More Computer Issues....

So I tried to fix my computer by reformatting it, but it didn't work. My computer is still messed up!

First of all, I kept on getting errors when installing Windows XP....a couple of times my computer crashed and then restarted while in the middle. Also, other weird things are going on, like my computer not being able to run Themes. It loads with the Windows Classic theme and not one of the shiny XP themes. Another thing is I can change the Desktop Wallpaper but when the computer restarts it's not there anymore.

The kicker? NO INTERNET. Yes, you heard me. I try to add a new Network to the Network Connections area, but it keeps on disappearing on me. It doesn't seem able to tell that I have an internet connection that's always on, and always attached to the computer. I called Rogers to find out whether there was something else I had to do to get the internet working. After they had me run the cmd.exe program out of the Start Menu's run command, they had me type in ipconfig/renew at which point it came back with the message Unable to run this service, RPC Server unavailable. At which point they said my network card is broken and I need a new one. Not very helpful.

I looked up the RPC Server unavailable line in google and found some hints regarding the Administrative Services program and the registry, but it didn't work. I should also point out that my Windows Installer seems to be broken, as I couldn't install a bunch of programs. It kept on saying I needed to upgrade to version 3.1, and some installers would just quit and give me error messages or file corrupted messages. I should note that I made sure the drivers were installed and that none of them had the yellow question marks and they all seemed to be working, even my Ethernet driver (which is for the internet).

So maybe I'll have to replace the motherboard on my computer for it to start working again. Not a hard task, I've done it before, but a pain in the ass nonetheless. A coworker also gave me the idea that maybe my harddrive is corrupted and I should try to install Windows on my other internal harddrive. I'll try that when I get home from work tonight. I had updated my drivers and did something in the registry the week before all these issues, but if that was the problem, it would've been fixed when I reformatted the computer and reinstalled Windows XP.

I've also checked my Hotmail email account and found that I've sent out a lot of spam emails to the people in my address book. Are these issues connected? So many questions....

Well, I'll keep you updated and thanks for reading!

Computer Issues.....

So last night, as soon as I got home from work I opened FireFox to check my favorite sites (my deviantART page, the Spiderweb Software forum, Urban Dead and Facebook). Firefox would shut down the moment I started surfing around, popping up a notification that said "Firefox has encountered an error, please send a crash report to the developers, blah, blah, etc. And then there was two buttons, to Quit Firefox or Restart Firefox. At first I thought it was the Urban Dead website that was causing the issue, as it would crash as soon as I started typing my login and password. But when I restarted and visited a different site, it would crash again. Finally I just chose "Quit Firefox".

I then opened up Internet Explorer and went to Urban Dead (had to log in to spend my action points for the day). I managed to successfully play Urban Dead (leveled up, whooo!) and then tried to visit another site, at which point IE crashed. I went into the Task Manager to find out what was causing the issue, at which point my system restarted without any warning whatsoever (no Blue Screen of Death). When the computer came back on again I got an error message about my logitech driver failing, and then I went into WinPatrol's startup menu to disable that and any other unncessary startup items (like AdAware, Lexmark printer stuff, etc).

At that point, Win Patrol froze along with my entire computer so I had to restart manually. After the restart, I opened up LogonStudio and BootSkin and changed them both back to the default Logon Screen and Load screen, then disabled them from the startup menu as well. At that point, my computer then crashed and restarted again. After the restart, I tried to do some backups of my data in preparation for reformatting my hard drive, but the computer was so slow I had to restart again.

When it came back up again, I quickly pushed the F8 key to get the loading options and I picked safe mode so when the computer restarted, it didn't seem to have any issues. I copied the files on my desktop (two game install packages) to my secondary hard drive so they wouldn't get wiped out (it took a really long time, the computer was still slow even though most processes didn't load), and then opened up my backup program (Karen's Replicator, a great freeware program that I absolutely love!). I had to create some new backup tasks for it for various games and programs (Dungeon Siege LOA, Rocketdock, Geneforge, Geneforge 5, Fatal Hearts, Neverwinter Nights, etc). I also went through my deskop wallpaper folder that was saved in my Windows folder and deleted a whole bunch of images. At this point it was 11:30 at night and I had two pieces of toast with cheese spread for supper. I then started running Karen's Replicator and after it had finished a lot of tasks, I went to the Recycle Bin to empty it out. Then my computer crashed on me again. After I had restarted it again in Safe Mode, I ran Karen's Replicator again and left it running when I went to bed (at 1:30 AM).

When I got up in the morning, it was obvious that my computer had crashed again, so I restarted again in Safe Mode and opened up Karen's Replicator and checked the log of the jobs. The last job (a backup of my secondary hard drive) had not completed so I left that running when I got ready and left for work. Hopefully when I get home it will have completed and I can get started on reformatting the computer. I had so much I wanted to do last night too -- I had to put away Heather's clean laundry, write a new blog post on my favorite freeware games, maybe play a computer game -- but none of that got done. Instead I'm writing a new blog post about my computer issues on my work computer. :(

So, I probably won't be back until Sunday or so....not only do I have to reformat, but then I have to update drivers, update Windows XP to SP3, install my programs and games again, etc. At least I have my setting files and saved game files on my backup drive now. It was hard to come to work today, I just wanted to stay home and fix my computer! You know how it is, when it's broken you just want to get it fixed. And my computer needed a reformat anyways....ever since I tried out Google Chrome my computer has seemed slower, messed up even. So I am going to have a fun weekend. :P Actually, I really do enjoy messing around with my computer, so it won't be all bad.

