? This one is a tough one because if you like ATI risk of compatibility might be a problem on this motherboard but if you like Nvidia (which I do) you can use two like boards and use the SLI feature or the single board feature it's your choice but since this is the ultimate PC, you'd want two. The problem with Video Adapters for this new standard which is PCI-Express the ultimate video board is almost non-existent which would be a 6800 Ultra - they exist in the old AGP form but finding them in the new PCI-Express form is a much harder item to come by. PNY is my card of choice and until they release the 6800 Ultra PCI-E this section can't be completed but you can go with what is available which is two 6800 PCI-E Boards from Asus and of course sticking with Nvidia and Asus because of the mother board being Nvidia Nforce 4 by Asus and the Asus video boards being Nvidia and Asus, compatibility should never be an issue. Besides I think this would just be a marriage made in heaven. My guess is by April of this year the 6800 Ultra PCI-E will be out and flooding the market and at that point it's up to you what manufacturer you prefer. The cards that are readily available are 6600, 6600 GT, 6800, 6800 GT. Waiting for that extra 10-20 frames per second with the Ultras, you may ask yourself it is really worth the wait and the extra $100 per card?

Asus Extreme N6800 GeForce 6800 PCI Express 256MB
Price: $400 x 2
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=324532

Of course everyone wants to burn DVDR and CDR and all the other forms of burning and of course the ability to play and read all these formats. Plextor is by far the best company when it comes to ROM drives of all kinds, period.

Plextor PX-716A
Price: $150
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=173418

One of the many great features of this motherboard is its built on ethernet abilities and we can't leave out the sound. You save on both of these items because they are actually both built on. Of course if you are some real heavy audiophile then you may need to purchase an add in card such as a SoundBlaster Audigy 4 Pro. Personally I don't think it is needed and just using the onboard sound is more than enough. It's to bad the Soundstorm from their Nforce 2 boards wasn't included with the Nforce 4 but with 8 Channel Audio and all the proper connectors on motherboard for digital out spdif etc. save that money and buy yourself 6 of the most graphically intensive games to take for a run instead or if the built in sound is not enough for you and you think you need more you can add this baby.

http://www.soundblaster.com/products/Audigy4pro/
Price: $300 estimate

The other items needed to build this monster is any case with at least a 500 Watt power supply you should not look for anything less.

Here is a great site for choosing one: http://www.xoxide.com/allcases.html
Price: $200 estimate

With all this muscle you may need additional cooling so add those extra fans where available. You won't regret it.

Monitors:
Viewsonic by far makes the best of these not only because of image quality but the refresh rates you can obtain. I also would mention that it's best to buy a CRT than it is a Flat Panel. CRT are much better for gaming than a Flat Panel and the refresh rates apply here also. Most CRTs from Viewsonic come in a Flat Screen form and are quite incredible when cranking up the refresh rate because you then can turn down some of the video card effects used such as AA and AF because at such high refresh rates it pretty much looks as if all of these are on and of course increasing your FPS (Frames Per Second).

You can obtain a nice 21" monitor from Viewsonic and I might add go with the Graphics Series or G series (best for gaming, CAD).

Here is a link to my choice: Viewsonic Graphics Series
Price: $500

We can't leave out your mouse and keyboard combo this is usually by choice depends on what you like, me personally would stick with wired. I do not like wireless keyboards or mice because they require batteries which go bad and usually give weird lag within some games etc. I also go mostly with Microsoft keyboards and mice.
Price: $75 estimate for both

You should know all of these different standards before jumping into your computer building experience. You can simply Google your way to any of the acronyms within this article to get a better understanding of all the standards and those slowly being phased out. Hope this article helps you build the most incredible machine you can, one that is sure to satisfy you for years to come and bragging rights for the BEST...

