Frank's Weblog

WoW Realms available in the App Store

fmeus — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 16:00:09 +0000

I am very pleased to announce that I finally have released my very first iPhone, iPod Touch application into the Apple App Store.

WoW Realms

Check the status of you favorite World of Warcraft realm right from your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

WoW Realms provides status information for all the American, European, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese realms for the MMORPG World of Warcraft.

The application provides the following features:
– Support for American, European, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese realms
– Search for realms
– Bookmark support (Favorites)
– Badge icons displaying the number of your favorite realms are down
– Retina display support
– Push notifications for realm status changes
– View current in-game alerts

Supported Interface languages:
– English

Realms

Favorites

Server Alerts

In-App Manual

2010 in review

fmeus — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 11:16:16 +0000

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 6,100 times in 2010. That’s about 15 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 14 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 53 posts. There were 7 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 246kb.

The busiest day of the year was March 15th with 66 views. The most popular post that day was Using Drobo and Drobo Share with Time Machine.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were wow.curse.com, wowbox.yatta.com.tw, macobserver.com, arcemu.org, and mekonik.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for droboshare time machine, drobo time machine, time machine droboshare, drobo share time machine, and lua memory usage.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Using Drobo and Drobo Share with Time Machine April 2009
8 comments

UberInventory (4.2) February 2009

Optimizing memory usage in LUA January 2009

Using Foxmarks to synch to iPhone/iPod Touch February 2009

Arduino Duemilanove August 2009

Macros for switching spec, gear and stance

fmeus — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 23:00:59 +0000

As of late I have been working on getting my warrior PvP gear, so a lot of my time is spent in battle grounds. But since there loads of quests I have not done yet and my guild is starting to do raids, I find myself switching back to my talents, gear and stance that are better suited for PvE-stuff quite often.

I got fed up with doing this manually over and over again. Also often I forgot one of the three things to switch…

This was bugging me for quite some time and I kept thinking “I need a macro for this”, but kept putting it off. Last night I sat down and hacked together two macros allowing me to switch between my PvE and PvP settings easily.

My main spec is used for PvE (Furry), my second spec is for PvP (Arms). Based on your own talents make sure you use the correct numbers (1 or 2) to reflect your specs.

Switch to PvE

/cast Berserker Stance
/usetalents 1
/in 7 /equipset PvE

Switch to PvP

/cast Battle Stance
/equipset PvP
/usetalents 2

The piece of code “/in 7 …” is to make sure the casting of the spec change is finished before switching gear sets otherwise your gear does not change since there is still an active cast preventing you from casting other spells.

To prevent a warning when switching from Furry to Arms (Iosing the ability to dual wield two-handed weapons), the macros use a slightly different order. The warning would also prevent all of the gear to be switched completely.

Maybe I will combine the two macros into one, but for now I am satisfied.

Triops – Day 45 :(

fmeus — Fri, 28 May 2010 09:33:19 +0000

Last night the last of the triops died as well. I have just spent an hour cleaning the aquarium to prepare it for the next batch of triops. This batch comes from a different supplier, so let’s see how well those will do.

During the cleaning of the aquarium I noticed there is a snail in it. No clue when that happened, maybe a stowaway from the water plant. The water plant looked like it was starting to rot, so that one is now in the trash bin.

After the aquarium has settled down I will start the second batch. This kit comes with one bag which contains a mixture of sand, eggs and food. According to the description the bag needs to be put into the fridge for a couple of days to improve the chances of the eggs hatching but it is not necessary, so I will do it without.

It also contains a brownish looking tablet (containing Plankton and Spirulina). Which I believe is additional food for the triops, but since I have plenty leftover from the first kit I will use that first.

The second kit also mentions that the triops will resort to cannibalism if there is not enough food available. It also mentions that you can use krill or daphnia to provide protein-rich food to prevent cannibalism.

To be sure that the snail doesn’t eat any of the new triops I have placed the snail in a separate container.

Now again we have to wait a minimum of 24 hours for the eggs to hatch….

