Activity for July 8

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Member since June 8, 2004

Name
James Barta
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United States of America

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Review - SmartFTP (x86)
1.5.988.36 (Jul 12, 2005)

This has been a great product for a casual FTP user. It's never failed to get me into a working FTP and it comes with the basic assortment of configurable options. It is freeware for personal and educational use. I have used it for years and the program has always been free and it's worked wonderfully. Contrary to other reviewers, the program has never "locked me out". The only annoyance is that everytime you load the "free" unregistered version, there is a nag-screen asking you to buy the product if you're a business. But other than that the product is great.
Review - TiVo Desktop for Windows XP/Vista/7
1.2 (Oct 21, 2004)

(Note, Version 1.2 has been taken down from the Tivo servers to fix a few small issues. Expect version 1.3 soon.)

A pretty simple, easy to use program. It shares your photos and music from your computer to any Tivo in the house. You can also select which Tivo's you want to have access if you don't want to share your personal photos with your son downstairs.
It's a pretty neat feature overall. There are only two real downsides. The fact that it does use up a bit of your computers resources while the program runs, and it has to be running to access anything on your Tivo. And the rather limited features.
While it doesn't take complete use of the Tivo's abilities, it does offer some great basic features. A wonderful feature for the average user that has a Tivo connected to your home network. If you're looking for more advanced features, try JavaHMO.
Review - Doom 3
Demo (Sep 20, 2004)

This game has already sold a massive amount of copies... it's been out for over a month and it's broken quite a few sales records. Your logic is out the window blackcherry.

The system requirements are steep, but not terribly unreasonable. I'm running the game smoothly on an ATI radeon 9600 ($100 graphics card) and 2.4ghz Dell. If you want to max out the settings you're going to have to wait a little bit for the hardware industry to catch up. The engine in this game is designed to run games for the next several years so we'll have plenty of time to grow into it. Similar complaints were had about Quake 3 when it was released... but as Id demonstrated then, the engine was so technologically impressive it was the engine used in almost every FPS until they topped themselves with Doom 3.

A visual hallmark. I give it a four simply because as was pointed out, the game isn't revolutionary. Though the point was more to make the engine based around what was always intended to be a fairly straight forward game. In the spirit of the original. Expect better gameplay once other games start using this tech.
Review - ATI Catalyst Drivers for Windows XP
4.8 (Aug 17, 2004)

Seems pretty stable for me. Easy installation as always with ATI in my experience. If only they'd release the 4.9 drivers that help give Doom 3 some better performance. They really dropped the ball when it comes to OpenGL.
Review - RealPlayer for Windows
6.0.12.872 (Jun 13, 2004)

This player will play almost any file you can throw at it. It'll even play Windows Media files (WMP can't player Real Player files). It'll read tracks purchased in iTunes and it'll work with the widest range of mp3 players I've ever seen on a free media player.

Probably the best free will get you. Just a few minor features keep it ahead of the pack in my opinion.
Comment - Music Industry Investigated Over Pricing
6.0.12.872 (Dec 24, 2005 - 7:31 AM)

"at the end of the day, its the consumer that has the power, none of these artist or record companys would not exsist if we did not buy ,so lets see who would last if we do not buy ,so treat us better or it will happen you will all loses"

What a nice little thought. It would be so nice if that were true. Sadly, the consumer has little control over these areas in that there are no legal alternatives. The music labels have all the cards in these issues. It has been and will continue to be that we, the consumers, have to play by the record companies rules if we want to listen to music legally. Just look at what they've done to us and continue to try to do to us. Between price fixing and copy protections that make iPods worthless they don't care what the consumer wants... they know in the end we'll keep paying to get the music because we have no where else to go.
Comment - Clinton Presses On With Video Game Bill
6.0.12.872 (Dec 19, 2005 - 11:18 AM)

Wow PC_Tool that was pretty far off base. I think the point of this bill is to avoid all those wasted taxes being used on idiotic lawsuits being leveled at every retailer and game company out there. You have to think what this law is hoping to accomplish... to make it illegal to sell those supposedly damaging video games to minors.

