The WoW Experiment [07 Jun 2008|10:00am] Chapter 13: The End of WoW This may be the end of my account but WoW isn't over for me. I have a feeling I will continue my quest into the World of WarCraft someday. Right now I just can't justify spending an additional $15/month on this game. Don't get me wrong, I like this game a lot. It's a lot of fun and I am still so far from completing a level 60 character. I have explored so little of the world and there is so much more to learn about and cover. This game is HUGE! Besides all of the server downtime and 10 minute handshakes and authentications, this game impressed me. If you're looking for a GREAT MMORPG and are willing to spend some money then please try out World of WarCraft. I guarentee addiction. Chapter 12: WoW's Website Funky & Ashenvale I've made my way into Ashenvale now. It's kinda creepy but it has a very magical feel to it. It's the kind of forest we all wish we had in our backyard. Of course minus the wolves, giant spiders, bears and other creepy things! I got a bunch of quests, but it'll be unlikely that I will do any of them. I was going to the World of WarCraft website today, I typed in http://worldofwarcraft.com and it errored out. So I clicked on the logo and it sent me to http://www.worldofwarcraft.com and that worked fine. Bah, I hate when you need the 'www'. Comon guys, I am LAZY! And now I am getting an error when I try to view my Account Info. [ServletException in:/WEB-INF/jsp/account/menu.jsp] /WEB-INF/jsp/account/menu.jsp(451,46) Unable to load tag handler class "org.apache.taglibs.standard.tag.rt.fmt.FormatNumberTag" for tag "fmt:formatNumber"' Get yer crap together! but I have noticed my ping went down from 2500+ to 100-200 or so which is nice :) All the servers seem to be functioning a lot better now. I just wish I didn't have to pay to play. I am lvl 25 and I've explored MAYBE 1/20th of the World of WarCraft. I would love to spend more time playing this game cause it's pretty good, not good enough for $15/ month though :) 'll be moving onto Battlefield 2 and Half Life: Source, Counter Strike: Source soon. Chapter 11: Pet Talents, Level 20+ & More So I have reached 1/3rd of my mission in about 30 days. I said I was going to do 60 levels in 30 days. Looks like I most definitely will NOT be getting to that. But hey getting to level 21 (as of April 4, 2006) is good. I've been playing some with my friend Greg who is the reason I am writing about all of this and playing World of WarCraft. I found this really great thread on the WoW forums that explains a lot of the acronyms used in the game. I have also been using Thottbot to help me with quests too. So apparently even after you go to a Pet Trainer and "buy" the skill you still need to train it to your pet. That costs "training points"...gets confusing and I didn't know about any of this until a couple days ago... The servers are very laggy and the authentication servers are even worse. You should see how many pissed off people there aer. Just take a look at the Blizzard WoW forums and at least every other post is someone complaining about how crappy and slow the servers are. it's really horrible. Blizzard, get your act together. Chapter 10: Dungeons So just this past weekend I did my first dungeon or something. It was Wailing Caverns which is located in The Barrens. It was a lot of fun, and those are the sorts of things that make me addicted to this game. Getting 5-6 guys together and just going all out and gaining tons of XP. I spent a good 6-7 hours working on Wailing Caverns and I learned a lot and gained a couple levels which was nice. Also completed a couple quests. I do have screenshots of one of the bosses in there so be sure to check out my Flickr. I know there are so many more dungeons out there unfortunately I will probably only get to this one. Chapter 9: Realm Updates, Patching and Quests Alright it's been some time since I've last updated this, but fear not, here I am! I wasn't really playing WoW either. Have been busy with other more important things, things that don't cost me $15/month to do...sorta haha So I think I went through my first major server outtage just this week (03/26/06). They were updating to version 1.10 and I guess things took longer then normal. There is an article talking about this here, though it was sorta interesting. Ooh, looks like there is a follow-up article too!! Anyways, I logged into the server this morning and it looked like everything was fine. I am still looking for people to play with...it's really boring when I am workign alone on quests. I wrote about World of WarCraft on the Small Dog Electronics blog so check it out! (PS it might not be up, but I'll make a link to the article when Dawn sets it to a 'live status'. Crap, this game sucks.... Chapter 8: Pets: Part II Alright, so I think I’ve gotten a hang of the damn pets. Greg and his buddy told me you have to feed them, ha figures. So I got myself one of those tiger things and he seems to be happy now. I am feeding him lots of meat and he helps me kill people :) I am now a level 12 which is right on schedule! I’ve had the game 6 days, and if I am doing 2 levels a day, yay! I got some warchief blessing this morning, which gave me an extra 300hp which was really nice, now I am back down to 263hp cause it wore off :( I got a lot done though, I did like 5 quests with that and it erally helped out. Finally wooped some crocodile ass down on the Southfury River. Now I am working on find some guys skull in the circle of power…anyone know if Sei’jin (sp?) Villlage has an inn, it sucks walking from Razorhill to there every time… Oh yeah, I got to fly some wind beast things, god, that so beats walking…especially from The Crossroads to Origrammer. Aiiyee. Chapter 7: Pets Wow, you know what I figured…WoW isn’t that bad, and once you’re fighting things you’re supposed to be fighting, and WINNING it’s not that bad. So what really is the issue with WoW?? It’s so damn big and it’s hard to understand what the hell you’re supposed to be diong. it’s not like Quake 4 or Doom III or even Need For Speed: Most Wanted…those games are all linear and they have a set storyline you follow. WoW on the otherhand is a GIANT world where you can do whatever you want and there’s nothing really to tell you what to do blatently. Yes, you get quests and all, but me having never played this or even understood what’s going on, I think I finally get it all now…it’s starting to come to me haha So I got a nice little boar as a pet, then a crab…and now I needed to get some armored scorpian, then I get to choose my own pet!! It’s getting to be a lot more exciting. I have a ton of quests all ready to go and yay! Chapter 6: Groups, Levels & Friends Alright, it’s been a bit since I’ve last updated. Don’t assume it’s because I’ve been constantly playing WoW. Cause it’s about the opposite, busy with work and school and the game isn’t really that addicting…for the most of it. I’ve been trying to get up at least 2 levels a day and it’s going ok. I think I am one day behind cause there was one day inwhich I didn’t play anything at all. But that was nice because I got rest and leveled up quicker. I am at level 10 as we speak, sitting in the Inn at Razor Hill. This game feel addicting when you’re actually killing enemies and not dying every 2 seconds. I’ve noticed that when I get new quests I am fighting things 2+ levels above me which makes me die and not want to play this stupid game. I really don’t see how people get into this game…I guess if you have like 3-4 friends starting with you it’d be fun… I managed to make friends with this guy “furiousdonut” or something…and we did 2-3 quests together which was indeed a lot of fun, but since then I haven’t found anyone to do quests with so it’s kinda boring… I think even if I don’t reach level 60 I won’t renew my monthly subscription. This game is not that great, I don’t really understand why people think it’s so good. It’s fun, but it sure ain’t worth $50 and then $15/month after that. Load of ass if you ask me… So if there’s anyone out there, in Razor Hill and wants to game and do some quests, let me know…it’s boring playing alone!! Oh yeah, how do I take some damn screenshots?! Baaah! Chapter 5: Feeling the Addiction Alright, I just thought I would quote this from my own blog on LiveJournal: I finally started playing WoW. I am at level 7 as we speak and I have NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING. I run around and kill little boars and scorpids. FUN! Haha No seriously…I think I already failed the experiment cause I just FEEL very addicted, like even when I am not playing, I’m like shit, I gotta level up. It’s horrible. I’ve also looked on the official World of WarCraft website and noticed something called a RAID…no idea what that is and was too lazy to look it up. I also was shown a couple websites which talk about quests. Allakhazam and Thottbot. Chapter 4: First Fights and Learning So finally after installing like 10 more patches the stupid thing let me in. I created this uber cool Orc named Equine, all the other names I tried were taken. If I can figure out how to screenshot him I will post that. I was also able to choose my realm. I thought there was going to be like 4-5 realms to choose from. APPARENTLY NOT! There’s like 50 or something crazy haha I choose Skullcrusher or something and did PvP because that’s what Greg told me to do I think…so it loaded up and then I got to play. Everything looked like it did in the beta I played, I guess I picked Orc then too. I got to watch a nice little Orc intro movie and then I could start playing. So I did the first 4 quests, and got to level 4. I figure if