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Quick Rants Page

Monday, November 25, 2007 @ 11:15 AM PST

It has been a long time since I have posted a “Quick Rant“, or any news for that matter, so here it goes:

Unfortunately, Massive Entertainment AB does not provide a direct contact for “support” and, as a result, I am going to rant here.

A little less than a month ago, I purchased World in Conflict and was extremely pleased with it (and still am). However, a particular issue has compelled me to write this.

I have progressed about halfway through the single player campaign. The game is awesome, I must say. I was also intrigued with dual monitor support. I tried enabling upon first purchase and found out that I had to have both monitors at the same resolution and scrapped the idea. I then read about patch 3 and the “fix” to allow different resolutions on each monitor. I paused my progress at that point to wait for the patch. Upon patch release, I was excited to finally enable this feature and continue playing.

I hit up the benchmark button after configuring once again for dual monitors and was totally blown away at the plain “cool factor” of it. Seeing the nuke on the second monitor bubbling with smoke is awesome. With that said… the game can get choppy, but it was something that I was going to deal with just to have the feature enabled.

I then loaded up my “resume campaign” and waited… only to be greeted with… nothing on the second monitor. Bummer, I thought… a bug was found. Well, it has been several days and I decided to finally research on the forums for a “fix” just to find out, with this topic and a couple others, that the support is only in multi-player and was a “design decision”.

I understand possible technical problems related to the cut scenes causing strange things to appear on the mega map (cut scenes are rendered with the game engine) and I also understand that many other issues have a higher priority with greater impact, but I am at a loss as to understanding the “why” this feature is removed in single player due to a design decision. After all, any advantages that it has is canceled by hitting “M” and zooming out on the main display…

Anyway…

If anything, chalk up one more “please make it happen” in single player and thank you, Massive Entertainment AB, for making an outstanding game.

Monday, December 22, 2003 @ 10:03 PM PST

This is the longest news update I have had in awhile. The reason? I am banging my head up against the monitor.

I, once again, fired up the automatic banning of IP addresses last night. This is due to my desire to stop “bad” robots from sucking too much bandwidth. More information on this practice is located in my Abuse Rant. Basically, I implemented a “hidden link” which all “good” robots, including all major search engines, would ignore.

I had a reader contact me in distress saying they did “nothing wrong” and that they are using a plain version of IE6. Some proxy servers, pre-fetchers and firewalls chose to ignore the robots.txt standard.

After reviewing the log files, I am attempting to figure out with this person, the exact “reason” this particular version of IE6 is attempting to “pre-fetch” links that are not valid and, as a result, causing my server to flag the IP for abuse. Whether or not this person is using any of the previously mentioned products is unknown at this time.

Once again, I have temporarily removed that particular function from the server. However, even though IP addresses are not automatically banned, I am notified immediately of the spidering attempt and the logs will remain until I can narrow down the cause of this problem.

A cut and paste from the web server log file, and my explanation of the issue will follow: (The actual IP address is removed for obvious reasons).

x.x.x.x - - [22/Dec/2003:12:45:26 -0800] "GET /WinXP/servicecfg.htm HTTP/1.1" 200 9027 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"


The above log file line (even though it may display in your browser as “several lines,” for the sake of argument, it actually is only one line) denotes the page where this person entered the domain. Having no “referer” (sic) information logged (the “-” after the “200 9027”) is how I came to that conclusion.

The next several lines is the “normal” traffic. This includes the “referer” (sic) header, which is valid and tells me that “the browser requested the information because of accessing the above page.” One such entry is shown below:

x.x.x.x - - [22/Dec/2003:12:45:26 -0800] "GET /css/20031222basic.css HTTP/1.1" 200 266 "https://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"


This shows the requesting page as “servicecfg.htm” and it is also requiring a download of “20031222basic.css.” This is normal traffic. However, the following request should not be there and is directly “after” the normal logging of traffic patterns:

x.x.x.x - - [22/Dec/2003:12:45:26 -0800] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 4581 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"


The above line tells me that, in only one second since the first request, the root “index” page (“GET /”) was requested by the browser, but it has no “referer” (sic) header attached like the “normal” requests do. Three seconds later, the invalid link is spidered and the IP address was automatically banned. This particular “hidden” link is also the “first link” appearing in my XHTML code. However, It gets better.

