Sebastien St-Laurent's (AKA Sebby) WebLog : Rants

FSX DX10 - Self Shadowing VCs (DX9 vs DX10 Update)

sebby1234 — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 02:02:00 GMT

Apparently, saying "could have been implemented on DX9" in my previous post in regards to VC self-shadowing stired all sorts of drama on some of the user forums. Although the statement is accurate, I did not explain in more details WHY this was not done and why we kept this feature for DX10 only. This post is not intended to be harsh but a mere clarification of why the decision was made. My tone may seem somewhat pessimistic but this is mainly due to frustration from the fact that some of our fans seem to be on a constant quest to crucify us no matter what we do.

Back to the topic of why self-shadowing is only present on DX10, I was really quick and vague into giving actual reasons and wanted to be true and honnest in my statement, which apparently got taken out of context and distorted... Since the VC self-shadowing is essentially another form of shadow mapping as done with the exterior, it could have been implemented on DX9. However, there are two reasons why the self-shadowing of VC was kept as a DX10 features (beyond the force people to upgrade conspiracy theory).

The first reason was briefly stated above which was for performance reasons. If we were to release this feature on DX9 and drop performance, well we would get crucified for doing so. Then again, I was being honnest and did say such a feature could have been done on DX9 but would hit performance significantly, yet we still get crucified. No matter what I say here, it is a loose-loose scenaro at least from the perspective of some of our fans...
The second reason, which was not mentioned in my original post, is in regards to visual quality. Under DX9, the shadowmap resolution used is significantly lower and the type of filtering we can use is also fairly limited. This yielded some really blocky looking shadows within the VC. DX10 does give us more options and we were able to use a larger shadowmap for the interior and also use a high quality filter which allowed the shadow to be of good quality. Yet again, if we released the low quality VC self-shadowing, we would have been crucufied for doing so...

Moving my Main Blog From MSDN to WWW.SebbyLive.Com

sebby1234 — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 06:06:00 GMT

The time has come to finally move away from hosting my blog on MSDN. There are a few reasons for this transition but the two main deciding factors were that posting personal posts on a MSDN blog seemed odd (at least to me) and that I already had my own website to document my various side-projects so it would make more sense to have everything in a single place.

My blog now resides with my homepage at www.SebbyLive.com. In the future I may cross-post relevant technical posts onto MSDN but you should update your feeds to point to the new "main" blog...

The syndication link which can be used to subscribe to my blog directly is: http://www.sebbylive.com/syndication.axd

Nice Little Scam... Didn't Know I was that Important?!?!

sebby1234 — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:45:00 GMT

I didn't realize I was that important until I got the email that I pasted below, wow "You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Madison Who's Who Among Executives and Professionals, and for inclusion into the upcoming 2007-2008 "Honors Edition" of the registry". Talk about some generic description, in fact would be 100% generic if it wasn't for my name... I obviously knew something was fishy but wanted to figure out exactly what was the catch...

Here is a general overview of similar schemes... http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27053

Overall, they say that they are an important registry of people and that an inclusion within their registry is not only an honnor but is also a great networking tool that can bring significant business. And of course, none of this is free. So, you pay to get included into their member list, which you apparently were so deserving of being in (even though all they had was your name and email). And truely, who has ever heard of Madison Who's Who???

This actually reminds me of the Picture.com contest scam (http://www.greenfreak.net/?p=11). It is quite clever and i'll admit i've fallen for it...

You send a picture to enter the contest, no problem. Of course, your picture doesn't win the contest but is good enough to make their next picture coffee book and you get an offer to pre-purchase the book at a pre-sale discounted price (I believe I paid $40 for it). In a way, they avoid being treated as a scam as they do print the coffee book and send it, so you technically get what you paid for. But the real truth is that you've been lured into a simple bait-and-switch scheme.

