SC2 Book contest - this June

The second contest! As you were informed last week. However... There isn't just one book available. There's a whole three up for grabs. It's pretty simple, and all you need to enter is an e-mail address. And, there's the added need to be living in the USA or Canada as well. Or knowing someone reliable with a USA/Canadian postal address. In order to make you put in a "little bit" more effort than the last contest we'll start you off with a question. It shouldn't be too hard to find out if you've done any reading up on the Starcraft background story. Q: What is the original name of the Queen of Blades? Just mail your answer to bbr_tkihotmaildotcom . And please make sure to put "SC2 Book Contest" in the subject line. The deadline is June 30'th 2010. Any emails beyond that date will be quite simply too late! The book As an added bonus, and to get your reading tastes ready you may enjoy some of the teasers: * PDF snippet. * Audio snippet. If you don't believe in contests, or simply down on luck regardless. * Premium edition hard cover. * Paperback edition. Tell your friends So, to reiterate. * Mail me the original name of the "Queen of Blades". * Have a USA/Canadian post address. * ? * Profit! Win one of three free books. Pretty straightforward right? Winners will be randomly picked using /roll 1-X like last time. I think that worked pretty well. If you win, I'll ask you for your postal address info so no need to send it over on the first mail. If you don't win, better lucky next time. Entrants attempting to sign up using multiple email addresses will be disqualified ;)

Great news everyone!

The slime is flo... nooooo. Man, if there was ever an addon that allows you to disable specific boss sounds I'd be all over it. Sindragosa would be at the top of the list. "As your mathetic magic betrays you", ugh. Anyhow, busy week, lots to tell. Fun Stuff Pacman turned 30. One of the early few video (arcade) games known to mankind. There's an achievement for you, WoW won't be getting close to that anytime soon. Although StarCraft has already marked it's 12'th birthday. Also, female worgen screenshots to be found here. Until May 24'th Valve is giving away the popular puzzle game based on the halflife engine "Portal". GO GET IT, IT IS AWESOME! All you need to do is install steam. Not so Fun stuff Depends on your point of view really. AVR is going to be disabled by Blizzard in the upcoming 3.3.5 content patch. If you're not sure what AVR is, then this link explaining what this "Augmented Virtual Reality" addon does should help. Basically, it draws big red circles around players and in your WoW raiding environment. Which, anyone will easily understand, is a very big advantage to learning and mastering a fight. If not simply making it redundant other than your gear requirements. Imo, it's a good thing. Raid warning addons, Grid helpers, healbot and decursive is one thing. Bigwigs telling you you're standing in the fire with a big red blinking text and marquee enabled will still require you to look for a better spot to move to. But drawing circles in the room, displaying in full high res red blue and green who what and where it's safe or not is just pushing the thin gray line into the dark black. It couldn't last. Upcoming Stuff Aside cataclysm, which, is of course great and important news that everyone is and has been following. (with the alpha and beta and all that) There's something else upcoming as well. REAL CANADIAN VIAG... no wait that's the wrong email. Sheesh, spam seems to be picking up lately. Ah here it is. It turns out I'm allowed to give away another book! If you've been visiting this blog for a while (and hopefully a good while to come yet), you'll remember this here post where you could win a nice book about Arthas, written by one Christie Golden. Since then, I've read the book myself, and can recommend it to any dedicated WoW players. If you're not a WoW player, or at least have read some of the other warcraft books you will probably find it somewhat confusing though. Anyhow, about that other book. It's called StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils, written by By William C. Dietz. Which is obviously not a world of warcraft book but, if you're anything like me and enjoy reading english fantasy and sci-fi then this should certainly keep you entertained for a good few hours. Books are good, but free books are quite simply better. Right? At any rate, that's "soon". So, sign up for the RSS or just manually check back once a day or so. Tell your friends, tell your family, inform your guild, the usual. More on that later.

Oh hey, Cataclysm leaks

So, as you've probably heard, the WoW Cataclysm Friends + Family Alpha / Beta has started. Which means it's leaky time again! Seriously, even with a NDA, there will be people who get their hands on the data files somehow. And thus tiny leaks and plenty of screenshots will slowly start to show up on forums here and there. Like this image of DeathWing. It's "meh", quality. Hopefully it'll get updated and edited still. That image has been all over the MMOC forums though and you came here looking for more, right? Some juicy Cataclysm alpha leak maybe? Well it's still early, there's just not that much to be found yet. If I do run into anything though... Ah, and there it is! Lets hope their site holds out under the onslaught. Check page 3+4 on this site otherwise. (Warning, image heavy)

Authenticator 1.0.0

If for whatever reason you've not yet bothered to get yourself an authenticator yet, then here's a good tip.

Get one.

HA! You may think, can't be bothered.
Well, the number of "hacks" (key-loggings rather) has been increasing again. (Does it ever decrease?) Either way, there's never really any harm in the old saying "Better safe than sorry". Plus, you get a free core hound pet to boot ;)

Either way, I can see people not being too keen on paying the 10$ shipping, or simply not having the correct model phone to use blizzard's free download.

So, reading around, it seems there's an alternative!
For PC, and Mac users alike. It's called... *drumroll* Android!
And the good part, you do not need a phone for this to work.


Here is what you do:

* Download the Android SDK.
* Select the Android version for AVD. (2.1, 1.6 or 1.5, doesn't really matter)
* Download the Blizzard authenticator package. here, or here. Or just use google for it.
* Install the package by running "adb.exe install [path]" from the AVD emulator. ([path] is obviously the direct path to wherever you downloaded the auth package)
* From there on you should simply be able to use the authenticator from the AVD emulator.

Source: link.

Once you log in, you should find yourself a puppy in the mail.