=Tech Challenged Racists=
Something that you guys might now know about
me is that I work for an international computer manufacturer, well not directly in an owned facility ... but as part
of an offshore call center company. I'm a Tech Support Agent. I have already spoken to thousands of ... well let's just
say non 3rd country folks ... and I can safely say that 1 out of 50 are impatient and rude ... and 1 out of maybe a 100 are
racists. Now that is a pretty good ratio IMO. But I just today finished reading through numerous blogs wherein dozens of folks
keeps on posting things against 3rd world countries ... like where I am currently in (Philippines).
There are folks who say things like we are un-educated, we are stupid because we
don't have "real" jobs, along with other stuff ... well just to set things clear. Most call center agents here in our country
are College Graduates. I'm a Computer Engineering graduate. And I sometimes end up with a debate with a rude customer telling
me to shut up and listen to him because he's an IT graduate and he knows what he's talking about. When I ask him a simple
thing like "have you checked inside device manager" ... he answers me with "ok where is that at?". Or maybe a customer that
immediately ask for a supervisor when you tell him that you cannot replace his computer because his warranty has
been expired for 3 years now! I just can't figure out what is the deal with those kind of people!
There are other comments that I read saying that we're so low that we're willing
to take a low paying "non 3rd world country" job. Let me just set things straight. The main reason we are forced
to take this "low paying" job ... is because we do not have a choice. That is why we're living in a country rated as "3rd
world" in the first place. That doesn't automatically mean we're stupid though. We at least have the knowledge to build our
own computers from scratch .. not because we do not have the money to purchase an overly expensive branded computers .. but
because we don't see the need for purchasing one when we can build a more powerful one at half the price. We do not need the
help of technicians to help us find out how to restart a computer when it locks up. It's like purchasing a car with lifetime
driving instructor.
I have been building my own sytem for a very very long time now ... I never
bragged about knowledge (hell I even share it here) ... 'till maybe now. But it just pains me to see other people
looking down on us just because they were lucky enough to be born in a rich country. That doesn't automatically make you a
genius ... neither gives you the right to think you're better than others.
=Expansion / Add-on packs Dependent
Games=
How many times have u bought a game and ended
up telling urself "I hope the sequel will have "this" and "that"? Then only after a couple of weeks the developer has already
announced an add-on pack that will contain the features that u and tons of other gamers wanted. That is good news ... right?
Well that is if the game was released w/o the intention of handicapping its features so that they will be able to sell the
expansion packs like cold soda on a desert!
More and more games are following this strategy. They even have the
guts to sometimes release a "wannabe" game who's concept was taken from a popular title and have less features than the original
title! When gamers bombard their message boards with questions regarding the lack of features, they're gonna reply with "the
upcoming expansion pack will feature "these" things ... so watch for it!" WTH?!
=Sloppy Uninstall Procedures on Games
/ Software=
I am aware that games/software's uninstall procedure intentionally
leave the installation folder on ur HD when a file within the said directory wasn't part of the original installation. But
some programmers (often times software programmers) are just too darn lame that it will leave multiple folders on ur HD eating
up huge amount of HD space w/o even informing u that u have to manually remove them!
Now that is not the only problem, there are also some other variations
with this "uninstall" related issue. Some will install multiple plug-ins or programs w/o ur knowledge, others will fill up
ur add/remove window with the same program only with different versions, most progs also leave their marks on the registry,
while some programs didn't even bother writing an uninstall program code. sigh!
=Creative Soundcard Driver Support=
I have been a loyal Creative soundcard user since the
days of the ISA's. I have owned multiple Creative soundcard products already (SB AWE64, SB Vibra, SB Audigy ... almost bought
a Live! card as well but I didn't scratch the itch and saved for an Audigy instead) and I must say that if we're going to
talk about the quality alone then Creative is no doubt one of the best. But currently, me and most other Creative soundcard
owners is starting to get tired of Creative's lack of driver support. It's not that they do not release newer drivers, 'coz
they do ... they do release newer drivers on their "newer" products, while their older products ... especially those older
products under an older OS may be forced to either buy a newer soundcard or OS juz to get better driver support.
Let me give u guys an example, I am an SB Audigy owner. As most of u already
know, I used to run games under Win98/se. Do u guys know that the latest driver for my soundcard under Win98/se is dated 2002?
Well they did release a note for Audigy owners using Win98/se and said that they were trying to create newer drivers for Win98/se
but they are having a hard time and they recommend using newer OS's version instead. If that's the case, then why the hell
Audigy 2 soundcards still have Win98/se support? I have emailed them twice asking them the same question but the best they
can tell me is "sorry, we are not aware of any newer Win98 drivers getting released soon". WTF? It's no wonder why folks are
coming up with ways of hacking their drivers, its a desperation move from those folks who buy their products ... its sickening!