You entered for free with the intent of entering a contest but ended up buying a $40 coffee book (which costs less than $5.00 to manufacture) that contains your, and about 2000 other pictures... So assuming about 20% of the folks fall for it out of 2000 pictures and that a book costs them $5.00, they come out with about $10,000... Hmm, maybe I need to change my business model ;)

---- Email ----

Dear Sebastien St-Laurent ,

    You were recently appointed as a biographical candidate to represent your industry in the Madison Who's Who Among Executives and Professionals, and for inclusion into the upcoming 2007-2008 "Honors Edition" of the registry.

     We are pleased to inform you that on August 27th, your candidacy was approved. Your confirmation for inclusion will be effective within five business days, pending our receipt of the enclosed application.

     The Office of the Managing Director appoints individuals based on a candidate's current position, and usually with information obtained from researched executive and professional listings. The director thinks you may make an interesting biographical subject, as individual achievement is what Madison Who's Who is all about. Upon final confirmation you will be listed among thousands of accomplished individuals in the Madison Who's Who Registry. There is no cost to be included.

     We do require additional information to complete the selection process and kindly ask that you access this form on our website:

Click here to register

Or you can manually enter this address into your web browser:

http://www.madisonwhoswho.com/basiclisting

To ensure your biographical data is received in time, please complete the online form above as soon as possible. Our editorial deadline is quickly approaching.

Sincerely,

Matthew Johnson
Managing Editor

Madison Who's Who is not associated or affiliated with Marquis Who's Who or any other Who's Who.

Madison Who's Who, Inc. 30-01 Northern Blvd. Long Island City , NY 11101 USA

Does IE 6.0 Stop Working When you Have Too Many Windows Open?

sebby1234 — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 20:36:00 GMT

This happens to me at least 1-2 times per week. It's actually not something that is specific to Internet Explorer 6.0, but is most frequent with this app due to the way I use it. The fact is, IE can be a resource hog depending on the websites you visit, especially GDI resources...

But there is a gotcha on Windows... The number of GDI resources that can be used at a time by a specific application are limited. The main reason behind this limitation is to prevent a stray or "leaky" application from hogging all system resources and bringing the whole system down with it. By default, at least in Windows XP, the maximum of GDI resources that can be held by a process is set to 10,000. Once the app reaches this limit, it will be unable to get more resources and will generally start rendering oddly (missing buttons, window content not updating, ...) and then you generally have to kill the offending application and restart it...

Although not a fix, there is a way this can be minimized by increasing the maximum number of GDI resources that can be assigned to a process. The article quoted bellow (http://www.windows-now.com/blogs/kmkenney/archive/2007/08/29/increasing-gdi-and-user-handle-limits-in-windows.aspx) shows how you can increase the GDI resource limit from 10,000 to 16,384...

Have you ever been working with a good number of applications at once? Do you work with heavy workloads and large files every day? Alright, answer this - have you ever had Windows buckle under the weight of all of these applications and display error messages stating that the system is out of memory or out of resources, buttons and menus do not work correctly, or you get an error sound but no message on the screen? I've hit this numerous times, to the point that I've lost work because of it...

(By the way, Adobe, can you please implement that little feature that Microsoft Office has had for years known as "auto save"? I don't know how many times I've managed to completely max out Windows designing a website and have had Photoshop fall over dead and disappear off my screen, only to find out that when I open Photoshop up again that the entire thing saved jack-all, all of those layers and documents gone poof into the void of darkness... if Microsoft can do it, why can't you?)

Sometimes this happens even when you have a lot of system memory (RAM) still available. For instance, open up Internet Explorer and hold Ctrl+N to open up as many Internet Explorer windows as you can before menus, icons, and menus start displaying incorrectly, disappear, buttons aren't clickable, etc. Close a few out and check your Windows Task Manager in the "Performance" tab; I bet you will find that a lot of your Physical Memory is still available.

This article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 2000 family
Microsoft Windows XP family
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family
Microsoft Windows Vista family

This article does NOT apply to:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64
Microsoft Windows Vista x64

DISCLAIMER: I claim no responsibility or liability whatsoever should something go wrong, or if you incorrectly modify the Windows Registry. Please take extreme caution while following this publication and follow the steps correctly to a tee.

"Alright, if I have all of this memory still available, why is Windows saying I'm out of memory and out of system resources!?"

