W♥M

Weekend Gamer: Play Anywhere

Xbox Play Anywhere Details Buy once, play anywhere Games that support Xbox Play Anywhere play on PC and Xbox console at no additional cost. Progress goes with you Pick up where you left off on PC, Xbox console, or supported handhelds - bringing all your saves, game add-ons, and achievements with you. Xbox Play Anywhere badge 1,000 games and growing Games that support Xbox Play Anywhere have a badge in the Store on xbox.com, console, and PC. Read More Xbox The much-rumored Xbox Handheld, codename Keenan, is coming to us closer than you think (I first mentioned this in Nov 2024)! The details are exclusively from a report …

I’ve been a big fan of Xbox Play Anywhere (XPA) program for a few years now, and was happy to hear from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in California, that Xbox announced over 1,000 titles (they’re also counting the future titles South of Midnight and Doom: The Dark Ages) are now Xbox Play Anywhere.

As you can see from the marketing, “Buy once, play across PC, Xbox consoles, and supported gaming handhelds.” That ‘handheld’ wording is probably referencing the ROG Ally or the future Xbox Handheld.

The announcement via xbox.com:

As we touched on earlier this week, there are now over 1,000 developers utilizing Xbox Play Anywhere (XPA) for their games, bringing their amazing experiences to players across a variety of devices they own.

If you’ve never heard of XPA before, let us give you a refresher: when you buy a digital game that supports XPA through the Xbox Store or the Windows Store, it’s available to play on your Xbox console, Windows 10/11 PC, and supported handheld gaming devices at no additional cost. Even better, your progression comes with you across all platforms.

Yes, lately the only titles I will buy are the ones with Play Anywhere, because it was basically a two-for-one-deal for me. I buy the game once on the PC and it will automatically show up on my Xbox. However, there are some problems with XPA, and I’ll address them below.

First of all, not all games are XPA compatible, as you can see from that 1,000 number (it was much, much lower prior to this announcement). This is due to the game developers needing to opt-in to the XBA terms of service. Also, I suppose some developers wants you to re-buy their game on the Xbox.

The other problem is I bought some games on the Xbox consoles, and they do not show up on my PC Xbox App. In order to take advantage of Play Anywhere, you must purchase the game on the PC using the Windows Store. I don’t know why it’s a one-way street, so now I will only buy Xbox games using the Windows store.

This brings me to the last problem with Xbox Play Anywhere – they rarely have any good or decent sales on the PC store. You see regular weekly sales on the Xbox consoles (and they’re often much cheaper) than the PC store. The last time I bought something on the Xbox App was during Black Friday, and the discount weren’t even that great.

Right now, I don’t have a large Xbox library, but as more titles are available as XPA, going forward, I would prefer to buy those titles on Xbox, vs Steam… although I hate to say it, but currently, but lately, my go-to launcher is the Epic Games app (I currently have 515 titles). I’m currently playing Vampire Survivors, thanks to getting the game for free last year.

Every week I am adding a free title on Epic Games. This week the free game is Jurassic World Evolution 2, which originally came out in 2021 for full price. While I’m not really that interested in playing a dinosaur game… I still add the game to my library. Who knows, maybe in a few months or years, I will check it out when I’m bored.

Yours,

Weekend Gamer
[email protected]

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Weekend Gamer: Crucial 2TB NVMe M.2 SSD

Crucial 2TB PCIe Gen4 2230 NVMe M.2 SSD Read More Lenovo Legion Go As you know, I recently purchased the Lenovo Legion Go, and I’ve been enjoying it. Of course, as soon as I bought it, there’s already rumors of a Legion Go 2, which may come out in 2025. The biggest feature will likely be a …

After a week of tinkering with my Lenovo Legion Go, I’ve come to realize that I really, really need to upgrade the original 512GB storage to something much larger.

Luckily, we’re in the middle of Black Friday, and most stores are having their annual sale.

To upgrade to a larger SSD, you first need to turn off Windows’ Bitlocker encryption (if you have it turned on). This will make the process smoother, otherwise you need to have your encryption key handy (this is found under your Microsoft’s account).

