Yeah, that old design was really getting pretty long in the tooth, huh?
]]>Not surprisingly, snopes.com has an article dealing with these very tips. The consensus point is that following the tips certainly shouldn’t hurt you (aside from possibly taking extra time), but that for the most part the gain you’ll see in practical terms is pretty modest. Anyway, I figured it might be worth passing this info along to anyone else interested.
]]>So far, the day one Transparent PNG article, the trick for warning about CAPSLOCK, and the table of available fonts look particularly good. However, just about everyone should be able to find something useful in this batch of wonderfulness.
]]>Everything I’ve read about APE makes it sound pretty shady and it definitely isn’t something I’d install myself, so I figured that I’d be pretty safe once I get around to upgrading my own system. Well, Daring Fireball reveals that APE actually gets installed behind the scenes when the Logitech Control Center (LCC) is installed. Want to guess what I have installed? Yup, you got it.
So, before I even think about upgrading to Leopard, I’m going to have to figure out how to uninstall (and never reinstall; curse you, Logitech!) the LCC as well as make sure all remnants of APE are gone. So much fun.
]]>Speaking of backing up… John Gruber on Daring Fireball put up a quick backup and installation/upgrade guide for how to best install a new OS version. While it’s obviously written with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard (or other OS X versions) in mind, the basic guidelines would be equally applicable to pretty much any OS installation/upgrade on any platform.
]]>This past week, I switched departments at work. More power, more responsibility… and a new schedule. I’m now working 8pm to 7am shifts, which is even weirder. I still get to miss traffic, but now they’re 10 hour days and it’s dark essentially the entire time I’m at work. I will be getting 3 days off a week instead of two, which should be nice, though. Anyway, this whole “work at night and sleep during the day” thing is just really odd. I’ve always been a bit of a night owl, which is a good thing, but not to the extent that this new schedule’s going to require.
I suppose I’ll get used to the new schedule. Eventually. Maybe finally getting some curtains/drapes/whatever for my bedroom window would help things so it’s darker when I need to be sleeping during the day… Anyway, I think I’m just rambling after getting off my work shift now. *grin*
]]>Specifics when you continue on.
Below are typically the “best” enchant to get for each item slot. Some of them aren’t actually true enchants (head, shoulder, leg), but they do the same thing. If you have a piece of gear and you know you won’t be using it long, you can sometimes go for a lesser version of some of these enchants, but if you’re going to be using a piece of gear for a while, do yourself and your raid a favor and get it enchanted! If multiple things are listed, they’re placed in general order of preference for the “best” enchant.
Head: [Glyph of Ferocity]
Shoulder: [Greater Inscription of Vengeance] (Exalted with The Aldor)
[Greater Inscription of the Blade] (Exalted with The Scryers)
Honored versions of above
Cloak: Greater Agility - +12agility
Chest: Exceptional Stats - +6 to all stats
Legs: [Nethercobra Leg Armor]
Feet: Cat’s Swiftness - +6agility, minor run speed
Dexterity - +12agility
Surefooted - +10hit rating, 5% snare/root resist
Boar’s Speed - +9stamina, minor run speed
Wrist: Assault - +24AP
Hands: Superior Agility - +15agility
Assault - +26AP
Weapon: Mongoose - +120agility and slight haste increase occasionally
Executioner - occasionally ignore 840 armor (mainhand only)
Major Striking - +7damage
Greater Agility - +20agility
So, you got a new piece of gear with some gem sockets in it? Don’t be silly and leave the sockets open, put something in it! At the very least, go to the cheapo gem vendors in Shattrath/Hellfire Peninsula and get the generic 1-2g gems. As with enchants, though, unless you’ll be getting rid of that piece of armor soon, do everyone a favor and put some decent gems in it. The “best” gem for a particular person can really vary as it depends on what will help you most. Generally speaking, though, +hit can almost never be wrong, so Rigid Dawnstone and Glinting Noble Topaz are always good bets. Your personal milage may vary.
Typical Best Choices
Yellow: [Rigid Dawnstone]
Red: [Glinting Noble Topaz]
Blue: [Shifting Nightseye]
Other Good Gems
Yellow: [Smooth Dawnstone]
Red: [Delicate Living Ruby]
Green: [Jagged Talasite]
With wide accessibility to the epic versions of gems either from raiding or purchase with Badges of Justice, if you’ll be keeping the piece of gear for a long time, making the investment in the epic gems can be worthwhile. They aren’t huge upgrades over the rare version, but every little bit helps when we’re trying to squeeze out more performance.
Incidentally, a lot of rogue pieces have socket bonuses that really just aren’t fantastic. If the bonus isn’t super, don’t worry about matching the socket colors. Instead, just put in a nice gem that helps a stat where you’re lacking. Oh, and avoid +AP gems. They’re almost never the right choice as most other gems will give you a better overall performance increase.
Oh, and so you can see whether or not I follow my own advice… Ghrikk on Shadow Council.
]]>Continue on for the juicy details!
The decision as to whether you prefer to use a flask vs separate elixirs often depends more on whether you think you’ll die a lot. If you’re doing a new encounter where you’ll be learning something and making multiple attempts, a flask will nearly always do you better. If you’re running something you’re familiar with and you think you can mostly keep yourself alive, going with a couple of elixirs will typically give you the best “bang for your buck”.
[Relentless Assault] (1 Fel Lotus, 3 Mana Thistle, 7 Terocone, 1 Imbued Vial)
[Fortification] (1 Fel Lotus, 3 Mana Thistle, 7 Ancient Lichen, 1 Imbued Vial)
[Major Agility] (1 Terocone, 2 Felweed, 1 Imbued Vial)
[Mongoose] (2 Mountain Silversage, 2 Plaguebloom, 1 Crystal Vial)
[Fel Strength] (1 Terocone, 2 Nightmare Vine, 1 Imbued Vial)
[Major Fortitude] (2 Ragveil, 1 Felweed, 1 Imbued Vial)
[Earthen Elixir] (2 Ragveil, 1 Dreaming Glory, 1 Imbued Vial)
You should have at least a couple of stacks of health pots and a stack of bandages for any raid. Don’t expect heals, folks. Take care of yourself.