Simple: You have hit the "user handle" or "GDI handle" limit in Microsoft Windows. This limit is there for two reasons:

Leaky applications or faulty code & malware can't easily crash the system by attempting to overflow the system with GDI handles, making everything un-usable until a reboot is performed.
To prevent a user from opening up more applications than the system can handle.

If you have 1 gigabyte (1024MB) of RAM or higher, the default User Handle and GDI Handle limits can be pretty restrictive when running a large working set of applications that demand the most from your system and tax it heavily.

First and foremost, I must warn you that modifying these settings incorrectly can render your Windows installation near useless. Also, depending on your computer configuration and the amount of RAM in your system, you may wish to play around with the numbers until you find a setting that is perfect for your computer configuration and working set.

To back up everything, open the Windows Registry Editor:

Click on the Start button.
On the Start menu, click on "Run..."
In the Run dialog, type "regedit.exe" (without the quotes) and then press Enter or click OK.

Now, to backup a registry key:

In the Registry Editor on the left hand side, you will see the navigation pane. Using your mouse or keyboard, navigate to the following subkeys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows

Right click on each of the subkeys above in the left hand pane and from the context menu that appears, choose the "Export" option. Save the exported registry data files where ever you wish, but make sure that they will be accessible should we need to restore them in the future.

Now that you have backed up the registry keys that we will be modifying, we can begin making modifications to the values in order to increase the handle limits in Windows.

With the Registry Editor opened, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems.

You will notice a set of "REG_MULTI_SZ" and "REG_EXPAND_SZ" keys in the right hand pane. The one that we are interested in modifying is called "Windows".

To modify the key, double click on it. It should look something like this:

%SystemRoot%\system32\csrss.exe ObjectDirectory=\Windows SharedSection=1024,3072,512 Windows=On SubSystemType=Windows ServerDll=basesrv,1 ServerDll=winsrv:UserServerDllInitialization,3 ServerDll=winsrv:ConServerDllInitialization,2 ProfileControl=Off MaxRequestThreads=16

The section of this string we are interested in modifying is SharedSection.

In the SharedSection part of the string you will notice 3 numbers. What we are interested in is the middle value, "3072". Modify this value so that it reads "8192" instead.

It should look something like this after modifying the value:

%SystemRoot%\system32\csrss.exe ObjectDirectory=\Windows SharedSection=1024,8192,512 Windows=On SubSystemType=Windows ServerDll=basesrv,1 ServerDll=winsrv:UserServerDllInitialization,3 ServerDll=winsrv:ConServerDllInitialization,2 ProfileControl=Off MaxRequestThreads=16

Now that this registry entry has been modified we can continue on with the other values that need to be modified in order to raise the GDI limits.

In the left hand pane of the Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows. In the right hand side, you will see two REG_DWORD values, named GDIProcessHandleQuota and USERProcessHandleQuota. We will need to modify both of these.

The first key we will want to modify is GDIProcessHandleQuota. This keys value can be set between 256 and 16,384 (maximum), and the default value is 10,000. I'd recommend using 15,000 as a value for this key, however if you are doing a lot of multitasking, shoot for the stars and go with 16,384.

This key cannot be set past 16,384 as it is the maximum acceptable value.

Now, let's modify USERProcessHandleQuota. This keys value can be set between 200 and 18,000 (maximum), with a default value of 10,000. I'd recommend increasing this value to the same number used with GDIProcessHandleQuota, however as previously mentioned if you are working with a hefty application workload, shoot for the stars and go with the maximum value of 18,000.

This key cannot be set past 18,000 as it is the maximum acceptable value.

Do NOT attempt to increase these values past the maximum - Windows will become very unstable and may even stop working correctly. If Windows starts acting up after changing these values, lower them until the issues are resolved, or restore the backups of these keys' values that we created before making modifications.

Now that you've changed these values, restart your computer and tax the system using the Internet Explorer trick mentioned previously - open Internet Explorer and hold down Ctrl+N on your keyboard to open up new Internet Explorer windows. Continue this until menus, buttons, and user interface elements stop working correctly. Also, open any applications you run day-to-day while you are performing this, so that you can get more of an idea if you have everything configured correctly.

