Blog Update: 04/2013

April 25th, 2013 | By Cody Spielvogel

So I’ve updated the blog a little bit, the Background has been changed and the site loads a lot quicker because of the huge decrease in file size. (450kb instead of 2.2mb) In addition, I’ve been working on the Online Reaper Tracker for the Epic Games Community with Mr Brad Anonymous which has been super fun. Subtle changes coming to that by the way, so try and spot them!

Also, as an Xbox Ambassador I feel I should tell you that the Premiere of the New Xbox console is going to be displayed on May 21st 2013 at 10:00AM on the Xbox Dashboard, view it live using the Xbox 360 LIVE EVENT PLAYER, it’s super cool, super easy to use and fills you in on all of the awesome new information.
Catch you on the flip

Hey, you!

March 10th, 2013 | By Cody Spielvogel

Yeah, you! Spam bots! Go bother someone else with your promise of illegal prescription drugs and cheap viagra! I don’t want to hear about how stalks in a Medical company located in Israel is about to Sky-rocket or how a long lost relative just died and left me his entire estate worth $80 million dollars and that you need me to give you my bank information in order to get it. I just cleared 40 pages of Spam comments, that’s 780 comments! Allow me to take this time to stop and slam my head against my desk. – - – - – - – - – - – - – Are you still reading this? Good, call a medical team I may soon be suffering from a concussion and it’s like 2:00am I don’t think I’m supposed to sleep from here on out. Damn I should have though about that before damaging both my head [b]and[/b] my desk. Well if you made it this far, you’ve reached the conclusion of this little rant and I thank you for gowqogqsfgoweggwg4hw… Sorry, head injury.

Anyway, go further into your morning, have a nice day and see you in the world of tomorrow.

What do I do for a living?

November 22nd, 2012 | By Cody Spielvogel

Over the course of 6 years I have slowly made headway toward becoming a Web designer, why did I become a web designer? So I could be a Journalist. Why did I want to be a journalist? I love the English language, and I wanted to give the news, not just read it. I wanted to revolutionize the way you looked for information. A one stop location for everything you could ever want in regards to technology. Through Web development came a number of opportunities. I was a Customer Support Technician at DotVPS, was finally ready to start freelance work and dove into different ways to manage and create content and how I wanted it to look.

These days, I volunteer at Xbox as a Community Ambassador, and continue to work on Web Development, content management systems and different coding languages.

There is a hitch to all of this however, I don’t get paid for any of it, this is all volunteered time to do something I love doing.

So what do I do for a living? Jack squat.

Cody’s top pick for Worst Customer support of 2012

October 27th, 2012 | By Cody Spielvogel

So as a tech enthusiast I’ve run into my fair share of Tech related problems, ranging from Consoles, to tablets, to computers and even a few phones. Normally I can handle these myself but sometimes you just need to call in the experts for some help, or in this case lack there of.

I’ve recently been having a lot of trouble with my HP Touchsmart TX2 notebook. The problem being that I can only start it up in Tablet mode, if I try to start it normally, I get loud, continuous beeps, also known as a “BIOS Signal”. So I called up HP.

The 1st operator asks me for my information, including my first name, the notebook I’m using and it’s serial number. I spend a good five minutes giving this agent all of the information, only to get the response “Oh sorry, you’re in the wrong department, please wait while I transfer you. Mildly I think “Okay, mistakes happen it’s all fine and well. So I wait to be transferred.

And I wait,

And I wait,

And I wait…

Finally, after 35 minutes of continues song loops and an Automated Voice saying that “HP Appreciates my time and wishes to help me faster, please wait on the line for the next available agent.” I’m connected to an Agent. Again, they ask for my information, my name, my notebook ID and version and of course, my Serial Number. Another 5 minutes goes by and I wait patiently. The next Operator, who I will refer to as “Operator 2″ tells me that, again I’m in the wrong department. “Operator 2″ I say with frustration in my voice, one of your agents just Redirected me TO YOU! As she rushes to get me off the phone all I hear is “Yes sir, yes sir, I understand, sorry sir please wait on the line.” Now, well infuriated I hold again. I wait, and wait some more. Finally I’m connected, for about 10 seconds. Someone picks up the line, I hear whispers in the background and they quickly hang up. The bastards just hung up on me.

So lets see, waiting for the first agent took me about 20 minutes, transferring me to Operator 2 took 35 minutes, and when I’m redirected a final time it took in and around 10 – 15 minutes. So let’s do the math, 20+35=55 minutes plus the 10-15 minute Transfer where they hung up on me, that’s in around 65 – 70 minutes. So in total, Hewlett-Packard (HP) just wasted over an hour of my time.

So Congratulations HP, You Out of all of the support reps I’ve dealt with this year, are by far the worst I’ve ever had the displeasure of attempting to do business with. In conclusion, You suck.

My advice for anyone looking for support with HP products, go to your local computer shop, or buy a completely new computer. It will save you a lot of time, hassle and money. As I’m sure they charged me for the call.

