Patch 5 For GTAIV Is Success

Grand Theft Auto IV, has had a rocky run since the start. Many of us had a smooth install and smooth gameplay from the getgo. But many people had issue that almost seemed to be unresolved. The forums at gtaforums.com  practically flipped upside down. Many posts had been sent by flamers and trolls but there where lots of real legitimate posts. So for the moderators such as CC (CharmingCharlie) there was a heavy steady task. Regular users such as myself spent hours trying to contribute, by helping the legit and reporting the blatant flamers. That is all important because There where actual Rockstar game programers that would frequent gta forums to get ideas and imput. As we actually found out at the release of patch one.


The first patch was clearly a quick fix to suppress the unruly scream-alots. I totally understand and was happy with the fact that someone was there to hear and  tame the cries of the kids with bad installs. I don’t remember exactly what was shut off in the patches but I do remember  like the hotdog stands disappearing, and then when they came back, deeper detailed  controls for video settings had been enabled. Of course that was at a later patch. Third patch I believe.

The fourth patch well there really was not much to the fourth patch as far as we could see. In fact the guy from Rockstar Torronto informed us it was preparation for next few big moves. Some of us old schoolers suggested it was for Downloadable content for pc..We where slapped down by forum moderators that let us know there was nothing in the statement that suggested DLC, and they locked our posts. They don’t realize that half the game of GTA is speculating what is to come in next game and by reading to much into anything said by R*. That is the heaviest traffic to gtaforums. but what ever. We have since then proven this to be true with the release of the fifth patch we see tlad in the achievement area for pc gtaiv.

Cheats are now nearly impossible, the servers are now used like dedicated servers, meaning the game creator  can now ban anyone on his/her server at any givin  moment, we no longer have to wait for votes. I assume that someone will create a script that allows them to jump servers and bann people at random without being modderator or  creator. until then I am super happy with what is available.

many many fixes with patch five.

Incase you have not found the link to the fifth patch, here you go.

patch 5 for gtaiv

List of Fixes

GENERAL:

  • Convert all region SKU’s into the same SKU.
  • Include support for all languages within single exe.

CONTROLS:

  • Allow controls to be double mapped on keyboard.
  • Added option in controls menu to disable mouse controls in helicopters.
  • Adjust keyboard control sensitivity in hood cam view in vehicles.

MULTIPLAYER:

  • Security Updates to deter cheating in multiplayer.
  • Hosts can now immediately Kick users from their games in Lobby and in game via Cell phone without having to rely on peer voting.
  • Fixed a bug in Cops ‘n Crooks mode where Host would drop out and prevent remaining players from leaving game.

Sad to say, they have it labeled as patch 4, even though it is the fifth patch.

Modern Warfare 2 c.o.d. XBOX360

Throwing knives 1 at a time. Can scavenge and get more, but not at the same time.. So throw kill, pick up the dead guy’s kniufe, throw kill pick up the dead guy’s knife if he still has one.

infinity ward / Activision produced and manufactured the game.

Olympic deaths- when you die you do flips and twists, kinda cool and funny.

Cash instead of blood- latest patch killed the bloody deaths while in multy player. Instead of blood everywhere you see money fly up.
No cheats no glitch, glitch report feature, and all the cheated Xbox’s have been banned.
Vaseline-eye gone. This refers to the blurry background and scenery area that xbox used for every game that first came out to reduce the amount of imaged teh machine has to render, making it easier to  draw deeper detail in the images it is focussed on. Was a cheap scam if you ask me.  when you die, you get blurry though.

Predator drone missile, lets you do a lock on location while an air strike is performed, you guide the missle.
Auto and barrette at same time, means sniper and machine gun  as secondary weapon, pretty fricken cool if you ask me.
Leader board shows total time. Shows wins.
leader board . Shows accuracy shots. 1v1 with buddy = pad scores. one guy on there had 700+ kills zero misses. He logged in and was 1v1 with his other xbox and shot up the zombie machine.. causing zero misses. Kind of  frooty if you ask me..

Fast pace. Game moved at a rate not seen other than on Soldier Front.

Game was cool, I give it a 8/10.

I no longer have access to the game  or the console. ..

Expect a clear review when it hits PC

Joost Gets Bought up

Well, I had so much hope for joost when it first came up.

Leo Laporte and Amber Macarther talked so much about it.

I had to run out and get me a beta test. The first branch of i.p. TV tree had sprouted. They had a program you had to install that seems a whole lot like what  is now called Adobe Air. The program and the videos ran and played really smooth, looked pretty good also. One day a bunch of people started complaining about the install process (a whole 4 seconds to download, 12 seconds to install..) So the Joost team dropped the installer and started at going with online streaming video, much like Hulu. I really liked the program, it ran like a torrent  program or good ol Kazzaa. On a peer program.

Sad to say though, Joost never had any really good videos, other than “The Lexx”.

Joost  is sold to a company called “Adconion Media” . Really I never heard of them. I hope they make the best of it. I was actually hoping for nbc,cbs and or hbo/showtime/usa to merger on a deal to buy it. Oh well .