Anyways, wish me luck!

Dungeon Siege: Legend of Aranna Review

So I finished playing Dungeon Siege: Legends of Aranna about a month ago, and I would really like to post about it here. I am just going to copy the review I posted to Facebook's LivingSocial: Video Games application because I think I expressed myself very well.

"The game is seriously cool, I mean what more could you want? Great graphics, great storyline, great monsters to fight! This game took me 39 hours to play (spread out over probably a month) and it was well worth it. I loved the addition of the displacer pads, much better than trekking backwards because you missed a quest in a past area (yes, I'm looking at you Dungeon Siege!).

My favorite dungeon was the Mountains of the Dead (exterior and interior), and my favorite monster was the Great Krakbone....just the way it appeared out of the water like that, scared me half to death! I think my least favorite area was the swamps, there's just so much you have to wade through (pun intended). Oh another great dungeon was Halls of the Lost with the Lost Queen.....that dungeon had so much atmosphere, it was great. I just loved how the Lost Queen talked at you while you were coming to get her. Great fight as well, I must have fought 12 of those purple spiders before I realized they were coming from the tail and I had to defeat that first.

Also, I didn't think it was possible, but this game drops way too much loot. I had to drop a lot of stuff because I didn't reach a store in time and wanted to pick up something more valuable. My seven characters and one pack animal (the one that looked like a dinosaur) were always packed full. And yes, they all had backpacks. I probably should've gotten a mule, I think they had more storage space. Also, there was a lot of spells for my nature and combat mages, it was sort of overwhelming.

My other complaint was the final showdown with the Shadowjumper. It just seemed over too quickly! My characters didn't even use that many healing and mana potions. And no, they weren't super characters either. I think he should have run away....to a big massive door with maybe 10 or 15 of his Shadowjumper minions (and him of course). That would have been a boss fight!

But other than those points, the game was totally awesome, and I'm definitely going to play it again sometime with different parties and such. Very fun!"

Without further ado, here are some cool screenshots I grabbed while playing:










See the rest at my photobucket album.

Thanks for reading!

Other Names

Other names I considered for my blog:

• Achievement Unlocked (some people might not have gotten this one)
• Beware of Lasers (a close second to this one)
• Zombies Beware!
• Beware of Zombies
• Watch for Undead
• The Internet is my Only Friend
• Dungeons and Discourse (yes, I know it's a webcomic title...but I really liked it!)
• Bibliophibian
• Everything is Fine

A lot of titles I picked up by looking at the Split Reason merchandise and the TopatoCo store, which sells a lot of nerdy t-shirts for geeks and gamers.

But yeah, I'm pretty happy with the one I picked, even though "Beware of Lasers" is a very close second. I just hate those lasers in Avernum 2 and 3 so much! And mirrors....god, I hate the mirrors.

So.....

So, it seems as if I have joined the throng and have created a blog. I have no idea what to write about!

Um....last night I finished Adventure Chronicles: The Search for Lost Treasure. It was a pretty good game, the hidden objects were not too hard to find, but not too easy either. In fact, my daughter Heather shamed me a couple of times when she found objects before me! (She's six). No replayability value though. The extra items that they added to locations after you were done I found while I was playing the game so there was nothing for me to do after I finished the game. I uninstalled it as there was no point in keeping it on my computer.

Be warned though, I needed help from this walkthrough a couple of times. Some tasks were confusing! Graphics were pretty good, though they did get blurry on the "zoom in" sequences (when the camera would zoom in as if you were moving forward). Oh my god, the talking sequences were so annoying! After you finished a area (or quest) there would be a cut-scene in which characters talked to each other, and there was no way to go fast through the text without skipping the whole scene. It seemed as if they left the text on the screen forever! I guess people are slow readers. But those scenes seemed to drag on forever.

Anyways, I am still playing Hidden Expedition: Everest, which I am really enjoying so far. I love how you're in competition with three other teams and it really feels like you have to go fast to win over them. Objects are not too hard to find, and you can find coloured gems in each scene to add extra hints. I also like how the game has Ed Viesturs(real life mountain climber) narrating it and popping up little trivia on the map page. It also has photos and video of his real life climbs of Everest.

Logged in to my nightly session of Urban Dead recently, and so proud of myself, I'm not dead! Whoohoo! I swear you log in sometimes and you have a whole list of stuff that happened while you were "asleep" like a zombie broke down the barricades (of the place you're hidden) and bit you and now you're dead. If you haven't tried this great online mmorpg game, you should. It's pretty simple but it works. Let me tell you though, it takes forever to get to level 2, or at least it did for me. As you level up you can add on more abilities (every 100 xp) so the game gets easier. Yeah, so I'm totally addicted to it. And you only get 50 action points a day, so you have to log in to use them!

I don't know what else to write about, so I guess I'll be going. Thanks for reading!

Oh and welcome to my new blog :)