The next two lines is what frightens me the most:

x.x.x.x - - [22/Dec/2003:12:45:40 -0800] "GET /AskBV/XP25.htm HTTP/1.1" 200 211 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"

x.x.x.x - - [22/Dec/2003:12:45:49 -0800] "GET /AskBV/XP25.htm HTTP/1.1" 200 211 "https://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705)"


On the original page, the reference to XP25.htm is the “next” link in the code. However, the first request had no referer (sic) header information (as noted in the log file by “-” after the “200 211”). The second line “does” have the referer (sic) information logged only 9 seconds later, just as if the person actually “clicked” the link and attempted to go to that page.

The burning question I have is “what on Earth is causing IE to pre-fetch links?”

When that question is answered, I will rest better at night.

I am sure this issue has blocked other legitimate readers and I apologize. My intentions are only good by attempting to protecting my server “from the bad folk.”

Other people have wrote to me and, in a matter of speaking, “If you do not want people to visit your site, take it down!” That is not the issue. I am not blocking legitimate traffic (well, except for the unknown cause outlined above). What I am attempting to do is stop the complete download of my domain for no reason other than “because it is there.”

In a totally unrelated matter, I usually post the “time” of my update. This particular one I put the time as “10:03 PM PST.” The reality is that is the time I “started” posting the news update. The clock on my system now shows “11:02 PM PST.” Where am I going with this? All updates, no matter how small or what the content, takes time.

I have tons of stuff I would love more than anything to post about. However, the information that I post, I try to make it as accurate and complete as I possibly can. The problem with this? I just plain do not have the time to do everything. What my readers get is “small” content updates but, rest assured, when I do post an article or guide, I did not just toss the information up at random. I took my time to get it right.

Tuesday, November 4, 2003 @ 6:13 PM PST

I am one of the 50+ million users of the newly implemented “do not call registry” that the FCC has placed online. Even though “political organizations and charities” are excluded from such a list, I wish they were not. I can take abuse from those people attempting to make a buck, mainly because I can yell right back and not fear retaliation, but not from those “allowed” to harass me unregulated and are “providing a service to the community” like law enforcement.

I just put the phone down from one of those “allowed” solicitation phone calls. This person was mumbling something about the local Sheriffs department and wishing to thank me in advance for supporting the police officers. I kindly asked him to please place me on his “do not call” list as I have done with many other solicitation calls. His response was “F*#K you too” and hung up.

I hope that the organization did actually place me on the list because they would require many donations to cover the $11,000 fine if they call me again. However, it would be difficult, if impossible, to prove “yes they did call before” since I was not paying much attention to whom it was or the “exact” reason they were calling. Mainly because I was not quite prepared for such a response, but more importantly is that I never give any information out over the phone to any solicitor regardless of why they are calling.

In a related manner, my telemarketer telephone calls have been greatly reduced, so I cannot knock the registry “too much” because of the obvious effectiveness that has resulted so far. However, if you are one of those that do telemarketing for a charity, it is advisable to be nice to the people on the other end of the phone. After all, they can call you, too.

Thursday, August 21, 2003 @ 5:08 PM PST

226.

226 is the amount of SoBig viruses, bounced “auto replies,” “virus warnings” and “unknown user” messages I received today.

Tell your neighbor. Tell your Co-Workers. Tell your Family. Tell your Information Technology Manager. Tell your Network Administrator. Most importantly, tell yourself these items:

  • “Do not send E-Mail attachments unless you send an additional E-mail that states that you did so and explain the contents!”
  • “Do not open E-Mail attachments regardless of who sent them to you unless you can verify the contents!”
  • “If you are compelled to open every single attachment you receive, install a virus scanner and keep it up to date!”
  • “If you run an E-Mail server and graciously installed a scanner to protect your users, do not send out auto-reply messages pertaining to virus infected E-Mail! They are absolutely useless and create a massive denial of service attack worse than what you are trying to stop!”

Out of 13423 E-Mail messages I have sent out in recent history, not one of them had an attachment. If you ever get an attachment that appears to be from me, I did not send it to you and never open them. Period.

I do not run a personal virus scanner on my server, nor my E-Mail client. How I identify these malicious messages is located in my E-Mail Filtering Guide. A little education goes a long way toward stopping these type of attacks before they even get started.