I can do at least 2 levels a day, that’ll get to me at level 60 in 30 days. There’s one thing I hate about WoW. It’s the size of the damn world. It’s HUGE! I always feel lost even with that little map in the upper right corner. I didn’t really understand what those silver arrows in it meant either. I had some issues finding those Vile Familiar things in quest 4 too. Uughh. But I think I am doing well, I really don’t know how to use the things from my backpack though, like I have this green goo and some scorpien tails and claws…what the heck do I do with those things. I am starting to remember some keyboard commands like ‘c’ brings up my character and I can see his gear and stats. ‘x’ will make me sit down…I really wished ‘a’ and ‘d’ made you strafe. My whole view gets messed up when I am fighting something…annoying. I learned using the number keys change my attack, so that’s good. One other thing is I had no clue HOW TO EXIT THE GAME! Haha I didn’t know if I had to save it or if I could just log out. Apparently it seems logging out works fine and saves your progress (I think…). I was looking for the thing that showed you how long you’ve been playing but I couldn’t quite find that. Chapter 3: Patching Your WoW 5 updates after my initial install, I am still downloading and applying patches! At least this is getting me to type in and remember my cryptic account password. I would have thought that 184MB patch was it, HA NO! I also noticed that when downloading a patch ALL my bandwidth goes into it…I can barely access this blog in under 2 minutes between pages…arghh!! Chapter 2: RTFM'ing and Creating My Account Alright, last night I spent a couple hours reading that damn manual. I’m only on page 100 or so, and there’s not much I learned that I didn’t already know. I did play through some of the beta back when it was at the beta testing stage. I do remember being a ghost 4-5 times haha I’ve just launched the game and watched the intro movie. Very cool, although why does that (what I assume) night elf lady throw her dagger to the side and then run to battle, seems a little silly. Hrmm, just noticed WoW subscription price isn’t what I thought it was, $10 was what I was thinking. it’s $14.99 PER MONTH!!! That’s outrageous. So yeah I need to get to level 60 in 30 days, cause I am not paying for that. Ridiculous… Account created…my name is VTequine. And now I have a 184MB patch to download, well dang, I was ready to play this crap and level up… Umm, anyone know if the Blizzard Downloader runs on Bit Torrent. I only say that because the Downloader notified me that I was behind a firewall, which is true. I also remember reading somewhere that Blizzard used Bit Torrent to distribute its patches, and I think I remember the beta was distributed through Bit Torrent. I also clicked on the More Info link on the Downloader and it brought to a page that shows what could be some issues and some links on how to fix this all. One of the links was port forwarding and the ports it wants to have are Bit Torrent ports…oh well, 3 more minutes and I’ll have the dang 184MB patch! Chapter 1: Buying the Game & Installing I bought the game on March 11, 2006 at the local EB Games. Even the guy there was like, “ha, another one gone”. So I told him about the little experiment I was going to do. He knew i would become addicted just like my friend Greg. I even made a post on LiveJournal and a friend left a comment about her boyfriend being addicted to it. After rebuilding my PC again (it shit itself a couple days before), I am ready to install the dang thing. I’ll get to that a little later tonight. I am swamped with emails and other work at the moment. Installing: Well, for some reason the stupid CD didn’t autoplay? WTF Blizzard! Actually wait, there’s an AUTOPLAY.INF file in there so WTF WINDOWS! Ha, anyways, nice little startup music. The License Agreement crap sucks, it makes you read it to activate the scroll button, but they know people don’t read that stuff so they write The agree button activates when you scroll to the botton. Blah, blah, blah 5 discs long…makes a nice WarCrafty sound when it needs the next disc instead of that lame Windows error noise. So while this is installing let me give you all my computer specs: AMD Athlon64 3500+ Venice Core DFI LanParty nF4 UT 3GBs OCZ RAM 160GB Hitachi SATA II 7200RPM 8MB cache ASUS NVIDIA 6600 256MB PCIe Sony DVD-RW Internet Speeds: 1Mbit/512Kbit Jeezum, its been like 30 minutes and it’s about 3/4 done so far, on disc 4 of 5… Just reading the minimum requirements and it says WoW will work on 56k…ouchie. I wonder how that would run, definitely not something I want to test out. Lovely, so I got it all installed. Now I am going to read that nice almost 200 manual that came with the game. It can now all start…. post comment

A Complete Website [07 Jun 2008|10:01am] For the longest time, I've always wanted a website, that contained a blog, a photo gallery and maybe some simple message boards. The answer might be a CMS based system, but I feel that is really to large and really to featured for what I had in mind. After ages of trying out hundreds of software packages I think I have something that's going to work for me. This article here is going to explain the process of getting 3 pieces of software to work (hopefully) together. Those are: WordPress ZenPhoto bbPress So let's begin the journey of this project, shall we?! Day 1: Well I am sure if you could really call this day 1 as I've been using WordPress for a while. I had installed bbPress once before, but was turned off the instant I saw the homepage of it. It's SOOO BLAND and I have no experience in CSS and styling at all. So today I installed it again and actually read some documentation on how to style it an all. I ended up using the CSS style from this K2 theme. I think that'll prove benificial in the end because I do want it all integrated. I plan to actually re-install bbPress to my ASO server so integrating these will be easier. I just found out about ZenPhoto yesterday and I spent quite some time just playing with it and installing it several places. Currently it sits on a local Gentoo Linux box. I think I will leave it there and see if I can just PHP include it since my photos take up a lot of space that I don't have on the ASO server but have on my Gentoo box. I will probably also style that to match K2 and this layout so everything look the same (again hopefully). So basically...I will do bbPress first. I will then style that with CSS code. I will use the K2 style.css as a base and work off that. Getting that and WordPress integrated is my first objective. Please note, I know no CSS and no PHP. This is going to be one heck of a project. -- Later in the day... -- Alright, I have got bbPress installed on the ASO server and that seems to be working. I actually dropped the K2 style sheet and just started working off the ZenPhoto.org/support/ stylesheet. It was easier and "less bloated". I say that because the K2 stylesheet was made for WordPress and has many more definitions that I don't need. Of course figure out which ones I do and don't need would take to long and I like to cheat a little. So bbPress is working a-ok. I then tried to include the K2 header and I got some error about wp_title() not working so I removed the actual call to that in header.php for the K2 theme and just wrote it in manually. That did fix that error. But now you have the bbPress AND the K2 headers calling 2 different stylesheets...that didn't work out so well. So I remove the K2 header include from the bbPress header. I then continued to edit the stylesheet and change things around a little. I up'd the H2 to 2em and I changed some of the widths and stuff so when I eventually get it into the K2 layout it will work. Then I worked on ZenEdit itself. I added a TON OF PHOTOS, so feel free to check them out and leave some comments :) I am trying to get the Gravatar hack working. I signed up for an account on ZenPhoto.org this morning and they said they would send an email with my password in a few minutes...that was 6-7 hours ago :\ I changed around a couple options in the layout. I made it so it has a blue background around the image no matter if it was visited or un-visited. I changed the background color to a light light grey...I might even go lighter...actually yeah, I just did and I like it a lot more, using #EDEDED now. So everything is setup...it's just getting them into the K2 layout. The hard part...but hey, for day one, I am not doing that bad! Day 2 & 3: Alright, I did a lot of work since and I've already figured a ton of things out. I posted on ZenPhoto about trying to get WP2.0 and ZP working together. They had this bit of code: /* Start Wordpress */ define('WP_USE_THEMES', false); require($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"].'/journal/wp-blog-header.php'); /* Start zenphoto */ require_once("zen/template-functions.php"); $themepath = 'themes'; $theme = $_zp_gallery->getCurrentTheme(); $_zp_themeroot = WEBPATH . "/$themepath/$theme"; if (in_context(ZP_IMAGE)) { include("$themepath/$theme/image.php"); } else if (in_context(ZP_ALBUM)) { include("$themepath/$theme/album.php"); } else if (in_context(ZP_INDEX)) { include("$themepath/$theme/index.php"); } Basically that allows you to use WordPress funtions in ZenPhoto or whatever you include it, i.e. bbPress also. So I did that but nothing seemed to work. If you notice this line of code from that require($_SERVER["DOCUMENT_ROOT"].'