=Games with Bad Coding=
If u've been playing PC games, then chances are u have already lost a couple
of hairs while pulling them figuring out how come a game that doesn't look or sound good run so bad on ur mid/high-end
machine.
I've been playing PC games since high school, and year after year ... more
and more games that gets released on the market with un-optimized engine. I really can't point my finger on what's causing
this prob, but the only suspect that I have is these new hardware that gets released every few months. I think the faster
newer/better hardware gets released, the more lazy programmers will be. I mean, why would they bother optimizing their engine
when PC gamers can go out and shell out thousands of dollars for a faster hardware right? So we're basically spending money
to buy their products (games) and spend another on upgrading our system ... how lame is that?
I used to upgrade my system with top of the line products just to play games
in their full glory. Back in HS I was the only person that I know who owns a Creative SB soundcard, my friends only have those
"compatible" ones. When TNT got released, I bought the fastest version (Ultra). When GeForce got released, I also upgraded
my card to GF2 MX (while most peeps 'here' are still using TNT2 M64 cards w/c is a lot slower when compared to my older TNT2
Ultra card / MX cards didn't suck as bad before compared today as well). I have upgraded almost non-stop ... piece-by-piece,
but that was back then when games perform well even with low-end machines (so high-end machines will really get the kick out
of all games). But today, seeing folks with 9800Pro, 2.8ghz processor, and 512mb RAM not being able to play newer games smoothly
at 1024x768 is juz terrible, and is definitely making me think twice if buying a top of the line hardware is going to
be worth my money.
=EA Games=
Most (if not every single) EA game follows the "add
this, scrap that" rule of thumb. EA does nothing with their newer releases but add new features (that is sometimes already
been featured on their previous releases) and remove some features that were already added before. Don't believe me?
Take NBA and NHL games as an example, their previous installment features a "put ur face in the game" feature, does the latest
version still have that feature? No! NHL's glass breakage was (correct me if I'm wrong) added since the 9x version, it
was removed on the 200x version and now returned on the latest 2004 version. How about the NFS series, there used to
be car damage effects and replay feature on the past versions, are they still featured on the newer versions? No!
I can go on and on whining about EA's s2pid marketing
strategy but us PC gamers do not have much of a choice when picking up sports titles 'coz there are very few to choose from.
I've been playing EA games for a very long time now and their irritating add/remove features gimmick hasn't changed and is
still making most people believe that they are actually aiming for perfection when all they're doing is trying to make us
believe that they are actually adding new features when they're obviously not.
How about their AI? If u played more than one of their games then u probably
have experienced their "catch-up" programmed AI (or cheating AI to be exact). That prob is obvious especially with their
sport titles, but even racing games like NFS have the same prob. I can't figure out why they do that, they probably can't
figure out a way of making their AI smarter lol!
=Intel / AMD Fanboys=
Although I am aware that both sides are lame, I have
seen a section on a respectable tweaking website where the webmaster obviously didn't know what he's talking about (don't
ask me what site or who the guy is 'coz u'll get nothing from me). He mentioned that although AMD processors are good, nothing
beats Intel's stability, heat dissipation, and performance. As much as I hate to sound like a fanboy myself, I can't help
but laugh at the webmaster's assumptions b'coz he specifically said that he doesn't own an AMD processor. How can u spread
words like Intel is much more stable, AMD processors heats up pretty bad (he obviously haven't checked out newer Intel processors
lol!), and AMD's so called bad performance (oh is he lost or what?) if he haven't tried it himself?
Is it just me or should a tweaking site webmaster should
be smarter than that when giving opinions? How can the folks who visit his website trust him when he's giving out opinions
based only on assumptions? How can u say that "this" or "that" is a piece of crap when its only "hear, say"? Maybe u'll say
that his site isn't updated? Well the main article was pretty outdated, but he did update his article mentioning that AMD's
AXP 3000+ is still slower when compared to P4's 3.06ghz and below processors. Although that is based on facts, whatever happened
to AMD's better performing processors like 2000+ that is according to Anandtech as fast as P4's 2.2ghz? How about the rest
of the AXP's that outperforms their Intel counterpart? The A64? How 'bout Intel Prescott's heat dissipation issue? Or Intel's
2.4ghz (and higher) processors temp being higher that their Barton or even Palomino counterparts? And how about
stability? ... If ur game, progs, OS crashes, is it right to blame the processor? C'mon! Did he miss all of those
while he was busy waiting for another bad AMD processor review? Or did he intetionally disregarded all of those b'coz that
fact of the matter is he's juz an Intel fanboy? He above most people should have known better, but that article of his proved
me wrong. I'm sorry, but IMO, he made a complete ass of himself writing that article. Same can be said with those folks
who do the same with their brainless and closed-headed Intel or AMD comments.
