Product Reviews

Hidden Object Game Review: Can You See What I See?

Great Graphics.

Written on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 by lorien1973 :: 2 Comments so far

Can You See What I See is a hidden object game that you can download at Big Fish Games. All of these types of games are essentially the same; but what sets this game apart is the graphics. This has, by far, the best graphics of any of these game types that I’ve ever seen. i’m not sure if the locations are shot with actual items or if the artist is just the best ever, but either way the game has wonderful scenes.

See image for an example:

The downside to these backdrops is that, generally, objects are very easy to find. And most of the time they are. After visiting the same drawer a few times, you can locate items almost instantly. This problem is most apparent on the stuffed animal and dinosaur ones - where the game does a very poor job at hiding things.

The game also features a memory mini game to progress to the next level. The game has no time limit, so you can essentially click around until you finish. The game would really lose nothing by just getting rid of this entire debacle. Time limit would have at least made it challenging.

The game also hides “rare” items in the scenes from time to time. They are all historical in nature and give a nice spoken lesson about them after they are found. These objects require you to find them in a time limit and some are near impossible to find, not only because you aren’t exactly sure what you are looking for, but because the object is obscurely hidden somehwere in the scene.

Overall, the game features tremendous graphics and a cute story line. I enjoyed it and for $6.99 (more if you don’t join the Big Fish Games club), it’s a pretty good bargain.

I’ve downloaded several of these hidden object games over the past week or so and I’ll review others coming up shortly. Some good, some bad.

Cash Call Follow-Up Post

Sad.

Written on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 by lorien1973 :: 5 Comments so far

This comment came in today and deserved its own post. I can’t vouch for its accuracy; but it’s not unimaginable, that’s for sure:

I have had a loan with tem for over 2 years. I originally borrowed 2500 but 2 years later my balance is only at 2450 so you make the call whether or not I am being ripped off. Everytime I up my payments to get a little ahead they raise their interest rates, which apparently they can do individualy based on your state of residence. This company is nothing more than a legal version of borrowing money from the mob. They just ruin your life even worse. I would gladly let them break my legs to get out from under them but they would rather ruin my life instead. I have sold my car and moved to a crappy apartment in the ghetto just to survive mainly because of them. And yes they do target and prey on people who really don’t need to be getting these loans. I myself had no choice. It was either get it and have heat and food for my kids or go without. No one would even look at me for a loan after my divorce. All you high and mighty bastards who say its our own fault for being in this situation should try walking in my shoes for just 1 day. I guarantee you won’t make it through, might even be institutionalized after you have to get your pretty little hands dirty and do an honest days work. You make me sick. Try making an honest person of yourself instead of putting others down to feel better. When you wake up tomorrow look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are proud of the person who you are. for those of you who won’t lie to yourself you might not like what you see.

Here’s a link to the original Cash Call post that has been pretty popular on my little blog. The comments keep pouring in - usually as horror stories about using Cash Call or other similar services.

American Idol: Microcosm of What’s Wrong

Get real people.

Written on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 by lorien1973 :: 1 Comment so far

So American Idol is back again this year. And each year, it becomes more and more clear that American Idol is a microcosm of what is wrong with this country.

You get people auditioning who come in and totally suck. It’s obvious to even a tone deaf person like me that these people cannot sing. Yet, they thing that they are great singers - all their friends think so! So it comes down to Simon to tell these people they suck. And he’s the bad guy.  But, the reality is, is that their friends and family who have told this person “oh you are great” “you sound wonderful” all their life are to blame for the crushing dose of reality.

So they come into the audition and are incapable of accepting legitimate criticism, because they’ve never heard it before, that they explode and Simon is the bad guy. When he’s the best friend they have. Clearly their “real” friends have abdicated their role of being honest and truthful with them.

Then again, without these self delusional people, why would we watch? Yay, delusion!

Good Analytics Software

Give it a try.

