Update to traveling between New York and DC....

What was supposed to be a 40 minute or so flight from New York to DC took fscking 3 hours due to being stuck at the airport at JFK...then combined with an hour long taxi back to my house in DC made for a very long trip....


Jet Blue? I don't like you :-(

Gaming on the cheap....

My Summer So far...

So you might have noticed that this blog died for a bit...I wound up moving to a new project in DC and work has been constant 45 hours plus maintaining an internal website for my company...


...plus a buttload of games.


While I'm no longer required to be on the ramen diet after college, I still need to save money. One of my biggest expenses have been video games (still). I've already invested roughly $300 alone on Rock Band songs (not that I regret it or anything). Still, I have a way to cut corners.

I tried to see if I could avoid paying full price for games this generation. Back in the day, most games averaged in the 40-50 range. Nowadays, with tax, you're looking to spend $60+ on a single game. Quite painful. In addition, let's face it: most of us play games once and we stop. You can't tell me you still play your old games on a regular basis. For every classic game like Katamari Damacy you have Dynasty Warriors 3 (or 4, or 5, etc). You could keep the games, but at $60 bucks a pop, that's one freakin' expensive (and at times shameful) collection you got there. So what are the options available?

Stealing?
No. The return value for selling them is quite high tho if used in conjunction with things like craigslist....not that I'm cool with this or anything...

Buying/Selling on craigslist?
Works but the selection is limited aka, whatever someone bought and got tired with. Even then, while you might get some good deals here and there, people tend to only drop like five bucks off the price. Also, while you might easily find a copy of GTA IV online, it's much harder to find someone to buy your copy of Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie: The Game.

Buying new/used from gamestop?
I'll pass, unless there’s some crazy deal. Even then, you have to remember: somehow they’re making money off this deal, or they wouldn’t hold it in the first place.

Well where else can I supplement my addiction?
One word. Goozex.

Don't let the weird picture/name fool you. Goozex is a very sophisticated online trading site for video games. I've exchanged nearly 40 games on the site and recieved just as many back. Basically, how it works is that games are rated on a scale of 100-1200 to correspond to the demand of the game. New games are usually around 1000 pts, while old games are 100 pts. Users can trade games for points and use those points to trade for other games. Because the points are transferred, they retain the value of the game you traded. You only pay $1 to execute a trade (altho they regularly have specials where you can buy 20 for 10, etc).

So say you bought and beat Resident Evil 5 in a month (like I did). You can trade the game in for 1000 points and let those points sit for a few months. Then when Prototype comes out (which it did), it costs 1000 points and you can use your points to trade for it. Ta-Da!

This can’t be perfect. So what’s the downside?
It's not all roses though. Since it runs via a queue system and supply and demand, in order for you to exchange a game for the necessary points, someone has to accept your offer to get your game for said points. If no one wants your copy of Spongebob Squarepants: The Movie: The Game for 200 points, you won't get those 200 points to spend on another game until someone actually wants it. Also, as with supply and demand, new games that come out generally take a few weeks before the demand levels out. If 100 people are in front of you, it could take a while. It does help you though, as while you wait in line for the game, you can ask yourself: Do I really want this game? Also, the longer you wait most games come down in price. As with anything that deprecates in value rapidly, Patience is the key.

What about scams/ripofs?
All trades on Goozex.com are 100% guaranteed. If a game gets lost in the mail or mysteriously disappears during shipping, Goozex will refund you the points and trade tokens you have spent, and put your request back in queue. In addition, Goozex transfers the points to the seller only after positive feedback is received from the buyer, providing additional protection for your trades. There is also a dispute system let's you work out a resolution with the buyer or escalate the issue to Goozex for review.

So what have I been doing with all of this on Goozex?

