So it's been a couple of months since I destroyed my last custom theme and then left this blog to collect dust while posting on my new gaming blog this-mage.tumblr.com
I decided to be a little lazy and instead of designing my own theme again, I went ahead and downloaded a pretty cool looking theme off btemplates. It's easier to download and gut a theme that you like rather than create one from scratch, especially for me considering I can do the coding but lack some design creativity.
When I say gut, I don't mean that I removed every reference to the original author of this theme, I did leave all of their references in the code and in the footer of this blog. I did however remove a lot of crap in the code left by the author. This theme had a hugeee image above the posts that would link to the author as well as a stupid link to advertisements!! There was also a ton, and I mean a huge chunk of, code that was for the slideshow that played above my posts to link to the author.
Despite the set backs I do like the theme. All I have left to do is put a dropdown navbar at the top and come up with a new banner in photoshop.
If you're interested in what theme I used it's here:
http://btemplates.com/2011/blogger-template-rio-movie/
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 06, 2011
Gaming Blog... this-mage.tumblr.com
I've always wanted to start a 2nd blog devote to gaming. I don't like posting anything gaming related to this blog, because it floods all of my other posts and pushes them further down to other pages. In the past I would solve that problem by posting less on games, but then I'd sit there wanting to post something grand but stopping myself from doing it. I'm an avid MMO player and most MMO's are starting to have a feature that posts in game events to outside social platforms like Twitter, Youtube, and Tumblr... oh and I can't forget Facebook! I see that in one game I'm playing called Rift, and the new Star Wars MMO, SWTOR, will also have that feature as well.
Long story short, I've created a simple tumblr blog dedicated to gaming. Now when I have gaming news, I can post it there instead of on this blog. Maybe that's why I have yet to fix the code on this blog, after breaking my old design XD
http://this-mage.tumblr.com/
Long story short, I've created a simple tumblr blog dedicated to gaming. Now when I have gaming news, I can post it there instead of on this blog. Maybe that's why I have yet to fix the code on this blog, after breaking my old design XD
http://this-mage.tumblr.com/
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Back to blogger and blogging
So after jumping between... ummm.. 4 different blogging platforms (wordpress,drupal,squarespace,tumbler) after initiall leaving blogger, I told myself that I was never going to blog again. IMO it was a waste of time and I was already busy between gaming, school, anime, and whatever else I'm into. Blogging about those things took me away from actually doing those things. So after about a month of no blogging, what do I do, I start a new blog dedicated to one game and start blogging again on my original blog (this blog). It's terrible, I know. So know there are like 20 posts from one day alone, but all of those posts were taken from my old blogs. Those are only about half the posts, but some do get lost in translation.
I've spending a lot of time with photoshop and web design lately, that I've been getting a lot of ideas for this blog. Coming back I'm surprised to see how well I even designed this with not knowing what I know now. I used a lot of shortcuts and rigged the code just to make it work, so the automated blogger design doesn't really work with my blog. Even switching out a theme will make a lot of the code disappear. So I'll go through and hopefully get a lot of the old code cleaned up and start designing my blog more to my current tastes.
I'm also throwing in more categories (or more tags being used as categories) into my topics list. My old list was pretty lacking in topics, so this will be more to my tastes. This is all probably due to me getting a little older and being more experienced since I last posted to this blog.
I've spending a lot of time with photoshop and web design lately, that I've been getting a lot of ideas for this blog. Coming back I'm surprised to see how well I even designed this with not knowing what I know now. I used a lot of shortcuts and rigged the code just to make it work, so the automated blogger design doesn't really work with my blog. Even switching out a theme will make a lot of the code disappear. So I'll go through and hopefully get a lot of the old code cleaned up and start designing my blog more to my current tastes.
I'm also throwing in more categories (or more tags being used as categories) into my topics list. My old list was pretty lacking in topics, so this will be more to my tastes. This is all probably due to me getting a little older and being more experienced since I last posted to this blog.
Como Tocar Por Tu Amor
Lately I've been feeling more and more motivated to start practicing guitar. My friend has been pushing me to do it for about 5 years. He has been using my guitar, which is better than just letting it sit in the closet for those 5 years. So lately now that I've been feeling more motivated to play, I've been listening to a lot of classical music and other various acoustic songs of interest. I've always like the guitar in Por Tu Amor, by Los Alacranes, but never could find a good tutorial on it.
