All budding DJs take your position in the queue behind me for this gadget! Available for pre-order now.

http://www.pacemaker.net/

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

Just noticed my last post was from Spain - and guess what Ì'm back in Murcia again :-) Weather is 22, no clouds or wind. Perfect in fact. Not a bad way to spend a week in November.

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

Just a very quick post from an internet access point here in Spain. Normal (or abnormal) blogging will resume next week after I return to the UK. Currently work¡ng on my golf handicap here. Its about 22 atm. I´ll post some pictures when I get back. Starting to get Warcraft withdrawal already.... /shiver

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

Another problem I've had recently with Vista was that all of a sudden whenever I double-clicked a drive icon in explorer it opened the search panel instead of drilling down into the drive's folders. After digging through google searches here the fix that worked for me:

Open up regedit.exe by using Start\Run and then browse down to this registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell or HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell

Double-click on the default value and set it to "none" without the quotes, as seen here:

This will restore the normal behavior.

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

I discovered a little hidden gem today. A builtin tool for converting the blg binary files created by the perfmon tool into CSV files for import in Excel etc...

Very easy to use and has even more features. Details here

Basic usage:

relog logfile.blg -f CSV -o newfile.csv

 

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

Mr. Safety The whole purpose of Mr. Safety’s existence is to prevent anything bad happening to his network, with the emphasis on his . The cables may have been run by a contractor, the racks, patch panels, routers, and UPSs installed by the manufacturers, but the whole thing belongs to him right down to the last dusty mouse ball rolling around in his desk drawer (just in case he ever needs to fit it as a replacement).

His method for avoiding conflict is to lock the system down so tightly that nothing and no one can alter anything. Sometimes this means that the only things a user can do are log in and change his or her password, which can be set to expire every time it is used. Running executables or editing files is obviously far too risky an operation to be left to users, so they are treated to the options of viewing a login screen and a desktop.

Mr. Safety hasn’t had a virus attack in seven years and he isn’t about to allow one now. Not only are the USB sockets in the back of all his workstations disabled in BIOS and the BIOS password-protected, but also the holes are filled with glue to prevent anyone using a USB memory stick to transfer the slightest amount of data. The e-mail server will not allow any attachments, the workstation will not boot if the network cable is removed, and the system box is welded to the desk to prevent unauthorized removal. If any attempt is made to remove the cover of the machine, a small explosive device will render the PC (and probably the operator) unusable.

 

The "out-of-my-depth" administrator This administrator has developed her skills as the company has grown. So 10 years ago, when the company bought a PC to assist with the paperwork, she was the slowest to leave the room and thus took on the unofficial role of "computer person." The company grew from five employees to the 80 they have today and the "network" grew in spurts to keep up. There are now 15 or 20 workstations cobbled to a makeshift server, which also acts as the e-mail gateway, file server, and Internet proxy server. There is no documentation. All of the quirks and foibles are in the administrator’s head and things just about jog along, provided that nothing untoward happens. The company can't quite make the leap to employing a full-time IT person but is abusing Ms. "out of my depth" as she also has a full-time job on the design team. Her only hope is that further expansion will allow the quantum leap to be made and allow her to release the system reins once and for all. On the whole, things work fairly well if you don't mind the frequent power failures, lockups, and the inevitable virus attacks. Everybody has the same password and everybody has rights to all folders on the network, but it doesn’t matter too much, as everybody in the company is very nice and absolutely trustworthy.

 

The remote deployment king This netop has recently mastered the art of remote deployment of applications and upgrades, whether you want them or not. Shutting your workstation down at the end of the day is no defense against him. He has configured all the stations on the network to Wake-On-LAN (WOL). You need to remove the network cable from the back of the machine as well. You can leave work at 5:00 p.m. with a fully functioning computer on your desk and return the next morning to find a totally different desktop facing you—one where it is impossible to find anything you were using the day before.

 

Jobsworth This is an officious character, often encountered in British civil service locations, who answers every request for something out of the ordinary with a cry of "That would be more than my job’s worth." Just try taking a USB memory stick into the office on her shift and see what happens! She even starts disciplinary procedures against herself if she inadvertently takes one to work in her lunch bag. One day she will drive herself to a breakdown when she discovers that some of the e-mails sent from one desk to another may not be entirely work-related. I have a company laptop, provided for my use whilst out in the field. As the headquarters building is over 150 miles away, it is unlikely that I will ever have it plugged into the network, yet our netop—a fine specimen of N. Officiatis—will allow me to have only a standard company desktop image, containing a range of applications that are of no use to me whatsoever. The ability to install my own route finder software, however, would be a great boon, enabling me to find places that are outside of my immediate area.

 

Test bed man This adventurous person tries out new patches and upgrades all the time. Most sensible administrators will have a small test network on which they try out solutions before deploying them to the working system. Mr. Test Bed runs them on the live system, much to the consternation and annoyance of the users. Similar in effect to the Remote deployment administrator, differing only in that N Absistus tries to make sure that the product or upgrade he is rolling out does work and doesn’t affect anything else on the network.

