StuffWeLike Related – Page 334

Gmail may be killing YOUR e-mail, but it’ll be your fault.

I’ve been using Gmail for a couple of years now (maybe a bit more) and I haven’t encountered any such thing, but it is best to stay on your guard. Network World has run an interesting article on one complaint that Google is facing at an alarming frequency: Disappearing e-mails.

Even though Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail each have more users than Gmail, it appears that there are actually more Gmail users complaining of missing e-mail. Many clues point out towards this being a technical issue, such as the incident with Jessica Squazzo, who lost every single e-mail that she received precisely in 2007. Google denies this, claiming that the user is at fault (phishing attacks, passwords, you know what).

Even though this is something to be wary about, there are some points you need to think about. Even if this is Google’s fault for losing the e-mails, the users aren’t guilt-free – at least the ones mentioned in the article. From the article:

Moreover, both Sessum and Squazzo, interviewed separately via e-mail, question why a malicious hacker would go through the trouble of trying to access someone’s e-mail account in order to delete messages, instead of acting stealthily to harvest information they could exploit, like credit card numbers.

Well I can’t answer that, but it might be related to why some viruses delete all the data on your hard disk and/or corrupt it, as opposed to stealing your private information and your credit card numbers, which you oh-so-trustfully keep in a non-encrypted Notepad file in your My Documents folder with the name “CREDIT CARD NUMBERS.txt”

Sessum is actually “building a small company on Google’s back” and therefore trusts Google, a free internet service to not lose her data. I say bullshit – free internet services are not the first choice for building companies on. She complains about the Google support system like so:

“Google’s back-end support function is MIA. You can’t find a number to call. You have to tap our personal network of friends to find a name and a way in through the back door, do a dance and rub a stone for good luck, and hope that someone will help,” she said.

Well you didn’t pay for it , so you should expect the same treatment. I’d be grateful Google even has a support system (which I didn’t know till now).

And most importantly, for all of those complaining about how they lost all their important and/or professional data on Gmail: Gmail is in beta. Yes, it is in beta. No guarantees, no nothing. You lose something – all your fault. You build a business over a free e-mail service in beta stage and lose all your e-mail – your fault. Anything goes in beta. 😉

[poll=7]

Alvin and the Chipmunks

When news broke out about a new Chipmunks movie, lets say everyone saw it as being a Garfield crap-o-rama. A new trailer is out that actually proves otherwise! The Chipmunks have never looked so good and they have never felt so energetic. Hopefully this movie will be able to reach out to audiences other than children, especially since generations of people know and love Alvin and the Chipmunks.

If the movie can live up to this new trailer, I might actually want to see this film in theaters.

Add The Pipeline – Movies to your page

Crysis – Review

Click to see our Crysis DVD

If you haven’t heard of it from all the hype from the last few months, Crysis is a first person shooter published by EA. In Crysis you play a solider in a futuristic (Nano) suit who is sent to a remote island on a mission to find more than he expected.

The storyline in Crysis for the most part cannot be said as it would ruin the game, but it does go into a lot of detail and fleshes out the events surrounding you. Crysis is easy to control in terms of gameplay controls with the mouse and keyboard presenting no issues. For those of you who have seen all of the trailers over the months and played the demo you will find the game is exactly as advertised; a large number of gameplay areas all vast in size and varied in type. While FPS games do well just for being an FPS the biggest draw is the idea of replaying the game using the various different possible ways that the levels can be completed such as doing it once while invisible without killing then going through just like Van-Damme would punching everyone and then finally like Sly would with full-on guns in the jungle just like in Rambo.

While people might have been reporting issues with graphics settings in the demo versions, the full game is extremely easy to use and can scale to any system to give a perfect frame rate. No matter your system’s capabilities, one option that is a must in the graphics settings is Physics quality. The higher quality physics settings control effects such as buildings being able to come crashing down. Lets be fair that’s half of the appeal for the game so having it on high is a must!

There are some issues though that are hard to ignore. After spending up to the last 6 months hearing nothing about how much we are going to love this game, getting a single player campaign that only takes 10 hours to complete on a PC only title is a pretty disappointing. You end up wishing for the game to have been longer since you have been hearing about it for so long, it’s kind of anticlimactic. Some enemies get stuck in walls if you shoot them in close proximity to them which is a serious game play issue. There is also an escort mission, which is rather dull.

With a solid multilayer map set and an ending that leaves it open to a sequel, we can only hope that Crysis 2 fixes the issues with this game. While Crysis is fantastic to play, the excitement of blowing trees drys up pretty quickly and it only actually effects enemy characters directly in the rarest of cases.

Crysis also features a level editor called The Sandbox2. It doesn’t add that much value to the game as it’s way too technical for a novice to use. The program is hidden away in a directory on the install CD with only a single acknowledgment in the readme file and no directions on how to find it on the CD’s autorun let alone use it. The editor also isn’t mentioned at all in the instruction manual in the box.

Verdict: +

Ted Stokes

Proof of full version review before retail release.

We have had some comments on digg that some users doubt that this is a review of the full version. As is usual it is a review of a press unit and above are screenshots taken by myself to prove it is from the full version using the popular fraps screenshot program. Since promo shots are a single one or two from a level it was decided to give a number of non-action shots as to try and not ruin the game or at least the level. At the top of the review are the new exclusive screenshots. Look for the Stuffwelike name on the save screen in screenshot 3.

Add The Pipeline – Video Games to your page

[poll=6]