You may also want to monitor your memory usage and handles information in Task Manager to see whether or not the above registry values need any more modifications.

Interesting AvSim post in regards to FSX and hardware upgrades...

sebby1234 — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 19:31:00 GMT

Was forwarded this really interesting post by Mark Greenblatt on the AvSim forums (http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=121&topic_id=414954&mesg_id=414954&page=). I've copied the contents below, but what I really liked about the post is that instead of simply ranting on how FSX needs faster hardware, it takes a realistic look at how the situation is really blown out of proportion...

This post will be a very unusual one for me as I usually do not involve myself with posting unless it directly affects my work.

This may be quite a bit longer than some other posts but lately I have felt an ever growing need to express my feelings on the subject of FSX.

Every time that a new version of any graphics intensive software is released there is an almost immediate need to upgrade hardware yet on these forums it’s as though this came as a complete shock and in some cases seems to be treated like a personal insult..

It’s hard for me to believe that anyone thought that they could simply install this sim without upgrading? It was apparent from the first public beta that this sim would require a change in hardware.

I run an AMD 6000+ on an EVGA 590 SLI MoBo. Was it expensive? No. Is it top of the line? No. Does it fly FSX beautifully with sliders set very high and 100% AI traffic (WoAI and Ultimate GA) and absolutely no tweaks in the .cfg? You bet it does.

I have 2 GBs of memory with a 7950GT card does that stop me? No. Do I have a problem with blurries? Not particularly. Do I wish that I had an 8800GTS 640? Sure but I can’t afford it and that’s no big deal either.

I don’t use Vista because I don’t think it adds anything to the experience of flying FSX. Do I think that when DX-10 is released I might change my mind? Maybe, but not because of the hype about DX-10 but because I’m in the computer business and feel the need to “keep up”

I love FSX it is the best simulator I have ever flown and I’ve flown them all! It is my heartfelt belief that this community has been blind-sided by misinformation and mythology that in short is destroying the sim and the add-on market.

But I cannot any longer just sit and watch this sim get constantly torn apart and not because I am connected to or in any way receive support from Aces.

I and the people I fly with use multiplayer to travel all over the world and we have a great time. True some places are less detailed than others and it makes you wonder why but others are breathtaking with clouds turned up all the way and real world weather

I use add-ons like UTX, SceneryTech. Cloud9, FsGenesis, UKVFR and many photoreal sceneries like Megascenery So Cal (I live in So Cal) and I love them all. They enhance an already beautiful simulator and have little or no effect on performance.

Those products that don’t work in multi-player I reject so I don’t use Level-D and I won’t use PMDG if it doesn’t work, or any others but I do use The Super MD-80 and many others and find them to be some of the best planes I have ever encountered because they function perfectly in both single and multi-player modes and are both a challenge and a joy to fly.

I look forward to FEX and other add-ons and applaud all those companies who in the face of ever increasing non-productive negativity have brought us great add-ons.

And no, this is neither an endorsement for these products or an indictment but a simple statement of truth based on testing and real life.

So to sum this all up and accommodate those that haven’t the patience to read the whole post I’ll simply state the following:.

FSX is the best simulator I have ever flown. Multi-player through sim-connect is a fantastic concept which has given me hours of enjoyment and a new appreciation of the intricacies of flight far beyond Fs9.

There now I’ve said it. Do I feel better? No because there is more to be said.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and please remember that this commentary is in no way a solicitation for any company or service.

and let the fun begin.

Michael Greenblatt

I think the post itself captures the essence and there is not much for me to comment on. The only thing I would like to add is that users need to keep in mind that every release of Flight Simulator is made to be "future proof". Since there is a 2-3 year gap between release and that the majority of our users tend to upgrade every other version, this means that an individual will use a specific version of Flight Simulator for a period ranging from 4-6 years in average. This is quite a long period of time, and hardware will therefore get faster during that period of time. So yes, if you take a high-end machine today and push all the sliders to the maximum, well the simulation will likely crawl... This is by design, because hardware 4-6 years from now will likely be able to handle the extra work and run smoothly with all settings maxed out...

