Tag: Game

SD card unexpectedly removed…

On By Michel McDonaldIn Android, Games, PicturesLeave a comment

SD card unexpectedly removed

Has anyone ever seen this issue before?  If you have an Android phone and a SanDisk memory card, you probably have.

So this is my problem today, well, last night anyway.  It was 8 p.m. and I was logging into The Sims FreePlay to send my 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Sims to work.  As it was starting to load, it crashed to the home screen and I see this message “SD card unexpectedly removed.”  What the…?

I rebooted the phone and tried to load the game and got this message again, and again, and again.  I Googled the problem and read in a few forums that my microSD card is most likely no good and that I would need to buy a new one.  Well, I bought this card in January, how could it be bad after only 5 months?

One of my concerns was that I might have lost all of my pictures, because I never backed any of them up.  Some of them have automatically been privately synced onto Facebook, but not all of them, so if I lost all of my other images, I was going to be very disappointed.  I went into the pictures and they all had that triangle with the explanation point.  FRAK!  I rebooted the phone and they were all there, but then they disappeared… they came back and I was able to upload everything album by album onto Google Drive.  WHEW!

So another one of my concerns was that I haven’t backed up the Sims FreePlay in a few days, so all of the work that I have done will disappear and I will have to continue from where I left off the last time I backed it up to the cloud, which backs it up on Facebook.  Fortunately the game loaded last night and I was able to do a backup, but then this morning I got the “SD card unexpectedly removed” issue again, so I knew that I wasn’t out of the woods just yet.

This morning I went into the app management screen and saw that all of the apps on the microSD card were showing their icons, except for The Sims FreePlay.  Knowing that it was backed up on Facebook, I uninstalled the game and tried to reinstall it.  The first attempt wasn’t successful because it told me that it couldn’t install it, but then I tried it again and it worked.  I was able to send my 10 a.m. Sims to work on time.

I really don’t care if I have to buy a new microSD card, that is unimportant, what is most important to me is that I don’t lose my pictures, and I haven’t so I’m okay with it.  I only paid $20 for it which was a good price considering the Best Buy Mobile store at the mall was charging $35 for the PNY 32GB microSD card and $70 for the SanDisk 32GB microSD cards.  That is a lot of money.  Too much for my blood.

Last night after I backed up all of my pictures on Google Drive, I went through my apps and uninstalled a bunch that I never used that were on the microSD card.  I don’t know how many apps I uninstalled, but it was a lot.  I’ve been messing around with it after I reinstalled The Sims FreePlay today, and after rebooting it a couple of times found that one app is showing up weird in the App Management screen, so I uninstalled it.  I moved a lot of apps to the phone so that I don’t lose the data so those are fine.

Everything seems to be okay with The Sims FreePlay now after I have rebooted the phone and tried to go into the game.  I’m sure I don’t even have to buy a new card, but just in case I do, I will be very careful to back everything up.  Like if I take a picture, I will back it up with Google Drive and if I play The Sims FreePlay, I will upload my data to the cloud just to make sure I don’t lose any progress.  If I have to buy a new microSD card then no problem, but for now I don’t think I have to worry about it.

Have you had these same issues?  If so, what was your solution?  Enquiring minds want to know!

A New Phone for (a belated) Christmas

On By Michel McDonaldIn TechLeave a comment

I wrote about how I wanted to buy myself a new cell phone from Virgin Mobile for Christmas, but I can’t seem to settle on which phone I want and I keep changing the phone in that post.  I said I am not getting it for games, but here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter if I play games on it or not, if it can’t play games well, then what hope do I have for it running apps?  So I want a phone that is capable of running apps as well as well as it runs games because I don’t want to be in an app and suddenly the phone freezes up.

The phone I wanted in the beginning was on sale for $49, but after seeing a video review on YouTube for it, I decided that it wasn’t what I wanted.  They always say you get what you pay for, and for $50 you are probably getting a piece of crap.  The phone is normally $100, but still, if they show a game freezing in the review then that’s enough for me to say no.