What I traded out:
Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection
Grand Theft Auto IV
Resident Evil 5
Assassin's Creed
Dead Space
Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project
Skate
Gran Turismo 5 Prologue
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Heavenly Sword
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm
LittleBigPlanet (3 copies, don’t ask)
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Resistance: Fall of Man
Call of Duty: World at War
Grand Theft Auto IV
Super Mario Galaxy
WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Monster Truck Madness 2
Emperor: Battle for Dune
Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh
Final Liberation
Rock Band (PS3)
Madden NFL 09

And what did I get?
Buzz! Quiz TV
Grid
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection
Blade Runner
Kohan II: Kings of War
Rama
(The) Red Star
Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns
TЯAPT
Odium
SingStar (game & microphone)
Final Fantasy VII
Warlords III: Darklords Rising
Silent Steel
1701 A.D.
Crackdown
Terra Nova
(The) Eye of Judgment
LEGO Batman: The Videogame
Robin Hood: Defender of the Crown
(The) House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return
Evil Genius
Space Bucks
We ♥ Katamari
Katamari Damacy
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
Heavenly Sword
Gekido
Front Mission 4
(The) Warriors
Gladius
Fighting Force

Yeah, that’s a long list. And I’ve played most of them (sadly). If I bought these separately, it would have cost me $800+. My total investment for this? Roughly half of that, and I still have roughly $300 worth of points to spare. Right now I’m waiting for my copy of Mercenaries 2, Ghostbusters, Prototype, and Red Faction: Guerilla to arrive.

But what about the cost to ship the games?
Hang on a second. The total cost to send a DVD sized case first class with delivery confirmation is roughly $2.50. It costs me $1.35 to take the Metro one way to the nearest Gamestop (or somewhere to pick up a game on craigslist), plus sales tax if I get it at a Gamestop. Also, if I order a game, it appears at my doorstep so I don’t need to go and get it. Opportunity cost!

So yeah. For those of you keeping track of this blog, this is why I’m so slow to post. And for those of you wondering where my girlfriend fits in, she just got a ps3. And we’re going to the Bahamas :-P


My next article is going to be updating a lot of the older items I’ve been shopping for. Prices for 42+ inch TVs have been dropping, and hard drives, which is not surprising. I’ll break down those prices down later. And you can bet I’ll chat more about goozex later. But now, I gotta go play Sacred 2 :-P

Stay smart and stay cheap.

So I might have been out longer than I expected...

Job location change, vacation, graduation...these things have all happened recently, in addition to playing a heap of video games...I'll post a new update soon, trust me.

new post will be up tonight

I spent the weekend playing RE5 with my gf. I'll explain more later but the post will be cheap gaming. Give it a read tomorrow while you wait for 5 o'clock to happen.

Stay cheap.

Requested: External Hard Drives for Dummies

Sorry for my delay in posting. My work has been picking up, and I've basically have been sorta running the show on my project...regardless, I'm back and I'm going through some requests that I've missed...Jean I'm looking at you.

(If anyone is ever looking for some great advice on places to go in NYC that aren't touristy but trendy, check out my friend Jean's blog.)

Alright, here we go.

Hard Drives: The Never-Ending Battle of Storage Space

As with a lot of things on computers, there is a constant need for more. More memory so our programs can load faster, more screen size and resolution to see more stuff on our desktop, more graphics power for our games, more processing power for all the stuff we do on our computers....including games, and more hard drive space to store all of our photos, documents, video, music...and games...

Ugh, I'm such an old man I remember when hard drives were listed in megabytes, and not gigs. The value of hard drives were measured in terms of $$$ per gig. I remember when it was above a dollar a gig. Nowadays, internal SATA hard drives go for less than 10 cents a gig. External hard drives are hovering at just over a dime. Prices continue to drop. Had I made a recommendation before Christmas (like Jean asked me) it would actually be more expensive than it is now by a little bit. In addition, a few months from now, prices will change, and probably for the cheaper. As companies figure out how to cram more space into a hard drive and parts and manufacturing becomes cheaper the price will continue to go down, benefitting the consumer.

So What Should I Look For?
Since prices are constantly in fluctuation, there are some basic things to look for in a hard drive.

External vs. Internal vs. Make your own external
Back in the day, the cost between an Internal Hard Drive and an External Hard Drive were fairly significant. My 120 gb external cost me $150 bucks, while a 120gb internal hovered at around 120. Nowadays the cost between them aren't as bad. This is very helpful for those of you who: A. Don't know how to swap your hard drives in your computer, or B. Have a laptop or want to keep the drive somewhere away from your machine.