The Big Suck and Swallow in IT

2005-01-04T17:11:00.000-05:00

I've been in IT for over 11 years in many forms and this is my take on it so far. I've worked at an enterprise environment for almost 5 of those years as a (Contractor). During this time I saw many things. I'm currently unemployed and this is in large part due to the company that I was working for came into hard times and disposed of their disposable workers (Contractors). This worked on the (last in first out) method. I still currently work for my Contract Company but it's now been a year without a single job from them and I've spent this last year working doing swimming pools with a friend of mine to get by until something comes along in IT.

I was making a good living and was doing my best at the job I was doing at the time, which was working for a large utilities company as a Technician, Lead Technician on their End of Lease project (EOL) - (2 1/2 years) and in their Support Center - Support Systems Analyst - (2 1/2 years) as a contractor. The job was great and was right up my alley and paid very well, at least to my standards (40-50k).

While doing this job I saw what really goes on in the IT field and Corporate America in general. You see all the paper MCSE's and those with BS degrees in Information Technology, my take on these is (Bull Shit Degrees) all making even more money than yourself and not knowing a damn thing about computers, software, hardware, network, "you name it" (Most Full Time employees) and myself as a (Contractor) with no degree, an MCP (Microsoft Certified Professional - NT 4.0) , CNA (Certified Novell Administrator - Netware 4.11) and 2 Diplomas from two different Technical Schools and multiple years of hands on, real world with all of the above mentioned (more or less equivalent to an MCSE and BS or even higher degree without the pieces of paper).

I started out as what was called a Logistical Resource, more or less a lower paid Technician for their (EOL project) or End of Lease (all computers were leased and needed replaced on a two year basis). Doing paper work , shipping and receiving for the EOL team (This was my job description), but things were added to my duties weekly if not daily. Reblasting (re-imaging of machines) was added, this was what happened when the support center or second level couldn't fix a pc or problem,"which seemed to be for everything". "As they say shit runs down hill and who sat at bottom of that hill, me. This was 2 guys jobs that had worked as contractors for this company for a few years already, "acting like (Full Timers), soon after this addition to my job description another was added, then doing (New Orders) which was another duty of these two guys which was put off on me as well - (this was if someone ordered a pc or software or peripheral you would image or install the item or software for the client).

This equated to pretty much me doing my job and now 2 other guys jobs while one played Solitaire or dosed off all day and the other sat with thumb up ass and feet up on desk, still wondering what he was doing? I had more certs and knowledge than the guys they had doing the Technician, Lead Technician jobs on EOL and the two contractors who sat around with a few years under their belts, after a bit of complaining to my contract company I was moved up to Technician wage which at the time was 4 more dollars an hour but I was still the low man on the totem pole. My job description now was a page or more longer and the two other guys now got to sit around and take questions when asked and pretty much do NOTHING... Who says there is no I in team? There is a M and E in team and I am me.

I don't mind work it actually made your day go much quicker but knowing that while I was doing all these jobs that 2 people were doing nothing and getting paid much more than I was. I don't blame the manager for giving me all of these new found duties because I was his ACE in the hole and he probably knew the work would and was, actually getting done with it set up this way. I don't think he knew what was really going on in our little world down under in the basement of the company where very few people would ever frequent. This of coursre gave me more knowledge and made me a much stronger person overall but it also gave me one heck of an atitude and serious high blood pressure.

During my time on this job many things happened within the company, the company went through a Token Ring to Ethernet upgrade and from NT 4.0 to Windows 2000 roll out (which I was a part of both) working overtime and learning a bunch on the way and helping in any way I could. Trying to prove myself and to possibly find my way up the ladder by my work and actions and to finally land a (Full Time) position.

Here are a few great stories along my journey of being the low man (Contractor in the old IT field). Before the Windows 2000 r0ll out and still running NT 4.0 the company had many issues with databases on the programming side of them and no one could figure out why? - (this is where I came in) - I was a good friend of one of these people working with databases and I told her what I thought the problem was, now remember I'm a nobody here within the company the only people heard, were the (Full Time) employees or those known as higher ups. (Contractors) were considered scum and I know now what racism must have been like in the 60's. Our words or knowledge meant nothing, we had to park on top of the parking garage or in the back of the parking lot and you were just treated very poorly and looked down upon in general.

