Kung Fu Grep

WoW account, Battle.NET, and iPhone Authenticators

erroch — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:25:37 +0000

A friend of mine asked me where to go to merge his WoW account to Battle.Net account. I figured I’d bite the bucket and do so myself. The plan is to switch the account over, maintain the use of my authenticator and maybe add the iPhone based Battle.Net Authenticator. (AppStore)

First, the upgrading of the account it’s pretty straight forward. Lethann had the link handy so I didn’t have to go digging for it, but apparently others have had trouble finding it. A quick trip to the account creation page (link) and things are pretty straight forward. Blizzard’s got a track record for making sites that even the most basic neophyte to the web can use. Not too long later and everything was merged and ready to go.

Unfortunately this loses a touch of obscurity since your email address becomes your log in name. So unless you have an email address specifically for your games (which isn’t a bad practice) it’s easy to figure out the user name for the account. Thankfully Blizzard’s second tier security with its authenticator which brings us to the unfortunate part two of this.

You can’t have multiple authenticators for your account. There is no way to add a second, and no way to link the iPhone application and the physical authenticator to the same key. You also can’t apparently set the key id to the blizzard authenticator. That was something I rather expected, but it would have been nice to be able to use both the iPhone and physical key fob.

For me, the iPhone application would be much more practical then the key fob. The keys ideally would be left by my door on their hook, but the phone is just about always plugged in. However there is a potential problem with the iPhone authenticator. There’s no way to set the SN# of the authenticator. This means that if anything goes screwy with your phone (swap it out at the store, wipe and restore, jailbreak it, etc.) if the phone loses its stored settings you may be screwed. I haven’t tested this out yet, but I’m looking to give it a try soon enough.

Wish me luck.

Ramblings

erroch — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:30:58 +0000

I’ve been rather quiet as things have been overly hectic over in the physical side of the world.

Getting everything lined up with multiple jobs to try and get myself financially secure. Finally getting my net connection stable (Thanks Comcast for finally acknowledging that the router problem upstream of me that I told them was there was really there.)

Life’s also taken a turn for the best. We’ve switched back to week on week off custody. This limits my free time a good bit, but that’s not a regret in the least. This has caused some amusing complications to my online chess games where occasionally moves will unintentionally be made by a four year old instead of myself. Now that, that has turned out to be a challenge.

On other notes, I’ve finally talked the workplace into allowing us to use AJAX in our flagship application. Maybe I’ll finally have a good chance to get my feet wet in all this.

The joys, or lack there of with Comcast.

erroch — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:00:27 +0000

You know, at this point, if Bellsouth would upgrade the wiring in my neighborhood, I’d be a DSL business subscriber right now. Long and short of it, they’ve failed to make at least five appointments already, and my business account has been unreliable for two weeks now. Details are behind the cut.

So this story goes back to November, when I initially started having problems with 15 min of activity then having to hard reset the gateway modem. A tech came out, forgot to call and because I wasn’t there, left a note saying everything outside the house checked out fine. The problem went away so I didn’t think anything of it.

So now we get to two weeks ago, the problem started up again, I put a call in on Wednesday, and was informed by Tier 2 support that the modem would need to be replaced as it was “dead”. I was informed that because I was a business customer I couldn’t swap out the modem myself as it needed to be signed for by a technician. However, residential users can swap out their cable modems at any point in time themselves.

We set an appointment for Thursday (as I was going out of town on Friday), no show, no call, the time on this one was “anytime during the day”. Friday while I’m not in town, apparently the technician showed up. No note this time however, I just have dispatch’s word that it happened.

Now we get to this week, I get home from New Orleans, and find my modem is acting up again, put a call in on Tuesday, schedule an appointment Wednesday between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM, the first call of the day. At 10:15 AM I call in and am told, “we’re sorry we really scheduled it for between 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM, he’ll definitely be there though.” 11:15 AM rolls around and I call again and am told, he’ll definitely be there before the end of the day. I inform the lady that I will not be available between 12:00 PM and 1:30 PM as I’ve got a business lunch so to make sure the technician arrives afterwards.

After lunch I pass by the house and find a note saying effectively “No one was here, everything outside looks fine” with a time on it of 12:15 PM.

Needless to say I was a little pissed, we’d been without an effective or reliable connection for two weeks now. Something I really rely on for my work.

I called –again- wasting more of my work day on the phone and was told “We don’t have anyone available to come out, I’ll send an email and see if someone will be available to come out.” Of course I’m not expecting anyone, even though I am paying a premium for this connection for fast response time. So we make a backup appointment for between 10:00 AM and 12:00 AM today. Noon rolls around and I call in and am told “he was delayed at the call before mine, and I should be hearing from him soon” after they call dispatch.

Now you get this little gem of information from another CSR over Twitter.

ComcastBonnie @erroch hey there, we’d love to check things out for you! mark reached out via your LJ

ComcastBonnie @erroch i think i see the problem, and i’m trying to get someone on it ASAP

Erroch: @ComcastBonnie When they have a time frame, make sure they call first this time. If they do not call, no one will be there.