Happy Hunting,

Cody

ForumCore Downtime

October 22nd, 2012 | By Cody Spielvogel

Hey Folks Cody here!

First off, welcome to my blog, secondly Yes this is Cody from ForumCore, I’ve made this post to explain the downtime that ForumCore is experiencing at the moment.

Phun and I have been hard at work repairing ForumCores board, We’ve gone through insane amounts of troubleshooting and we believe we’ve found the root of the problem. However before we can proceed with a fix, all of the files, the database and all of the information that ForumCore has needs to be backed up (Last we checked we we’re at 24,000 files and climbing up) While we wait for the back up to finish, Phun has gone to bed and has left me to answer any questions you may have, along with handle any issues that may come up along the way.

Again, I can’t stress enough that this downtime is Temporary! ForumCore will be back up and running again as soon as possible! So sit tight, grab a drink and relax.

Well that was fun

October 20th, 2012 | By Cody Spielvogel

I originally created this blog for fun so I could play around with code while sharing my thoughts. Emphasis on the first bullet as I hate sharing mindless rabble, which is what mostly goes on in my head these days. While it’s all been great, I actually have the site looking like I want it too, proper article space, nice background. Shiny new logo and a working twitter feed to boot (I freaking love that thing!) So what’s next? Well I guess I’ll move onto a new project. I have an up and coming Rap artist who I think may still be looking for some work, I may get into contact with him.

In the meantime, I’ll keep the blog, you never know when I might do something I deem worthy of posting on the internet. OH LOOK, I moved 5 feet, I better post that on twitter, people will eat that up. I mean, I’ve seen worse tweets… I can’t think of any right now but they’re out there!

Minecraft XBLA 1.8.2 release comes tomorrow! (OCT 16th)

October 15th, 2012 | By Cody Spielvogel

Today has proved quite the Blog-rific day as 4J Studios confirmed the release of the 1.8.2 Update for Xbox 360, what’s better than that you may ask? Well it’s coming out tomorrow!

A tweet made eariler today by 4JStudios confirms that 1.8.2 is ready to go and just aching to get itself out to the public.

To quote 4JStudios
“Microsoft has confirmed that we’ve passed Cert Test, and the 1.8.2 update will be out tomorrow (October 16th)! #minecraftXBLA”

So get your creatives juices flowing as 1.8.2 comes with Flat land and Creative mode, Ravines and a load of new creatures to scare the living daylights out of you. Did someone say Enderman?! This release is sure to be a hit for all of those Contractors that just want the resources available they don’t want to dig, they just want to build! I know I’ll enjoy it, what about you?

Call of Duty ELITE Free with Call of Duty: Black Ops II

October 15th, 2012 | By Cody Spielvogel

I came across this article not to long ago, apparently TreyArch is really going all out for the Maximum player experience by making The Premium Service “Call of Duty ELITE” Free for Black Ops 2 players.

What this may mean is Premium features that were previously locked for free members can now be used with Black Ops II meaning you can use Call of Duty ELITE as a command center for all of your Black Ops II activities, create clans, participate in events and Compare stats to see how you stack up with your friends. Treyarch is even including a new feature for ELITE which they like to call “Zombie Support” check this out if you want to see your scores, kills and compare with your Zombie Killing Crew.

Scope out this link for more details on what looks to be a very promising edition to the already impressive look at the Latest edition to the Number 1 Best Selling 1st person shooter in the world

http://www.callofduty.com/elite/features?utm_campaign=ACT_COD_XBX-000_Acmt_2012-10-15_US-UK-CA-AU_Free&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=ET&utm_content=bdycta2

Enjoy!
Cody

Reminder: Walking Dead Season 3 Starts Today at 9:00PM EST on AMC

October 14th, 2012 | By Cody Spielvogel

Hey Folks,

For all of those fans of Zombie thrillers that revolve around a post apocalyptic world of insanity, little resources and blood splattering debauchery. The third Season of AMCs The Walking Dead starts Today (Sunday October 14) at 9:00PM Eastern Standard Time. So grab your drinks, go over all of the Graphic novels one more time, and strap yourself to your seat as Officer Rick Grimes initiates step one of what fans are calling the “Rick-tatorship” on the way to what is either a Prison, or Wal-mart. My bets on the Prison.

It’s going to be a fine evening for blogging!

Cody

Welcome one and all

October 14th, 2012 | By Cody Spielvogel

So rather than signing up for tumblr, blogspot or whatever other kind of evil is out there on the internet, I’ve decided to construct my own personal Blog, this gives me complete freedom with what I post, how I post it and most importantly, how I design my website.

This is the official Personal Blog for Cody Spielvogel, I’m a 20 year old Freelance web designer from Ontario, I also manage http://cptgaming.net, http://xboxlegion.com and I lead the moderating team with the great group at ForumCore.net the ideas and beliefs shown in this blog are my own and do not represent any third party or organization.

Tah-tah for now.

Cody