Now here is what I told my friend the problem was. The problem was the way the company had their servers and computers set up. On the servers they had Service Pack 4 and all client pcs had Service Pack 6 (creating a conflict) this was my take on the problem and no one else's. The higher ups said I didn't know what I was talking about at least one of them - this coming from a top (Full Time) employee in Second Level - (MCSE). The company upped all the Service Packs on the Servers to 6 and viola the problem with the databases was fixed - the (HERO) the (Full Time) employee who relayed this from my friend to a higher up and after telling my friend I didn't know shit, lol, well now you know the true story.

Another good one was when a lot of network problems arose with computers crawling along yet others would be zipping along - again I'm not a network guru or should I say I'm still nobody. I'm back for the rescue again - all the pc's that were crawling were set to 100 Full Duplex? I suggest why not set all the pcs to Auto Negotiate and this way they will get the proper information and run at what they negotiate at. Again I haven't a clue (Second Levels take on my suggestions) but after my mentioning of this and a Second Level (Full Time) employee passing the information to higher ups all pcs are now switched to Auto Negotiate - another great problem solved - (HERO) the (Full Time) employee who brought this up, lol, again you now know the true story.

Last but not least the BSOD problem with NT machines - now mind you I'm the one having to reblast up to 5 pcs a day because they are un-repairable by second level and tossed down to me to re-image more or less given up on, (NT repair not working). Now not understanding how there can be this many BSODs daily after my reading that it would take an apocalypse or nuclear holocaust to Blue Screen an NT machine (Sort of) - the wheels start turning in this little head of mine and after looking inside these BSOD machines and other machines they have mixed memory in them (ECC and NON-ECC) in the same system (notice the word AND)? You'd think by now I'd learn to just keep my mouth shut? "Oh no, not me", I bring it up, how can this be? You can't mix both within the same PC (Sure you can, they did, but it's a NO, NO). Here I come to find out that all the BIG WIGS (Masters, BS Degrees), Second Level (BS Degrees, MCSE) all went to some kind of meeting when leasing the PCs and were told that they could use ECC or NON-ECC RAM within the PC. When I brought this out about NOT mixing them I was of course clueless again.

They missed something, all of them, while in this meeting the word OR. Which anyone with any sense knows means either ECC or NON-ECC within the system but not both they didn't say AND. I was the only one (Not at meeting mind you, not even knowing it ever happened but I heard what was said later and knew what they meant). From this point on they stopped mixing the RAM when placing orders and even put only ECC and NON-ECC by switching from one system to another to make things right - the BSOD problem was remedied. (HERO) - a contractor who was a Lead Tech for EOL whom had sucked his way up to a second level position mid-stream during EOL. Thus the moral of this story - sucking and swallowing.

You may be asking what do I mean? Well sucking up, kissing ass, what ever it takes to get ahead - this is what I coined as Sucking and Swallowing - something I've never done or ever plan on doing. This individual happened to be in the room at the time of my discovery (RAM issue) and when I spoke out loud he sponged up my information and took it to higher ups and received the congressional medal of honor (Just kidding) but he became the (HERO) in this scenario. This individual went to one of the same tech schools as I did and graduated around the same time as I did and was offered a Lead Tech job with the EOL at the same company my contract company placed me at. He was once a Foot Locker manager and had no computer background other than what he learned at the school we attended which he didn't learn much, but he was good at sponging, this is a term I use for those who sit around and take what is said or can hear something and take it in (not really knowing or comprehending what is said) but able to pass it on as their own. He also got a lot of praise as a Lead Tech and this was only because the guys he had on his team they are the ones that made him look so good. I was on this team for the first week of EOL and later placed at home base doing all those other jobs mentioned earlier. He later sucked, swallowed and sponged his way up the ladder to a (Full Time) position. First as mentioned earlier on Second Level still as a contractor but later becoming a (Full Time) employee within the companies Large Systems Team, more about this tidbit later.

