Contents tagged with Various

  • Blizzard Screws Up - World Of Warcraft

    67 Comments

    I strongly advise everbody NOT to buy World Of Warcraft!

    My brother bought the game today, I installed it, and then I wanted to create an account for him. And that's when the trouble began...

    It seems Blizzard does not care about money, since all it's account creation pages are unavailable, throwing errors everywhere.

    Or wait, they get the money from you at the shop, and then make it unable for you to use what you bought an hour ago!

    Judging from their own forums (which I cannot post on because I don't have an account, and cannot create either) this problem is going on for some days.

    First a normal 'Service Temporarily Unavailable' error, indicating their servers can't handle it. Which is really very bad for their image, a company like Blizzard, which can't keep their main billing pages up and running? Normally it's the other way around, the 'we want your money'-pages always work

    And then everything is just falling appart, have some errors:

    • [ServletException in:/WEB-INF/jsp/authkeyView.jsp] /WEB-INF/jsp/authkeyView.jsp(86,18) Unable to load tag handler class "org.apache.taglibs.standard.tag.el.fmt.MessageTag" for tag "fmt:message"'

    • [ServletException in:/WEB-INF/jsp/agreementView.jsp] File "/WEB-INF/jsp/base/language.jsp" not found' [ServletException in:/WEB-INF/jsp/base/footer.jsp] Error running /usr/local/java/bin/javac compiler'

    • org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to compile class for JSP

    • Error running /usr/local/java/bin/javac compiler
    And if you happen to not get an error, it will simply tell you that your session timed out, after 2 seconds...

    Slow poke! You took too long to complete the Account Creation process and your session has timed out. You will have to start again from the beginning. Sorry!

    If you are persistent and can get through, to step 4, you notice you can select a game-card as a paying option. (After that, it dropped out again) But if you want to use the guest-account that comes with the box, that option is gone... It's a guest account to play 10 days, but they want your credit card info for that...

    Don't expect any response from Blizzard either...

    I'm really disappointed, 45 EUR for the game and then you can't play it!

    Best thing, even their contact form is throwing errors. And nothing is mentioned on the main site, everybody has to figure it out themselves.

    I'm going to start calling them starting from Monday untill I can create the account, otherwise they can give my money back and take their game back untill they get their crap together.

    Good game, terrible service...

    If anyone from Blizzard reads this: Try to turn this negative publicity into something positive...

    Read more...

  • Presentation: eID in .NET

    No Comments

    Yesterday I gave a presentation about eID in .NET, if somebody is interested I have uploaded the presentation together with some sample code to my personal website: Cumps.be

    The purpose of this session is to give an idea about what's possible with the eID card in .NET and what is needed to get it working.

    Some background information about eID is provided, after which four possible usage scenarios are described and what is needed to build them.

    Note: The code are just technical tryouts, not ment to go straight into production :) Provided "AS IS".

    Read more...

  • A day in Paris - Visual Gaming Finals

    3 Comments

    Yesterday I got invited by Microsoft France to Paris, to the Wax Club, to see the French Visual Gaming Finals.

    My team mate, ZogStriP, participated in the High School competition there, so it was very exiting!

    It was also a very good experience to learn french ;) And to get to know Paris, where the people are really crazy in traffic. Apparently, stop signs are just for decoration... Green or red, it all means the same :p

    They played the games before and played the replay files on big screen, which were also recorded by a french television station. The station is on sattelite and is called GameOne, I don't know yet when they will broadcast it. I'll have to find someone who can digitally record it, because they interviewed me as well :p

    So, the High School competition: there were 2 pools, one with 3 games and one with 6. Our best competitor was Z² who lost with a very little difference each time.

    In the end, our dll won the High School competition! Resulting in a PDA for my team mate (I'm too old for High School ;p).

    But here is where something special happened, he gave me the PDA!

    He recently became MVS in France and just received one as well. Isn't it a nice gesture? Microsoft France made a very good choice making him MVS, he really deserves it with this kind of attitude, a real teamplayer. (So, for all French companies reading my blog, go to his blog and check it out, he would be a great asset for your company!)

    After this, it was time for the Open Division.

    There, our bot had a hard time. We lost the quarter finals by 1 point, due to a bug causing the AI to stop :/ So, chances for 1st and 2nd were gone. Finally we ended up at the fourth place, because the same bug occured again in the next game, which is really a shame.

    One thing is sure, being 4th already is good, especially in France, the country of Visual Gaming, now we only have to fix this bug :p Result of ending on 4th place: A fingerprint reader and I also got interviewed, in English :p This is really a nice example of "dissolving boundaries" :)

    And to finish, here's a picture of ZogStriP and me (ZogStriP right, me left):



    To ZogStriP: Thanks!

    Read more...

  • DevDays 2005 Day 2 - Exams & Internship

    2 Comments

    The Developer & IT Pro Days 2005 are over, as well are my exams.

    During day 2 we saw what is going to come with the next .NET version (partial files, generics, ClickOnce, ...) and what mistakes an admin can make in his IT setup and how to fix them.

    The last one was really funny, but sadly enough those mistakes are often made, running SQL Server as SYSTEM, SQL Injection, simple passwords, no defense in depth, logging on as domain admin, ...

    My exams are also over now, the last one of my current education, coming up next is a 3-month internship at Microsoft.

    And just like Tom's doing, here is a picture of the Channel 9 guy, sitting together with the Azlan mascotte on the tower of stuff I had to learn these last 3 weeks for my exams :)

    Read more...

  • Personality Tests

    3 Comments

    Following Firoz Ansari and taking the Intelligence Quiz my result is:

    Your Dominant Intelligence is Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
    You are great at finding patterns and relationships between things. Always curious about how things work, you love to set up experiments. You need for the world to make sense - and are good at making sense of it. You have a head for numbers and math ... and you can solve almost any logic puzzle. You would make a great scientist, engineer, computer programmer, researcher, accountant, or mathematician.

    Makes sense since I'm a coder :p

    And while I'm at it lets take the Number Quiz as well:

    You Are the Reformer
    1
    You're a responsible person - with a clear sense of right and wrong. High standards are important to you, and you do everything to meet them. You are your own worst critic, feeling ashamed if you're not perfect. You have the highest integrity, and people expect you to be fair.

    Can you see I currently have some spare time, but just not enough to do anything usefull? The Element Quiz:

    Your Element Is Earth
    You excel at planning and strategizing. You could be a champ at chess or Survivor. Well grounded, you are able to be realistic and rationalize. On the inside, you have a hard core. It's tough to phase you. You are super productive, and you are able to think anything through. Focused and super charged, your instincts are a good guide for your next step.

    And according to the Age Quiz I'm five years older than I really am :p

    You Are 25 Years Old
    25
    Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

    And that's enough for today's quizes :)

    Read more...