On the other end of the spectrum, with proper slider placement, you can get an experience comparable to FS9, at a speed comparable to FS9 on older hardware. We do add new features and visuals from version to version and the reality is that these additions do not come for free. So yes, if you want to take advantage of all the new features, a 386 isn't going to cut it :) We have also slowly moved the bar up in regards to video card requirements, this is true... There are a few reasons behind this but the main reason is our wish to transition away from "Fixed Pipeline" hardware to hadware that supports shaders. This allows us to keep our code much simpler and reduces the risks of compatibility issues on older hardware.

Now, on to the Flight Simulator Acceleration Pack and Service Pack 2... I'm sure i'll get questions such as "What about DirectX10?", "Any new visual features?",... We are actually releasing the final Acceleration Pack and SP2 bits this week and therefore the feature set is finished. However, I cannot mention any specifics just yet until our marketting group defines how and when such information will be spread. However, I will likely start talking about some of the specific enhancements within the next 1-2 weeks...

I so Wish GMail had an API!!

sebby1234 — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 21:00:00 GMT

Yes, I admit it. I use Gmail for my personal and www.ParadoxalPress.com email (through their Gmail for domain support). Not that I dislike Hotmail, and they have made great strides from the original version of Hotmail.

For me it's a matter of freedom and which software best suits the way I work and the needs I have. And so far, Gmail is the best choice for me... Even if I do work for Microsoft and I would prefer to support our own software. When it comes to my own choices, its a question of what works best for me.

Ok. Enough blabbering, the one thing that does drive me nuts with Gmail is their so-so mobile support.

Their mobile enable web access is beyond basic and having to deal with more than a few emails is tedious.
You can use the non-mobile web view but it is not very mobile phone friendly.
They have a Java app which works for regular gmail (not for domain mail) which is much closer to what I would like. But it is Java which requires me to launch an applet and does not integrate well with the other features of my Windows Mobile phone (Cingular 8525 with WM 5.0).

That being said, I sure wish Gmail had an API (such as some of the other Google services). I would take the time and write a native app to allow WM 5.0 and 6.0 access to GMail accounts. Would make my life so much easier :)

POP Support: Yes, Gmail does have POP support. But it has several problems that i've noticed so far. The first problem is that messages can only be deleted from your inbox if you select the option to have all mail retrieved through POP to be deleted, so deleting individual items through the mail program doesn't work. The second problem is that it does not allow you to take advantage of features such as labels. I've also noticed that some mails are slow to deliver. So although you can "check" your Gmail using POP, you can't really "manage" your mail with it...

Analyst: Xbox 360 Price Cut Coming? --- Hmm.. Who are you to say?

sebby1234 — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 23:39:00 GMT

From: http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=16743

"With the first PS3 price cut already announced, the industry turns to Microsoft, waiting for them to respond in kind. Michael Pachter thinks a response is coming this week, with a reduction on the prices of all the various 360 models. The internal hardware might be changing on these units soon too, according to Dean Takahashi."

Ok, before I state my oppinion. Yes, I work for Microsoft but have nothing to do with the Xbox360 team and nor do I have any special insight into the topic. Yes, details of strategies are kept secret even internally to reduce the risk of a leak. But there are a few obvious thing as a fellow gamer, and someone who has been following the industry can say. Probably the best way is to summarize my POV with a set of bullet points.

The Xbox360 is still significantly outselling the PS3 in most market. In fact, the PS3 sales appear to be much weaker than they would hope for and they therefore likely have an overstock problem right now.
In terms of video game console sales, mid-summer is probably the weakest time of they year. Announcing a price cut at this point is somewhat stupid, any buzz generated will have fizzled out way before the holiday sales peak season. So in other words, if a price cut generates a 20% sales boost for a few months, they are shooting themselfs in the foot by doing so in the slowest sales period of the year. Almost seems like a sign of desperation to me.
Ok, they announced the price cut before E3... Now what? Seems like that would be the "big announcement of the show". Unless they have something else under their sleeve.
Oh, and despite the price cut, the cost of a PS3 is still insane. Plus their selection of game is still poor almost one year after launch.

