No matter what you do, you can always get hacked.

Not Me. but my wow characters have this much stuff left

So it finally happened.

I got hacked.

Now I am sort of a traditional guy when it comes to security. I know the basics. When to be paranoid and when not to. I change my password, don’t log in from strange machines, I have AV and anti-spyware on all my machines, and yet, like I am going to say millions of people each day, my security was breached. Now I am not one to really worry too much about my wow. It’s a fun game that I really enjoy, and I have met a lot of people online that I would miss, but in the end it’s just a game. What has really annoyed me is the fact that as the guild leader of < Needs a Hug > on Ravenholdt server they were able to use my account to clear out the shared bank. Once it goes beyond my own inconvenience I start to worry.

So I have ordered an authenticator for my account and I will be adding it to my account as soon as it comes in. The Authenticator is a neat little device that has been used in high security situations like banks and defense departments for years but is now finding its way into the hands of those of us who are playing video games.

Physically it is a simple device. A small key fob with a button and an LCD screen Press button receive bacon…. I mean numbers. Take those numbers type them into the login screen of wow with your password and get logged in.  Using this number and a password you have what they call in the security industry a 2 factor authentication system. The great part is the number on authenticator changes every time you press the button, so even if they manage to steal the password and the number you typed in they cannot log on.

From what I have seen it pretty much impossible to have your account hacked once you have an authenticator on it. Now working in computers I well know that as soon as you make something idiot proof they promptly make a better idiot but at least for now…. I probably wont be hacked.

Communication is a Key, and not having it can drive you nuts!

Not our Guild

As some of you probably know I run a World of Warcraft guild called Needs a Hug. The name was chosen before I started but it is awesome. even better is the fact that in that game your guilds name appears below your own so our member named “Who” proudly sports the text “Who Needs a Hug” over his characters head. The guild is a social/casual raiding guild on the Ravenholdt server for anyone who is interested in WoW. Now this post isn’t directly about our promoting our guild but to talk about a little problem that we have run into. As the guild master I am lucky that I have found a group of officers that make my life easy. Each one has a role to perform and they do it with a capability that belies the casual nature of our involvement in the game, they, while still being human run like a well oiled machine. The one thing that causes me pause and seems to be a never ending problem for us is communication.

As a causal guild we can not ask a lot of our guildies, these are people who have joined what is when you get right down to it a social club. We rank somewhere between the weekly going out with friends and soccer practice in importance to our members. But we as officers and myself as a guild leader often have to communicate information to this group. In a months time we will be holding an entire guild meeting. So we need to get this info out to the guild and we have only 3 ways to get this out to our members, Guild message of the day, the in game calendar, and the website. Each of these has the massive disadvantage that they are all require participation, WoW has unfortunately made our job a lot harder, and our inability to enforce real rules with real consequences for breaking those rules has me stumped as to how to proceed. For those of you still reading what we are coming up against is this, each way we can communicate with our members requires our members to take some action that they don’t do on a regular basis.

The original fix for this was a nice little feature that Blizzard ( the company who operates the game ) added called the MOTD ( Message Of The Day ) this was a short little message that is sent to all the members when they logged in. A perfect place to put things like information about this meeting. Unfortunately someone at Blizzard realized that they also could use this to communicate important information to the players which resulted in the MOTD being pushed off the screen almost immediately. If you blink you will miss it. So this is not a good way to get any info to the player. Now some would say that the fact this info is also on the guild page of the social menu is ok, problem is that is again that is a participatory act someone has to think then click instead of being shown the info.

The second thing they added was an in-game calendar. I really love the in-game calendar as it allows us to present the type of info a calender contains, date, time, place. What it does not do is let us give more than a snipit of info about what is happening. Unfortunately this also has the problem of requiring the person to take an action before getting the info.

The third option and one that we continue to try is the web site. On a guild website like ours at Needs a Hug it hard to get participation. As a casual group, people don’t have a high priority on another website they have to check each day. Even tho we have tried to provide an easy to use and informative site we often find ourselves with no participation and with that no communication. Also the website has the added downside of the requiring not only clicks within the game, but the guild member to take time out of their non game playing time to check the site.  Again a communication fail.

So I am stumped. As a guild leader I am not sure what I can do short of talking to every single person in the guild every time we have an event. If anyone has suggestions don’t hesitate to leave a comment. And until then I have to go log into WoW and start hunting down every member of our guild.

Today I learned that the thing holding you back might be your engine.

Internet Explorer is the web browser that I love to hate. I am not sure when the change took place from a sort of annoyed indifrence to a perpetual loathing that hurts me to my core.  Internet explorer continues a long tradition at Microsoft of products that started out well. Moved into a phase where they stopped any real updating. Then quickly hurled toward the we have always done it this way we wont change cause that might break someones code. You combine that with Microsoft’s stand on software development and you get a engine that is the thing slowing you down. As a web developer I have read a lot of information on how long it takes fix the strangeness that Microsoft perpetrates on the internet and it is scary. This was hammered home again to me today when a project I am working on looked the same in 4 out of 5 browsers we tested. Take a wild guess which one it was different on.