 

My personal property As the name suggests, the network is this character’s personal property, and she will become agitated whenever somebody seeks to do anything that will affect the smooth running of the network. A good thing, you might think, but N Dictatoris, like all the others, takes it too far. She will keep extensive logs that show that network performance is 100 percent. This is achieved by ensuring that hardly any of the resources of the network are allocated for general use.

 

 

The gamesmaster This rarest and probably most affable type of dangerous network administrator used to be found in great numbers in the academic world. The network had sufficient spare capacity to allow a few students at a time to work on their dissertations or research but its main function was to provide a gaming platform for the team that ran the IT facilities for the college. Most of the network resources were available only to people with supervisor logins who would meet regularly to blow each other out of existence in a huge and highly imaginative variety of ways. Nowadays, with cheap small routers and switches available to almost anyone, this kind of activity continues in the homes of such people and, after a hard day’s work in the communications room, nothing relaxes a gamesmaster more than a few hours more in cyberworld.

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

Give a whistle the energy it needs to convince your boss the evacuation alarm sounded.

Conserve trees by blowing the seeds and excrement from the bottom of bird cages, thus saving the paper for further usage.

Clean the crumbs from a bucket seat.

Don't handle them directly - blow the dust off those mouse balls!

Ear wax removal. Place three drops of warm salt water in the ear canal. Allow to set for one minute. Hold air-straw two inches from ear canal, BLOW... see if you can hit someone with the flying wax.

Blowing liquid through a straw. With the use of compressed air, the liquid can be blown further. With the use of 1/2" diameter plastic tubing, and a midnight tube-running office visit, it can be blown on unsuspecting co-workers from behind closed doors.

Rev up that grill: Stand back about two feet and rev up your charcoal grill fire with a few blows!

Blowing up skirts à la Marilyn Monroe.

Wart removal: invert can, spray to freeze wart.

Freeze gum that is stuck in the carpet or upholstery and then remove with a putty knife.

Removing cats from keyboards.

Removing annoying non-IT coworkers (they usually think it’s some sort of harmful chemical).

Removing toilet water from a cell phone dropped there by my 16-year-old.

Paperweight – particularly useful while using another can to dust desk.

On slow days, draw a shuffleboard diagram on a tabletop; use canned air to shoot bottle caps to score.

Canned air is perfect for cleaning the cut whiskers out of your electric razor.

Cleaning residue from coffee grinder.

Blowing excess cheese out of your Mac ‘n Cheese.

Inflating understuffed ravioli to create the illusion of overstuffed.

Put a froth of foam on your coffee, and it’s cheaper than Starbucks.

Turn the can upside down and quickly cool your favorite flavor of Jell-O after boiling it in the microwave. Particularly effective for green Jell-O.

Also great for that half-bottle of Mountain Dew on the corner of the desk when you just won’t drink it warm.

Fill can with mildly pressurized, purified air (nothing but 78% N2, 21% O2, 0.94% Ar2, 0.03% CO2 and a 0.03% mix of other natural elemental gases). This results in a colorless and odorless mixture. Then, whenever you tire of the smell and poisons of pollution, just spray the pure air in your face and breathe deep!

Indoor Model Rocketry: Take one of those handy little film canisters normally used for holding case screws - tape rocket style fins to the canister. Important: the fat end of the fins must be at the open end of the canister. While holding the canister open end up invert the canned air and spray into the canister for several seconds creating a 1/8 inch deep pool of propellant. Immediately place the cap on the canister and place cap down on any level surface. In a matter of moments the "Indoor Rocket" is launched at extremely high speed into the air / ceiling tiles / boss’s office.

Support the wind power industry by keeping the turbines going whenever the wind drops.

Spray liberally to cool the air when global warming heats it.

Spray liberally to warm the air when global warming produces unusually cold weather.

Blowing bubbles; simply insert into the little bottle and zillions of bubble appear from nowhere.

Emergency can of air for fish tank, when the fish tank pump breaks down.

Help blow milk out of you nose.

Shoot paper wads out of straw.

Play air hockey at McDonalds with Triangle Straw.

Turn pages in your Smart Computing Magazine.

Creating dust devils – insert into bag of powdered sugar and let it rip.

Emergency outboard motor.

Defeathering noisy parakeets.

Chocolate milk stirrer.

Blow it in the face of your dog to create the illusion of hanging head out of window while driving.

Blow in your cat’s face so she can pretend she is being chased by the dog in the car.

Forcing sand further into sensitive machinery to increase wear factor.

Cooling down the arm pits, especially when hot and wet.

Since the canned air doesn't contain air, but some heavier than air gas -- it can be used to make "heavy balloons" that fall to the ground like bricks. Sure to amaze your coworkers!

Irritate next door’s pit bull.

See just how big you can inflate a bull frog before it pops.

Turn the pages on a calendar once a month.

Win every time playing balloon-keep-up.

