The MMO Notebook

Anyone who has played a human in Lord of the Rings Online will be intimately familiar with what I recount here. Be that as it may, I must start somewhere, so I now begin to tell the tale of my human hunter named Wolfbow.

Once you complete the starter instance, which takes place in a small town named Archet, you are placed in the “real” game world. Archet is not the same town you started in. It was terribly burned during the invasion, and as you would expect, the world has greatly changed around you.

Archet after the burn

The first few quests I picked up were: Burying the Dead, A Threat from Spiders, Disease Among the Boars, and a quest started after I had previously killed the Marsh-Fly Queen. The quests are pretty straight forward. I had to find the bodies of three men and bury them, kill 10 diseased boars, and kill some spiders over at Quigley’s farm.

The spider quest led  me to finding the famous dwarf Bali just before he died. It ended with me killing a big spider named Iornaith in the spider infested tunnels beneath Quigley’s farm. These quests netted me around 90 copper per quest, better shoulderpads, and a better helm to wear.

Burying the Dead

Finishing these quests earned me level 10 and some nice new skills to go along with it:

Spider Caves

Bali the Dwarf is dead

The next couple of quests sent me to the town of Combe, one of which was  to find a ranger named Toradan, who wants me to help find the missing ranger Amdir. With these quests, my stay at the little town of Archet it at an end.

Wow, it has been a long time since I posted anything here. The job I started a year and a half ago began to take more and more of my time until eventually I had no time to play games. Not playing games makes it a tad difficult to write about them. I had also started another blog that dealt with computers and technology around the same time as this one (you’ll see its posts integrated with this blog). Again, the job took all my time away from it. Finally, things have slowed down to a more livable pace, and I am ready to start playing games and writing about them again.

The big question I am struggling with right now is which game(s) to play. I have a lifetime subscription to Lord of the Rings Online, so I am leaning towards it for now. I have already started a new character and I am working on the newbie quests now. Of course, with LOTRO becoming a free-to-play game soon, being a lifetime subscriber doesn’t mean much anymore.

I had focused heavily on Vanguard: Saga of Heroes when I started this blog. I contemplated starting it up again, but I just don’t see this game having much of a future. This dampens any desire I might have had to play it.

I have friends who play Star Trek Online. I gave the free trial a whirl but never got past that. Plus, my friends would be light years ahead of me by now. It was an interesting game, but it didn’t pull me in enough to make me stay.

The game I am really waiting for is Star Wars: The Old Republic. I just wish it was going to launch sooner than it is. It looks to be a fantastic experience, and I hope it is better than Star Wars Galaxies turned out to be.

So, the Ultimate Casual Warrior is back in the saddle. I will begin making regular posts soon.

I prefer a full-size mouse, but virtually every bluetooth mouse on the market are “travel mice” size, which is another way of saying you need baby-sized hands to comfortably use them. Long ago I found a full-sized Kensington bluetooth mouse that has served me well. It worked with every PC and MAC that I tried to pair it with. Indeed, I was a very happy camper with this mouse until the time came to install Apple’s new “Snow Leopard” operating system. My trusty old mouse would not pair with my Macbook Pro. I was in a panic.

The pairing process baffled me because my Mac could actually “see” my mouse. The Bluetooth Setup Assistant would show the mac address of my mouse in the detection window but it would not go any further. The pairing process would fail. Since the mouse was working fine right up until I installed Snow Leopard, it was fairly obvious it was a software problem. I was worried that my old bluetooth mouse was no longer compatible with Apple’s latest bluetooth stack. Luckily, an idea popped into my head that fixed the problem.

When you run the Bluetooth Setup Assistant on a Mac, it displays any bluetooth device it finds in the detection window. The normal sequence is that it sees the mac address of the mouse and then it changes to the actual name of the mouse. In my case, it should change to “Kensington Mouse,” but it never would get to that point with Snow Leopard. I began to wonder if I could somehow manually type in the name of the mouse to see if that would help things along. Thankfully, the answer is yes.

I started the Bluetooth Setup assitant, and when the first window appeared, I clicked on the “Specify Device” button. I typed “Kensington Mouse” in the dialog box and clicked “OK.” Amazingly enough, it worked perfectly!