Monday, July 21, 2003 @ 8:21 PM PST

I just fired up ICQLite after being away for a few weeks and a message that their is a new version available was displayed. Like a moron, I naturally updated. No other time has ICQ ever notified me in any other versions. After clicking the button, I wondered about that fact.

Come to find out, AOL destroyed ICQLite with banner ads on each message window! Not only are they ads, they are Flash ads! Needless to say, it took me 2.5 seconds to close it out and reinstall the 1150 build with no ads. After all, the slim and trim ICQ is what I have been wanting for a long time.

Tuesday, April 15, 2003 @ 9:39 PM PST

When I purchased Asheron’s Call 2, really, my first “online broadband experience,” I was hoping for a time of fun and enjoyment. However, with their “monthly” updates to the game, only thing it seems like I am doing is paying $12.95 a month for the privilege of BETA testing the product! Take this month for example: “New content” was uploaded to the server for another “episode,” however it introduced a bug that causes all crafted items to be “tier 1.” For those of you that are unfamiliar with the game… that is “the worst item in the particular tree.” As such, if you wish to craft a fine product for one of your friends, you must wait a week for the “bug fix” to this episode. Why was this not caught in testing?

Several other factors contribute to the BETA scene. Along the same lines as the “new” content, they announced that they do not have enough time to “develop new content once per month and meet the expectations of the players…” So, what do they do? Change it to “every other month.” Seems to me that the game was “half done” on release and they decided to kick it out the door to get some cash flow. They then created the idea of “episodes” to justify the game not being done.

So, all that “new content” that should be happening, is getting “lighter” because “they do not have the time.” Maybe, just maybe, they should have had all the “standard new content” that they knew was going to happen “eventually” ALL READY CREATED WHEN THE GAME HIT THE SHELVES! But no, that would break the tradition of MMORPG’s charging the public to be a beta tester for their “not even close to being finished game” when it is released.

Don’t get me wrong. I have been playing Asheron’s Call 2 for several months and I actually enjoy the game, but it would be nice to play a “finished” product rather than playing the “guess what is going to be broke next month” game.

Tuesday, February 25, 2003 @ 4:35 PM PST

I have not posted a “Quick Rant” in some time, nor have I update the “News” section (because of Number 1, below). Now, I guess I am going to make up for it:

Number 1:

I banged my head against the wall for 4 hours trying to prove that “the Western Digital Drives I purchased against my better judgment actually still work after 14 days…” I finally concluded that I was living in dream land and instead, proved that one of the two new drives was not functioning properly. After taking both of the hard drives back to the store (14 day policy) and getting my money back, I picked up, at a different store, two Maxtor 120 GB drives and attached them to the RAID controller that “refused” to work with the WD drives. I was thinking I had a bad controller card. The Maxtor drives, however, work flawlessly. Against my better judgment includes the fact that I have had 3 of 4 WD drives fail (well, now 4 of 6). I will never purchase another WD drive… ever again.

Number 2:

I recently reviewed an outstanding “geek tool,” Virtual PC 5.0 for Windows. In a press release dated 19FEB2003, Connectix state that:

Microsoft Corp. today announced it has acquired the virtual machine solutions of privately held Connectix Corp., a leading provider of virtualization software for Windows®- and Macintosh-based computing.

The press release continues with a quote from an Apple Computer Spokesperson:

“Adding Virtual PC to its product portfolio is yet another example of Microsoft’s continued commitment to the Mac platform,” said Ron Okamoto, vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations at Apple Computer Inc. “For years, Virtual PC has helped people who want to own a Mac but need to run legacy PC applications. We’re glad to see Virtual PC go into such good hands.”

Good hands? Commitment to the Mac platform? Does this guy know who Bill Gates is? The final straw was in this snippet:

Microsoft will continue development of virtual machine solutions from Connectix and will integrate them into the Windows and Mac product portfolios.

Ok. Translation:

  • “development” means a reason to charge an obscene amount for an already outstanding, full featured product
  • “integrate” means bloated code (vice the 12.5 to 20 MB current downloadable “FULL product”)
  • “portfolios” means “Windows”

A tear streamed down my cheek when I read this release. I fell that everyone should “run, do not walk” to purchase the product, however, according to the release, Connectix support will quit after “the six-month transition period.” Will Microsoft “really” continue to support the product and NOT bloat it up with Microsoft hype and instability? I am afraid to guess.

