SimCity Social Cheats & Tips: Use the train system for cheap Materials

by Brandy Shaul, Posted Jun 25th 2012 8:20PM

While you might initially not even notice the Train Station in SimCity Social (it's in the bottom of your original city square, in case you haven't checked), there's a great reason to send out trains early and often as you work to grow your small city: cheap Materials!

Materials are the goods you use to purchase and upgrade buildings for your city, so the more you have the better. The Train Station allows you to choose from six products, each with a different time limit and purchase price, which will activate trains that will bring back hundreds of even thousands of Materials to your city over the span of a few (or quite a few) hours.

The Train Station can be used at Level 1 to operate six trains, but if you upgrade the Train Station, these stats can change. Here's a look at what you'll be dealing with until you upgrade (which is an entirely voluntary process).

Concrete Costs: 120 coinsReturns in: 4 HoursBrings: 125 Materials
Lumber Costs: 480 coinsReturns in: 12 HoursBrings: 625 Materials
Textiles Costs: 640 coinsReturns in: 24 HoursBrings: 1350 Materials
Steel Costs: 360 coinsReturns in: 8 HoursBrings: 400 Materials
Coal Costs: 720 coinsReturns in: 18 HoursBrings: 1000 Materials
Oil Costs: 1200 coinsReturns in: 36 HoursBrings: 2550 Materials
To upgrade your Train Station to Level 2, you'll need to collect three Community, two Goodwill and two Fury. These items are similar to those in The Sims Social on Facebook, as you can earn them by interacting with items in your own city or in your friends' cities. For instance, Goodwill is earned by completing nice actions when visiting neighbors, while Community items are earned by adding homes in your own city. We'll make sure to update this guide as we learn more about the stats of routes on Levels 2 and 3 of the Train Station in your city. Stay tuned!

Did you notice that there was a Train Station in your town in SimCity Social, or did you overlook it during the tutorial? Sound off in the comments!

Tags: ea, facebook games, maxis, playfish, simcity, SimCity Social, simcity social cheats, simcity social facebook, simcity social materials, simcity social tips, simcity social train station, simcity social tricks

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Bandcamp’s New Facebook Page Tab App Lacks Features But Makes Selling Music Cheap and Easy

Musician profile website and publishing platform Bandcamp this week released a tab application that lets artists present their Bandcamp presence on their Facebook Page. While competing services like RootMusic built Page tab apps that now host hundreds of thousands of musicians, Bandcamp has focused on letting [MUSICIANS'? its] music be streamed or purchased from the news feed. Its new app makes it easier and cheaper for musicians to sell music than other popular Facebook apps.

Bandcamp criticizes the social network as a place for musicians, calling it “just another part of a good overall distribution strategy” in the launch materials for its app and saying Facebook Pages are cluttered with distracting content and ads. By waiting this long to build a Page tab app for Facebook, though, Bandcamp has given its competitors a big head start in terms of functionality and user base. It will need to close these gaps to remain attractive to artists who have much to gain from Facebook’s massive audience, and to increase its own revenues.

Bandcamp was founded in 2008, long before RootMusic and ReverbNation began growing the user counts of their Page tab apps. The service lets musicians create a homepage from which visitors can stream their music, view their upcoming tour dates, join their mailing list, download tracks, and buy their albums. The site acts as a publishing platform, as artists don’t necessarily need a record label if they can distribute their music for profit through Bandcamp.

At launch, the site’s simple design and reliability made it a refreshing alternative to Myspace. In the early days of music Page tab apps on Facebook, it offered arguably stronger, cheaper branding and distribution services than RootMusic’s BandPage and ReverbNation’s BandProfile. It also offered a wide range of sharing capabilities including powerful Facebook news feed sharing option that allowed users to stream music in-line from te feed or begin a purchase flow with a single click.

As Pages receive half as many impressions as their news feed posts, focusing on the feed rather than Pages seemed like a wise move. In the instructions for installing its new Page tab app, Bandcamp slams Facebook’s Pages product, which compete with its own core product, writing “The average Facebook page has between 50 and 60 things for your fans to click on other than your music. Why let an ad for Bonobos pants vie for your fans’ attention?”

With time, though, Bandcamp’s competitors replicated its rich news feed stories, branding, and distribution, and staying out of Facebook app development began looking like a misstep. Now, traffic measurement service Compete shows Bandcamp having roughly 800,000 monthly unique visitors and its new Page tab app has 90,000 monthly active users, while RootMusic’s BandPage hosts 250,000 artists, and has 1.3 million daily active users and 28 million MAU according to AppData.