Next, you need to download Legion Support USB recovery via lenovo.com (you need to have your Legion Go serial number). This is just in case cloning your drive doesn’t work out.

The easiest way to upgrade your drive is just to clone your original SSD. In the past, I have used Macrium Reflect (macrium.com), which gives you a 30-day free trial. Of course, my trial has long expired.

SSK NVMe SSD Cloner M.2 Docking Station

I’ve decided to go in a different direction this time. What you will need is a NVMe Dual Bay Cloner. I found this SSK Brand for $40 (Black Friday sale), so it is the item I’ll be using.

The best part about the cloner is that you can do it completely offline.

How it works: you have a source slot and a target slot. You need to put in the original 512GB drive in the source and the new drive in the target slot. On the SSK Cloner, you need to hold down the Clone Button for 3 seconds until all the lights are flashing. Let go of the Clone Button and then press the Clone Button once. This semi-complicated process was put in place to prevent accidental cloning (and unintentionally wiping out a drive).

The Cloning was pretty fast and took about 10 minutes or less.

So, a couple of problems! The first is the Crucial 2TB PCIe Gen4 2230 NVMe M.2 SSD, which I bought for $140. It boasts speed up to 7,100mb/s, which is fast and it runs hot. So hot that it crashed the Legion Go a few times when I was using it docked and playing YouTube videos. The temperature reached 180°F. The drive wasn’t designed for these handhelds, because you need airflow and cooling solutions.

You can solve the heat problem with a couple of things. Get a low-profile heatsink for the SSD. Set your Legion Go profile to use less than 45-Watt to draw less power. Disable hardware acceleration on your browser.

So far, when I’m running the Legion Go on batteries, there are no issues. I don’t think SSD draws enough power to cause it to overheat. Maybe sometime in 2025, I will have to look at buying some heatsinks and an extender for my 2230 to 2242.

NOTE: The last 2TB NVME drive I bought 2TB Sabrent NVMe 2230 and that advertised at 5,000 MB/s and I paid over $200 for it! That drive was deliberately designed to be slower so it would work in the Steam Deck and ROG Ally, and I’ve never had a problem with overheating on that drive.

Anyway, now that I understand the overheating problem with the Crucial, I can manage it on my Legion Go… but it was very annoying and frustrating trying work around the heating problems.

I’m going to try to make it work with the Crucial 2TB NVME, but for now, I wouldn’t recommend this drive for the Legion Go or ROG Ally or Steam Deck. If you are building a Mini-PC, this might work for you because there are extra space to vent the heat.

Yours,

Weekend Gamer
[email protected]

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Black Friday Week

Black Friday 2024 Read More Black Friday With Black Friday coming up this Friday (November 25), we are already starting to see some really good deals on Bluray/UHD discs. Some of my favorite A24 films are on sale, including X, Everything Everywhere All At Once …

If you’ve been paying attention, Black Friday (and Cyber Monday it goes without saying), have been happening earlier and earlier every year. Last year, I said deals were happening as early as November 1, 2023.

This year, it appears that deals were introduced very early, as retailers were stocking up products in anticipation of big sales. If you have all these inventories – why not start selling them at a discount? It makes sense to me, sell as much and often as possible.

I did look at what all the major retailers are discounting. Amazon is already discounting all their branded-products, like the Kindles or their Ring cameras. I wouldn’t be surprise if they discount their new Colorsoft, which is getting terrible reviews due to the yellow bar at the bottom of their readers. As it turned out, this is a hardware defect, because of an inferior yellow-ish glue they were using, and the yellow light is showing up. The crappy thing about Amazon is that they are not listing prices until you click through their product page. Most of the time I find myself disappointed in their discounts, which are generally 20% off.

I am mostly interested in getting SSD storage for my Legion Go. For the speed (“speed up to 7200MB/s”), this KingSpec 2TB M.2 2242 PCIe 4.0 SSD for $168 is a good deal, typically these drives goes for $200. There is a much slower drive (“2,500 MB/s”), selling at $125.

