Console or Computer?

Gaming has been in my blood since the first time I played PONG at a friends house. Was it fate that PONG debuted the same year I was born? I think so. My first gaming system was a Atari 2600. I truly enjoyed all of the blocky sprites and the genuinely uncomfortable smash-the-corner-in-to-the-palm-of-your-hand one button black joysticks that came with the system. Many hours were spent in front of the TV set, playing mindless hand-eye coordination games. Those were the days…

My first “true love” has to be the Commodore 64. A computer built for the home user, as opposed to Apple’s in schools and IBM’s in office’s and an outstandingly (for the time) advanced system. Not only was it used for “educational” purposes, such as typing up my school reports (and having others pay me to do theirs), to keep my parents happy, but it was used to teach me the beginnings of programming. The games were so enjoyable that I figured that no console (without a keyboard) could possibly ever touch a “dedicated” computer environment built for gaming. RPG’s are hindered on anything less than the ability to have a keyboard for input. I knew that I would never want to go back to a console…

Along came Nintendo. I did enjoy the “updated” graphics (compared to the 2600) that the console sported, but the game pad really made me mad. I liked joysticks. I purchased an Advantage for the system and that really breathed new life in to a console that I figured would not go much farther. Back to the Commodore 64…

After a long absence from the gaming industry while I served in the US Military, I returned with a EXTREME need to play the best of the best… After all, the amount of time that had passed, we should have all been playing 2048×1563 on a flat panel screen… Not quite.

The first “Gaming System” I built had a new P166 with 32 MB Memory and a Matrox 4 MB card. Hell, with this, you could do SO much, right? After all, the Commodore only had 64K! Wrong. It was not until I built the state-of-the-art P2 300 with Dual VooDoo 2′s that the industry actually caught up to where I felt they should have been already! Then, the gaming industry started to annoy me. With a different Direct X version arriving every week, driver versions that had to be installed in a particular order and buggy games with large patches being the “norm” and not the exception, I began to remember the days of the Atari 2600 when you could just “Plug” in the cartridge and “Play” away.

Having my “Gaming System” evolve from that super P2 300 to the now (as of this writing) P4 1.8 GHz with a 64 MBvideo card (twice as much RAM as my system memory had in the FIRST computer). I did not expect much from a console system…
But, after all, it does have the tried and true “PC” components installed!

The XBOX

With a hard drive, a crippled P3 733 and a bastardized GeForce3 at the helm, I figured the XBOX would send me back to the days of “Plug and Play.” I am very sick of OS configurations, driver conflicts, patches and tweaks. I want to play. Plug in controllers, insert DVD and fire it up… Wow. It does look very pretty, but I am sure that it cannot touch the frame rates, nor the pure cool factor of playing Max Payne at 1600×1200 on a system that I “normally” use for gaming… But, I was not planning on it. After all, the XBOX was ONLY $300.

(UPDATE: 23FEB2002) 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?!?

Copyright infringement?

The music industry has lately (and a bit more quietly in the past) voiced a rather drastic opinion on “Digital” copies of music. Whether it be file swapping MP3′s on Napster or making a backup copy of a CD to play in the car or give to the kids for their room, the music industry says that it is VERY wrong. Ok. Fine. I was under the impression that I could copy the CD for PERSONAL use…

Micro$oft and there wonderful Windows Product Activation that I am VERY not happy with, also is taking a rather drastic approach to copy protection by pinning software to the hardware. Ok. Fine.

Lets meld the technology, shall we? A feature on the XBOX is the ability to “copy” music CD’s to the internal hard disk for later playback either with or WITHOUT a game in the system! Yes, you can, if you so desired, take a CD, “rip”
it to your friends XBOX and walk away while your friend enjoys the newly copied songs! Is that NOT copyright infringement? Micro$oft actually HELPS you do this?!? For two industries to collide so on this system, I am surprised that the music industry allowed it to happen. After all, you can also copy a song onto the little memory unit…

(UPDATE: 18FEB2002) A kind reader informed me that you actually cannot copy a song onto the memory unit… the original statement was just to see if someone has made a program to do so… but why would you need to… since you can just take the CD and copy it direct, anyway!