/journal/wp-blog-header.php');. That would obviously not work in my situation. I have ZP and WP installed on 2 different servers, so I had to change that to include 'http://www.equestrianhonor/wp-blog-header.php' instead. And it seemed to work because i had no call errors or anything. The stupid thing looked the exact same as when it didn't have that code though. So I tried messing with that stuff for hours, calling the header and footer files but nothing seemed to work. So then I tried working more with bbPress since WP and bbPress were on the same server and I used the same method provided by the ZenPhoto boards. This actually worked. So I've been working a lot with the EzStatic plugin for WordPress. It allows you to include PHP code in your WP posts. So I tried to include bbPress in a page file but it looked really screwed up. So I hit up the WordPress codex and I found this. I found this function called get_home_template. Which eliminates the need to call the footer and header which is really nice and it works. Although I still get this error which I navigate away from the homepage which sucks. So that's basically where I am at with the project right now... -- Later in the day... -- Alright, I spent more time learning about a couple PHP functions, include and require and what the differences are. Basically require will stop on a fatal error and stop processing the page. It will output the error. So since I wasn't getting an error I assumed things would be working. But for some reason I couldn't use the get_header and other WordPress functions on ZenPhoto. My solution? I installed ZenPhoto on the ASO server which also has WordPress and bbPress. Things now work and actually ZenPhoto is completely done. Check it out, it's got most of the same CSS as the blog but I changed the links around a little. Added some neat little effects. Now the only thing left is to get bbPress working. I am going to work on that now. I guess I might have to upgrade my hosting package because the photos take up so much space...oh well, oly and extra $5.00 a month for a little more then double the space I have no and about double and half the bandwidth. Alright to hack up bbPress! -- 7:41PM (10 minutes after the last update) -- Wow, I think I just did my first REAL piece of CSS. And I am so proud of it: .news { border: 1px solid #FF0000; background-color: #FFD2D2; width: 375px; padding: 2px; text-align: left; } I wanted to create a red box with some text inside of it. And I DID! If you check out the photo page you can see it in action! WOW! I feel so good haha I feel so accomplished! Day 4: Alright, commenting now works on the photo album and no errors are being returned. I had to move where I was calling the header file and change a function to just $FIXME. This fix also fixed the AJAX functions in the layout when namng/renaming photos and descriptions of photos and albums. The photo album is 100% done? Of course there could be errors I missed! post comment

My Dreams [07 Jun 2008|10:02am] May 2, 2006 I've been playing a lot of Battlefield 2 lately so I bet that's what influenced this dream. It started with me being inside the game and battling with lots of other people. I think I died a couple times but like in the videogame I was just respawned. A lot of my teammates were friends of mine and people I knew, but being that there was like 30+ people per team there were tons of people I didn't know. Finally it seemed to get to the point where my entire team was up on this watch tower with nowhere to go. We were surrounded and some lady (higher-up) was barking orders. Then the enemy team surrounded the watch tower with mines and explosives so no one could leave the tower. So we got the idea that we could drop a grenade down onto the mines and have that explode them and get rid of them. So my friend Connor was the grenade man so it was his job to drop them onto the piles of mines and other explosives. So he dropped a couple down onto a pile and we all moved to the other side away from the explosives. I remember that the ground was only like 3-4 feet away, but some how we didn't get blow up when the grenades went off...that's the last I remember though...I think I just woke up after that happened. March 16, 2006 Alright, so I’ve been playing this new video game on my computer, World of WarCraft. There’s a whole story behind which if you read might add more information to this. Anyways, I remember being like inside the game with my buddy from college, Jack. And we were walking around and fighting some boars and gaining XP. Then we transported to someplace called ‘Lacuna Coil’. Now Lacuna Coil is actually a band, and I admitted in there that I didn’t know the exact name of the place we were tranporting to but it sounded something like that, weird. Then the scene changed to like outside of a strip mall and all these people were there and it was really weird.If you’ve ever seen the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, there was this lady and bunch of girls all wearing those running pants and jackets. I don’t remember much else after that. March 5, 2006 I had a dream and Jess and 2 other girls from the UK were in it. But one of them was this girl who I watched do a striptease the other day…weird. The other girl is someone who I met or something I forget, but more importantly Jess was in it hahaha We were going on a fieldtrip to see a play or something and I was sitting with these 3 girls on the bus-ride there. When we got there, I don’t know where she and the other 2 girls went, but I hooked up with my buddy Sean and we went into the place…and for some reason the setup and props were everywhere and I dunno where you would sit to watch this. So Sean and I walked in to like this section that had showers and they were on so we were getting soaked and laughing…that is about where it ended. February 21, 2006 Had this one while taking a nap afternoon. It started off with my entire family being at the beach, maybe in Mexico or some tropical place. Then it got smaller and turned into likea horseshoe shaped pool. There were lifeguards in those rowboats but they were floating among the people and you kind of had to dodge the boats. The water was rough and the “objective” was to get to the other side… Anyways, after a long and difficult time I myself made it across. On the other side my mom was there talking to my cousin about how she was worried cause she thought my cousin drown. I wish I could extract this dream from my brain into a video because it’s too hard to explain. February 16, 2006 I had a dream that I took a trip down to Boston to see my buddies Micah and Greg. I used to attend college in Boston and Micah actually lived right across the street from my and Greg lived a block or two up the street from me. So I was in a dorm room and both Micah and Greg were there. We were sitting around this table playing cards or something. Then I got hungry and walked to the cafeteria. I remember it being like night when I was at the dorm room and I think while getting to the cafeteria but when I went inside there everything turned to morning and they had breakfast out and all. So I got a blueberry muffin and started eating that while I was waiting in line to pay for it. It was slowly turning into a cranberry muffin of which I hate… Then I finally got my turn to pay for it, but the lady at the cash register kept saying I could use my Wentworth (the college I used to go to) student ID card there…so then a manager guy came out and I was cleared and just used my card anyways. Then I left and kept walking towards Wentworth to see some of my old buddies. The streets were pretty crappy and all messed up. It looked like a dead town and everything was in ruin. Then I saw this kid who works at Small Dog with me walking on the other side of the street, so I went to that side and started to follow him. He went through some alleyways and finally went into this old broken down, dark concrete building…I made my way back to the main road and kept on walking to Wentworth…I walked and soon I came across this like Chilie’s resturant that was on fire. There were firemen trying to put it out…I kept walking. The road became long and everything still looked run down and ruined but the buildings and stuff were behind me and there was a boardwalk also broken down and dark infront of me…I saw two kids who I have no idea are and asked them Wentworth was and they said it was gone…I started walking back to Micah and Greg…it ends there. January 21, 2006 So my friend Jamie got a job at this movie theatre, Majestic 10 (REAL LIFE). In this dream we were at that movie theatre but it looked nothing like the real life one. Anyways, my friend Jamie and I and lots of other kids our age were there trying to pick out jobs. So I told them their website looked like crap (which it does in real life) and that I would redesign it. So I told the guy incharge and he thought it was a good idea. But he also said that he wanted me to write articles or something, so I was ehhh maybe…and then it ended as far as I know. Dreams This is a little bit of all over the place. I was being lazy and not taking them from my notepad I keep by my bed and putting them online. So I am not sure when I had these dreams (well they occured over the last 2 weeks from the date on this entry). – In the first dream I was working on a website. I think my notes say it was Sugarbush’s which is a local ski resort here. I was working on the style (CSS stylesheet) of the site. The next dream I was 4-wheeling with my buddies and then we drove them to my other friend Greg’s house. We were eating fruit in his kitchen and Connor was there, the friend I was 4-wheeling with disappeared. Then we ate some donuts. There was a really big calendar that was Shaws branded. It was like one of those big desk calendars. My notes then say “Big Job “Blow” cleaning” I think. I can’t read the notes to well…Then we were cleaning powederd sugar up off the floor. I assume it was from the donuts. Then we went into a room that looked like a study and there was sort of stairs/ladder that lead to another room above the study. It was really cool. Then I had a dream about a soccer game. But the playing field reminded me a lot like this battlefield in Dynasty Warriors for Sony PSP. The field was split by this wooden wall and gates. So you couldn’t really even see the other team because the wall was blocking it. This game of soccer also took on form of rugy because it was much rougher then normal soccer. Anyways, there were some people from my old high school there and also my aunt. February 5, 2006 I had a dream that I was living on some type of tropical island or something. I was with my horse, Nippet and I was giving him milk or something. but his water bucket with the milk stuff in it keep getting mud and hay in it. Soon it become just full of a sludge-like mess. So I went to get him a new bucket but when I returned the buckets were gone and he was in the paddock next to the one he was orginally in! Then out of nowhere he appears out of all the paddocks just standing there and there is a lion where he used to be. But this lion is like Aslan from Chronicles of Naria when they cut all his hair off. But the lion in the dream was also being nice, at least he wasn’t biting my hand off or anything. And then I turned around to see if Nippet was there but somehow he “transformed” into this other horse I know, Maggie…that was the end of it though. Someone asked the other day if we remember if we dream in color, well last night was in color for me. I don’t know if it changes from night to night, but I’ll try to keep that in mind. Update: Just remembered another dream I had. So I was at this place, sort of like a LANParty but it was at a smaller house and not to many people. Then I got an email or a notification of some sort that said the monitor of the computer would become unavailable for a while. So I thought it was a joke or something. Then all the sudden the screen turns grey with orange text that said something like, “VGA Unavailable” and I thought we were being hacked or something. but then like 10 minutes later the screen went back to normal. I thought it was something Microsoft was doing, it felt very Big Brother-ish. Like they could control your computer whenever they wanted. January 16, 2006 I don’t really remember much of the dream but I remember my mom saying something about Barf having the fix or the answer. Well Barf is the name my friend calls her dog…so uuuh what?! January 14, 2006 I had a dream that I was at work picking up stuff for TinyMeat, but I got an iBook and they never charged me for it. So I just went home and took the stuff I did pay for and the iBook with me. Then somehow I ended back up at Small Dog and I was talking to Greg cause he’s the one that does the scrappage of items. We started talking about taking items from places though and I guess he forgot or something cause he said “I always take stuff from you guys” thinking I still worked in the retail store or something. The next dream was about my little lizard who in the dream wasn’t so little anymore. He had the look of an iguana more then a bearded dragon and he was much bigger then he is now, but he was in a much smaller cage. He also had sharp claws and they were digging into me. I put him onto the floor of our house which had also changed. The floors and windows and walls had this Spanish feel to them, weird I know…anyways, my dog was trying to be friendly with my lizard and that wasn’t working out so well, but then I just put the lizard back into the cage. I had sand in the cage which is something I don’t think I would ever do cause its a pain in the butt. January 13, 2006 So my eye has been hurting lately and my mother insists that I go to the doctor, so I am sure that’s what heavily influenced this dream! I went to the doctors office, which is new. They actually ripped down the old one completely and rebuilt the entire thing. The new one is HUGE compared to the old one. So anyways, I get inside and it’s actually SMALLER then the older building. WEIRD! But Donna was there. Her husband owns or is the M.D. there. So she just asked me some questions and whatnot and for some reason I saw my dad working in the back there…no idea why cause in real life he doesn’t work at a doctors office haha So after I filled some paperwork out and answered some questions I sat down…then Donna came out and I pulled out my Sony PSP. But it had like 2 screens, one normal big one and one little one where this like audio visualization was. Weird. Then Fran came out and I was showing it to him and we were wow’ing over the visualizations. Then Donna gave me this pin which was like a visitors pass so I kept trying to pin it onto my shirt but I wasn’t having much luck. So I finally got it and went to the bathroom. The toilet was really weird and it was spitting out warm water constantly into a whole in the floor. That’s about where that ended. January 8, 2006 Haven’t been updating this poor little thing so here we go :) I do remember having a bunch of really weird dreams last night, but I am not to sure what happened in all of them. The one I do remember went a little something like this: I was at work in the warehouse. That’s where I usually work anyways, but this warehouse was a lot bigger but it still looked a lot like the normal one. The walls were very white and lights were also very white. It was raining, like a monsoon and it was even raining inside the warehouse. There was a good 6 inches of water already in the warehouse and I was just doing most of my work as normal. Then it did get darker as I was on the lower level, but still pouring. Then I started go nuts because my XServes and hard drives and stuff was missing. Just likein real life, so I kind of assumed people had just moved them or borrowed them, but I was still going on a rampage looking for them. Then the warehouse started to slowely transform to my aunt’s old house up on Misty Hill which is close to where I actually live. Parts of it too on the appearence of that house and some parts stayed as the semi-normal warehouse. That’s about where that dream ended and I am sure another one started. I have noticed that I really dream alot between the hours of 6am and 9am. Or whenever I wake up. I don’t know why…but I am sure I am not the only one… January 4, 2006 I only remember one of my dreams and it took place on a “modified” field of my old elementary school. But there was a ton of people playing this giant game of soccer and tons of my friends where there. We were all playing and then the ball when down the hill into the river and Connor kept jumping into the freezing cold water to get it. Then 2 other people I know kept punching each other in the face? Haha The game finally did end and everyone was going back to the high school which is like 6-7 miles from where we were playing. And then my buddy Greg showed up or something and he started to walk all that and was complaining. Of course who wouldn’t complain about walking that long hah, so I just tried to find my car and remembered it was back up at the field where we were playing. Am I having crazy dreams again?! December 26, 2005 Well if you read this, you will understand the reason of me dreaming about my horse and really ONLY about him! Haha I can’t really remember any of the specifics, but he was in everey dream I had last night. December 25, 2005 I did have a couple dreams last night but I couldn’t be bothered to write them down after they happened. I did remember one, which is odd. My friend Micah and GREG again haha were in New Jersey, down at the beach. It was nice warm sunny weather so we thought we would go to the actual beach. So we got into a Honda CRV and started to drive down there. Then it turned into really bad weather and the streets became flooded. And then all of the sudden bears came out and we’re in the streets. Some were eating the fish that had come ashore and some of the bears were wondering around and some were even dead. Greg likes bears…don’t ask… December 24, 2005 Greg takes a spot in this dream also…I have no idea why because I haven’t talked to or seen this kid in forever. Anyways, we were in a VW Passat driving around “Burlington” which wasn’t Burlington at all. It was a much larger city…kind of like Liberty City, the city in Need For Speed: Most Wanted and True Crime: LA…all mixed together. Our car at some point lost the doors and stuff and turned from black to a more metalic coloring. Now apparently I had a dream inwhich I got in a fight with some kid…at least according to my notes here…but I don’t remember that haha Then next bit of note I cannot read either haha…it’s hard to write when you’re 99.999% asleep ahaha December 23, 2005 The first dream I had took place at something that resembled this summer camp I used to go to. Some of the landscape was different. For some reason an old friend was in this dream and also another one I had. I haven’t seen this kid in awhile so I am unsure as to why he was in it. I haven’t even talked or thought about him either. Anyways, we were doing some landscaping at this camp, also while attending it. We had this girl who looked much like the girl in the ABC TV show, Wildfire. She was sort of the boss and was telling us what to do. I remember being in the bathrooms with this old friend and she was talking to us. The bathrooms were pretty gross. Next, the dream took place just up the road from where I actually live. It’s called the four corners since theres 