In addition, you can purchase enclosures and internal hard drives and combine them together. You can get them in desktop hard drive or laptop drive sizes (3.5 inch vs. 2.5 inch) I know people that keep literal stacks of hard drives, have an enclosure that they plug the hard drive into whenever they need it and store the drive away until they need it again. Probably too geeky for most of you.

Hard Drive Brand
Throughout my geekhood, I have run across die hard fans of certain brands of hard drives. (The fact that there are hard drive fan boys and the fact that they are friends of mine is a scary thought but I digress) Much like my tv recommendation, brands don't matter as much as specific models. In general, I would stick to major names like Maxtor, Western Digital, Hitachi, Samsung, and Seagate. Even then, do check the internet over the model you want to buy. Issues crop up here and there for certain models, like Seagate's Barracuda or Western Digital's 500gb MyBook. Or if we want to keep on this train there's also issues with Maxtor's MaxLine Pro 500 gb. They also don't call Hitachi's Deskstar drives failstars for no reason either. You could try other companies like Fantom too. The bottom line is: Do your research. If there are known issues, they will be obvious online when you type in your model number. If random people bitch about it here and there they might just have isolated issues. But if you see the words well known or widely reported, buyer beware.

Cost

At this point and time, I think the sweet spot for external hard drives is roughly 1Tb for less than $100 bucks. You can pay a little extra for more features, but if you just want simple drive that turns on and off and lets you put stuff on it, anything around $100 is a good deal.

Backing up your system

Some people like to have little things like backup systems built into the external hard drive that automatically back up your stuff. While some work ok like Maxtor's OneTouch for the most part I honestly don't recommend those as they usually require installing some special app that takes up resources or require the use of that app to restore the system. Me personally, I drag and drop all my important files in My Documents (pictures, paperwork, music, video) and Program Files (saved games, configuration files, etc).

While there are tons of different apps for pc, my friend requested help for Mac, which makes the choice easier: most external hard drives don't come with apple-compatible software for backing up, or the programs are crap compared to the ones out there, namely Super Duper and Time Machine. Super Duper is an extra $27, while Time Machine is built in.

For those of you with Macs, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you guys use either one, preferrably Super Duper, which keeps a bootable copy of your ENTIRE system on whatever backup drive you want, which will let you instantly boot up your hard drive on a different machine if your old one kicks the bucket. Time Machine requires the OS install cd and needs to restore itself to a new machine before you can use it. That isn't to say that Time Machine is useless, since it keeps incremental versions of your system, which allows you to find that word doc you deleted yesterday, or even those photos from a few days before. For a better breakdown, check out Shawn Blanc's article on Bulletproof Backups. If you are a geek on a budget though, you can either go it alone, or try out Carbon Copy Cloner, which I have heard is a great alternative if you want something better than Time Machine with the flexibility of Super Duper.

Beyond backup apps, there really aren't too much in terms of raw features for external storage. Security might be an issue, but I would be more concerned about physical security (aka locking it up) than connection security. You could look at something like Maxtor's Black Armor, but if you need that much security, I wouldn't look at this article.

Firewire might be important if you need a dedicated connection for something, or maybe an ethernet connected one so you can share on a network. But those don't come cheap.

Recommendations

So what do I recommend? For barebones and cheapness, I recommend the Seagate FreeAgent 1.5 TB for $130. If you need that security, there's the BlackArmor 320gb for $80. If you need portability, the Western Digital Passports aren't that bad either. Finally, Fantom has a 1TB for just over $100, and the reviews aren't bad at all. Always check prices and reviews. If you need to know the very cheapest hard drive price at any time, you could use pricewatch.com to get a baseline before you start shopping. Remember, always check reviews for the model you're going to buy.

Again, with backups, pc-wise you'll have to look for them because I don't use them. Mac wise it's simpler: Time Machine, but Super Duper if you can muster it, or Carbon Copy if you're cheap.

Next article will be on gaming, since every spare minute I have I spend on that. I haven't bought a new game in a while, but I have amassed a freakin' collection now. Again, if you have a request, just drop a comment or email. Geek smart and geek cheap.