Gerald's Blog

Next WoW player in the making...

2008-09-03T15:32:00.001-04:00

For the last couple of months my wife and I knew we are pregnant. I been waiting to announce it until the first ultra-sound. Well today is that day. Here are pictures of my new son or daughter:

There are no wrong specs....just stupid ones!

2008-07-24T22:18:00.001-04:00

hehehe I like that title. I'm going to keep it! :D

Well anyhow I was looking at the spec I had on my fire mage. I guess it wasn't too bad. However, I did put 3 points into Playing with Fire. I figured why not. An extra 3% to spell damage must be good. :D

I did a little research and found out, it is good...if you are raiding/instancing/not taking damage. Not soo good for solo leveling. It is all good. I respec'ed and actually picked up Impact. I don't see alot of the cookie-cutter spec have it but I like the talent. I find it most useful on mobs who like to run. I guess I been lucky on my procs.

Almost a week...

2008-07-20T21:57:00.001-04:00

I think it has almost been a week since I started to quit smoking. I think I started last Monday. Quitting is kind of like those quit smoking commercials, the ones where you have to relearn everything.

I kind of think of those commercials whenever I want to smoke. For example, the other night I had a few drinks with the neighbor. Man it took alot to keep me from walking to the store and getting me a pack of cigars. Smoking and drinking was my thing.

TV Shows

2008-07-18T15:19:00.001-04:00

It seems that when summer hits, all of my shows go off the air. During the fall, soo many shows were coming on my DVR couldn't keep up. Now, I have one or two. SG:Atlantis is back. Avatar is back. Burn Notice is back. OOOHHH yeah and soon Psych will be back. Now I really like that show.

World PVP at the Krispy Kreme

2008-07-18T09:51:00.001-04:00

Well not really, but it could have happened! ;)

Well I have been wanting to go to Krispy Kreme for awhile now. I love their fresh donuts. So, I drag my wife to the closest store. As we are leaving, I slipped on my J!NX 'For the Horde' t-shirt. I knew I could get ganked or gangbanged by a bunch of Alliance, however that is the chance we Horde take for donuts. ;)

We are standing in line and this lady 'sneaks' up behind me. She whispers, "Do you play WoW?" She must play a rogue or a druid in the game. ;) Well I turn around and we chit-chat for one second. She then leaves as soon as she appeared. I didn't even get her name and server. :( She must have been Alliance! :P

Quit Smoking

2008-07-16T12:25:00.001-04:00

Well my wife and I made an agreement that I would quit smoking. I smoke the Black & Mild cigars. It is a habit I wish I would have never picked up. I still remember when I started smoking the cigars daily. Before I could keep a pack of cigars for 2-3 months at a time. Now I can smoke a pack in 2 days.

So now I'm on day 2 and it is beginning to suck!!! So this is a post for my wife...YOU SUCK!!! :p

Finally made a MySpace page

2008-07-16T11:08:00.001-04:00

Yep I finally made one. I been on the net for awhile now, but never made one of these. Main reason, the ones I see are just too much for my eyes!! :) Well mine is plain, I did add a plugin that let my visitors know what music I am listening to on iTunes.

So far I have found a few old friends and a bunch of my wife's family. I can see how people get up in MySpace. I have even found myself just browser people's profiles/pictures/comments. ;) Well if anyone want to see my page, click here.

Nasty bug I found in the Notes client

2008-07-16T00:13:00.001-04:00

While working late one night I found the nastiest bug I have ever seen in the Notes client. I copied a subform from one form, Form A, and pasted it into another form, Form B. After saving form B, I started to get an error over the web, Item not found. At first, I thought my client had crashed without giving me a message. It happens from time to time. So I restarted my client, but when I tried to open Form B I started getting an error, "Not a form." I was floored!!! After trying to open the form like 100 times, I finally went to the Notes forum and found these.

I just got one word IBM, "WoW!" Apparently this bug have been in the client since 5??? It is still present in Notes 8. So if you are developing a form and you get the error "Not a form", forget about it. Pray you have a backup somewhere. The best I could offer you is to look at the design synopsis. It will give you some information but not all.

Funny vid I found on YouTube

2008-07-15T14:49:00.001-04:00

One thing I miss about not posting on this blog is listing of the interesting stuff I find out there on the web. Recently I came across this gem:

The source of this video is here.

WoW in the last few months

2008-07-15T14:40:00.001-04:00

My WoW life has suffered much since my last post. Well at first it was moving along. My guild started into Kara. We were progressing along nicely. Taking down the bosses one by one. Then work picked up. So I stopped playing WoW as much as I was...sometimes going a week without playing. That sucks! Well it looks like the guild have all of the bosses down except for Nightbane. Congrats to them. They even got an alliance with another guild so they can go to Gruul's and ZA.

As for me, I just settled on playing my mage alt. It's cool. Playing him has been fun. Only thing was the announcement about the mounts a few weeks back. :) Yeah I just hit level 39 and I knew I wasn't going to wait for Bliz to release the next patch. Now I am kicking myself I didn't wait just a few weeks. :) But it is all good. The cost of the first mount isn't expensive at all.

I'm going to try to get him up to 70 and maybe one more to 70 before the expansion. Maybe a shaman...I don't know.

OK I suck...

2008-07-15T13:56:00.001-04:00

I haven't posted here in soo long it isn't funny. But I have a good excuse...

My dog ate my computer....
I got abducted by aliens. I was hanging out with Elvis and Tupac. I just got back...
Chuck Norris chopped my internet connection and it is finally coming back on...

No, but seriously I been really busy at work. Everytime I thought work would slack up, more work would come my way. :) Don't get me wrong. The more work I get, the less chance I will lose my job. heheheh Well that what I think. Plus, I can't complain much. I DO work from home. Well it's been awhile so let's bang out some posts shall we. :D

Something funny happened to me in Area 52...

2008-03-17T10:45:00.001-04:00

I'm waiting in Area 52 for a few guildies to come help me in Netherstorm. I was after Dabri's Enigma for Severkill. So, I'm in the middle of Area 52 sitting on my Swift Red Windrider. Nothing special since there are WAY better epic flying mounts out there.

Out of the blue I get a whisper, "Do you buy gold? Because you have a flying mount and from looking at your equipment it do not look like you raid." At first, I was shocked! I told him about the endless hours of farming motes/leathers/nodes. How I decided to finish up left over quests in the various areas. It took awhile but I earned the 5200g on my own. He said he raids and earns about 30g for a Kara run and thinks grinding for gold is boring.

Now I do not think the guy was stupid, just a little uninformed. What he finds boring, I find not so boring. ;) Yes, it's hard to stay on track grinding Thick Clefthoof Leathers in Nagrand, flying around the different zones mining nodes, or doing the remaining quests from zones. But I did find it rewarding when I was done...even to now I'm still doing the quests for gold/rep.

But I always say, "To each, their own." If he find raiding the way to earn gold, I say "You can do it!" I just find grinding/questing to be the way for me.

Steamvaults

2008-03-12T22:28:00.001-04:00

Last weekend was my first venture into normal Steamvaults. Did it go good? No. :( It would be easy to blame DPS, healing, or the moon. ;) However, I blame myself. We cleared the instance, but the tanking could have been better. When it was one or two mobs, I did ok. However, when it came to three, I would always lose aggro on one. I was doing the tanking rotations I have read about. Even threw in a Thunder Clap as the first move when the mobs came in range. This didn't do the trick. Afterwards, I started to go over things I could have done better.

One thing stuck out was the pulls where I had to hide behind something to make the casters come closer. The problem was the melee mobs would always come around the corner faster. While I'm waiting for the other mobs to come, the melee mobs would start beating on me. This isn't good because the healer would have to start healing me. What I should have probably did was keep my eye on my mini map so when the casters got close, I would come out and TC and start my tanking rotation, SS->Revenge->Dev->TC/DS. Somewhere in there I would try to do a Dev on one of the other mobs.

Like I said we cleared the instance, but I want to go back. I need experience/practice/whatever. I know the more experience I have, the better tank I will become.

In addition, I decided to change my UI. I move my mini-map down to the bottom of my screen. Moved things a little closer together at the bottom of the screen so I do not have to look all over my screen to get information, like where are the mobs. Hopefully, this will help. Well this how my warrior looks now:

He is ready for Heroics, but I need more experience under my belt.

Windows Live Writer and WoWDB

2008-03-12T21:34:00.001-04:00

Now that I have tooltips from WoWDB, I wanted a plug-in so I could easily create links for items. Basically, I just want to enter the item's ID and let the plug-in do the rest. So, after a little searching, looks like I need to write the plugin in C#. Since, I didn't want to go into all that just to insert a link. I was all set to give up. :(

Then I found a plug-in that will assist me in writing a plug-in. :) It's called Dynamic Template. The website even comes with videos to help you get started. After watching a few of the videos, I was able to create a plug-in. If anyone want it, download it here.

