Category: review

Is Internet Pirating Really Theft ?

Posted onAuthorTruXter

If you see something that you are not willing to pay for, is that considered theft ?

There is a movie in the theater, and you really have no interest in that particular movie, you do not just jump on your bicycle and head up there to watch this movie. You never bother. One day it comes on cable or regular tv and there is nothing on, so you finally watch the dang thing. That is not pirating. If there is no access to this item other than pay, and you do not want to pay to see the movie, you do not see the movie, if the same person sees the movie for free, there is no actual loss to anyone. If anything, there is one more person on the street to say ” hey man I saw that dang movie and it really was a whole lot better than I expected.” Or the reverse. I can see how bad press from someone who has not completely earned and completely does not deserve the privilege to have an opinion of said film, could be offensive, but if you think about it ” yeah we know our film sucks, but we want people to pay for before they say anything”, is twice as offensive.

Is it bad to buy a $60 video game, install the game with your registration code and then turn around and download the pirated version and use the “no cd crack” that way you can leave the game disk in it’s case so that it will not get scratched? So you are not pulling the disk out every single time you want to play the game you paid for ?

Should purchasing be considered a gamble?

If one friend tells you the media you are interested in is garbage, while another friend tells you it is the best thing since gravity, would it be wrong for you to download the media and try it out so you can decide for yourself ? That is of course if you are in the position to not be able to try your friend’s copy.

As far as software goes, it’s kind of the same situation. How do you know if something is worth having without knowing if it will serve your needs?

I believe it is theft when you know the product that you are obtaining is going to suite a need for you and you still decide to not pay for this product. It is theft when you yourself pirate the item then turn around and sell your copy or sell duplicates of this product. You are then cutting into the profits of the original maker of the product. I believe it is theft when a manufacturer creates a product and tells you it will fullfill your needs in one specific area, and the product turns out to not serve the purpose stated. I believe it is theft when a manufacture creates a music cd and sells you this cd for $20+ and on the whole disk, only one song is worth listening to. I believe it is theft when a manufacturer creates a cd $20+ and it only has two or three songs on it total. I believe it is theft when a musician decides to not create a cd and use a professional label yet turns around and splits up all of their music on a media sell site, like itunes and sells the items at the price greater than what they would have made through a label, I mean really, we don’t even get a hard copy of the media and the quality is far to low. It is wrong to justify any of these earlier mentioned statements, to decide to download a copy of these items and not show your apreciation by giving the money required to obtain such media.

but everyone should be able to sample.

Comparing Two Affiliate Programs To Adsense.

Posted onAuthorTruXter2 Comments

WidgetBucks – I gave the company a go to see what they can do for my income. I have to say. Not much. After two months of having them on my site, it showed no traffic, no clicks. Nothing. So I left it alone for a month or so longer. I increased the rate of my content, increased the value of my content. Waited the whole month and did not log in to watch my income there flat-line. after that month had passed I tried to log in, and it refused my email address and my password. Now i don’t want to make the assumption that they finally made a profit from me and banned my account or something, because the ads surely continued to update.

But after that I had to do a search in my self  constructed toolbar and found some scary results for the word “scam” So to be fair I had to do an alternative search in hopes of positive results. Seems there are plenty of results for both, so I am indecisive enough to say, I will not bother signing up again.

Crazy enough, I never got an email telling me I was banned or kicked out.

Google Adsense – for two years straight I made really amazing fantastic money. Adsense was the place for the little guy to go and make money doing online the things he loves doing. Exactly what I do. I was making a really good average. Never once would I game the system because the money was to good. I did them a favor by getting their ads out to the targeted public, and they did me great for making good ads that were relevant to the content I was writing about. Their contextual content is most reliable, and so correct in targetting markets related to site content.

They decide they are going to take over some buggy company that no virus scanner liked (no names sorry, check your history lol) and post some claim about the value of a click, and suddenly on I am seeing 1 cent for every ten dollars I used to see. I am seeing 1 person crawl my page in their tools area, while in my administration area of my website hosting service I am seeing over 200 people. They remind me of another advertising company that was sold a couple years ago, to some obscure brand, just before they got sued for  gaming their customers.

So i used google to see what that is all about . Here are the pros and here are the cons.  Probably not smart that I used google to do that search, maybe I should have used bing.

I think these final days of Google being top, has gone to their heads, they forgot the little guy. I have since removed myself from their services. It seems a tad bit fishy to me.

AdBrite– These people are everything  that adsense used to be. These people are everything that we used to wish Google was. They have page view counts identical to what my webhost shows. I love these guys and I do recommend you use them. They have a fair pay rate and they do what you need them to do.

