Microsoft gives up on Vista and EA servers come crashing down

editor@playthismag.com                                                         http://www.playthismag.com

Steve Ballmer Chief Executive Officer

During the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show, a keynote speech provided by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has given the official word of Windows 7 (beta) being released this Friday. Thus ending the terrible days of Windows Vista and the more awkward Mojave commercials that have been eaten alive by Apple.

[Play This stands with Apple’s being designed for those artist type people who enjoy editing video/audio and not having a wide array of video games. While Windows is for the common man who just enjoys Web surfing and games. Linux is it’s own breed and you can make of that as you wish.]

A few editions of Vista has been or has been attempted to be sold to the public with failing efforts due to Apple’s ad campaigns against them and the all around terrible quality. Windows 7 is not new news, but the official word does give Microsoft some promising outlook to it’s future aside from gaming consoles. After a short fall in Microsoft stocks yesterday, after the news of Windows 7 it has been on the rise.

Get Windows 7 Beta here http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/default.aspx

EA games coming back online

EA forgetting about their fans?

EA servers have been on the downfall for the last week and nobody seems to know why, and EA returns evassive responses. In early December EA games had announced roughly 1,000 employees would be cut between now and March, which very well may be why maintenance to the servers have been going down.

When Play This contacts EA their terrible support team misunderstood any type of question and forwarded us to their forums to ask fellow gamers why the situation was failing. Obviously nobody had been aware on the forums as well, but for those playing most EA games in the previous weeks have noticed a massive drag in amount of games you could access and the terrible connection to them.

As of last evening some servers have been added and some of the connection speeds of once again increased, but no official word or news has been posted by EA for this lapse in proper maintenance. So you PS3 and Xbox 360 gamers can rejoice as your games should now be working or will be working again in the next few days.

Play This preview: GTA IV The Lost and Damned

Download The Lost and Damned Feb. 17, 2009

In Feburary of 2009 a new addition to Grand Theft Auto IV will come in the form of a downloadable expansion. The downloadable content known as The Lost and Damned is a play on the recent TV series Sons of Anarchy.

While Rockstar is known for it’s risky behavoir, having an idea based on a TV show is not illegal although one of the characters in the new expansion is also named Clay. This is most likely a tribute to them, according to gamer nerds via the internet.

First look at The Lost and Damned

Download The Lost and Damned Feb. 17, 2009

Free Credit Report costs you time and patients

The Consumerist created the extra info on this photo

editor@playthismag.com/www.playthismag.com

Free Credit Report.com not only is using annoyance as a form to capture it’s audiences’ attention (like the $5 foot long Subway commercials) once you sign up the process can be beyond annoying. Play This signed up to Free Credit Report so that we may tell you why you should avoid it all together and other ways to check your credit report 100 percent free (at bottom of article).

Here is the drill for freecreditreport.com:

You put in all of your very private information, such as credit card information, addresses and worst of all social security. You should never provide anyone with your social security, even the president (I take that back if Bush wants it just throw a shoe at him, he doesn’t even know what they are for). Your SS number can allow people to access details about your life that you may not even remember and can register credit cards under your name so try to avoid giving it out if possible.

After your private information is entered it than allows you access to your credit report, shows you any history on your credit report and if there is currently anything on your public records in the form of collection companies and bankruptcies on your accounts. As these songs are mostly geared to the 20-35 year old range, chances are you won’t see much on the credit report. Unless you are terribly in debt the services that this Web site provides will be more or less worthless to you and signing up for it is just a waste of time.

Here comes the fun part, ending the services before your seven day free trail is up.

Cancelling the account:

There of course would be no way to simply opt of of the service through their Web site, a fully online only service. You must call the number listed in their FAQ section or 1(888)829-6560 and wait through a few boring messages. The fun part is when the foreign person answers and her accent is to thick to understand or she can’t understand your English very well.

Now I have no issue understand people and their accents, but it’s as if they find anyone off the streets in India to give them a job. They ask you for your private information once again, SS number and all to prove who you are, than ask what you are needing of them.

Like many places you call, they have canned scripts that they will read to you based on your response to them. When you say I would like to cancel they will give you 20 bull shit reasons why you should keep the service. The best reason was, you still have six of your seven day trial left, you may as well keep it and cancel it later.

After finally getting through all of the bullshit they finally cancel your account only to say, “You will still have six days of this service and than it will automatically close out and not charge you at all.” That’s right one of the ladies BS reasons to keep you on is still provided after you cancel.

Now that you see Freecreditreport.com is a worthless service and will only cost you time and sadly for those who do not read well, money, you can easily avoid it’s use. Below is listed the proper annual report that our government has put in place and is 100 percent free. You can only check it once a year though as it is an annual report. It does not cost very much to check again in needed as well.

How to get your free annual report:

Going to the following Web address, https://www.annualcreditreport.com will provide you with your actual annual free credit report. Signing up with Web sites like freecreditreport.com is worthless, can incidentally cost you money, cause you a major pain in the ass to cancel and you may very well forget you ever signed up costing you even more money.

Your credit is important because: Helps you get a loan, approval for an apartment, home or even vehicle. Some employers check your credit as well for unknown reasons.

So be sure to pay your credit cards off on time and avoid ads to confuse the masses. You do get a free annual credit report from all three credit providers. Freecreditreport.com makes people think they can only access one but this is incorrect.

This is how Freecreditreport.com had originally advertised it’s Web site, clearly not very effective. With the help of annoying jingles they were back on top.