Written on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 by lorien1973 :: Be the first to Comment

In desperate need of a good analytics program - but needing to satiate by desire to not let big brother (Google) get all my data for free - I opted for a program I found while searching online.  It’s called the Stuffed Tracker apparently programmed by a company in Russia. The software is amazing - let’s you track users, track sales, create ad campaigns, split tests. Everything. It runs through a simple javascript at the bottom of your pages, like most do and does not seem to impede page load times. I had to email them with some minor issues and the tech guys helped me out immediately - even though our time difference is probably 8 hours apart. It’s all very impressive. I’m very glad I signed on with this company and their software. The admin side itself runs a lot of its stats and data through AJAX, which makes it all look very nice and allows for instant refresh of data and quick page loads. 3.0 is a substantial improvement over 2.5.2, but there are a few bugs to work out, which I’m sure are being worked on.

Too bad Yahoo isn’t as easy to deal with. Yahoo stores are notoriously difficult to get data from and this time was no different. Getting the order total was a complete bear and forced me to migrate over to Yahoo’s new Checkout Manager (ugh!) which I’d hesitated to do for over a year. Anyways, we finally got it fully running today (getting data out of our Yahoo Stores is a pain in the butt - Thanks Don for working on that for me!).

The one thing to be aware of is that it can really eat up your server time if you aren’t careful. Originally, we had installed it on the same server which we processed our inventory, orders, customer service etc. It drove the CPU up to 90% on occasion, which made everything drag very slowly. So, we had to purchase a new server instead and did so through Rack Force. The server is working out very well. CPU usage never approaches 4% (helps to have Dual Quard Core Xeon processors and 2 gigs of RAM, I’m sure) so I’m very happy with everything over all.

For $99, I don’t think I could ask anything more for an analytics program. Finally, we have a way to reliably check our web sales to see what channels are working for us and which ones aren’t.

Brother HL-4070CDW Printer Wireless Laser Printer Review

Can’t beat it for the price.

Written on Friday, December 21st, 2007 by lorien1973 :: 1 Comment so far

In desperate need of a new laser printer, I found the HL-4070CDW printer on Amazon on sale for like $420 with free shipping. My last laser printer was a free one from Dell that I got with a new computer. Stupid thing always sucked but lately it’s been sucking more than normal.

So I check out the specs on this thing. Color laser. Eh? I remember when color laser printers were like $5,000. Built in wireless? This is even possible? Man, I’m old! Sounds to good to be true but I order it anyways. Free shipping. How can I lose.

So I get the thing out of the box. It’s pretty large and heavy. I install the 4 toner cartridges (3 color, 1 black) and turn it on. It is a little noisy when it’s powering up and when it’s printing something. But totally quiet in sleep mode.

I get the printer working from my primary computer, then I remember it has a wireless feature. Oh mama, I gotta try that. So I follow the instructions - which are a little confusing as most Brother products are but the wireless setup happens within minutes, working with my wireless router. I get an IP address on it, the computer finds it on the network and it prints. No real delay in printing either so now I can quickly give any computer access to a printer without having to use cables. It’s the 21st century around here!

The printer is pretty fast, I’d guess it around 20 pages per minute or so. There isn’t much of a delay when it prints either. You send the job and it’s printing in seconds - unlike my Dell, which took about 3 minutes for it to wakeup and start its job.

I’m very impressed with the printer. A very good buy, I believe, all in all. The noise while printing is a little much but expected from a printer. Looks like I can also buy a lower paper tray so it can hold 1,000 sheets instead of 500 sheets of paper. Very nice.

I’d definitely recommend this printer to anyone looking for a new laser printer. Very impressive.

Google Loves Low Quality Sites

Their own definition.

Written on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 by lorien1973 :: Be the first to Comment

As a follow-up to yesterday’s Google rant, I wanted to follow-up and show you how Google is breaking it’s own definition of quality scoring. And filling its natural results with sites that it wouldn’t even accept for Adwords bidding.

Let’s go through this slowly.