Now, will the Xbox360 cut their prices? Beats me... I do know that as with any piece of hardware, the costs of production have been reduced since the release so this obviously makes the possibility of a price cut a possibity. But I doubt any such announcement, if is to occur will happen at E3. It's just a poor strategic choice in terms of timing. My guess is that if such a decision is made, it would be announced later this year before the holiday season where the "bang for the buck" of such an announcement would make more sense.

Plus, if the 360 is leading the road in terms of sales, attach rate, .... Why is there such an "urgency" that Microsoft needs to respond?

Anyways. Just my 2 cents....

Hey, I got my Very Own General Attorney General Letter!

sebby1234 — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:19:00 GMT

Sheesh. Some people are idiots.

Some "wannabe" author who decided to go the self-publishing route via Xilbris had sent me a letter about one month ago accusing me of selling counterfit copies of his book on my website. Why? Well because the site listed that we had 100 copies in stock and of course, his current sales didn't correspond to that. I had not yet answered to the letter, as I considered this a low priority and was eventually going to get to it.

Now guess what, the idiotic author decided to file a complaint with the WA General Attorney. What really erks me with this is that the author obviously has no knowledge and understanding of the process involved with such do-it-yourself publishers and for print-on-demand books work. To me, the simple fact that the author would not educate himself properly and would rather hound and harass book sellers trying to sell his title makes me question the quality of the book in the first place.

Xilbris uses Print On Demand for the publishing of its titles. This means that there are no books that are pre-printed and are essentially printed as orders come in using a high-speed/quality/volume laser printing system. Xilbris, like most Prind On Demand (POD) publishers use Lightning Source Inc as the on demand printer. The main reason for choosing this provider is that it is owned by Ingram Books, one of the two major book distributors in the USA. Which means that since the distributor itself is printing the books, this means a quick turnaround when books are ordered.

One of the other pluses of Ingram, especially for a small online store like mine is that they offer drop-shipping services. This means that when an order is placed on my site, I simply route the order to Ingram who ships it directly to the customer. Although I do stock some titles, there is no way I can stock copies of every book out there (financially and space wise). The problem with POD books is that there isn't really a physical inventory of titles since they are printed as orders come in.

So this means that technically, the inventory level from the distributor would be zero. Lots of retailers don't differentiate between regular printed books and POD books so a stock level of zero would mean that the book would be considered as "backordered". But the reality is that with the current POD technology most orders can be processed and shipped in 24 hours. So to avoid this "backorder confusion" and promote the sale of POD titles, Ingram sets a token inventory level of 100 copies of all POD titles, which they feel corresponds to what they can realistically print and ship within a 1-2 day period.

Anyways, based on the sales figures the author showed to prove that I "must be counterfiting his book" there is no way it would make sense financially to create counterfit copy of self-published book with such small sales.

Why is Google Tageting me Like This?

sebby1234 — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 03:08:00 GMT

I upload feeds to "base.google.com" which essentially contains a list of all the books I have for sale on www.ParadoxalPress.com. Which is alot of books, probably about 500,000+ titles since most are drop-shipped from the distributor (hey, compressed the datafeed is about 180MB worth of data!). Lately, over the past few months the seem to have been targeting me for the smallest little things. Once they find something they don't like, well they shutdown your feeds (and therefore my sales drop significantly). The latest "excuse" is just beyond ridiculous:

Hello Sebastien,

Thank you for participating in Google Base. We've recently reviewed your items and noticed they contain errors. Because of these errors, we've temporarily removed your items from the search results. Please correct the following problems with your items:

Issues:

- Missing image links

-----------------
- Missing image links: We've noticed that some of the items in your bulk upload are missing image URLs, even though there is an image of the item available on your website. Please be sure your bulk upload contains an image URL for every item that has an image.

