Jun

2009

Hunting for a GPS?

I recently decided to buy a GPS for my car so I can get even worse at remembering directions! I did find a great deal on a good one. It is a Garmin nüvi 760
and it has several cool features.

It has Bluetooth - so when your phone is near the GPS, calls are received through that and keeps you from having to find your phone and answer it which could lead to you having an accident.
It can play through your radio using an FM transmitter. It also has an SD card slot and 440 MB of memory, so you can use it as an MP3 player.
It receives constant traffic updates and will automatically adjust your trip to get around the problem areas. You can tell it not to of course.

This model is usually $400 but Amazon.com has it for $199. I had no trouble setting it up, entering addresses is simple, adding waypoints to stop on your trip is easy. Finding a restaurant, gas, or store is very simple.

One thing I did get for it was a few new voices. It comes with several good ones to begin with, and they are TTS, which means it will read all the street names and location names. I found a place called Pigtones. While these voices are meant to be funny, they are not worth the price. I downloaded GlaDOS - the computer voice from Portal, thinking it would be humorous. It does sound like her, but she says nothing funny, and all the voices you buy there are Not TTS - so you only get turn right at next exit, recalculating, arriving at destination. It is cool for like 1 day and then it loses its charm. I bought 3 others that are not great also. I feel I wasted my money - at $12-$13 a voice - it is not close to being worth it, plus you can only have ONE of those voices on at a time because it overwrites the plain voice on your unit. If you want to get a strange voice - get the free on from Garmin - Elfrod - it is supposed to be one of santas elves, and he says some witty things now and then.

If you think it is time to get a GPS - Click Here to go to Amazon and grab one before they run out!

By Azzura | Posted in "Real Life" | Comments (0)

Mar

2009

Second Life Land Sold

Azzura is officially landless in Second Life - She still has 448 squ left in some obscure spot (I have that for sale too). It was just a bunch of 16m squares of land that were for sale and I merged them into one plot before ad spots got put up in them.

Safety Girl, Azzurave, and evolv are all gone. Maybe they will return someday, but by that time there will be soo many new things that what I have will be like stone tools. I do miss SL for the most part, it was a great creative outlet for me.

Looks like I will need to redesign the blog header! Any ideas?

By Azzura | Posted in Azzurave, Safety Girl, Second Life, evolv | Comments (0)

Mar

2009

From Follower to Leader

If you read down a couple posts, you see I returned to WoW back in July - Joined a guild as an officer and grew it into a raiding guild. That guild broke apart back in September. I floated around kinda guildless for a bit with a few friends from that guild and put all my toons into Silent Lucidity - Star’s Bank Guild. Star is my bestest buddy in WoW and has become so much more in RL.

Star and Tish (me) would get on each night and try to find an instance run, but usually couldn’t find one because I was DPS and she was a healer….never any tanks available. Sooo, my casual DPS warrior came out of the mothballs and hit 70, and I started to learn to TANK. Narcissa wasnt the best tank but I had some tank instincts when I played Tish (my rogue) saving the healer at the cost of my life if things got nasty. The plan started to work.

But….WoW got a little boring again and we tryed WarHammer. That lasted about 4 weeks and got boring and we returned to WoW for the new expansion. We tossed around ideas about whether we would start a new guild or find one to join. We had a few people that would follow us to whatever guild we would join but as we investigated different guilds, we knew they werent right for us. Silent Lucidity was a bank guild no more!

Cal was a great guy that was always fun and ran with us whenever we did something. Him, Star and I always got along and always seemed to share the same opinion on things so the 3 of us became the officers for our new guild. A few others from the past guild hopped on board, a few friends of Star’s joined up, and some friends of friends came. We had the startings of a solid 10 man raid guild.

Wrath of the Lich King hit the stores and we all played sick, stayed home from work, and stayed up till all hours of the night. Tish got mothballed and Narcissa became my main. Narc leveled as Protection and Chaton (use to be Star but everyone still calls her Star) leveled Holy and together we hit 80. We ran instances and I learned to tank. Did I ever see myself as a tank…..NEVER! It did help to go from DPS to tank as I saw how much of a pain in the butt I was as a rogue and pulling agro!

So now we helped a few others hit 80 and we now had 10 people able to enter Naxxramus. And now the next thing to happen that I never thought myself ever doing… Introducing, Narcissa the Raid Leader! I was always kinda amazed how someone could lead a raid. They always seemed to know everything. All I ever really did was show up to a raid with my supplies and listen to what I had to do and do it. One Job. But the raid leader had to know everyones job for every fight and deal with questions and yell at people - 50 DKP MINUS!

I do not think raid leading is in everyones blood and it can be stressful, but I really enjoy it. It isn’t as hard as it sounds, and if you use your other officers, it can run quite smooth. Star keeps me focused and whispers things to me to remind people if I forget. While I may be a good raid leader, she makes me a great one. We keep each other calm, feed info to each other, and keep an eye on the raid as we plow through the content. It’s not a one person job and I’d be lost without her.