So know those working around you in the IT field or should I say be cautious of those around you, learn to keep your mouth shut. Especially as a (Contractor) in an enterprise environment, only the (Full Time) employees or those on the SUCK SCALE (other contractors that will stab you in back to get ahead) get the credit when information from a person of some knowledge is properly used to their advantage. This is where you'll see you keep your thoughts to yourself in the IT field never giving up to much information or knowledge, only talk when spoken to (answer questions when asked) and don't let it just come out as I did because there could be a sponge at any corner ready to suck and swallow his way up the corporate ladder.

2 1/2 years later. Finally a position became available within the companies Support Center, thinking I could better myself and possibly get hired on (Full Time) (which was my goal) not sucking or swallowing on the way though. I took the available position but still as a contractor. Upon entering the Support Center, I now would have a new boss from the one I had when doing my earlier job. This new boss loved anyone who followed the path of sucking and swallowing. During my time in the Support Center two individuals were hired (Full Time) because they were just so good at it (sucking and swallowing that is) - one being an intern and another being a contractor who actually started in the Support Center around the same time I was hired for the EOL project.

During my years of doing this job I never missed a day of work and was actually a half hour early every single day but yet those (Full Time) employees missed constantly and while in the Support Center these same (Full Time) employees very rarely did their job and pretty much did nothing while the few (Contractors) were the ones doing all the work. Now over my 2 1/2 years in the Support Center I took the Highest Resolution Rate award EVERY single month but 2 and during those two months I did not receive the award, was because another (Contractor) who used me as his encyclopedia of computer knowledge edged me out by point some odd percent, those were the tickets I resolved for him.

Another great item about this was me and this other (Contractor) out of say, 120 calls per day took about 60-80 of these calls between us with a Support Center of 15 people (You do the math), but yet we had the highest resolution rates over everyone for that whole 2 1/2 years, and with the (Full Time) employees looking ridiculous because they couldn't compete with the contractors - it was mostly because none of them had a clue of support, but yet they worked in the support center. Before I entered the Support Center it was coined by many in the company as the SUPPORTLESS CENTER.

Upon entering the support center most people were using SMS to connect to people to fix problems, of course only those that even knew how would use this, did, which wasn't many. SMS has its downfalls especially if a machine is no longer part of a domain you can't connect; it was based on computer names and domains. Not sure how many out there have tried walking computer illiterate people on fixing things over the phone but sometimes it's impossible. I had my own trick up my sleeve for fixing peoples problems instead of walking clients through the fix, I'd just connect to them and fix it myself (much easier) but I used a program that is on every Windows client period (NETMEETING) which uses IP Address, just by using this the Support Center now could resolve hundreds of tickets a month because before they passed the ticket to second level to have them re-join a machine back to the domain whereas I was doing this all along and getting tickets resolved, if they had network connectivity you were set.

I originally used this to fix many problems when being the reblast guy that the support center and second level couldn't fix. I'd be able to connect to the pc from my desk without even going to the clients desk and fix problems that should have been fixed before the ticket made it to me (Pass it along method) because sometimes clients were in different locations which meant they had to send me their pc for the reblast or I'd have to travel to the more local locations for this. If I could save them the loss of their pc for days and for those I could travel to, I would save traveling, boy clients noticed and wondered and always asked, why couldn't the others fix this? They all just said it would need reblasted, I simply said they aren't me. Reblasts was something a client did NOT want to hear, it meant death of the PC and a complete and new re-image, a loss of all data, software, settings, you name it, just like starting from scratch.

At one point by the boss reading my resolutions or possibly someone he put on finding out how I could be resolving so many tickets compared to the others. I put in my tickets that I had connected to the client and the big question was "What do you mean connected" I told them with NetMeeting or at times I placed this within my resolved tickets as to what I did to accomplish my resolution, not thinking it could come back to haunt me. Once this came up they gave another guy who was in the suck and swallow crew of the support center to teach everyone how to use this - (Not me) - so more or less NetMeeting became implemented within the company (a free and easy support tool) of course saving them thousands again on support software. The best part of this was this person had to come to me to ask how to use it so he could teach the others. Of course this individual and the boss became the (HEROS) in this scenario. Once it was implemented within the company as a great support tool and (FREE) just about every IT group was using it to help resolve tickets. We were even told in the support center that our resolution rate had increased by 30% from the date of implementation and everyone using it the boss taking all the credit for such a great find. They even added the shortcut for Netmeeting to desktops within their corporate images so a client could just click on it when an analyst requested to connect to walk a client through a fix or even a how to for software.