The two popular sizes are 2280 (laptops) and 2230 (portable handhelds), so it’s somewhat annoying that the Legion Go is using the odd size of 2242. You can buy a $10 adapter that extends the drive 2230 drive to 2242, so that’s something to consider if 2230 drives are cheaper.

I’ve mentioned this before, but personally speaking, I won’t buy from Amazon on Black Friday or their semi-annual Prime Day sales, because a few years ago, it was an absolute disaster. Things that would’ve taken one day or, at the most, two days to deliver, were taking twice as long, if not a week. And amidst all the orders and deliveries… Amazon lost not one, but two packages (delivered to a different address).

Google will likely discount their Pixel 9 phones to something like $100 or $150 off. For years, I thought the Pixel phones were a bargain, but starting last year (or the year before), their prices skyrocketed to $1,000 for the Pro Line. At that price, why not just get an Apple iPhone?

I would look at Google discount their Pixel Tablet. I don’t need another tablet, but what’s cool about the Pixel Tablet is that you can turn it into a Smart Home controller or photo frame or calendar using their dock view. If they sell it for $200 or less, I just might buy one.

Apple doesn’t really do sales… however some retailers like Best Buy and Amazon are selling this year’s 11 inch iPad for $500. I love my iPad, I use it every day, so if you don’t have an iPad, I think $500 is a fantastic price. If you can afford it, I would recommend the larger 13 inch at $600. The larger display makes watching movies and reading comic books more pleasant. I’m quite happy with my 2020 iPad 12.9, it does everything that I need it to do and is a great alternative to a laptop (especially with the magic keyboard).

For many years, the sales were on big televisions and laptops, and sure, we got plenty of that. I really think the big entry to this year are the PC handheld gaming devices. I was excited to see that Target was stocking three major PC handhelds in stores: Claw, Legion Go, and ROG Ally. This is near or alongside the Xbox and PlayStation.

With Black Friday in mind, I think Lenovo made the smart move and discounted their $700 Legion Go to $550, which, at that price, now I’m interested. And I did make an impulse purchase. Some gamers reported that using an extra discount on Target Circle and an additional discounting using their Target Red Card, they were picking up the Legion Go for as little as $500. What a deal.

You must remember, this is a full Windows 11 PC, but in a small compact design. You can even remove the controllers and use it as a regular tablet PC, I’m serious. I currently have the Legion Go in the official Docking Station (with 4k monitor, keyboard and mouse) and using it as third computer.

While I was at another Target (on a different week), I noticed that they were running low on stock both the Claw and the ROG Ally (with the Legion Go sold out), because those other devices were also on sale at $349 and $529.

PC Handheld at Target

Yours,

Weekend Gamer
[email protected]

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Weekend Gamer: PS5 Pro

PS5 Pro Read More Sony Still, you know I’m still somewhat interested in seeing the next generation of gaming consoles… and today, Sony showed up what the upcoming PS5 will look like. And holy crap, it is so ugly. …

I’ve made it known in the past that I find that Sony is greedy, especially in their PlayStation department. Here is the latest proof: PlayStation 5 Pro for $700, a $200 markup from the PS5 Slim that was released in Nov 2024.

The $700 Pro doesn’t even have a disc drive, which comes standard in the Xbox Series X (for $500). You’ll have to spend another $80. The Pro doesn’t even come with a vertical stand, that’s going to cost another $30. If you want another controller, that’s going to cost you (now) $75, due to a $5 increase in prices. Remember, PS5 new games costs $70. Maybe get PS Plus for $18 a month… All in all, it’s going to cost you about $1,000 (including taxes).

If you do a similar breakdown of Xbox’s ecosystem: Xbox Series X for $500, disc drive for $0, stand for $0, controller for $60, one game for $70, Game pass for $12… so you’re looking at about $650.

I think for that $1,000 for the PS ecosystem, why not just get a really nice PC? I’m not saying get the ROG Ally X, but even that priced at a hefty $800, that will run any PC games (including some PS5 games that are sold through Steam and GOG). Plus, it’s a PC, so it opens up to more possibilities, such as using it as a desktop computer, running Office Suite or photo/video editing software… whatever you can do on Windows, it’s possible on the ROG Ally X.