I found this one on youtube by a user named Tanalyss who shows how to play the main part with just 4 chords. Even a noob like me understands this video pretty well.
I found this one on youtube by a user named Tanalyss who shows how to play the main part with just 4 chords. Even a noob like me understands this video pretty well.
Lich King Down!
By happen chance I was able to fill in the last spot for a dps on a 10 man ICC raid. Most people in the raid were geared for Cataclysm raids while I strolled in with my pvp gear. I stood out like a sore thumb but I assured them that despite the handicap I could still push 10k dps and plus I knew all of the mechanics to every fight already. Sadly the fights were a land slide. With our high end gear the fights were seamless. We had 3 wipes on the Lich King but we were shooting for an achievement and it we needed people to pay attention. In the end we got him and the achievement. The gear carried us a little bit, but other people finally started getting the hang of the boss mechanics as well.
[caption id="attachment_3195814936" align="aligncenter" width="573" caption="Last stretch before killing the Lich King"]
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_3195814935" align="aligncenter" width="573" caption="The 2 achievements awarded for beating the fight"]
[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_3195814936" align="aligncenter" width="573" caption="Last stretch before killing the Lich King"]
[/caption][caption id="attachment_3195814935" align="aligncenter" width="573" caption="The 2 achievements awarded for beating the fight"]
[/caption]
Trust You- Yuna Ito
Heard this song from the ending of the first season for Gundam 00. This is an awesome song and fit the anime very well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2E3UzZQbh0&w=640&h=390be
This video was banned :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2E3UzZQbh0&w=640&h=390be
This video was banned :(
Rift Puzzle and Cairne Locations
Screw my previous post with the map of every Puzzle location in rift! The following link is a webpage with every puzzle + every cairn in the game with videos and snapshots on how to do them.
http://www.kfguides.com/rift/puzzlesguide.php
http://www.kfguides.com/rift/puzzlesguide.php
Blogger Announces New Changes!
For those not in the know, SXSW (South by Southwest) was last. One of the keynote speeches was by google on upcoming changes to Blogger, Google's blogging platform. I have to admit that I'm excited to see Goole finally revamping Blogger and catching it up to the modern internet. This makes a lot of sense with Wordpress still being very popular and the rise of new blogging platforms like Tumblr. Twitter and Facebook statuses are also taking a chunk out of the blogging business.
Blogger was the first platform I had ever started blogging on and despite some lack of features, it was always the one blog that gave me the most control. Being my first blog I would find myself changing the style every month. Hell I blogged on Blogger for a long time, since '06. The blog isn't being used, but it does still exist, just marked as private. If Blogger gains features like pages, while allowing the same amount of control as before, I'd definitely consider moving back.
Below is the video presented by Google on Bloggers changes. There wasn't to many features announced in the video, we'll just have to wait and see!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPhFc6GqVdU&w=640&h=390]
Blogger was the first platform I had ever started blogging on and despite some lack of features, it was always the one blog that gave me the most control. Being my first blog I would find myself changing the style every month. Hell I blogged on Blogger for a long time, since '06. The blog isn't being used, but it does still exist, just marked as private. If Blogger gains features like pages, while allowing the same amount of control as before, I'd definitely consider moving back.
Below is the video presented by Google on Bloggers changes. There wasn't to many features announced in the video, we'll just have to wait and see!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPhFc6GqVdU&w=640&h=390]
Those Were the Days
- When gear was earned, not given.
- When you had to work with friends in order to make it.
- When a run was a challenge and not a grind.
- When reputation with other people mattered.
- When everyone on the server knew each others game name.
- When content was new and not recycled.
- When those who wanted to PvP, PvP'd and vice versa (no mixing it up).
- When shit was fun and most friendships today formed back then.
Infinity Blade
Typically when it comes to my iphone 4, I watch movies on netflix or crunchy roll streaming and/or listen to music on Pandora. I find it hard actually find a game that works well with my phone. I have some insanely awesome classic games like Sonic and Gunstar Heroes, but the lack of textile buttons makes the game play not just difficult but annoying. I've also spent money and downloaded games like Civilization and Final Fantasy, but end up playing the 0.99 cent or free games. Time is also a major factor in that case.