Online Gaming

I want to play online. Period. I do not have the ability to do so because cable/DSL is yet to be available in my area. Even though I have called the phone company under different names (heheh) and expressed my deep desire for such a high speed connection, they do not seem to care much. Here comes Micro$oft.

Soon, Micro$oft will be offering an online opportunity for the Xbox to link up gamers to play over a broadband connection. This could be a good and a bad thing. I feel that allowing the XBOX to be placed on such a medium would also allow the undesirable effects of “downloadable” patches to fix a game that was released to early (or should have never been released at all). Even so, how about those wonderful folks, such as I, who cannot get broadband? Will we just be stuck with a crappy/buggy game? Even though I no longer enjoy updating to newer and “faster” drivers, at least I am ALLOWED to download and install them! Will we be “allowed” to purchase an “expansion” pack to FIX the game and add a few “new” features without having to use the internet? I am also sure that the expansion pack will NOT be free… Even more food for thought, will we be able to swap songs off of the XBOX to others with broad band connection? Only time will tell…

Ports?

Console ports over to the PC have been around for quite awhile, but never really catch on. The restricted interface (game pad), the annoying “save game points” and the jump/seek/kill puzzle solving of the console games is sad at best. Can the XBOX turn around this trend?

I am hoping that game developers will use the internal hard drive for something other than patch storage. I also hope that they realize that more than one person can play a particular game on a system. Dead or Alive 3 does save your progress and unlock particular sections, but does not have the ability to “save” profiles of different users. A console downfall in my opinion. Project Gotham Racing saves your progress, gives stupid stats such as how long you have played, and gives the ability to copy it to a memory card for transfer to another system. Kudos to the developers. Azurik gives the ability for a single player game with save points. GET OVER IT! If I want to save every three feet, I should be able to! I hate the developers telling me WHEN and WHERE I can save. Very annoying…

Minimum requirements?

Something that has really burned me in the recent past is the minimum requirements for games. You may not feel my pain, but it really sucks to have a “super computer” and all the games run just fine on a P200! Do we really need to play Quake at 275 FPS? We can only visually see between 60 and 70hz! Anyway, I would much rather have a game that has detail sliders, etc, than to be STUCK at what a developer thinks the game should be at… I do understand they are attempting to market their games to a large audience, not the relatively small number of people with high end gaming systems, but the choice can and should be there.

Diablo 2 was one of the “could have done more” games. Blizzard is famous for marketing games for the masses, but they also have plenty of followers that actually LIKE playing a game above 640×480!

Since the XBOX has a relatively “high” configuration compared to the minimum requirements of games at the local software store, I am hoping that developers will make games that actually utilize the system powers and not be stuck in the “got to work on a low end system” loop. Unfortunately, I am sure that the XBOX will get many ports from soon to be released PC games. Since the development cycle has raised so high, I am also sure that when the brand new game is released for the XBOX in 2005, not many people (hard core) will take notice. The ports will more than likely be stuck in the “minimum PC” configuration loop and not be able to take full advantage of the XBox powers. Sounds to me like a lose/lose situation…
Back to the PC…

Black Viper
December 28, 2001

Revision History

December 28, 2001: Initial release.

February 18, 2002: Included information about transfering songs onto a memory unit.

If you are looking for any of the following

• CD Cracks
• Cheat codes or cracks for games
• ANTI-Hacks or ANTI-Cheats to “combat” crackers
• Free high-level characters
• Trainers
• CD Keys
• CD code or serial generators
• UnWrappers
• Password Breakers
• Key-loggers
• CD, DVD, MP3 ripping software
• Links/URL’s to warez sites
• Modification of software embedded in hardware devices (XBOX, DirectTV, etc)
• Any other way to steal from programmers
• Any way to exploit a program to “get something for nothing”

No need to look any further.

I do not and will not give out any of the above info to you, regardless of whom you are or why you want it!

DO NOT E-Mail ME ASKING FOR SUCH INFORMATION.

You will get absolutely NOTHING in return!

As for anyone else curious about the subject, please read on. You may get more information that what you planned on, or maybe even some comic relief.

For the purpose of this page, Black Viper’s definitions are as follows:

CD Keys: Any “code” or serial number provided to allow “access” or “unlock” software.