I mean, let's take the average case. A parent regularly buys violent video games for their child. Then the child misbehaves in someway and the parents quickly look for anyone else to take the blame. So they sue video game companies and/or retailers. Passing this bill would effectively eliminate that option. Instead of trying to pass of the responsibility of what their faulty child rearing has caused... they're now forced to face up to the fact that they purchased the game for their own child. At the very least it eliminates any responsibility game publishers or retailers could have.

I think perhaps you guys are too eager to kick and scream anytime anyone mentions "bill" "law" and "violent video games" in the same sentence. Hell I'm one of the first people to jump into those arguments to point out that violent teenage crime has gone down by 50% while violent video game sales have continued to rise. However in this case the government is doing something pretty great for us. In the end this will mean retailers can safely offer games to those of us adults who wish to play them without risking lawsuit after lawsuit.
Comment - Microsoft to Test New Hotmail Interface
6.0.12.872 (Oct 10, 2005 - 11:04 AM)

I'm currently on the beta test for "Kahuna" or Mail and I can promise you it is not "messed up" in anyway. Even in the beta stage this has been nothing but a joy to use. It's simple and easy. I'd say they've definately taken a page or two from Google's GMail in the design, but then they've taken it just a step farther.

As the screen shots show, the website interface itself is very similar to OE. It let's you use the right mouse button to interact with it, for example you can right click a message and select delete. You can drag and drop messages. And maybe this will change after the Beta, but at present there are no ads and the list no ads as being one of the features to Mail.

If you're already set to dislike this new version, prepare to be disappointed. It's great.
Comment - Creative Threatens Apple with UI Patent
6.0.12.872 (Aug 30, 2005 - 10:33 AM)

"It seems to me that companies should stop blaming/suing the other companies and other users, and instead maybe.. oh.. PRODUCE A BETTER PRODUCT FOR A FAIR PRICE!"

Hmmm... we're talking about Creative. The company that released a better product at a FAR better price. While 30gig iPods were selling for $499... Creative had a line of Zen players that were larger (40gigs) at less than half that. I picked up my 40 gig Zen Xtra for $179 actually. So that's knocks down the fair price angle. Then better? Creative's Zen line has far better features than Apple. Amazing battery life (atleast compared to the iPod), more supported formats, better audio quality... and those are just the most noticeable differences.

Sorry... I guess I needed that. Never had a read such a horribly misguided post. We really should be backing the companies who are out there producing better products at better prices... but instead, we're met with posts like yours. Supporting a sub-standard mp3 player simply because it's a popular fad.

As far as the topic... I think it's great. It seemed a little unjust to me to watch Creative (with some small help from Archos) to basically create the Hard Drive based MP3 player market... only to watch Apple come in with an inferior player and take all the glory. The only thing Apple did for mp3 players was to turn them into some marketable fad by suggesting buying one includes you in part of some bulls*** image.

Go Creative. It's about time Apple pays up. They've been standing on Creative's shoulders for FAR too long.
Comment - Study: Video Games Lead to Violent Behavior
6.0.12.872 (Aug 22, 2005 - 2:18 PM)

If only these "studies" would be used to help parents become better parents instead of being used as an excuse for the lack of parenting that exists.

I too can lay claim to the fact that I've grown up on video games since I was a little tot. I've gone through every system since the Atari and played most of the more extreme violent games. Oddly enough, I'm the exact opposite when it comes to reality. I have absolutely no violent tendencies what so ever. The sight of actual blood can even make me squeemish. It's almost funny to keep hearing studies of what video games have done to me... if I believed even half of them I think I'd be too scared to leave the house for fear of what I might do to others.

The one study I would like to see... now that violent video games are selling into the millions, if you include all the violent games sold (Halo, GTA, Doom 3... etc...) sales would probably be extremely high. Perhaps hundreds of millions of people have been exposed to these extremely high violence video games that "lead to violent behavior"... so why haven't violent crime rates seen a dramatic rise? Last I heard most violent crime rates were down remarkably. I'd say the actual evidence almost points to violent video games/music/movies lowering violent attacks and crime. At the very least, that opinion seems to have as much validity as these "studies". What a joke.