Candy posted about this SocialVibe widget you put on your blog, MySpace, etc. I thought I would play around with it. You get to choose which cause you want to support, and the only one that I liked was the One Laptop Per Child program because I love the idea of technology and communication tools being introduced into an area where people don't know anything about email or "surfing the web". I think the idea behind the OLPC program is pretty cool, but I know there have been issues with the program, which you can read about on Wikipedia or just by doing a Google search for "OLPC". I think the program will improve over time, though. I wish SocialVibe would let you choose any charity you wanted such as the Alzheimer's Association. I like to donate money to that charity sometimes because my grandmother died from Alzheimer's, and it is not a nice way to go.

Here is what the SocialVibe widget looks like ...

You also choose the sponsor that appears in your widget. I chose XBOX since I actually have an XBOX 360 and play it quite often. I think you earn points whenever someone views the webpage or blog entry or profile page that contains your SocialVibe widget. I think those points are later converted into money for the charity somehow so that's cool. I'll have to monitor it to figure out how it works because I am still new to it.

In other news, Tricky has a new album coming out called Knowle West Boy. There is an article about it here ...

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/want-a-free-pou.html

I have always liked Tricky's music. I even like his acting in The Fifth Element. I like it when he does remixes of others' songs, such as Garbage or Bjork, too. Here is one of his songs, "For Real", that I like ...

In other news still ... I think there are a lot of people out who do not have anti-virus and anti-spyware protection on their computers. One of the biggest challenges with connecting the whole world with networks, broadband internet connections, etc., is that there are going to be tons of people with unprotected computers. Here is a website that will test your computer for viruses, spyware, etc., for free ...

http://housecall.trendmicro.com

Here is a free anti-virus program ...

http://free.grisoft.com (I would think it's better than nothing).

You may want to read about it here before you download it, though. (that link will take you to an article on LifeHacker, which is a great website.)

Other programs I like are the free versions of Spyware Doctor and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware. You can also download Microsoft's Windows Defender for free.

Once you download any of these programs, you should always turn on some sort of auto-update feature to make sure you are using the latest version of the program. If there is no auto-update feature, then you can usually go somewhere like "Tools" or "About" within the program to find an update option.

Sometimes, these programs are going to scan your computer and tell you that there are "cookies" on your system, but "cookies" are not that bad. An example of a cookie is when I go to TVGuide.com, and I customize the channel setup to reflect Time Warner Cable in Austin, TX. Well, that is a cookie, but I don't want to remove it because I don't want to have to setup the channels each time I go to that site. Therefore, don't freak out if a program tells you there are tons of cookies on your computer after a scan.

I like to go to My Computer, right-click on the main hard drive (in my case, it is C:), and choose Disk Cleanup to see what unnecessary items are in my hard drive (especially in the "temp" folder) ...

I also like to go to My Computer, and then choose the Add/Remove programs option to see if there any unnecessary programs installed on my computer. Be careful that you don't delete something just because you don't recognize the name, though. If you are unsure about a program, you can always do a Google search on it to see what it is. A lot of the time, it is a vital program that came with your computer, and you should not delete it.

Speaking of Anti-Virus software, I like to use McAfee for everything, but it does cost money. It's nice to be able to install the McAfee programs on more than one computer, though. I have let a lot of my friends download my McAfee programs onto their computers because they did not have any anti-virus software already installed or they had some awful program like Norton installed, which I hate.

Another way to keep your computer (and your money) safe is to be aware of phishing scams. Banks and credit unions will never ask you for your information through email or by phone unless you initiated the conversation. However, if you get an email from a bank such as Chase (which I have gotten), and it is asking you to verify your account number, SSN, etc., then you need to mark it as SPAM, delete it, report it as phishing, etc.

Gmail has a really cool option that allows you to report a message as phishing. Here is screen cap (or capture) of it ...

The email in that picture is definitely spam, but it is not a phishing email. Phishing emails usually come from banks, PayPal, etc. They pretend to be from the real company, but they are really from crooks who are good at disguising the information in an email. The cool thing  about Gmail is that the more people who use it, the safer it gets because if one person marks a message as phishing and/or spam, then Gmail is going to go ahead and mark that message as spam for all the other users who receive it. That's why I wish everyone would use Gmail. To me, it really is the best email provider out there.

Here is a website from a good credit union in Texas that will tell you all about scams that relate to phishing, cashier's check fraud, Ebay fraud, Craigslist fraud, lottery fraud, etc. ...

https://www.rbfcu.org/NBO/Jsp/Reference/OnlineSecurity.jsp

You can also try these websites ...

http://www.fakechecks.org
http://www.ckfraud.org

 

 

If there is anyone out there who likes to chat on XBOX Live or knows some cool multiplayer game to play (that maybe I can just download on XBOX Live), let me know. I am markaus77 on XBOX Live, and I don't know that much about it. I will be playing GTA 4 for the next couple of months or however long it takes me to complete all the missions. I know there are some multiplayer games you can play within GTA 4, though.

I just figured out how to send pictures, music, and video from my PC to the XBOX 360 to my TV using a wireless router, and I think it is awesome. I don't have that much of a need for it, but the technology is still cool.