I even bought (and still using) my Lenovo Legion PC with Nvidia 3060 for $850. I’m sure by now, you can even get that computer for cheaper than the PS5 Pro.

I guess as someone who has access to PS games via my PC, I’m definitely not interested in paying that much money for a PS5 Pro (or even a regular PS5). If I want that console experience, I also have an Xbox Series X (and S), which I think has better value over the PlayStation.

Compare	PS5 Pro	Xbox Series X	ROG Ally X
Price:	$700	$500	$800
Release Date:	07 Nov 2024	10 Nov 2020	22 Jul 2024
Optical Disc	No, but can be added on for $80	Yes, 4K disc player	No, but is supported for external drives for $50
CPU/GPU	AMD 8-core Zen 2 CPU; 4GHz, RDNA 3 GPU	AMD 8-core Zen 2; 3.8 GHz, 3.6 GHz with SMT	AMD Ryzen™ Z1 Extreme Processor
Memory	16GB of GDDR6	16GB of GDDR6	24 GB LPDDR5-6500
Storage	2TB of SSD storage	1 TB NVMe SSD (with Storage Expansion Card option)	1 TB SSD (with SD card expansion)
Resolution	4K	4K	1080p
Backward Compatible	Games (limited), works with previous controllers and accessories	Games, works with previous controllers and accessories	Games, works with most Windows Games

Yours,

Weekend Gamer

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Zoho Mail

Zoho Mail Read More iBrave We are writing to inform you of the forthcoming closure of iBrave on 1st November 2024 due to unforeseen personal circumstances. You may have noticed a decline in service levels recently, and we … Google a Google home, as everything is built around the Google Home Hub application. If you don’t mind giving Google your information, you can use many of their services - for free. That’s the attractive thing, it’s mostly free. … MicroSoft That’s because I just bought the Microsoft Office Professional 2021 lifetime license for $30, after reading about it on C-Net. The article referenced Stack Social, which I’ve never heard of until today. …

I’m planning on moving my email host to a new host called Zoho. This company is based out of India, and have been around since 1996. Their focus is offering their web-based Zoho Office Suite, for business, rivaling Google Workspace and MicroSoft 365. Comparing prices, Zoho is a much cheaper alternative. Breaking down their office pricing, Zoho charges $72 a year, while Google and Microsoft charges $150 a year.

Before I go into more details about W♥M move to Zoho, I wanted to give you a little backstory.

Google used to offer free custom email, as long as you register or domain-map to Google. That’s pretty cool, I took advantage of the free Google emails for 15 years. Unfortunately, in 2022, Google announced that they were going to start charging for email. By 2023, Google started charging $10 (now $12) a month. While $10 won’t break the bank, that’s per user. I had at least four other users (it now costs $50 a month). That’s $600 a year!

In 2023, I purchased an iBrave domain host, and as part of the purchase, they had a free custom email service. I switched over to the iBrave email host in Feb 2024. While that process didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped, and the email interface is god-awful, I didn’t complain because it was FREE. I’m saving $50 a month, I tell myself.

iBrave uses Stackmail as an interface and retrieval and sending email. I’ve had many problems with Stackmail, mostly complaining that it was slow. Sometime it wouldn’t send email. Sometime it would flag legitimate emails as spam… it’s a mess. Still, for the price of FREE, I couldn’t really complain.

Of course, as you know, in June 2024, iBrave announced their closure. They gave us a five-month notice, so in that time, I’ve been looking for a new web host. Based on pricing (they’re all so expensive), I probably won’t seek out to re-build my thegeorgeperez.com website. Instead, I will just forward the URL to the facebook page (which has 10k followers).

As for emails, remember how I was talking about Zoho earlier? The beauty of Zoho is that they offer a standalone custom email service. You don’t have to bundle the rest of their Office Suite software. It’s just email, that’s all.