Bandcamp users can visit the Facebook app or follow a prompt on their Bandcamp profile to access instructions for adding the Page tab app to their Facebook Page. Once installed, the app shows the same streaming, download, purchase, and sharing options as on artist’s Bandcamp page. If visitors go to download a track, they’re directed back to a Bandcamp download page. If they go to make a purchase, a payment flow is initially shown in-line before sending users to PayPal to complete the transaction.

The list of features missing from the app is long. To start with, there’s no way to automatically send updates when content is added, nor customize the app’s chrome, take in mailing list signups, display videos or photos, or require users to Like the Page, send a tweet, or sign up for email updates in order to access the app or specific content.

The one thing Bandcamp’s app handles very well is selling music. Musicians can easily upload music to Bandcamp and immediately begin selling it. Bandcamp takes a just 10% cut of sales with no upfront costs, and artist can require downloaders to join their mailing list. This beats RootMusic’s options of free downloads through Soundcloud or links to other music stores such as iTunes, and ReverbNation’s mp3 store which takes a large $3 cut per album. Bandcamp also lets artists cheaply give music away, as they can pay Bandcamp 2 cents a song to let fans download music for free.

Bandcamp’s Page tab app works well for artists that want to sell their music directly through Facebook. For smaller artists trying to scrape by, that might be the most important thing. However, its weak customization and lack of fan-gating options means that for now, artists thinking about the long-term, who are signed with labels, or that sell their music through iTunes and Amazon, may be better served by a more full-featured Facebook apps.

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Pet Health Insurance Reviews - Is Cheap Pet Insurance the Best?

Health insurance is something almost everyone has, or strives to have. In addition, many people also get pet health insurance as well. Animals are a very important part of most families just like the rest of the family members and sometimes even more. Most people don't realize that there are now many options out there for pet health insurance and most are much more reasonable and affordable than what we have available for ourselves.

Most pet health insurance policies cover all basic needed services such as spaying and neutering, de-worming, shots, and basic tests such as leukemia testing. Most of these pet health insurance policies offer different tiers to choose from depending on the age and specific needs of the pet. Rather than having to pay outright and break your pocket book for needed vet visits these policies enable you to make low monthly payments, and not owe anything at the time of the visit.

When checking out pet insurance reviews, going for the cheap pet insurance may or may not be the best idea depending on your pets needs. The cheapest pet insurance usually only covers the basic needs of the pet for example; vaccinations, de-worming, etc. When going through a pet insurance review make sure you get the level of coverage that is most accomodating to your needs as well.

Below is a list of the different kinds of coverage pet health insurance usually offers to aid in finding and selecting the best pet health insurance plan for your animals needs. Unfortunately pets just like people get health issues, and it's just heart breaking when this happens and you're not prepared or able to get your pet the help they need. Similar to our health insurance depending on the type of visit there may be added expenses that may need to be paid, but those can normally be taken care of at a later date in easier to pay monthly installments along with your pet insurance costs. This makes properly caring for your animals a lot more feasible.

When Does an Individual Not Need Pet Insurance?

This is a tricky question. For some, the cost of caring for a pet may be unjustified if the finances are above the individuals needs. In addition, some may feel that smaller pets, ie; rats, mice, frogs, etc. may not be the best canditates for pet insurance and the pet insurance cost may not be justified. This is also determined on an owner-by-owner basis and is strictly up to the pet owners discretion.

Another time when pet insurance is not needed is when a pet owner is completely capable of paying the vet bills without strain at any given moment. Many people have very healthy pets and only want to pay when the pet is sick or in need of treatment. This is completely o.k. for plenty of individuals. In general, pet insurance is for those who don't want to pay a lump sum, but find it more affordable to pay ahead of time and be covered when the time is right.

Unfortunately there are many individuals that don't take their pets to the vet at all. This can lead to undiagnosed illnesses, and a lower quality of health. For example, it's very important to take your cats in for leukemia testing as it has become a common fatality among the feline society. Most kittens also require de-worming and de-fleeing which is very important to their health and development. We are offering here resources to some of the cheapest pet health insurance so that everyone can find a plan that can work for them and their pet.
The benefits for having pet insurance are abundant though unfortunately it may not be financially feasable for everyone at least it is to most. Below is an example of what a tiered plan may offer;

- Leukemia testing and shots
- de-worming
- de-fleeing
- spaying and neutering
- rabies vaccination
- heartworm testing
- fecal exam
- coronavirus vaccinations
- canine and feline distemper vaccinations
- Treatment and medication for illness
- Treatment and medication for injury
- Annual physical exam

* A plan like this would normally run you anywhere from $25 to $35 a month per pet.