Now, if you could watch the "Watch Instantly" Netflix movies on your regular TV using the XBOX 360 and a wireless connection ... well, that would just be awesome!

http://live.xbox.com/member/Markaus77

Here's a battle scene from the English version of Lost Odyssey that will be available to purchase in one week, I think. This scene makes it look even more like a Final Fantasy game, and it looks like you can really do a lot of different stuff during battles so that will be cool. I got this video form Gametrailers.com.

Lost Odyssey Battle Scene

I was watching videos about video games on GameTrailers.com today, and I realized that there is already a Final Fantasy XIII (13), and that it is only going to be available on Playstation 3 (PS3). That is really, really sad since I bought an XBOX 360 (however, deep down I knew this would happen).

Well, GameTrailers.com had many videos that are part of a Final Fantasy retrospective. I watched some of them, especially the one about Final Fantasy II (which was part 4 in Japan), and I now know that the the genius creator of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, has made a game for the XBOX 360 called "Lost Odyssey". The composer behind the best game soundtrack ever, Nobuo Uematsu (who composed the Final Fantasy II score) composed the music for Lost Odyssey, too. Another person who helped create Lost Odyssey is Hideo Minaba, who has worked a lot on the Final Fantasy games, too. Sakaguchi, Uematsu, and Minaba are all part of the company, Mistwalker, which works with Microsoft. They were part of the company, SQUARE (which is now Square Enix), which put out all of the Final Fantasy games.

I've watched a trailer for Lost Odyssey, and it looks really good. It definitely has aspects of Final Fantasy in it. I wonder if it will be better than Final Fantasy XIII. It's kind of weird how PS3 has FFXIII and XBOX 360 has Lost Odyssey. It seems like the two games are symbolic of the competition between the two consoles.

It's very stupid for games to be exclusive to one console. I am sure FFXIII will be on XBOX 360 one day, and I bet Lost Odyssey will be on PS3 one day. For the meantime I will buy Lost Odyssey, though, which comes out on 2-12-08. I don't know when FFXIII will come out, but I am sure it will be in 2008.

Here is a preview of Lost Odyssey on YouTube, but you should go to video websites like GamerTrailers.com or IGN if you want to see good quality trailers of games. The official page for the video game usually has good videos, too.

Lost Odyssey

Trailer for Final Fantasy XIII

In other news there is a Highlander game for the XBOX 360. I was worried about not really liking the XBOX 360, but I just haven't found the right game, yet. If there is going to be a Highlander game and this "Lost Odyssey" game, then I am going to be doing pretty well. There will be a Resident Evil 5 game for the XBOX 360 one day, too. However, I think there is going to be some controversy around the release of that game.

Here is an article about Resident Evil 5 and racism. The point that you were killing Spanish people in Resident Evil 4 and no one cared is a valid point; but I can understand why people are worried about Resident Evil 5, too. It's a white man who runs around killing Africans (of course, they have become the "undead" so they are not really human anymore). The graphics look amazing, but the game may never be released if it is deemed too controversial, and I can understand the controversy. It will be interesting to see what happens with this game.

Well, I have some money from Christmas now to buy a video game system. I want to either get an XBOX 360 or a PS3. I have no idea which one to get, but if I had to choose right now, I would get an XBOX 360 because of the game, Bioshock, which came out a while back. I actually posted 2 videos of a walk-through of this game a while back on YouTube, and the videos got tons of views and comments because everyone thought the game looked really cool. The videos were from someone who works for the IGN website, I think. My account got suspended at YouTube, though, so I don't have the videos up on YouTube anymore (I have a new YouTube account now).

Bioshock is not available on the PS3. It is available for the PC, but my video card is not good, and it can't be switched out because my DELL is not set up for that (Damn!). Here is a video of Bioshock ...

Another game I would like to play is Halo 3 since it got so much buzz this year, and TIME magazine called it the game of the year in their recent Top 10 issue. They also included Bioshock in that list.

Oblivion, the Elder Scrolls IV (I think that is the right name), is another game that would probably be pretty cool on the XBOX 360. I think it is available for PS3, too, though.

Assassin's Creed (update: this game is on XBOX 360, too, so that is great!) is a game on the PS3 that looks really great, but it is probably the only game for the PS3 that looks good to me. There is an older game called Darkness that is on the PS3, but it is available on the XBOX, too.

A lot of people say "Oh, you have to get the PS3 because it comes with Blu-ray", which they seem to think is the future of DVD. However, I like to watch just regular DVDs. I don't think I am even going to notice a difference between normal DVD and Blu-ray DVD on my TVs. I don't have any large, flat-screen TVs. I have the older kind, but the picture still looks really good. That will be a purchase that I make much later in the year or even next year (I mean 2009 since I already feel like we are in 2008). I think the flat-screen TVs are still way too expensive.

The XBOX 360 has HD DVD, which is the DVD format that will compete with Blu-ray. A lot of people I talk to seem to think that Blu-ray will win out in the end, but I don't know how they know this. There may not be a winner, but there probably will be. VHS won out over Betamax a long time ago so there probably isn't room for HD DVD and Blu-ray.

