My first Cafe World post turned 1 year this month. As a tribute to that post and to the cafe world series of post, I am revisiting it now and will share some highlights:
The original post gave menardconnect.com more than 60,000 views 🙂
The post is pagerank 1
The original post gave way to some 12 follow up blog articles and some of the follow-up post gave me more than 10,000 page views too
Post has a lively share of commenters (comment count at 55)
With the help of my online friends this post taught me how to do post to post link exchange
The cafe world post series also gave me chance to experiment on other blog monetization techniques
The only lowlight is that my Menardconnect Cafe in Facebook Cafe World is inactive for some time now. After Cafe World I have tried other Facebook games and I find it really difficult to maintain a lot of Facebook games all active at the same time.
Thanks to Facebook, Zynga, Google and Yahoo (and Bing too?) for making this café world post a success. 🙂
Blizzard released the cinematic intro video for World of Warcraft Cataclysm expansion last week. The game company is building up momentum for the December 7, 2010 launch of Cataclysm.
The cinematic starts with the Cataclysm’s main antagonist, Deathwing the Destroyer with his new massive elementium armor reforged and being fitted to him in Deepholm. The Shattering follows in the cinematic wherein earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and floods devastated the world of Azeroth.
Here is the text of Deathwing’s narration for the cataclysm cinematic:
Pain. Agony. My hatred burns through the cavernous deeps. The world heaves with my torment. Its wretched kingdoms quake beneath my rage. But at last, the whole of Azeroth will break!!! And all will burn beneath the shadow of my wings!!!
Deathwing then flies around Azeroth (I recognized some scenery as The Barrens, Darkshore and Thousand Needles among others) with the last part of the cinematic showing black dragon aspect ready to assault Stormwind.
The video has now reached 5 million views in Youtube (as of writing this post), and its interesting to know the what other WoW gamers have in mind for the cinematic via the video comment 🙂 .
1. Shinkansen Shinkansen is the Japanese Bullet Train. We took this Nozomi Shinkansen from Shinagawa to Shin-Osaka. The ride is smooth, fast, comfy and amazingly on-time.
2. Universal Studios Japan
After doing our official business-related activities, we dropped by Universal Studios Japan in Osaka.
3. Universal City Walk
I am not missing Eastwood City Walk as our office already left Libis. But it’s good to see that there is another City Walk here in Osaka and decorations are all ready for the Halloween.
4. Jump Shop
Seen in Jump Shop Universal Studios Osaka. Cool Luffy!
5. Osaka Castle
We tried to go near the Osaka Castle, but I cannot get a decent shot with my low-tech point and shoot cam as it was getting late at night. So I’ll settle with this clear shot of the buildings near the outer walls.
6. Okonomiyaki
And lastly, we had Osaka-styled Okonomiyaki for dinner. My officemates told me that “okonomi” means “to one’s liking” and “yaki” means grilled, so this pancake is a grilled pancake that can contain anything from pork, beef, seafood, veggies or a mixed of anything you like. This is the last 2 slices as we have finished some 3~4 whole Okonomiyaki before (I forgot to take pic, too hungry 🙂 )
Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (WoW) is the most popular MMORPG in the world when it comes to number of subscribers. Their press release boast of 12 million paid subscribers (Source: Blizzard.com October 2010). Given the upcoming launch of World of Warcraft Cataclysm this December 7, 2010 I am expecting that Activision-Blizzard will shatter PC Games sales record again (as they had done so during the The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansion releases).
I am always excited when Gaming and Tech and Security topics collide. So as promised in my earlier WoW post, I will be posting my personal thoughts to my malware blog article. So let’s get started!
First, I will introduce to you the most common World of Warcraft cheats: free wow mount and free wow gifts via in-game chat/whisper scam.
An unsuspecting player will receive an in-game chat/whisper from an unknown player offering free gifts (usually in-game pets, riding mounts, and vehicles) that they can avail of by registering at the website that is included in the chat message.
We will not run out of example of this free wow pet, free wow mount, and free wow gift scam.
For the basic free rare mount from Blizzard like this:
To a more detailed and tempting offer: Free Celestial Steed! Any takers here?
