StarMars Online » Personal

I won an exclusive G9 Logitech Dragon Age Mouse… NOT!!!

StarMars — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:46:54 +0000

Last March 30, GreyWardens.com held a contest for its readers. The mechanics was simple:

Explain in 100 words or less why you should win the mouse. You can tell us through Twitter, Facebook, or the comments section below but make sure you keep it to 100 words or less!

The top 2 winners were to receive exclusive Dragon Age items, in cooperation with EA, the game’s publisher. The winning entry was supposed to receive an exclusive G9 Logitech Dragon Age Laser Mouse; the second, a rare Dragon Age: Origins t-shirt unavailable in stores and whose copies were given out only in a special BioWare event.

The contest sounded simple enough so I decided to join. My contest entry, which I wrote and thought of very carefully read:

Dear GreyWardens,

I desperately need your help with my plight(not the blight). When I’m not slaying darkspawn, I play mostly RTS (Warcraft III) and oh boy, I’m very competitive at that. Just imagine all the keyboard mashing and mouse clicking (high apm, actions per minute) and you’ll picture the state of my mouse and keyboard. Their age do not help either — my keyboard is turning three and my mouse about two. The left click button of my mouse has started to deteriorate recently, requiring me to click harder before it responds. I need a new mouse.

StarMars,
desperate gamer

Several days after I posted that on the comments section of the contest page, I received an e-mail from the post author. Guess what! I won the first prize. So I sent them my postal address and additional details and what-not.

Two weeks had passed and I still had not received my prize. I was beginning to think that the contest was one big April Fool’s joke since the contest was posted on March 29. I contacted GreyWardens.com on Twitter but all they said was “finalizing everything…”.

I haven’t received anything up to now. The contest post still reads: “Finished! Win An Exclusive G9 Logitech Dragon Age Laser Mouse. Update: The contest is over. Thanks everybody for participating. We will announce the winner very soon.” Where the prizes went and whether there was a real contest or not — I have no idea.

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My Desktop Wallpapers

StarMars — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:34:36 +0000

My current desktop wallpaper and the old ones I have used before.

The design is simple but elegant. The images are soothing and not distracting.

The theme of my computer is dark and black. It is more pleasing to the eye specially when the light is off.

I usually have a lot of icons on my desktop. When I download stuff from the internet I save them on my desktop and oftentimes I forget to move them. These icons occupy a lot of space on the left side of my screen so in choosing my desktop I always look at the design of its left side. I want the icons and text clearly visible so I almost always pick those wallpapers with dark mono color on the left part.

The wallpapers I use may depend on the game I am currently playing or something I am very interested in.

My old wallpapers

I tried taking a screenshot of my desktop with the icons on it but “cleaning it up” before taking a screenie takes a lot of time so I decided to just post the wallpaper. I guess I got a lot of crap on my desktop that I don’t want others to see.

This has been my wallpaper for years. The four races in Warcraft III are represented at the mid with Thrall overlooking them. The icon at the lower right portion is the mascot of WCG. I got this wallpaper from the hard drive I bought from Villman with the gift certificate from WCG.

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Follow me on Twitter

StarMars — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 11:31:58 +0000

I recently added the official Twitter widget on my sidebar. Twitter is the social network I am most active in so not having it here kinda makes my blog incomplete.

I started using Twitter on October 11, 2008 with my first Tweet “I’m starting my twitter.” At first, I was just curious about how this service worked. It was rapidly growing in popularity back then and I just had to try it.

I use Twitter mainly for short messages. So-called microblogging, these posts are too short for a full blog post. It suits me well because I do not like writing wrong sentences and paragraphs. Oh, I do love one-word tweets.

I love sharing links I find on the web. Twitter is like a bookmark. There are times when I go back to my past tweets to find an interesting link I shared before but have forgotten.

Twitter is my online diary. When I want to remember a particular event, I make a tweet — same purpose as marking a calendar with special events.

Lastly, I do answer the question “What are you doing?”. I may tweet the food I am currently eating, my current mood and the website I am reading.

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My chat with a hacker

StarMars — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 20:31:29 +0000

A few days ago, the instant messenger of my friend got hacked. The hacker sent me a message linking me to a website. He was acting weird so I caught the hacker easily. We had a little bit of a chat before he finally stopped messaging me. I’m publishing this so readers would know the situation when they encounter it.

My friend likes to download “free” stuff from the internet so that’s probably how his account was jacked. I was surfing the web when I got a message from Long (English translation of my friend’s Vietnamese name and that’s how I call him). His greeting was

Long: hey are you around?

I think the hacker sent this message to all contacts of the account to see who’s online at the moment.

StarMars: ?