All this thinking about video game systems and what games they offer made me think of my favorite video games of all time. Here are some of my favorite games ...

Final Fantasy II (I think this was part 4 in Japan)

Final Fantasy II in the U.S. was an amazing role-playing game that came out with the SNES (Super Nintendo). There was a commercial for it in the early 90s where a kid played it throughout all four seasons of the year, never leaving his room. That is an accurate description because I played it for hours and hours, which you must do with any Final Fantasy game to increase in level. The wonderful thing about the Final Fantasy games has always been the ability to get stronger by fighting more monsters. You also get more money to buy better weapons in the shops, and you can get secret items that are dropped by your enemies after a long time of fighting. You can learn new spells and abilites to use on your enemies, and you usually travel through lush landscapes full of mountains, caves, castles, etc.

Another wonderful thing about the Final Fantasy games is the music. My favorite music of Final Fantasy II is the one played by Edward on his harp (I guess it is actually called a "lute") when he is playing a song for his recently deceased love, Anna. There is actually a video of someone playing this song on the piano on YouTube. People are so devoted to these games. It's funny.

Here is a good scene from Final Fantasy II that shows the simple graphics the early 90s offered ...

Another game I liked on SNES was Soul Blazer. For some reason I really love games where you help rebuild cities. Act Raiser (which I just learned was made by the same company) is another example of this kind of game, but Soul Blazer had much better graphics. Here is a video of Soul Blazer ...

Zelda was another great game on SNES, but I am not going to post that here because everyone knows about the Zelda games. Well, here is a link if you need it.

I tried to play games on the PC (I didn't have a PC until 1995, I think, and it was my parents', not mine) like Sim City 2000. They did not always run as smoothly as console games, though. Here is Sim City 2000 ...

Sim City 3000 was better, and I had a better PC to run it on ...

I always turned disasters off in my Sim City games. I didn't want to have to deal with them.

I waited a long time before getting a PS2. It was a good thing because the price dropped down a lot (I wish I could wait now, but I am not that patient). One of the first games I got for the PS2 was Final Fantasy X. I hated it at first for some reason and did not want to play it. However, about a year ago, after talking with a co-worker about it, I started playing it again and realized it was just as great as that old Final Fantasy game that I had played more than a decade earlier. Here is Final Fantasy X on PS2 ...

Enter the Matrix was another game I bought right away when I got the PS2. I loved the Matrix movies, and the ability to do slow motion in the game was the coolest thing ever! Here is a clip of it ...

Another great game for the PS2 is Siren (sometimes called "Forbidden Siren"). As weird as it may sound, I just can't get enough of the post-apocalyptic zombie type games, such as the Resident Evil franchise. The amazing thing about Siren is that you can tap into the perspective of the zombies (you can see through their eyes so that you know if they can see you or not). Siren is an example of a "stealth" game, which I am not good at. In stealth games you do not always have a weapon or spell handy, and there is no way to increase your health if you get attacked. Here is a very low-quality video that I took with my cell phone a long time ago of a scene from Siren (I had this video on my old YouTube account. I decided to upload it to my current YouTube account).

I later got one of the best games ever for the PS2, God of War. The graphics of this game were great, and the theme of Greek mythology was pretty cool, too. Here is a sort of tribute video to the game ...

I received Resident Evil 4 (PS2) and Sim City 4 (PC) for Christmas of 2005 (I think that is right. If not, then it was Christmas of 2006). Sim City 4 is not bad, but Resident Evil 4 became my favorite game ever. It was like being in the middle of a great horror movie. I love the first two Resident Evil movies, too (the third one is in my Netflix queue).

Here is a clip of Resident Evil 4 ...

Final Fantasy XII and God of War 2 are the most recent games that came out on the PS2 that I purchased.

Final Fantasy XII

God of War 2

So that is a summary that shows all of the games I have really enjoyed. Now, I just have to decide between the XBOX and the PS3. I am worried that a new Final Fantasy or a new God of War is going to come out on PS3, and I will have the XBOX 360. However, I don't want to get the PS3 right now because there are games on the XBOX 360 that I want to play. Any advice from gamers out there?

The other dilemma is that I need a new PC with a much better video card if I am ever going to be able to play a game like Sim City: Societies ...

Well, really those two things have nothing in common, except for the fact that they are both released in America on August 21, 2007! Woohoo! Actually, I don't have an XBOX 360 so I don't think I will be able to play BioShock(a game that is supposedly based on an Ayn Rand Utopia gone horribly wrong) when it is released.

However, a trailer for BioShock was one of the first videos I uploaded to YouTube. It wasn't my video. I think I got it off of a site like IGN. I had to divide it up and upload it as two videos because it was so long. It's gotten several views so maybe by talking about BioShock here, I will be able to get some exposure for M.I.A.'s new album, Kala.

Here are the BioShock videos ...

Here is one of the most popular songs from M.I.A.'s Kala album, called "Paper Planes" ...

You can download it here.

Here are some M.I.A. remixes I just found recently on Missing Toof ...