There are a lot of machines in the lab and the white noise tends to lull tired technicians to sleep. A squirt of canned air to the ear wakes 'em right up!

Humane fly swatter.

A very short shot of air will force ink into a refilled cartridge. Insert in fill hole, cover with paper towel and give a burst. Ink will flow from the jet nozzle of the cartridge. Too much air will make a mess!

Use to blow out windshield wiper hose.

Tape can to model boat, then tape down nozzle and put in water.

Use a lot of cases of air to blow off leaves from yard.

Blow out rain gutters.

Blow bubbles in bath water.

Irritate wasps.

Help get kites off the ground.

Blow sand into your brother’s shorts.

Insert into front of pants and cool down.

As a fishing aid: Use the canned air to sail the line out.

Keeping the cat off of the sofa.

Chill a pitcher of tea, put can into tea and pull trigger.

If you have nothing but a warm can of soda and the ice tray is empty, you can freeze the water in the bottom of a paper cup...invert the can and spray inside the cup.

Freezing body parts of unwelcome visitors in your office – invert the can, aim at body part and squeeze while informing the user that you don’t take walk-in requests. If repeated with sufficient frequency and consistency this should elicit a Pavlovian response and create an aversion to not following the correction procedure for submitting a help ticket.

Cooling solder.

Removing chewed off fingernails from keyboard.

Cleaning piercings.

Making obnoxious armpit noises – insert straw in armpit, squeeze arm to side of body and press trigger.

Expelling ants from your work area.

Cooling your coffee in a caffeine emergency.

Removing irritants from bra without having to disrobe.

Ejecting the fluff from between toes while avoiding actual contact.

Cooling skin within a cast.

As an air-brush propellant.

Playing the game of "Blow Football" – traditionally played by blowing through straws, but expeditious use of canned air makes for longer and more challenging games with reduced risk of asphyxiation.

Ridding infrequently used power supplies of brown recluse spiders (this happened…).

Cooling your feet off without having to remove socks or shoes – insert straw in sock and squeeze trigger. Be warned that this has the added bonus of liberally distributing body odor if you suffer from this problem (this also applies to 5).

Adding foam to hot chocolate.

Locating precisely which tooth it is that has become cold sensitive.

Painting with hot and cold.

Blasting the crud out of mice.

The Incredible Growing Putty Ball.

Firing small missiles.

Surprising a napping cat.

Confusing telemarketers – not as effective as an air horn, but still quite alarming.

Drying skate bearings.

Clearing sinuses (don’t try this).

Inflating balloons.

Quick-drying PlayDoh® sculptures of miniature donkeys made at desk on slow days.

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

If you live in a high-crime area, one of the best places to store your valuables is the oven. Seriously. No thief ever thinks to look there, and in the event of a fire, the thermal insulation works both ways protecting your stuff. That said, if you’re going to store your laptop in the Easy-Bake, it’s best to tell anyone else who might be preheating the oven about your secret stash, or this might be the result. Believe it or not, despite a five-minute dose of 300 degrees Fahrenheit, the notebook eventually powered up to full functionality.

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

Windows Vista has some great new security and functionality features, as well as cool eye candy, such as Aero transparency, Flip 3D, and other graphical tricks. But all this comes with overhead that may lead to a performance hit on anything less than a top-of-the-line supercomputer.

If you find Vista’s performance lagging, the good news is that you can make it run faster. Here are some of the steps you can take.

#1: Add more RAM

There’s no denying it: Vista is a RAM-hungry operating system. Whereas XP usually runs great on 512MB, you really need a minimum of a gigabyte to run Vista acceptably. Two gigs is even better, and if you turn on all the graphical features and keep a lot of programs open, especially those that use a lot of memory, four gigs isn’t overkill.

Luckily, RAM is still relatively inexpensive — but it’s rumored to be on the rise, so get as much of it as you can, while you can. You won’t regret it.

#2: Use ReadyBoost

Can’t add physical RAM? Maybe you have a laptop that already has the maximum amount of memory installed. In that case, Vista provides you with a way to fool your computer into thinking it has more RAM than it does. You can use a flash memory card or USB key to boost the system memory; Vista can access the flash memory more quickly than data stored on the hard disk.

It’s best to use a high performance flash card or USB drive for ReadyBoost. When you insert it, Windows will ask if you want to use it to speed up system performance, and then you can allocate how much of the card’s/drive’s memory you want to use for that purpose. The rest can be used for storing data.

#3: Get a good video card

If you have enough RAM, the most likely hardware culprit on a slow-moving Vista machine is the video card. You need a fairly high end card to run Aero at all, but some computer vendors are selling computers with graphics cards that run it badly. You can find out whether your video card is the bottleneck by checking your Windows Experience Index (WEI) score from the Performance Information and Tools applet in Control Panel.

The onboard video adapters in most systems aren’t powerful enough to run Vista properly. If you want to run Aero and be happy doing it, get a card that’s Vista Premium Certified. As with system RAM, the more video RAM the better, and if you want to play Vista games, be sure your card supports Direct X 10.