According to Adwords help:

 The following website types will sometimes merit low landing page quality scores and may be difficult to advertise affordably. If you choose to advertise one of these website types, be particularly careful to adhere to our landing page quality guidelines - especially the rule about offering unique content.

• eBooks that show frequent ads
• ‘Get rich quick’ sites
• Comparison shopping sites
• Travel aggregators
• Affiliates that don’t comply with our affiliate guidelines

So, google is saying that if you are a comparison shopping engine and you want to bid on Adwords, your money isn’t welcome because the site is of “low quality” to searchers. But apparently, the main index falls under no such restraints. This usually involves paying about $10 per click instead of 30 cents or whatever as punishment for having a “low quality” site. Hence the fact that not many of comparison sites buy keywords any longer.

Let’s take a search for a product I carry -  Flip Flop Stepping Stones - since I carry about it. I do not pretend to be the #1 search for the item but if someone is searching for “flip flop stepping stones” - I carry them and sell them and always have them in stock. Also, apparently do many other sites (copycats! LOL)

But let’s see what Google think. You’ll need to click this picture to get the full effect, I’m sure:

As you can see, more than half of the google results for this relatively minor product search are comparison shopping engines. Does Google really think that people use their engine to go to other engines to find what they want to find? Or does Google think that searches use them to reach the most relevant results - and buy their product or get the information they requested? Judging by this search, Google thinks people love searching without finding any actual results. I suppose, next, we’ll have Google indexing MSN results and Yahoo results as an attempt to further “improve” the results.

Well, yesterday we did discover that Google just recently realized that people talk out of their ass most of the time; so I guess we can forgive them of not understanding the internet or its users; again.

Also, what this tells me is that Google is putting more thought into their paid listings than their natural listings; which it continues to pretend is their number one priority. I think these types of searches tell us that this is not even close to the case.

I, for one, do not believe that: Amazon, E-Bay, Walmart, Target, etal should ever appear in search results. People know these brands - and will go right to them first, anyways. Google should be profiling smaller sites when it comes to many non-academic and non-informational searches.  But, let’s say that Google disagrees and thinks that comparison shopping searches are relevant to their users. 10 out of the 16 entries here are comparison sites (or EBay) - each, I’ll guarantee you - are 90-95% similar to each other.

Once more, Answers is #1. Answers uses Dealtime’s data for the page. So it’s content isn’t even unique. It’s ripped off of Dealtime. Even the main site of Answers rips most of its content from Wikipedia and other sources as well. Yet ranks #1, while providing nothing unique to the world at all? Is this what Google has come to? The site which Answers gets its content from is buried at 17 or something, while it ranks #1? Shame. Google. Shame.

These sites wouldn’t even pass a quality control of your Adwords program, yet are perfectly acceptable to your natural listings. Shameful.  Thanks for a further understanding as to where your priorities lie.

Indiana Jones: All about the Aliens?

Say it ain’t so, Indy.

Written on Monday, December 10th, 2007 by lorien1973 :: 1 Comment so far

Is the new Indiana Jones movie going to have an alien theme to it? Quite possibly. Take a look at the first poster that has come out for it. I’ve outlined the skull to highlight what looks way too similar to your prototypical alien skull:

Here’s the common form of what an alien skull looks like:

Looks a little too similar doesn’t it? The lack of pronounced nasal cavities. The eye sockets that are too far off to the left and too large for the face itself? Starting to sound an awful lot like an alien isn’t it?

The USA Today story even gives it away a little bit:

The artifact of the title is inspired by real quartz sculptures of disputed origins that are carved in a way that defies the natural structure of the crystal.

“The theory is they are shaped by higher powers or alien powers or came from another world, or an ancient Mayan civilization had the powers,” Marshall says.

Indiana Jones fighting communists and aliens in the newest flick? Say it ain’t so, Indy. Say it ain’t so. If you thought Shortround and that annoying blond chick were bad in Temple of Doom, wait till the aliens give a politically correct speech about how humans are ruining the planet and Indiana commiserating with the Communists in sad agreement.