If you only need five custom emails (for one domain name), it’s actually free. However, since I need IMAP and POP service, I will have to pay. Pricing isn’t bad either, it’s $12 a year for their most basic email service. My only complaint is that they restrict attachments to 250MB. You can pay more to send 1GB files, and perhaps in the future, if I like the service enough that I will upgrade, but for now, just try out their service, I think $12 a year, per user, is reasonable.

Also, I don’t know how it will work, but if I just use POP to download a copy on my Gmail account and send emails through Gmail, then the attachment restrictions are lifted (since I’m using Gmail to send emails). I think this might only work as POP, since IMAP is a one-to-one synchronization, so it may not work as IMAP. Who knows, I won’t know until I do some testing.

Anyway, I’m planning on making the email migration to Zoho tomorrow (September 10), so hopefully it will go smoothly.

Update 09/10/2024: Everything is working, for the most part. I had to find out why emails were being rejected (I had to update the SPF file). I also found out that if you have two-factor turned on your email, then you can’t use IMAP/POP (which you also had to manually turn on - it is off by default). A lot of learning experience. I am sure this is not the last of it, but I am just happy that it is working for me, for now.

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Weekend Gamer: ROG Ally X Details

ROG Ally X Read More ROG Ally Now enter the ROG Ally from Asus. With the one-year anniversary of the ROG Ally coming up in June 2024, Asus will be announcing a new version of the ROG Ally, named ROG Ally X. It is not a full upgrade, but a mid-cycle refresh. …

It’s official, here are all the official information on the new ROG Ally X. Prior to the June 2 announcement, we already got all this data in a leak. Everything in the leak was correct, including the double battery life (80W) and even down to the price of $799. The only thing new is the exact release date - which is June July 22, 2024.

As a fan who own the original ROG Ally since launch date (June 2023), it’s become my go-to handheld gaming device, beating out the previous champions the original Steam Deck and original Nintendo Switch.

As I already previously mentioned, I am disappointed in the higher price, and that there are no changes to the CPU and 7” LCD screen. At that $800 price, it’s hard to recommend that over to the original device, which you can regularly get on sale for as little as $500 (it’s currently $477.99 on Amazon). At a $300 difference, to me, it doesn’t make any sense for you to buy the new one, if you’re only getting marginal improvements (basically only better battery life).

To me, the real reason why you would want the new ROG Ally X is for their upgraded USB4 eGPU support. The original did support eGPU, but you had to own a ROG XG Mobile External GPU Dock, which are expensive and never available in stock.

If you are going to go through the eGPU route, like me, you need to buy an eGPU enclosure (with your own graphic card) or buy a pre-made eGPU device. eGPU are not cheap, you can end up spending another $1,000, so basically your ROG Ally X will cost over $1,800 just for the ability to game on the go, but also turns into a desktop gaming class computer, when you dock it.

To me, that is the perfect computer solution, especially if you travel a lot, but also need it to perform when you’re at home. This is incredibly useful for those who only wants to deal with one Windows device. Me, on the other hand, I do own a very good desktop PC, which is my preferred gaming computer when I’m at home. While I want the eGPU solution with the ROG Ally X, I don’t know how useful it would be for me, as someone who don’t mind switching over to my desktop.

Thinking about all the extra cost that I will upgrade or have to buy, it’s probably not worth it to spend all that extra money… when what I have, the original ROG Ally suits my need just fine.

So, if I go with the ROG Ally X route, here’s a breakdown of how much money I will have to spend:

Product	Price
ROG Ally X	$800
ONEXGPU AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT (USB-C 4.0)	$850
Samsung 4TB NVME m.2	$400
Total:	$2,050

Alternatively, you can buy the GPD G1 eGPU (Radeon RX 7600M) or a standard eGPU enclosure if you have an extra GPU laying around. They’re going to cost about $800 to $1,000 depending on your card… still, when you add it all up, the true cost is going to be about $2,000 or more… that’s not even including the 4K monitor ($300) and ROG Azoth Keyboard ($250). Thankfully, I already own those items.