When the iphone 4 was first announced, Infinity Blade was a demoed game with major backing that was made specifically for the iphone. The 5.99 price point and the lack of wifi when I'm bored enough to want it, had kept me from downloading this game.
Now I finally have it, and conclude it's seriously addicting. The graphics are amazing and the controls were definitely made for the iphone. You play a knight who invades this castle to kill the evil leader who killed your father. As you make your way through the dungeon you fight a succession of bosses. While fighting you can swipe your finger in either direction to make your person dodge in that direction. Swiping in the direction of a blade swing parries the attack while swiping in any other motion makes your character swing out with his sword in the direction you swiped. You also have magic spells that when enabled you write out the symbol for the spell on your screen to cast. The first few levels are pretty easy, well except for the main boss(I wont spoil it). Although every time you come back the bosses are harder and trickier than they were the previous time you fought them.
When the iphone 4 was first announced, Infinity Blade was a demoed game with major backing that was made specifically for the iphone. The 5.99 price point and the lack of wifi when I'm bored enough to want it, had kept me from downloading this game.
Now I finally have it, and conclude it's seriously addicting. The graphics are amazing and the controls were definitely made for the iphone. You play a knight who invades this castle to kill the evil leader who killed your father. As you make your way through the dungeon you fight a succession of bosses. While fighting you can swipe your finger in either direction to make your person dodge in that direction. Swiping in the direction of a blade swing parries the attack while swiping in any other motion makes your character swing out with his sword in the direction you swiped. You also have magic spells that when enabled you write out the symbol for the spell on your screen to cast. The first few levels are pretty easy, well except for the main boss(I wont spoil it). Although every time you come back the bosses are harder and trickier than they were the previous time you fought them.
Play Mario Bros in Your Browser
I may be behind the times with this post but I still find this awesome.
Typically I could spend hours browsing and downloading old school Roms and Emulators just to scratch my itch to play some Mario or Zelda. But now you can just load these up in your browser without actually having to download them! Check out the link below for some classic Mario.
Play Super Mario at Emuparadise
Typically I could spend hours browsing and downloading old school Roms and Emulators just to scratch my itch to play some Mario or Zelda. But now you can just load these up in your browser without actually having to download them! Check out the link below for some classic Mario.
Play Super Mario at Emuparadise
Server
For the last month or so I've been using an old family computer as a server. My initial motivation was to take every computer I could and create a beowolf cluster out of them. A beowolf cluster is a group of computers that are networked together to share processing power. After ruling out every single one of my old laptops (except my durable little dell pentium 1) due to hardware issues, I decided that in the end a beowolf cluster with the computers I had wasn't really worth the sweat.
While initially doing research and working on setting up the cluster, I also got the idea to use the server as a WoW (world of warcraft) private server. Around 5 years ago I had played on a private server with GM powers and I wanted the ability to that again + with friends. On a side note all of us still pay for and play often our typical WoW accounts.
The only laptop of mine that was still running great was my old pentium 1. I swear, besides my new asus, none of my computers lived up to my old dell pentium 1 inspiron. My step-dad recently got a new computer and that meant the old family desktop was sitting outside collecting dust. One thing about a desktop, any hardware problem can be fixed a lot easier than it could in a laptop. Let me note that the old desktop was not my computer and was not taken care of. It was in terrible condition when I opened it up to clean it out. The inside of the computer had cobwebs galore and about 1/5" of settled dust on everything. On top of the heat sink for the CPU, there was about a quarter inch thick of dust, and I mean thick. The power supply had dust all through it's insides and the cd drive no longer opened it was so clogged.
I took my 3 can's of air and thoroughly cleaned that computer out. I was able to get a WoW private server running on just the 512MB of RAM and the dual core 2.8 GHz CPU. The CPU didn't make all the difference since it was pretty much sitting at idle once the WoW login and world server was up and running. My main problem was memory since the programs for the WoW server were taking up all of my RAM and almost all of my paging file. I decided to up the memory to 2 gigs. The next problem that arose was a CPU that constantly sat at 70 degrees Celc. That processor shouldn't go above 68 degrees celc. I wasn't too surprised to see that the chip was overheating, especially considering all of the dust that had built up in there. The good news is that with a little bit of thermal glue I fixed the overheating problem easy. I barely see the CPU peak above 68 degrees unless I'm doing multiple things like running a virus scan and running other apps other than a browser at the same time.