#4: Eliminate extra startup programs

You may find that you have a lot of programs loading automatically when you boot Windows, especially if you bought your Vista system from a hardware vendor who added lots of software. Some of these you may want, such as antivirus or anti-spyware programs, but many of them you probably don’t even use or use only occasionally and don’t want to run all the time. Yet they’re all loading into memory and consuming your system resources — and thus slowing down your computer as they run in the background.

Some programs can be prevented from starting automatically by removing them from the Startup folder. Others are configured in the registry to run at startup. Many can be managed through the Windows Defender Software Explorer, which you can access from the Manage Startup Programs link in the left pane of the Performance Information And Tools applet.

#5: Turn off visual enhancements

There are a lot of visual enhancements that make Vista look like Vista, such as the animations when minimizing and maximizing windows, fading or sliding menus, shadows under the menus and mouse pointer, and thumbnails of graphics files instead of dull icons. However, all this bling uses resources, and if performance is your priority, the operating system will run faster without them.

The Performance Options dialog box can be accessed through the Adjust Visual Effects link in the left pane of the Performance Information And Tools applet. On the Visual Effects tab, you can customize these settings individually, turning off the ones you don’t want, to help speed performance. Or you can disable all of the visual effects by clicking the Adjust For Best Performance option.

#6: Adjust indexing options

Vista has a much-improved search function, but it’s dependent on indexing the files and programs on your hard disk so they can be found quickly. When the indexing process is running, however, it can slightly slow down other programs you’re trying to run at the same time.

You can select the locations you want to index; fewer locations will result in less indexing and thus better overall performance. On the other hand, you’ll get better search performance by indexing all locations. You can’t turn the indexing feature off completely, but you can adjust locations indexed by selecting Adjust Indexing Options in the left pane of the Performance Information And Tools applet.

#7: Clean up and defrag the disk

Fragmented files or a lot of unneeded extra files on the disk can slow down performance. Vista provides a disk cleanup tool, which you can access from Start | All Programs | Accessories | System Tools. Specify a drive you want to clean up, and the tool will estimate the amount of space you can recover by running the cleanup process.

Defragmenting the disk rearranges data on it so that all the parts of a file are together; this allows Vista to access those files more quickly. The built-in disk defragmenter is also accessed from the System Tools menu. The defragmentation process itself can slow down your computer, so you may want to schedule it to run at a time when you aren’t using the computer. Third-party defrag utilities are also available.

#8: Adjust your power settings

If you don’t mind using more power, you can boost performance by setting your power settings to the High Performance option. Click the Power Options applet in Control Panel and select that choice. By default, this configuration is set to Balanced, which limits the CPU to 50% power during normal operation.

#9: Turn off the sidebar

The sidebar is a cool feature of Vista, but if you don’t use its applets, you can save some resources by disabling it. First, right-click it and select Properties. Next, deselect the check box to start the sidebar when Windows starts. Then, close the sidebar by right-clicking it and selecting Close.

#10: If all else fails, turn off Aero

This is a last-resort option for most Vista users; after all, Aero is what makes Vista look like Vista. But if you don’t care for all the eye candy and/or have a low powered machine, and you still want the functionality advantages of the new OS (search, security, Explorer enhancements, etc.), you can definitely speed things up by going back to the non-transparent look.

To do so, right-click the desktop and select Personalize, then click Windows Color And Appearance. Now, click Open Classic Appearance Properties For More Color Options. From the drop-down list box on the Appearance tab, select any theme except Aero (Windows Vista Basic, Windows Standard, or Windows Classic).

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

There are a lot of factors that go into balancing your rogue's stats. Agility, attack power, hit, crit, strength, weapon skill, and haste rating all increase your DPS, your most important contribution to the raid, while stamina, dodge, and to some degree resilience affect your survivability. All these factors make it somewhat difficult to figure out whether or not a piece of gear is an upgrade. Will losing this hit rating be worth gaining this attack power? How exactly will increased agility affect my DPS? And does dodge ever really matter?

Luckily, a few smart technorogues have come up with systems that take some of the guesswork out of this -- the Agility Equivalence Points system, and its big brother, the Rogue DPS Spreadsheet.

First, let's take a look at what a single point of stats do for you at level 70.