Cheats: Any action or command, usually “built in” by software developers to ease development
tasks.

Cracks: Any utility, program, device, or other means used to “work around” or circumvent copy protection. Another would be any utility, program, device, or modified executable used to “adjust” any game to make things easier or a modification to defeat piracy techniques.

Crackers: The “Bad Guys” in the computer world.

And the wonderful:

“ANTI”-(hacks, cracks, cheats, passwords, keys, codes): Any of the above that does the opposite of “the bad stuff.” For example – kick “crackers” off servers, spam spammers, Multiplayer crack detection, etc. I have also heard every “really, I will use it for the good” excuse possible. Do not even bother.

I do not care if you feel cheating or cracking is a “good” thing. Do as you wish. I am not out to stop you. It is your choice. I choose to play games as they were intended. Just do not ask me for help!

Before flaming me, I understand the “pirate” point of view!

Read my Rant on Windows Product Activation!

Read my Putting out the Flames Rant!

Does BV like DRM or “Digital Rights Management?”

No, but at this point in time, no happy “middle ground” exists to protect content creators from unauthorized redistribution and also allow “fair use” for those “good people” that only wish to listen/use/view their “purchased content” in any manner they wish. I do not see it happening anytime soon. I do hope for a day that I am proven wrong and even hope more that it is in my lifetime.

On the other hand, I feel that no matter “how or what” method of protection is used, it WILL be taken/ripped/stripped in some regard, someplace for, sometimes no other reason then “to do it.”

I am not a lawyer and do not claim to be. Regardless of the “actual legalities of DRM, Piracy, EULAS” etc, and some people stating that, in several examples below, I use examples of “real personal property,” instead of “intellectual property,” the idea I am putting across still holds true: Stealing, breaking contracts, or otherwise disregarding “rights”, no matter what context or label you apply to it, is not good for anyone involved.

“Theft” or “Stealing” in context is NOT Piracy! Software Piracy is a violation of a binding (contract) license issued by the rights holder to “allow” you to use a product that you “do not own” any other rights to. In other words, you purchase the media (CD, DVD, what ever) it comes on and you “license” the software contained on that media. You do not own it and cannot do “anything” you want with it.

Frequent “Reasons” to Pirate Software or Music, “Require” fake CD Keys and “Cheat” through
games

Games and software are too much money. I cannot afford it. If they were cheaper, I would buy them.

Understand. I am sure that you have also considered walking into a department store, taking an item and telling the cashier that, “Since I feel that this is too much money, I am going to steal it.” I am also sure that you are not going to get far.

See that new Corvette in the parking lot? I am also sure that you think it should only sell for $1000, so you are going to steal it “to teach them big ol’ corporations a lesson.” Hope you have saved enough from pirating to post bail.

Software in the C-64 days was about $40. Took a long time for me to save up my (parents) change to get a new game. I am thinking that the C-64 “software development cycles” did not ever reach 4 years as they have for current games. Trust me when I say that I feel I am “getting my money’s worth” out of some of my games.

I have spent $7.00 on entrance to a movie and $3.00 for a “large” soda. That is $10 for (on average) 2 hours of entertainment. A $50 game with “only” 25 hours of game play has double the “value” of that new release in the theater. Funny that you can also play that game again, whenever you wish, but you would have to “pay” again to see that movie. Yes, that ticket you purchased is a “one time view.” You can always spend $15 bucks on a DVD if you really like the movie, but then again, it raises the tag up to “$25 for 2 hours” of “new content.”

One beef that I have had for sometime, though, is the cost of arcade games. “four tokens” for, what sometimes, seems like only three minutes of game play really sucks. Funny thing is, you will not see me packing one off because “they are too much money.” I just do not play them.

I only pirate old, out of production, low volume software to avoid paying the high prices on auction sites. No one gets hurt. What do you think?

Another way someone that normally would not steal justifies it.

Last time I checked, Ford is no longer making 65 Mustangs. They have been out of production for sometime. “Used” prices are much more than they were new. If I did purchase one out of the local newspaper, Ford would not get a cut of the deal. Sounds like a reason to perform Grand Theft Auto? Pretty insane, once you think about it, huh? What if I could just clone the car? Would that make the “original” more valuable? Ever think that, maybe, just maybe, the software was in such low production because high piracy reduced demand, which raised the prices for the “legit” software and the cost for “honest” buyers? I didn’t think so.

