Category Archives: General Computer Stuff

PayPal is Changing

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PayPal is changing their policy. Will that affect those of us that use PayPal with Second Life in the USA? No one is sure.

Lost Girl

Lost Girl

The email that PayPal is sending out reads:

Dear Nal:

We are making some changes to the PayPal User Agreement, PayPal Privacy Policy, PayPal Here Agreement and the PayPal Website Payments Pro and Virtual Terminal Agreement that will go into effect on March 29, 2017. If you’re interested in more detail, please visit our Policy Updates Page. Updates include:

  • We’re updating the list of items that will not be eligible for PayPal Purchase Protection or Seller Protection.
  • We’re revising the set off rights by removing the 180 day past due requirement.
  • We’re updating our list of restricted activities.
  • We’re notifying you of the movement and processing of information to cloud-based service providers.
  • We’ve updated the “Payment Method Used for My Transaction” section to describe changes that give you more control and choice in how you want to pay.
  • We’re changing some of the fees we charge.

These changes, along with the others detailed on our Policy Updates Page , will become effective March 29, 2017 for all U.S. users. We encourage you to review the Policy Update and familiarize yourself with the changes that are being made. If you do not agree to these amendments, you may close your account before March 29, 2017.

Thank you for being a PayPal customer.

Sincerely,
PayPal

Continue reading →

Which platform are VR people using?

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Massively Overpowered has an article about information a company named Superdata provided on the gaming market and VR: Virtual Reality Helps Push Mobile Gaming To New Heights.

Winter Circus

Winter Circus

I find it interesting that mobile VR games netted as much money as the movie industry netted from box offices. Mobile VR accounted for half the global market in digital games. I think that is rather impressive and shifts my thinking on where gaming and VR are going.

I suppose it is not that surprising. I plan to buy my next phone based on its VR abilities. I have to have a phone. My existing telecom contracts have expired. I can change carriers, renew or not a contract… I’m sort of a telecom free agent. But, buying a dedicated VR headset, like an Oculus, would be a total splurge and unlikely. An upgrade for the desktop I built in 2016 is more likely. i5 to i7 or 1060 to 1080 or even a 2080 (NVIDIA will likely have the 20 series out in early 2017).

With information coming out about how VR is going mobile way more than I ever expected, I am almost certain to consider Samsung’s coming (end of March, may be April) S8 for my VR. Especially since it is Samsung that is out selling other VR mobile makers. (4.5 million out of 6.4 million sold in 2016 – 69.2% market share.)

Gaming in 2016 – Predicting 2017?

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According to SuperData Research  people spent US$91,000,000,000 on games. Billion… This is an all-time record. But, they are hyping things a bit. In 2015 Statistica shows $91.5 billion spent and $99.6 billion in 2016. I suppose it depends on where one gets their numbers and categorizes them. Game revenue is notoriously flaky as companies like to hype their increasing sales and keep decreases secret.

Still that is about a 10% increase year-to-year. Eight billion isn’t chump change, unless your spending $10 trillion on credit, like some governments…

Data From Statistica

They break the revenue down into subcategories. Handheld games are dying. Smartphone games are the hot item. They show the largest growth from 2015 to 2016 and that is expected to continue, which seems reasonable as smartphones are selling well.

In 2005 smartphones sales were just $3.8 billion. Eleven years later in 2016 sales of smart phones was $55 billion, a 1,447% increase. So, as more people get smartphones there are more possible users of smartphone games. According to Statistica a little less than half of the 2016 game revenue was from smartphone gaming. Continue reading →

Social Media: A New Scam – Sextortion

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Today I find a new scam is popping up on the Internet. Basically blackmail, a really old crime. The media is giving it a new name to describe a specific kind of crime: sextortion.

Potrait 3

Potrait 3

Sextortion is the scam of getting someone into an online sex thing where it can be videoed or pictures taken. This is apparently most prevalent on Facebook. The threat is they will show your kink to your family, friends, and/or business associates.  Continue reading →

Second Life: HD Graphics Win 10 Problems

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haw to install graphics card

how to install graphics card

The Intel HD Graphics 2000 and 4000 series chips have a driver problem. This has been a thorn in my side the last 3 months as clients want it fixed and Intel has yet to resolve the problem, AFAIK (Nov 2016). It is known to be in their driver… or what Microsoft has Windows 10 do with it.

I keep hoping for a fix and update. If not soon, I probably will put cheap video cards in the desktop machines and tell the laptop users they are pretty much screwed until Intel or Microsoft fixes it.

The problems on the MAC/Apple side are bad enough the Lab has been holding up release of a 32-bit version of the MAC viewer.

The latest information I have seen is here (Nov 2016):

I’ve been trough every fix I can find for machines using HD 4000 series video chips. Some machines continue to have problems. Restarts help.

Adobe tempzxpsign…… Temporary Files

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You may not have noticed your drive filling up with empty folders. They are out of the way in AppData. Adobe products are creating folders as a place to save temporary files, which get deleted. The programs just forget to delete the folders. It is a bug and it has been around for a few months.

See: tempzxpsign…… temporary files filling up TEMP drive

The more you use Adobe the more folders you have.

The basic story is once all the Adobe programs have been closed you can delete all the folders. You’ll find them in: C:\Users\[Windows_Login_ID]\AppData\Local\