I now make retching noises. This has a highly effective 100% success rate. No longer do you have to clear your throat multiple times to get the attention you deserve. My retching noise method is guaranteed to work, every single time.

As an added bonus, it will get the attention of multiple people if there are more than one person in the room with you. So if you have something really important to say, my method works wonders. Practice isn’t even necessary, a beginner will also attain a 100% success rate.

I highly recommend you try this method at your next family gathering or company event, and be amazed at how superior it is over the old throat clearing method.

Note: Disregard the look of sheer horror generated by this method, it is a necessary side-effect for achieving your goal — getting attention.

Related posts:

1. My Dad has Throat Cancer
2. Herbal Essence Shampoo
3. Back to High School

With a non-existent refund policy on Steam, it’s “shame on me” for purchasing The Ship and SiN Episodes without trying them out. My mistake? Wanting to support the developers. However, when I can’t enjoy those games, it makes it a moot point when supporting the developers, because I had basically donated the money to them, which isn’t what I wanted.

So what is a gamer to do? Piracy is certainly not an option, that’s a road of ingratitude I don’t want to traverse, so I figure I only buy games in which I played the demo and enjoyed it. Then I can dip into my pockets, and fork over my hard-earned money to the developers to support them, and also enjoy their game.

There’s one problem, though. Suddenly there’s a bad trend, where game demos that don’t represent the final product, and which entirely defeats the purpose of a demo; that is to demonstrate what the product will be like so you can make an informed purchasing decision based on your experience. The Dark Messiah single-player demo, and multiplayer beta test ran superbly for me, at my default LCD resolution, with all the default settings suggested. I really, really enjoyed the demo and hurriedly preordered the game. I had looked forward to Dark Messiah for over a year, and couldn’t wait to play the whole game.

Unfortunately, when I preordered Dark Messiah on the basis of my enjoyment of the demo and multiplayer beta test, I ended up with an unplayable, unpleasant game. The stuttering problem was terrible, and even at the lowest quality and audio settings that is possible, it still made the game unplayable. I tried different sound cards, different driver revisions, even a reformat and clean install of Windows XP SP2. Nothing worked, or minimized the problem. Another example is the Battlefield 2142 demo, which was fine and dandy for me, but was bug-ridden and not very fun when I bought the retail release. There are many other examples, but I’m sure other gamers here have also experienced this for themselves.

What is the point of a demo, then? Are they no longer representative of the final product? if so, then what is the point to putting the time and effort in creating one, and releasing it to the public to play?

My only option as a gamer to protect myself from wasting money, and supporting a practice in a PC gaming industry that will only hurt the industry and the consumers who enjoy it if it keeps up, is to wait for a slew of reviews to indicate whether a game is worth my investment. This means no longer supporting game developers I like, but only the ones that actually makes a game I will enjoy.

This means developers of games I bought, like The Ship, SiN Episodes, Defcon, Dark Messiah etc. will no longer get my support until I know for sure they release a fun, largely bug-less, and stable game that warrants my purchase. Because obviously demos are no longer a safe way to discover for yourself if they’re worth the purchase.

I’m certainly bitter that I can’t enjoy Dark Messiah when I bought it, and still can’t a week later. But most of all, I’m disappointed that it has gotten to this point. I’m always positive when it comes to the PC gaming industry, but the misleading demos is a trend that is becoming more a problem, rather than less.

Related posts:

1. The National Broke PC Gamer Month
2. Dark Messiah of Might and Magic Video
3. Consoles Ruin PC Gaming

You see, there’s a reason there’s a very, very forgiving damage model in most action-packed console games.  It’s the limited control scheme that a gamepad gives you.  The gamepad are great for platformers like Super Mario 64 and Ratchet & Clank.

Here’s a case in point:  My sister’s boyfriend has been playing Call of Duty 2 for months on his Xbox 360 and has beaten it three times.  I watched as he took direct hits of 2 grenades and an ungodly amount of bullets, yet he still trekked on, oblivious to all the damage done to his on-screen persona.  I was amazed, becaused Call of Duty 2 on my computer was a lot less forgiving (not to mention I play on the hardest difficulty.)

