Team Fortress 2 problems with Xbox Live

If you are on Xbox Live and have played Team Fortress 2 at all, I am sure that you may have noticed a problem with the networking. To be more specific, lag. Recently an update for the PC version of this game was released but we are all still waiting for the Live version problems to be addressed. I was trying to play today and could not get through an entire game without some type of problem. I know that some say "Maybe the problem is with your network." Nope. I am constantly playing COD4 on Live and have very little issues with that, if at all. You would think that the developers would try and fix the problems for subscribing customers that actually did pay for this game. This is not a jab at PC gamers but they are the ones that pirate the majority of the titles. Microsoft and Valve need to get their act together and get this worked out. It's bad enough that players could not even log onto or retrieve their gamer tags over the Christmas break, now this.

HD-DVD Death Made Official

Toshiba put HD-DVD out of its misery today. Reuters confirmed this afternoon that it will cease manufacturing HD-DVD equipment, following earlier reports from Japan's NHK public broadcasting network.

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Social Wallpapering

This is one of the best collections of desktop wallpapers that I have ever seen. This new web 2.0 type of site offers the user the ability to rate wallpapers and actually save them to your computer. I think that this is a great idea and it also gives graphic artists the ability to show off their work. Check it out.

www.socwall.com

HD DVD vs. Blu Ray is almost over, almost.

This is a graph that I found on several sites and RSS feeds representing the HD DVD vs. Blu Ray sales since Christmas. As you can see Blu Ray is killing HD DVD right now. I could not really care less truthfully and I think that most people follow me in this thought. I think that people are just waiting for one of these formats to be declared the winner and get on with life. There are a few things that will be affected by this decision though. The gaming consoles that back each of these formats could be changing formats as well. The PS3 already has the on board Blu Ray player but Microsoft backed the wrong horse in this race. The XBox 360 has an HD DVD player add on available to go with that nice new HDMI port now available in the newer units. Well recently Sam's Club has lowered the price of these external HD DVD players to $72. They have been selling out and popping up on various market places on the web at a lowered price. Also rumored was Microsoft's new love for the Blu Ray technology and that they could possibly have an external version available for the 360 soon. What this is going to do is lower the cost of older technology such as Dual Layer DVD's and then the Blu Ray drives and blank Blu Ray DVD's will be the new expensive thing. Well at least some good will come from this painful battle but I just want my plasma to have a 1080P feed for movies. After a few hits and more misses it looks like Sony put their money on the right technology.

Whoops. Has someone seen my tape?

This story is just another example of careless people that oversee our day to day lives. An iron mountain "secure" facility that backs up our personal data that has been collected by retailers such as Sears, J.C. Penney and even G.E. have "lost" a SCSI tape that contained hundreds of thousands of credit card transactions and also social security numbers for employees of different companies. The spokesperson said "The tape was never checked out, its just missing." I guess that they work under the honor system at this place. I find it very easy to believe that someone that wanted to steal data from one of these facilities would not sign it out and just take it. This is Social Engineering at it's best if I had to guess. They are going to look at the obvious people that have easy access to the equipment but I think that the blame is going to lie somewhere else. The data has been encrypted on the tape but it depends on the level of encryption that they decided to use. Judging by the level of security around the "protected" data at this facility, the person who took it should not have a hard time breaking the code. Maybe they should try 12345 for the key.

http://feeds.computerworld.com/~r/Computerworld/News/~3/219705350/article.do

COD 4 Fun!

I have just started playing COD4 on Xbox Live and thoroughly enjoy it. Above is a video of a guy that is a sniper, has a few kills and makes a lot of guys look bad. One of the kills might even be me. A friend from work sent me this link and I thought that I would share it with all of you. If anyone that reads my blog wants to saw hello online my gamertag on Live is SWILK3RS. Happy hunting!

Save Money By Switching!

It is hard to watch television, surf the net or listen to the radio without seeing or hearing about car insurance rates. "If you switch to BLAH BLAH insurance you could save up to $400 a year!" Well after thinking about this I realized that EVERY car insurance ad claims this to be true. Allstate, Geico, Progressive, Etc. Etc. What company is the one that has the highest rates that everyone else is saving by switching to a different company? I am sure that if you are needing SR22 (DUI) insurance and switch to a company that specializes in helping those who choose to get caught drinking and driving have insurance you could save some money. "If you fall into a certain niche of driving coverage and need insurance call me, you could save money!" This should be the slogan, it's more accurate. I guess the alternative would be "Hey, we could save you money but it's probably a waste of time. Oh yeah, you will need to give us a down payment as well." I wouldn't call them, maybe they should stick to the saving money stuff.