After you've corrected the errors, please upload a new version of your bulk upload with the same filename. We'll notify you if any additional corrections are needed.

Sincerely,

The Google Team

So in other words, you are shutting me down because one product somewhere in my feed (which of course they don't tell me which one) has an image on my website and the link to the picture was not included in the feed? Sure a warning or some notification would be nice, would allow me to fix bugs in my feed generation tool. But COME ON, now I have to fix the problem, upload a new feed and wait something like one week for them to approve the feed and renable my ads. This is getting really old. And is costing me lots of business and money!

Last time, they shut me off because of a book which had "porn" in in the title, which violated the Google Checkout terms. They had nothing against me selling the book, just that I could not offer their checkout service if someone wanted to purchase it. Fine, this creates an odd situation since the availibly of a checkout method now becomes dependant on the contents of the shopping cart. But what really earked me was that to test the theory, I went to Buy.com and see if I could add the same book to the cart and use Google Checkout. And guess what, if course I could!

I obviously let them know about it. They said they would investigate. And now, over one month later (I just tried today) nothing has changed on Buy.com. So to me it indicates that Google has a bias towards their bigger accounts which to me is unethical (and probably illegal). At this point, I am strongly considering pulling everything away from google (besides basic search engine inclusion). But sorry, no more AdWords money from me!!!

People Should Get a Pair of Glasses When They Open an eBay Account!

sebby1234 — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 01:58:00 GMT

Ok, little rant on my part here. As I have been selling more and more on eBay, one thing I have come to realize is that people can't read!

You try and make things as clear as possible in your listing description. "This is an used...", "This is a Pre-order and will ship on...", "This item is untested and sold as-is..."...

Yet, I get stupid email with people asking me "Is this used?"... Well you would know if you actually read the first line of the auction listing!

The worse is people that bid, then email me to cancel their bid because they did not bother reading the description and terms of the auction. Or people that get their item and complain "Hey, it's used, I thought it was new I want a refund" even though the listing clearly stated that it was used. Then of course, they use the threat of negative feedback in order to get their way...

Sheesh. Ok, just had to vent!

What Else Could I do to Pay the Mortgage?

sebby1234 — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 21:16:00 GMT

Hmm... More rambling thoughs, rants and sarcastic humor on my part....

1) Maybe I should charge a 1$ fine for every urban legend or "forward to 10 friends or you'll go to hell" emails I get from friends and relatives? I probably would be rich by now. Or at least they'd stop sending them to me...

2) Maybe I can pull a "Save Toby", get a bunny rabbit and threaten to eat it unless people send in donations...

3) Another option would be to sell pixels. Hey, http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/ supposedly raised 1 Million. Not sure that I totally buy this and I wonder which school this guy is going to that costs 1 Million in tuition??? Oh wait, like 1 million other sites tried to do the same thing... Bummer!

4) Maybe I should get one of those 5 digit cell phone thingies you see on TV. Keep seeing the ads, so I assume people are dumb enough to pay $20/month to get a joke a day.

5) That's it, I need to form my own religion! Maybe I wouldn't make money but I wouldn't have to pay taxes anymore!! I have to say I have a thing for Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

6) Then again, maybe I should start writing some rap/hip-hop music. What's better than to make millions while promoting poor values such as gangs, trating women as sex objects,... Plus i'd get to wear like 100 pounds of bling, a good way to exercise!

----

From Comment "You can sell your CNC machine!":

Hehe. I assume this was meant in a sarcastic way. Well my other projects do cost money. Some of the spending could definetly be better done. But on the other hand, some of it has to be done to give me some "different" things to focus on in order to keep my sanity. Maybe once i've completed my design, I can manufacture more for resale if anyone is interested. But in the short term (post comming on this), the project is on hold until I have enough funds to build the framing for the machine...

SCAM - Beware of Liquidation.Com Part 2...

sebby1234 — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:50:00 GMT

First of all, thanks to everyone who wrote. I already knew there was plenty of complaints about Liquidation.com out there (which I should have done my research before dealing with them). But I was surprized that a post on my blog would generate such an interest.