WoWDB

2008-03-12T21:06:00.001-04:00

I was reading my usual blogs today and saw Gwaendar over at Altitis was was talking about a template for a guild website. This generally do not affect me because I'm satified with Blogger. However, Gwaendar started talking about WoW item tooltips being powered by WoWDB. So, I went over there and put the necessary code in my HTML head of my blogger template. Now it is time to test it out!

Earthwarden

Me vs Oracle

2008-03-12T20:49:00.001-04:00

Man work has been bananas lately! :) Don't get me wrong! When they are keeping you busy, you are less likely to get laid off, or fired! Lately, they have been keeping me busy with Oracle. Don't they know I'm a Lotus Notes Developer. ;) Well, it at least sounded interesting, at first!

I am to create a web interface using JSP/Servlets. I have worked with servlets in the past but this will be my first time working with JSPs. Well following the tutorial that came with the Oracle Application Express, I was able to create a simple JSP. From then on, problems here and there have had me pulling my hair out!

Now that I have most of the requirements done, I can relax a little. There were a couple of things I just couldn't do. :( However, it is all good. It was all a learning experience.

Nice list of WoW links

2008-02-07T11:59:00.001-05:00

It's from the EU WoW forums and contains a big list of links. Go here to check it out.

Community of Lotus Notes Blogger

2008-02-04T12:50:00.001-05:00

Since I posted a link for the community of WoW bloggers, here is one for Lotus Notes bloggers. It is different from the WoW one but it is good to find blog posts in one spot.

Attack of the Bloggers

2008-02-04T11:14:00.001-05:00

I have never noticed this site before, but looks like WoW bloggers have a community of it's own. :)

Ogri'la addon

2008-02-04T10:22:00.001-05:00

Now that I have done the quests to open up Ogri'la and the Sha'tari Skyguard, I have been doing a couple of the dailies. Yesterday, I discovered the one where you have to play the "Simon says" type game. It's not bad, but I'm not good at Simon says. :( So, I went out on the internet and saw there is an addon for this quest. It's called Ogri-lazy and it's basically a way to keep track of the sequence without using pencil and paper or your chat window. You can find it here. It hasn't been updated in awhile but I tried it yesterday. It worked find. I just positioned myself so the buttons within the addOn would correspond to the colored squares on the ground. Made that quest quite easy.

WoW Gem Finder

2008-02-04T09:40:00.001-05:00

Found a nice website about gems and where to find them.

Oh forgot something...

2008-02-04T00:45:00.000-05:00

I forgot to give a shout out to my boy Adam Burrell. I ran into him while at Lotusphere. He use to work for JPI before I joined, but all of us use to work together at a different company named Xsystems. It was nice seeing Adam. He even got a picture of me after a few beers and a $52 bottle of Saki, ooppss, on his blog.

Lotusphere

2008-02-03T23:15:00.001-05:00

Lotusphere was a blast! It was nice being around soo many people who use Lotus Notes/Domino. There were soo many smart people there. Also, the accommodations were great. If you can go next year, I say do so. Lotus 8.5, yes please!!! The new designer client looks more like an IDE. My co-worker showed me Lotus Forms. This would have helped us with the PDFs forms with our customer. The hands on labs and a few of the presentations were great. The open General session was good. The session about the best of the worst was the best hands down! :D They had all of us laughing throughout the session. My only complaint during the whole week was my feet!!! I bought boots with me. :( If I ever go back I know to bring sneakers!!! Probably with some sort of pad in them. Oh one last thing, I did my upgrade exam to Domino 7 and aced it. Thank you Certfx! :)

Catch up on WoW

2008-02-03T20:38:00.001-05:00

Well since joining Raven and hitting 70, they have been running a lot of instances. It has been a mix of Outland 5 mans with Azeroth's instances. It's been nice. At first I was tanking but now we have a level 70 protection warrior who been tanking. I'm sticking with my Fury spec but I'm thinking about changing to protection because we are getting close to having enough members to run 2 5-mans. Which is cool so everyone can get geared up for Kara. I been working on two sets of gear. I'm not completely finished, been saving up for my epic flying mount.

However, this goal was achieved last night. I really like my new mount. Speed is a good thing! The gold grind to get this thing was long. ;) I was grinding motes, nodes, and finally finishing up the quests in Nagrand, Blade's Edge, and Netherstorm. Now my goal is to get [Grom'tor's Charge]. I haven't started the quest line because I been torn between doing the all of the different dailies out there. However, I should go ahead and get my tanking set as close to complete as possible. Here are a couple of screen shots of my Tanking set and my DPS set:

Now I been running into a major decision making process for my weapons with my DPS set. Right now I'm using [Resonating Axe] and [Claw of the Netherwing Flight]. However, I have this in my bank [Ceremonial Warmaul Blood-blade] and [Hungering Bone Cudgel]. Now my first instinct is to use the blues! Who won't! However, it seem that the daggers are the best DPS weapons to use. But from what I have been reading, warriors do not want to DPS with daggers. In addition, with the changes with 2.3, I want to use slow weapons. So, this pointing me use the axe and the mace. But...yes there is another but. :) The axe and the claw gives me a little expertise. :) Decisions, decisions, decisions. Well I have decided to just hold onto everything till something better comes along.

One last thing before I end this post. One day I was helping some guildies out in Hellfire, my least favorite zone. In the distant we see the Fel Reaver walking past. Our healer yells out, I'm going to kill him. My first thought, "What the f*ck! He must be out of his mind." So off he goes toward this beast who have struck fear in many of hearts. At one point I thought he was going to body pull him. So, I dismount and charge. First hit didn't kill me, second hit didn't kill me. Matter of fact, fighting him wasn't too bad. We took him down! Revenge is mine!!! :D

Hello Stranger

2008-02-03T18:39:00.002-05:00

First off sorry for the lack of posts. It has been a busy couple of months. Also, I said I won't post again until I did a post about iText. Well here it is! :)

I was going to write about how I like iText and post a sample database with a write up on it. However, I have found plenty of websites out there that do just that. Here is a link to a Goggle search for iText and Domino.

For my job, our customer wanted a PDF form created and populated with the user's information. I could have done this with FOP, which what we use current for all of our PDF creation. However, they have editable fields on the PDF form. Couldn't find anywhere that said it could be done with FOP. :( However, it was all good because it finally gave me an excuse to use iText.

I got to work on a java agent, then converted it to a servlet. I even used the instructions on compiling the jar file with Java 1.3. (Did I mention we are still using Domino 6.5?) Was almost done, when the customer decided to go with a link to a blank PDF and have the customer download it, fill it out, scan it, and send it to the helpdesk. All my work down the drain. :( But it is all good. You get use to it after awhile of doing my type of work.

So, I keep the work I did with iText in the back of my head. You never know it might be used one day. ;) Well, Friday we are having a meeting about the helpdesk and users. Guess who gets a second chance at using iText. :D After I get out of the meeting I do a quick google and find a posting on Note.net.

Another Tanking Gear Posting

2007-12-19T08:32:00.000-05:00

While looking for potential gear I'm going to drag my guild around to get me! :D I came across this other posting for pre-Kara tank gear.

Tank Gear Posting

2007-12-02T03:14:00.001-05:00

Was still reading the Warrior's forum and came across this posting, Guide to Pre-Kara/Pre-Heroic Tank Gear.

MaxDPS.com

2007-12-02T01:03:00.001-05:00

I was surfing the Warrior's forum and found this posting. It is a link to MaxDPS.com. The site for DPS gear ranking. It is a work in progress but looks promising so far.

Non Raiding DW Fury Gear List

2007-11-28T02:02:00.001-05:00

I saw a posting on the Warrior's forum about gear for DW Fury Warriors. Looks like a nice list for all you DPS warriors out there. :) Here is an additional link to the posting on TheorySpot.

My thoughts on Outland

2007-11-28T01:47:00.001-05:00

After Severkill hit level 70, I sat there for a minute and thought about my experiences in Outland. Hellfire Peninsula....hate it! Yes that has to be my least favorite zone....well beside Desolace. That reminds me, I need to pay the Deepstrider Giant a visit. ;) However, I did like Nagrand. Maybe it is all the open grassy fields throughout the zone. *shrug*

Well the one thing I did like about Outland is the questing rewards. The stuff you get from questing made me actually look forward to going into Ogre mines or Arakkoa villages. In addition, at least on my server, Dalaran, most AH greens sucked! At least compared to the stuff you got from questing. So if you are about to venture out in the Outland for the first time, definitely do not skip the quests! They are worth it. Hopefully they did the same thing to the quests back in Azeroth with the 2.3 patch. After I get Severkill better geared for tanking and get Severorc up to 70, I will level Deathrot to find out.

Well present I am doing a number of things with Severkill. I'm researching what enchants I should get for him. I didn't want to do it at first because I figured a few instance runs and I would be switching out a bunch of my equipment. However, I have changed my mind. Matter of fact Bizzam over at TankHard wrote about enchants for gloves. Also, there is an article on TheorySpot about enchants, gems, weapons, a whole bunch of stuff. Also, I have started the quests to get exalted with Netherwing, Sha'tari Skyguard, and Ogri'la.

