Month: August 2015

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

On By Michel McDonaldIn GamesLeave a comment

pathfinder beginner boxI was so excited about playing Dungeons & Dragons, but I have a hard time comprehending everything I’ve read in the player’s handbook and dungeon master’s guide. They just aren’t explaining things in the way that I can understand. I have a learning disability, so I need things to be broken down for me to make it easier to learn.

Amazon has the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Boxfor only $25. I’ve read a few reviews saying this is much easier to learn than D&D, and that’s enough to convince me.

I was looking at the description and this is what is in the box.

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Beginner Box includes: a 64-page Hero’s Handbook, a 96-page Game Master’s Guide, a 16-page Transition Guide to bring your hero to the full Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, a complete set of seven high-impact polyhedral dice, more than 80 full-color pawns depicting tons of heroes, monsters, and even a fearsome black dragon, four pregenerated character sheets to throw you right into the action.

Pathfinder also has a huge map that is basically a dry erase board with a dungeon on one side, and blank on the other side so you can draw your own dungeon. You can erase it and draw another one, and so on.

pathfinder beginner box minisWhat I love the most about the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box is that it comes with 80 full-color pawns depicting tons of heroes, monsters, and even a fearsome black dragon. I was disappointed with the D&D starter set because it didn’t come with these. These are what make the game playable in my opinion. I mean, I have the D&D Wilderness Tiles and I was forced to buy all these plastic toys like skeletons and what have you. I’m sure those will still come in handy, but these are what I actually wanted because they fit in the little squares. The skeletons I bought are too big and take up 4 squares.

This video is from the publisher. He shows you exactly what you get in the box so you can see for yourself. I personally think that this is going to help me learn to play better than D&D’s starter set did. Enjoy and thanks for reading.

Give me some credit

On By Michel McDonaldIn Credit CardLeave a comment

creditOne of the lessons that I learned when I was a teenager came from watching my sister. I lived with her and her husband in Tujunga, CA and I was there the day she got her first credit card. When she opened up the envelope with her first credit card, she and my brother-in-law were literally jumping for joy. My sister even jumped into his arms. The next thing that happened was new furniture, over spending, debt and bankruptcy.

My sister taught me a huge lesson, and that’s to NEVER get a credit card, like ever ever ever. But that wasn’t the right lesson. You see, here is the lesson that I should have learned. Only spend what you CAN afford to pay back. Don’t max the card in the first week, just buy one thing that you normally couldn’t afford, pay it off, then buy something else.

Last year when I was 44, I decided that I was sick of having no credit. The only way for someone to build their credit is to have a secured credit card, but I could never afford to get one because the bank always wanted $200 or $300. I conveniently got a letter from Bank of America offering me a secured credit card for only $99. I took advantage of that opportunity and sent them $99 and I received my first secured credit card with a credit limit of $500. They told me that I would receive that $99 back in one year, and because I was good about paying back what I spent, they sent it back to me in 9 months and raised my credit to $2000.

I’ve been using a website called Credit Karma to check my credit score, that is it in the image above. 714 and 720. I think that’s pretty good for someone who has only had credit for less than 12 months.

High Impact

Credit Karma gives me tips on how to maintain my good credit, and one of those tips is to only use 30% or less of your credit, and I just so happen to only be using 20% of mine. That is a high impact factor in my credit report. My payment history is excellent at 100% since I have been paying for my credit card on time every month. The bank only asks for $25 payments, but I have been paying $100 a month. Some months I have paid $200. I also have 0 derogatory marks on my credit, which is obviously a good thing.

Medium Impact

My age of credit history is a medium impact, but I cannot help that I only have had credit for a year. The longer you have a credit card, the better that number will be, and it can only get better from here.

Low Impact

I only have 1 credit account, which apparently is a factor in my credit history, and it is not good since I only have 1 credit card. I guess the more credit cards you have, the better, but this is low impact so I am not worried about it since my credit rating is so high. I would be more worried if my credit was in the red, but since this is low impact, I’m not going to worry about it at all. Another low factor is credit inquiries. Zero is ideal, but I have 1 on Equifax and 2 on TransUnion. The reason is because I tried to get a regular credit card last year without having a secured credit card first. They checked my credit and I didn’t have any, so they denied me.