This is an example of a well rounded option for a plan that includes wellness as well as continuing care and accidents which could be most important as they account for the larger bills and can never be planned for. There are also plans lower than the above. one such as this that is just strictly accidental coverage, which may be a good option for some as well that are not so much concerned with the costs of routine visits but are with the possibility of accidents. There are also of course plans higher than this as well that offer additional services to the plan, but for most this would be sufficient.

About the Author:
For the best and Cheapest Pet Health Insurance Reviews and the perfect pet insurance for your needs - Visit www.CheapestPetInsuranceReviews.com today!

View the original article here

Pet Health Insurance Reviews - Is Cheap Pet Insurance the Best?

Health insurance is something almost everyone has, or strives to have. In addition, many people also get pet health insurance as well. Animals are a very important part of most families just like the rest of the family members and sometimes even more. Most people don't realize that there are now many options out there for pet health insurance and most are much more reasonable and affordable than what we have available for ourselves.

Most pet health insurance policies cover all basic needed services such as spaying and neutering, de-worming, shots, and basic tests such as leukemia testing. Most of these pet health insurance policies offer different tiers to choose from depending on the age and specific needs of the pet. Rather than having to pay outright and break your pocket book for needed vet visits these policies enable you to make low monthly payments, and not owe anything at the time of the visit.

When checking out pet insurance reviews, going for the cheap pet insurance may or may not be the best idea depending on your pets needs. The cheapest pet insurance usually only covers the basic needs of the pet for example; vaccinations, de-worming, etc. When going through a pet insurance review make sure you get the level of coverage that is most accomodating to your needs as well.

Below is a list of the different kinds of coverage pet health insurance usually offers to aid in finding and selecting the best pet health insurance plan for your animals needs. Unfortunately pets just like people get health issues, and it's just heart breaking when this happens and you're not prepared or able to get your pet the help they need. Similar to our health insurance depending on the type of visit there may be added expenses that may need to be paid, but those can normally be taken care of at a later date in easier to pay monthly installments along with your pet insurance costs. This makes properly caring for your animals a lot more feasible.

When Does an Individual Not Need Pet Insurance?

This is a tricky question. For some, the cost of caring for a pet may be unjustified if the finances are above the individuals needs. In addition, some may feel that smaller pets, ie; rats, mice, frogs, etc. may not be the best canditates for pet insurance and the pet insurance cost may not be justified. This is also determined on an owner-by-owner basis and is strictly up to the pet owners discretion.

Another time when pet insurance is not needed is when a pet owner is completely capable of paying the vet bills without strain at any given moment. Many people have very healthy pets and only want to pay when the pet is sick or in need of treatment. This is completely o.k. for plenty of individuals. In general, pet insurance is for those who don't want to pay a lump sum, but find it more affordable to pay ahead of time and be covered when the time is right.

Unfortunately there are many individuals that don't take their pets to the vet at all. This can lead to undiagnosed illnesses, and a lower quality of health. For example, it's very important to take your cats in for leukemia testing as it has become a common fatality among the feline society. Most kittens also require de-worming and de-fleeing which is very important to their health and development. We are offering here resources to some of the cheapest pet health insurance so that everyone can find a plan that can work for them and their pet.
The benefits for having pet insurance are abundant though unfortunately it may not be financially feasable for everyone at least it is to most. Below is an example of what a tiered plan may offer;

- Leukemia testing and shots
- de-worming
- de-fleeing
- spaying and neutering
- rabies vaccination
- heartworm testing
- fecal exam
- coronavirus vaccinations
- canine and feline distemper vaccinations
- Treatment and medication for illness
- Treatment and medication for injury
- Annual physical exam

* A plan like this would normally run you anywhere from $25 to $35 a month per pet.

This is an example of a well rounded option for a plan that includes wellness as well as continuing care and accidents which could be most important as they account for the larger bills and can never be planned for. There are also plans lower than the above. one such as this that is just strictly accidental coverage, which may be a good option for some as well that are not so much concerned with the costs of routine visits but are with the possibility of accidents. There are also of course plans higher than this as well that offer additional services to the plan, but for most this would be sufficient.

About the Author:
For the best and Cheapest Pet Health Insurance Reviews and the perfect pet insurance for your needs - Visit www.CheapestPetInsuranceReviews.com today!

View the original article here