Who is going to win the big fight around Thanksgiving and Christmas? The battle of the consoles will begin soon and I just can’t wait till the news show the clips of people killing each other at Wal-Mart to get the last Wii. I know everyone is waiting for the big arrival of Sony’s PS3, but will it be as big as PS2? Some people don’t think so because of all the problems Sony is facing.

When Wii was introduced I really didn’t think it was going to be a good system, but I have totally changed my mind because of the new commercials Nintendo’s been making. Sony on the other hand, has had crap for commercials. They are disturbing and creepy, while the Wii looks revolutionary and really sweet.

If I was a betting man (which I am), I think Nintendo’s Wii is going to wipe out PS3 and this is the reason why. Nintendo makes a profit off of every game they sell, and every console they create, while PS3 and Microsoft end up losing money. If you want to see a market share boost, stick with Nintendo (NTDOY.PK). I think in the battle of the consoles, Nintendo is going to kick some PS3 a$$.

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(This is what my website looked like for an hour and half!)

Ah, why is tech support so bad sometimes? I was trying to get this script on my site to work so I can track incoming traffic. It hasn’t been working for over a week so I decided to email tech support. He wrote me back around 30min later and thru email we tried to troubleshoot my site for about twenty minutes.

Eventually he said “Can you try one more thing? Please change your charset from utf-8 to something else” like UTF-7. So I listened and changed my option to UTF-7, then I looked at my site and everything was messed up. So I did what I always do when something doesn�t work, I changed it back.

This is when it gets good. After changing it back, I took another look at the site and nothing changed. I went back to the options and it defaulted back to UTF-7. After about 30 tries with no success I decided to email the tech support guy to help me out. Then the weirdest thing happened. HE NEVER REPLIED even though we were exchanging emails every 2 minutes for 35 minutes.

I was all by myself on this one and my site was all messed up. Then I tried researching the issue and found something on a Wordpress support forum. A guy was having the same problem as me and ended up having to delete Wordpress and reinstalling the whole thing. He was lucky though because his website was brand new and he didn�t have any content. I was like “NO!! There must me a better way.”

When I freak out about my site, I always contact my own free tech support Taylor. Taylor, a writer for eFIPO, knows a ton of stuff about programming and investigated the problem and found this site to repair the issue. After an hour and a half the issue was fixed.

Moral of the story: If tech support ends up screwing up a problem and doesn’t respond, freak out then try to get him fired . Don’t ever change your UTF option!

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Today was a big day for me. After watching an episode of South Park “Make Love, Not Warcraft”, I decided it was time to uninstall all my money saving computer games. Even though I played World of Warcraft only once, I still decided it was time to move on. I’ve been a huge gamer since I was kid, and it did end up saving me a ton of money when I was in college. When all my friends wanted to go out and party, I sometimes decided to stay in and play video games (saved me from getting in debt and trouble). I know how nerdy that sounds, but I know that most guys have done that at least once in their lives.

The years of enjoyment had to end at some point, and the time for me to grow up was here. What will I do with such an open schedule? Well, I am going to dedicate more time writing, reading, and school work. It’s been a life changing day. It feels like a 500 pound weight has been taken off my back.

Coldplay can sum up how I feel in the song Fix You.

“When the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

High up above or down below
When you’re too in love to let it go
If you never try you’ll never know
Just what you’re worth”

R.I.P.

Warcraft 3
Frozen Throne
Company of Heroes
DOTA
Command and Conquer
Wolfenstein
Doom 3

You will be missed, but never forgotten. *This post had a lot of sarcasm, but trust me it was still a hard day for me*

Do you have anything that you have had to give up for the greater good? Come on don’t be shy.

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By Mickey

So the time has come up trash that old clunker of a PC and pick up a nice shiny new one. Great! While your specific needs may vary, here are some tips to help you save some money on your new purchase.

1. Figure out what you need. Dual-core chips are all the rage now, but do you really need one? These are processors that are essentially two processors in one, making that part of your computer nearly twice as fast. However, most pieces of software (including games) can’t use both at the same time. There are exceptions, such as the latest version of Adobe Photoshop. In addition, if you often run multiple programs at once it can help. Otherwise, just stick with a faster (but cheaper) single-core chip.

2. LCDs aren’t as great as you think. The cool thing now is to get a flat LCD monitor. However, compared to an big, heavy CRT:

– LCDs don’t look as sharp.
– LCDs can’t handle as wide of a variety of resolutions.
– LCDs tend to cost more.

Now, if you need desk space then it might be worth getting an LCD. If not, you might be able to find a sweet bargin on a much larger CRT.

3. Keep your old monitor. Wanna save a couple hundred bucks? Keep your old monitor. If you’ll continue to use your old PC (for the kid’s homework or something), you’ll need to go ahead and purchase another monitor. However, if you plan on not using your old PC any longer once the new one is going, you can just use your old monitor on the new system. There won’t be any compatibility issues.

4. Dude, don’t buy a Dell. Dells are cheap. If you compare the major features of a computer (processor, memory, hard drive, etc), a Dell is the cheapest almost every time. The problem is that they really skimp out on internal parts. If you need to upgrade down the road, you’ll be in big trouble with a Dell.

To use an example, our church just bought a brand new, fairly nice Dell. I needed to add a second video card to it, and had very few options because of how the Dell was built. It didn’t include a PCI-Express slot and it didn’t even include an AGP slot - just some normal (older) PCI slots. This meant that out of the 25 or 30 video cards I was looking at in the store, I could only choose between TWO of them - the rest used PCI-E or AGP.

I don’t fault Dell for this, as they’re in the business of selling computers, and cheap computers sell very well. Just don’t be one of the people that buys one.

5. Microsoft Office vs. OpenOffice.org. One of the biggest expenses when purchasing a new PC is getting Microsoft Office on there - you’re talking about a couple hundred dollars. We all need it - Word, Excel, Outlook, Powerpoint, etc. The great news is that there is a free alternative - OpenOffice.org. It is a full-blown office package that is 100% free and 100% legal. I’ll admit that it’s not quick as slick looking as Microsoft Office, but it’s real close. It will read all of their files and it does a nice job. Even if you have MS Office already, go ahead and check it out. www.openoffice.org

6. Virus scan is optional. I considered not putting this item on here, but thought I’d share my views. Running a virus scan program such as Norton Anti-Virus or McAfee Virusscan is a HUGE resource drain. They’re constantly monitoring your system and really make it run much slower than it needs to. If you are a semi-literate computer user and you keep your Windows Updates current, odds are that you’ll never catch a major virus. Realize that it’s a slight gamble, though.

Here’s the magic - your computer can’t “catch” a virus. They don’t just slip in there like a germ in the air. You need to work to get a virus - open an infected e-mail, download an infected program, etc. You still should run a system-wide scan from time to time, but there are free programs that do this just as well as the commercial ones. Your best bet is likely Avast (www.avast.com). Dig around on their site and you’ll find the free edition.

Now, if you tend to download a lot of software, or have friends over that like to download stuff, you might want to consider sticking with a full-blown AV program like Norton or McAfee just to be safe. If not, then this is a good place to save $50.

Beyond those items, it’s just a matter of what you want. It’s a tough line to spend as little as possible but still try to buy something that will last for years to come. If you have specific questions about “what should I buy?”, feel free to ask me and I’ll try to help you decide.

For other tips on how to make your PC (new or old) run more smoothly, you can visit SpeedUPMyXP.com.

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