I am not an expert on credit, but I do think that I am doing pretty good for someone who has just begun. I am where I should have been 20 years ago, and I’m actually glad I waited so long because I fear that if I followed my sisters bad behavior, I’d probably have no chance of ever having good credit, and that is not a good thing.

Now, the next thing on my list is to learn to drive. Can a 45 year old learn to drive, and why the heck did I wait so long?

UNIFUN® 10400mAh USB External Travel Battery

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I LikeLeave a comment

20150811_100328The last couple of months have been very difficult. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals with a dead phone. My phone keeps a charge for several hours when I’m at home on the Wi-Fi, but as soon as it switches over to 3G/4G, the battery drains fast. I bring my charger with me, but I may not be lucky enough to get a seat next to a outlet to plug it in, so I have to just deal with my phone dying.

I saw a battery at a store 6 months or so ago, but it was too expensive and I didn’t really need it then. I started to regret not buying it when I actually needed it. I recently went on Amazon to look for a battery and discovered there are many different kinds. I’m actually glad I didn’t buy that one all those months ago, because it may not have been as awesome as the one I found.

I discovered there are many batteries with different capacities. There are 3200mAh up to 20000mAh and I’m sure higher. I chose the UNIFUN® 10400mAh USB External Travel Battery based on the price, the fact that it has a light and that it’s waterproof. I’m really clumsy. I also chose it based on some of the reviews. One reviewer said they were able to charge their phone 3 times with this battery. I too have charged my phone 3 times on 1 single charge, and there was still some power left in the travel battery charger. Our power went out and I had to grab this battery for its light, and boy did it perform better than I expected it to, and it charged my phone while I was using the flashlight.

There are many purchases that I have regretted because I didn’t do research and/or didn’t read the reviews, and I do not regret this purchase at all. It was only $20 with free shipping since my cart was over $35. I think if you need something like this to charge not just one, but 2 devices, and have a light and have it be waterproof, well, this is the portable battery for you.

Warming up to Windows 10

On By Michel McDonaldIn App, ComputerLeave a comment

Windows 10 logoI wasn’t happy with Windows 10 when I installed it because it took hours to install, then everything took forever to load. I couldn’t get the Start window to come up, and when it finally did come up, it would go away because I was clicking the Start button too many times in frustration. I also hated the new Start window because when I would try to move things around, the icons would disappear, and then there would be huge gaps with no icons, so I took out ALL icons and just added them again in the order I wanted to see them, like this…

win10startThe first couple of days using Windows 10 was a learning experience, and things have gotten a lot faster since I started. The Start window comes up immediately now and when I click All apps, the list of apps comes up right away, although, there are times when it takes a few seconds longer, but I’m patient.

Now the only thing that still concerns me is Microsoft Money. Someone tweeted me a link to a blog that tells me that all I have to do is go into my Registry and change something, which isn’t always the best idea, especially coming from a stranger. Oh sure stranger, I’ll screw things up even more, thank you. And the sad thing is I went into my registry and looked for that string, but it wasn’t there. I’m actually glad I didn’t find it because it would’ve been a disaster if I screwed things up and had to start over again. I hope Microsoft comes up with an update to fix this issue so I can use MS Money again.

This is the error message I am getting when I load MS Money.

money needs ie6When I started using Windows 8.1, I wasn’t using the browser to use Facebook, Facebook Pages Manager or Twitter, I was using the Windows apps instead. Gradually those apps stopped loading quickly until they just stopped loading at all. Eventually I had to go back to using the browser.

When I installed Windows 10, those apps load quickly, and in a small window. In fact, all of the apps, including Windows Edge, their new browser, all open in a small square window. I have a widescreen monitor, not a square one, not that Windows really cares. But still, when I use Edge, I have to stretch it on both sides to see everything on the website. When I close the website and Edge reloads when I click a link, it opens in that square box again. Not that that is a real issue for me, I don’t really care about that. I’m not bitching about anything, I’m just saying this is what’s happening when I open Edge.