• Strength gives you one point of attack power.
• Agility gives you one point of attack power, two points of armor, .025% chance to crit, and .05% chance to dodge.
• Stamina gives you 10 health.
• Attack power gives you ... well, one point of attack power. Fourteen points of attack power equal one more point of damage per second.
• Crit rating gives you increased chance to crit. 22.1 points of crit rating equal 1% more chance to crit.
• Hit rating increases your chance to hit a target. 15.8 points of hit rating equal 1% more chance to crit.
• Weapon skill rating is horribly, horribly complex. Basically, increased weapon skill increases your chance to hit and crit a mob that's higher level than you. European CM Crezax says that against boss level mobs, each point of weapon skill over your level's natural "max skill" will give you 0.8% lower chance to miss,
  0.4% lower chance to get dodged, 2.4% lower chance to be parried, and a 0.8% higher chance to crit.
• Haste rating is also complicated. It only affects white damage. 10.5 points of haste rating will make you attack 1% faster.
• Armor penetration is so rare that it's hard to calculate its exact effect on your performance, but it's a very good thing and, like haste rating, is generally found on extremely good epics.
• Dodge rating gives you 1% chance to dodge an enemy attack for every 18.9 dodge rating points.
• Resilience gives you 1% less chance to be critically hit and 2% less damage from critical hits. This is not useful for raiding rogues, as you're doing something wrong if you're tanking a mob. On that note ...
• If your gear contains very high Defense, Parry or Armor ratings, your guild probably has one or more angry feral druids, prot warriors, or prot pallies plotting your eventual death. While these attributes can technically help you, you really don't need them in raiding PVE. Give the King's Defender to the plate tanks and the Treads of the Den Mother to your bearish friends.

Now, if you're like me, you're probably curled up in a fetal position in the corner at the thought of trying to figure out how all these affect your DPS. Dammit, if I wanted to play a game with math, I'd look for an adult version of Number Munchers! Luckily, other rogues have done the hard work for us.

The Agility Equivalence Points System is Ming's brainchild, and despite one's personal feelings towards the rest of Ming's body of work, this is pretty good. AEP is an effort to convert all of the different rogue stats to a single rating system. I used to keep Zodar's AEP charts open when raiding so I could make gear decisions. If I'd been smart enough to do that after BC, I wouldn't have passed on Drape of the Dark Reavers.

The old AEP formula, preserved for posterity on WoWWiki, is 1 Agility = 1 Stamina = 2 Strength = .1% Crit. = .2% Dodge = .13% Parry = .13% To Hit = 2 Attack Power = 5 Weapon Skill = 4 Any Resistance = 5 Health/5 Sec. = 50 Armor. There were mods that automatically calculated an item's AEP for you, and added it to your item tooltip. But itemization has changed in TBC, and Ming and Zodar figured that it was time to rework the formulas. Now there are three types of AEP. Ming's PVP-oriented AEP goes by simple "AEP" on shadowpanther.net, while there are two new AEP calculations for PVEers: DAEP for raiding, and MAEP for total maximum PVE damage ignoring survivability. These formulas are:

DAEP: 1 Agi = 2 Sta = 2 Str = 1 Hit = 1 Crit = 2 AP = 100 Resil = 1 Haste = 1 Wp Skill = 66.6 Def = 100 Dod/Par/Arm/Resist = .143 B Gem = .133 R/Y Gem = .05 Meta Gem

MAEP: 1 Agi = 20 Sta = 2 Str = 1 Hit = 1 Crit = 2 AP = 100 Resil = 1 Haste = 1 Wp Skill = 66.6 Def = 100 Dod/Par/Arm/Resist = .25 B Gem = .133 R/Y Gem = .05 Meta Gem

Are you still not satisfied with this system? After all, hit rating declines in worth as you reach the hit cap, which messes up the whole thing. Wouldn't you like a personalized AEP analysis based on your gear and spec that also comes with a recommendation for damage cycles? Oh, and it also lets you quickly compare the actual effect of changing an item, enchant, buff or gem on your overall buffed and unbuffed raid DPS?

The Rogue DPS Spreadsheet lets you see what effect changing anything in your gear or changing your own buffs will have on your raid DPS. It also calculates a personalized AEP formula based on your needs. The wonderful rogues Chalon, Pf and Ellos, with the help of the Elitist Jerks forumgoers, have maintained the spreadsheet through the years. There is nothing I can say to describe what a great tool this is, and its minor drawbacks (some missing gems and gear) are overpowered by the vastness of its awesomeness. You'll need Microsoft Excel to run it, though you can use a limited version by downloading Open Office. Ever since Phil mentioned this in the last post's comments, I keep it constantly open in the background when raiding. What buff would help more on this boss? Do I want Might or Kings? If I can't Rupture, what's the second-best choice? It's like a Magic Eight Ball for rogues.

Anyway, those are some of the tools that can help you become a better raider, even though all the tools in the world won't protect you from stupid mistakes! Raiders, what advanced recommendations do you have for rogues?

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

When I was but a young rogue, I shunned stunlocking in all its forms. "Only cowards stun their enemies," I would say. "I prefer to face the enemy head on." Then again, I also leveled to 60 as a dagger rogue who Sinister Struck and wouldn't stun, which serves as strong anecdotal evidence that I was stupid.

Then one day a kind fellow rogue took me under his wing and showed me that stunlocking can actually be an effective way of killing enemies, not to mention getting behind them once in a while to throw a Backstab or two. Eventually, I realized that stunning wasn't cheap -- it was the only way for rogues to survive. So for the benefit of my past self, and any other overly ethical rogues out there, I present a guide to the art of the stunlock.