Give this method a try if you are having trouble using a bluetooth mouse with Snow Leopard. The name you type in the “Device Address” box must be the exact name that would display if detection was working properly. I was lucky enough to remember the name of mine.

–Kevin

Unique Skins is a company that sells protective skins for iPhones, iPods, and other devices. Their products are popular because you can customize the skins with your own pictures and artwork. One of their newer products is the Gel Skin, which takes their standard skin and covers it with a soft and clear gel padding. The idea is a good one, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Watch my video review found below to find out why. Click here to view a larger version.

Microsoft has opened up their Windows 7 pre-order website and for a limited time you can get the upcoming operating system for half price. Upgrade pricing for Windows 7 Home Premium is set at a low $49.99, with higher tiers scaling up in price. The low pre-order pricing is for a limited time only, so take advantage of this soon if you plan on upgrading to Windows 7.

My advice: Windows 7 is the best operating system Microsoft has ever created. Run, don’t walk, to the pre-order site and get the great pricing and ditch Vista and XP.

The Waterfield Sleeve Case from sfbags.com is a unique take on the standard “sleeve” type laptop case. It can be customized in several different ways and the quality of workmanship is very high. This is the second bag I have purchased from sfbags.com and I have been extremely pleased each time. Please view the above video for more information.  Click here to see a larger version.

Edit: One correction to the video: I stated in the video that you don’t get the D-rings if you don’t order the shoulder strap. That is incorrect. You can order the rings without the strap.

The Lacie Iamakey is a USB thumb drive in the shape of a key. Please see the above video for more information. Click here to see a larger version.

The transition from analog to digital over-the-air television signals has been completed. This means that you can no longer use those old “rabbit ears” to receive TV signals if you don’t have cable or satellite TV. Converter boxes are availble to those who need them.

The FCC has created a handy website that allows you to check which digital channels are in your area and what signal strengths you can expect from them. Very nice, indeed.

It has been awhile since I started using Google Sync, which is Google’s free contacts and calendar syncing software. It allows you to sync your Gmail contacts and calendar to your mobile phone. It does some nice things, but in the end, I decided to stop using it and go back to Apple’s MobileMe service.

Google Sync is free, so I wanted to see if it would be worthy enough to replace my MobileMe service, which costs $99 per year. Google Sync offers push contacts and calendar from Gmail to your mobile phone and it performs those tasks very well. I tested the service on my iPhone 3G and it works as advertised. Once it is setup on your phone, any change you make to your contacts or calendar automatically gets updated in the cloud and on your phone. Unfortunately, push email is not offered as yet, but the button to turn it on is there, so they will probably offer that feature soon.

Updates to my Gmail contacts and calendar were quick and painless. Changes to something in Gmail was almost instantly changed on my phone and vice versa. I never had a problem with functionality and everything worked very well. The only downside that I noticed was that the push feature used more of my iPhone’s battery.

Okay, so if Google Sync works as advertised, why did I stop using it? Quite simply, MobileMe has spoiled me. MobileMe allows me to sync my email, contacts, and calendars to my phone and all my computers. You can use a program called Spanning Sync (for a Mac) to get all of that functionality with Google Sync, but that costs money and is something extra you need to install. I also found software that will sync Google with Microsoft Outlook, but again it costs money. In the end, it is worth it to me to pay for the extra convenience.

If all you need is contacts and calendar syncing between Gmail and your phone, then Google Sync is a no-brainer. It is free, fast, and works very well. If you need to also sync your email and have everything the same across phones and computers, you will need to look elsewhere or deal with the extra paid software. If you use PC’s, I would recommend looking at a company that offers Exchange support.

Google Sync has made a good start. I would definitely give them another try if they were to begin offering features that allow me to sync my data across all my phones and computers. Until then, MobileMe is my choice.

Yep, I am still here. I have not had much time to blog lately due to a series of events that occupied my free moments.  I had a serious bout with the flu, which after three weeks, I am finally rid of it. I had relatives visit for more than a week while at the same time spending my days off looking for a house to buy.  So yeah, busy indeed.

Upcoming posts will include my review of Google Sync and the reasons why I stopped using it. In another post, I will do a video review of the Lacie Iamakey USB drive, which looks like a car key. Also look for posts about the free backup/syncing service called Dropbox and other various computer and gaming information.

–Kevin