I am looking at “the other guy,” VMWARE’s virtual solution. Several months (ok, maybe a year or so) ago, I tried them, but I enjoyed Virtual PC / Connectix’s solution more, and the price was right.

It would be interesting to compile a comparison between “Virtual PC 5.0 of today” and “tomorrows MS VPC solution” (read “bloatware”).

Number 3:

AMD recently announced the addition of the Athlon XP 3000+ CPU. However, in lines with my AMD vs Intel Rant, this places another “mark” in the “hate AMD column.” WAIT! Do you know why? Trust me, I will tell you:

According to this benchmark published by AMD, using DDR memory, the 3000+ beats out the P4 3.06 with an i845 chipset. Ok, sure, but the P4 was built for RDRAM, NOT DDR! How many times do I have to yell at my monitor with that fact! Every benchmark I have read (Check Tomshardware.com) has placed the 3000+ “way below” what the latest P4 can do with PC1066 RIMMS. Actually, it is below what previous models have done! Does that mean the extra cache and increased bus speed is actually “worth” the “300 to 400+ (hehe) AMD model points” from the 2600+? The 3000+ is a 2.16 GHz CPU (AMD White paper link – page 33) while the “older” 2600+ is a 2.13 GHz CPU (AMD White paper link – page 35). I highly doubt it.

In several of Toms Benchmarks, the new AMD 3000+ is placed BELOW A P4 2.53! So what the hell does the “3000+” REALLY mean? Does it mean that they are at the end of the product cycle and cannot get any more blood from a stone (no great increase in MHz from the model 2600+), so they decided to “crank up the model number, just because they can?”

Until AMD quits making random claims as to its performance compared to “nothing,” and stamping a “meaningless” model number on the box, I will continue to stay away from AMD. If you are still interested in getting a new AMD CPU, check those model numbers and the CPU specs because, yes, they do “overlap” from the old to the new. One more mark in the “hate AMD column.”

Monday, November 11, 2002 @ 7:11 PM PST

Wow. I just received my first spam in a foreign language (from the Netherlands: Dutch?). It is attempting to sell me a PDA lock. Software? Either my E-Mail address has “hit the big time” or this can only mean the world will end soon. Not only will I get Vi@gra ads in English, but I will have the pleasure of sifting through multiple languages. Something to look forward to as the internet “progresses.”

Monday, November 11, 2002 @ 5:51 AM PST

Nothing jerks my chain more than a company making it “difficult” to unscrew a pathetic piece of software.

I just wandered aimlessly around Electronic Arts site looking for “updated” patches for various games and, to my surprise; I could not find ANYTHING about patches.

I did, however, stumble on a rather obvious link that you can use to avoid my frustration: ftp://ftp.ea.com/pub/ has several patches for the latest games and an archive of older ones without jumping through hoops.

Sunday, September 8, 2002 @ 2:59 PM PST

After reposting my Instant Messenger contact information, it only took 2.5 hours for someone to send me a flame. What was it?

“Your car sucks. I do not know why you would post pictures of it.”

Funny. People tell me that I have no life. I have concluded that 10% of the people on the planet are truly worthless. In other statistics, 100% of those people have internet access and wander through my domain at some point in their life.

I guess I am just lucky. Of course, the person was blocked and ignored, but that is not the point. Everyone has an opinion and I would go out on a limb by stating that I enjoy reading the majority of them. But the “You suck” comments are just pathetic. Brainless people roam the planet… Can you spot them? I can.

Read more about “Putting Out the Flames Rant.”

Along those same lines, it only took 30 minutes for me to receive my first pr0n web cam spam after login with Yahoo IM.

Friday, August 16, 2002 @ 10:15 PM PST

Just great.

Not only am I getting klez virus’s in the mail, but it is attaching a 10 MB file to itself. It took me over an hour to download! What an annoyance!

And even a bigger problem results from the fact that it plucks a random address from the infected system and sends that as the “from.” That means that even if I replied and complained, it would make no difference… just maybe, that person is a victim, too!