Long: hahahaha, I’m in SHOCK right now..

That sentence was meant to catch my attention and it did.

StarMars: why

Long: http://somesite.com – WOW use that real quick and tell me its not crazy..

StarMars: …

Long: they are soooo right! lol what’s it saying for you?

At this point, I was having suspicions already. He sounded different. My Vietnamese friend does not speak straight English.

StarMars: wtf rofl

StarMars: i see nothing

Long: uh oh, you must of made a mistake

StarMars: blocked by my firewall

Long: DO IT! I DARE YOU…

I actually clicked the link he sent me and it was blocked by my firewall or Firefox. He knew he can’t trick me so he said “I dare you” to sway me into accessing the site. Too bad for you, I’m not your regular internet guy who can be easily tricked.

StarMars: who are you?

StarMars: whats ur name

Long: real funny, be back later lol

Long: guess…c’mon u seriously dont know who this is?? lol i gotta run

He was out of options and this was his escape phrase. He knew his identity was exposed.

StarMars: whats my name?

StarMars: idiot

StarMars: who are you

StarMars: noob

Long: lol funny..i gotta run

Long: real funny, be back later lol

StarMars: idiot

StarMars: u cant spam me

StarMars: noob

Long: plz u have to tell me, fill it out..I have to know if your results were as crazy as mine lol

And I thought he gave up already…

Long: nah, I am a vegetarian… no spam for me! haha

StarMars: i have firewall and firefox extensions

Long: k

StarMars: that block ur phishing site

Long: hahahaha, I’m in SHOCK right now..

That was the last message of the hacker. I was feeling a little bit evil and playful so I teased and taunted him just for the lulz. xD

StarMars: hows life?

StarMars: u there?

StarMars: hello

StarMars: im in SHOCK right now too

StarMars: rofl

When my real friend logged on, I told him what happened though I was surprised the hacker didn’t change the password. He wasn’t aware of it and he just laughed it out. I don’t know what else the hacker did. Who knows if one of the other contacts fell for it. I certainly hope that Long does have a different password for his important accounts like ebay, paypal, etc.

Hacking/phishing attempts like this are called social engineering and are very dangerous. In my case, the hacker assumed the identity of a trusted friend so he got me to visit his site. It pays to have an online protection. People who always use the internet should be aware of this.

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My PC specs

StarMars — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 03:27:58 +0000

My Personal Computer specification.

I know my computer is 2 years old but still I haven’t run into major performance problems. The biggest problem is that my video card is not DirectX 10 compatible so I can’t take advantage of the graphical improvements in newer games.

CPU	: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz, Conroe
Video Card	: Power Color Radeon X1950 Pro, 512 MB
Memory	: 2 x 1 GB Kingston DDR2 – 5300, Dual-Channel
Mainboard	: MSI P35 Neo, MS-7360
Hard Drive	: Samsung 400 GB + 160 GB + Samsung 80 GB
Keyboard	: Logitech G15 Gaming keyboard, first edition
Mouse	: Razer DeathAdder, 1800 blue
Speaker	: left and right speakers
Monitor	: Ipex 17 inch CRT
Gamepad	: Logitech Dual Action
OS	: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP 3

Core 2 Duo E6750 at P9,600.
MSI P35 Neo at P6,000
Logitech G15 keyboard – WCG prize
Radeon x1950 – WCG prize
Logitech Dual Action at P1000
2nd hand monitor at P1,200

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Blog hosting renewed

StarMars — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:11:06 +0000

This blog got one more year to live. The blog hosting including the domain name was set to expire yesterday Dec 5 and I contemplated renewing it for another year. One year ago, I decided to make my self-hosted wordpress blog, full of ideas and enthusiasm. Yet here I am now having accomplished none of my goals. But I can’t seem to think of abandoning this website. It has become my home on the internet, and since a computer and internet junkie, I can’t just leave it here.

I’m not a writer. I don’t like spending too long a time writing articles. But I have many ideas in my mind that I want to share. I’m a perfectionist at heart – I want everything working as I had planned. I read a lot about blogging and the blogosphere trying to learn as much as I can. I know what I wanted and I had planned them. Alas, when I actually had the chance to do them (with this blog), laziness took over me. I realized I had too many things to do.

Hostmonster.com is my host. Last year, I only payed $4.95 a month through Paypal with the promo, the lowest I could find at that time. I got one full year of good service so I’m staying with them. Too bad I wasn’t able to use perks and extras that came with the package like free credits in Google Adwords(%50), Yahoo Search Services($25), etc. They’re still there on my control panel untouched. I wonder if I can still use them.