I only crack because I was tired of online cheaters. What do you think?

Thank you for supporting the very thing that makes you angry. By cracking and cheating, you are promoting the very thing that you dislike. Visiting the banner and pop-up supported crack sites only line their wallets and do nothing for the people that actually MADE the software. The only thing you just did was to become the enemy to legit players.

I am not going to buy the software or music anyway, so I can just pirate and use it. They are not out any money!

I had a reader tell me that I should not think that software is a “real product” like clothing or a car is. Funny how if “copying” something is so EASY, that people tend to forget it is breaking the law and even justify theft.

Don’t get me wrong, when I say that plenty of software is NOT worth the money, like Windows 2000 Advanced Server for $4000 or Windows XP Pro for $300, that still does not make it ok to take it. Use this as an example:

I travel to my local software store and pick up a box with Office XP. I tell them “I am sorry, but I do not think that this is an actual product, so I am just going to take it.” What would the reaction be? What would it be with any clerk? The store sure did not get it for “free,” so why should you? It is a boxed, tangible product. When looked at it with that view, it is “valuable.”

I also understand that people like to use software as a geek tool or a toy. Why would I pay thousands of dollars for 3ds Max just to “play” with it? I went to the site, had them send me a “free” trial version, and installed it. Wandered around for five minutes, remembered that I have zero artistic talent and could never touch the capabilities of “Ice Age” or a hundred other computer rendered scenes and movies, then closed the program. Was it cool to check out the demos and tutorials? Yes! Would I have paid $2000 for that privilege? No. If I was in the business of 3D art and rendering, I would of course cough up the cash. However, I would not just to “hobby” around in. That is where trial software comes in handy.

If you required a particular software package and there was NO other way to get it, I am sure that they would get your money. Since it is so simple to find it free, why pay for it?

The absolute moment someone comes up with a way to clone “real products,” please tell me. We will go in to biz together and make some “real money,” selling the cloning hardware, of course.

I download music that I have purchased before and do not want to purchase it again.

This is probably the biggest reason that “I” would justify converting content. Notice that I said “converting” and not “downloading” or “copying.” A difference does exist. I should be able to change from one “format” to another with no lawyers knocking on my door. Lets see an example that hits home for me:

I purchased many cassette tapes of music in my younger years. At that time, no method existed that was not cost prohibitive that allowed me an option to “transfer” my purchased music from cassette tape to CD. So, what was my solution? Purchase the music all over again, in its new format with (hopefully) a higher quality version that did not deteriorate over time. Did I like that idea and method? Absolutely not! But what other choices did I have? Zero.

Now that we have fast forwarded (20) years, does a different option exist? Yes, I could easily convert my cassette tapes to cheap burnable CD’s or even take it one step further and convert my purchased CD’s from when I was 16 to MP3. Is that breaking the law? Am I “breaking” the law by using software easily available (Windows Media Player) to convert that CD into WMA format to play on my computer, PlayStation 3, XBOX 360 or even my phone! If you would have told me 20 years ago that I would be playing music on my phone, I would have laughed very, very hard… but it is something that I want to do, enjoy doing, and if the pro-DRM zealots get their way, I would not be able to!

Do I wish to use iTunes to “repurchase” my music? Or “validate” what music I already have? No, I do not. It seems like a big fat waste of time to me, but others have had great success in doing so.

Now, if I purchased a single CD. Listened to it, handed it to my wife, and she ran out the door to her car and listened to it… is that “redistribution?” I would say… well… yes. But does that mean, to stop the law from putting me behind bars, I have to purchase separate CD/MP3/WMA versions for each of my family members? That, I feel, is way out of control and not what DRM was intended to stop to begin with.

Needless to say, regardless of your reasons, I will not help you copy/duplicate copyrighted material.

I am only testing them to see if I like it.

Do you know of how many “shareware” or “demo” software packages I have for my C-64? Zero. I had to pay to find out that the game was junk.