Abilities: The principle behind stunlocking is keeping your enemy incapacitated while performing high-damage moves. Rogues have several abilities that are important to stunlocking:

• Cheap Shot: Your first move. This stuns the target for four seconds and awards you two combo points. It gives you time to do some damage and awards you combo points for:
• Kidney Shot: The big stun. This finishing move stuns your target for one second, plus one second for each combo point you have. So if you have five combo points, your target will be stunned for six seconds.
• Gouge: Does 105 damage, plus incapacitates the target for 4 seconds (5.5 with talents.) Not a true stun, since you cannot do damage without breaking Gouge, but it gives you time to prepare a move, regain energy, or even restealth and prepare for another Cheap Shot in PVP(if you have the 5.5 second Gouge.)
• Blind: Causes the target to move around slowly and confusedly for 10 seconds. This gives you time to restealth in PVP, bandage, regain energy, etc.
• Vanish: Makes you invisible for 10 seconds, drops combat, and puts you back in stealth. Note: hunter and warlock pets will still attack you!
• Premeditation: This talented ability in the Subtlety tree adds two combo points to your target for 10 seconds, but requires you to be stealthed.

Tactics: So how do you stunlock? There are a lot of different formulas, depending on your build. Cheap Shot > Sinister Strike > Gouge > Sinister Strike > Kidney Shot is a nice mini-combo if you don't want to do a full stunlock, and a good starter for any rogue. If you must memorize one thing about stunlocking, that's what you want to remember.

If you're a rogue who has Hemorrhage in the Subtlety tree, it can go Cheap Shot > Hemorrhage x2 > Kidney Shot > Hemorrhage x1 > Gouge > Restealth > Repeat, or you can move the Gouge up and only Hemo once the first time. If you decided to go for a more Assassination-oriented dagger build, you can Cheap Shot > Backstab > Gouge > Sinister Strike > Kidney Shot > Backstab > Gouge > Sinister Strike > Finisher, or Cheap Shot > Sinister Strike > Gouge > Kidney Shot > Backstab > Blind > Restealth > Repeat except for Blind.

Mutilate rogues will find themselves with more combo points, and will also want to try to toss Shiv in to get Crippling Poison on their target if it doesn't take right away. Combat rogues will often find it difficult to stunlock unless they pop Adrenaline Rush. Really evil rogues who take Cold Blood, Preparation and Hemorrhage can pretty much do whatever they want. A classic stunlock for this build is Ming's lock, which is Cheap Shot > Sinister Strike > Gouge > Kidney Shot > Backstab > Blind > Restealth > Cold Blood > Cheap Shot > Eviscerate > Gouge > Backstab. This will finish off most classes.

There are as many ways to stunlock as there are rogue builds, and good rogues will know when to improvise. For more formulas, check out http://www.wowwiki.com/Stunlock, Ming's Dueling Guide, or the wonderful Osiris's Rogue PVP Guide.

Counters: Unlike mobs, any player can get out of stunlock as long as they have their PVP trinket equipped. Luckily for us, many inexperienced PVPers will not wear their trinkets when grinding, or will pop it when they first get Cheap Shotted (leaving you available to Vanish or restealth and Cheap Shot them yet again.) But aside from that, a few classes have a way to get out of stuns:

• Mages can Blink out of stuns, and out of range of your melee attacks. This will often be followed by them Frost Novaing you and then moving far away to hit you with a large fireball or frostbolt. And that's why Blizzard gave you Cloak of Shadows. COS or Imp Sprint to them and resume your assault.
• Paladins can Divine Shield out of stuns, and most of them are smart enough not to blow it on Cheap Shot. Instead, they'll wait until they're low on HP, shield, and heal themselves. When they're shielded, rebandage if they're healing and restealth if possible (if they're not blowing the area up with Consecrates.) You'll essentially be starting the fight over, but they'll be lacking some mana and you'll be lacking health and stealth if you didn't get to bandage. Paladins are tough.
• Beast Mastery hunters have a 41-point talent that makes them immune to stuns, etc. for 18 seconds.
• Orcs of all kinds have a passive resistance to stuns. This can be countered by rolling a Horde character. Several other classes can spec into talents that give them stun resistance.

This is intended to be a basic guide to stuns, so I may have missed something. I'm not a PVP master, so I usually just use simple combos and don't spend time devising intricate locks with Thistle Tea and Renataki's. Feel free to toss in your own stunlock ideas!

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

You've made a rogue, leveled it to 70, and have managed to finagle yourself a rogue spot in a raiding guild, which in itself may have required bribes/blackmail/sexual favors. Now you're standing in front of Kara, Gruul's Lair or SSC, and you suddenly realize: I have no clue what I am doing.

Like every other class, the rogue raid game at 70 is dramatically different from how you played when leveling. You can't expect to jump right into the raid and top the damage meters. Young padawan, you must learn to raid. And we are here to help.