ComcastBonnie @erroch they definitely havent been out yet, it doesn’t look like it was routed to a tech. will update soon

Erroch: @ComcastBonnie Interesting, considering, I was told that the tech was delayed at a previous location by your CSRs after they called dispatch

ComcastBonnie @erroch yes, very. we’re finding out what the heck happened. on with a supervisor down there now.

Now I don’t know the validity of “ComcastBonnie” but hopefully she is real and something is being done. I’m getting very tired of losing money due to faulty service.

Chess Game Summary

erroch — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:20:34 +0000

I’ve been playing a lot of chess lately. Some games I’ve won, some I’ve lost to horrific blunders, some I’ve lost due to my loving son moving for me. I’m just going to record some of the non-child blunder ones here for my future reference. Pretty much this is everything that didn’t get cut short for one reason or another. All of these were over the “Chess with Friends” app for the iPhone.

Completed Games:

Erroch vs Degaman: 1-0
1. e4 e5 2. d4 Nc6 3. d5 Nb4 4. Nf3 f6 5. Nc3 Bc5 6. a3 Na6 7. b4 Be7 8. Be3 c5 9. d6 Bf8 10. Bxa6 Bxd6 11. Qxd6 bxa6 12. Bxc5 Qe7 13. Qd5 1-0
Erroch vs AJ Hunt: 1-0
1. d4 f5 2. Nc3 b5 3. e4 Nc6 4. exf5 g6 5. Bd3 Bh6 6. fxg6 hxg6 7. Bxg6+ Kf8 8. Nxb5 Ba6 9. a4 Nxd4 10. Qxd4 Rb8 11. Qxh8 Bxb5 12. Bxh6# 1-0
Erroch vs Macdaddy:16 1-0
1. Bg2 b6 5. d4 a5 6. d5 exd5 7. Qxd5 Nf6 8. Qxa8 Nc6 9. Bf4 g6 10. Nb5 Qc7 11. Bxc7 Nd5 12. Qxc8+ Ke7 13. O-O-O Ke6 14. Ng5+ Ke7 15. Bxd5 Bg7 16. Bd6+ Kf6 17. Ne4+ fxe4 18. Qxd7 Ne5 19. Qe6+ Kg5 20. Qe7+ Kh6 21. Qh4# 1-0
Isayoldchap vs Erroch: 1-0 (I should have lost this, but he resigned due to timeout, so I’m counting it as a win for him)
1. e4 e5 2. f4 d5 3. fxe5 dxe4 4. Qe2 Bf5 5. Nc3 Nf6 6. exf6 Qxf6 7. Nxe4 Qe7 8. Nd6+ cxd6 9. Qxe7+ Bxe7 10. Bb5+ Nc6 11. Nf3 O-O 12. d3 Nb4 13. Ba4 Rac8 14. Nd4 Rc5 15. Nxf5 Rxf5 16. Bd2 d5 17. a3 Re5+ 18. Kd1 d4 19. axb4 h6 20. Re1 Bf6 21. Rxe5 Bxe5 22. g3 g5 23. Bd7 Rd8 24. Ba4 f5 25. Bb3+ Kg7 26. Rxa7 Rd7 27. Be6 Re7
28. Bxf5 Kf6 29. Be4 h5 30. Rxb7 1-0
GB613 vs Erroch: 1-0
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. c3 d6 5. d4 Bb6 6. Nbd2 Nf6 7. Qe2 O-O 8. Nc4 a6 9. Bxc6 bxc6 10. Bg5 Bg4 11. h3 Bxf3 12. Qxf3 exd4 13. Nxb6 cxb6 14. O-O Qe7 15. Rfe1 dxc3 16. Qxc3 c5 17. Bxf6 gxf6 18. Re3 Rfe8 19. Rg3+ Kf8 20. Qf3 Qe5 21. Re1 Re6 22. Qg4 Ke7 23. b3 f5 24. Qg5+ f6 25. Qg7+ Kd8 26. Qb7 Rc8 27. Rg8+
Re8 28. Qxb6+ Rc7 29. Rg7 Re7 30. Rxe7 Qxe7 31. Rd1 Kd7 32. exf5 Kc8 33. Rxd6 Qe1+ 34. Kh2 Qxf2 35. Qxa6+ Rb7 36. Qc6+ Rc7 37. Qa8# 1-0
Andremmoreira vs Erroch: 0-1
1. b3 e5 2. g3 d5 3. Bb2 Nc6 4. Bg2 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bd6 6. Nc3 Be6 7. d3 d4 8. Na4 b6 9. c3 Bc5 10. b4 dxc3 11. Bxc3 Bxb4 12. Bxb4 Nxb4 13. a3 Nbd5 14. Nxe5 Qd6 15. Rc1 O-O 16. Nc4 Qe7 17. e4 b5 18. h4 Bg4 19. f3 bxc4 20. dxc4 Ne3 21. Qe2 Nxg2+ 22. Kf2 Bd7 23. Kxg2 Bxa4 24. g4 Qxa3 25. Rce1 c5 26. Qf2 Rad8 27. e5 Nxg4 28.
fxg4 Bc6+ 29. Kh2 Rd3 30. Qc2 Rh3+ 31. Kg1 Rxh1+ 32. Kf2 Qf3# 0-1