4 roads that come together. There’s a big farm there also and a old school house. Anyways, I was with my buddy Sean and there was this big Cat bucket loader chasing us around. It was winter time. Then somehow that sort of transformed into a dump truck and in the dump truck was a horse and Greg was there. That was sort of just ended also… Last, dream took place on a boardwalk with a beach behind it. But on the other side of the boardwalk was a large structure made from I’d say metal. Lots of people and some of my friends where hanging out on it. Then this kid from the first dream was in it and we went down onto the boardwalk to get ice cream. That’s all I remember. December 22, 2005 My first note says Wills Will. I faintly remember it being more like rules this person named Will/William told me. it was how to write your journal on dream. WEIRD! Haha How could their be rules on how to do this? The next was my girlfriend and I and we went to a Japanese restaurant. Then I had to get up to go to the bathroom or something and when I came back my girlfriend was gone and now there was an older man and maybe his daughter/grand-daughter sitting on the other side of the table. I asked them where she had gone and they didn’t know but there was some food there so I ate it. Then I looked out this window and there were like 4-5 girls in this big van and one of them was getting undressed. So I got out of the restaurant and went into their van to find out what was happening. The one girl who had been getting undressed was now dressed…apparently she was a lesbian and there was some girls kissing or something so she decided to get undressed because she liked it? I dunno, go figure…so to test that out…I ran my fingers along her inner thigh and she didn’t get “turned on”. I tried it on the other girls and they did get turned on…wonderful test! Then they started to drive the van away from the Japanese place and inbetween these great hillsides where people were shooting at eachother…lots of people! It ends there. The next was me and a bunch of people inside this wooden fort. Very small fort though. More like a room, that was built from logs and such. I remember seeing a couple people I know there. Then one kid I know, named Connor asked me about this website, Delicious (http://del.icio.us). I told him I would iChat him the URL when I got home or instant message whatever you want to call it. He was cool with that. Then Santa Claus came, the exact same one that was in Chronicles of Narnia and he gave me this sheet on his sled expenses and all. Told me how much the reindeer cost and the maintaince costs of the sled and all. It was pretty funny… Last I had a dream about this website I semi-help run. It’s TinyMeat.com and I was talking with Mikey the owner about his Full-On Friday thing he writes every Friday. I wanted to do my own but call it End of the Week Llama-Rama. That’s all I can remember from that one though. December 21, 2005 There was a McDonalds right next to a Burger King and it was the winter time. No idea about anything more. Also had a dream I was in my old class at Burlington Tech. It was a Cisco networking class. I remember seeing Benny and Jimmer. We were building our own computers even though this was Cisco, they only built computers in year one of that school/class. In year 2, the Cisco class it was all networking and no building computers? Could this have anything to do with this class I am trying to get into right now, Concepts of PC Hardware inwhich the student does build or upgrade a computer….Odd? I then had a dream about mechs and being in a war. Or some type of battle. The scenery was that of many Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia. Rolling green hills, bright blue skies…not very battle/war-like. I did watch Serenity though, so I believe that might have something to do with it. The next I don’t understand from the notes I took…probably because I was half alseep when I typed it into my PowerBook. Direct quote of what I wrote: “gfs sisters point oig (of) fiew (view)”. I can’t remember that dream or what happened? post comment

Private WoW Server Setup 1.10 [07 Jun 2008|10:02am] UPDATE!!!! Please use my newer guide!! There's no reason to use old stuff, we all want the new dungeons, instances and quests!!! It's all a lot better. If you must use this guide, do know I don't really provide ANY support for it anymore!! PLEASE use the message boards for further questions and discussion!! Thanks!!! *****This guide is out of date but still works for the software explained within it. Don't ask about the new software, cause I don't know about it. Learn how to use Google if you need help with newer stuff. I'll update this eventually!***** I started this guide off and it was actually getting quite long but I have decided to redo it because I have found something that is a lot quicker and gets the job done and it allows your clients to use version 1.10. This guide assumes you're not a complete newb and know the terminology I am using. First, I shall let you know I am using a dedicated machine for my World of WarCraft server. It is an Intel Pentium 4 2.66GHz with 2GBs of RAM. I've noticed this emulation takes up a lot of resources so having a beefy machine is a MUST! If you are going to have a LAN only server then having a fast internet connection isn't a MUST but recommended to download the files you're going to need. Some users might want to setup the server and client on the same machine. It's 100% possible but that's not how I have choosen to do things. You could actually just follow this guide for doing it :) Setting up the Client First I am going to go over how to setup the client since it's rather simple. Using your purchased World of WarCraft disc set (mine is five discs large!!) install World of WarCraft so that you have a "fresh" copy. Now...if you still want to play on official/real Blizzard servers you can make a copy of the World of WarCraft folder and use that too access the official servers. Now download and install the official World of WarCraft 1.10 patch. You can Google it "wow_1.10.0_enus_patch.exe". It's about 360MBs in size. That's where having the fast internet connection becomes handy! :) Once that has downloaded, install it. Next you will need the 1.10 hack patch which allows you to play on private/emulated World of WarCraft servers. You can Google that, "1.9.x Patch Hacker.exe" or "hackpatch110". Download and install it. Go into your World of WarCraft install (usually C:\Program Files\World of WarCraft\) and find a file called "WoW473519.wtf". Erase anything in there and add in "set realmlist ". By this part of the guide YOU DONT HAVE A SERVER!! AHH!! You will also need to add that 'set realmlist' stuff into a file called "realmlist.wtf" which is also located in the World of WarCraft directory. Both of these files can be opened/edited in Notepad. Once that is completed it's time to set the server up so you can fill those things out for your client(s). Setting up the Server Now, to the part of setting up the actual server!! You will need some files, none of which I can provide for you :) You'll need to Google them up as usual. I created a folder called "World of WarCraft Server" in my C:\ (C:\World of WarCraft Server\) and put all my server files in there. I am a neat-freak about my computers though, so you can do whatever you please. You will need these 2 files: "UWC_Repack_1.0.9.9.rar" "1.0.9.9cUpdate.rar" I unpacked the first load of files into C:\World of WarCraft Server\. Then I unpacked and OVER-WROTE the files in C:\World of WarCraft Server\. I think there was only 2 folder it over-wrote. It just updated some files. Excellent, next! The next part allows you to have other people (a.k.a people outside of your network be able to acess the server, your friends...etc.). Some people like myself have a static IP address, others have a dynamic one. The dynamic one suck because they change every so often, but with the FREE No-IP service it makes it a lot easier. Hit up their website and create an account. This will be what you use in those "WoW473519.wtf" and "realmlist.wtf" files. So for instance let's say you created wow.no-ip.info. You would put: set realmlist wow.no-ip.info into those 2 files for your clients. If your server is going to be LAN only you really don't need to do the whole no-ip part. You can set both of those client files to: set realmlist OR if you're doing a server and client on the same machine: set realmlist 127.0.0.1. Ok, so that finishes up the client really, but now we need to go into a file for the server. So let's go into C:\World of WarCraft Server\ and you will see a file called wowemu.key. Open this file in Notepad. You'll see a line called: server_name= I have edited mine to say: server_name=The Meat Wagon. Just because that's what I wanted to name my server. You can call it anything you want, don't matter to me! Next find the line: ws_host=127.0.0.1. Leave it as it is if you want to have a LAN only server. If you want your friends and outsiders to be able to access your server put the no-ip address in here: ws_host=wow.no-ip.info, obviously you need to change that to your no-ip address. Save and exit. Now you will need to go to C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\ and find a file called "hosts". Open this with Notepad. Add in this line: 127.0.0.1 wad.eclub.lv If you have a no-ip add it in also. 127.0.0.1 wow.no-ip.info Save and exit. Now...back in your World of WarCraft Server folder, go to a program called DButilEx.exe. This program is an important one and allows you to create, modify, easily ban users. You can use it to create a user right now...or do it from the web page interface when you start the server up. I did it form this program because I could also set my PLEVEL to a GM right from there rather then signing up through the web page and then editing the account in the program. You can do whatever you want :) So now you can start the server, click on the file "Launcher.exe" and hit the start button on this new program. This starts the server. Once it's stop spitting out text (around 5 minutes) the server is up and running. New users can register via the web interface or you can input them manually through the DBUtilEx.exe tool. That should cover about everything. You can further customize your server through the "scripts" folder and the files in there. There are more programs and ReadMes that come with the server so READ THEM!!! If I missed something let me know. Don't ask me for files, or the legality of this process, cause I don't know, nor do i care. I may update this guide over time with new information or screenshots, but this really should be more then enough to get a World of WarCraft server up and running. If you can't feel free to leave a comment on this page and let me know what's up. post comment