Good luck gang.

Lost Insurance Because Of Facebook??

A woman from Canada lost her insurance after facebook visit from her insurance company. seems they saw her vacation pictures and said ” Hey you not so cool”

Here is the real story followed by  My take.

Lost her insurance because of Facebook Pictures

A Canadian woman on sick leave for depression said Monday she would fight an insurance company’s decision to cut her benefits after her agent found photos on Facebook of her vacationing, at a bar and at a party………..

Ok, You back from reading that? Really it is a short read so if you haven’t read it . Go read it.

She goofed by giving the insurance company the same email address she registered her Facebook account with. But that does not make her a bad person. Really it makes her insurance company practically an internet Stalker. Facebook is pretty strict and locked tight. Most profiles, you can’t see someone’s profile unless you are invited to see it, or if you request to be their friend and they accept. So somewhere in that area she made a mistake. That of course is not against the law. Tricking her into thinking she is going to have a new friend is deceptive though.

An insurance agent over-riding the doctor’s request, is foul, and well here in the united states, the doctor would probably sue the insurance company because of the claim against the doctor’s credibility.

So.. What have  we learned here?

Probably not much.

Free Online Games That Don’t Suck

I have to say , ” My hat is off to ijji.com”  These people took some game engines from I have no idea where and made new games. Or they made their own games from complete scrap. But what ever the deal is, they made them good, they made them free. They even have done extensive measures to reduce the cheaters.

IJJI.COM Has a huge set of games. I’m not fond of the racing one. It seems kinda like an old 80s arcade game, always eating and wanting more quarters. all of their games you can add money to your accounts and get more stuff, kinda like the games on myspace. It’s great to not pay for anything and be able to slaughter the people who spent tons on the extra equipment. On another note, to have the ability to slaughter them people without buying, but go ahead and buy anyway because you just have to see what it does, must be natural because I really want to try everything. I know, you might not have an idea what i am rambling about, no worries.. You will soon. Very soon.

My favorite IJJI game is

Soldier front Fast paced Capture the flag type games in a small area so the battles can go nuts and be loud almost seem chaotic at first. Once you settle into the game, it is so addictive you get 8 hours consumed and not ever notice.

Another game like soldier front is called

A.V.A. Extreme graphics on a free game

Man you can crank the graphics up really well on this one, be sure and check the “manual” check dot. If you do not have at least 2 g processor and an nvidia 9 card with  2 gigs mem, I would not suggest you  crank anything up. By all gaming means these days, those are low low low specifications.   from what I see, the better settings they have are at 720p. it may go higher but I didn’t push a whole  lot of my Rig.

AVA screenshot

AVA screenshot

The fire looks crappy, will remind you of grand theft auto III, with a crappy gif looking flame in the middle of it.

Now a good game that will remind you of doom and quake

Gunz just not enough people on it.  looks a bit like  anime . If you have a network of computers at your house and a bunch of friends over to play a game, this one is perfect for that. because it is a great game, but not enough players for anything fun to happen of it. Not to be played alone.

Ok for the nvidia

Warmonger These guys need to take a tip from ijji and clean and lean up the game a tad bit. a bit to taxing for a freebee.

Then there is Huxley.

This game is the game to make halo look like pacman, to make grand theft auto play like doom1.

The in game looks like cutscenes from starcraft II. if you know anything about stracraft cinema , you know there is major extreme detail in their characters and images. The  terrain looks amazing.The skin has pores, the hairs are all single images and dimensions, instead of one blob with  hair drawn in. IJJI has out done everything there is to play. and the fricken game is free.

Kills me that while I was in my game testing phase, the game was still in beta. and I  only have videos to go by. The smoke looks like smoke, the explosions are  unruly real explosions.

These have to be the best of the best free first person video games. The internet needs more of these.

If you know any video games that are totally free and legal to download, please leave some information here in a response

Akismet VS WordPress 2.8.5

Seems I am the only person who get this information out, because I did not update every single wordpress script on all of my websites.. This one is the one to get the message out. I have not yet found the solution to akismet crashing my rss feeds on all of my sites but this post is my original post about akismet being down and not working well with  wordpress 2.8.5.

Maybe I am totally wrong and someone knows the fix for my issue. If so please post it on the site, in case someone else thinks the same as myself.

So much writing has gone to waste over the past 4 days.

HDTV Online?

I watch tons of Television on my computer. Really the whole High Def world is multitudes better online than  any other source , well except for local broadcast. So I have a whole bag of websites I go to.

http://hdtv-divx.com Not really High def, but more like a 16×9 view area.

cbs.com Really high def, but fix any advertisement blocker you have or you will not see jack squat.

Diggnation Kevin and Alex

Joost

Yidio  <–I think what they are doing is illegal, so I am not linking them and I do advise leave your popup and spam blockers on.

and that is how I watch tv online, without the freaks and the spammy just. I warn never click that junk that comes in you email.

Myspace Street Racing By Zynga

This game is great, it’s exercise for the brain. The instructions if they exist, are so many clicks deep in a f.a.q. page I will not bother locating. Better exercise for the brain figuring the stuff out. I hate Faq pages. How can you have predetermined frequently asked questions? If you had issues in beta, that’s bugs!