Or just some plain: You just got too lucky and claim your free gift
These chat whispers (and their accompanying phishing websites) are sprouting much faster than how infused mushroom respawn in Dalaran Sewers 🙂
But what is much interesting is the use of WoW postal system (more commonly known as the in-game mail system.) In this new trickery the phishing websites are sent via WoW in-game mail and is received by players in their in-game mailbox:
The scammy mail message is really full of surprises 🙂
subject:
Blizzard
Message:
Surprise!
You get a system test pet of Wings of Liberty of Deathy!
Please Visit:
hxxp://www.<blocked>-ctmtest.com
The message content is very enticing as it combines several elements from other Blizzard games:
Deathy may refer to 2 things: the Black Dragon AspectDeathwing, the major antagonist in the upcoming WoW Cataclysm expansion. Or maybe to Deathy, the murloc pet companion connected with Blizzcon 2010 event
The phishing website URL contains the strings worldofwarcraft and an abbreviatedCataclysm to add to its supposed credibility. This is a common technique in malicious websites that may be related to website typo-squatting.
The common strings that I have observed in this and other malicious WoW websites are Warcraft, WoW, World of Warcraft, Cataclysm, gift, free, mount and battle.net. Just do some misspelling and mixing and matching them together and Voila! A New _WoW_ scam website domain is born!
I will be discussing the “Posing as figures of authority” angle in the next wow post, as this will be a free wow cheats series just like my (free cafe world cheats series, my free social city cheats series and my free petville cheats series)
Some Free WoW advice though:
Beware of this free wow cheats and free wow gifts offers as it may lead to online game account theft. This is a security risk for you and your precious WoW and Battle.net account.
For any Free Wow Stuff offer with that you may encounter just: Think about this: TINSTAAFL: There Is No Such Thing As AFree Lunch. In my opinion this is applicable even in the World of Warcraft.
WoW Cataclysm launch is getting near. The excitement level of WoW gamers are so high… and so are the risks. I am predicting that more WoW scams and more WoW phishing websites will surface as the final Cataclysm launch day draws near! So be extra careful!
And last but not the least: Always stay on the safe side and do safe computing, safe web surfing and safe online gaming! Better safe than sorry OK?
That’s all for now!!!
Hope you like my World of Warcraft WoW blog post 🙂
Before I end this post, some disclosure:
I work at Trend Micro. The post I have here in menardconnect.com are my own personal views (and does not reflect the views/stand of my employer). To know more about me, kindly visit my about page. To know about this blog’s disclosure policy kindly visit my disclosure page.
Image credits:
Figures 1 and 2 -Trend Micro Malware Blog
WordCamp is a blogging conference organized by the local WordPress community. It is done in major cities around the globe and I’ve attended last year’s WordCamp Philippines 2009 at AIM in Makati. This year’s WordCamp Philippines (WordCampPH) 2010 was held last October 2, 2010 at the College of Saint Benilde in Manila.
This is a long overdue post as I usually write about blog events experience a day or two after attending it. But as usual I’m occupied with a lot of other stuff (hehe excuses!) so the long wait over and I’m sharing my WordCamp 2010 experience here 🙂
1. The Matt Factor
Finally met Mr. WordPress himself: Matt Mullenweg. Matt is the founder/developer of WordPress and he hosted a Town Hall-style Question and Answer session for the WordCampPH. Questions about WordPress, Hello Dolly plugin and even the possibility of a movie about his life (ala-Mark Zuckerberg) was gamely responded by Matt.
He is really a very simple guy who gives candid replies to the queries posted on him. I liked Matt’s honest and witty response to the campers. Im following Matt on twitter now 🙂
2. The Sessions
I arrived in the afternoon as I was not feeling well that day 🙁 . But I tried my best and I got in the conference room just in time to attend Danny Arao‘s session on blogging ethics. Again Sir Danny wowed the campers with his views on blogging, journalism and one of his favorite topics (politics 🙂 ). Aside from Matt’s Q & A session I also enjoyed Ms. Aileen Apolo-De Jesus presentation about Google. It’s also great to know about Piclyf (presented by Eric), a homegrown photo-sharing site.
3. WordCamp Innovation
I missed the morning sessions where they had several discussion tracks. But I strongly believe this is a good innovation for WordCampPH as campers can attend several sessions depending on their area of interest and WordPress experience.
Will share related links soon…
The Camper’s website is really cool and have good useful tools for pre-conference announcements/reminders.