The Video iPod [07 Jun 2008|10:02am] I just purchased a demo video iPod from Small Dog Electronics. It's got a couple scratches but hey, it's a demo unit, I cannot really complain. It's in pretty good condition, as a matter a fact I think I am the one who tested and made sure this iPod works, so now I really can't complain! It's 30GB and black. The reason I bought this was because I was testing another video iPod and I actually was watching Aeon Flux on it. I know many people were complaining about how small the screen in and crap like that, but it's really not that bad. I have had a Sony PSP for about a year now and even though that screen is noticibly larger then the video iPod, I can manage watching full length movies on here. Poo poo on the people that complain it's too small. If it's too small then don't watch movies on it, don't buy one, stop complaining, jeez. So the reason for buying this was to obviously watch movies. In order to do that I have to convert them into a format that can be read by the iPod! I know when the iPod video first came out that a bunch of Apple sites ran articles on which programs to use for this sort of thing. Of course the searches provided on those sites/blogs are horrible so I wound up using good ole' Google. I came across one application which is 100% and works great called, iSquint. You can view the programs home page here. it converts tons of different video types without the need of installing the extra codecs. It took me about 1 hour to convert The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe AND The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on my PowerMac G4 1.25GHz DP machine. So I am pretty psyched about that. But what if I have a DVD that I want to convert to something usable by the iPod. Whenever I've done a DVD-RiP I have used Handbrake. It has always created the best rips for me and it is so simple to use. Click, click, wait, done! So I searched up Handbrake on Google and found their home page. Apparently they have a nice little program which is based from Handbrake but converts just for iPod and Sony PSP!! It's called Instant Handbrake and works mostly like the original version but makes video files just for the iPod and PSP. So now I am ripping Seabiscuit and it says it's going to take 3 hours which seems a little much. Usually it only takes and hour to do this...so we'll see. Overall I am very impressed with the video iPod. It's great for on the go or just watching movies at my desk here...even at the retail price of $299 for the 30GB it's a great gadget. Now I can watch video podcasts too! Update: I've been getting some videos from Gamespot.com and they're all in WMV format which doesn't really play nice with Windows media files. I tried to use iSquint to convert it since the iSquint website said it worked with WMV files, but it really doesn't so don't let that fool you. Maybe it's just the WMV9 codec or something, who knows. So I went through 10 other Mac based applications that said they would work with WMV files and they didn't. So I figured well, maybe Microsoft Windows would play nice with its own types of files. I borrowed my girlfriends Dell with Windows XP SP2 and installed this application called WinAVI, which was free and quite easy to use. It worked perfectly fine and then I put the videos on my iPod. Now there is one non-free program for Mac called Flip4Mac and it says it can convert WMV files into something the Mac can better read, but I believe it costs about $30 that I don't have...plus most of my movies aren't WMV format. post comment

Windows Vista & Mac OS X [07 Jun 2008|10:02am] I've been a user of Microsoft Windows much longer then a Mac user. Ever since I moved myself onto the Apple operating system some 3-4 years ago, I've never looked back, except for the one obvious thing. Gaming. I must have my games, although I am starting to become much more of a console gamer except for any FPS games. All FPS games must be played with a keyboard and mouse, or else it's just lame. More to the point though. I've been beta/alpha testing Windows "Longhorn" or Vista if you may ever since build 3683, which was...2001, 2002?? It's been a lot of fun, but it's been really great lately. The last build I tried was sometime in December, I think it was one or 2 builds after 5231 or whatever that was. I noticed that Microsoft is now including more then just Calculator and Notepad. Things that would be like Apple's iPhoto, iCal and really nice working email client are built right into the operating system. Now we don't have to search and download 3rd party applications, everything is right there like it should be. You need to understand I am NOT a Microsoft, Apple or Linux fanboy. I understand that each OS has it's weaknesses and it's strengths. I switched to the Apple platform because I had stopped gaming and I needed something that was going to make me more productive. Using Windows, is not productive for me. I am always needing to download extra programs or make sure my virus protection software is up to date, along with my spyware scanning software. I had to make sure my registry wasn't mucked up and that programs weren't leaving behind files even after I un-installed them. But now with Vista and it's many new features I have a feeling that a lot of my issues will be taken care of and now I can re-consider using the Windows platform as a main computing environment, not just for gaming. I use Apple for about everything right now, although that is changing as we speak, partly thanks to Google. Apple has everything I need out of the box, iCal, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD along with a great set of professional media editing tools and tons of 3rd party pieces of software. Some of the pieces of software I use on my Mac, I couldn't even find a comparable piece of the Windows system. Everything about my Mac is seamlessly integrated and all the programs work so nicely together. Hell, it looks good too! The only issue is, NO GAMING!! Most of the games I play are PC only, although I have seen that Quake 4 is now out for Mac and World of WarCraft is for Mac too, but in reality most of the games I play, Half Life 2, Battlefield 2, Oblivion, and others are PC only. Apple is great for multi-media. Linux, I have to say is the least productive operating system for me currently. It's #1 on the learning experience though. When I use Linux I probably learn AT LEAST one new thing about it and how it works PER DAY! There's always something new to learn with Linux for me. It's always changing...it changes...almost everyday! A new patch or a new set of features is released for an application I use and I can download, compile and install that patch quickly! I am always trying out new software created for Linux and using bleeding edges stuff. It's fun to see how the developers try to program new programs and pieces of software that have already been done on other operating systems, OS X and Windows mainly. Personally, I use Linux mostly for it's stability and security and implement that into web services, mail, ftp, and databases. Linux is good for being a server. Windows...Windows...Windows...So many people say how horrible Windows is. Let's get this straight...Windows is...yes, I am going to say it...a wonderful operating system. It's just the IDIOT people who can't work the most simplest things that have so much trouble with an operating system that is so easy to use. Alright, so it doesn't come with all the cool things Apple's OS X comes with, but it sure is easy to use. Or maybe, it's so hard to use only the advanced computer users of today can tackle this beast from Microsoft. You need to understand how the spyware, malware, and viruses work, so that you can prevent or remove them from the systems. I've used Windows for so long this is mostly all a second language to me and my Windows machines are locked down and used only for a couple specific tasks. So if you've read this by chance...leave some comments...maybe I'll update it or create another section about how I feel Windows Vista is doing in productivity terms compared to Apple's OS X! post comment