Of all the companies I have tried through the past 16 years of internet content, adBrite is the number one choice for me today. Down side is it is a manual content set up, it’s not going to magically scan your page and know what ads to display, you have to select the topics. So a ranting website may change topics so often that the ads might not work well. One topic and it’s easy and aces.

but hey if you know something that compares or have an opinion on the subject that I or other readers of this site need to know, let us know, post it to us in the reply section down lower. it’s free and you do not have to create an account. I welcome comments and a difference of opinion.
Example of an Ad (ok it’s a real ad):


Zynga Sends Cease Notice To kid

Posted onAuthorTruXter1 Comment

Zynga the company that owns Mafia Wars (a game played on Myspace and other locations) , Launched their new toolbar application two days ago. after a year of my kid having a toolbar for mafia wars, they decide to make their own toolbar. Since my kid’s toolbar had greater page rank, they send a cease and desist notice to conduit, the company my kid uses to make his toolbar.

After you read this cease notice, I want you to remember, all that my son had in his toolbar was links to his favorite websites that where focused on Mafia Wars for Myspace. Well he removed everything from his toolbar and started a new one focused on his own website (about Myspace Mobsters Family HFS). Soon after, Conduit removed the link to his toolbar from their search engine (powered by google) and then, the following day (today) Google removed him from their search. Wow, zynga threw a big tantrum because they  had an idea to late and could not out PR a teen age kid. Remember though.  THIS IS MY BOY we are talking about. I give high props to my son. I totally respect his intentions to shut down his toolbar before it got all covered in stupid, and I appreciate his modesty and integrity for allowing Zynga to capitalize on it’s income a little bit further.

I do suggest and recommend that Zynga go ahead since they threw the hissy fit, to register with conduit and take over the name of that toolbar because it’s PR, I would respect them a little bit more if they compensate  him for his efforts in keeping people interested in their game. I on the other hand will discontinue my Zynga account, and spend all efforts in promoting the fun created by playdom (mobsters). Zynga has lost my respect. I am not trying to rally troops and cause everyone to quit the games they create, Their games are fun, but man, they sure have no idea how the internet works and what free advertisement is worth. They need to respect their users a bit more.

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Legal <Legal@conduit.com>
Date: Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 7:03 AM
Subject: “Mafia Wars” toolbar – violation of the Publisher Agreement
To: *******

Dear Publisher of the “Mafia Wars” toolbar;

Thank you for choosing Conduit to power your community toolbar.

It has recently came to our attention that the community toolbar that you publish [CT2101201] [http://mafiawarstoolbar.ourtoolbar.com/] contains materials (such as marks, signs, images, or texts) that allegedly infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties [your toolbar name, logo, links, pictures and / or other contents include contents which were taken from or referring to Zynga’s Mafia wars application without receiving their written permission first].

This activity is considered a violation of the terms and conditions of the Publisher Agreement that you have approved prior to using the Conduit platform  (http://www.conduit.com/license.aspx).

We kindly ask you to remove any content that may violate the terms and conditions of the Publisher Agreement from your toolbar within the next 12 hours [or less] from the date of this email. If you fail to address the issues described in this email within such timeframe, we will be forced to take the required actions to resolve such violations. For the avoidance of any doubt or misunderstanding please be aware that all Zynga’s related materials should be removed from your toolbar [This includes your toolbar name, logo, and all the content which is related to Zynga].

We kindly request that while utilizing the Conduit platform, you will refrain from using material or content that is legally owned or licensed by third parties without receiving an approval from such third parties.

Thank you for your cooperation. Please do not hesitate to contact us should you have any questions.

Regards,

Conduit Compliance Department

They would not have acted out like this after year of the toolbar, if Zynga had not just launched theirs two days ago and saw they Suck at Page Rank

Digg This Please

Modern Warfare 2 c.o.d. XBOX360

Posted onAuthorTruXter

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

T-Mobile G1 Late Review

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Goods
The aps are free-cheap and very usefull.
The screen is huge compared to bb8100.
Sim cards are such a luxury.
Qwerty!
Touch screan menus.
Text messages organized by senders.
Youtube actually plays.
Streaming radio aps and a aux connection in car means way more stations than xm radio. For free!
Camera super high quality.
I’m writing this with G1 and a wp-ap.
Video recorder up to 30 minute videos.
Barcode scanner. Helps me find things that I already have but no idea where to get more of. That is a huge plus.
Opera mini!!!!!

Bads
Battery life is trash .
Cold days kill touch screen make it innacurate.
Many aps crash.
Costly service.
No close feature foe browser. Page back.
# button hard to do while recording voice mails.
Huge learning curve. More like a laptop than a phone.

Blackberry 8100 Late Review

Posted onAuthorTruXter

I myself do not have the funds to be an early adapter. I find this convenient because by the time I purchase the cool stuff, it is already on the second edition, all of the bugs are worked out, and tons of people have tweaked and modded it to make so much more use of said products.

So here we are on my fifth month using a Blackberry 8100.

Moving up from my Motorolla Rizr to the bb was a huge step up. I didn’t actually need to install  opera mini on it but i did it anyway. Everyone had millions of applications to use on the device. Applications that where out from “mod my moto” that actually worked 100 times better on the blackberry version. Opera mini actually worked better on the blackberry, but I got a better advantage from the moto though.. moto browser just sucked bad.