Fast forward it 3 weeks later, as he watched me play Call of Duty 2 on my computer.  One direct hit from a grenade sent me to the Load Game screen.  He commented that he never died that easily, and then it dawned on him why.  Forgiving damage modelling for these games to accomodate the limitations of the gamepad and slow response time for these kind of action games.  In fact, it is utterly boring watching anyone play Call of Duty 2 on the console when it is much more fast-paced and visceral on the computer.

Now some fanboys will claim that there are tournaments for console games, but the reason is simple:  to make money.  There’s no talent or skills involved, it’s just to showcase the games and allow console gamers to compete against each other.

When Quake 3 came out for the Dreamcast, PC gamers and console gamers for the first time to my recollection, could compete against each other.  Suffice to say, even the sorriest Quake 3 player on the computer was heads-and-shoulders above those playing the Dreamcast version.  Ping wasn’t a factor, either.  This isn’t the console gamers’ fault, but as I mentioned above, a severe limitation of the gamepad, plain and simple.

Racing games on the console don’t count, they are just giant memory tests, where you memorize a linear racetrack to beat competitors, with a little twitch hand-eye coordination thrown in (drafting, avoiding collisions, etc.)  Fighting games are the only type of games that can be considered hardcore, but not many allow you to go online and compete on any considerable level.

On the other hand, there are numerous tournaments for PC games.  There’s the big ones, like Counter Strike (original and Source), Quake 3 and Quake 4, the Battlefield series, and a multitude of RTS games.  The mouse and keyboard control scheme allows for a much more fluid and responsive control than gamepads, and is the reason why online and offline tournaments on the computer are lightning fast and insanely competitive.

So as you can see, scoffing at the notion of console gamers as being hardcore has me wondering just what the editors at Electronic Gaming Monthly (and any other console gamers) are smoking when they view themselves as hardcore gamers.  Because as it is these days, it’s just not possible.

Related posts:

1. Flickr: PC Gamers Group
2. Being a better gamer: a guide to changing the world
3. Quake Video – Blast from the Past

Here’s a video of the bad calls that was the reason why the game between the Florida Gators versus the Tennessee Volunteers has the Gators on top 21-20.  The Vols should send a thank-you note to the referees for keeping them in the game to the very end, or at least ask them where they were when they almost lost to Air Force.

SEC officiating wasn’t just horrible in this game, but also in the LSU vs. Auburn game, where LSU ended up getting the short end of the stick.

I firmly believe that the new rule changes to the time for NCAA football games has the referees making bad calls (or not making any at all where there should’ve been one) because of these rule changes.  They are pressured to save time in a football game, all so more TV commercials can be displayed.

Related posts:

1. Florida Gators – 2006 SEC Champions
2. Florida Gators – 2007 National Champions
3. Urban Meyer To Coach Florida Gators?

Edward Bernays, a supposed pioneer in the field of public relations, said, “When I came back to the United States, I decided that if you could use propaganda for war, you could certainly use it for peace. And propaganda got to be a bad word because of the Germans.. using it. So what I did was to try to find some other words, so we found the words Council on Public Relations”. Bernays saw public relations as an “applied social science” that uses insights from psychology, sociology, and other disciplines to scientifically manage and manipulate the thinking and behavior of an irrational and “herdlike” public (from Wikipedia). In other words, people are stupid.

Even if you don’t assume a lot of people are stupid, as a marketing “guru” you rely on statistics to earn your paycheck. Even if 1% of a million people believe your sales pitch, you’ve convinced 10,000, and the pitch can utterly outrageous, but statistics doesn’t care. I heard a press relations representative at a trade show tell his fellow co-worker his favorite quote, “A sucker is born every minute.” I wouldn’t doubt if this was a personal motto of a lot of those in the marketing field.

Take spammers for instance. They know spam is unanimously hated by the world, and most people delete it without a mere thought, but 10,000 people out of a million will open it because they are either too old to know better (Save on your mortgage!), desperate (Increase your penis size!), or not used to the concept of spam yet (Holy cow, woman has sex with horse!). Keep spamming millions, and you earn massive profit, no matter how stupid the sales pitch is.