I have been watching other reviews for other phones and even though they are good phones, none of them compare to the quality you get with the most expensive Android phone that they have.

The HTC EVO V 4G is on sale for $189 and takes 3D pictures and video, which is nice and all, but where else am I going to see those besides the phone?  I can’t print the 3D images and I can’t watch the videos on my 2D TV, so what’s the point?  Plus it only takes 5MP pictures.  The most expensive one takes 8MP pictures and it doesn’t have 3D.  So I would say screw the 3D, I don’t need it.

The HTC One V and the Samsung Galaxy Reverb are both good phones, the HTC One V is on sale for $100 and the Samsung Galaxy Reverb is on sale for $150, but again, not as good as the most expensive one which I now see is no longer as cheap as it was yesterday.  It is the Samsung Galaxy S II 4G.  I can’t afford that for a phone.  So my 2 choices are now down to the HTC One V and the Samsung Galaxy Reverb.

I still can’t afford anything until next month.  I have already set aside $40 and I will have more than $100 coming to me next month for blogging and tweeting which is at least 6 months worth, so it’s not a lot lol.  Whatever amount I have will determine which phone I get.  I want the HTC One V because it seems like a much better phone, even though it’s cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy Reverb.  Of course, neither of them are as good as the Galaxy S II, but if that is all I can afford, then that’s all I can afford.  I will probably most likely have to pay separately for the plan after I buy the phone, so whatever it is I can add $35 to the price.

The toughest part is that by the time I have the money for the phone, they won’t be on sale anymore so I will end up paying more for the phone.  I’ll probably end up checking Amazon and VirginMobileUSA.com every day to see if they have a sale and which one is worth getting.  Who knows, maybe by the time I have the money saved up, they might have new phones that are better than the 2 I’m torn between.

I don’t really need a new cell phone because I hardly ever use the one I have, so this isn’t a necessity, but I would like to have a new one because I feel like I’m stuck in the dark ages with the one I have, even though I’ve only had it for a year and a half lol.  It’s like having a black and white TV when everyone else has color, or having a Nintendo 64 when everyone else has PlayStation.  This is starting to sound like an Alanis Morissette song.  It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife lol.

My phone never has a good signal, so whenever I call anyone with it, I feel like I’m going to get cut off so that’s why I don’t like to use it.  I know it’s not the phones fault, but how do I know it’s not?  It’s a Samsung T401G from Net10.  I have had trouble downloading games for it because of the bad signal.  I have to wait until we go to a doctor’s appointment or to the mall to get a good enough signal just to download games, and forget about checking email because every time I try to do that, Gmail has to send me a new code which comes in a text so I have to leave the browser and read the text and try to remember the code so I can enter it when I go back to the browser.  It’s just a horrible phone lol.  I want a new phone because I feel if I had a better phone I might use it more.  I may not call people, but I will use the apps.

Another reason I want a smart phone is so that I can use Twitter and Facebook when we’re not home and I can’t get to a computer or I don’t want to be rude enough to take out my Chromebook.  It will be so much easier to pull my phone out and do a quick Facebook update or tweet and then put it back in my pocket.  It will also be so much easier and faster to tweet pictures that I have taken with my phone instead of having to upload pics to Picasa to edit before uploading to Facebook and Twitter.  It will take so many long steps out of the equation.  Also I can read email and respond right away, not that I get a lot of emails anymore since Facebook and Twitter came out, but still.

I will have to wait and see what happens in January before I can make a firm decision on whether I will get a new phone and which one it will be.  I hope it’s a good one and is 100 times better than the one I have.