Silent Lucidity is moving along quite well. Very little drama if any. I think it helps that the officers have been in a few guilds that have failed, getting first hand experience of what can and does go wrong and what things cause the drama. If you happen to be guildless and on the Baelgun Server….and Alliance, check us out and visit our forums. You can check out our Raid Progression here.

By Azzura | Posted in WoW | Comments (0)

Mar

2009

The MacBook…

So, I now am an owner of a Mac. It is cool. Nice and compact, portable. Nice tools which I haven’t really gotten to play with. I did put WoW, on it - they have a Mac version, and it works just fine so far. I havent raided with it, but normal running around didn’t seem laggy at all.

Nice to watch movies on. Sit on the sofa and explore the net while watching TV. I started to reteach myself HTML… I taught myself way long ago, and have no idea how to use CSS so I thought I would relearn the right way.

By Azzura | Posted in "Real Life" | Comments (0)

Feb

2009

Bit the Bullet and Ordered a Mac

I’ve always been tempted to get a Mac. Last year when my computer went died on me, I almost got one…even applied for Apple’s Credit Card. But instead I fixed it myself and it worked. The thing I miss though is being able to sit on the couch and use my laptop. I still have my old one but it got messed up when I wiped the drive and the original recovery disks didn’t work. I bought an Alienware laptop…top of the line, thinking it would be the best thing in the world. It was nice, but had it’s flaws like getting way too hot all the time, and the battery would just die within an hour and a half. I wrote to Alienware to see if they would help and no one ever got back to me. They got my money, so i’m no good to them I guess.

ANYWAY, I was in one of my impulsive buying moods and peeked at the Mac Air. After reading about it, it seemed a little too underpowered. I like to play online games and that just wouldn’t work well. I would liove to have gotten a MacBook Pro, but I didnt want to invest that much money for something I really don’t need! So, I went for the simple MacBook bottom of the line with 4 GB ram. WOOT, My first MAC! I should arrive on March 3rd. Ordered an Airport Extreme for it so I can walk around with it and my iPod Touch.

So, all you Mac users out there…tell me some fun stuff I can do with this new toy! Like show movies on my tv? Cook dinner for me? Pull weeds? Fill me in on some geeky things to do with it!

By Azzura | Posted in "Real Life" | Comments (0)

Feb

2009

Stale Blog Page - Bye Bye to Second Life

Heh - I knew I would start a blog and then STOP. Toldyaso!

Soooo, I thought I would update again.

Lets see. Last week I actually logged onto Second Life after like 6 months and I picked up everything, stores and all and put them in my inventory. Then I put all my land on sale. The $75 a month was too much waste for me to hang onto my memories. A year or so ago I was spending $250 a month on a full SIM. Occasionally I would get an email for someone about the stores or SL not giving them the item they bought…and I just didn’t feel like getting on and dealing with it. This way I won’t have any upset customers. I am now getting emails daily asking where my stores went - they mostly miss Safety Girl. SL is a great place - just needs alot of fixing to make it enjoyable.

I met a few good people there. And will miss them and still do. Yes, you JoKay! Sorry to just poof and leave…RL stuff came up and tore me away and I just never got the SL bug back. Just cause im not in SL doesnt mean you can’t poke me now and then - that goes for everyone there!

By Azzura | Posted in "Real Life", Second Life | Comments (0)

Jul

2008

Hi hi! Im back!

I’m slackin…I know. I’m probably like most people - start a blog - write in it every day for a week, then once a week…then once a month…then….Stagnant!

News: Son got back from Canada at Camp Bil-O-Wood..he loved it and wants to go back! He came back and followed Dad into WoW. So we both are WoWing again. Guild is having it’s ups and downs in attendance. Still working out pretty good though. Summer can be tough on guilds with people on vacation and all. Plus its been a long time since the last expansion, so things can start to get boring for some, just like I got bored and stopped for 8 months….and 13 months before that Does help alot to have some friends that you play with regularly AND talk to outside the game as well.

I have met person who is turning out to be a lot of fun and very similar to me. Kinda came on as a surprise…very unexpected but very much a welcome surprise. Known her for about a year and have been getting to know each other more and more each day lately. <3

Also have been working on a book my dad wrote on How to make a Windsor Chair. He is going to teach a course at an art center, so I am making it look all nice. Need to get that DONE!

By Azzura | Posted in "Real Life", Gaming | Comments (0)

Jul

2008

Return to World of Warcraft

So, I did return to WoW. The guild is growing. I’m now an officer. Been running around with a few members and had a good time. There are still moments when I will just stand around in a town and have no idea what to do, so my WoW boredom isn’t totally gone. Still it is nice to hang out with old and new friends. It’s fun to watch a guild grow and progress. We have started to run instances together to learn each others play styles. Thus if you ran around with me, you know I will make you work extra hard to hold agro and will try to attack 2 mobs at once any chance I get! But you would also learn that while I push the limits, I know how to get out of trouble when I do push too hard. (not always though X.X)

My newest goal for when I am not raiding, is to gear up my Warlock Cynders for PvP (player versus player combat) Will take quite a while. If you dont know about WoW and getting gear…you fight in a battle ground in a team of 10 to 15, sometimes more, against another opposing faction team and try to capture flags, or control territory…and if you win - you get honor and tokens. If you lose - you get a little honor and 1 token. With the honor and tokens you gain - you can trade them in for armor and weapons. So, my goal is to fully outfit myself in PvP reward gear - so for about 150,000 honor - I can get the full thing and hopefully be alot harder to kill. Looks like I can get about 2000 honor a day without feeling burnt out or spending HOURS in the game. Thats alot of days to hit 150,000.