Shattered Halls and Auchenai Crypts

2007-11-26T01:42:00.001-05:00

I wish I could report of tales of brave, heroic tanking tonight in Shattered Halls. However, it wasn't meant to be. My guild and I entered Shattered Halls and got defeated before we made it to the first boss. The very first pull in the instance....messy! We finally got ourselves a game plan and next few pulls went good. However we got to the room before the first boss and could go no further.

We wiped maybe three times there before deciding we were not ready. Well considering the tank (me) only have a few pieces of blue gear from questing and a lot of questing greens. We did manage to get the hunter [Valanos' Longbow] before leaving, though!

So we decided to head over to Auchenai Crypts.

This was a lot easier. We ran through this instance with only me dying 3 times, once because the healer was talking on guild chat. :D I didn't get any phat loot on this run but I did get some rep with Lower City. However, the hunter did get [Shaarde the Lesser] (I already had a better tanking sword) and the paladin got [Ironstaff of Regener]. It was a nice learning experience for me! :D

My first 70

2007-11-25T03:56:00.001-05:00

This morning at 1:30am I finally reach level 70! It has been a good run with Severkill so I'm going to enjoy it until the next expansion. So like I said in my last post, first thing I did was head to Shadowmoon Valley and got my flying mount. Now to save up the 5k plus gold to get my epic flying mount. So after I got to 70, I got a guild invite to run Shattered Halls sometime in the afternoon. Hopefully I won't mess up too much. hehehe I'm going to read up on it since this will be my first time there.

On a side note I just want to comment on a quest I did in Blade's Edge Mountain. I was doing Grimnok and Korgaah, I Am For You! Killing Grimnok was easy! Just fought my way to the tower he was standing on and killed him no problem. However, when I went to kill Korgaah...I had problems. I grinded my way to his tower. No problem! He has two mobs right beside him. No problem! I have killed three mobs at the same time. I didn't even mouse over the two mobs that was standing beside him. BIG MISTAKE! hehehe I charge in: Bloodrage, Sweeping Strike, pop a trinket...dead! WTF!!! I run back and try again: Bloodrage, Sweeping Strike, Recklessness, po....dead! Holy $#!^ batman! I'm dying too quickly. I give up on the quest. I figure I'll just come back with some help and take him out. However, I couldn't get this quest out of my mind. It is supposed to be a solo quest, why do I need help??? I go to to Allakhazam and read up on the quest. Oppsss. You know kiddies reading is fundamental! ;) After reading the comments and actually reading the quest description, I saw the tip to use a Bloodmaul Brew to lure Korgaah out of that tower without aggro'ing the two elite guards. Duh!!!! After reading this, I went back there and wiped the floor with this guy. I don't even think the quest reward for this complete quest line was worth it, but the satisfaction of killing Korgaah made it worth it. Well the advice of the day for all you, read the WHOLE quest description before diving head first into it!

So I'm off now. I have some chores to do in the morning and then log in for the Shattered Halls run. Hopefully it will be fun! :D

69 down, one more to go

2007-11-23T22:55:00.001-05:00

Well today I finally hit level 69 with Severkill. I have mixed feelings about this. One more level and no more leveling. However, one more level and it will be the beginning of the level 70 grinding. Grinding for reputation, running instances, farming gold, and doing whatever level 70 do. Before I hit level 69, I did manage to get a couple of things done:

Wanted: Durn the Hungerer got done! It was not as hard as I thought. It was only 4 of us: Arms warrior, Fury Warrior, a mage, and a cleric. The Arms warrior tanked and I DPS'ed. It was easy, even though the first time I got killed. The tank got knocked out of Durn's leash area, so the fight ended. However, I didn't know this so I just ran at Durn and continued fighting him. This was met with a quick death. Oppss! :) Well after the priest resurrected me, we ran him down and killed him this time. I just ran behind him, and started beating on him. I just need to get in the habit of hitting my Demoralizing Shout. I did remember to use my trinkets and use my Thunder Clap. This time he went down easy and for the quest reward I chose [Hungering Bone Cudgel]. I guess I could have picked [Crystalline Kopesh], but [Crystalblade of the Draenei] dropped for me while doing Stealing from Thieves.

Ring of Blood got done, also! This time Ring of Blood got done without the group dying. Like Durn, it was only 4 of us: a priest, a rogue, a 70 druid, and me. The druid volunteered to tank so it would go by fast. The only stupid thing I did this time *sheepish grin* was on the Blue Brothers. I attacked the 2nd one instead of concentrating on the one the tank was fighting. Bad me!!! Well we didn't die and managed to kill all of the challengers without problem. For the quest reward, I decided on [Ceremonial Warmaul Blood-blade]. Now this was tough because I couldn't decide between this dagger and [Mag'hari Fury Brand]. I read a post on the Warrior forum about having a slow off-hand after the changes in 2.3. *shrug* I just decided to go with the faster dagger. After I picked the dagger I discovered I have never used a dagger before with Severkill. So I had to go out and kill Clefthoof Bulls till my dagger skill was at a point where I could actually hit with the dagger.

Now, I'm back on the grind to hit level 70. It might happen over the weekend. Right now he is in Blade's Edge finishing up the last level. So what am I plan on doing first when I get to 70. Blow some of my gold on a flying mount! :)

Adventures of...me!

2007-11-14T21:18:00.001-05:00

Well alot has happened since I last wrote here. I downloaded Live Writer. This is my first post using it. If you decide to get Live Writer, go get this plugin for inserting links from Allakhazam. I got my warrior up level 67. Did a few of the elite quests in the Bone Wastes, even though I messed up one. :( We were doing The Vengeful Harbinger. Everything is going fine. We kill everyone and I see this come across the party chat, "Ok everyone, click the spirit because it disappears quickly." I look around....what spirit??? I didn't see a spirit. Crap!!! Now everyone is heading to the door, and I have to ask them to re-do the quest because I didn't click on the spirit. Well lucky for me, they re-did it. Just one word of advice for anyone doing it, look up at the ceiling after you kill everything and do not worry about mobs respawning. So now I have my nice new trinket, [Ancient Draenei War Talisman].

So after I finish my questing in Terokkar, I headed off to Nagrand. It is a nice change of scenery. I will probably follow the same game plan as I did in Bone Wastes, do all the easy quests first then try to look for a group for the elite quests. I really want to do the Ring of Blood (more on this quest later) and Wanted: Durn the Hungerer.

Well while doing the easy quests in Nagrand, I ding level 67 on Severkill. I decided maybe it is time I should find a different guild. Don't get me wrong, Thrall's Chosen is a good guild. However, they are a HC raiding guild. I'm more of a casual player. Sure I have time on the weekends, but lately I haven't had much time during the week. So, I went to the Realm forum for Dalaran and found a casual Horde guild, Long In the Tooth. The name apparently means old, hehehehe, which is probably why they have a minimum age limit of 25. So far this guild seems very, very friendly. So, I moved Thrax back to Dalaran and renamed him Severorc. Hopefully, I will get some more playing time with him. Also, with Patch 2.3, I will try to play Deathrot more.

Hmm...I guess that is....wait Ring of Blood. I tried that quest tonight. Someone was broadcasting over General they were looking for a group to do it. So I thought I would give it a try. Man did I mess up big. :( I didn't know you were supposed to turn in those quest after you kill each monster. Somehow I got it in my mind the quest would turn itself in.....(dumb, blonde aura). Man that was stupid. :( Well we didn't finish it anyhow. We got to Mogor and wiped twice. It is all good, I think I'm going to ask my new guild to help me out this weekend maybe. So one word advice to anyone doing this chain of quests for the first time, remember to turn in your quests after every kill! ;)

Hunter's Rejoice

2007-10-13T11:47:00.000-04:00

Was on WoW Insider and saw that Hunter's deadzone is going bye bye. In addition, BRK have been producing videos. I haven't had a chance to see the 3rd one but the first two about pulling are really good, even the low quality video one. They are short and to the point, very informative.

Fury Tree

2007-10-11T20:58:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend, I decided to try out a DW Fury build. I will admit, I like this build alot. The only thing I miss is not switching stances and hitting Overpower when it is available. So, my ultimate goal is this. Even with the new changes for 2.3 I still think this build is good. Now that Sweeping Strikes is in the Fury tree, I have something to use when I get jumped while leveling up. So that is good. However, as I have been reading on the Warrior forum, some people down right do not like this decision. I can see what they are saying for end game raiding. However, I'm going to hold my whining in until there have been some testing done with this change. Hopefully, there will be some good NEW specs coming soon.

Changes for the Fury Tree in 2.3

2007-10-06T16:21:00.000-04:00

Looks like there will be more changes coming for warriors in 2.3. I was reading Tankspot when I came across this posting: 10% Threat Reduction in Berserker Stance?