Facebook Timeline Fun

On By Michel McDonaldIn FacebookLeave a comment

I have been having way too much fun in Facebook lately with their timeline images.  I play a game called EverQuest and EverQuest 2, well actually to be honest I play a lot of games lol.  I’ve been taking screen shots from the game so that I can make a banner and an icon that blends together perfectly.  It gives the illusion that the picture of me in the icon is floating on the banner, or at least I think so.  Take a look at this one of my half-elf from EverQuest 2 on one of my Facebook profile.  Of course last night I changed it so it’s my image, but doesn’t that blend together nicely?

I actually got the idea to do this from the Sears Facebook page.  I’m sure other pages are doing the same thing, but I haven’t seen a lot of them.

It took some trial and error, but I figured it out.  I have a template that I use where I put in the background image under the frame, then I select the banner and hide the frame then copy and paste the banner into a new image.  Then I show the frame again so I can copy the icon and I paste that into a new image and then add my character (or my real picture which I cropped out the background) and viola, icon that blends with the banner.

I think this is so cool, I wish my Blog had this feature lol.

My memory is not as good as it used to be

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, EverQuest, Games, LOTRO, MMORPG, Tech2 Comments

Memory has been a huge issue with how slow my computer is because I only have 1GB of ram.  EverQuest play OK, but it’s not great.  Lord of the Rings Online is really bad because as I’m running through a zone or area, the screen will freeze up every ten seconds for up to a second or two which can be a bad thing, especially if something is chasing you.  It can be a matter of life and death, well, for your character anyway.

I recently discovered that EverQuest 2 is free, so I installed it and went into the game and it immediately froze up on me.  In order for me to get out of that I had to hit the reset button on the front of my tower to reboot the computer.  I figured it was slow because I had just installed it, but that wasn’t the case at all because I tried to run it again and it froze up again.  That told me that I definitely need more memory for my computer.

I have been doing research over the last few days to find the most inexpensive memory because I just don’t have a lot of money to spare right now.  My go-to website used to be TigerDirect, but when I discovered how quickly I got my orders from NewEgg, that became my go-to site, but they are too expensive for 4GB.  A friend told me to try the Fry’s Electronics website so I checked it out and they are way cheaper than NewEgg.  I did go to TigerDirect and they aren’t too expensive, but I don’t want to have to wait a whole week when Fry’s is in Los Angeles and I could get it as quickly as NewEgg.

My ideal brands are Kingston and PNY, but they don’t have any available that will ship out immediately.  Fry’s Electronics also had some other less expensive brands that I would have liked, but shipping was unavailable, so I chose the Patriot Extreme Performance PC2-6400 (800MHz).

My motherboard will accept PS2 memory up to 8GB.  I can’t afford to buy 8GB so I am buying 4GB for now and then I will buy another 4GB later when I can afford it again.  What I love especially about this memory I am buying is the heat sink.  The memory I have doesn’t have that.  This is the description of this memory, and it really fits for what I use my computer for too.

“Patriot Gamer Series (PGS), part of the Extreme Performance (EP) Enhanced Latency line is engineered to expand your gaming options. These modules are designed to operate at 800MHz at 5-5-5-12 timings and is available in 4GB kit capacity. Equipped with lightweight aluminum heat-dispersing shields, these modules are designed for maximum performance and stability under extreme overclocking conditions. Engineered with quality and Performance in mind, Patriot Extreme Performance line is the ultimate solution for extreme overclockers, gamers, and PC enthusiasts.”

I think that “Extreme overclockers, gamers, and PC enthusiasts” really fits me lol.

Another issue I have with memory is Hulu, YouTube and Facebook games.  I don’t really care too much about Facebook games, but it is fun to play them every so often, you know?  I can’t play them at all because they freeze up my computer.

I will  order this memory now and then see how it works out.  I really hope that it’s as fast as it says it is, and it if is fast, I may just forego buying the other 4GB, but can you imagine how much faster it will be with 8GB?  I actually would love to see how much faster it would be so let’s hope I can afford that next month.

I will let you know how fast my computer becomes when my new memory comes.  I can’t wait!