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My first Youtube video

StarMars — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:46:56 +0000

I uploaded my first Youtube video a few days ago. I uploaded it for my post WoWPod for hardcore Warcraft gamers on my Warcraft blog. It wasn’t available on Youtube yet and the original video was available only in Quicktime format (.mov) so I decided to upload it myself.

I had to download it first on my computer. If I remember correctly, it was about 60 MB in size. I didn’t know what formats Youtube accepts so I just pressed the Upload button to see if it works. And it did. I’m surprised Youtube accepts files of this format. I found out after a little research that it accepts videos in most formats, including .WMV, .AVI, .MKV, .MOV, MPEG, .MP4, DivX, .FLV, .OGG. and .3GP.

Anyway, I let the video sit there for 1 day before I really used it on my blog – no description and tags. When I came back to it the next day, I’m surprised that it had reached 313 views already. And there was one negative comment on the video. I don’t know if that figure is good or not for starters but I’m happy that many people have discovered it. It must have been the New Videos section, the World of Warcraft title or What Videos People are Watching section. The following day, it reached 1,100 views – that’s with the description and tags in place.

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I Love You in different languages

StarMars — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 03:15:08 +0000

“I love you” in different languages (translations):

Afrikaans	Ek is lief vir jou
American Indian
Apache	Sheth she~n zho~n (nazalized vowel sounds)
Cheyenne	Ne mohotatse
Chickasaw	Chiholloli (first ‘i’ nasalized)
Hopi	Nu’ umi unangw’ta
Mohawk	Konoronhkwa
Navajo	Ayor anosh’ni
Sioux	Techihhila
Zuni	Tom ho’ ichema
Brazil/Portuguese	Eu te amo
Canadian (French)	Sh’teme
Czech	Miluji te
Danish	Jeg elsker dig
Dutch	Ik hou van je, Ik hou van jou
Equador	Quechua Canda munani
Farsi	Tora dost daram
Filipino	Mahal kita

French	Je t’aime, Je t’ado
German	Ich liebe dich
Greek	S’ayapo
Hawaiian	Aloha wau ia oi
Hebrew	Ani ohevet otcha (female to male)
Hungarian	Szeretlek
Irish	Taim i’ ngra leat
Japanese	Kimi o ai shiteru
Kurdish	Ez te hezdikhem
Latin	Te amo
Latvian	Es tevi milu
Lebanese	Bahibak
Luxembourgish	Ech hun dech ga”r
Moroccan	Kanbhik
Romanian	Te iubesc, Te ador
Russian	Ya tyebya lyublyu
Serbian	Volim te
Slovak	Lubim ta
Spanish	Te amo, Te quiero

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Nikki Gil Coca-Cola Commercial

StarMars — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:20:17 +0000

I saw on television today that Nikki Gil graduated from Ateneo de Manila University with a degree in English Literature. This is quite a feat because she is active in showbiz as well. It reminded me of her Coca-Cola commercial which served as her first step into showbizness. I like the video because the melody of the song is catchy, combined with Nikki’s sweet face.

And here’s the full song in Nikki Gil’s Myx Live Performance with Akafellas:

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Heredity and Environment

StarMars — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:58:08 +0000

This is a short article I wrote in college for a Psychology class about the effects of Heredity and Environment on one’s growth:

Heredity and Environment are two different forces that determine the behavior of a person. But how large the difference between the two may be, they still meet at a common point. They are two interdependent forces. Heredity influences certain traits while environment influences others. Some traits are influenced by both. Thus, human behavior is determined by both his nature and nurture.

Heredity influences a person from the time the sperm cell fertilizes the egg cell—by which the chromosomes are passed on. It lays down the necessary foundations and establishes the initial traits of the individual. Physical traits like eye color, skin color, shape of nose and physical defects like color blindedness, nearsightedness and baldness are acquired through this way. The physical traits often look like exact duplicates of their parents’ or even a combination of both. Nonphysical influences of heredity are sometimes harder to detect. Some traits tend to appear later in one’s life and therefore may be attributed to his environment. Also, some supposed-to-be-hereditary traits like height and weight can now be traced to environmental factors like diet.

Environment plays an important role in determining one’s behavior. From the fluids that surround a fetus to the people a person interacts with, environment is everywhere. It often relies on what the five senses perceive and barely on what the parents have given. Environment is not automatic. It changes from one person to another. Hence, it holds that one’s behavior is a variable that changes as one’s environment changes. It is evident among siblings who have almost the same genetic structures but have different traits.

Apparently, it is useless to argue which one is more important in determining one’s behavior. On the contrary, it is more accurate and more accepted to say that they work hand in hand to mold a person. To conclude, human behavior is the product of a long and involved interplay between the forces of nature and nurture.

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