Anyone can go into marketing and be largely successful. Why are there college courses and degrees for it? It’s a braindead profession that requires skills that any human being can develop without education. Skills such as being deceitful, ignoring a guilty conscience, sleazy use of semantics to mislead, and a well-rounded grasp of the common language. Show me the top marketing guru in the country, and I’ll show you any hustler on the street peddling drugs who is as good, if not better.

These days, competition is fierce in a number of industries, and to survive, even well-meaning companies with solid products better than competitors still try to use seedy marketing tactics to stay at the top. When you have investors breathing down your company’s neck, the problem is exacerbated.

When a company has a product/service that a competitor does better, at a lower price-point, then the more aggressive the marketing tactics, and the more likely to border on unethical. Companies get away with it all the time, because once again they rely on statistics. People may catch on, Newsweek may bash the company, internet sites may point out the sleaze going on with a company, the reputation may suffer for a bit, but the vast majority of people won’t ever know or care.

In closing, I’ll acknowledge that not all those in the field of marketing and press relations are dishonest, conniving idiots. There are those who represent the best in the field, who are honest and passionate about their job. They usually belong to companies with good policies and know how to sell a good product/service, and doesn’t resort to aggressive marketing tactics when a competitor does better. Just like there are lawyers who are good people, willing to help, and some even do pro bono work. Unfortunately, I feel the good people are in a field where the bad ones are more successful and lucrative, thus they are more prevalent.

Related posts:

1. E3 2005 10th Anniversary
2. StarProse And Spamming
3. Hype At the CES Event

Our system indicates unusual usage of your account. In order to protect Gmail users from potentially harmful use of Gmail, this account has been disabled for up to 24 hours.

If you are using any third party software that interacts with your Gmail account, please disable it or adjust it so that its use complies with the Gmail Terms of Use. If you feel that you have been using your Gmail account according to the Terms of Use or otherwise normally, please contact us at gmail-lockdown@google.com to report this problem.

I’ve had nothing but praise for Gmail, but this latest incident of locking me out wrongfully has me really wondering if I should try another service. I rely on my email for important business, and personal communication. A search on Google shows that a number of other people are having this problem too.

Related posts:

1. Gmail Is Too Creepy
2. Google’s Gmail And Me
3. New Gmail Features

The first mistake they made, is assuming the browser I’m using is old. The second mistake is that they claim it’s because the browser isn’t standards-compliant. It may not be fully compliant, but the whole reason why standards existed was to prevent websites like GoDaddy from using a browser detection script and selectively feeding data to the browser you’re using. Since the script doesn’t recognize the new IE7 browser, it had no idea what to do except to give that default page saying your browser is old and non-standards-compliant.

Here’s a screenshot of the page they gave me when visiting with IE7 beta:

Update: I wrote to GoDaddy using their form on that page about this, and got a response. Read more to read what I wrote and what their reply was.

This is what I wrote to GoDaddy:

Your browser detection script, of course, doesn’t recognize the new IE7 beta browser that I’m using. As a result, I got a page telling me my browser is old and not standards-compliant.

I know it’s a beta, but I do want to point out that the whole idea of standards and compliance is to not have to use browser-detection scripts, and prevent mistakes like this from happening. I feel standards-compliance is wrongly being represented here.

This is their reply:

Thank you for contacting Customer Support. From Microsoft’s own Technical Overview, “The beta 1 release is a very early technical version that lacks the quality, functionality, fit and finish that will come with the final release.” I would suggest using IE6 when browsing our site for best results.

Why do I have a feeling they didn’t really read what I wrote?

Related posts:

1. What Standards Person Are You?
2. New AOL Explorer Browser
3. What Web Standards Has Taught Me

Most were very difficult to customize and style up, others were confusing to use, some I couldn’t even figure out how to install. After a week of trying out wiki softwares, I settled on DokuWiki, which was standards-compliant, easy to cusotmize, and I could modify it to suit the needs of a recipe site.

Barely 6 months after the unveiling of Wikipes, the site gets between 3,000 to 5,000 visitors a day. Unfortunately, a recipe is only posted once or twice every 3 days. I’m not sure why; is it because people are not used to the wiki concept, are intimidated by the open approach, or are too lazy to type up a recipe using a template?

