Dave’s blog. Usually updated weekly.
So I got an iPhone on monday and I have to say it’s a lot of fun. I’m still getting used to the keyboard, but the thing is pretty smart about typos.
Now I need to find a skin for it and an invisible shield for the front — these finger print smudges aren’t that pretty.
When I built my gaming machine I bought the AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition (2.5GHz) which has an unlocked multiplier. That means it’s easy to overclock. I also bought a Gigabyte MA-790GP-DS4H which is very good at overlocking. I naively thought I could just set the multiplier to 15x and turn my 2.5GHz processor into a 3.0GHz processor.
Turns out doing that makes the machine unstable when you push the CPU to its limit. You get BSOD’s or applications crash or whatever. I eventually figured out that taking the CPU back to it’s default clock settings made life much much more stable. Once I did the overclock properly (increase multiplier and voltage) things worked better, but were much, much hotter.
Fast forward to today. My new Xigmatek HDT S1284 arrived and I was ready to strap it on. This new heatsink/fan combo is very highly rated, and quiet. It’s also very tall. You can see the difference in the pictures below.
The new cooler is a beast, but the results are impressive.
Stock system: 2.5GHz; 50°C idle → 71°C fully busy (Prime95)
OC’d system: 3.0GHz; 39°C idle → 54°C fully busy (Prime95)
The new system is 20% faster and 22-24% cooler. That’s a win in my book!
UPDATE: Real world testing (encoding 5th Element from Blu-Ray to mkv) is 15% faster! (4h 29m 54s versus 3h 49m 24s)
A few weeks (months?) ago, EA released the Spore Creature Creator demo for the Mac and the PC. Life was grand as people created funny little creatures left and right.
I joined in the fun and downloaded the Mac version.
Since there were spots for more creature parts, I went shopping on EA’s website and found that if I pre-registered for Spore, I could download the full creature creator right-then. Sweet! I pre-registered, gave them credit card info, and got all set to download only to find that they don’t have downloads for the Mac.
“Weak,” I thought, “I’ll just download the full version later.” With that all thoughts of Spore left my head.
On August 28th, I received two email from EA that I hadn’t expected!
Thank you for your recent pre-order purchase of Spore from EA Store.
As you are probably aware, Spore is due to be released on September 7th. However, we’ve just made it easier for you to get in the game faster by making Spore available to pre-load from the 28th August!
Followed by another one:
Thank you for ordering on EA Store (US). The product that you pre-ordered is now available for either preload or release. The EA Download Manager indicates the release date and time of your purchase. The preload is a convenience to get you into the game faster when the release date arrives.
Order ID: xxxxxxxxxx
Product ID: xxxxxxxx
Product Name: Spore™>
“Yay!” I thought, “Spore will soon be mine!”
But that was not to be the case. I searched the EA site high and low, but couldn’t figure out where I could download Spore. Giving up, I decided to ask the Customer Service people for some help. This was my first mistake. Their contact form simply doesn’t work. I couldn’t get the combination of “Macintosh”, “Spore”, and “Install” to work because their JavaScript menus kept eliminating options when I would change one of those fields. Eventually I settled for saying it was “Battlefield 2142″ I needed help with, and letting the text of my message do the talking.
My message wasn’t the kindest so I’ll get to the meat of it:
How the heck do I download Spore for the Mac? The email I got today about pre-downloading isn’t very clear. This is very frustrating.
Two days later (August 30th) I got a reply from “EARep Seanna” (Sonika Singh):
Thank you for contacting us.
For more information on the SPORE Creature Creator full download for the Mac, please keep updated on the Game Tree Online website.
http://www.gametreeonline.com/ea/sporeIf you have any questions about this material or have any additional questions about your issue, please let us know.
Thinking I’d finally be free, I went to the link and started browsing around. Finding the links for Spore I tried to login using my EA account information.
No dice.
I tried different information from my account.
No dice.
Defeated I updated my request with EA:
That doesn’t really help; my EA login info doesn’t work at gametree.com. That makes it seem like I’d have to buy/pre-register for the game *twice*. I don’t want to pay for this game twice. Please refund or cancel my pre-order; whichever makes more sense. I’ll just pick up a DVD when the game comes out, this is too much of a hassle.
Today (September 3rd) I got a reply from “EARep Anna”:
Greetings,
Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.
If you have the trial version of the SPORE Creature Creator, and you have purchased the full version of the Creature Creator, you must uninstall the trial version. To do this:
1. Click on the Start button.
2. Click Programs, or All Programs.[More Windows instructions that don't apply to a Mac in any way shape or form.]
Now I’ll be honest, the first thought that entered my head was “Are you high?” My second thought was “Clearly, they’ve become very confused” and so I replied:
What are you talking about? I don’t have a Start button, this is a Mac!
I downloaded the spore creature creator trial, then tried to buy the full version for the Mac.
Apparently that was too complicated for EA since nobody’s been able to tell me how to download the full version.
SO. Please cancel my preregistration and reverse any charges that have been made. I have not been able to download anything.
I think I’m truly stuck now. I have no way of reaching anybody at EA over the phone and they have my credit card information. Obviously their customer support leaves something to be desired. If I had the option, I’d take a gun to the EA office. Unfortunately they’re all the way up in San Jose.