Fake Beta Invites for WotLK

2007-10-03T16:16:00.000-04:00

I was just on Mania's Arcania site and saw she got a fake Beta invite for Wrath of the Lich King. I just want to pass this along so hopefully no one will get fooled by this.

Update: This also happened to BRK.

Clicking vs Hotkeys

2007-09-30T16:08:00.000-04:00

I am sure most of you have read many of articles/postings about hotkeys vs clicking. I personally still click. I know I'm not using my warrior to his full potential but hell this is my game! I pay the $15 a month so I will play my characters as I chose. However, I do want to give keying a shot. So, Saturday I downloaded Bartender3. I disabled the bars from CTMod and started by creating a Bartender bar for grinding. It looks like:

For the most part they are skills from my skill book with a couple of macros in there for Charge and Overpower. However, I'm missing a couple skills. I'm thinking I need to re-do a couple of my macros so I will have room on this bar. Maybe put WW and Cleave under one button. Put Bloodrage and Berzerker Rage under one button. Do the same to Slam/Heroic Strike.

Now in my perfect WoW experience it would be possible for me to hit a button and my bar would change to a different bar for PVP or tanking. When this happens, my keybindings would change also. I tried to get the bars to change using a macro, but the best I could do is change them in some kind of sequence. It would be better if I could call the hide function and specify the bar I want to close/open. But I can live without this. Maybe it can't be done in WoW. So I went to work on changing the keybindings with a click of a button. This can be done thanks to SetBinding. I took a look at the code for Bartender and the xml files. From there I got the name of the buttons Bartender gives you. Since macros have the 255 character limit, I had to write 3 macros to change my keybinds when I change bars.

Button1:


/run SetBinding("U", "BT3Button13"); SetBinding("I", "BT3Button14"); SetBinding("O", "BT3Button15"); SetBinding("P", "BT3Button16"); SaveBindings(GetCurrentBindingSet())
/click BT3Button42

Button2:


/run SetBinding("J", "BT3Button17"); SetBinding("K", "BT3Button18"); SetBinding("L", "BT3Button19"); SetBinding(";", "BT3Button20"); SaveBindings(GetCurrentBindingSet())
/click BT3Button43

Button3:


/run SetBinding("N", "BT3Button21"); SetBinding("M", "BT3Button22"); SetBinding(",", "BT3Button23"); SetBinding(".", "BT3Button24"); SaveBindings(GetCurrentBindingSet())

Now I just have to get use to using my hotkeys. I will admit I am not liking this. :) But I will give it a shot for a week or two.

Guide to being Exalted with Undercity

2007-09-30T15:21:00.000-04:00

Ever since I posted this on August 7th, I have been getting hits from people searching for Exalted Undercity.

The funny thing is that page isn't even about how to got exalted. This post here is how I did it. However, here is a step by step on to do it:

Get to at least level 30*. Level 60+ would be better.
Go to this page here. This is a search on WoWHead that list quests that increase reputation with Undercity. Just go down this list and you will be exalted. I did it without donating a bunch of cloth to the Quartermaster. However, I was level 60 something on Thrax.

*This level is not set in stone. Krystalle, from WoWInsider, started a quest to get to exalted before level 40. So being closer to level 40 is probably better, 60+ even better.

Patch 2.2 and 2.3

2007-09-30T12:20:00.000-04:00

Now that patch 2.2 is here, Bliz can finally move on to more exciting things, patch 2.3. So far, the changes sounds good, well some of it. I am going to admit, I was intriguted about the VoiceChat in 2.2. Unfortunately, I stepped on my headset with a mic last week and broke it. :( Good thing I have a backup set of headphones. It do not have a mic, but if I'm soo hard pressed about it, I can use my laptop's internal mic.

Now as for patch 2.3, I have been reading alot of information about the upcoming patch:
WoW Insider
EU WoW Forum
Warrior's Forum
Hunter's Forum
Out of Mana
The Positive Warrior
Mania's Arcania
< I would link to BRK's write up but he keeps talking about a Fel Reaver pet. While I would LOVE a Fel Reaver pet, he is just joking!>

Looks like the warriors are getting a buff at the expense of the warlocks. I do not like the nerf we are getting to Weapon Mastery. :( But it is all good, I will see how this shakes out in the end. Worse case scenerio, I will just use those two points in a different talent.

My java Budget project

2007-09-30T10:08:00.000-04:00

Since my last posting about my Budget project, I have added SQL support to store my bank entries in a javadb. I found a tutorial on how to do it on the Netbeans website and everything was looking good. I had a layout so I could see the bank entries on the opening page of the program and got it set up so I could have a combobox on my bank entry form autopopulate with Reasons from existing entries.

However, I ran into a small problem. I will have to have some kind of SQL server running all the time on my laptop. Not something I would like to do just for a project for my wife and me.

So, I decided to just store the data using a XML file. I will use SAX to read in the data and StAX to write it back out. I have used SAX in the past and Netbeans actually have built in support for creating your SAX class for you. However, I had to tinker with the created code because the compiler did not like the HandlerImpl file Netbeans created for me. That was no biggie, I had just put the code that was in the HandlerImpl file into the Hander file. Also, I found a page that talked about writing to XML file using StAX. Now, I just need to pull it all together so I can take a quick look at what I have.

After all of that is done, I will tackle trying to import the CSV bank statement files into my project. This will make it easier than inputting all the entries manually in the beginning.

Small break for Gold

2007-09-30T09:08:00.000-04:00

The whole reason why I created, Thrax and Deathrot for that matter, was to make gold for Severkill. Well at least that was the plan more than a year ago. I would create a couple alts and powerlevel them so they can grind out some gold for me. However, as you can see that did not go as planned. Severkill is sitting at 63 and Thrax at 65. As for Deathrot, he is sitting patiently for me to blow the dust off of him at Camp T.

So one day while reading through all the WoW sites I have on my iGoogle, I see an article on WoW Pro about making gold at 58+. The article talks about Primal Waters selling for 20g on the AH and how the eels that drops them have low hps. So off I went to the AH on Dalaran. (Note: Always do this before taking the advice of someone who claims they know a quick way to make gold. Just because an item on their server sells good, doesn't mean it will do the same on your server.) A quick scan of Primal Waters showed the guy wasn't mistaken.

The funny thing about this article is I read this same advice three months earlier from a guy name Jonathan Kenins. I signed up for his gold tips newsletter. (For the most part, his information hasn't been bogus.) In addition, I have actually been to the lake that both of these guys are talking about. Thrax had a quest there and I didn't even know I was swimming in a gold mine. ;)

Well since I was familiar with what I had to do to farm the motes of water from the eels, I went ahead and bought some Elixirs of Greater Water Breathing. This way I can farm these eels at a quicker rate and not worry about drowning. So, in the WoW Pro article the guys says he was getting 50 motes in a hour. Unfortunately, I wasn't soo lucky. :( However, 20 in a hour isn't shabby. That is 40g for one hour of work at level 62. :)

Links Directory for Warriors

2007-09-12T13:21:00.000-04:00

Ciderhelm has created a post in the Warrior's forum with a bunch of useful links. If you find it useful, please report it for a sticky. :)

Tanking Multiple Mobs

2007-09-04T23:55:00.000-04:00

Found a good post about tanking Multiple mobs in the forums. Good read for Arms tanking.

LotusSphere

2007-09-04T23:40:00.000-04:00

Well I got some good news from my boss over the weekend. I have been invited to go to LotusSphere. :D I am really excited about this! This will be my first Lotus conference and from what I have heard they have been getting better every year. Hopefully this will be true for this year.

Oh btw, my company have me featured on the frontpage of our company's website! This is one of the advantages working for a small company.

NetBeans and my first layout

2007-09-04T22:18:00.000-04:00

Now that I have my form almost done, all it need is some logic behind it, I decided to move on to the main layout of the project. I created a JFrame and added a JTable, JLabel, and JMenu. I decided for right now I will add one entry under the Menu for creating a new Bank Entry. So I clicked on the Source tab and added the following to the jMenuItem1ActionPerformed function:

    
private void jMenuItem1ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {                                           
        BankEntry frm = new BankEntry();
        int width = 450;
        int height = 300;
        frm.setSize(width, height);
        frm.setVisible(true);
    }

Now it is not complete but since I only have one entry under my menu it will work for right now.

My first form in NetBeans

2007-09-04T21:45:00.000-04:00

Well in my first post about NetBeans, I talked about how I installed NetBeans and got a form created. It was a painless experience. I just dropped some labels and fields on my form and NetBeans handled the rest. Well I wanted to add a datepicker to the form. I decided to go with JCalendar. I downloaded the api. Next, I used the Palette Manager and was able to add the JCalendar components to my Palette. Last, I just dragged the JCalendar to my form. Easy! :) Here are some screenshots of what I have soo far.