Update: I ordered it early this morning and it has already shipped.  WOW that was fast!  I don’t have a tracking number yet, but if they ship it from Los Angeles, I should get it by tomorrow, that is if the mail comes on the 4th of July.

Update 7/13/2012: I called Fry’s a couple of days ago asking them why the tracking isn’t working and where my package is since I bought this on the 3rd, but they told me there was a tracking number, it just wasn’t listed yet because it wasn’t working on the UPS website yet.  I told the woman who I spoke with that it’s supposed to come USPS, but she said they ship it out with UPS, then they hand it over to the post office to send it to me.  Well, I was finally able to check the shipping on the UPS website, and the tracking says it should be here on 7/16/2012, but we will see if that is true on Monday, I won’t hold my breath.

My reason for buying this through Fry’s instead of NewEgg or TigerDirect was that I thought they were shipping it from their LA store, but they are really shipping it from back east, which wasn’t what I had thought.  If I knew I would have to wait for 2 weeks for my memory, I would have gone with TigerDirect which only takes 1 week.  They had the same prices, NewEgg was more expensive.  So this is the first and last thing I will ever buy from Fry’s.  I wanted to buy the other 4GB from Fry’s with my next check, but I think I’ll just live with 4GB.

Homemade Dog Food

On By Michel McDonaldIn AdLeave a comment

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of homemadedogfood.com for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Do you know what is in your dog’s food?  Do your dogs even like their food?  Go look at the ingredients on the bag of dog food, you can only pronounce a few words.  What’s frustrating for me is that no matter what brand or flavor dog food, my dog won’t even eat it unless it is her last resort.

I have a friend who is a chef who told me many years ago that she has a recipe for dog food, but I didn’t have a dog so I didn’t really pay too much attention.  Now that I have a dog, it’s time to find out how to do it so I turn to this website Homemade dog food.  Not only do they have a recipe my dog will eat, but it only has a few ingredients. Ground beef, rice and eggs that you bake like meatloaf.  What more can you ask for?

Check out this Easy cooked dog food recipe.  They are very precise and to the point and even have pictures and a video in case you are unclear how to do it.  The chef also shows how much of the supplements to add when he feeds it to his dogs.  And look at the dogs eating this food, look at those tails wagging.  Those are some happy dogs.  I know my dog would much prefer to eat this dog food.

Take a minute and think about something.  When you see animals in the wild, you don’t see them eating hard round nuggets or bone shaped food, instead they eat raw meat from animals they have killed.  That’s what your dog wants, but of course they can’t go out and kill their dinners because there isn’t any game in your house for them to hunt.  This recipe gives them the meat they desire and the added supplements they require that they aren’t getting from the cooked hamburger meat.  I know that this is what my dog would love to eat so I am seriously thinking about making her food.

It says in the website to fast your dog for 24 hour to flush out the dog food, well my dog doesn’t eat her food, she eats people food which I know isn’t good for her, so she doesn’t have to flush anything, she can go right ahead and switch to this new diet.  This also makes it easier to add worm medicine to her food.  I hate having to go out and buy wet dog food just to add medicine to it, I can just add it to her regular meals now.

From now on I don’t have to share my dinner with her cause she will have her own.  She’s happy, I’m happy, we’re all happy and that is what it’s all about.

Visit Sponsor's Site

EverQuest Bonus Exp.

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest1 Comment

If you have been playing EverQuest lately, you know that they have doubled experience for their 13th Anniversary.  Well, you know what that means right?  It’s a Power Levelers dream!

When I started playing again after 5 years of being MIA, I realized that I had to relearn the game from the ground up because I had totally forgotten everything.  You know how they say it’s like riding a bicycle?  Well, it’s sort of true, but you have to take a refresher course to get you back on track.  What I did was I started playing my Necromancer who was level 12 when I began in late February.  I played for a few hours then I couldn’t play it for a week.  Then when I finally did get to start playing it again I got hooked on the game again and now in less than one month my level 12 necromancer is level 47.