You're Welcome - by the way never expect or think you'll get any praise or even a pat on the back, not even a THANK YOU when saving a company thousands, millions, or even giving your boss a hell of a raise and praise he never deserved - (Numbers are everything in IT).

Remember IT can have several departments or groups and of course more chiefs than Indians, also the same with Corporate America. The goal was to have a high resolution rate in Support Center which then took away from all the groups down the IT line (Second Level and other Support Groups) this was every groups routine, to look better than the other rather than working together as one IT.

I actually took more personal calls from clients than through the proper channels (Their Support Line) because they didn't want to talk to anyone else in the Support Center, we had our personal line number and then the support line which went through a queue system, but most only wanted to talk to me, they knew I'd try or do everything possible to fix their problem before passing it along. On a daily basis I had other analysts forwarding calls to me or coming back saying a person wanted to talk to me personally.

We used a system of ARS (Acquisition Request System) a program for submitting support tickets to proper IT groups within the company if it couldn't be resolved by a Support Center Analyst - pretty much all tickets got passed on regardless of simplicity except by two of us in the support center already mentioned above.

At one point our boss tried to tone down our resolution and tried giving us things to do so that we wouldn't be on the phone as much because the differences between us and them was like 30% which meant bump calls to the others to try upping their stats and to maintain ours but when doing this (bumping the calls) they always made their way back around the queue and at this point we ended up having to take them anyway it was like playing PONG between me and the other contractor I mentioned earlier - we'd just volley calls.

One PROJECT- (a way to get you away from doing your real job), me and the other contractor were put on, was what came to be known as their Knowledge Base which was to make it easier for new people coming into the support center (future people to take our jobs) (and those clueless wonders already in there) could use this to find the answers to most of the problems that came through the support center, in other words they wanted our knowledge etched in stone for others to use to up their resolution rates. Everything in this company was based on numbers and by keeping the numbers up the boss looked that much better. I'm sure raises; bonuses and the boss's overall success were taken into consideration by this as well.

The Knowledge Base was a program they spent thousands of dollars on that NO ONE used. They had a (Full Time) employee and the support center boss to thank for this piece of garbage and the higher ups wanted this thing implemented and to show it wasn't a waste of money. So they used the best two people in the support center to try and prefect it myself and the other contractor and make it fly because of the money spent on it and the (Full Time) employee in charge of it who usually just sat and stared at his screen all day (I'm still trying to figure out what he was looking at?). I can't say for sure if either of their jobs ever really depended on this thing flying or not, but it didn't while I was still there.

It was usable but not totally implemented. Between the two of us (Contractors) there was plenty of knowledge added and if someone used it right, it would work. Of course the clueless wonders of the support center could not use this without having their hands held and they simply did what they did best, pass the ticket on without using the Knowledge Base.

Needless to say they are both still there, the boss and the employee, the boss was actually promoted over time, wonder if any of the number increases by the Support Centers resolution increases had any effect on this??? The company then went through some very hard times they let go almost all of their contractors and many full time employees (early retirements) and promoted more bosses, lost all of the Indians and pretty much did away with all of what was good in their IT. Those that remained, not all, were those who had climbed the SUCK SCALE and SPONGED their way to more higher paying jobs.