1. Come prepared. Yeah, showing up at the right place at the right time is a big part of raiding, but there's a lot more to being ready to raid than just being physically present. First of all, read up on the strategy for the boss you're facing. Asking "What does this boss do?", or worse, not asking and wiping the raid, is a good way to ensure you'll never be back in that instance. Take five minutes before the raid and check out Bosskillers or WoWWiki.

Another aspect of coming prepared is bringing consumables. For rogues, this means poisons/sharpening stones, battle elixirs, and healing potions at a minimum. You want to always keep a stack of Instant Poison, Deadly Poison, and Anesthetic Poison on you at all times, and I also bring all the other poisons in case the enemies are vulnerable to them. Good battle elixirs include Fel Strength Elixir, Onslaught Elixir and Elixir of Major Agility. I also bring Elixir of Major Fortitude, Insane Strength Potion and Haste Potion.

Your raid will also want you to download certain mods. Some form of boss mod and threatmeter is pretty much essential to fights nowadays -- I use Deadly and KTM, respectively, but there are many choices. Damage meters can be good if you want to compare your performance to other rogues, but can become the bane of raid groups if you get the "I'm topping the damage meters! I'm topping the damage meters!" attitude. There are a number of rogue-specific addons as well. Three worth mentioning are Slicer, which provides a visual timer for your Slice and Dice, PoisonPouch, which makes buying and applying poisons easy, and StunWatch, which can help you time your stuns on trash.

And finally, make sure you're personally prepared for the raid. Eat if you're hungry, drink if you're thirsty, finish your work or homework, close the naked picture website. I like to concentrate on the raid (and alt-tab out during breaks to read forums) -- however, the top rogue in my guild raids on speed and techno music and does great. Whatever enables you to have fun and do your best.

2. Get a decent raiding spec. "Decent raiding specs" include combat swords/fists/maces, combat daggers, and (against non-poison-immune bosses) mutilate. Generally, anything deep in the subtlety tree is not going to be great for raiding, although there are still some diehard hemo spec players. Combat is best for sustained DPS, as it benefits the most from gear upgrades and can also function as a pretty good PVP spec. Mutilate can work well if you have the gear for it, as mutilate crits can be sky-high, but the spec hits the dust when the boss is immune to poison.

Currently, combat swords is considered to be the build with the maximum potential DPS, but the combat swords playstyle isn't for everyone. If you have a spec idea, feel free to post it on the rogue forums and ask them for comments.

3. Know that you can do more than just damage. Specifically, you can stun, interrupt and poison. Stuns are invaluable when fighting hard-hitting trash mobs. Stunning trash can help keep your healers' mana up and your tanks alive. However, most tanks want to get a couple whacks in on the mob before you Cheap Shot it, unless you are utterly confident that you can either burn it down before it gets out of stunlock or tank it yourself. But if you have, say, an undergeared tank getting smacked for one-fourth of his health each time by a Kara mob, you might just want to step in and save the day. Stunlocking is easiest with a mutilate build, but even combat types can help out with the stuns if you have enough combo points at an opportune moment.

Interrupting spells is another important part of a rogue's job. A lot of trash mobs and even a few bosses (Shade of Aran, Magtheridon's channelers) have spells that need to be interrupted. Know when you're facing one of these mobs and put Kick on an easily-accessible hotkey. Many of these mobs cast spells quicker than your Kick cooldown will be up, so discuss who's going to stop what spells with your local other rogue/warrior/shaman. You don't want to kick a shadowbolt and then be caught with your pants down when the mob decides it's time to heal.

Poisons ... well, poisons serve many functions for a rogue. Instant Poison and Anesthetic Poison do direct damage. The latter should be used on aggro-sensitive fights, since its damage doesn't cause threat. Deadly Poison causes damage over time and stacks up to 5 times, and can be a nice way to keep dealing damage during any phase where you can't directly attack the mob. Crippling Poison slows the mob, which is excellent in PVP but doesn't often come in handy on boss fights. Mind-numbing Poison, which can slow the enemy's casting time by 60 percent, and Wound Poison, which can do damage and reduce healing effects on the enemy, are both excellent in certain situations -- however, most bosses are immune to these poisons. When they're not, though, the poisons do a great job. The channelers on Magtheridon are good examples of where to use these poisons.

4. Know where to be. You want to be behind your opponent at all times. If you're doing your damage through Backstab and Mutilate, the reason's pretty clear -- you can't use these abilities from the front. But even if you're swords, maces or fists, you should be behind the mob for a couple of reasons. First off, a lot of bosses cleave these days, and cleaves tend to be 180 degrees in front of the mob. Staying in the back will keep you from getting one-shotted by a nasty cleave. Secondly, mobs can parry attacks made from the front, but not from behind, so positioning yourself at the rear will increase your white damage. And finally, on most fights, it's easier for all the melee to stay together. That way, you can get chain healed and holy novaed, and if you notice all the other melee running away, it's a good sign that you should run away too.