Demos are a great way to “try before you buy” and see if you like the software. You should give it a shot sometime.

I (insert reason here) so I need a CD key.

I really do not care. However, you entered into your dilemma, whether you downloaded a pirate copy of a CD, lost your “legit” key or any number of other reasons I have heard, I cannot solve it for you. The best way to fix your problem would be to contact the publisher of your software title and ask them directly. I am sure they will require proof of purchase and an additional sum of money.

I would not help my buddy knock off the local gas station, so why do you think I would assist a “stranger” with illegal material that has attached to it a GREATER punishment?!? Think about it.

I purchased this so I can do anything I want with it, like cheat or crack.

Since you obviously entered into a contract (EULA) that forbids cracking type of activity, you cannot do “anything” you want with it. You do not own the software, you “license” it. Once again, I do not like the idea, either, but that is the only way developers can protect their products. With a EULA, or other type of license, like the open-source variety.

You may cheat your way through any thing that you wish. School, work, games, I really do not care. If it affects others, such as your “opponents online,” your “right” to cheat has intruded on everyone else’s “right” to play as intended without someone intruding and “not playing nicely.” It also proves that you “cannot” play “without” cheating because you cannot handle losing. Your “right to cheat” should not make me have a forced “handicap.”

I am not a hardcore gamer, sometimes things just get too difficult to play!

If you purchased the product, you can cheat as much as you wish during a single player game. I do not care, but just do not ask me for help.

If your cheating reduces the fun by ruining the game play experience by cheating online, you are obviously taking it upon yourself to destroy a community. That is not something that I wish to be a part of.

FAQ – General

Why do you feel so strongly about this?

I receive numerous E-Mails per day about cheats, cracks and pirated software. Usually, these people are vulgar, rude, and use more cuss words than anybody I really want to deal with. Funny thing is, these people are RUDE AND ASKING ME FOR HELP!!! Not a great way to win friends.

I do geek stuff for fun. I also reply to all of my E-Mails on my spare time. Furthermore, I do not want to spend my time assisting another person with a “looking-for-something-for-nothing” attitude. It is not worth the effort. Time is valuable, and, obviously, nothing has value to the pirate.

There are PLENTY of sites DEDICATED to this very subject. BlackViper.com is not one of them. It is so pathetically easy to find cracking information on the internet. People should not waste the time of others “with lives” and “much better things to do” because they are too damn lazy to look for themselves! Usually, this type of person is called “script kiddies.”

Games are for people that play and enjoy games, commonly called “gamers.”

Cheats and cracks are for people that cannot play games as they were intended out of the box. They are not gamers.

FAQ – Windows XP Service Pack 1 and 2

Is there a way to change a Windows XP’s Serial number without reinstalling the whole thing?

This question could be coming from a person that is using a Microsoft known pirated version of Windows XP Professional Corporate Edition. Since I have no way of verifying any claims made to me via E-Mail, I ignore all “questionable” requests for such type of information.

If you purchased a Legitimate copy of Windows, this should not occur and there would be no real reason to ever have to change your product ID or your serial number on a home system. Contact Microsoft Technical Support for assistance if you do have a valid reason to do such a task. The contact information is located in your manual that came with your particular version.

If you are using a pirated copy of Windows XP, please do not ask me for help. I will not answer any questions with regards to pirated software.

I just attempted to install Windows XP Service Pack 1 and it says I have a pirated copy! What do I do?

This problems cause is using a Microsoft known pirated copy of Windows XP Professional Corporate Edition.

If you purchased a legitimate copy of Windows, this should not occur. Contact Microsoft Technical Support for assistance. The contact information is located in your manual that came with your particular version.

If you are using a pirated copy of Windows XP, please do not ask me for help. I will not answer any questions concerning pirated software.

FAQ – CD Keys and Serial Numbers

(Insert sob story here). Will you send me a CD Key (insert multiple promises not to distribute it here)?

No.

I copied this CD key from a forum post and I can’t play on Battle.net. Can you help?

No!

I purchased this game but my CD key has become unreadable, can you help me?

No!!

My Mommy threw my CD case away. Can you E-Mail me one of your CD keys? I really do not want to pay for the game again.

