How mortifying…

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I never thought this blog would get “hacked”. It happened though. It’s irritating because I really don’t know exactly what happened. Thankfully my host noticed immediately and suspended the account, informing me that I had phishing files in it. That’s how I found out about it in the first place. They were very nice about it and reopened the account for me as long as I took care of the issue.

It was no fun though when the first thing I saw after coming home from a three hour class with a bunch of idiots in an un-air-conditioned room was the suspension notice.  There is no way to describe the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you read the line “Suspension reason: phishing site”. At first I thought it must have simply been due to spam comments, which I didn’t think were such a terrible problem. However, once the account was reopened I saw that there were full-blown phishing files in it. That was utterly embarrassing.

I figured the issue was probably due to the fact that I had been using an older version of WordPress, on the assumption that upgrading it would be a hassle. All of my permissions were as secure as can be without breaking WordPress functionality…I think. So I upgraded WordPress and made a few more adjustments that are listed in this article on the WordPress website. I have no way of knowing whether the vulnerability that got me “hacked” –perhaps “exploited” would be a better word– was fixed by following that article, since I don’t know specifically what I did wrong in the first place. I’m crossing my fingers though. This was a horrible experience and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

I’ve been telling myself that this type of thing must happen to unsuspecting people all the time. Old grannies who can’t even configure an email client use WordPress. Not to say that I’m at all competent, but I know there are hoards of people even less competent than me who are using WordPress. They must get “hacked” all the time. It must be common. At least, believing that helps to mitigate my shame, if only a little bit.

Of course, what I’ve learned from all of this is that the only way they could make updating WordPress to the latest version easier would be if they harnessed Clapper technology to accomplish it. Short of that, it couldn’t be easier and I’ll be updating regularly with every new version from now on.

Finally, a show about a duck without all the senseless violence we’re accustomed to in the genre

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Suzy’s Zoo is a show with a duck protagonist the whole family can enjoy.

Suzy’s Zoo is apparently the name of a popular series of greeting cards featuring a recurring cast of adorable animal characters. I’d never heard of it, but it seems it was popular enough internationally that there’s a Suzy’s Zoo anime adaptation on TBS.

I think it’s a shame that I’m not six years old, since this is the type of show I would have enjoyed. I loved shows about friendship and getting along and teamwork and listening to adults while still maintaining the sense of adventure and childlike innocence that makes every new discovery a profoundly magical experience. Some of the shows I watched repeatedly and never tired of wereThomas the Tank Engine, the 1966-74 Disney film adaptations of Winnie the Pooh, and the 1991 adaptation of The Little Engine that Could. Though I say I might enjoy the show more if I were six years old, that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy it nonetheless, but I won’t pretend like I don’t realise I’m not the target audience. For that matter, I’m not the target audience for any of the shoujo or josei anime I watch either, like Utena, Cardcaptor Sakura, Higashi no Eden, and Kuragehime. I suppose perhaps I should just take that with this, as it were, and admit once and for all that I’m a wimp, eh?

Regardless, it’s great that Retouched are subbing this show. It’s a shame though that I think, even if I were six years old, and therefore — at least theorietically — about the right age to maximally enjoy this show, I’d still probably be illiterate and unable to read the subtitles.

I like the duck though. Ducks are nice, friendly animals. One of my favourite books of all time is Make Way for Ducklings. Incidentally, that book also introduced the concept of “the police” to me in a positive context and now I love the police. The police are great.

This duck encourages development of good qualities in the viewer. He “teaches them while they learn”!

An industrious duck, this one is. Here he is hard at work gardening.

His quizzical friend the bunny rabbit.

That bunny is a lot more likeable than this arrogant pretty boy, that’s for sure:

What I couldn’t help noticing though was that the duck seems to have the exact same ball that Andy has in his room in Toy Story.

I doubt that was intentional. Perhaps all rubber balls just look the same? Bah, all I ever had was a medicineball so I wouldn’t know.

Yep, AnoHana is my top show this season

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I think that even if the show ends with a lame cop-out ending like a meteorite impact or even it was all a dream this show will still be my favourite of the season. The only other show in the running would be Hanasaku Iroha but I hate the protagonist and her let’s-all-get-along-anything-is-possible-if-we-work-together attitude so the show would be a nonstarter for me if it weren’t for Chiaki Omigawa.

But this AnoHana show continues to have very concise yet equally emotionally draining episodes without lowering the intensity scale even a bit. It’s hard work for the viewer and I can see how a one episode break from the bullettrain feverish pace this show seems to be going at in the form of a more easygoing episode somewhere in the middle would be a tempting diversion, but nonetheless, I sure hope they don’t have an onsen episode or anything like that (I’ve jinxed it, haven’t I?). But even if they did, nothing can ruin the show now. Not since Hourou Musuko have I as eagerly awaited each new episode of a show. Admittedly, Hourou Musuko wasn’t that long ago, but prior to that I don’t know when the hell the last time I enjoyed a show this much was. Maybe NHK ni Youkoso.