My biggest lesson learned with this server is to not use Windows Server 2003. My original plan was to make an Ubuntu Server and I had given up on that plan after the WoW private server didn't run right (although I later found out I had missed some steps). Because I moved back to a windows environment I should have used Windows XP. Trying to find a free firewall and virus scanner for the server proved almost impossible. All of my favorites don't support Server 03' because it's used by corporations and not in private use. I also ran into a lot of driver problems because it seems like no driver has support for Windows 2000 or Server 2003.
While initially doing research and working on setting up the cluster, I also got the idea to use the server as a WoW (world of warcraft) private server. Around 5 years ago I had played on a private server with GM powers and I wanted the ability to that again + with friends. On a side note all of us still pay for and play often our typical WoW accounts.
The only laptop of mine that was still running great was my old pentium 1. I swear, besides my new asus, none of my computers lived up to my old dell pentium 1 inspiron. My step-dad recently got a new computer and that meant the old family desktop was sitting outside collecting dust. One thing about a desktop, any hardware problem can be fixed a lot easier than it could in a laptop. Let me note that the old desktop was not my computer and was not taken care of. It was in terrible condition when I opened it up to clean it out. The inside of the computer had cobwebs galore and about 1/5" of settled dust on everything. On top of the heat sink for the CPU, there was about a quarter inch thick of dust, and I mean thick. The power supply had dust all through it's insides and the cd drive no longer opened it was so clogged.
I took my 3 can's of air and thoroughly cleaned that computer out. I was able to get a WoW private server running on just the 512MB of RAM and the dual core 2.8 GHz CPU. The CPU didn't make all the difference since it was pretty much sitting at idle once the WoW login and world server was up and running. My main problem was memory since the programs for the WoW server were taking up all of my RAM and almost all of my paging file. I decided to up the memory to 2 gigs. The next problem that arose was a CPU that constantly sat at 70 degrees Celc. That processor shouldn't go above 68 degrees celc. I wasn't too surprised to see that the chip was overheating, especially considering all of the dust that had built up in there. The good news is that with a little bit of thermal glue I fixed the overheating problem easy. I barely see the CPU peak above 68 degrees unless I'm doing multiple things like running a virus scan and running other apps other than a browser at the same time.
My biggest lesson learned with this server is to not use Windows Server 2003. My original plan was to make an Ubuntu Server and I had given up on that plan after the WoW private server didn't run right (although I later found out I had missed some steps). Because I moved back to a windows environment I should have used Windows XP. Trying to find a free firewall and virus scanner for the server proved almost impossible. All of my favorites don't support Server 03' because it's used by corporations and not in private use. I also ran into a lot of driver problems because it seems like no driver has support for Windows 2000 or Server 2003.
Hack Blogger
A network security professional linked this site on twitter this morning. I haven't tried this hack yet, but it looks like an easy 3-step method to making yourself the admin of someone elses blogger account.
Here's the link for your perusal.
http://www.nirgoldshlager.com/2011/03/blogger-get-administrator-privilege-on.html
Here's the link for your perusal.
http://www.nirgoldshlager.com/2011/03/blogger-get-administrator-privilege-on.html
Old School Gaming
Both of these systems were the shit when they 1st came out, but they didn’t last long and have already been lost in time. I had a virtual boy that broke on me about 6 months after full time use. I never had the Game Gear, but instead had the Sega Nomad that was a portable system using the actual game cartridges. A lot of my friends had the Game Gear though.
ATT Rep Talks Shit on Twitter
This lady is definitely getting fired. She reportedly got on her twitter and started trash talking everyone who was showing interest in switching to Verizon. The twitter account is closed down now, but this wasn’t very smart of her to do. What was that saying? Oh yeah, the customer is always right!
*Clicking the images will bring you to the original article on techcrunch.com
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