At that price point, just buy yourself a good desktop computer (about $1,000) and a first gen ROG Ally ($500), and it’s the better option for most people.

As for me, while I do want to go the eGPU route, the cost doesn’t really justify my use case. The smart money is just to wait for any bugs or problems in early release (for example the ROG Ally’s SD overheating problem), or wait for a sale. Now that I think about it, what if the new eGPU devices that I’m looking at doesn’t work with the ROG Ally X, due to system bugs or unsupported AMD drivers? Or what if the eGPU solution is not very good, based on the USB4 bandwidth standard? There are so many questions I have. We won’t know until people get a hold of the product and tests it out. I should wait until they work out all the kinks.

The biggest problem, for me, is that I already own the first ROG Ally and am quite happy with it. However, the scenario that I can see is that I will go to a Best Buy and see the new ROG Ally X on display, and then I’ll just make an impulse buy. That’s how it is going to play out.

Yours,

Weekend Gamer

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Xbox Toaster

Xbox Series S White Toaster Read More Xbox One and a half month into Xbox Game Pass, I’m happy to report that it is an insane deal. It doesn’t even make any sense how MicroSoft is even making money off Game Pass… the value is just that good! Sure, some games do rotate out, but there’s still enough … … Xbox Refrigerator When I first heard about this stupid Xbox Series X Replica Mini Fridge, I thought it was funny. Then I thought, perhaps I could use something like this in my bedroom. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted it. Of course, it sold out… so I didn’t think anything of it. …

I don’t know why, but I just love those stupid Xbox home appliances, like Xbox Refrigerator, which turned out to be a piece of junk. It’s very noisy, and after a year, the fan just stopped working, so the Xbox Fridge is basically a non-cool, not plugged in, just a dumb storage box sitting in my bathroom.

Now my latest addition to my collection is the Xbox Toaster. When I first heard about the toaster in January 2024, it was a Walmart exclusive… and, as far as I knew, it was sold out everywhere. Scalpers were selling them on Ebay for hundreds of dollars.

I gave up on my quest for the Xbox Toaster, but just earlier this Friday, I saw the Xbox Toaster in a display case at a GameStop for $49.

So, of course, I bought it without thinking twice.

Now that I’ve used it a few times to toast slices of bread and bagels, I can tell you that it’s a little overprice for what it is. The worst part is that, because of the Xbox Logo heating design, you are going to get uneven toasting. Even worst, if you’re toasting dark wheat bread (as what I had in my cupboard), the Xbox Logo won’t even show up!

If you want an evenly toasted bread, don’t even think about getting this. This is purely for the novelty and coolness factor of owning an overpriced Xbox Toaster.

Now for the good news, you’re not going to find another toaster that looks this cool. It has one extra-long, extra-wide slot. You can put in two slices of bread or one really, really long slice. This is really useful, because my previous toaster it wasn’t long enough to accommodate for those extra wide bread.

There is a countdown timer, which is very useful to know exactly when you can eat your toast, at its optimal toast.

For cleanup, there is a crumb tray, which you can remove at the bottom. I’m not sure if there is a cleanup option on my old dumb toaster, but I thought the removeable tray was a very nice design.

Yours,

Weekend Gamer

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Xbox Series S Toaster

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Weekend Gamer: NordVPN

Read More VPN I've been testing out some free VPN (Virtual Private Network) services. You may have a need for a VPN for various reasons: privacy, ad-blocking/ad-tracking, removing restrictions, etc. …

A few years ago, I did a roundup of free VPNs (Virtual Private Networks), because I needed a free way of connecting to certain countries to view content (example: UK and China are notorious for blocking other countries).

Of all the free ones, I liked Atlas VPN the best, and ended up using them for quite a while. In fact, I ended up being converted to being a paying subscriber, as I thought their pricing was affordable.

Unfortunately, Atlas VPN announced their closure last month:

After extensive deliberation and evaluation of our long-term business strategy, we have made the difficult decision to sunset Atlas VPN on April 24. This decision was not made lightly – it stems from a comprehensive assessment of the evolving cybersecurity landscape and our place in it.