Private WoW Server Setup: BC [07 Jun 2008|10:03am] This is 100% completely new to me. I just found it, but I thought it would be a great thing to share with you people. Again, please discuss it on the message boards. It's pretty simple to get going, although this is a non-complete guide as of writing. First you'll want to download World.Of.WarCraft.Burning.Crusade.Sandbox-EMUPEDiA. Get it installed. It also looks like you need to download this file: WoW-2.0.0.5610-enGB-Installer-downloader.exe and get it installed. You can edit the realmlist.wtf if you're want to play on the same computer the Burning Crusade server is on. You'll want to change RealmAddress="127.0.0.1". I am pretty sure, the Realmlist.wtf is in your WoW client folder (C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\). If you would like a LAN only server (need at least two machines) this is possible too. You want to edit realmlist.wtf and change the RealmAddress to the IP address of the server computer. From there you'll want to edit the system.conf in the Burning Crusade folder. This is so other people can access it over the net. Now if setup correctly you should be able to connect to the server and play around! Here's some commands to get you going as an admin: .setspeed - Change your Speed .additem - Add´s an Item for Example (.additem 2401) .warp - Warp you to a Position (Map X Y Z) post comment

Private WoW Server Setup 1.11 [07 Jun 2008|10:03am] This guide is old. I do not use UWC anymore, NOR do I support it. The new and best WoW emulation is through MaNGOS. I DO NOT have a guide ready for people to use, you're going to have to use Google and search it out yourself. Currently I don't have time to work on a MaNGOS guide but our discussion forums might proove helpful to you. If not, then go spend $15 a month for the real thing. Support Blizzard! This is a new guide and allows a user to setup a private World of Warcraft Server for 1.11 clients. Currently this is the highest I've found, minus the Burning Crusade emulation. Please, PLEASE use the message boards for discussion. Don't AIM me or anything else because I won't respond or I'll just add you to my block list. Plus it helps other people if we figure things out in the public boards. First you'll want to get World of Warcraft installed. Make sure it's updated to version 1.11 (full update). I used GameDaily.com to get from 1.11 to 1.11.2 with the 2 little patches. You'll want to run the HackPatch1-11-2.exe file on your client machine so that your client(s) can connect to the server. Then you can start with setting up the server. You'll want to download a one of the many versions of the server. Most if not all are just repacks. I will be using Poglia's Repack (Poglia_s_Repack.rar) v1.0. Do note that this repack DOESN'T INCLUDE NAXX!! Sucks, but hey...you can use another one if you want. I chose this one because it was Blizzlike. Here's some information about it: Based on: - UWC 1.3.4 - StartTCL Startup System v0.9.5 Scripts: - Spirit's Scripts v4.45b - SQLdb middleware database API v0.2.4 - NextGen Auction House System v1.0.2 - NextGen Mail System v0.9.3 - NextGen Buyback System v0.8.7 - MobResist + Root Fix v0.4 - Improve Armor, Critical, Miss & Dodge v1.20RC2 - NextGen RestState System 1.1.9 - zInstanceLimiter a Better Instance Limiter v1.3 - zJail, a Better Jail System v1.4.9 - zBroadcast, a Better Broadcast v1.0 - Pewex Waypoint System v2.0.S - Professions / Primary Skills by Piznete and Team v1.0 modifed by lopht - Pewex GuildBank System v1.0 - Pewex Prefix System - Professions Unlearn system v3.01 by CZW & ZOoMiK - Chance on Hit System - Working Talent Master scripts - Other things that i don't remember added and/or edited by me Database: - Spell & AI fixes for Bosses & Mobs By Ata - Blizzlike Classes by Jenova v0.8.9 with some fixes by me - UWC Blizzlike Loottemplates by Scorpio v1.3 - UWC Blizzlike Items by Scorpio v1.1 with some fixes by me - UWC Blizzlike Creatures by Solfern with some fixes by me - WoWQT Quest Fixes by Raveraa - Ahn'Qiraj by PredatorX - Latest Spells and Spellcost by BAD updated by me for all the system works - Blizzlike world.save edited by me - Other things that i don't remember added and/or edited by me Extra Tools: - Mandatory client addons - Extra client addons - Updated DBFilesClient folder At least it has AQ!! Alright, once you've download your repack stick it into the C:\ drive. I created a folder in the root of C:\ so that it was C:\World of Warcraft Server\. You'll notice that the repack is usually zipped or RAR'd up, if it's ZIP, Windows should open it right up. If it's RAR'd then you'll want to get WinRAR. Ok, so you should see a 'server' and a 'client' folder. Copy the content of the 'server' folder into C:\World of Warcraft Server\. Since you should have World of Warcraft (the game) installed by now and updated to 1.11.2 you can now go back to the server repack server that contained those 'server' and 'client' folders. This time go into the client folder and copy the contents into your World of Warcraft GAME folder C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\. These are addons that you will want to have. Ok, now back to server stuff. Go into the World of Warcraft Server folder and into the 'maps' folder. You'll see a file called BatCreator.exe. Open it click the Locate button. Find the folder containing WoW.exe (should be C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\). Then click the Create button. Now click Extract. A DOS-like window comes up and lots of text goes flowing through it. This is good. If you get the program crashed, eh whatever. Click Don't Send and the DOS-like window should chug along. It might ask you about doing something with maps (cannot remember) and hit 'y' and enter. Then more text go flying through the window...good good good!! Now we need to edit some files. In your World of Warcraft Server folder edit a file called emu.key. Open it with Notepad. You'll probably want to find these 2 lines: server_name=PUT YOUR NAME OF THE SERVER HERE ws_host=PUT YOUR IP HERE and change them to fit your setup. I used 'Thrall' for server_name and ws_host was 127.0.0.1 since I didn't need a LAN or public WAN server. If you're confused about what to use, post on the message boards please. We can help you there. Now go into the 'scripts' folder (C:\World of Warcraft Server\scripts\). Find a file called emu.conf and you can edit that also. I change my server type from PvP to normal and added some stuff into the [Welcome] section. It's up to you here! Next is adding a GM to your server. Using the DBUtil.exe tool (server shouldn't be on) you cna do it. Open the program. Click 'Exclusive Mode'. Now input the name of the user you wish to be a GM. I just used my normal WoW username so I don't forget it haha You can use anything. Now give it a password and hit the Add/Remove button. Done!! :) Now locate the WE_DK-Core.exe file. This is the server. Double click to open it!! Once it has finished loading you can open your World of Warcraft game and login with the account you just created!! HAVE FUN! :) You can tell it's finished loading with Poglia's repack because it tells you so, bot sure about others! Other Notes: The repack I used seems to auto save the world every 5 minutes. This is quite often, but nice just incase the server crashes. I also noticed there was no application that auto-starts your server incase it crashes with the Poglia repack...anyone know anything about that?? If you need more information, let me know on the message boards. Enjoy!! Update: I noticed that in order to use the loader file (wowemu.exe) you need to install .Net Framework from Microsoft. Get version 2 from Microsoft's website. It's free. post comment

Private ROSE Server Setup [07 Jun 2008|10:04am] First off, I know next to nothing about this game other then how to get a private server for it running. I just ran across the name of it on some message board and looked it up. I thought it looked interesting and so here's a little guide to get you going. As usual don't ask me where to get the files or the legality of this because I don't know. Use the message boards for discussion and DO NOT iChat/MSN/Jabber whatever me, cause I'll just call you a retard and block you or something. also note this is for a server/client setup on the SAME machine...if you have half a brain you'll know it's quite easy to make this lan or even WAN!! If not, you can ask in the forums :) First, you'll want to download some files. You need: - The ROSE online client: rose_evo_100_tala.exe - The private ROSE server software: eROSE.rar - WAMPServer: wamp5_1.6.4a.exe - NaviCat or PHPMyAdmin: navicat_trial.exe or phpmyadmin.net (This guide uses NaviCat) - ROSE Web site files: 29601d1153336982-rose-web-v1.0.rar Once you get all those files you'll want to install ROSE client. This doesn't take much time, but updating it does. So once you have it installed you can open it up and it'll proceed to update itself for about an hour. Once it's done, I just click the Exit button in the upper right corner. This quit out of it, which is fine. Then I unpacked the contents of eROSE.rar into a folder on my C:\ drive called eROSE Server. So it was C:\eROSE Server\ and it had a bunch of files in it. Then I installed WAMP. WAMP is just a bundle of Apache web server, MySQL database software and PHP. It might have Perl and some other things but those 3 I mentioned are the ones we use. It will prompt you to start up WAMP when it's done installing, go ahead and start it up. Next I installed NaviCat. Make sure you do NOT install NaviCat before WAMP... Now, after installing NaviCat I started it up and added my MySQL server. The IP/hostname address is localhost and the username is root with no password set. Completely insecure but that's okay for now!! I then clicked on localhost in the menu to the left of the NaviCat screen and hit "New Database". I called the database Roseon_beta. Now that I had a brand new database I right-clicked on it and hit "Execute Bat File". I located