Tuesday, August 13, 2002 @ 5:07 PM PST

After 3.5 years (tomorrow) of BlkViper.com and having a rather “unconventional” method of presenting my information (Black background), I have decided to forgo my wants *tear* and have my site slightly more accessible by allowing people to read my information in a “normal” white background kind of way. This should solve some complaints of illegible text, no matter what desktop resolution or monitor style (LCD/CRT) you are surfing in on.

It just seems that no matter what style of type or color scheme I settle on, it is not viewable like I would hope. This is a shame because I really do like my Black background scheme. Take note: Of the people that have wrote to me and expressed a desire for a different style, few have mentioned anything about the Black background. In fact, plenty of people still enjoy the site with it. But, this also gives me an opportunity to fine tune the site to reduce bandwidth consumptions. Needless to say, 3.5 years of tweaking around with settings, fonts, and colors have not made an easy to read or efficient HTML code.
I hope to solve that problem soon.

If things start to look strange over the next few days, please pardon the construction. I will be testing many different types of items. None will include banners, though. 🙂

View BlkViper.com before the transition.

Friday, August 2, 2002 @ 6:44 PM PST

Unknowingly, a kind reader tipped me off to some information that made me even MORE upset than I already was a few months ago.

Sometimes, okay, often I place rather strange stuff on my pages in my own writing style. Much of which is rather incorrect grammar, etc.

I Ranted Big Time when a kind reader tipped me off a few months ago (February 2, 2002) about Matt “possibly” copying my Windows XP Services Information straight off of my page, while only “changing” very little, to gain “new” content for his AD SUPPORTED tech site.

Today, a kind reader informed me that the “Net Login Service” that I have posted is actually listed as “Net Logon” in Windows…

This is the kicker… Matt misspelled it also. If that does not raise the bar a little higher than “possibly,” I do not know what would.

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 @ 6:22 PM PST

If, at any time during your stay, you find a “spelling” or “grammar” or “English” error… sorry. I am not a Scholar, an editor for a major media group, nor an English major. I tend to write as I speak. Not the most “proper” way to do things, but it is my “style.” It also makes my site rather accessible to a wide variety of people that have little desire to read a thesis of dribble containing nothing but “big words.” I tend to get to the point or drag it on forever without saying anything. I tend to say it how it is… just like I would say it to your face. I do not have a pocket thesaurus on hand at all times, and I do not expect to “convey” such “high” education upon this domain.

It is the way I am… and I thank my kind readers for understanding. 🙂

What I do do (is that correct?!?) is bang on the keyboard until I can not think of anything else to say. I then read and reread my text to ensure that it “seems” to flow (and sound) properly. If it does that, I have done my duty. I then
post the information and wait about 30 minutes. I read again just to catch the “stupid” errors that I could have easily missed the first two times. After that, it is left, pretty much, as is.

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 @ 8:28 PM PST

In the last 48 hours, I have received upwards of ten KLEZ virus’ masquerading as attachments. One of the E-Mails actually “claims” to remove the virus from your computer “with the attached tool.” Clever, but highly effective
in “giving permission” to “the uninformed” to propagate the damn thing more.

No one is immune, but will everyone reading this PLEASE be careful with E-Mail and “questionable” web sites. What you do may effect others in unwanted ways.

If you are looking for “unexplained services running” as process “wink{randomstuff}.exe” it is KLEZ.
Make it go away NOW!

Sunday, June 23, 2002 @ 5:01 PM PST

A Good One For Once!

On June 20, 2002, I appeared live on TechTV’sThe Screen Savers” to talk about Windows XP and services configuration. If you are lucky enough to get TechTV with your local cable provider or satellite company, I hope you tuned in!

The staff at TechTV made my stay an enjoyable one. Everyone was very kind and helped out with whatever I needed… Mainly, helping me get acquainted and relaxed. I was very nervous on the set.

Along those same lines, every person that E-Mailed me as a result of my appearance was just as kind and supportive. The Screen Savers viewers are top notch… and Black Viper wishes to thank you and the staff of The Screen Savers for making my television debut a great one.

Sunday, June 16, 2002 @ 3:08 PM PST

Can Gamespy.com please put one more ad on the front page? It just is not crowded enough, I can still actually see content. Oops, my mistake… that was an ad also.

