Twitter: Someone using your email address to send Spam?

As one of the few people in the world who has never created a Twitter account, I was disappointed when a certain email was sent to my address.

Welcome to Twitter, emariswgne. Wait a minute? Who is emariswgne?

Naturally I figured it was probably an account phish, but lo and behold, the user name does exist and is using my email address. The account was quickly suspended for sending spam.

Saying goodnight to Cialis obviously raises a huge red flag!

I was wondering how in the world could someone sign my email address up for twitter? Maybe my email account was phished and they were using my password. I was skeptical of this and I tested out a little hypothesis of mine. Let’s create a twitter account using any email address I chose. Congrats a new twitter account was created!

It seems you can use just about anyone’s email address provided they did not sign up for Twitter themselves. Even though  Twitter doesn’t  initially care about which email address you are using, they take the time to blacklist them for sending spam. If I ever wanted to use my email address in the future, I am now forbidden to under their suspension rules. Of course you can email Twitter support but why would they want to waste their time responding to a “spammer“.

How long will they take to respond?
“Emanuele Swafford from Hawaii” isn’t going to wait forever.

It’s pretty easy for Twitter to rectify this problem. All Twitter really needs to do is set up some form of email confirmation. Considering Twitter is a social networking site, I have no idea why they would ever skip such a useful feature many websites use to avoid spammers.

BubbleShare Closing Down November 15th, 2009

Looks like Bubbleshare will shut down it’s photo sharing site. I previously recommended the site on my other blog hosted here. However, to give a heads up warning to all those who did not receive the email, BubbleShare.com is shutting down November 15th, 2009. You must download all your pictures prior to this date or else they will be gone FOREVER!

Lest not forget the amount of comments left on here for those who did not know XDrive was closing down. Some users are still asking for their files 5 months after the fact.

As of November 15, 2009, Bubbleshare.com will no longer be available and all links to all albums and photos will cease to function (including existing links within emails, blogs, etc). To access your photos in the future you will need to download your photos prior to November 15, 2009.

To save your images to your desktop, simply click the “Download Album” link next to your albums and double click on original photos. Your photos will then be saved to your desktop.

Again, all photos and albums must be removed prior to November 15, 2009. Effective immediately, you will no longer be able to upload any new photos or albums.

We apologize for the inconvenience. It was our pleasure to assist you with your photo sharing needs.
Thank you.

Sincerely,
The Bubbleshare Team

The Sims 3 Patch version 1.3: Crashes, Pathfinding, Rage, and More!

Lets Play The Sims 3 in 3 hour bursts!

Its been around a week since the Sims 3 patch 1.3.24 came out.

We’ve seen comments and threads of users detailing the mischief the patch caused.

Besides the  much needed story progression fixes the patch introduces, the game can still crash and will occasionally deliver a blue screen of death (BSOD).

Before you install Sims Patch 1.3 and 1.4

Remove ALL your mods! Yes, I do stress ALL of them. The patch is very picky. It does not like modifications to any file whatsoever. It will pass over official custom content but will freak out with any type of hacks you implemented. The folders where mods are usually installed are:

C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts
\The Sims 3\GameData\ Shared\NonPackaged\Ini

Usually contains camera modifications, you must restore the original unmodified file!

C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\resource.cfg

The resource.cfg file tells the game where to check for mods.

C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Mods

The mods folder is where all mods are installed. You can move them to Desktop.

C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin

This is where the original nude patch installed. It doesn’t work with The Sims 1.3 patch. You need to restore the original files the nude patch edited.  Download the orginal Shaders_Win32.precomp  file in this directory. Please install No Mosaic  instead once the patch is finished.

How to Avoid Crashes

After you install the patch you can safely add certain mods back into the game. However, due to player feedback, certain mods will crash the game. Please be sure to check each mod’s website to see if the author has updated for the latest Sims 3 1.3.24 patch. Some  general tips you can follow are to:

• Remove the AwesomeMod if installed before July 30th, 2009.
• Reinstall the AwesomeMod post July 30th, 2009.
• Remove the IndieStone version 0.5a, wait until the author updates it.
• Remove the  bodyslider casslider hack mod wait until the author updates it.
• Reducing the high detail lot sizes to 4 may help to reduce crashes.
• Disabling antivirus software may reduce crashes.
• Deleting “cache” package files in the
  My Documents/Electronic Arts/The Sims 3/
  especially scriptCache and simCompositorCache.

Even if you follow everything listed above, the game will still crash. I don’t know, but I think EA just couldn’t find a way to make this game stable on all computers. There have been reports of crashes and video card failure on machines that highly exceed the minimum requirements.

User Experience with the Patch

Certain users experienced path finding issues where a Sim will not autonomously use any items in another room.  This caused issues where a Sim won’t go to work because they somehow cannot find the car outside. 

For the path finding bugs, the current suggestion is to delete the files:

My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\scriptCache.package

This file is located in the My Documents folder, not the Program Files folder! Deleting Cache files will force the game to reload it’s data.

C:\Program Files\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin\d3dx9_31.dll

Removing this file will also stop certain mods from working, be sure to check which mods install this file.

I’ve also seen complaints regarding sound issues whether it’s stuttering or not playing at all. Make sure you update your sound drivers before posting a dxdiag log at the official forums.

My Experience with the patch 1.3

My game for the most part ran as well as it did before the patch. It was able to start and load everything in the previous game. However, the longer I ran the game, the more likely it was to crash.

I can last 2-3 hours without a crash. The more serious “blue screen of death” occurs only when I’m editing a Sim in Create a Sim mode.  There was also an issue where the arrows to expand or shrink rooms appear in Live Mode and are practically unusable until you switch to Build Mode.

The Sims 3 Patch Downloads

Did the patch kill your game? Looking for an older patch to upgrade to?

• 1.2.7.0001 from 1.0.631.0001
• 1.2.7.0002 from 1.0.631.0002
• 1.3.24.0001 from 1.2.7.0001
• 1.3.24.0002 from 1.2.7.0002