I like how each character seems to get his or her turn in the spotlight. Last week’s episode was Yukiatsu. I guess I was biased in his favour since it was revealed that he was the one dressed up as Menma, but this episode was devoted almost entirely to showcasing his likable side to viewers who may not have found his crossdressing as likable as I did, saving Naruko and all and wailing like some kind of teary-eyed survivor’s guilt victim repressed to the point of mentos and cola magnitude explosive inundation.

Tsuruko must be more than the archetypal meganekko tsundere. I look forward to her character episode.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to think of this,

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but I’ve found a new way to delevel characters for SP farming. I have a level 53 wizard that I’m using to farm SP for a new character I created. A level 53 wizard is not able to one-hit kill party Ongs, so I thought it would be best to do the SP farming at Chakji Workers. For this to work properly, I decided to simply leave the mastery levels for all skills on my new character at zero. Ideally, the character should be about level 8-10 to be farmed at Chakji Workers. The spawn rate there is fantastic and I can one-hit Chakji Worker party mobs. It’s also good because Chakji Workers are non-aggressive and won’t attack the character getting farmed, so you don’t even need to worry about protecting him or her.
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Well, I wasn’t gonna watch Hanasaku Iroha but now I guess I’ve got no choice

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Chiaki Omigawa plays one of the main characters.

minko02

二回死ね！

I didn’t think I’d be able to stomach this show after watching the first episode. The entire premise by which Ohana is carted off to the old hag’s ryokan was not believable. The whole thing with the boyfriend kid confessing in the first episode just as she’s about to leave town was also a bit off-putting, but I can see how perhaps further developments could make it work. In any case, I wasn’t particularly interested in watching more after seeing the first episode.

But then I realised that the reason that Minko character sounded an awful lot like Chiaki Omigawa was because it was, in fact, her playing the voice. She’s not a dojikko in this show, so that’s too bad, but she can make tsundere work too. Minko does seem to fail at all of her chores though, which provides plenty of opportunities to hear her curt, businesslike apologies, which is nice, I suppose. That’s a type of clumsiness, at least.

Now I’ve really got no choice but to watch the rest of the series, even if it’s garbage.

minko03minko05

minko01

I'm sorry my Cammy cosplay does not please you

cammy

I love the Forgotten World now

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I had been doing runs to the first treasure box in grade 1 Forgotten World with my glaive character, but now that I’ve made a wizard character for a change, I see that I was an idiot using a Chinese character in the Forgotten World. It’s too slow.

You just need the bard skill called “Noise” and you can run directly to the first treasure box without bothering to kill a single monster. It took me two minutes with my wizard/bard. It’s no use going past the first treasure box alone if you ask me; it’s too much wasted time.

I had a dream that was sort of about FiOS

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I dreamt that I was riding in a city bus, looking out the window, when I spotted an advertisement on a phone booth that announced,

At long last FiOS 1 coming to the New York City area on 12/10/2010!

I knew in my dream that December 10, 2010 had already passed. I think it was still March in my dream. I was confused as to why I hadn’t yet noticed that FiOS 1 was now available, seeing as the sign suggested that I could have been watching it for more than three months by then. I was bit angry.

I love FiOS, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t ignore the explicit message embedded in this dream. That is, the logo for FiOS 1 New York that was on the sign in my dream looked exactly like this:

Now, I would never go back to Earthlink for Internet service. Road Runner itself is not available here, but Earthlink was my ISP through some kind of arrangement with TWC. Not that they were unreliable or anything — they were the perfect ISP in nearly every way — it’s just that they hadn’t upgraded the speeds they offered since 2001. If TWC increased the upload speed on their Wideband service here in NYC, I would consider switching to it, even though it’s still more expensive than 35/35 FiOS service, which is still the fastest package available here. In parts of Long Island though I think Verizon has introduced 100/25 service or something like that. At least that’s what those commercials with “real” customers with those dumb Long Island accents seems to indicate. Paying more for Wideband if it had comparable speeds to FiOS is worth it, if you ask me, to get NY1. Wideband upload speeds just aren’t fast enough to compete with FiOS though at this time.

Now, having said that I would never switch to any other ISP as long as they don’t upgrade their offerings, I have to admit that I miss New York One like I miss my first edition holographic Charizard. The several times I had been in homes in New Jersey in which the owners had FiOS, they all had a channel called FiOS 1. I’ve read in forum posts online that some FiOS customers in New York City get the Long Island/New Jersey FiOS 1 channel, but I don’t. As a result, I have no real replacement for NY1. There’s channel 460, which is NBC New York, but that’s not so much a dedicated local news channel as a variety show/elaborate promotion of tourism. They tend to spend entire half hour programming blocks profiling some local fashion designer or visiting “hot NYC restaurants and nightclubs” or some such rot. It’s not a channel that you can turn on for 10 minutes before leaving home in the morning to find out about the weather and what the top local news stories are.