AV weekend

2007-09-04T21:31:00.000-04:00

Well since this weekend was bonus honor for AV, I decided to give it a shot with Severkill. I stopped doing AV because it took soo long! AV matches lasting for hour or more is not my cup of tea. However, that was not the case. The longest my AVs were going was about 45 minutes. I could deal with that. Plus, the honor I was getting was very good. I say on average I was getting 500+ honor points per match. I just stuck with the main group and helped out where I can. ;) Being only level 61, it wasn't much.

Basically we just went straight for the Alliance's general. We took a couple of the GYs and bunkers on the way. It was lots of fun and I seriously can not wait for the next AV weekend. I plan on saving up all my honor points for when I get to level 70 and start buying some of the PVP gear.

NetBeans

2007-09-04T20:51:00.000-04:00

One day last week, a co-worker and I was talking on Sametime. She asked me if I wanted to get the SCJP. It is a Java certification through Sun. Now I have played with Java in the Domino environment and wrote an applet a LONG time ago. So to get ready initially I decided to start up a small project for myself that involves Java. I decided to write a Java desktop application to maintain my families budget. Hopefully, I'm not biting off more than I can chew. :)

Well the first thing I decided to do is to find a IDE for me to write this project in. Generally I do my Java coding in JCreator. It is a nice, free IDE with syntax highlighting and once setup it compiles my code with a click of my mouse. However, I have gotten lazy over the years of developing in Domino. So, I went looking for an IDE that will allow drag and drop GUI design. I know that isn't good if I want to learn. But for right now, this is what I want.

Thus, I went to Sun's java site and saw NetBeans. It looks good and it allows drag and drop GUI design. Best of all, it is free! Once I downloaded and installed it, I was on my way to designing my first form. The startup on this program didn't take long at all. Generally when I start up IDEs like this, Eclipse, it takes it a minute or two before I can begin. Not NetBeans! But that might be due to my laptop so if you are on a slower machine, it might be a different story for you.

Now that I had everything set up I went through some of the tutorials on Sun's website concerning Swing and programming in NetBeans. So far I have one form created and now working on the main layout of my budget program.

New spec for Severkill

2007-09-04T20:48:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was cruising the WoW warrior's forum for more information about Fury and leveling. I was going to try out a DW fury spec to see if it is as good as I hear. However, I found that the Arms spec I was using was outdated!!! I can't find the post but I read that a previous patch kind of made the Endless Rage talent not as useful. After BC, I decided to go 41/15/5 so I could have enough rage to level with.

So after some searching and some searching, I decided to go with a 33/25/3 build. I'm still up in the air about the last three points. I might change it to a 33/23/5 build. I'm not sure. However, I do know, I couldn't give up TM. I stance dance and have macros to support this. I generally grind in Zerker stance and switch to Battle for Overpower and Sweeping Strikes.

Well since I'm still trying to get my Mining up to at least 300 before I head back to Outland, I went to Winterspring to grab a couple of nodes in the Yeti cave. Man, this new spec is a lot better! Sometimes after fights I would have soo much Rage I would run to the next Yeti instead of charging.

So now I'm back in Outland. With this new spec and some new gear from questing, I have gotten my Crit Chance up to over 25%. Because of this, some fights are over before I know it. However, I still want to try a DW fury spec. I now have a couple of weapons with +hit on it. When I get some time I will give it a whirl.

Another DW Fury Posting

2007-08-23T11:00:00.000-04:00

Here is another DW Fury posting for all of you. It is about gear.

Posting for you DW Fury Warriors

2007-08-22T11:36:00.000-04:00

Found this posting on the WOW Warrior's Forumn about hit rating.

Look what I found in my bank...

2007-08-22T01:59:00.001-04:00

After all that research and math in my last post, I went to my bank and found this guy: [Fel-Touched Axe of the Soldier]. It has the same stats as the Giant's Leg Bone of the Champion but the +19 Defense Rating is switched to +19 Critical Strike Rating. Now I'm not going to take you through all that math again. I decided to go with the Fel-Touched Axe because of the Critical Strike Rating. The slight gain in rage and dodge was overruled by the increase to my crit chance. :)

Decisions decisions decisions...

2007-08-21T22:02:00.000-04:00

Well from my last post, I had to make a choice between [Rage Reaver] and [Giant's Leg Bone of the Champion]. Since Allakhazam do not give you the stats on the Giant's Leg I have, here they are: +19 Strength, +29 Stamina, +19 Defense Rating. Now my choice will be based off of an Arms leveling warrior. I'm not planning on tanking with these weapons. Just grinding.

Now I'm not big on TheoryCraft but I gave it a shot to determine which weapon I want to go with. Also, hopefully it will help me to learn this class a little more. From the numerous postings out there, I knew I wanted to concentrate on STR, STA, and AGI. However, what about the other attributes, Crit rating and Attack Power? From here and here I got:

1 str = 2 AP
7 AP = 1 DPS
10 Agi = .0875% crit chance

From here I got:

Depending on your level, a Rage Conversion value is calculated:
At level 60: 230.6
At level 70: 274.7

Based on the type of attack the Hit Factor is set:
Main Hand Normal Hits: Hit Factor = 2.5
Main Hand Crits: Hit Factor = 5.0
Off Hand Normal Hits: Hit Factor = 1.25
Off Hand Crits: Hit Factor = 2.5
Those variables are rolled into the following fomula:
Rage since patch 2.0.1: Rage Gained = ((Damage Dealt) / (Rage Conversion at Your Level) * 7.5 + (Weapon Speed * Hit Factor))/2
Pre-patch rage: Rage Gained = (Damage Dealt) / (Rage Conversion at Your Level) * 7.5

The change that occurred in the 2.0.10 patch increased the multiplier to 3.5 times weapon speed.
Main hand hit: 3.5*speed
Off hand hit: 1.75*speed
Main hand crit: 7*speed
Off hand crit: 3.5*speed
That is what was changed.

Rage Gained from dealing damage = ((Damage Dealt) / (Rage Conversion at Your Level) * 7.5 + (Weapon Speed * Factor))/2

So what do all this mean?
The +19 STR on the Giant's Leg Bone is nullified by the +38 AP on the Rage Reaver. The STA on the Rage Reaver is slightly higher than the Giant's Leg. The Rage Reaver is slower than the Giant's Leg Bone. Now the nail in the coffin, the +19 AGI on the Rage Reaver means more Crit chance and Dodge. Now from the formula above the more crits I get, the more rage I will generate. In addition, the Rage Reaver give slightly more rage per hit:

Rage Reaver no crit: (200/230.6 * 7.5 + (3.60 + 3.5))/2 = 9.55
Rage Reaver w/ crit: (200/230.6 * 7.5 + (3.60 + 7))/2 = 15.85

Giant's Leg no crit: (200/230.6 * 7.5 + (3.50 + 3.5))/2 = 9.35
Giant's Leg w/ crit: (200/230.6 * 7.5 + (3.50 + 7))/2 = 15.47

Thus, I decided to go with the Rage Reaver. It seems to be the better weapon. However, if I got anything wrong in figuring this out, please let me know. This is my first crack at this and I'm not expert on the subject.

Oh btw, download the RatingBuster addon. It make doing this soo much easier. :)

Finally blew the dust off of Severkill

2007-08-21T20:28:00.000-04:00

Over the weekend I was leveling Thrax up. Soon I got bored of it. Don't get me wrong...I love playing my hunter. However, I wanted a change. So I logged on Severkill. Man it has been awhile since I tried to level my main. He is level 60 and was sitting in Orgrimmar. I move a few things around in my UI and looked at my quest log. OK back to Hellfire peninsula I go.

Now a few words about Hellfire....I hate this zone! There is one reason...well I think there are four, the Fel Reaver. I remember the first time I saw this dude. I was heading out of Thrallmar for the first time and he was walking past. OMG!!! That dude is huge and he is showing ?? for his level. Well at that time I use to play with the sound off. I did a little research on this guy and found out I will need to listen out for him and to watch for the ground shaking. Well as most of you probably know, Hellfire shakes all the time so it is beneficial to listen out for this guy.

Well the first quest I decided to do was Felspark Ravine. Back when Severkill first hit 60, this quest worried me. It wasn't the Infernal Warbringer or the Dreadcaller, but the Flamewalker Imps. They roam with a posse of little imps. I was worried that they would chew my butt up. Man was i stupid. These little guys have little hps. Matter of fact, I killed these guys so fast it was ridiculous. Well that quest was easy and upon turning it in I had the choice of [Rage Reaver], [Screaming Dagger], [The Staff of Twin Worlds], [Agamaggan's Quill], and [Foe Reaver]. I chose the [Rage Reaver] because it is a nice slow two handed weapon. The only problem, I am Mace Specced and have [Giant's Leg Bone of the Champion].

Stampede to Stormwind

2007-08-14T23:16:00.000-04:00

Well this past weekend was fun. I leveled fishing and my cooking. I did WSG a bunch with Thrax, even did my first jump shot kill on some poor alliance Paladin.