No!!!

I purchased a legit copy of WinXP and the CD Key does not work. Can I have one of yours?

NO!!!!

FAQ – CD Cracks

I am really tired of swapping CD’s to change games. Will you give me a Crack to not have to play with the CD’s in the
drive?

No!

My Mommy takes my CD’s away when I stay home sick from school. Can you tell me of a way to play without the CD?

No!!

You see, I have this friend and we want to play on a network but we do not want to spend the money on two copies, could
you help us?

No!!! View my Rant on Piracy!

I only want to copy a CD 12 times for our LAN party players and then they will be destroyed, could you please help?

NO!!!! View my Rant on Piracy!

Really, I read your information, but could you make an exception for me?

NO!!!!!

You see, I purchased a legit copy of (insert name here) on Ebay and the disc(s) are all scratched up and I cannot install
it. Can you send me a copy of yours?

NO!!!!!!

I downloaded this game from a Warez site and I seem to not be able to get it to work, could you help me?

No!!!!!!!

Battle.net

My Battle.net account is disabled for “some reason.” Can you help?

My Battle.net account has been “cracked” and my “legit” CD Key no longer works. Can you help?

My account was deleted or password has been changed by someone. Can you help?

NO!!!!!!!!

If you are a “cheater” or using one of the numerous pathetic cracks around the internet, your account probably was disabled for abuse on Battle.net. If so, why do you think I
would help you?!?

If you are “legit” and someone REALLY did crack your account, what do you think I can really do?!?!

Talk to Blizzard, not me!!!

General FAQ

Do you like Microsoft’s Windows Product Activation (WPA)?

No. View my Rant on Windows Product Activation!

Could you tell me how to avoid WPA?

No.

Are you a programmer?

No.

What is your favorite hacks and cracks site?

http://www.blackviper.com/hacks.htm

FAQ – Role Playing Game Characters I have Created

You have some GREAT RPG characters, will you send me your character files?

No.

I know that you said that you would not give out your character files, but could you e-mail them to me?

No!

I was wandering around your site and I could not figure out how to download any of your characters you have on display!
Could you e-mail them to me?

NO!! You cannot find out “how” to download them because they are not available.

Password Cracks

I think (insert person here) is (insert crappy thing to do to others) because (insert reason here). Do you have information
on how to crack their passwords?

No.

I am a worried parent that thinks (insert family member here) is (insert crazy things that children and spouses do) because
(insert all kinds of evidence to support the story here). Do you have information on how to crack their passwords?

No. Since I have neither the time or desire to “verify” if the story is “legit” or just another kid’s lame excuse to exhibit how 31337 they are and a reason to break other computers because they are bored, I do not answer any questions of this type.

A family member has passed away and I took over their computer. They had Windows XP Pro. I try to sign on but I don’t know the passwords for administrator. Can you help?

No. Even though, assuming this story is “true,” I understand the dilemma, I cannot verify that fact. As such, no information is given. None.

A young family member “accidentally” changed the password on my computer. How can I fix it?

I cannot tell you. Again, I understand your issue and the desire to fix it. This could be a hard lesson to teach the proper use of tools or better supervise young children around valuable equipment.

Actual quote from an E-Mail (slightly edited for a PG-13 audience)

“Then for what u got the f#$!&^g page if you will not help us with something that we need????????”

I can do what ever I want on and with my domain.

Since when is it my job to help you break the law and/or crack and cheat?

Since when does anyone need to do anything concerning cracks and cheats?

Obviously, this person needed to misspell words, cuss at me, and tell me what to do with my domain. Makes me want to help even less!!!

The main reason I have this page? Because I can.

The lamest question that I have received over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again

Ok, I have read all of your information and I am asking nicely… Can you…

Let me spell this one out for you: “IN” “OH” spells NO! Funny thing is, these questions arrive even though I have protective measures like this page. Still, people ask. Is it because there is “No harm in asking?” Probably, but:

EVEN IF I WOULD GIVE ANY OUT OF THIS TYPE OF INFORMATION, IT WOULD NOT AND WILL NOT BE TO YOU UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!

For all of you fun loving people that think this is a waste of hard drive space and should not be published, this page started as one line. It grew to this because people do not get it. If you got the point, good for you.