To add to my frustrations, Dreamhost decided to mess with the Zend Optimizer, and this caused problems with Dokuwiki and Wikipes was down for a whole weekend, when traffic is the biggest. I sent in a support ticket to them and they got back to me 3 days later, talked with the Dokuwiki guy about the problem, saying it’s a bug in their software, and I was sent this letter from Dreamhost support:

So I’ve started a conversation with the DocuWiki guy, but no easy answers thusfar. The strangest thing is that out of all of the PHP sites we host (and we host a ton…probably about 90,000 of our 130,000 domains use PHP) it’s just you and the one other DocuWiki user that have had any problems.

Since so many of our customers are dying to use the Optimizer the best suggestions I’ve got are to either compile a PHP binary of your own that won’t use the Optimizer or to switch to a different wiki (we offer a one-click install of mediawiki, which powers the Wikipedia and is pretty great).

Once you get a PHP binary somewhere in your homedir you can use this guide to have all .php scripts on your site run via it

They’ve given me an ultimatum, either use another wiki software, or have a broken site, since I don’t know how to compile my own PHP binary. I’ve spent countless hours modifying Wikipes, working with Erik from http://kartooner.com to flesh out the site, and getting the word out.

I knew Wikipes, being a new thing, would face an uphill battle, but I didn’t expect to have problems that are beyond my control. I’ve always been able to figure things out, but this is the first time that I’ve used a software where the alternatives aren’t that great.

So, my question is this, should I continue on, and try to find another wiki, or cut my losses and move on. I feel like I’ve hit a brick wall with no footholds to climb over.

Related posts:

1. Wikipes and The Host
2. Paramount Digital Security on Wikipes
3. Wikipes Now Online – Recipe Database

I killed Designtopia, my site offering my web design skills as a service, because I got sick of people telling me to use marquee or blink text which are a usability nightmare for any website design, or to do anything outside what I know is the right thing to do with designs. I got sick of people emailing me and telling me to use a bright green font on a white background, which as you probably know, is very, very difficult to read.

I’m very picky, and I don’t want to make non-standards compliant or unusable website just because they pay me to. My goal is to make the web a friendlier place, not continue to facilitate 1995-like conventions that hurts the web, more than anything else.

Too many people think that because they paid you to do a design, gives them the right to email you everyday and make you do small changes on the site that you don’t like, that’s not what I do as a web designer.

You don’t tell a plumber who comes in how to fix a toilet, and you don’t tell a cabinet maker how to do his job either, so why do these people feel they can tell you what to do with their site? They don’t know better, they don’t know about usability, typography, whitespace, etc. As web designers, we’re trained in what works for a website the best, what will produce the best results, and what will help companies the most for their business. We employ tricks and semantically-correct conventions to ensure search engines like Google understands the content and gives a thumbs-up, thereby giving the site a better ranking and more exposure.

This is why I hate designing websites for random people. I’m lucky in that the past couple of projects I’ve worked on with Erik were with people that understood our talents and let us do what we do best. That’s why I figure as long as I stay amongst people who love standards-compliant designs, and work with people that want us to do our best, I’ll love designing websites.

Related posts:

1. Designtopia And Web Design
2. What Web Standards Has Taught Me
3. Something To Chew On

That’s what happened last night, so here I am, up early to make sure Wikipes is okay and finish what I was doing – updating the site with better code. However, the site isn’t up, and I got an email from my host that said this:

Unfortunately, I’ve had to disable your domain’s web services. It was causing the web server it’s on to crash. Unfortunately, we cannot provide a quality product to the rest of our users when this happens. I’ll re-enable the domain in a few hours and see if that helps.

No explanation as to what caused the crash (too much traffic, maybe?) It has been beyond a few hours, it’s been over 4 hours now. Suffice to say, I’m not a happy camper right now.

Update: Got a response from the host, which clarifies the situation a bit:

I’m reenabling your domain name. I’m not sure what it was, but your site would spawn and open several hundred apache instances, until apache reached it’s child process limit of 256. Once that happens, no new websites can be served. That then kills the server. I also noticed that several php scripts you were running were using a fair amount of CPU. That usually means the code you’re using isn’t as efficient as it could be. Unfortunately, we can’t really help with that at all.

Related posts:

1. Frustration with Wikipes
2. The Growth of Wikipes
3. The Beauty Of Speed