But nothing tops what my guild did tonight. Our first Stampede to Stormwind. One word for you...well two: Utter Chaos!!! Organizing that thing at the beginning was a nightmare. We ran out of shirts and some people were being jack@$$es. But once it got started it was a blast! I made it to the end of Stranglethorn before I got killed. My strategy was to stay in the middle of the pack. However, this failed for me when everyone started to get killed and I ended up in front. I tried to get back to the middle but some mob killed me. :( Then apparently someone got a bunch of the racers flagged and some dwarf hunter was on the side of the road picking them off. That was funny to see. I know it was something he has always dreamed of, shooting bulls in a barrel. ;) Well we finally made it to Stormwind and it was massacre city! But I will say tonight was the most fun I have ever had with any guild. I said it before and I will say it again, this guild is a keeper.

Edit: Went back this morning and took a couple screen captures of me in Stormwind.

Watch out BRK....

2007-08-08T23:36:00.000-04:00

Well tonight was going to be dedicated to Ext.js. However, I was reading the Hunter forum while waiting for stuff to save and found this epic posting. I laughed so hard my belly started to hurt. Then when I got to the responses, I laughed again till my belly started to hurt and I was crying. But you know the bad part is....there is some hunters out there who actually need this guide. Now I haven't experienced one, but I know they are out there. Also, I hope the original poster was just being sarcastic and the post was a joke. If not, I apologize but you just put a smile on my face for the rest of this week. :)

Oh btw BRK if you read this, watch out I think you have some stiff competition coming your way. ;)

For all you Shaman lovers

2007-08-08T09:25:00.001-04:00

There are some planned changes coming your way. Here is a posting from the European WoW forum talking about them. Here is the blue posting that confirmed it.

Looking for Group video

2007-08-08T09:04:00.000-04:00

Found this funny video via of the European WoW forum:

My only complaint, we Horde are not that evil! *evil laugh* ;)

Edit: Forgot to give link to site where this video was created: http://www.lfgcomic.com/ Thanks Nibuca! :)

WoW's next expansion

2007-08-07T22:32:00.000-04:00

Unless you been living under a rock, or do not play WoW, for the last week, there has been alot of buzz about the next expansion. It sounds really exciting to me. 10 more levels, a new profession, a new continent, craftable flying mounts....I can't wait to experience it.

However, there is one thing that is nagging me. What will happen with all the reputation people have earned? Will it go to the garbage? I'm hoping they do something with it. It would be a shame to get Exalted with some of the Outland factions, just to have 2008/2009 come and it means nothing. I was going to post something to the Suggestions forum on the WoW site, but decided to wait because the next expansion is still being developed.

Exalted with Undercity

2007-08-07T21:19:00.000-04:00

**If you are looking for a how to get exalted with Undercity, please go here**

Well last night I finally got Exalted with Undercity! :D But to be honest, I still do not understand how. I know I was between 1k to 2k from being Exalted. I went to Tanaris. I did two quests in Gadgetzan and it happened. The green sparklies fell around me. I didn't question it too much because you know the old saying: "Don't look a gift undead horse in the mouth!"

Fisher-Price Recall

2007-08-02T08:54:00.000-04:00

I just got word that Fisher-Price has issued a recall on a bunch of their toys here in the US. You can go here to check it out.

Explosion of crafting posting on the EU forums

2007-08-01T20:36:00.000-04:00

While I was still lurking around the WoW Bluetracker site, I see an explosion of crafting posts.

However, this post here made want to apologize to WoW. Apparently, posts do not fall off the face of the earth. They stay around indefinitely! :) I didn't know this. I guess I can start a new section on my side bar with links to good posts in the WoW forum.

Edit: I scrolled down further and realized what is going on. A blue over on the EU forum is tagging posts and adding them to a compilation of posts. I have to tip my hat to him. Thanks Vaneras! :)

Holy Gold Batman

2007-08-01T20:24:00.000-04:00

I use WoW BlueTracker to keep track of blue posts on the WoW forum website. Sometimes it catches some good blue post, but most of the time you just see blues locking posts (which sometimes I find interesting also :D). Well it caught a post about the cost of leveling professions. HOLY GOLD BATMAN!! A couple of those professions are expensive as h311 to powerlevel.

YSlow

2007-08-01T12:29:00.000-04:00

Was reading Domino 2.0 and saw a posting about increasing site performance. It is a good read. Also, in the article, he pointed us to YSlow. It is a Firefox addon. Which is cool and not soo cool. For work, our websites are only done in IE. Some of the site works in Firefox, but other parts fall flat on it's face. However, I did download it and looked at my blog. I'm proud to say, it gave my blog an A! :D

Another good tanking blog

2007-08-01T00:19:00.000-04:00

First off, I just want to give BigRedKitty a big congrats for getting his site link to from WoW's class links page. Hopefully it will be there for the many ~~clueless~~ newb hunters out there. :) Congrats!

Also, while I was looking at some of the pages WoW is linking to I came across another tanking blog. It looks very good so far. Now to add it to my list of links and my iGoogle.

Armory Musings and a good tanking post

2007-07-30T12:45:00.000-04:00

While lurking a few blogs on my lunch break, I see Armory Musing has a BIG update to their armory crawler. Ever want to know what most warriors/hunters/mages/etc use for their specs at level 70, go over to this blog and find out. I found all of the stats to be very interesting.

After looking at that blog for awhile, I went over to the WoW's warrior forum. I found a good posting on tanking. I stickied it and tagged it for later.

Ragefire and Wailing Caverns in one day

2007-07-29T21:06:00.000-04:00

Been getting kind of bored of leveling with Thrax, so I decided to try to do some reputation grinding to get a undead horse from Undercity. It has been a long drawn out process but I'm about 2k from my goal. I been using WoWHead quest search to find all the low level quests. I have a couple more instance quests I need to do and will probably finish it off with cloth donations.

However, around mid-day I got bored with that. :) So, I logged Severorc on and saw if anyone wanted to run RFC. Got in a group of 3 warlocks and a hunter. No healing but 5 tanks should be able to roll through RFC.

Everything was going good until out of the corner of my eye I see a group of Searing Blade dudes making a B-line for someone. I pay it no attention because we have 5 tanks!! Well I look up and everyone in my party is dying. hehehehe So we wipe. No one is mad, we just get back in there and continue on.

Well we kill Taragaman, even though one of the warlocks sent his voidwalker in early and it was just three of us. The other two was still running back because of the wipe. It was no biggie, I just popped taunt, sunder, sunder, revenge and the other two DPS'ed his butt down. Well as we are rounding the corner to take out Jergosh, someone says, "Can the loot be set to normal?" Well I guess the party leader set it for Free-for-all. So when the [Robe of Evocation] dropped, someone just runs up and loot it. hehehehe This sets one of the warlocks off and he started complaining. As this is unfolding, the hunter decides (I'm only assuming here because maybe his keyboard got stuck or something) to run into a pack of Searing Blade guys. This wipes the party again. hehehee Well after spending time with this fun group I decide to try a Wailing Cavern run with my guild.

Now this was much better. We had my level 19 warrior, a level 18 warrior, a level 20 something shaman and rogue, and a level 30 priest. We didn't wipe, our level 30 healer said he felt useless, and we completed the whole instance. The only complaint was the other warrior kept on wanting to need on the good stuff and I wasn't winning any of the other rolls for stuff I wanted. *whine whine whine* But I know I will go back there soon so I'm not too worried about it.

So, before I let you go let me give you some advise about pulling in Wailing Caverns. I think this made the run alot easier. When I was pulling the casters, I shot it with my bow and instantly ran behind something. Because of line of sight the NPC had to come to me instead of sitting there hitting me with their spells. This works really good for this instance because there is plenty of rocks and crap to hide behind when pulling. Well good-bye and good luck. :)

Session Authenication and AJAX

2007-07-24T22:20:00.000-04:00

Yesterday when I checked the up-and-coming tasks, I see one about users complaining about being logged off the Domino server while typing up documents. Thus, when they try to submit the documents, they have to log back into the server and lost all of their work. Well that happens sometimes when you have Session Based Authencation turned on the Domino server. Well a couple of solutions come to mind, hidden iframe or use some AJAX.

Well a little before it is time to knock off from work today, I get an IM from a co-worker to click a link. I clicked the link and see a wonderful demo of checking a user's session using some AJAX. Cool! Well he found this solution from here. What even better, this tip was written before AJAX was called AJAX. Back then this technique was just called "some javascript". ;)

Oh and before I leave you, if you want a better way to Google search for Lotus Notes issues, use this customized Google search. It filter out some of the trash you get from a regular Google search.