4. Funny and Wacky Moments
Campers will surely remember Third’s Bading.me and another blogger’s duduruginkita.com as the funniest and wackiest domain names for WordCampPH (which won them some good wordcamp giveaways). The blogger behind duduruginkita.com (will link to you as soon as I find your main site) even explained he got the domain so that he can have the email address babangonako<at>duduruginkita.com! Nice!
5. Wordcamp Freebies
Cool WordcampPH Shirt (pic coming soon) + of course the WordPress schwags (pics to follow soon) + WordCamp ID and..
6. Prizes Galore!!!
I am really impressed how the organizers gave away so many giveaways (gift checks, free hosting account and other freebies). Maybe there’s are a lot of generous sponsors 🙂
The free WiFi is also a winner and its courtesy of Smart 🙂 so I have twitted some here and here.
Congratulations to the WordPress Philippines 2010 organizers (Andrew, Chattee, Migs, Brendel, Dulce, Lyle, Jim, Ria and Winston)!
Thanks also to the WordCamp sponsors and to CSB student volunteers who helped in the making the event a successful one!
See you in Wordcamp Philippines 2011!
View what others are saying about WordCampPH 2011:
Thanks for a Successful WordCamp Philippines 2010! by Brendel
Blizzard has the tagged the launch with “A New Age Has Begun“. And they say a picture is worth a thousand words so…
Image courtesy of Blizzard (www.blizzard.com)
World of Warcraft Cataclysm will be available on stores starting December 7, 2010. Quoting Blizzard press release:
The expansion will be available on DVD-ROM for Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 and Macintosh® at a suggested retail price of $39.99 and will also be offered as a digital download from the Blizzard Store. A special Collector’s Edition packed with bonus items will be available exclusively in retail stores for a suggested retail price of $79.99.
As I mentioned in my WoW Scam post, Cataclysm is the newest expansion for the World of Warcraft. It features Deathwing, the Black Dragon Aspect as the main antagonist and a lot of new stuff. Read Blizzard’s Press Release here.
December 7, 2010 is an early Christmas for the WoW Fans!
I’m running a hosted wordpress blog and logged in my admin page this evening (October 4, 2010, 11 PM GMT +8) and I noticed that my WordPress Stats seems to be broken. WordPress Dashboard have this Site Stats tab:
and clicking it will redirect me to a login page for my old wordpress.com blog.
I know this wordpress.com and this WordPress Stats plugin was tightly integrated before and is working smoothly. I did not have similar problems for a long long time (xx number of months) until today. Admins can manually enter their wordpress.com account and choose their blog to get their wordpress stats, but hey that’s a messy process for me (and hopefully most admins will agree too).
I searched the net but top results and it points me to old discussions in wordpress.orgsupport forums with entries and updates dated some 1~2 years ago.
Twitter searches about WordPress Stats Broken seems to yield better results: other wordpress bloggers are tweeting about it so I’m not alone 🙂 Twitter is really more real-time!!!
Funny thing here is I am about to post my Wordcamp Philippines 2010 insights, but I guess I can postpone it for another day and try to research more on how to resolve this issue (will update this post asap).
For wordpress bloggers out there: Is your wordpress stats broken too? Share your experience (and solutions too if you have) by leaving some comments here or contact me via my contact page.
Found this Wasak Waltz Full Music Video via UNO Magazine!
Wow!!! What can I say? The song that is on heavy rotation on my ipod and winamp, now have the official full music video. It obvious isn’t it? I love the album and the song. I have blogged profoundly about it here at menardconnect.com: check out my In Love and War Album post and my Wasak Waltz Lyrics post. Ely looks like a cool chickboy doctor in the video 🙂 ! His chick patients are all good looking!
Thanks to Jayvee and UNO Mag, you guys rock! Full video credits below:
Credits:
Artists: Ely Buendia and Francis Magalona
Production House: Furball
Director: Jason Tan
Producer: Maria Diane Ventura and Erwin Romulo
Cinematographer: Anne Monzon
Cinematographer SY: Dix Buhay
Production Manager: Red Banque
Production Designer: Sharon See
Stylist: Mads Adrias
Assistant Stylist: Knell Fabiania
Caster: Norman Crisologo
Make-up: Lilian Yeung
Hair: Buboy Bajado
Lights,grip&crew: Cinerent
Talents: Shawn Yao, Tricia Gosingtian and Alexandra Keuls
Super thanks to Lyle Sacris and Paolo Dy for lending their cameras
Guys and Gals, lets ramp up the views and favorite count for this video!!!