[Super Healing Potion] (2 Netherbloom, 1 Felweed, 1 Imbued Vial)
[Mad Alchemist’s Potion] (2 Ragvail, 1 Crystal Vial) - Alchemists Only
[Heavy Netherweave Bandage] (2 Netherweave Cloth)
Lots of people overlook food as a useful buff source - don’t be one of those people. You can get some really useful stat buffs from food and most of it is simple for a lvl70 rogue to farm. Do yourself a favor and bring a stack each of a couple of your favorites. Spicy Hot Talbuk is your new best friend and being easy to farm, too!
[Spicy Hot Talbuk] (1 Talbuk Venison, 1 Hot Spices)
[Grilled Mudfish] (1 Figluster’s Mudfish)
[Warp Burger] (1 Warped Flesh)
[Ravager Dog] (1 Ravager Flesh)
Yep, poisons and rogues go hand in hand. While particularly important for a Mutilate rogue, poisons and other temporary weapon buffs should be used by all rogues, regardless of spec. Your specific choice will depend greatly on the particular encounter. For example, remember to use a sharpening stone (i.e. not a poison) on poison-immune targets. Also, remember not to put anything on your mainhand weapon if you’re getting a Windfury totem.
[Deadly Poison] - Stackable DoT; not the best if you’ll be switching targets a lot
[Instant Poison] - If you don’t know what to use, this is a good choice
[Anesthetic Poison] - Basically, a weaker Instant Poison, but causes no threat
[Wound Poison] - Useful in some fights where the target may get healed
[Mind-Numbing Poison] - Useful in the some fights where the poison will actually slow the target’s casts
[Adamantite Sharpening Stone] (1 Adamantite Bar, 2 Mote of Earth)
[Elemental Sharpening Stone] (2 Elemental Earth, 3 Dense Stone)
[Fel Sharpening Stone] (1 Fel Iron Bar, 1 Mote of Earth)
Oh, and so you can see whether or not I follow my own advice… Ghrikk on Shadow Council.
]]>A couple of things really set Amazon MP3 apart from the iTunes Music Store (and most, but not all other rival online music stores). First, songs are offered at a variable pricing scheme. “Top 100” songs are just 89 cents, while most others are the “standard” price of 99 cents. Yes, that’s right: they’re selling the popular songs for less, not trying to extort more money from you just because they’re popular. Albums are often significantly cheaper (starting at $4.99!) than on iTMS or what they would be buying the songs individually. In addition, songs with longer track lengths can cost more.
Second, and definitely the biggest factor in favor of Amazon MP3 right now: all of the songs are fully DRM-free. Let that sink in a minute. There’s no DRM on the songs. They’re just regular MP3s! No more “you can copy this song to X computers and play it on Y number of devices” crap. You bought the song from Amazon MP3, so you own the song and you can do with it what you want. Keep it on your mac, your PC, your iPod, and stream it to your TiVo. Or whatever. Getting the music labels to let them sell this music without DRM is going to be what makes Amazon MP3 so successful.
Bravo!
]]>The site presents three seasons of stories (the third season is in progress) that tell the story of our protagonist Equinox, a simple, but endearing warrior. As I read through the stories, I was continually surprised by how deep and moving something so “simple” as telling a story this way could be. I really cared what happened to these characters and the author (artist?) has done a fantastic job in creating the series so far.
It’s an interesting tidbit that the characters used in the stories are actually from my own World of Warcraft play realm, Shadow Council. Kind of neat having some mini-celebrities in our midst.
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Yeah, that old design was really getting pretty long in the tooth, huh?
]]>So, I finally kicked myself into gear last month and started yet another site redesign. This time I actually finished it, though. Or, at least, completed it to the point where it could be released. Yup: about freakin’ time!
The Galleries and Movies section aren’t open yet. The Movies section has content, but it hasn’t been brought over to the new design and I think I might want to play around with figuring out how to use AJAX stuff and make sorting and such more interactive. Or not. Who knows. The Galleries section may take a bit more as I’m going to have to basically rebuild it from the ground up since it was previously just a thinly masked weblog in pMachine.
Anyway, the site’s up and I think I’ve got pretty much all of the basics for it squared away. No doubt I’ve missed stuff in the redesign and migration, though, so please let me know. And I would absolutely love to hear any feedback, suggestions, etc., etc. you may have. So, have at it!
]]>I’d definitely like to do something like this with my various setups (computer desk, entertainment center, etc.) next time I move. (Found via A Whole Lotta Nothing)
]]>They sent a box for me to return the receiver in, and they also want the LNBR off of the dish (what did they do with my old LNBR that I owned? I certainly didn’t get to keep it). The instructions with the box dutifully note that you must comply with this or be subject to $800 of equipment costs. And even though their henchmen came to the house, drilled holes in your roof and exterior wall, failing to calk and seal said holes, they will not be assisting with this removal. They do care about your health and safety, however.
Climb carefully onto your roof with a Philips screwdriver in hand to disassemble the LNBR for prompt return.
Gee, I hope no senior citizens ever decide to shut off their DishNetwork service. Incidentally, after tracking down a ladder tall enough to get onto my house, and despite the pouring, freezing cold rain, I made it up and down my roof without having my legs broken or being wounded by a screwdriver stabbing incident. Nyah, DishNetwork. I can see that you are taking our breakup gracefully. Forgive me if I never call again.
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