Paint.Net

2007-07-24T21:07:00.000-04:00

Today I had to edit some images for work. So, I do a Google search for a free image editor and found Paint.Net. I will admit this is the best free image editor I have played with so far. It allowed me to do what I needed to very quickly. :)

Now does this mean I'm going to be the next best graphics man. HELL NO!! However, this program will make assignments like today alot simplier. :D

Tooltips for WoW

2007-07-20T19:37:00.001-04:00

I was reading BRK today and saw he had tooltips for WoW items in his posting. Cool! Okoloth over at Amory Musings came up with a way to use Allakhazam's database for tooltips on your website. (I wonder how long will Allakhazam let this last.) He even gives you step by step instructions on how to install it into your blog. However, I saw that this technique do not look soo good in IE6. Only problem is, I am forced to use IE6 for my job. So, I decided to see if I can get it to work! ;)

First idea: Let's use a div tag and some AJAX. Got it to work on my local machine BUT... :D once I tried to put this into blogger I got a "Permission Denied" error. I forgot you can't use AJAX for cross domain scripting. :(

Second idea: Well let's keep the div tag and use a hidden iframe to pull in the data. No dice there. Same cross domain scripting problem. :(

Well I implemented Okoloth's technique into my blog and started to play with it. I did a google search for "transparent IE iframe" and got a hit to this page. Viola!! I can use this in the iframe's style:

filter: chroma(color=#FFFFFF);

So Okoloth's code went from:

<iframe id="wowitem" src="" style="width:370px; height:500px; border:0px; background-color:transparent;" border="0" allowtransparency="true" background-color="transparent"></iframe>

to:

<iframe id="wowitem" src="" style="width:370px; height:500px; border:0px; background-color:transparent;filter: chroma(color=#FFFFFF);" border="0" allowtransparency="true" background-color="transparent"></iframe>

Below is two links with the above code added to Okoloth's technique:

[Gyro-balanced Khorium Destroyer]

[Beast Lord Cuirass]

Edit: I forgot to mention I also set the iframe's frameborder to zero. *bonk self* So my final html for the iframe is:

<iframe allowtransparency='true' background-color='transparent' frameborder='0' id='wowitem' src='' style='width:370px;  height:500px; border:0px; background-color:transparent; filter: chroma(color=#FFFFFF);'/>

For Loop in LotusScript

2007-07-19T11:38:00.000-04:00

Just when you think you have things under control, someone comes along and kick you in the gut. ;) Well Andre Guirard over at Best Practice gives us a anti-tip on For loops in LotusScript.

A couple of free level guides

2007-07-19T10:55:00.001-04:00

I forgot how I found these two guides, I think I was reading in the WoW forum somewhere. Well here are two free 60-70 leveling guides for the Horde and Alliance.

Warrior PVP

2007-07-19T10:27:00.001-04:00

Was looking at the WoW's Warrior forumn and found this posting about warrior pvp.

Advice for a Newbie Warrior

2007-07-18T21:41:00.000-04:00

Well I'm cruising along in the Warrior's forum when I see this question:

I hate to sound like a complete klutz, but I completely suck with a warrior trying to level. I've done fine leveling to 30/40 or so with a few other characters (Paladin, Priest, Shaman) What am I doing wrong?

I think my key problem is that I cannot kill two mobs at one time, and always end up dying. Is this indeed a real problem for little warriors or do I just suck and cannot play my class.

Do any of you experts have any advice for a little one like me?

I wasn't going to response at first. I'm not an expert but against my better judgement I give her this response:

I wouldn't say you suck. You're just experiencing growing pains. :) Well I recently started this alt to learn how to tank better. I went up to level 60 with my main warrior w/o stepping foot in an instance more than twice. Now I will warn you I am not an expert at this class. I'm still learning it.

But anyhow, I suggest getting a cheap bow/gun. This is so you can pull better. If you are worried about the initial rage you get from charge, pop bloodrage before you shot at the target.

Another suggestion, use a shield and a one hander, at least for a little while. I did this at 16 so I could get use to using the tanking skills: Revenge, Sunder Armor, etc. Well I accidently pulled an elite while doing a quest in the Barrens. Not only did I kill him, but was able to kill the add at the end of the fight. I did have to pop a health potion, but I survived. In addition, I was able to fight two, sometimes 3 mobs at a time. When it got to be three I would have to use a potion.

My last suggestion, if you can, let your higher alts run a few of the lower level instances to gather gear for your lil warrior. I would suggest you start stacking stamina and strength. Hopefully this will help you. (or at least make someone response who knows this class better than I) Good luck. :)

Now the only thing I forgot to mention was Thunder Clap and Demoralizing Shout. Someone followed up with those two skills.

SCT and Revenge

2007-07-18T20:03:00.000-04:00

I use the addon ScrollingCombatText. I like seeing all the pretty numbers fly up my screen when I'm grinding. But my favorite part is the Customized messages. When I play my warriors, it let's me know when to Overpower. Well when I started Severorc, I wanted to know when I could Revenge. I could have downloaded another addon but I knew it could be done in SCT. So, first I found the text needed to trigger the custom event. Once they were found, I added the next three lines to my sct_event_config.lua file:

[19] = {name="Revenge!", override=false, search="(.+) attacks. You dodge.", r=256/256, g=256/256, b=0/256, iscrit=1, class={"Warrior"}},
[20] = {name="Revenge!", override=false, search="(.+) attacks. You parry.", r=256/256, g=256/256, b=0/256, iscrit=1, class={"Warrior"}},
[21] = {name="Revenge!", override=false, search="(.+) attacks. You block.", r=256/256, g=256/256, b=0/256, iscrit=1, class={"Warrior"}},

This is very, very helpful so I can hit Revenge when it is up. :)

I am such a newb!!

2007-07-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

Well over the weekend, I got bored of leveling Thrax. So, I decided to do the battlegrounds. Since it was WSG weekend, I run it constantly. While waiting for the next one to start, I run to the Barrens to what kind of rewards I can get. I see a bunch of hunter rewards with Stamina in it??? "What the hell is this $#!^!!!" This can not be right. Well BRK must have been peeking over my should or something because Monday he blogged about Stamina. After reading, I felt like the biggest newb around. Well now I have something to target for. Soo much to buy, soo little points. :(

Tanking Table

2007-07-18T19:26:00.000-04:00

The Positive Warrior blogged about threat. Very nice read. I really like the list skills and their threat values. Thanks alot Brigin!! :D

Another RFC run

2007-07-18T17:02:00.000-04:00

Well I finally ran RFC with a group I could actually tank for, mostly. We had a level 29 guildie mage come along. It was cool, since most of the trash stuff we could handle, even if everyone was DPS'ing the hell out of everything at the beginning of the fight. But during the run, the guildie mage said, "Man you are doing good with holding aggro." This should have made my day, but it didn't. I was in defensive stance, had my sword and board, hitting sunder, sunder, revenge (when it was up). But I wasn't hitting Thunder Clap when I should have. Also, I would forget to hit Bloodrage before fights, when it wasn't on cooldown. I could literally think of 5 more mistakes I made. Well it is all a learning experience, so hopefully next time it will be better! :)

Current talents for Severorc

2007-07-18T16:12:00.000-04:00

Well after a couple RFC runs, I have gained a few levels. Where do I spend my talents??? I have been reading blogs and WoW's warrior forum for some suggestions. I decided to go with a 8/5/48 build. Hey, that is a protection build! You are correct. I said earlier, Severorc is my "learn how to tank" alt. Now I could run with another build, Army/Fury, and tank just fine. However, I want to see how this goes. By the way, Arm & Fury have an excellent post about tanking while Fury Build. Go check it out.

Oh before I forget, I use an addon named TalentPlanner. It is very useful tool for me to go ahead and plan out how I will spend my talent points without alt-tabbing into a browser. Saves me alot of time as I'm leveling.

So thus far, I have put 5 points in Cruelty for that extra boost to my crits:

4 points into Deflection to proc Revenge more often:

RFC Run

2007-07-15T19:13:00.000-04:00

Finally ran RFC twice yesterday. It was nice to finally get some greens for my lil warrior (I'm trying to resist the temptation of just getting Thrax to send him some gold). The only problem was I wasn't tanking. Both times a bored higher level came along and ran my group through the instance. Now do not get me wrong, I am not complaining....well I guess I am. ;) ::whiney voice begin:: I just wanted to tank!!::whiney voice end::

NotesDateRange

2007-07-14T00:33:00.000-04:00

This past Friday I had an assignment to see if a date is within the fiscal year of a given year. For example, if the year is 2008 and i'm given the date of 10/1/2007 then the date is within the fiscal year if your fiscal year begins on October 1st and ends on September 30th.

