Forget the couch- I’ll take the dryer!

I had to do a bit of repair work on our washing machine (the water pump on our Kenmore HE3t gave out- the rotor for the impeller sheared off) and decided to give the dryer a little preventative maintenance cleaning.  When I tilted the dryer forward, I heard a few coins sliding around inside:

Arrgggh!  Amidst the flotsam (and dryer fluff) in the bowels of ye olde dryer, there be treasure! 

Coppers x 36
Five Cent Pieces x 9
Dimes x 43
Two Bits x 25
--------------------------------------------
Total Booty Plundered: $11.36

(Not sure if this counts for an extra 11xp…)

I also found one 20 cent Euro coin- I assume this was a left-over from our trip to Greece- way back in 2007… :)

Clear WiMax Caps -Better than Dial-up!

If you have followed my blog, you wills see I have a love-hate relationship with Clear Wireless in Atlanta, GA.

Love: Good speeds in god weather and in the Winter (when trees are bare) up to 10Mbps!

Hate: Inconsistent speeds and inconceivable policies of bandwidth capping

A few weeks ago, I was complaining that Clear was capping my speeds (I assume during ‘peak’ hours) to about 1 Mbps (about 130KBps). 

This occurred for a few weeks and then it stopped; I was getting a constant 6-10Mbps 24x7.

For the past few days if I attempt to download something that takes more than 15 minute, I have been enjoying a cap of about 230kbps (about 29KBps):

Tonight I attempted to download the new Ubuntu 10.10 ISO- and after about a quarter hour of decent speed it dropped to the above abysmal speed.  Good God Clear- what the Hell are you doing to me?

Luckily I have two other Clear connections in my package that I can switch to and get a resemblance of the speed I was promised when I signed up to Clear about a year ago.

Be warned all- Stay clear of Clear! (if you think you will ever need to actually use your Internet connection!)

Limera1n Jailbreak for iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad

GeoHot has just released a new Limera1n exploit for iPhone/iPod Touch devices running 4.1.  It currently does note support the 3GS with the latest boot rom, but the website indicates this is being worked on.

Instructions are included with the app, but detailed instructions are available at Redmond Pie.

It is still in beta, so there are additional updates/tweaks to come.

I was unable to get my iPad running iOS 4.2.2 beta to work, but I will try it on another PC later.

I am currently downloading the 4.1 update for my iPhone 4; it is a 589MB firmware, so it is taking a few minutes to download.

If this does not work, the SHAtter exploit is due to be released tomorrow…

Final Fantasy XIV – Suqare Enix’s Pay-to-Beta-Test Event!

I finally was able to install Final Fantasy XIV.  After 3 rounds of updates, it allowed me to actually startup the program.

Wait- go to the Square Enix website and enter your FF XIV key (why can’t they do this in-game?)

  

Oh- and a good deal of the Square Enix website doesn’t work with Google Chrome; no errors- it just doesn’t work.  Like if you try to enter your FF XIV key in chrome, it just drops you back to the main account screen with no indication of what happened…

Re-launch and blank screen; update ATI drivers to current and I now have a 50/50 chance of blank screen/menu screen.

After this I get to get to the character screen.

Wait- go to back the Square Enix website and purchase a character option.  Square Enix must have a credit card on file (or the purchase of ‘Crysta’ points- what the Hell is ‘Cryata’?)

WTF?  $9.99/month for a FF XIV account- and add $3/month per additional character (up to 8) for a grand total of $34.99/month if I choose to have 8 characters?  Wow- these Square Enix guys are pretty fucking greedy!  Do they get their pricing ideas from a cell phone provider?

Character creation is pretty basic- and the game seems to be relying on CGI cut scenes to keep the storyline going (rather long and boring cut scenes- with long load times in-between).

Get used to seeing a LOT of these:

Even more interesting is the occasional freeze during a load between zones-  no indication other than a spinning ‘loading’ icon for 5+ mins.  If I close the windows (prompted by a ‘possible data loss notice’) I start back at the character screen where I get ‘13001 The lobby server has encountered an error.  Error code 3102. Status 0’…

all I appear able to do is delete my character and start over (after a mandatory 30 second delay to confirm delete)  -Very, very annoying. 

The delete ultimately fails and I must go back to the Square Enix site and add additional character slots…

I added one character (for $12.99/month) and I can already tell that I will be cancelling before the 30 day trial is up- and I just wasted $79 on a ‘collector edition’ that features an blank journal, a keyfob and a goofy DVD. 

It appears this game was designed solely for mining wealthy Final Fantasy fan boys and has no intention of appealing to the general public. 

I am anticipating that Square Enix will be going to the ‘Play for Free’ model in another year- or shutting down most of their servers!

