Rants!

My rantings…

Rants!

MyLife.com Sucks!

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No, I don’t mean my actual life I mean the website MyLife.com

I’ve never joined them, never knew about them until I found myself listed on their site four times.

Since 2009 I’ve been asking them to remove me from their website and they refuse to. I never joined the site. They added me without asking and emailed me about confirming my membership. I never confirmed it, I ignored it. Forgot about it actually. I’ve emailed them four times now since September of last year asking to be removed and they won’t respond.

 

In their TOS it says, and I quote:

To request that a Member Profile or Public Profile be deleted, please contact Customer Care at 1-888-704-1900 or contact us by email at privacy@mylife.com. Upon receipt of these requests, and confirmation that you are requesting that your own profile be removed, please allow MyLife 10 business days to complete this removal. It may be necessary to contact you to validate that you are the profile owner requesting the removal. This is to ensure the correct identity and profile ownership before completing these requests, and is for the protection of our users and their privacy.

But apparently they don’t care to abide by their own terms or service.

I want removed from their site and I also want my deceased mother removed as well but they refuse to respond to my emails at all.

Stay away from MyLife.com as all they care about is collecting data on people and using it for whatever purposes they deem fit.

They don’t respond to emails even though it says right there to email them about being removed. it says it takes 10 days, but I’m at 8 months now since the first email with no response. So they’re liars in my book, and I hate liars.

Articles/Editorials, Rants!

Why I don’t like Apple.

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One reason I don’t like Apple is that most everyone I’ve ever met who has an Apple product acts like they are better than everyone else. They act like because they have this device with a fruit on it they’re better than someone who doesn’t, like myself. Don’t get me wrong, I have two iPod nanos actually, the 4th and 5th generations of them, so it’s not like I don’t own any. I’ve actually known people who own Apple products who actually thought less of me when they found out I own and use PCs. Those are the kinds of people I don’t need in my life obviously. To each his own though, use whatever makes you happy.

The next reason I don’t care for Apple is the closed ecosystem they run, which seems to have gotten better actually with jail breaking etc. So that’s not too bad I guess, things can get better I hope.

The main reason I don’t care for them is that I can’t get their products for review. I’ve been doing this for years. The ones I have reviewed were purchased myself. I’ve emailed them over and over again, and not once have I ever gotten an email response from them. I did get a call from them, twice actually. Two responses over how many years isn’t that great in my book.

The first call I got they promised they’d send me something to review, this was when the 3rd gen iPod Touch came out, I was on the list and it was on the way. Never got it, never heard anything more about it. Never heard anything from them at all when the iPad 1 came out.

The next call I got was about the iPad 2, I was surprised they called, but of course they couldn’t provide me with one for review. Reviews were everywhere, and they were still appearing after the call, but they didn’t have any for review for me. The kicker is that I didn’t even want one for free, I wanted to ask about seeing if there might have been some ‘reviewer’ discount on one as some companies do that if you want to keep the product, but the call ended before I could even ask.

I’ve got three kids, it’s not like I’ve got an extra $500+ floating around to play with at the moment so buying one to review myself isn’t something I can do right now, or most times actually. Having one would open up quite a bit of other review options as well of course like apps and accessories.

Oh well… maybe I’ll hit the lottery.. but then I’d have to actually play it to win right?!

Articles/Editorials, Rants!

Fix for netflix error code n8156-6013 Updated

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So I posted a while ago about this stupid error from Netflix and Silverlight, back in June of last year actually, and there’s still no real fix for it.  I have though figured out a way to use the new Silverlight 4 and not get the error and not have to revert back to SilverLight 3.

The fix is quick and easy just rename the mspr.hds file to something lese like oldmspr.hds. 

I’m using Windows 7 Pro X64 version and it’s located at C:/ProgramData/Microsoft/PlayReady

Of course on Vista and XP the files location is elsewhere, but it should be right under Application Data in a similar location. You could also just search for the folder or file to find it and then open the location.

Renaming that file seems to fix the problem for now. When you rename it Windows will create another one in the folder actually. So it might fix the problem and it might not. As of right now though I’m watching Netflix with no issues, so I guess I’m temporarily happy until the next update of Silverlight anyway.

Rants!

WTF Gamestop?!?!