the SQL file in C:\eROSE Server\database.sql and ran that. It'll fill your database with tables and information, good stuff. Click Ok when it's done. Now you'll want to extract the ROSE web site files (29601d1153336982-rose-web-v1.0.rar) into C:\wamp\www\. You could even create a folder in \www\ called ROSE or something, for organization...I just dropped everything into the web root...you can do whatever you want. Then you'll want to navigate into the \inc\ folder (C:\wamp\www\inc\) and open a file config.inc.php with either Notepad or WordPad, either works. Then you can change the info as needed: $serverip = "127.0.0.1"; //Replace with your WAN IP if public $sql_db = "rose"; //DB Name $sql_host = "localhost"; //DB Host $sql_user = "root"; //DB User $sql_pass = ""; //DB Password Pretty much you'd want to change $sql_db to roseon_beta since that's what we called our MySQL database. If you secured your MySQL server then $sql_user and $sql_pass would probably be different...if you didn't then leave it as is! You can now save and exit. Open up Mozilla FireFox or whatever browser you use and go to http://127.0.0.1/ For me that brings up the ROSE page but if you made that extra ROSE folder or another folder for ROSE stuff in \www\ you'd need to change the URL accordingly! Now you may register an account!!! Now, go back into C:\eROSE Server\ or your private server folder and go into the "release" folder (C:\eROSE Server\release\) and copy the following files: 1. Login Server.exe 2. Char Server.exe 3. World Server.exe config.ini LibmySQL.dll STB Folder Now PASTE them into C:\Program Files\TriggerSoft\Rose Online Evolution\. Done with that! Now, open Notepad and paste the following line into it: TRose.exe @TRIGGER_SOFT@ _server 127.0.0.1 _test Now save it as Launcher.bat or StartGame.bat - really anything you want...I just thought those were useful names. You'll want to save it in C:\Program Files\TriggerSoft\Rose Online Evolution\. When in the folder - C:\Program Files\TriggerSoft\Rose Online Evolution\ you now will want to open (double-click) the 3 following files: 1. Login Server.exe 2. Char Server.exe 3. World Server.exe 3 DOS-like windows should open up with some green text inside them. GREAT! Now, open your Launcher/StartGame.bat (whatever you called it) file and ENJOY!! post comment

Private MaNGOs Server Setup 1.12.1 [07 Jun 2008|10:04am] First let's get things straight! Please do not instant message me in any sort of way asking me how to get this set up. I will block you and make fun of you for being a moron! If you do need help, go ahead and post a question on the message boards! Myself or someone will be glad to help you out as long as you ask an intelligent question. It's more then possible that when you read this guide it will be out of date (written on 12/30/2006), so just be aware of that. So let's get started shall we!?! I myself am using a Pentium 4 2.66GHz, 2GBs of RAM and an IDE HDD. Having a lot of RAM is a good thing. That and a nice upload speed will make for a nice World of Warcraft server! This guide will be using Linux (Gentoo to be specific). Sorry Windows newbies! Learn how to use a real operating system and then come back to the guide! Alright, so you will need to have subversion installed. Using Gentoo it's as simple as using: emerge subversion Next you going to want to create a directory to download the MaNGOs source code into. I created it in /root/ but you're more then welcome to make something like /opt/mangos/. cd /opt/ mkdir mangos or if you're sitting in /root/ you can just do mkdir mangos Now you're going to use subversion to download the code. Type in: svn checkout https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/mangos/trunk *mangos directory you made* Now, for that last part *mangos directory you made*, it could be something like /opt/mangos if that's where you made the directory in the previous step. Hopefully that step when out. Usually at the end of the checkout it'll spit back a build number. It might say something like Version 2383 checked out successfully. That's a good thing. For the next part you're going to need these programs installed, gcc 3.3, g + + 3.3, make, automake (1.5 and above), autoconf, glibc and glibc-dev, MySQL (4 or 5, I used 5), Apache2, PHP5 and PHPMyAdmin. If you know you're Linux then you should have no issues at all installing these applications. Some of them are probably even already installed. If not, then look on Google for installation instructions. Now we're going to configure the MaNGOs source code we previously downloaded for install. Use this command: ./configure --prefix=/opt/mangos --sysconfdir=/opt/mangos/etc --with-python --enable-cli --enable-ra --datadir=/opt It'll run through a bunch of things, shouldn't take more then a couple minutes. The next command could take some time so go make some popcorn and watch a movie. Type in: make This will compile the server! Once that is complete you are ready to install it. Type in: sudo make install It'll prompt you for your root password so type that in and hit the 'enter' button. It'll install the server into /opt/mangos/. This process is rather short. It's almost ready but not quite there yet! You need to download the maps! I would just Google around and see if you can find them. Please don't ask me or ask on the message boards for them. Just look and don't be a newb! When you have them create a folder called 'maps' in your /opt/mangos/ directory (so it looks something like /opt/mangos/maps/ and put the map files in there. Simple! Now you'll need some DBC files which again you'll have to Google for. Most people put up the zipped up version of the DBC files for people to download. Very nice of them, makes it easier! Ok, now you'll want to open your web browser and navigate to your PHPMyAdmin page. This is how you're going to create some databases for all your quests, accounts, characters, items, etc... Now create 2 databases, one called 'mangos' and one called 'realmd'. I created a new user that wasn't root to connect to the databases, you don't have to. It's just more secure. I called my user 'mangos'. Nice and simple. You can then give them privileges to access the databases you just made. Now if you look in your /opt/mangos/trunk/ directory (wherever you download the source code from before) you'll see a folder called 'sql'. You'll want to import the sql files; mangos.sql and realmd.sql to the appropriate databases you just made. PHPMyAdmin will do all of that for you. Now you need to get the guts (quests, items, commands, etc...). I used Silver's DB, but there's another one out there called WDM I think. When you download it, it'll be small, but after uncompressing it, it'll be something like 200MBs. Import the sql into the mangos database (not realmd). At this point you may want to go into the realmd database, find the 'account' table and make yourself an account. You can just edit one of the 4 that are already in there for yourself. That's what I did, I just input my information into the already existing administrator account and deleted the other 3, but do whatever you want. We now need to configure the server so it can connect to the databases. Go into /opt/mangos/etc/ and there will be 2 files there; mangosd.conf and realmd.conf. The realmd.conf file only needs a couple edits. Find the line where it's asking to connect to MySQL and edit that accordingly. The mangosd.conf file has loads of things you can change about the server. You can change the server type, amount of people allowed on the server at once, professions, MOTD, rates and more. Just look though it. The file is well commented so it's easy to know what it what. Save and exit. I'd say you're about ready to load that server up!! You will need one more application installed, and it's called 'screen'. Once that's installed (sometimes it already is by default) then you should be ready to go! Input: cd /opt/mangos/bin/ screen ./realmd hit Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+D Type in: screen ./mangosd hit Ctrl+A and then Ctrl+D This will start the realm server and the mangos server. You should be up and running. In your World of Warcraft client you will need to edit your realmlist.wtf (found in C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft & and can be opened with Notepad) to point to your server. Update your client to version 1.12.1 and have fun!! Here's a few commands that you can use in-game, you can find them all in the Mangos database in the 'command' table; help - Display this help message. broadcast - Announce in-game message. create - Create account. delete - Delete account and characters. info - Display Server infomation. motd - Change or display motd. kick - Kick user. ban - Ban account|ip. listbans - List bans. unban - Remove ban from account|ip. setgm - Edit user privileges. listgm - Display user privileges. loadscripts - Load script library. setloglevel - Set Log Level. corpses - Manually call corpses erase global even code. version - Display server version. idleshutdown - Shutdown server with some delay when not active connections at server. shutdown - Shutdown server with some delay. exit - Shutdown server NOW. Obviously MaNGOs is a huge application and it's still a little baby so there's going to be a lot of changes, fixes and stuff in the coming days, weeks and months (hopefully years too)! This guide really only covers how to set the server up but there is so much more you can do with MaNGOs. Do visit our message boards and if all else fails just come and play on my server! Enjoy and remember, this guide was made for educational purposes! post comment

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