Sunday, June 9, 2002 @ 2:33 PM PST

I have been playing Warcraft 3 Beta for a few now, I have some points that I would like to Rant about:

  • The different races are great, but not all have the “advantages” as others do…
    • Orcs have “spikes” and towers to fend off the “rush.”
    • Humans have the “ring bell” to turn peons into super fighters, not to mention “build towers anywhere.”
    • Night Elves have building that attack.
    • Undead have… Well, ghouls that are useless after 4 minutes and the constraints of “having to build on the blight.”
      Which means that this is the only race that cannot build (or try to defend) a expansion town “easily.”

The fix? Allow Ziggurat’s to be built “anywhere.”

  • Some races seem to be a bit more powerful than others:
    • Orcs have seemingly unstoppable Grunts only after 5 minutes of game play.
    • Human Footmen are only a slight step down from the grunts.
    • Night Elves Huntresses are pretty powerful in their own right.
    • Undead have…hm… Ghouls that pop like popcorn with any opponents.

If you have not already figured it out… I am attempting to play Undead. 🙂

Friday May 24, 2002 @ 10:22 PM PST

If I am forced to see another ad that floats across the screen and covers up the text that I am trying to read, I am going to go crazy. Killing Java (or not even installing it to begin with) may stop some of these pop up/under/over annoyances. Salon.com has these. I will not visit again. Cnet (News.com) is bad enough with a distracting flash ad smack dab in the middle of an article, not to mention the skyscraper ads on the side…

Tends to make me wonder, since the ad biz crashed with the dotcom bubble pop, it seems that sites are just posting more ads to make up the difference. Funny, the “content” on a site is rarely as much as just one ad. Maybe if they got rid of the bandwidth stealing flash ads, their costs may just go down. 🙂

Saturday May 11, 2002 @ 12:46 PM PST

I have received a message from M$’s “The Zone” telling me that I need to sign up for a passport account to keep my Zone Name. Funny. They sent the request to a PASSPORT ACCOUNT E-Mail ADDRESS! Obviously, the left hand has no clue what the hell the right hand is doing. I thought that the passport crap was going to eliminate “signing up” multiple times and have just “one login” type of ID. Wow. Even M$ cannot get it right. Truly pathetic.

Saturday May 11, 2002 @ 12:41 AM PST

I have now placed “Gamespot.com” in the crap site list along with (long ago) Fileplanet. “Gamespot.com” introduced a “pay” service that is $4.95 per month or $19.95 for a year. Done. Never go there again. I pay good money for my subscription to PC Gamer, why do I need any “downloadable demos” from Fileplanet or “reviews” from Gamespot.com. PC Gamer has them and it is a lot cheaper than each of those pathetic pay sites put together. If I had
to pay for the “privilege” of having all of that gaming content, I better not see ONE damn banner ad using my bandwidth and cluttering up my Hard Drive.

Saturday February 23, 2002 @ 7:47 PM PST

I do wish that SOME game developer would get the bright idea of using the hard drive and memory cards for something more than save games… Like, maybe even CONTROLLER CONFIGURATIONS! Wow! They might even be able to INCLUDE them in the save game, of which I am assuming that configurations for 12 buttons, 2 d-pads and 2 sticks cannot take up THAT much room! I almost always hate the “default” controls. I want to remap every button to what ever I want. When is this actually going to happen?!?

February 2, 2002 @ 7:13 PM PST

Someone MAY have copied some of my information from my site! Screen shots and the whole story are HERE!

October 31, 2001 @ 6:59 PM PST

I have now rid BlkViper.com of the magic JavaScript that placed crap in the status bar and also you may “Right Click” throughout the sight again.

July 31, 2001 @ 11:46 AM PST

I have been cruising around the search engines for awhile, and I seem to have found that there is plenty of pages that I did not even KNOW was being viewed. On the web server, the pages stay even after I delete them locally. Why? I really do not know. They are really not supposed to do that. Anyway, I found that Darkstone Stuff has made over 3000 hits and I deleted that page about a year and a half ago, as well as my 300MHz Win2k Services Configuration page, 1300 plus hits for that and not updated for 20 months! Wow. Needless to say, I have put in some redirector pages to help get people back on the right track. Take care!