Thanks to Hotair for linking me to the original movie poster.

Verizon FIOS Upgrades Cable Boxes

I can’t wait to see what’s coming!

Written on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 by lorien1973 :: 1 Comment so far

Verizon upgrade our FIOS box the other night so it now allows for over 1000 channels. When I used to change the station to 164 (GSN) I’d just hit 164 and it’d change. Now I have to hit 164 then ok for it to change. For data entry points there tells me that channel 1000 is coming soon.

Verizon FIOS. Yes, your new OS for the box sucks and is overly difficult to use, but 1000 channels. NFL Network (Time Warner still doesn’t have that), foreign channels available, tons of Hi Def channels. Blazing internet speeds - my burst speed is like 10 times faster with FIOS than it ever was with Road Runner. And I’m paying $15 less per month through FIOS too.

How can you lose? I’m watching Dallas/Green Bay tonight in Hi Def. What are Time Warner subscribers watching? Lifetime TV? Yeah; that’s a tough choice. If only Gumbel weren’t announcing the game - it’d be perfect.

Hackersafe - Telemarketers Who Don’t Understand “No”

Why won’t they quit calling?

Written on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 by lorien1973 :: Be the first to Comment

If you run a website online that has a secure side, no doubt you’ve gotten calls from a company called Hackersafe. For a small fee, they let you put a little button on your site that shows your site to be secure and safe from hackers. For free, you could easily make one of your own and put it up there, so I’m not sure the benefit of this thing - since no one (outside of webmasters) have ever heard of Hackersafe.

Hackersafe touts their service in an appealing manner. It’ll help with conversions. It’ll help with traffic. You’ll get a link out of it (oh, that magic word!). Let’s start backwards on these claims.

The link you receive comes from Hackersafe’s directory, which already has thousands of outbound links, so your link will never be seen by anyone, ever clicked on, etc. It’s pointless. Also, your website will be forced to link to Hackersafe on 100% of the pages on the site, so you are giving up thousands of links from your site (potentially) for one in return. Yeah; that’s fair.

The second claim is that it’ll help traffic. I presume this is from the marvelous link you get back. Since no search engine cares if you have a Hackersafe logo, they won’t rank you higher. Your PPC ads will not be raised a spot or two because of a Hackersafe logo. Any website you advertise on will not give you more exposure because of a Hackersafe logo. What’s the basis behind this claim?

The final claim is that the presence of the logo will help with conversions. I ran with Hackersafe a few years ago. The increase in conversions (if there was any) is negligible and easily explained away by random chance or seasonal differences.

But the real problem with Hackersafe is their repeated and annoying telemarketing calls. I get calls from them every week asking me to sign up with them. Every time they call, I remind them that we used their service a few years ago and it was a waste of time. They seemed stunned that I’m a former customer. Nice record keeping, guys. Then, when asked to “put me on your do not call list” - and they agree. I get another call the next week from them and we go through the same routine.

I got my latest call on Cyber-Monday. In the morning, no less. After a holiday shopping weekend. I told the guy who called exactly this, “You all have the nerve to call on cyber monday, supposedly the busiest shopping day of the year, in the morning, after a long weekend, to telemarket me? After I’ve repeatedly told you to stop calling me?”

His response was that, “He has a job to do too.”

And I hung up. That’s nice of them, isn’t it? Pretending to try and help out webowners with their service then telemarket them on a monday morning? The nerve.

Hackersafe should be ashamed of themselves.

Stanley Fubar

Does what you’d expect

Written on Saturday, November 24th, 2007 by lorien1973 :: Be the first to Comment

So I see a commercial on TV promoting a new tool called the Stanley Fubar. Best. Tool. Name. Ever. Fubar, if you didn’t know, stands for “Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition” (substitute your favorite F word, though). The tool, apparently, is simply designed to destroy something.

The video shows how well it accomplishes this task. Finally a tool with a perfect name that promises to do what it promises. I think it’s possibly the best invention ever.

Congrats to Stanley and their Fubar.

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