Spring4Sims – The Best Finds, Downloads & Hints for Your Sims

I would like to thank everyone who’s donated so far, you guys are really awesome! I’m sure you’ve noticed the donation drive is almost halfway up, as for today we have raised $57.00 out of $121.00. The Sims community has never failed to amaze me in so many ways and this is one of them. You can’t possibly understand how grateful I am for helping me pay for the hosting. I promise to bring a lot of good finds to you!

Also, I’ve listed all the donators in the original post and included the sum of money they donated and their country (no names, of course). Thank you so much again!

P.S.: In case you’re considering donating, find out why to donate and how you can help Spring4Sims in this post.

Yes, it’s that time of year when I’m asking for your help. In fact, I haven’t asked for it in the past one and half year. I thought I would take the bills in my hands and just not bother anyone. Unfortunately, things are no longer the same and I need to pay the bills for Spring4Sims’ hosting and domain.

As much as I don’t like it, I’ve decided to start a donation drive for year 2012. The bed news is I need to pay $121.00 for hosting and domain. The good news is that a one year payment is cheaper than monthly fees ($9.59 / month + $11.99 domain). Asking for money has never been my thing and I hope my readers know that I would not compromise the donations for my personal expenses. (I have no proof, just a solid conscience.)

If you’d like to donate, you can use the Donate button in the left sidebar. However, I encourage you not to donate more than $10.00. Why? Simply because I don’t see the reason why anyone should pay a big sum of money as long as more people can donate smaller amounts.

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Yesterday I had so much free time (yes, that was sarcasm) that I’ve decided it was the right time to make the categories on the blog a little more organized. Yes, I hate when things are messy and the categories an Spring4Sims were far behind this state, so some has been merged, some renamed and some were deleted or added.

I’m sure you’ll like the new categories Pet Essentials, Cars & Transportation and Study Rooms & Hobbies. All these were previously all in one category and I think it didn’t make much sense. I also created a category Bugs & Solutions, just to make it easier to find fixes for our messed games. There are a few more, but I don’t think it’s necessary to name them all.

I still wish the left column with categories was organized in tree instead of alphabetically. It would make much more sense, but I can’t do much about right now… Also, in case you find any typo in the names of the categories, please, let me know.

That’s all for now, I hope you’ll enjoy. Also, thanks for all your lovely and kind words in the past year. You’re my heroes, guys–I love you all!

My dearest fellow Simmers,

I would like to wish you Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope this magical season will fill you with love and joy and bring peace to you and your family.

I hope you’ll share these precious moments with your friends and fulfill all your dreams with their help next year.

Last but not least, I hope you’ll enjoy playing with your Sims even more and keep coming to my site for more inspiration and fun.

Happy Holidays, guys!

P.S.: I might take a few days off during the holidays, but definitely stop by to see what’s new–I won’t stop updating completely.

Hey guys, how are you? I hope you’re all well and finally enjoying the Holiday Season. I’m so excited it’s December again. I already have all the Christmas presents so for me it’s all about baking now–or at least I hope I’ll be baking a lot this year.

Otherwise, I’m quite busy. I’m working hard on my novel almost every day and write on my other blogs. Recently there’s so much new custom content for The Sims that I almost can’t keep up with it. My selections are really aiming at the best stuff right now, so I hope you all enjoy. Also, I’m sorry about those bad tags whether it’s for The Sims 2 or The Sims 3. I’m doing the updates usually at night when I’m pretty tired and that just happens sometimes…

My game is not working again. I’m sure you remember that it was lagging really bad. Well, when I solved that, it has started to crash. It happens about every 30 minutes, which is not that bad, but I also have trouble with saving. I almost always get Error 12 and the game can’t be saved (even as a new world). Honestly, I don’t know what to do. Reinstall? Again? It’s depressing. I was so excited for Pets, but I only created one cat in the game and that’s all I’ve tried so far.

So right now I’m taking some rest from Simming. It might be for the best, though–I really need to finish revising my novel. Maybe when I have more time during the Holidays, I will reinstall.

Meanwhile, have a great weekend!

P.S.: I tried it with no custom content and yes, it still crashes. I’m playing Sunset Valley, not Appalosa Plains (I haven’t even tried that world), and I have the world maps updated.

So, I intended to write a small update on all that Pets trouble that seems to be taking down the whole community–or custom content at least, but meanwhile WordPress has decided to go on strike and left me with posts that were actually impossible to publish. As confusing as it was, it seems to be gone, but unfortunately, the problem took me almost an hour to solve and now it’s just too late (1:01 AM as I’m looking at the clock) to do any further research.

Anyways, one of my dear readers, Paulo, has informed me that TSR has already came up with a solution to fix this. Yay! Stay tuned. I’ll be researching tomorrow. Meanwhile, good night and Sim hard!

I wish I could say I’ve been more “around” when the new computer era has started, but for that I’m too young. I can still clearly picture the first iMacs, though, so pretty and colorful, made in 1997. The day I saw them I knew there was something magical about them and that behind their pretty face, there was a good heart. I was definitely Apple-stuck for good.

I woke up this morning early to go to my doctor when my parter called me to make sure everything’s okay. Then he told me Steve Jobs has passed away earlier that day. His voice was so low and I was pretty sure something terrible has happened. And the truth is, this is pretty terrible. The world has lost a visionare, an inventor, a great successful leader that changed the way we use computers, mobile phones, tablets and MP3 players.

Perhaps I can’t say I’m the most excellent Apple fan out there. I’ve never owned a Mac, because I’ve never found that much money in my pocket, but I do have a small family of iPods, which I love. Four years ago I wrote about them passionately as an editor at a local Apple weblog. Sometimes I think I still miss this job, because to me, iPod has always meant something special (as stupid as it can seem to many, because it’s just a “thing”).

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs.

Photo via Wired

Maybe you’ve noticed, maybe not, but I’ve made some small changes in the right sidebar. I deleted a few dead links and added a few new ones that I think are always handy, like the Compressorizor, S3PE etc.

If you have any ideas for new links that you would like to see in the sidebar, let me know and I might consider them.

I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m not feeling very well these days, because I’m taking antibiotics and feeling just plain tired and a little stressed (nothing worth mentioning, it’s just gross what’s happened to me…). I need to take a few days off, even off this blog, but I’ll be back due to Sunday, because I know how much you like to make your weekend download sprees.

All I feel like now is to play the game and clean up my downloads folder. That’s my plan. Happy Simming!

If you’re a regular visitor of Spring4Sims, I’m sure you know I’ve been doing donation drives for the past couple of years except this one. I’ve decided I should pay the hosting myself, because The Sims and this site is still my personal hobby which should be on my expenses. I’m not against donating and even if you still consider doing so, I’m very grateful, because this site still does take a lot of time to update and of course, the hosting is not free.

That being said, I’m not asking for donations now. Donating is still possible and appreciated, I just don’t want to create any pressure.

However, for those who want to help out, I’ve started an Etsy shop with baked goodies. My family and friends have always loved my chocolate cookies and kept telling me I should try to sell them, so I’ve decided to give it a try. My shop ChocoAvenue is now ready for first orders and I’ll be happy to see some of you buying my cookies. I think this is even better than donating–this way you get a sweet treat for your money.

I will also soon open a new blog with the same name, which is going to be about all things sweet. I’ve had a passion for chocolate and all kinds of baked goods for a long time and I thought learning something new about this topic would be a good thing to do. I’ll let you know when it’s ready, meanwhile check out my shop and let me know what you think. Even if you don’t buy, your opinion means a lot to me! Thank you!