Well I myself ran into more problems with them after my initial post.

One auction I had bid for was for 5 video cards. And since the auction was listed as "new" then I though it might be a good deal. It was, well until they factored in the shipping charges. The item was warehoused in Canada, having shipped internationally, I knew roughly what it would cost to ship the cards (especially since the auction was listed as being for a 10lbs box) and did not bother asking for a shipping quote. The auction closed for a little over $400 which was good, knowing I could get about $130-$150 per card on eBay. But I was more than shocked when the invoice came in, it was for more than $850!!!

Well turns out they decided that about $450 was an apropriate amount to charge for shipment of a 10lbs box from Canada to the USA (when it could have been done for somewhere around $50-70 with UPS/FedEx/DHL). Reading the fine print. Turns out that any order from Canada is charged a minimum of $100 for shipping (and then a per pound extra). In addition, they charge a $150 documentation fee for custom forms (which is beyond ridiculous for anything less than a palette or truckload). Even so, the math would only add up to about $270 for shipping and they would not provide me an explanation as to there the additional cost was comming from. So obviously, I refused to pay....

As a consequence, they locked out my account for non payment. As of course, the fine print says, they charge $200 for non-payment of an auction. The main problem is that be locking out my account, I could not submit feedback for some of the other items that had just arrived (and you only have 3 days to file a claim for a mis-represented item). In other words, the account lockout almost seemed like extortion to me when they could have easily just precventing me from making new purchases but still let me manage the rest of my account.

In other words, I have to cave to the $200 as one of the items was clearly mis-represented and wanted to file a claim (although I realized it probably would not do any good). Well then they decided to play me around in circles for a whole week. Waiting 2 days to tell me I needed to submit a charge authorization form. Then 2 days later, I had to call to learn that something was not filled right on the form. Then another 2 days to learn they had not recieved the fax and then finally they said they got it but it takes their accounting dept 2-3 days to process.

So in other words, they kept the clock ticking for the other auctions I had bid on and kept me hanging for over a week so any chance of filing a claim on any of the goods was pretty much gone.

What Body Part can I Sell to Pay the Mortgage?

sebby1234 — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 21:04:00 GMT

Rough month this is... My wife's uncle passed away last weekend so we had to book an emergency flight to CA for her (I stayed here as I am vacationless and the uncle isn't a direct relative). But with the travel related expenses, we're not short on money. One lesson to learn from this, is to always have enough in the bank to at least cover 1-2 months in case of emergencies, and of course try not to be financially overcommited like I am.

Now, what shal I do.... Hmmm.. Wonder how many pints of plasma I would need to give to cover the mortgage? What's the going rate for a kidney these days???

Or sorry, sarcastic bipolar humor I guess :)

Halo Vista Delayed due to Nudity... You'd think engineers would have learned by now!

sebby1234 — Wed, 30 May 2007 09:55:00 GMT

Microsoft reps have told Next-Gen the real reason for the Halo 2 Vista delay: partial nudity--specifically someone's backside in the game's map editor, the Entertainment Software Rating Board added today.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5757&Itemid=2

Jeez, not the first time something similar backfires. In this Political Correct / Security Hole world, you would think engineers would have learned about such content and hidden easter eggs...

Never Thought I Would be Scoobalized...

sebby1234 — Thu, 24 May 2007 07:25:00 GMT

Guess my Google "double standard" post drew some attention in Scooble's FOG (Fear of Google) post for today.

http://scobleizer.com/2007/05/23/dog-distrustdisdain-of-google-moves-in/

Do get me wrong, I way prefer some of Google's products in some cases and even as a MSFT employee, i'll admit that I use their search engine most of the time and Gmail for my personal mail. But Is it just me or they are essentially trying to "do everything all at once". Sure Microsoft does also has its paws in lots of sectors, but that happenede over the course of over 20 years. Seems like they have been going balistic since they went public. Plus all the "personal info" they are gathering through all of their products is actually getting a little scary.

I think they are trying to dip into everything in an attempt to create "percieved growth" to maintain their highly inflated stock prices. Just my thought...