Posted 05/28/2008 at 03:26:29pm

I noticed one of the applications that gets a compatibility fix is "WinAntivirus Pro 2007." Is that "fix" a "block?" 'Cause last I checked, WinAntivirus Pro is spyware.

Posted 02/07/2008 at 02:35:11pm

Last I heard, WinAntivirus Pro was spyware...so I don't really care if it gets blocked. See this quote from MaxPC itself: "Although the connection isn’t clear, the folks behind DriveCleaner also seem to be responsible for the infamous WinFixer and WinAntivirus programs, which the Dog wrote about in July."

Posted 10/26/2007 at 11:49:27am

I only used WDS because nothing else was able to parse Microsoft's OneNote files (which I need for class), so Google was out (I'm not sure if they have a OneNote indexer now, I haven't looked). Vista's one thing over XP (for average users) is the built-in search, but that's no reason to put up with the rest of the crap that comes with the OS...

Posted 09/08/2007 at 12:58:02pm

I think "innovative" is somewhat of a subjective term. Personally I can see where those who believe BioShock is "same old" are coming from. Yet I enjoyed it. Why? Because it might have been the "same old stuff" but it was wrapped in a new packaging. Because BioShock presents its material (as re-hashed as it may be) in a different way, both cosmetically and from the storyline perspective, it is "innovative" to some people, while others regard it as merely a re-make of something that's already been done a thousand times.

Posted 08/31/2007 at 03:53:15pm

It seems that this will include the two "Performance and Reliability" fixes that supposedly repair many issues with newer graphics cards. This is a welcome step, I will have to slipstream so I don't have to go nuts installing Vista when I reformat. SLI/CrossFire is a big investment and should work out of the box. Now it will (barring any further screwups by parties involved)

Posted 08/07/2007 at 04:39:36pm

Replace "Communism" with "terrorism." That's all it is. See "McCarthyism." Maybe Bush has protected us all these years after 9-11, but if that's true why do we need all these new programs? This is the most secretive administration ever in my opinion. That is bad for democracy. What if Clinton were doing all this? People would be saying "Look at the big evil government take away our rights!" I'm not a Clintonista but geez where's the outrage this time? Clinton gets a BJ, it's a "constitutional crisis," this nut (Bush) bends Congress over and it's no big deal.

Posted 08/05/2007 at 09:58:53pm

People will only take so much. Ad-supported Gmail? Fine, the ads are completely unobtrusive (for more than one reason...) If games just become yet another advertising tool, some people will just bend over and take it, but others will start developing things like AdBlock, game edition. Of course, the EULA for such a game will probably say it's illegal to block the ads, but something being illegal doesn't generally stop things from happening on the Internet. There exists somewhere a tipping point to where consumers will say "ENOUGH!" and eventually the companies will either have to find a new way to produce quality products or deal with the consequences. Think about it this way: economic game theory states that the rational decision for any company is to advertise themselves. If Acme and Ace both make widgets, and neither advertise themselves, and rely exclusively on word-of-mouth and other free methods, then costs stay down to some extent as advertising in and of itself is not always free (ingame ads are, for the company that makes the game, as they are paid for putting the ads in, but ads FOR said game in other mediums, including other games, are not free). If both companies refrain from advertising, then they are assumed to each get approximately equal shares of revenue from their widget sales. But as soon as one company breaks the unwritten covenant against advertising, they take a large share of the market and the other company loses out. Therefore, given this situation you can't expect companies to retract their advertising systems, even though perhaps minimizing them would keep consumers happy and keep costs down. The "winning" formula is to advertise, assuming that your competition will advertise and that your company would thus lose out by NOT advertising/allowing ingame ads. In this case, just replace "advertising" with "allowing in-game advertising." If a company doesn't allow it while another company does, the company that doesn't allow it loses revenue to companies that do permit it. In other words, this is just an extension of simple economics, as annoying as it may be. I am fully against ingame advertising unless it fits in the context of the game (say a racing game will have ads for real life companies by the track or a baseball game might have realistic ads that you would find in the real stadium) and some games have fake "ads" for "products" because they make sense (say the "ads" in Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 (posters on the wall for Doom, inside vehicles briefly for HL2). Those make sense. This "OMG let's put ads everywhere!" doesn't.

Posted 04/20/2007 at 05:25:27pm

I thought at least Halo 2 for Vista would allow me to enjoy the game on my PC, but "enjoyment" is hardly the word for that experience...boo!