Triops – Day 42 :(

fmeus — Tue, 25 May 2010 08:58:10 +0000

Yesterday evening when we returned from out short holiday all seemed fine with both triops. Both were swimming around and doing their normal stuff.

Sadly this morning I found one the triops dead in its favorite corner of the aquarium (behind the water filter). According to information found on the internet triops have a lifespan of 20 to 90 days, making the first one to go middle-aged.

Hopefully the second triops will live a little bit longer…

Update: Just after posting this blog the second triops is acting a bit weird. It appears not to be able to move around properly. It keeps turning over. Looks like the last one might not last much longer either :(

Triops – Day 38

fmeus — Thu, 20 May 2010 16:05:59 +0000

The triops keep growing steadily :). Every 3 to 4 days they shed their outer skin so they can grow just a little bit further.

So far they have just grown a little over 3 cm. About a week ago I started feeding them twice a day, not really sure if they need it but at the end of the day I can’t find any leftovers….

This make it a lot easier to make pretty pictures. It is still not that easy, since they are very energetic. Still I have managed to take a very nice picture of the underside of one of the triops. Quite pleased with the result :)

During the weekend of Whitsunday I will be away for a couple of days. I had an idea to build my own automatic fish(triops) feeder (using an Arduino) for this occasion, but sadly I didn’t find enough time to complete that project. At the local pet store I found tables that you can put into the aquarium. These tablets dissolve slowly over time releasing food into the water.

One tablet should be enough for 10 to 15 fish, the only things is the packaging doesn’t state for how many days. So hopefully it will be enough to last at least 3 days, then they should be fine. We will see in a couple of days…..

Triops – Day 22 (reprise)

fmeus — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:36:42 +0000

The aquarium has been vacuumed, some plants have been added and figured out that my filter has a dial to regulated the amount of water it filters.

With that plants added to the aquarium it is getting a little bit crowed in there, so over the next couple of days I will see if I need to cut down on the amount of plants.

What I have noticed during this week is that one of the triops spends most of the day digging in one corner of the aquarium. I have no clue what he/she is up to. Secretly (until I wrote this down that is) I am hoping that it has something to do with burying eggs for the next generation, but I have been unable to spot any eggs. Not sure what they look like anyway…

Following are a couple of pictures I made today

Triops on digging duty

Triops minding his/her own business

To be continued…

Triops – Day 22

fmeus — Mon, 03 May 2010 23:55:27 +0000

Since the last triops post the last two remaining triops have grown quite a bit. Both are now roughly 2.5cm in size. About a week ago they were large enough so I could finally turn on the water filter without running the risk of sucking the triops into the device.

The water filter has greatly improved the quality of the water, but there is still some dirt (mainly corpses of the triops that didn’t make it) all over the bottom. I have tried to remove them using a couple of straws/sticks without much success. Searching the internet I came across a battery powered vacuum specifically for aquaria, so tomorrow I will visit the local pet shop to see if they have such a device in-stock, otherwise I might have to order one online.

I haven’t added any water plants yet, but maybe that will be tackled this week. Also I am looking to see what other creatures can be added to the aquarium without making one the main food source for the other…. Maybe some small water-snails can do the trick

To be continued….

Triops – Day 12

fmeus — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 10:30:50 +0000

Just a quick picture from the largest of my triops in closeup. Quiet happy with the result of the picture.

Triops – Day 11

fmeus — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:35:35 +0000

I appeared to be tough-and-go with the triops, but now after 11 days I have to say things are looking bright. I started out with around 6 little critters and now can count around 4 of them. Much is depended on how patient I am when counting them. They have grown quite a bit making them much easier to spot. The largest has grown to about 6 mm, the smallest is roughly 4 mm in size. Yeah, really impressive….

They seem to favor the gravel bottom against which they hardly stand out. When they have grown a little larger I might add some water plants (most likely Elodea), giving them additional hiding places. It will also serve as a food source and provides oxygen.

The following are some pictures taken today.