I had mixed feelings before installing, and I was outraged after I installed, but I’m warming up to the new version of Windows and believe it or not, I’m happy I installed it.

For anyone who just installed Windows 10 without burning it on a DVD, you should probably think about downloading the ISO file for both 32bit and 64bit and burning them to a DVD or putting it on a USB drive. They give you both options. You’ll regret not doing so if/when the day comes when you have to reformat or even if you buy a new hard drive and you have to reinstall Windows 8.1 and then upgrade back to Windows 10. After a year, you won’t have the option to upgrade to Windows 10 for free. It’s just a suggestion, and trust me, you will thank me later.

Windows 10

On By Michel McDonaldIn ComputerLeave a comment

Windows 10 logoI love change. Whenever there is something new, I’m usually one of the first on the bandwagon to try it, that is if I can afford it. It took me 14 years to finally upgrade from Windows XP, only because I couldn’t afford Vista, then Windows 7. I only upgraded to Windows 8.1 because I was forced to by Microsoft threatening “If you don’t upgrade, you will get a virus.”

A few people have told me how much they absolutely hate Windows 8.1 and that I would hate it too based on the fact that I still had Windows XP. Well, they didn’t really know why I was still on XP, read the paragraph above if you forgot. I actually loved Windows 8.1.

When Microsoft announced they were giving away their new upgrade Windows 10, I jumped on the bandwagon. I knew it would be different and that they took away the Start window and replaced it with a more compact one, which I actually don’t mind that much, although I did prefer the bigger start menu that took up the entire screen.

Okay, so here are my complaints. First of all, I couldn’t even install it because I had too much crap on my computer, so I uninstalled a bunch of things and believe it or not, that didn’t even put a dent in it. The programs with several gigabytes were gone, but the gigabytes were still used somehow. I backed up all of my pictures and documents onto 4 DVD’s, and it’s a good thing I did because OneDrive is gone. It’s nowhere to be seen. I am so glad I backed all that stuff up. Where did OneDrive go? After I backed everything up, I went to do all the Windows Updates I could because it’s been giving me crap for months. Every night it tells me to either shut down and update or restart and update. I never just get shut down or restart. When it does do the updates, it starts up saying it couldn’t complete the updates, undoing changes. So I let it do all the updates even though they said it couldn’t complete them.

I finally started the upgrade at 9pm and it finished at 1:30am. I never thought it would take that long to upgrade. I thought at the most I’d be finished by 11pm and then I’d have a few minutes to check it out before going to bed, but that wasn’t how it worked out. I did stay up until 2am checking it out, and discovered how much I actually hate it because of how slow it was.

Today I woke up and turned the computer on and for some reason decided that I needed to add a bunch of receipts in my pocket to Microsoft Money, but I got this message.

money needs ie6Ugh! Windows 10 doesn’t have Internet Explorer anymore, they’ve switched their browser to Microsoft Edge. So that screws things up for me. I use Microsoft Money every day instead of a check register because at least this program calculates my balance every time I enter a purchase. Now what do I do? And I have a feeling I’m going to have trouble with a lot of programs that may require Internet Explorer to be installed.

When I click the Start button, sometimes it takes a few minutes to bring the start menu up, and when I click an icon, it darkens and nothing happens. The app or program may take a few minutes to load and then the icon goes back to normal, or the icon may go back to normal and the app or program still never loads.

I know I’m complaining, a lot, but I mean come on, if you’re going to put out an operating system, make sure everything works lol. Then again, perhaps it did work on their brand new computers. And perhaps some people who installed the upgrade may not be having the same issues I’m complaining about, but then again there may be some people who are having a worse experience than I am having. Everyone has a different experience based on their system, because like fingerprints, we all have something different. A different video card brand or model, a different motherboard brand or model, a different ram size, brand or model, a different hard drive size, brand or model.

It would be awesome if everything worked the way it should, but if it doesn’t, well, you just have to either deal with it, or go back to the way things were when everything worked right. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.