I’m not a very good PvP’er, but it can be fun to compete against Real Live characters instead of the normal Non-Player creatures in the world that don’t have much of a brain.

So - Here is me now - Cynders - In my normal gear for everyday questing and raiding. I changed my talent spec too… Destruction doesnt seem to have enough tricks or backup plans so now I am SL SL - which is Siphon Life/Soul Link - hybrid of Affliction and Demonology making me a bit harder to take down while I annoyingly DoT and Seed everyone in target range.

Also started some new arena battles. That is where you are paired up with another team…2 vs 2, 3 vs 3, or 5 vs 5. Matches don’t last long…especially against me. So Adon, Shoklar and Cynders started up Royal Defense again ( 3 vs 3), and then Adon and I (on Tish) started a brand new 2 vs 2 called Eye Candy Chicks. We got some help from another member named Blacknova, who does know how to PvP, and has helped get our rating up higher than it should be

Last Week - Royal Defense won 11 in 29 and Eye Candy Chicks won 4 in 13. We really need to learn to PvP

PvP records for my toons:
Tish - Lifetime Honorable Kills: 2280
Cynders - Lifetime Honorable Kills: 5767

Tish and Cynders

By Azzura | Posted in Gaming, WoW | Comments (2)

Jul

2008

Blog/Podcast Spot on Jokaydia

Jokay asked me to freshen up an old spot on Jokaydia I so - we present to everyone…

The Resident Blog/Podcast Spot!
Loading URLs into the blog images

After Brainstorming a bit and knowing what was needed, I decided to make a communication tower as the focus/landmark. Not quite as dramatic as I had originally wanted…I at first wanted an easy landmark to spot if you were somewhere else on the islands…like the lighthouse, or the Edublog Awards building. You can still pick it out while looking over the landscape since it does sit higher than the rest of the items on the Sim. I made the tower on my Sim in Rust Spot. It looked tall, it is over 30 meters high, but when I got it back to Jokaydia, it wasnt visible at all. Plan B! Stick it on the roof of a building!

Top of the Tower

Time to build! I started by removing all the old wood of the existing deck, and removing the ponds and plumbing, I recreated the same basic layout Jokay originally had in place. It has the same pathing as before with the layers a little different. I knew I wanted the build to be about 15 x 15 so I created an area to fit that size while not blocking anyone’s access. Jokay has a style she usually follows with all her builds…I tend to not have a defined style, but I usually go techy, metal, rust, neon, and I like to have open air spaces. The modern techy style wasn’t going to go well here It turned out what I hope is a mix of Jokay’s and my style mixed…letting it fit easily into the island setting without being so different that it becomes an eyesore!

So this spot will be used to showcase any of the residents blogs, podcasts, or websites. An added value of making Jokaydia your home in Second Life!

By Azzura | Posted in Jokaydia, Second Life | Comments (6)

Jul

2008

Blizzard Authenticator - Become Hackproof

So this past weekend Blizzard released the new Blizzard Authenticator. It is a little keychain size device that generates a random 6 digit number. This number is needed to log into your WoW account. With all the account hacking and key loggers out there, people have been getting their accounts stolen and all their items sold off for gold, presumably for the resale of the gold for RL money.

What you will do with this device is log into your WoW account in the normal fashion, but then you will have to push the button on the authenticator, and then enter the code it generates in order to get all the way logged in. This makes it impossible for anyone to ever log into your account unless they have the item…including YOU! So don’t lose it!

The cost is just $6.50. Should it be free? Probably. I can see it taking a blizzard a few man hours to investigate an account hack, and then figuring out what was stolen and then having to restore that account back to how it was. More than $6.50 for sure. But not all 10 million accounts are going to get hacked. I myself have ordered one. I would have liked to have seen blizzard give these away to loyal paying customers. Ones that have stuck with WoW for 1 or 2 years. But then again - $6.50 to protect your account that you have invested literally months of time developing isn’t too bad.

So now, how many online games, online worlds, and bank accounts will follow suit? Are we going to be stuck with 10 different number generators we need to use each day? I’m thinking we need a standard! But then, as we approach that, will that just make it easier for the hacking world to clone our device and break into all our accounts. 10 years from now, will we be needing to do a biometric scan of our finger, then a retinal scan, then a random generated code, then a password just to log into SL? Woot! fun fun.

By Azzura | Posted in Gaming, WoW | Comments (0)