Steam Summer Sale Almost Over

If you haven't been on Steam in the past week, then you may have missed that fact that the yearly summer sale is going on right now. Everyday from July 30th to June 10th yields new daily sales at 1 PM EST. These daily sales are huge sales of some of the hottest titles. Games like Mass Effect, Fallout, and Magicka, all on sale now. The best strategy is to wait for your game to go on sale during a daily deal. Even though the game may be discounted because the sale, a heavy discount could happen if it is on the list of daily deals. If the game you want does not hit the daily deals rack, buy it on the last day while it is still discounted. This is always a good rule of thumb so you don't lose money on your purchase. Here is an example: Magicka was discounted to $6.69 because of the sale, but it made it to the daily deals section and was discounted to $3.39. That is when I bought it. Next day, price went back up to $6.69. You can find all the steam deal by heading over to www.steampowered.com

~Dave

Synchronous and Asynchronous

So yesterday I was browsing through some SSDs on the market, and I came across the new Force GT by Corsair. I then had the urge to read up on their website what made this drive different then the other drives out. The Force GT has a Synchronous NAND chip, unlike drives like the Agility 3 or Solid 3 which have Asynchronous NAND chips. What the heck did that mean? Well Synchronous NAND is a very organized way of sending information. Imagine information is lined up in a long line, Synchronous NAND tells the information to go one at a time, but at a very fast and organized pace. Now imagine you have that same line, but with an Asynchronous NAND. It would just tell the entire line to go at once. You still get fast speeds on both drives, but one drive will be more efficient in the way it transfers data. This not only aids in having a better life span, but also allows you to have to worry a little less about wearing out the parts in your SSD. As your probably know by now, SSDs have a death rate of about a year and a half to two years depending on how much information you read and write to it. This is one of those small things you should research about your drive before buying it, who knows, it may save you a little money and data.

~Dave

Another great experience

When it comes to customer service, it is hard to be motivated to call them up. Most of the time they can be little or no help. However, when I called OCZ's customer service, I had a very helpful man. The man knew what he was talking about and was glad to assist me. The reason I had placed the call was because the 60 GB Agility 3 I had bought did not come with a 2.5" mounting bracket like it was suppose to. Even though I had an extra, I wanted to notify the company of this bad quality of packaging. Someone is suppose to make sure that all the parts are with the drive before it ships, and since mine did not come with all the parts I will be filing a small complaint as well as requesting a replacement for that part. Unfortunately I couldn't do that over the phone, so today I will be filling out a suppose ticket. The ticket will allow me to get a replacement part. 

Next on my agenda was asking the customer service rep about the issues I had been reading about regarding SSDs. Recently, there have been many reports on OCZs forum of issues regarding their Agiltiy 3 and Vertex 3 drives. Most people say it is firmware related, but you can never be sure. The issues would include Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), lock ups, and freezes of the Window OS. I asked the rep if this problem was really as rampant as it was made out to be. He responded by assuring me that this problem is very minuscule, and most likely is a result of a driver issue for some people. If this is really the case, then I should have no problem when looking at a purchasing a 120 GB drive for my Windows OS. This is what good customer service is all about.

~Dave

Google's Facebook

Google announced last week they would making a social networking site. The site would be known as Google+, and would allow people to connect with each other, much like Facebook does. I have been using Google+ for a week now, and I think it is much better then Facebook in that it is more fluid. In addition, Google+ is much more intuitive to use then Facebook. Things are easy to understand and figure out. One neat feature that Google+ has is something called "circles". Circles is a visual way to organize all your friends and family. You know who is who in your head, but now you can visualize it on the site. Google+ is also neat in that it allows you to chat with people on your Google Talk list, so there is no need to setup another instant messenger. Thoughts can be shared everyone, as well as with certain people. Google+ went public a day or two ago, so you can sign up now and check it out.

~Dave

One SSD Down, One to Go

As I mentioned earlier this week, I picked up an Agility 3 for my hackintosh to run Lion on. However, I still need a SSD for Windows to run on. The downside to this is that I want Windows to run on a 120 GB drive, not a 60GB drive. Windows is much larger then Lion and will expand in size as it updates. So you may think "No problem right? Just go buy a drive". My issue is that many of the new drives are reporting problems with Windows, many of which are blue screen of death issues. Corsair, for example, had a recall just weeks ago because their drives were faulty. OCZ on the other hand is just putting out firmware updates, but insists there is nothing wrong with the drives. The issue for me is this: There is a sale this week putting the 120 GB drives below $200. This is the price that I am willing to pay, however it is risky to buy if there are issues. Many people insist that if you have issues, use your three year warranty and trade in the drive. Again, I have no issue with this, it is just that doing that requires me to uninstall the drive, wait for the new one, and then ship the old one out. However, think of this scenario: I have to ship out three or four SSDs because they are not working, that will mean days of no Windows drive. That would seriously hurt my gaming ability. Out of all the drives that are currently on sale, I am considering the OCZ Solid 3 as it seems to have the least problems.

~Dave