Ongoing Games:

Erroch vs Kevin Carlisle
1. e4 Nf6 2. Nc3 e6 3. e5 Nd5 4. Nxd5 exd5 5. d4 Qe7 6. Nf3 f6 7. Bf4 fxe5 8. Bxe5 c5 9. Bd3 d6 10. Bb5+ Nc6 11. Qe2 h5 12. Bxd6 Qxe2+ 13. Bxe2 Bxd6 14. O-O cxd4 15. Rfe1 Kd8 16. Ng5 Ke7 17. Bb5+ Kf6 18. h4 a6 19. Bxc6 bxc6 20. Re2 Bf4 21. Rd1 Bxg5 22. hxg5+ Kxg5 23. Rxd4 Bg4 24. f3 c5 25. Rxd5+ Kg6 26. fxg4 hxg4
27. Rxc5 Rad8 28. Rc6+ Kh7 29. Rxa6 Rd1+ 30. Kf2 Rf8+ 31. Kg3 Rd4 32. Rae6 *
Erroch vs Avenge (Where I make a remarkable error)
1. g3 e5 2. Bg2 d5 3. Nf3 e4 4. Nd4 c5 5. Nb5 a6 6. N5c3 c4 7. d3 Bb4 8. O-O f5 9. dxe4 fxe4 10. Nxd5 Qa5 11. Bxe4 Bh3 12. Bg2 Bxg2 13. Kxg2 Nc6 14. Bd2 Qxd5+ 15. f3 Bxd2 16. Qxd2 Nf6 17. Qe3+ Ne7 18. Nc3 Qc6 19. Rad1 Ng4 20. Qg5 Nf5 21. Qxf5 Ne3+ 22. Kh1 Nxf5 23. Rd5 O-O 24. Rfd1 Ne3 25. Rd6 *

Finding a desktop twitter client….

erroch — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:32:36 +0000

I’ve been a long time user of Twhirl but with the last few updates, it’s UI has been acting more and more sluggish. This is even more extreme while running over a Remote Desktop connection. I know remote desktop won’t ever be as fast as when I’m setting there, but the slowdown is noticeable when running while logged into the the desktop directly.

There don’t seem to be that many full featured twitter clients for the Windows desktop and I’d rather not use one of the many Twitter FireFox plugins.

Here’s the list of clients I’m planning on trying out.

I’ve got a feeling I very well end up just putting up with Twhirl’s continued slowdowns, and I very well may end up adding a few more to the list, but that’s the way things go.

Yeah, I know I’ve let this thing slide….

erroch — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:34:01 +0000

Working two jobs will do that to a fellow. Anyway, there’s been a lot more chess games, and the WoW UI revamp has been done and done again, so I need to post something about it.

Additionally, I had my web server die on me, which has messed with things more then I can say.

Chess vs. Veras – Move 5

erroch — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:45:20 +0000

And the game continues. Pieces finally coming to threaten other pieces. Still very much taking our time here, but that’s the joy of these games. I’m seeing a few potential outcomes from this, either Veras goes aggressive, which leads us to a rather traditional game for a queen’s gambit, or continues to develop ignoring the threat, since they’re both protected pieces.

1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Bf5 3. Bf4 Nf6 4. e3 e6 5. Bd3 *

Redoing the WoW UI.

erroch — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:43:47 +0000

I’ve had the same basic UI for a bit over a year now in WoW, it’s about time I tweak it a little. Here’s where I’m at now:

It’s not bad, somewhat clean but it is a bit off center.

Goals of this reworking of the UI:

As clean of a UI as possible without sacrificing functionality.
A UI that works for both DPS and Healing in Raid and Group situations.
Allow the majority of the UI to either turn off, or be non intrusive while RPing.
Cut the 40 or so mods I am running to a more manageable number.
Evaluate replacement mods for ones that have been used just because they’ve always been there.

Chess vs. Veras – Move 3

erroch — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 19:42:47 +0000

I think I’m going to just record these after Veras makes his moves. It’ll be a bit less cumbersome for you all. Not much to say on this one at the time since I haven’t spent much time analyzing it. Either way, there she is.

1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Bf5 3. Bf4 Nf6 *

Chess game with Veras

erroch — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 20:27:47 +0000

So a friend of mine from World of Warcraft and I have decided to amuse ourselves with a play by mail game of chess. This isn’t the first time we’ve done this, though last time resulted in my resigning due to outside influences.

Anyhow, the game is only a few moves in, but I figure I’ll record it here, just to keep track of how things go and to share them with the world.

1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Bf5 3. Bf4 *