May 1, 2001 @ 7:41 PM PST

Looks like having a Dual CPU computer is not all its cracked up to be. Whether it is the VIA chip set installed in the CUV4X-D or if Dual just sux in general, I am not sure, but it was pretty cool until I started playing Diablo 2 and found out that the “SBLIVE!” card has problems with SMP setups…go figure…so I put the 2nd CPU in another computer…up to 6 for me now… 🙂

December 29, 1999 @ 8:10 PM PST

As the Year is coming to a close, I find myself turning to all of those wonderful people that truly believe their VCR/Frig/Stereo/Car is going to blow up on Jan 1st, and I ask of you folks, “What are you going to worry about on Jan 2nd when everything is OK?”

November 27, 1999 @ 10:28 AM PST

Things have been pretty slow around here. I now have both computers hooked to the internet and I can run a dedicated server with plenty of games. ‘Bout time! 🙂

I discovered Reality recently and decided not to update the web site as often as I have been. Why you ask? No audience is a biggie. I spend around 1 to 2 hours a day updating and messing with the pages, for 10 hits. Not my idea of a good time.

September 11, 1999 @ 2:01 PM PST

After attending a mini LAN Party at Warthog’s house for the celebration of Re-volt, I am most convinced that games ARE actually starting to get better and live up to my hopes. I was purchasing MANY games that not only disappointed, but just plain sucked! It seems to me that the developers are beginning to turn around…or I am just getting more picky about WHICH games I go buy!

June 14, 1999 @ 3:15 PM PST

I have set a record for the site. 100 hits in 24 hours. Wow! Thanks to all!

I also got a nasty gram from my ISP that they have received many complaints about me spamming newsgroups and “I cannot post again EVER to them for any reason.” People are such whiners! 🙂 I sent a “Check out BlkViper.com” message to 300 out of 40000 newsgroups, got 100 hits in 24 hours, received a nasty gram from ISP… Now, I am still wondering why my mail is filled with total bullshit every day from sites scanning web pages for E-Mail addresses and turning around and selling them. And I am the bad guy? I am not even trying to make ANY MONEY! I am just killing time! Makes you think…

April 21, 1999 @ 10:24 PM PST

After waiting a rather long time to update, I finally have some news to post up.

1) If you have been wondering WHY your Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro feels so “sturdy,” it is because there is two large ball bearings in the base of the joystick with room for 2 more. So if your stick is a little heavy, take the few screws out of the base and remove the added weight. As a side note, on the inside of the base cover, there is a few names molded into the base. Designers? Testers? Who knows.

2) I should have my site resolved to “BlkViper.com” by the end of the week. Make sure you update your bookmarks!?! 🙂

3) I will have my Kitty pictures posted on Friday night…

4) I saw one of the best movies in a long time last night. 2 words: “The Matrix” If you are looking for a wild ride for a few hours, give it a try. I am rather hard to please 🙂 and this movie blew me away…

For now, this is all I can come up with. Take care and thanks for visiting!

February 17, 1999 @ 8:55 PM PST

I read a discouraging article over at PlanetQuake [link removed] by F. L. pertaining to creation of a personal website. Even though there is plenty of good information, it seems to me that the writer is more concerned with getting new and better information out to the public via the internet. I am just starting out and wanted to get knee deep into HTML and the only way to do that is to try. I know that I cannot put up anything on this site that has not been done before, better, and more in-depth, but how many times do we see a sequel in our lives? Quake 2 (soon 3), Wizardry 8, Terminator 2, and many more. Some are flops, few are better than the original, but they all are individual products. I really do not like people continuing to dig up the past when it involves computer games. All First Person Shooters are spin offs of Doom, All Real Time Strategy is a rehash of Dune/Warcraft/Command and Conquer. If you want to go that far, they are ALL spin offs of PONG! Also, along the same lines, is a modern Scanning Cash Register at the Local Supermarket just a Abacus 2000? WAKE UP! The only way we can get new products is continue to improve on the existing ones. Very few people can come up with a new idea, and when they do, everyone else jumps on the money train and tries to claim the fame for themselves…

If you are looking to read all about it, click here. I may not have a gaming insider path to stardom, but I want to try
my best and maybe, just maybe, end up being a good experience…

Posted in Articles, The Rant

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