Category: Opinion

IMHO, or the opinions of others.

Microsoft Account Required? Who Cares?

These folks at Bleeping Computer seem to be on the bandwagon warning us that Microsoft is going to shut all the workarounds to avoid using a Microsoft Account for Windows 11.

Did anyone mention that you can just make a bogus email that you never use for anything and then call that a Microsoft account? That seems like a pretty obvious work around to maintain your privacy while satisfying the bogus requirement that Microsoft has created to allow you to use Windows 11.

Is Microsoft really so brain-dead that they don’t realize that folks will do that? And if we do that, what does Microsoft gain by harvesting an email that I never use for anything? I suppose they assume that somehow they can make money off of the email that they harvest when they require me to make a Microsoft Account. But I’m not required to ever look at whatever email they send me there – Except maybe once when they check that it’s a valid email.

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Project Ascension is a Waste of Time

First Discovery

About a year ago or so I found the Project Ascension private server and played it for a while. This server is a Burning Crusade Classic server with class changes and other innovative changes.

https://ascension.gg/en

I like several things about their ideas for a Wow Server:

  • Extremely flexible class idea where you can pick and choose skills from any of the classes.
  • Ability to tame pets from Elemental, Dragonkin, and Demonkin as well as Hunter Pets.
  • Easy and free rank up of your skills.
  • Reasonably fast progression – at least at the time of my starting.
  • Good population so dungeon queue times were reasonable.

However, after a few weeks, I stopped playing. After I was able to level a couple of characters to level 70, and obtain flight in Outland, but then something changed and progression was so slow that everything felt like a grind. When I play a private server on any game, I don’t necessarily want an instant progression or boost to max level, but I don’t want a grind either. I expect a better progression than the original / retail game tho. If I were wanting a normal level of progression then I would just play the retail game. I didn’t figure out what changed at that time. So I know there are folks that enjoy the “Hardcore” experience where one death ends the character and you start over. I’m not a Hardcore kinda guy.

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Sony Bravia TV Works Fine

I forgot to post this earlier. Back in June I thought the Sony Bravia TV had died. The Sony Bravia TV is actually fine. Yep Still works. Turns out that there is a little button on the bottom / middle that reboots the TV. For some reason I had never needed that before, but when the TV shut down the last time, I thought it was broken. But it turns out that when I plugged it in and pressed that button it booted up just fine and works fine. So I’m back to using the Sony Bravia now. Very odd. Always before when it shut down, just power off and back on had caused it to reboot. But this last time the hidden button on the bottom had to be pressed.

The Sony is better than the Samsung TV in at least one way: The Youtube interface for captions shows more options for some reason and is easier to use.

TV Stand Adjustments

I had to wrestle with the stand to put it back to fit the Sony TV after the grinding and drilling to make it fit the Samsung. But that was easier than fixing it the first time. Odd that they made the stand so hard to adjust. I guess they decided that they would sell more stands if they made the stand so it could not be easily changed to fit more TVs.

I had waited too long to take the Samsung back to return it. Sooo. I packed it up and put it away. Maybe I’ll be able to sell it to a friend. The Sony has been fine. No more annoying shut offs like before. I think Sony Released an update that fixed some problems.

Oh well.
:ww

More Nonsense – Obsolete Webcams

So, from a few years ago I have a couple of Logitech Webcams. I’d report the model number but they leave that off the device. On a little tag on the cord one says M/N V-U0016 and the other one says M/N-U0023. Embossed into the body of the webcams – which look identical – it says they support a microphone, auto focus and 720p. They are missing a shutter to block the camera which all new models have, but a piece of black tape solves that problem if you care. These webcams are perfectly great for Discord or Zoom calls. Here’s one web cam taking a portrait of the other in Discord, running on Linux Mint 22.2.

You might argue that it is not sharp but for a discord or zoom call its just great. I’ll not show my face here, but it was perfectly reasonable for 720p. Sure the new ones are 1080 or 4k, but who cares? If you really need that, then you don’t care about saving this old webcam.

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Tera Private Servers

Recently I’ve found three Private Servers for Tera. If you are an MMO buff and if you have nostalgia for Tera, or if you’ve never tried it, you might find these interesting.

All of these are free of course, and they take donations for benefits. All but one provide free “Premium Buff and Bennies” such as a flying mount and Town/Village Teleport Tome, and all are easy to install. In some order they are:

Tera Classic. They just had a security breach. Not sure if they are up and running after that yet. The early Tera Experience. Starting in the Island of Dawn and with no level 70 boost – at least not gifted at the start. So this is Tera Old School and you can expect from the title.