When I first started playing EverQuest in 2002, it took me 6 months to get Xanapus to level 16 and I gave up on him and created other characters.  When I started playing Xanapus again it took me another 6 months or possibly a year to get to level 50.  I have done in less than one month what I couldn’t do in 2002/2003.  You see how frustrating that is for me?  But it isn’t my fault that the game is much easier now than it was 10 years ago so that does make me feel a bit better.

My guild is still MIA, I only see someone on every once in a while.  Even though I am the only member of my guild who plays every day, or at least that’s the way it seems when I get on, I am not about to abandon them because I am still loyal despite the fact that they are all gone lol.  Besides, I don’t want to have to start all over with new people, and who knows if I will even continue playing in a month from now, I might get bored with it and quit again and I will have left my guild for nothing.

I started thinking today that I have abandoned Lord of the Rings Online for EverQuest so I tried logging in today and every time the launcher tries to launch the game, it crashes and I am unable to play.  They did an update on it so perhaps the update doesn’t work with HDMI for some reason.  I will have to plug the VGA back into the TV so I can see if that will work. It’s kind of frustrating because I’m almost positive my [hobbit] house maintenance fee needs to be paid for lol.

I am having fun again in EverQuest and that is a good thing.  I quit for many reasons but one of them was that I was bored to death.  I mean I would literally fall asleep while playing, that isn’t good is it?  So thankfully I am not bored now and I hope it can keep my attention for a bit longer.

No More Monitor, No More EverQuest :(

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, EverQuest6 Comments

I recently decided that I wanted to make my return to EverQuest after 5 long years, but then my monitor decided it doesn’t want to turn on anymore.  My video card has an HDMI so I can plug my HDTV in so I can still use my computer, but now my issue is that EverQuest crashes before it can begin to load the game.  So much for that idea.

My monitor is a 20.1-inch Sylvania SK2000w-b Widescreen LCD.  What it is doing is when you turn the computer on, the screen doesn’t turn on and the power light turns green and starts blinking over and over.  The screen never actually turns on, it used to turn on after a few minutes, but now it isn’t turning on at all.

I googled the model number and found out that it is fixable.  I found out on the Fixya website that the problem could be that the capacitors have gone bad.  My first thought was, what the heck is a capacitor and how do I fix it?  So I looked at YouTube and they have a video that shows a guy who bought a monitor from a thrift store for only $2.98.  It’s not a Sylvania, but he is showing what a capacitor is and shows you how to identify a bad one and how to remove the old and replace it with new.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02uLSu1Jj5M)
It looks really complicated, but I’m sure that once you figure out how to remove the solder from the capacitor and are able to replace the first one, the rest are a cake walk.  Hey, if it works then I get my monitor back and I can play EverQuest again, but if it doesn’t then I still have a 20.1-inch paperweight, so really, what is the worst that could happen?  I mean sure I could buy a new monitor, but who has that kind of cash?  I could pay someone to fix it for me but they would end up charging me half of what a new monitor would end up costing me.  I can pick the parts up at Radio Shack and fix it myself.
I think that if I can build a computer, I can replace a capacitor, right?  Yeah… easier said that done, but we’ll see how it works out.
My concern about EverQuest is that I will have to cancel it before they charge me for another month, but I haven’t really had that much time to play with it anyway and I don’t want to keep paying for something I’m probably not going to be able to play very often.  I may as well cancel my account and go back to it when my monitor has been fixed.  I waited 5 years, I’m sure I could wait a little bit longer until I can fix it.  Who knows, I may be back in the game by the weekend.  I think I can afford to spend up to $10 on capacitors rather than $200 for a new monitor.

EverQuest will be free to play in March

On By Michel McDonaldIn EverQuest, Games2 Comments

I don’t sit and watch the live feed on Facebook as much as I would like to because I have better things to do, but today I saw a friend comment on a post from EverQuest.  They are turning 13 years old in March and as a treat for us players, they are making it free to play.  Check out the article on the EverQuest Players website.