Why is Atlas closing? Atlas VPN was founded with the mission of providing secure, accessible, and user-friendly VPN services. Despite our best efforts and the incredible support of our users, we've encountered insurmountable challenges. These include rapidly advancing technological demands, a highly competitive market, and the escalating costs of providing top-tier services. These factors have led us to conclude that continuing to operate Atlas VPN is not sustainable in the long term.

All is not lost, Atlas is transferring my account to NordVPN. I’ve looked at Nord before, when I did my VPN research, and the main thing about this company is that I believe they overcharge for their services. The “Basic” plan costs $13 a month (their “Ultimate” plan costs $16 a month). What they encourage is that you buy their two-year plan (which is $200, but I guess most people just wait for a sale).

Since I now have NordVPN, I downloaded their Windows App and have been testing it out. It’s a great looking app, and everything seems to be working. They have a lot more servers than Atlas, but that won’t mean anything if I only use one or two to connect… It also took a little longer than normal to establish my connection, but I believe this may be because it was the first time.

Anyway, my subscription, originally with Atlas but now transferred to Nord, will run out November 2025, by which time, I probably will not be renewing.

The number one reason: Nord is just too expensive. I believe they are one of, if not, the most expensive plan compared with other VPN services. It would be great if my Atlas pricing was grandfathered to Nord (or at least discounted)... but I doubt that is possible.

I’ll probably end up looking for cheaper alternative, or perhaps buying a “Lifetime Subscription” to a lesser-known VPN service for $70 via Stack Social. Or... perhaps revisit and update my Free VPN services.

Yours,

Weekend Gamer

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OneDrive

Read More MicroSoft That’s because I just bought the Microsoft Office Professional 2021 lifetime license for $30, after reading about it on C-Net. The article referenced Stack Social, which I’ve never heard of until today. …

Since Google forced me to abandon their Google Drive by pooling my storage with other users in my domain Workgroup, I’ve had to quickly jump ship and try out something new: OneDrive.

I don’t know why I’ve avoided using MicroSoft’s OneDrive for so long! Now that I’ve been using OneDrive for weeks now, I have realized what a mistake it was by staying with Google Drive for so long.

One of the cool things is that all Windows devices already have OneDrive integrated into Windows, so there are no issues accessing or updating my files across my various computers.

OneDrive Organized Photos

Previously, most of my storage usage is automatically backing up my photos to my Google Photos. This is because Google used to offer free unlimited storage. I was happy to see that OneDrive will automatically back up my photos… and they automatically organized it in folders! See example of photos organized by year in folders (and automatically tagged with what device the photos came from). This is amazing! Previously, I had to access my Google Photos through their website and it wasn’t organized.

Also, my workflow has improved with OneDrive. Example, if I want to read a PDF file on my iPad, I used to manually plug in my iPad into my PC and transfer the file through a USB cable. Now, all I do is drop the PDF in my OneDrive and it’ll automatically appear on my iPad, like magic.

So, if you pay for Personal, not only does it include 1TB of storage, but you have access to MicroSoft Office for free. If you don’t want to pay for Personal, you can still use Office for free if your device is 10 inches or less… So, basically you can use Office on your iPhone.

I like using OneDrive so much that I upgraded from Basic to Microsoft 365 Family. The $99 a year fee gives you 6TB of storage (1TB per person - up to six users). If you do the math, this is the best deal if you can find six people to share the account… it works out to be about $17 a year per person. Everyone in the Family will have access to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, advanced Microsoft Defender, ad-free Outlook, Clipchamp video editor with premium filters and effects, and more.

Here are some highlights:

Pricing: OneDrive offers three reasonable pricing, Basic (100GB for $20 a year), Personal (1TB for $70 a year), and Family (6TB for $100 a year).

Access: If you have a Windows device, OneDrive is integrated into Windows, meaning easier access. OneDrive is also available on iOS and Android, and any computer that has secure web browsing.

Speed: It’s fast! I’ll work on a document and it’s automatically updated on another computer by syncing quickly. Previously with Google Drive, I would have to launch drive on that other computer and wait for that computer to load up the updated file.