I had issues with the firmware though. As I tried to install themes, my Blackberry started crashing a whole lot. I mean I was getting lock ups all the time already, but  it got really bad when I downloaded themes and activated them. so I hobbled over to the Forums at blackberryforums.com and found a thread about upgrading blackberry firmware . Great thread . Leads you to the actual firmware . See it seems the firmware we have in the united states that is on the blackberry website, or in the u.s. is like version 1.? (that is one point something or other). The version on the Asian server is like version 4.0 something or other. It’s crazy how it works. It actually took me off what the heck ever network I was on and put me on the edge network. oh just for a heads up. the people at Tmobile informed me that if you see a lowercase “edge” in the signal area, you have a crappier signal than if you see it all caps.

I got locked out of my blackberry after a theme install

Techy Tools use that to sync up with your Blackberry.

Ok while I am writing this. I kind of had to throw out some links I thought you may want while I goof around and try the newest version of the firmware. So.. there’s the links. Right now while I am typing this, I am 5 minutes into the upgrade

screenshot of the actual install

screenshot of the actual install

and crossing my toes and keeping the page on “previous versions” hot in my clipboard and the page open. in case it all goes wacky on me. Also I might look around and see if people have a specific choice of versions. maybe I will see why and try them all. I have just hours before my g1 shows up in the mail, I will use that one for a week or so and then sell it on ebay or what ever at barely used price. I will check it out just to review, but I really love my blackberry and all of  the tweaks out there for it. from browser to notepad.

Er crap.

Just got a bad error saying that some junk had to be saved as a back up and I should reload and restore.  i think my cat jumped on it and wiggled it loose before the install was complete. Ok freak out time. 1 am and I have to work tomorrow.  So now I am doing it all again, but not selecting the “back up” feature. I already have a back up of everything still in good. I don’t want it to back up the crap version, over the full version.

Ok crap just got the notice again.. This time I copied so i could paste it here for everyone to see.

A fatal error has occurred while updating your device’s software. Please try again.

Device communications error encountered. [A:0x00000025]

Yeah this isn’t good. so.. I go off and try and fix this.. meanwhile I se a black screen and blinking LED.

Erm.. Uh oh.. Now the program does not detect anything on the end of the usb cable..  did I mention the “uh oh” part?

Battery pull time… lol the action of a desperate  man.

Dang… Blinking light… now I run back to the forums!!!!!

Ok that was scary. computer wouldn’t identify the usb device (my fricken phone) so none of the software would work.. I left the  update program open at first page disconnected the phone, yanked out the battery and waited a second or so, plugged back in and bam… windows identified it. I am updating now :-)

Erm

Error 507 a circle a square a triangle with a circle around them all and line through the circle..  so I disconnect reconnect and rerun program

Newp No good.

Life saving post here wipe it and reinstall cross fingers and hope for the best

Week In Review

Posted onAuthorTruXter

Here I state the stuff I did on the sideline that never made it to the site, and I will cover the stuff on the site and give it an “after though”.

Trying different Advertisers than adsense. I really do not like how the last three years of adsense pay out has been. it has been dwendling low. what used to pay is no longer the format, and what does pay is starting to seem a little arrogant. I mean their code is so perfect and so close to your content, it could never fail, the issue must be your content…..  also i have two tools to tell me how much traffice I get, no they do not conflict each other.  adsense is showing less than 1/3 the traffic in the results. but what do I care?  I mean adsense no longer pays you for how many people you serve their advertisements to.. Almost no motivation in that at all.

So Now I am trying “Adbrite” On the tech review site, and am going to try widget bucket on a couple other sites. I have got to see the pay scale difference.  I am scared that since adsense is so  greedy, the other companies will be as greedy.. You know how they get, if one guy makes 300% profit off of a product, you can be sure all the other companies will, even the ones who are going out of business and can’t figure out why or how to save themselves…

Let’s see how that plays out.

Phone review is being rough on me. MOTOrizr v3, blackberry 8100, and blackberry 7105t. Just to help those in the market for used and just want small specs. All on Tmobile. Hard part is I have to swap Sim card and Mem card around , it takes forever to boot a BlackBerry. I really do mean forever. 5 minutes at the least.  I love the MOTO, cant do much without the 8100, the 7100  well that makes a pretty good back up battery and back up phone in case I really really need it. GSM rocks.

SDR Podcast has had some very good shows.

Sad to hear that GEOcities is gone. Yeah it had crappy site builders there, but it also had tons of data stored. The passing of that site will mean the passing of the whole freedom to design.

ByeBye Free Design

Bye Bye Free Design

Hours upon hours fighting with windows seven, fight a bsod infection. I was using Microsoft Windows 7  64  on a 2.9 g AMD5600+(dual core) with 3 Gigs Mem and 250 gig Hard Drive, I would have a flash  chatroom open, I would have Hulu open and try to burn a cd. I would get a lock up. If i left it along i would get the blue screen of death, If I ctrl Alt Delete  , I would get this stupi annoying pop up that would tell me that it failed to open user account applet or something or other. View Photo Of Win7 BSOD

still can not get Autodesk Autocad 2010 to work on windows 7.