Speaking of running away, most boss fights require some of that these days. The time of Ebonroc and Ragnaros is long past, and your bosses are likely to run around, AOE, or knock you into walls. Your boss mods should tell you when the boss is set to use certain abilities, so make sure which abilities require you to run (whirlwinds!), which require you to avoid other people (shatter!) and which require you to not move or your raid leader will hunt you down and kill you (flame wreath!)

5. Figure out the right finishing moves. You're going to be using Sinister Strike/Backstab/Mutilate most of the time, but there's still the question of what to do with your combo points. Out in the wilds of Azeroth, you probably spent them on Kidney Shots or Eviscerates, neither of which is ideal in a raiding environment. The most important thing for finishing moves is to always have Slice and Dice up. By increasing your attack speed, it increases your white damage and adds more to your DPS than any other finishing move. Each raiding spec -- combat swords/maces/fists, combat daggers, and mutilate -- has its own finisher rotations. The consensus seems to be:

Combat swords: 2pt Slice and Dice, 5 pt Rupture, repeat. If you have the two-piece Tier 4 bonus, do 1 pt Snd/5 pt Rupture. (In general, Rupture does more damage than Eviscerate.)

Combat daggers: 3 pt Slice and Dice, 5 pt Slice and Dice, 5 pt Rupture, repeat.

Mutilate: Depends, since the combo point generation is so much faster than combat. Always keep up Slice and Dice. If you have Vile Poisons and a stack of 5 Deadly Poisons on the target, Envenom can do quite a bit of damage since it ignores armor, although this is still up for debate. Spearmint of Gilneas suggests "Garrote, Mutilate, SnD if it was a crit, Mutilate again then SnD if it wasnt, Mutilate, Rupture if I'm at 4 points (probably not), Mutilate again then Rupture if not. Rinse and repeat." Mutilating again when you're at four combo points is a waste of one or two combo points.

6. Above all, learn. Learn from your class leader. Learn from the other rogues in your guild. Learn from rogues in rival guilds. Learn from the Armory. Learn from the forums. Learn from Shadowpanther's gear chart. If your DPS is lacking, ask what you can do to improve before someone tells you you need to improve. If someone does tell you you need to improve, listen to what they say.

What other advice would you give to raiding rogues?

 

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

#1: Secunia Personal Software Inspector

Quite possibly the most useful and important free application you can have running on your Windows machine.

It can be used to scan all the installed applications on the PC to determine which programs are missing security patches/updates.

The tool works by by examining files on your computer (primarily .exe, .dll, and .ocx files) for meta information on specific software builds installed. After examining all the files on the machine, the collected data is sent to Secunia’s servers and matched against the Secunia File Signatures engine determine the exact applications installed on your system.

It can be used to flag insecure/end-of-life software and find direct download links to missing security updates.

It monitors more than 4,200 desktop applications.

#2: OpenDNS

Must-have free service (there's no software to install) that speeds up Web surfing, corrects domain typos on the fly and protects you from phishing scams.

All you do is change your DNS settings (instructions here) to the OpenDNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220

OpenDNS also offers parental controls, shortcuts and other nifty features to help with safe and reliable browsing experience.

#3 AVG Anti-virus Free Edition

The most popular free solution available at no cost to home users and provides the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers.

#4: Haute Secure

A browser plug-in currently available for Microsoft's Internet Explorer that does realtime blocking of drive-by malware downloads.

The tool, the brainchild of for ex-Microsoft staffers, fits behavior-based profiling algorithms into the browser (Firefox support is coming soon) to identify and intercept malicious files in real-time.

#5: GMER anti-rootkit

A free rootkit scanning tool built by Polish Windows internals guru, is widely hailed as the best at ferreting out stealth rootkits from PCs.

GMER does an excellent job of finding hidden processes hidden services, hidden files hidden registry keys, hidden drivers and all kinds of driver hooking.

It can also serve as a process explorer to monitor the creating of processes, the loading of drivers and libraries and file function and registry entries.

#6: Netcraft Toolbar

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.

Ransomware: software that encrypts your data, and then charges you for the decryption key. More and more of these trojan are creaping onto the internet recently.

PandaLabs points out that this is not the first time such a Trojan has made the rounds, citing PGPCoder as having a "long record on the ransomware scene." Ransom.A is another Trojan that presented to the user both a shorter time frame and a significantly lower bounty -- a file was to be deleted every 30 minutes unless the user paid up the ransom of $10.99. Finally, Arhiveus.A also encrypted user files, but instead of demanding money, instead demanded that the user purchase products from an online drug store.

There appears to be no information available regarding what happens when the user attempts to contact the address in the e-mail or whether the alleged decrypting software actually does the job it's supposed to do. Gostev places a strong warning on his blog, however, saying that if you find yourself infected with Sinowal.FY, Gpcode.ai, or any other type of ransomware, do not pay up "under any circumstances." It also doesn't appear as if there is currently any antivirus solution that can help decrypt the files once they are encrypted, although Gostev says that the Kaspersky Lab team is currently working on a decryption routine.

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This weblog is hosted by Ryan Stevens.