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I get games for review sure, but you can’t get every game that ever comes out so I’ve got to buy them. I don’t care for Gamestop too much, but it’s convenient, not even a 5 minute drive from my house and the used game are fairly cheap for my kids.

This has happened numerous times now I’ve gone in there on launch day and they don’t have the title. Not just little games, but big blockbuster games like Call of Duty Black Ops for instance.

Today Plants vs Zombies for Nintendo DS came out. My kids had 2 hour delay because of the ice on the roads, so I stopped at Gamestop after dropping them off and no Plants vs Zombies for the DS at all. They only have them if you reserved it. This has happened many times now and it’s to the point where it’s really pissing me off.

I don’t reserve games because you never know what’s going to show up on my doorstep to review, so why reserve something when it might show up.

Wouldn’t you think that they’d get a few extras in besides the reserves for people who walk in and want to buy it. That would be common sense I would think, but apparently Gamestop has no common sense at all. They’re losing money.The guy even told me that they got no extra copies to sell except for reserves and that’s it. So now everyone that sees the game has been released today will go in and be told no that they don’t have it. It’s release day and they don’t have the game for you to purchase, that just makes no sense to me whatsoever.

If it wasn’t for my kids I seriously wouldn’t ever step foot in a Gamestop, Kmart is right across the mall from the Gamestop and I could easily grab games there if I want to buy them. usually I just grab them from Amazon or somewhere else online.

It’s launch day at the biggest chain video game store and they have no copies of the game.

As I said this has happened many times to me and it’s rather annoying that such a large company like Gamestop doesn’t have the game on launch day for you to buy.

Whatever, someone else will get my money if they don’t want it..

Articles/Editorials, Rants!

Windows Update Woes

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Why is that 9 out of 10 times I run the Windows Update and restart the computer something is wrong with it?

I love Windows, always have, very happy overall with Windows 7 but not with the update process.

The whole Netflix and Silverlight thing still pisses me off and every time it updates Netfllix stops working and I have to re-install Silverlight version 3.

I installed updates late last night, then went to bed. I woke up this morning with no internet on my main computer. I thought it was the internet connection itself as we just got a lot of snow, snow on the lines, tress etc could cause an issue. I checked my netbook and DSI and found they had an internet connection over wireless.

Looking at the little icon in the bottom corner tells me that yes I do have internet access. The weather sidebar gadget updates so I have access right? Nope, nothing else will connect to the internet or even connect on my home network, I can’t even see my router.

Spent 3 hours trying to figure it out. The fix I found was to go and get the network drivers for my motherboard and re-install them. That seems to fix it, but I restarted my computer twice and each time I’ve had to install the drivers. I can’t figure it out, it’s annoying me to no end.

Product Previews/Reviews, Rants!

Copyright Infringement for a Video Game review?!

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Here’s a new one for me. I got a video taken down on YouTube saying I was infringing on the owners copyright.

The video was four years old for a game I reviewed four years ago.

I’d like to know what took them so long?!

Then I’d like them to tell me how to do a video game review without using videos in it?! At least I like to see sample videos for my game reviews.

Originally the company was very happy with the review, they never mentioned anything about not being allowed to use videos in the review either. They saw the review, they were happy with it when I posted it FOUR years ago. Now they’re not happy with it. I don’t get it at all. What changed? What didn’t they mention this four years ago?

So I emailed them and asked what the problem was. They them told me that all of the video game content was copyrighted and I couldn’t use any of it without written consent. Not just the videos, anything taken from the game I was not allowed to use.

I’d quote them from their email, but they might say I was infringing on their copyright again as they do have a little notice at the bottom of the email they sent me saying it’s strictly prohibited to copy the message.

So my next question is how do you do a video game review without screen screen shots either?!

It just makes no sense to me.

So what I did was go back to YouTube and delete all of the other videos and then I went to my review and I deleted all of the screen shots and pictures as well just to be on the safe side.

The review looks really stupid now, but they said I wasn’t allowed to use any captures of the game itself, the interface etc not just videos.

So back to my question, how do you do a game review then? I can see getting away without a video, that’s possible, but no in-game captures or screen shots? How the hell do you do a game review that way?!?!?!

That makes no sense to me at all.

Stupid people make me angry.