Weatherscan on channel 49 solves the weather problem, but there’s still no dedicated local news channel. I think my dream counterpart and his puzzlement at the lack of a New York version of FiOS 1 (or even reception of the LI/NJ version) reflects my conflicted feelings about the loss of NY1.

Of course, I could always get TWC for cable TV service and keep FiOS for Internet service, but that’s impractical for two reasons: it would be at least twice as expensive as a package deal and TWC cable TV was about the most unstable service around during the last two years or so that I had it. The STBs were rubbish, even after multiple replacements, and would crash like clockwork nearly every day during primetime, taking as long as 20 minutes to turn back on after a crash, every Sunday at midnight the EPG data would run out and it wouldn’t update until Monday night, even after many forced hard resets, Pay per view and even free videos on demand would fail to load far more often than was acceptable, and the picture quality really was inferior, at least to my untrained eye.

One point on which to praise TWC cable TV service though was the fact that there were at least a dozen, perhaps two dozen, free non-English, non-Spanish language channels. There were several CCTV channels, a few Korean language channels, at least one Arabic channel, and quite a few others. I think RTN might have been free too on TWC, though I’m not sure. On FiOS all of those require a subscription, even CCTV, which I always assumed was free with all TV service providers. TWC also had a much better selection of pay-per-view movies on demand. TWC updated their Sundance, IFC and foreign language film sections very frequently; FiOS doesn’t even have a foreign language movies section, let alone an independent films section or a documentary section.

Since well before I even had FiOS here I’ve read over and over again that FiOS 1 is supposed to be coming to New York sometime before the end of 2009. This is getting to be a little bit disappointing.

My Internet connection is so damned fast though. I really can’t even take my own complaints seriously when I think that I actually have a 35/35 Mbps connection. That’s not a lie. In fact, it’s a little bit faster than that. I can download at a sustained 5.0MB/s and upload at a sustained 4.0MB/s. I still don’t believe it. I was on 8.0Mbps/384Kbps on Earthlink cable and ~2.5Mbps/512Kbps on Verizon ADSL before this.

iBot works on Windows 7 x64!

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botters

Goldbots at Hashades/Ishades and Sonars will sometimes auto-invite you to exp share parties. You can just get on a horse, go afk and be a leech off of them for as long as you don't disconnect!

I’ve been using iBot successfully on Windows XP for months, but I had never gotten it to work on Windows 7 x64 until today. Other people seemed to have problems registering the required ocx files in Windows 7, but that was never an issue for me. I didn’t have any of the problems that people seemed to typically report; I simply couldn’t get the bot to run at all.

I would open the bot and click “Run client” and the game would start, but it wouldn’t capture the information from sro_client.exe. It wouldn’t say “Connected to login server” when the game started. I could login successfully through the client, but as soon as I did, I would get disconnected. The bot window would never display any of my character information. It wouldn’t say a thing, not even “Login successful”.

I tried seemingly endless combinations of firewall and antivirus settings, even going so far as to completely turn them both off trying to get this thing to work. Everyone seemed to insist that it does indeed work on Windows 7, so I had no idea why I was having such a ridiculously difficult time getting it up and running. Running it in compatibility mode for Windows XP Service Pack 2 or 3 didn’t work and neither did running the bot as administrator. I really felt I must have been some type of an idiot since, as far as I could tell, no one else was experiencing the same problem I was.

I finally figured it out today, after having given up for some months. The problem was that I had my language for non-Unicode programs set to Japanese, which caused a problem with srodir.ini. I would type in the correct path to either my Silkroad directory or sro_client.exe itself in srodir.ini and it would look correct in Notepad, just like this:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Silkroad

I also tried variations on that, such as adding a trailing backslash or specifying the path to the sro_client.exe itself instead:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Silkroad\

C:\Program Files (x86)\Silkroad\sro_client.exe

So in Notepad it would look just fine to me, the human reader. But it seems that what was getting passed along to iBot was this:

C:¥Program Files (x86)¥Silkroad¥sro_client.exe

Of course, I’m well aware that the backslash displays as the yen symbol in file paths and the like when you’re running a non-Japanese version of Windows in Japanse locale, but I didn’t think it was the problem since I couldn’t actually see anything wrong with the way I was typing in the path. Notepad displayed it correctly, so I thought there was no problem. For the hell of it, I changed the language for non-Unicode programs to English (United States) today and the bot instantly starting working perfectly, just like it does on my XP machine. Turns out the problem had nothing to do with the OS at all; it was just user error. I fail again, it seems.