Final Fantasy XI

I recently purchased Final Fantasy XIV and I have heard that previous players of Final Fantasy XI get extra in-game perks- so I decided to finally install Final Fantasy XI (that I have had in a binder for the past 2+ years).

As fate would have it, I have both the xBox 360 version and the PC version.  I (ignorantly) decided to try the xBox 360 version as console installs are generally much less involved than PC installs…

The install for Final Fantasy XI on the xBox 360 is absolutely tem most horrible experience I have ever endured; that’s right, you have to install the game on an xBox 360 hard drive.  Not only do you need to install Final Fantasy XI, you must also install an abomination of the program called ‘PlayOnline Loader’.  I still have not determined the need for PlayOnline- save to annoy the living fuck out of me with some goddamn horrible music that makes me want to gouge my eardrums out with a straightened paperclip.

Let me digress from the install nightmare to explain the music: It sounds like someone is trying to play a speed piano whist accompanied by a drunk bass player.  This lasts for a minute or so and then is overshadowed by a synthesizer and a drum line that sounds someone is having a bad acid trip.  They bring this all to a zenith with some horrible horns -and then bring it back to the start in a loop…

This fiasco plays as long as the PlayOnline application is running- including during eternity it takes to download the update to PlayOnline- and there is no fucking ‘turn this crap music off’ button to be seen.

That said, the update for PlayOnline takes about an hour.  After which, I am guided through 20+ different screens requesting name, address, email, dob, etc.  If I did not have a chatpad for my xBox controller, I would have given up after the first 5 minutes and just thrown the game away.  I also cannot choose a login ID- rather I am assigned a random 4 character + 4 number ID once the setup has completed.

After this, I am ready to play Final Fantasy XI!  No, wait- I now must copy Final Fantasy XI to the xBox 360 hard drive.  This takes another hour.

At this point, I have been installing Final Fantasy XI for 2 1/2 hours and I have yet to create a character (I am not exaggerating about this!).

After all is finally installed, I fire up PlayOnline, navigate through 3 levels of menus and hit ‘play’ for Final Fantasy XI- and I am told that I have ‘No Active Content IDs’.  Apparently, the first serial number I entered was for PlayOnline- but I can find no place to enter the 4 additional keys I have.

At some point, it appears I must also make a Square Enix account (separate from the PlayOnline) to be able to access Final Fantasy content…

I went online at PlayOnline.com to see if there is a place to enter the keys and hit a solid brick wall; NONE of the data is editable online.

At this point I have up in disgust and decided to try the PC version. 

Awesome- the same terrible fucking music and 1+ hour to download the update for PlayOnline (after I downloaded the updated PlayOnline setup as the version on the disc is ‘not compatible with this version of Windows’ 7- and after it allowed me to install all of the Final Fantasy XI content!)

I am now thinking that Square Enix has no fucking idea of how to design an online game; I have tried World of Warcraft, Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online, D&D Online, Conan Online, Ultima Online and countless others that I have forgotten- and NONE of these were event remotely as annoying as this cluster-fuck known as Final Fantasy XI/PlayOnline!

I am seriously considering keeping the Final Fantasy XIV sealed and returning it to Gamestop; if the install is 1/2 as annoying as the prior online version I will likely go insane!

Max AVR USB

The TI-84 Calculator works for homebrew apps on the PS3, but this is just a temporary method as it is kind of annoying to need to run the app on the TI every time I want to boot the PS3 into developer mode.

I ordered a Maximus AVR USB from a small site called Sick Gaming Site this morning (the only US vendor listed on the Max AVR USB site). The site doesn’t instill the greatest feeling of security and confidence as they only have three products for sale. However, the transaction for the AVR USB was handled very professionally with very prompt email updates. Their inventory count also updates in real-time, so that is another re-assuring feeling.

They only accept PayPal, so I feel I have a little more security (i.e. no credit card info stored on their servers). Now I only worry about having my name & address on an unknown server… (For paranoia, I may change the info on their site to alias information once the product has shipped).

Update:

My Maximus AVR USB has shipped via first class US Postal with delivery confirmation. A tracking number has been provided- but (of course) US Postal isn't the best at updating tracking information... :)

It is going from Brooklyn to Atlanta, so I am expecting it sometime early next week. I will update when I receive the package. So far I am personally very content with Sick Gaming Site's business process.

Final Update:

My Maximus AVR USB was delivered today.  Shipped on Sept 16th and received on September 20th.  Good job on the part of Sick Gaming Site in ordering, processing and delivery!

There is some good documentation for installing PSGroove on the Maximus AVRUSB over the Maxmius site and over at PSX-Scene.

A few personal notes:

• The x64 drivers included with the FLIP 3.4.2 package are not signed and will not work properly with Windows 7 x64; you might want to try the x64 drivers over at Maximus AVRUSB or use an x86 system (which is what I did).

Setup and install took a few minutes and all is working as it should!  :)