I love the game, I am a car nut and I know this is all text based with cutesy pictures, but jeese this is addictive. and i know it’s all about advertisements, keep you coming back keeping adverts served fresh and new to you every day.

I have so many level one clutches, you can’t even see the rest of my clkutches, they go below what the frame will show in their  embed code.. Gay. that is a stupid bug. I have even gone and bought every car available just so I could install clutches level-5 on each car until i dig my way out. Not a chance. That stupid magic box game is pointless, why would you pay to play that? you can’t get to you recent clutches..

Racing is fun, but upgrades do not come like they look.  a 5power on a clutch does not equal your score plus five, it is you original score before last clutch plus five. kind of lame

Internet Musts Sites of 2009

There seems to be endless websites ion the internet so i have not judged them all, i can not say that my “must have” list is the be all end all list. It is however, the list I use. So I am pretty much giving you my bookmarks.

FaceBook a Place to….. hmm .. I have no idea what it’s good for. but I keep going back… you can’t meet people there. so you can’t really call it a social network. it’s more like a place to  add real friends that you already have, and then nothing… you are done. you can kinda go away now.

Myspace Used to be a great place to meet women, now it’s a place to play video games.

Twitter This place has so much potential, but really it is a place to get nailed with garbage.. but add local bands there and bam, you’re golden.

PcPitstop I go here to benchmark all computers before I repair or upgrade them, and then I benchmark after. To see a performance change.

Playlist The site I head to when i can’t remember a song, or when it is stuck in my head.

live365 What I listen to while at work.

Hulu Internet TV. to watch stuff you missed on Monday.. Kinda fumbly and awkward.

Joost a place to watch … well nothing really. Kinda dead now… Needs Trailer Park Boys.

Cnet Also known as Download.Com. Safest place to get downloads from. But be carefull, the advertisers there make stheir ads all say “download now” hoping to bait people who don’t fully read a page while getting a download.. Kind of crooked. Since they have enough volume they could prevent everyone from downloading spam filled files because they clicked some stupid advertisement.

The Jobacle Podcast Blog The podcast is great. Very motivational. Influenced my job search site

Of course there is Nvidia so I can get back up after  windows eats my  lunch and leaves me formatting.

Fake ipod From Ebay Compare

Maybe it’s safer to just say they are an MP3 players that to me look very similar to the ipod.

Purchased one for about ten dollar and it has 2 gigs storage. got it cheap because it’s pink. No one gives their daughter a fake ipod (i would because it really looks like linux). No one gives their son anything pink, so i grabbed it. If I cared, I would take it apart and paint the exterior.. Who knows, maybe a later post :-P. Took the MP3 player out of package and set it on the counter. Three days it sat there untouched. The comparison MP3 player came in , While opening the comparison MP3 player, I knocked the first one (the pink one) on the floor. blah blah blah, I stepped on screen area.

All seems to function well on both of them, so no harm no foul. I now have two mp3 players that I can plug into my VR3 car stereo I bought for $79 at walmart.

Here is a place for firmware and software knowledge base

The first one that came in has a phone book,mp3 player, mp4 player,Fm Radio, picture viewer

mp3 player I got on ebay for ten bucks

2g mp3 player I got on ebay for ten bucks

The fm Player, is nothing to brag about, Signal was rough, almost had to hold it on my head in a clear open area before I got single signal in a major U.s. city.

MP4 Player, The format isn’t exactly  an mp4 and not high quality at all, it’s like a really fast flipping gif.

Picture Viewer, yeah you guessed it, looks bad, really pixelated, so don’t let that sale you on the deal.

Phone book, exactly what you think it is, it is a phone book, you can add email address, home phone number and cell phone

Mp3 Player, 2 gigs is many hours of podcasts for me to listen to. The battery plays for exactly 6 hours 20 minutes. To play 6 hours of podcasts, i barely consume 100 megs of storage, leaving me 1.9 gigs of unused storage.

the usb connection plugs into my car stereo and the stereo sees it as a storage device, and charges the mp3 player at the same time. I have no idea how long it lasts, because I am usually where ever I am headed, within just a couple songs. Bad side is, it does not resume as you left off. Could be the stereo. Most likely is. Does it with the black one also.

512 megabyte mp3 player

512 megabyte mp3 player - 40 bucks

The black one is 512 megs and costs more than the pink one and is more squared, interface is exactly the same minus fm radio. less storage, and the ear connection busted within an hour of use and only plays out of one ear. Plugs into car stereo like the pink one, but battery dies unless I turn it off for a few minutes.Screen area is very very tiny. little more than half an inch looks great but very frustrating.

I have to give all  credit to the Pink one with round edges. sound is better, storage is greater price was cheaper (circumstantial though)
Display a tad larger, 1/16th of an inch larger, at best.

They will both make for good media storage devices to listen to in the car, that’s what I bought them for anyway. but the rounded edge one is the better quality . I have no model numbers on either one, sorry for the lack of info.