Since I'm working with LotusScript, I open the Notes Designer Help database. I scroll down the list of date topics and see NotesDateRange. Cool! I can create a NotesDateRange object and supply it the start date and the end date like this:


Dim session As New NotesSession
Dim intYear As Integer
Dim previousYear As String
Dim fy As NotesDateRange
 
intYear = 2007
previousYear = Cstr(intYear - 1)
Set fy = session.CreateDateRange()
fy.Text = "10/1/" + previousYear + " - 09/30/" +Cstr(intYear)

Well I didn't read the help file on NotesDateRange through enough. I was hoping for a method that would allow me quickly see if a date is within the date range. Unfortunately there is not one. :( In the end I had to use:


If ((fy.StartDateTime.LSLocalTime <= dtDate.LSLocalTime) And (dtDate.LSLocalTime <= fy.EndDateTime.LSLocalTime)) Then

The final code snippet looks like this:


 Dim session As New NotesSession
 Dim intYear As Integer
 Dim previousYear As String
 Dim fy As NotesDateRange
 Dim dtDate As NotesDateTime
 
 intYear = 2007
 previousYear = Cstr(intYear - 1)
 Set fy = session.CreateDateRange()
 fy.Text = "10/1/" + previousYear + " - 09/30/" +Cstr(intYear)
 
 If ((fy.StartDateTime.LSLocalTime <= dtDate.LSLocalTime) And (dtDate.LSLocalTime <= fy.EndDateTime.LSLocalTime)) Then
 'do something
 End If

I left the NotesDateRange in there but I could have just used two NotesDateTime objects. Instantly, I started to think, "What is the use for this object???" Well after a look google investigation, I found a posting Sean Burgess over at Phigment Said What posted about NotesDateRange. I can use a NotesDateRange object as a key in a getAllEntriesByKey call. Cool! Hopefully I will remember this the next time I have to do something like that. ;)

Another good posting about computer security

2007-07-13T23:21:00.001-04:00

While reading the WoW Guide Forum, I came across this posting about computer security by Molotos from the Terokar realm.

2.2 PTR Patch

2007-07-12T23:52:00.000-04:00

Just read this courtesy of WoWInsider. Then I broke out with the cheese for all the whine that is ~~probably~~ going on in the WoW forums. I read the original posting and noticed it is locked! Hmmm wonder why? :D

Search-WoW

2007-07-12T20:33:00.000-04:00

To be honest, I don't remember how I found this site, but there is a search engine website that search only certain websites. I don't know how good the search is, because I only did a couple of searches, but I did like the listing of different WoW websites. Some of them are abandoned, but others are still being updated.

Why I don't have hunter macros

2007-07-12T19:52:00.000-04:00

While reading another posting on BRK, it reminded me on why I don't have any macros on my hunter. I use to have a castsequence macro that ran through my shot rotation for me. My biggest problem was whenever a mob was immune to Serpent Sting, the macro would fire it anyhow. So, after awhile I dropped it. So what is the purpse of this posting....nothing. :D I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Nice hunter Multi-Shot posting on BRK

2007-07-12T19:39:00.000-04:00

While surfing WoW blogs, I saw BRK's new post about multi-shot. Very nice! I especially like the picture of Shrek as the mob you are trying to multi-shot. Thanks BRK that image will be stuck in my head everytime I step foot in an instance. ;) IMO this posting is not only good for hunters, but for any class that run groups with hunters.

GeneriKB is back!!!

2007-07-12T18:39:00.000-04:00

First off, thanks WoWInsider for posting about GeneriKB's new MoneyMaking guide! When I first played WoW, the forums were the only place I lurked for WoW information. So, GeneriKB's first money making guide was my first guide, of any kind, I used. When I hit level 40 with Severkill, I had more than enough money for my mount.

However, I do regret listening to him about switching to a crafting profession at level 40. I dropped skinning for engineering. Engineering was fun but it wasn't making as much money for me as skinning was. Well around level 56/57, I picked skinning back up.

Well I read through his new guide and all the postings that followed. There are good tips in there. However, I think I will stick with skinning and herbalism on Thrax. Maybe at level 70, when I have my flying mount, I might pick up mining. I don't know, we will see.

But before I go, just a little advice: Just because this worked for GeneriKB on his server don't mean it will for you on yours. Before you go dropping professions, go to the AH and see if it really worth it.

Steady Shot

2007-07-11T20:05:00.000-04:00

Pulled Thrax out the other night. I need to learn tanking with Severorc, but I still need to make Thrax a money making machine. One thing about playing different alts, you temporarily forget the system you used. In this case, my shot rotation. Since, I am grinding I generally run:

Hunter's Mark, Send in the pet, wait a few seconds, Serpent's Sting, Multi-Shot, Arcane Shot, Aimed Shot, maybe another Arcane Shot.

Well when I was fighting my first mob, I saw a new shot on my action bar....hmmm Steady Shot, what is this? Wow!!! This shot is cool. It is doing more damage than Arcane for less mana. So I had to change my shot rotation:

Hunter's Mark, Send in the pet, wait a few seconds, Serpent's Sting, Multi-Shot, Steady Shot, Arcane Shot, Concussive Shot, Steady Shot, and maybe one more Arcane Shot.

No more Aimed Shot. Hmmmm for every pro there have to be a con. So I go to BRK to see what are his thoughts on the shot. Ok it is a physical shot. Arcane is magic. Cool, I can still use it. Then I found this posting.

Well after reading these two posts, I think I will still stick with Steady Shot in my rotation. At least for right now. :D

Edit: Good lord what was I doing last night? This should be about Steady Shot not Scatter Shot. *bonk self*

Gweryc, the melee hunter

2007-07-11T18:45:00.000-04:00

When I first read about this guy on WoWInsider, my first thought:

Get thee to BRK!!!

How can a hunter call themself a hunter without using their ranged weapons. However, before I posted a reply to the posting and stick my foot in my mouth, I went to his blog. It is a good read and you learn why he is the melee hunter.

Is it safe to come out and play

2007-07-11T18:43:00.000-04:00

Last night while playing some stupid online flash game, two programs tried to run on my laptop: xpre.exe and xrun.exe. Well after doing a quick google on the two programs, I told my Sophos firewall to not allow these two programs to run.

Worried I might have picked up a something bad while surfing the web, I ran Sophos AV, Ad-Aware, Spybot, and HijackThis. None of them found anything. Then I ran Sophos AV in Safe mode. Again, nothing. The strange thing is I can not find the files using Explorer file search, even in Safe mode. I did find a couple of prefetch files.

So the next morning I contacted a good friend of mine, who is deals with this type of stuff. He suggested running AVG AV/Spyware, he used it himself over the weekend on a friend of his laptop. So, I downloaded it and ran it. Again, nothing. Ran it in safe mode, nothing. I guess I should feel safe now, but I don't.

I'm just worried because I can not find the two executables. My friend told me, he thinks I might be safe. He thinks the Sophos stopped the files before they could get started. However, I still kick myself for not following some advice he gave me a while ago.

He told me to set up an admin account and an regular account for myself. Now, I tried to do this but man was it painful. I'm a developer! Whenever I needed to install something, I had to log into the admin account. That sucked big time! However after last night, I think I'm going to take his advice again.

One last thing. I just want to suggest a couple of web pages for those who need it:
Blizzard's Computer Support Page
Posting in my Guild's forum about keyloggers

Warlock changes are coming...

2007-07-11T08:13:00.000-04:00

Honestly, I do not know how bad of a nerf this is going to be to the Warlock class but Aeus from the Europe WoW forum posted about an up and coming change to the warlock class. Here is the link.

EDIT: I found the posting for the US forum here.

Turtle Tanking

2007-07-09T15:20:00.000-04:00

While I was in the post about Tanking 101, I click back to the main Warrior index to be sure the post wasn't stickied. I saw this post about Hunter Tanking. My first thought is, "Oh $###!! Now the hunters are trying to put me out of a job." Well I go in the thread and click on the link to see this:

Link to another tanking guide

2007-07-09T15:04:00.000-04:00

While still lurking around the WoW guide forum I came across a posting for Instancing 101 which link to Tanking 101.

New Trapping video on YouTube

2007-07-09T14:16:00.000-04:00

While lurking the WoW Guide forum, I came across a posting that linked to a trapping video on YouTube:

The guy wants some comments. So, go ahead give him some love(or hate). ;)

More additions to this blog

2007-07-07T18:08:00.000-04:00

Was doing my usual lurking of different blogs today. I came across a posting with some nice CSS for displaying code. Thanks again Julian. :D

Want to see what it looks like?


Hey I'm some sample code.
I look better now.  :)

After applying the code Julian posted, now this one of my earlier postings looks better.

Adding another blog to read

2007-07-07T01:30:00.000-04:00

Went to The Positive Warrior tonite and like what I saw. Time to add another blog to my iGoogle. :D

IM from the Boss

2007-07-06T22:21:00.000-04:00

The other day, near the end of the work day, I got an IM from the boss. Now my boss is crazy. Some days when I'm pulling out my hair, he will send an IM with a crazy picture in it. This time he sent me this:

Now I was laughing until I started to cry. So later on I went back to YouTube and found more videos by this user. Eventually, I came across this gem:

Honestly, I laughed for like 5 minutes straight off of that one. :D

Got some BRK love

2007-07-06T21:48:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to take some time to thank BigRedKitty for the linkage love today. :D Hopefully I will not end up like alot of blogs out there but you never know. Thanks again!