Bedtime Backup: This is OneDrive’s turbo mode, basically you put this one before you go to bed and tomorrow, everything is uploaded. I was able to upload 20GB overnight with this feature.

Personal Vault: This is the “secure vault”, which cannot be viewed unless you put in your password and automatically locks after a certain amount of time. I accidentally turned it on, but quickly realized with all the security in place, it wasn’t worth having to put in my password every few hours… so I turned it off. You can only do this via their OneDrive website, you cannot turn off this feature on the app.

Right now, all my photos are backed up on OneDrive, it’s taking up a large chunk of storage. I also have a folder to share some television show so I can watch it on my iPad.

My entire George Perez website is also backed up on OneDrive. Previously, if I had to edit my website, I had to sit at my desktop PC. Now, the website is available to me on any computer that has OneDrive. I’m not worried about it taking up so much storage, as my 1TB is more than enough for my usage.

YouTube blocking adblocker

Based in the direction Google is heading, making users pay for everything, such as forcing small business to pay for custom domain, removing need-features (unless you pay), forcing you to remove Adblock on YouTube, etc… if you can’t see the writing on the wall, you need to open your eyes. This company wants people to pay (in my opinion, it won’t be long until you have to pay for Gmail).

I have to say that it’s just impossible to leave Google. Their search is much better than Bing. Bing isn’t timely, and they don’t index enough websites and what they serve up is not good. The silver lining is that I discovered I had built up so many Bing Points over the years that I had enough to get $10 in Amazon Gift Card! It was basically free money, and the more you use Bing, you can earn money!

vu ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com

Goodbye Google, Hello MicroSoft

Read More MicroSoft That’s because I just bought the Microsoft Office Professional 2021 lifetime license for $30, after reading about it on C-Net. The article referenced Stack Social, which I’ve never heard of until today. …

I used to be a huge Google fan… but not lately.

Since 2021, they just started taking away features and making users pay. I’ll give you three examples.

Google Photos: Google used to offer unlimited photo storage on Google Photo, but they took that away unlimited storage in 2021 (reducing it to 15GB only). You can pay for additional storage.

Google Sites: They used to offer free Google Sites, and that went away in 2021. There’s no payment option, they just don’t want you to continue to use their Classic Sites.

Google Domain: Domain email and users were free, but since 2022, Google decided to charge domain owners, per user. Meaning if you have a team of five users, it’s going to cost you $50 a month (for basic access).

The trend here is that Google used to have free products, but after you heavily invest in their services… they pull the rug from under you and now that same service will cost you money. For my email use, I simply cannot leave… so I am forced to pay.

Anyway, that’s just three examples, there are probably much more of this Google bait-and-switch examples.

Approaching pooled storage limit

The latest Google straw that broke the camel’s back, is that Google decided to “pool storage” for their Google Workspace. Suddenly, my personal storage of 100GB that I have been paying Google for, it suddenly went to 99% at full capacity overnight! I was already paying for 100GB, but this apparently did not count towards my “pooled storage” with other users in my Google domain.

So, you know what? I cancelled my Google One storage subscription, and I’m switching over to MicroSoft 365 Basic plan. MicroSoft’s pricing is decent, at $20 a year. The basic price includes 100 GB of cloud storage, an ad-free email & calendar experience, and ongoing customer support (something that Google does not offer).

In the next week, I will stop using Google products (at least that ones that uses cloud storage) and moving them over to One Drive. I’ll be uninstalling Google Photos from my iPhone, iPad, laptop, etc.

So, this is goodbye Google.

PS, MicroSoft offers a similar plan to Google’s Workspace, but charges less and gives users 1TB storage (per user). So, If I pay for five users, I could get 5TB for $30 a month. That’s such a better deal than Google… I just wish there was a way for me to take my 10-year-old email to MicroSoft, and leave Google for good. If I started a new business right now, I know I would go with MicroSoft.

vu ([email protected]) ♥ weheartmusic.com ♥ twitter.com