I was considered LAST IN - FIRST OUT within the support center but my original boss had a trick up his sleeve he could get me back downstairs to work for a bit and to do another project with another contractor by going to New York and closing down one of their offices. Now mind you this boss would hire me (Full Time) yesterday if he was able but he just doesn't have the pull to do this and isn't on any suck scale. So myself and this other contractor went to this New York office and we ended up as 2 men doing a 10 man job. We did EOL, Networking, Telecom, inventory, clean up, shipping of all equipment and the closing of this 130 some odd client office within a week long period of course saving the company thousands more dollars in process. I'm happy for this only because it kept me working in IT and making a pay check only problem was my contract company had to cut my bill rate which in turn cut me 4 more dollars per hour just to keep me working for a total of 3 more weeks. Once this project was completed I was left to the dogs and sent on my merry way to the world of unemployment.

For about a month or so of unemployment I was receiving phone calls at home from people who still worked at this company asking for support because they didn't want to call the, now that I was gone, SUPPORTLESS CENTER. I had become quite a name to some within the company for resolving many problems and from my home I became their tech support guy. To bad I wasn't getting paid for this. I'm just that kind of guy; I even support people over the internet to this day with good old NETMEETING and WINDOWS MESSENGER and its Application Sharing.

The one contractor still remains there that I helped on a daily basis and the boss even told him to actually smoke more to keep him off the phone more because now he's taken over where I left off taking the highest resolution rate on a monthly basis and since him and I were the only two that actually took any calls and resolved anything in the support center, my job was replaced with a (Full Time) employee that became misplaced due to the complete overhaul of the company.

It's now been a year since working at this company and my contract company not calling me with any other positions or prospects, makes me wonder have I been blackballed somehow for not following the good old SUCK and SWALLOW of IT???

Remember earlier in this article I mentioned I'd get to a tidbit later, well here is that tidbit. The one individual who I might add was a JEDI and MASTER of the suck and swallow. Since quit this company after SPONGING all his knowledge from other Contractors, Second Level, and Large Systems to go to another company for more money doing Mass Storage Systems.

Needless to say I thought this was funny, it's more or less a kick in the balls to the company and to those he used to get ahead, but to finish this off was this job then became available and they were hiring to fill this position. Now remember they hired him (Full Time) not knowing shit about computers or Mass Storage, no degrees, no MCSE, for that matter and whomever they hired would be a Full Time employee not a contractor for this position. I figured since I worked at this company for 4 1/2 years and the knowledge of the company's internal structure etc. I could land this position, and would probably be there until my dieing days.

I sent my resume in for the position and with my name and knowledge thinking I should be a shoe in for this position and with people who knew what I've done while I was there and could vouch for my work ethic etc. hands down I could finally have a (Full Time) job, no more contracting, higher pay and a place I've always wanted to work for, for the rest of my life. Once my resume was received it got scanned as do all resumes within HR and sat waiting to be retrieved for a possible position I knew I could do and 1000 times better than the man that left it behind. I come to find out that my resume would NEVER be seen, WHY??? The HR department has filters they place on resumes for certain positions and for the position they were hiring for, you needed a BS Degree (This could be in basket weaving it didn't matter) - So I was sunk again by BULL SHIT. Strange how originally none of this mattered for this position when hiring the other individual he just was so good at SUCKING and SWALLOWING his way up the SUCK SCALE.

I live in the Pittsburgh area and I'm currently looking for that Full Time job at a respectful company that doesn't want BS Degrees or MCSE or should I say pieces of paper from those that really don't have a clue and simply want a person with knowledge and that can get the job done with their actions. I have 11 years of Bull Shit already under my belt within IT, I just want IT not the Bull Shit and a company that doesn't follow any of the practices mentioned throughout this article. If I was to include everything within this article it would never end and there are countless other things not mentioned that have happened along the way, more stories on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis, this is the short version and while only at one company as a contractor. And boy what a long story this one has already become. LOL.

Feel free to reply to this with any offers of condolences or job offers and thanks for reading and learning what goes on in the IT field and what it takes to get ahead in both IT and Corporate America. Now you have a few more terms you can use to describe that individual sitting beside you that has stabbed you in the back on countless occasions and those who've moved up the good old ladder. Who says sucking, swallowing, sponging, kissing ass, doesn't get you ahead in life?