Sometimes your engine is the thing slowing you down.

Blog Updates

So for my Job I am having to be more on top of social Media and the wonders of  ”teh internetz” so I am resurrecting my blog. Hopefully I can put some interesting stuff on here for everyone to read. If you look on the right hand side I have added my twitter feed, and a RSS feed from my World of Warcraft character. Hopefully I will entertain, inform, or at least give you something to read when Slashdot hasn’t updated yet.

Mad Inventors are Dead

Today I learned that it’s really hard to blow yourself up with a algorithm. Here is an unfortunate truth. All materials that last long enough for humans to perceive them without augmentation have had all of their properties thoroughly cataloged and their usefulness recorded. Now why, may you ask, is that a bad thing. What it has done is effectively kill the mad scientist industry. Now to play with any type of material that could possibly give you any new and interesting inventions requires a lab with large amount of equipment. This requires a large amount of money, and for most people the money comes from someone who wants results. Not some type of smoking crater. The mad scientist, crackpot inventor, or just person fiddling in their garage are not going to find out some new property that can pave the way for us flying regular cars in two years. Staring down this straight and narrow road makes us yearn for a way for people to create things that go Bang! Squelch! Splut! or POP, and do things that we never imagined. In Girl Genius the thing that allows people to perform transformations of strange and wonderful things into machines or mechanical men is called the spark. The spark is that special something that all mad scientist’s have that allows them to see beyond the normal and into what might be. If you haven’t read the comic, I urge you to go and find out exactly what a young girl with too much power and an anthropomorphic cat can do.

Is This Science

Today I learned that with the invention of the Internet there is a website about anything for anyone. Take of for example Cooking, often people who are not skilled in the culinary arts can be intimidated by the terminology and measures that are used.The also if they are like me really hate the large amount of verbiage that is written with any recipe. If you have made the dish more than Twice you already know how it goes, What you need is order, quantity and technique. Enter Cooking for Engineers. This site not only has the recipe but a really good striped down card that makes it easy to prepare the dish with little wasted communication.  I make the Biscuits and they come out perfect. On little tip if you do decide to follow my lead. For easy combination of the flour and butter, freeze the butter and grate it into the flour.

Brass Goggles

Today I learned that Steampunk is a subculture. Steampunk is a off shoot of Speculative fiction that involves the creation of current inventions using the technologies of the past. One of the best places to find info about this is Brass Goggles. If you have a chance take a look.

Pen Paper and People are Fun

So Teusday is our usual gaming night. Now some out there know what that means. Others will need an explanation. Once a week a bunch of people get together with way too much Coke and snacks, dig out pens, pencils, polyhedral dice, and way too many books and participate in a group storytelling exercise. Some may notice I have not invoked the name of The GAME (you know the one it rhymes with “Trunchons and Flagons”) this is because the particular rules are really not that important. RPG’s (Role Playing Games) are an exercise in social interaction the rules are a framework to hang a story on, a place to hang you hat if you wil. Unfortunatly sometimes you need a well documented and accessable framework. Enter the D20 Rules. Based on the D&D 3rd Ed rules the D20 Source document contains all the rules you need to keep peoples imaginations moving. Check it a Web version here, find some frends and dice and get away from you computer for a while.

The News can be Fun

News. It used to be that something that just happend to other people. There might be a war going on but other than the ocasional refugee, or a small note in the back pages of the local paper no one was the wiser. Now we are bombarded with information. A good way to relax is to consume some news that is , well , wrong. Wrong information can lead you to question, to laugh, even to get mad but mostly they just give you a break from what we do everyday. Places like The Watley Review or the Uncyclopedia are full of useless but fun facts. Try them, give your mind a break.

All video games are really just one

Today I learned that all video games are really just one.

I played my last “new” video game about two years ago, it was called Katamari Damacy. Before that it had been a good 7 years since I had played a game witch I didn’t immediately think its xxxx with added yyyy. Thinking about that in video game terms can be pretty disheartening but for humor its comedy gold!

Enter Concerned a comic based on the video game Half Life 2 is an irreverent look at the first person shooter (FPS) genre. Concerned takes its storyline from the game but substitutes the swashbuckling hero with a bumbling clerk that really kind of likes what the evil aliens are doing to the world.

This comic is prime nerd territory, but anyone who has played a FPS recognise all those little things that just didn’t make sense. So if you have played Half Life 2 you have to read Concerned. If you have played any FPS you probably should read Concerned. and if not…… Well you should probably read a book.