If you still do not get the point, please reread this entire page.

Frequent Flames (Slightly edited for a PG-13 audience)

You are a f*&%*#g fag!

No, I am rather straight. Just because I do not promote crime does not mean that my sexual preference differs from the “norm.” Really, this is the most frequent flame. Sad the lamer’s cannot come up with anything more original.

fag fag fag fag!!! you are so gay I am sure that you have used pirated software and hacked before so don’t say that kind of sh#t about how it is bad! you think you are so cool but you are probably a highschool dropout!

Again. This lamer could not come up with anything better than “fag.” Wow. The issue of this page is not whether I have hacked (proper term in this context would be crack) or pirate software. The point being: Do not ask me for help. Amazing that people also randomly come to strange conclusions like I am a “highschool dropout.” While I am not a high school dropout, I do know that “high school” is spelled with a space and I also know how to use the “shift” key to begin a sentence. While my grammar is pathetic, I know it. However, this person obviously has no clue.

You are just a self-centered jerk with an attitude.

Thank you for your opinion. I am sure that if you viewed my inbox every day, you would begin to have an attitude also. This page is a tool used by me to get my point across in the clearest manner possible. Obviously, it worked. You got the point. Respect my opinion and go about your life.

You are to lame to hack.

(Proper term would be to crack)

No. I did crack many programs back in the C-64 days, including character editing, high score editing, extra money cheats, copy protection, etc. I also performed all of those actions AFTER I had completed the game. It is just that when income was rather low, I gave a conscious effort to play the games to the fullest and not “cheat” my way through. Why spend $40-70 on a game just to play in “GOD” mode? To look at the pretty pictures? That is not a game, it is an interactive movie. A monkey can be trained to walk through a level in GOD mode. It takes no talent. Since the C-64 days, I grew up. You should also.

It takes brains to crack and cheat.

If you “discovered” a Easter egg on your own, good for you. If you read it on the internet, whoop-t-do!

It takes brains to MAKE a game! It takes nothing to re-engineer a program. This is kind of like rewriting a book. You did not come up with the story; you just changed the ending and removed the middle.

Wow, I am impressed.

Single (and only) line quote from an E-Mail:

“You are a false advertising, self addicted peeonic nerd!”

Most of these types of flames are results of the search engines indexing this page when people search for “cracks.” Get it together! You are not searching for “content.” You are searching WORDS! Since, like hundreds of thousands of other sites, this page has “hacks, cracks, and cheats,” you WILL get it on search
engines! I am not ADVERTISING anything!

As far as being a “peeonic nerd,” they are the one who wrote me, seems as if I am doing something right.

Another single line quote from an E-Mail:

“Ur stupid and u dont have any cheats u little lier”

Children, please ask your parents before using the internet and E-Mailing people. Only thing it does is strengthen the fact that only the people that have NO clue feel so strongly for cracking. The “true-hackers” do NOT run around on Forums announcing the fact they have 100 TB of pirated software. The “crackers” are only visible to the public when they appear on CNN after being caught. Remember, I did not ask you to come to my domain. You arrived on your own will.

A child E-Mailing an adult:

“ur a bit$h i do not cheat companies i love giving mone away and getting r@ped in the @ss by bill. lol what a f@g keep doing that and see where u end up in the future”

Really, this is the crap that I deal with DAILY. Obviously a child since I am already “in the future” with plenty of neat electronics. Funny how I did not “go” anywhere. It looks to me as if this person is heading straight for trouble. Since they “love giving mone away,” maybe they should purchase spelling lessons and an attitude adjustment.

Another bright child E-Mailing an adult:

“U F#$%$@G SUCK U CANT EVEN SPELL AND FOR UR INFORMATION HACKING IS FUN LALALALA”

“U F#$%$@G SUCK” ~ Another nice person that contacts me.

“U CANT SPELL” ~ Do I even have to say anything about this?

Usually, as this one did, these E-Mails come from the AOL domain. Any REAL “cracker” would have a REAL ISP and NOT be using their parents account on a “content provider.” Sad, I know.

Black Viper
September 22, 2001

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 "http://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 "http://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’s “The 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…