Tera Agaia. An advanced server with a level 70 boost, and you get a level 70 set of gear as soon as you use the boost. The Story has been trimmed – maybe like some of the later releases of Tera. Very reliable. But only Three Character slots built in and no clear way to buy more, although they say so.

Tera Starscape. By far the most fun of the list here. Gives you eight character slots, a level 70 boost and then a 20 min run through the Velika Banquet gives you level 70 gear for your journey.

DDOS and Breaches

So, shortly after I tried these servers in late July, DDOS attacks began and didn’t let up for more than a week. Also Classic was Breached. I’m not sure they know who was behind the DDOS or Breach attacks. There was speculation that Kakao Games was behind it, but Krafton actually most recently owned Tera, so that makes more sense. DDOS the private servers rather than taking them to court for copyright? Well seems like a waste of time for a game that has not been active for a few years.

I played for several hours yesterday on Tera Startscape and had no problems. So looks like the nonsense is over. I’ll try Classic later and see how it looks.

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Skyrim Should Be Better

Skyrim Anniversary Edition is on sale now.

So I bought it. Wrestled my way through the Microsoft Store – And success. I am playing Skyrim. Welllllll… It’s not all it’s cracked up to be TBH. The main game and story are fine, but I have some gripes with the execution. I know. I know. There are lots of folks out there that are gonna beat up on me for having these opinions. But see. I’ve played some other game before this and I’ve gotten spoiled. Let me layout my gripes. I’ll be comparing Skyrim to a couple of other games in particular.

  • Guild Wars ONE – released on 2005. Recall that Skyrim released in 2011.
  • Elder Scrolls Online – Released in 2014.
  • Final Fantasy XIV – A Realm Reborn Released in 2013.

So let’s talk about my gripes. And then compare what these other games did right for each of these issues.

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New TV

A few days ago, I posted about a Sony Bravia TV occasionally hanging up and requiring a power cycle to cause a reboot. At this point the TV has died permanently. Power cycling no longer boots the system. It remains black.

I’ve purchased a new Samsung TV for about 1/3 the cost of the Sony TV from five years ago. The label indicates the Sony TV was manufactured July 2020, and it was purchased in October 2020. For the new TV I spent an extra $100 for the QLED model. I hear that QLED is a more modern screen technology, and it seemed reasonable to stay up to date for that small amount of money. The screen looks very nice.

Several things required changing to accommodate the new TV.

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Sony Bravia TV Hangs Up

My five year old Sony Bravia TV works perfectly well, until it doesn’t. I think the TV, and Android operating system of the TV are fine, but the three apps I use are getting more and more complex and memory hungry as time goes by.

July 2020 – Manufacturing date of this very nice TV. And like I said it works perfectly well most of the time. But after a few trips through Youtube, and sleeping the TV now and then through the day or over several days, eventually the TV just hangs up. I click on a Youtube video and the screen goes black. I hit HOME and it eventually – a few too many seconds – goes home. There are 2-3 second delays as I move between selections on the home screen.

Time for a reboot. I have a remote switch – one of these from Amazon. So I can just power off the TV, count to 10, and turn it back on. All is better, for a few days until it happens again.

Five years ago the memory capacity and processor speed were just fine for this TV. And streams play just fine watching movies on Netflix and Prime, or YouTube videos. But all three of these Apps have gotten increasingly complex in the way they deal with thumbnails and a dozen other things that keep using more memory and processor time.

Someday soon this TV is going to be replaced, not because it doesn’t work, but because it has not kept up with the apps. Oh wait. Is there a Generic App runner that I can use? I used to run a Linux Box as my streaming system. I’m not sure I want to buy into the Roku thing. But maybe some generic box? Google stopped making Chrome Cast. Hummm… Well someday I’ll check into that. For now, rebooting works.
:ww

Monitor Saga Continues

Update: 16 April 2025 – Work around – Use HDMI cable instead. There are dozens of threads on Reddit and elsewhere over several years complaining the Display Port does not work. Many mention “Solved” for things already tried and don’t work in this case. So one place mentioned that HDMI cable works, and yes – The ASRock Monitor always wakes when using HDMI cable. And it looks fine. The ASUS 32 ” monitor always wakes from Sleep with Display Port. Anyway, so the ASRock Monitor will be on an HDMI connection. This is the solution that works here.

Since sometime in 2024, I’ve been struggling with a monitor problem. At first I thought it was due to mixed connection types [HD and Display Port] but alas, I think I have tracked it down to failures in the monitors themselves. Multiple types, and multiple manufacturers [Maybe. Can’t be sure]. Here’s the latest test and what happened.

Continue reading “Monitor Saga Continues”