I had played EverQuest from 2002 until 2008 and loved that game so much.  It got old the last year that I played because I spent more time twiddling my thumbs since people were abandoning the game and I was left by myself.  I could have gone out to the zones and LFG’d, but it just wasn’t the same anymore, so I quit.

I have wanted to go back to the game but haven’t because I’ve been happy playing Lord of the Rings Online since that is free to play.  Now that EverQuest will be free to play, I will be able to go back.  Although I won’t be quitting LOTRO, I will just play both, obviously not at the same time but you know, I will split my time between the two.

I actually haven’t really had any time to play any games because I have been too busy trying to get my book ready to publish, so games really aren’t on my mind as much as I would like.  Knowing that I will be able to reactivate my account and have my Gnome Wizard at the ready whenever I am ready to play will make me happy.

Just like LOTRO, EverQuest won’t be totally 100% free to play, you will most likely have to buy points for buying in-game items just like in LOTRO, you just won’t have to pay a monthly fee.  Although, you could still pay a monthly fee if you are a silver member, but now you have a choice so you aren’t forced to pay even when you don’t play.  That is actually the reason I closed my account.  I had paid for 2 years and then a few months later I stopped playing.  I forced myself to get in the game to raid because I wanted to get my moneys worth for a year, then the second year I decided that I just wasn’t into it.  When my membership was up, I canceled.  If I had a choice to not pay but keep my account active I would have done that, and now I can.

So thank you Sony Online Entertainment for making EverQuest free to play in March 2012.  I can’t wait to start playing again.

CastleVille

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games2 Comments

I don’t know what it is about these Zynga games that is so addictive, but I just cannot stop playing CastleVille.  I don’t want to play it, yet I am compelled to for some reason.

I can remember how fun YoVille was because you were able to chat with your friends.  We would go hang out at the club (in the game of course) and chat and buy drinks; it was a fun time.  But then people stopped talking in chat because suddenly they were too busy with all of the mini games and with the job, that they just didn’t have time to talk anymore.  All of a sudden it became a job to play.

Then I started playing another Zynga game where you have a farm, oh what was it called?  Oh yeah, FarmVille… they seem to like the Ville titles, don’t they?  I was into it, and you used to be able to chat at the beginning, but then they took that away too.  You could go to someones farm and do chores and then go back to your farm and “work.”  That seems to be a common theme.

Then there was Chef World, Pioneer Trailer, Treasure Isle… the list literally goes on and on.  I had to stop playing these games because they took over my life.  I had people TELLING me to get on these games and send them crap that they need and I’m just thinking excuse me but I am busy with my own stuff here lol.  “Oh alright, what do you need?”

I had to quit playing all of those games so it’s very curious why all of a sudden I’m playing CastleVille.  I guess because it’s one game and I only play it for 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there.  This game requires hours of your life everyday, otherwise you miss out on quests.  Like, you have to build these wood planks or stone blocks to build other buildings and sometimes you have a time limit like 3 days or whatever.  I am going to miss out on a quest today because they want me to build 15 planks, 15 stone bricks and I don’t know what else in 2 hours.  Well, it takes 1 hour to build each of everything.  I refuse to beg anyone for help so I’m just going to let that one expire.

I want to say enough with this stupid game because I have better things to do with my day, but in a strange way I don’t want to; I like it lol.  I have a love hate relationship.  I love it because it’s cute, but I hate it because it’s work.  But then again aren’t all games work?  I play Lord of the Rings Online, which I haven’t been playing because of my book, and everything that you have to do seems like a job.  Maybe I’m getting too old for games.

Whatever, I like it and I will continue to play it at 5 minute increments like I am doing now.  It is time-consuming, but I am not allowing it to be on my screen for 16 hours a day and that is all that matters.

I’m sorry, were you expecting me to make a point about something?  LOL