Iphone Dev Pinoy

The Best Pokemon Medallion Battle Tips and Tricks

2020-01-03T13:43:00.002+08:00

The basics of Pokemon Medallion Battle are fun and easy. You choose six Pokemon to form your own team and fight live head-to-head battles against other trainers.

But when it comes to mastering the game, there are a few things you have to consider. Here are some tips to become a Pokemon Medallion Battle Pro:

1. Pokedex is your friend

Use the Pokedex to check the stats, powers and evolution path of a particular pokemon.

2. Gotta catch them all Pokemon Starters
Based on raw stats, powers and evolution growth, the Pokemon Starters are considered the strongest pokemon in the game. At the start of the game, you are only able to choose one out of all 21 currently available Pokemon Starters. But you have another chance to get a new Pokemon Starter by opening the free Star Packs you get every 8 hours in the game.

3. Evolve ASAP
Pokemon may be evolved by spending Candy in increasing amounts depending on their rarity and their resulting tier.

Rarity	To Pokéball	To Great Ball	To Ultra Ball
★	50	100	200
★★	100	200	400
★★★	200	400	800

Save your hard earned Candies for Pokemon that have the best evolved forms - they have a higher CP and possibly higher tier as well.

4. With great power comes great responsibility
There are a variety of powers in Pokémon Medallion Battle, which activate before they fight. Learn how to use them to win your battles:

Super Effective: If activated, multiplies the CP of a Pokémon by either 1.5x, 2x, or 2.5x
- May be activated by your opponent's Pokémon's type or tier
Priority: Allows the Pokémon to fight immediately if its CP is higher
- Affected by Entry Hazards and Support, but not any other abilities
Protect: Prevents a Pokémon from winning or losing
- Using Protect will cause you to go first in the next turn
Reveal: Reveals a random Pokémon on your opponent's Bench
Arena: Increases the CP of Pokémon of a certain type
- Unlike Entry Hazards and Support, Arena takes effect immediately
- Affects both players' Pokémon
Entry Hazards: Reduces the CP of the next Pokémon played by your opponent
Support: Increases the CP of the next Pokémon you play

Once a power is activated, it cannot be used again for the remainder of a battle.{source: bulbapedia}

All 7 Generation Pokemon Starters in Pokemon Medallion Battle

2020-01-03T12:20:00.001+08:00

The free Star Pack you get every 8 hours in the Pokemon Medallion Battle Shop may now contain the following Pokemon Starters:

GEN I: Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle

GEN II: Cyndaquil, Chikorita and Totodile

GEN III: Torchic, Treecko and Mudkip

GEN IV: Chimchar, Turtwig and Piplup

GEN V: Tepig, Snivy and Oshawott

GEN VII: Litten, Rowlet and Popplio

GEN VI: Fennekin, Chespin and Froakie

How to show your Twitter timeline in true chronological order

2018-09-18T07:51:00.000+08:00

This ✨magical link✨ shows your Twitter timeline in true chronological order—without retweets, liked tweets, or any algorithm nonsense. (On mobile? Click “Latest.”) Enjoy! https://t.co/Q6h6pV20wV
— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) August 17, 2018

My Bitcoin Experiment

2017-11-02T10:45:00.001+08:00

I bought my very first bitcoin last August 27, 2017. To be more specific, I loaded 100 PHP to my coins.ph account and converted that same amount to 0.00044463 BTC.

Back then you can buy 1 whole bitcoin for a whopping 224, 907 pesos! I don't have that much disposable money lying around so I just settled with purchasing 100 pesos worth of bitcoin that day. And just like that I'm suddenly a proud owner of 0.00044463 bitcoin or 44,463 satoshis! Yey!

I further increased my bitcoin investment from 0.00044463 BTC to 0.00386646 BTC after two additional PHP to BTC conversions. I first converted my 10 pesos coins.ph bonus to BTC. I then loaded 1000 pesos (with 20 PHP coins.ph transaction fee) and converted the entire 1000 pesos to BTC.

So back in Oct 13, 2017 my 0.00386646 BTC was worth 1,108.72 PHP.

You'll notice from the screenshot below that the BTC exchange rate has increased to 297,470 PHP from 224, 907 PHP for 1 bitcoin!

Fast forward to today, November 2, 2017...

... my 1,120 PHP investment is now 1,344.28 PHP all thanks to bitcoin and coins.ph!

As bitcoin continues to soar in value, I'm thinking of purchasing some more. But I know this bitcoin mania may turn out to be a bubble and all of it will come crashing down in the near future. If it ever comes crashing down, I'll be left with a loss of 1,120 PHP. But if bitcoin goes to the moon, well...

Unofficial Hearthstone Magazine February 2017 Issue

2017-02-17T11:29:00.000+08:00

My 1st attempt at making a Hearthstone magazine cover...

Here's version #2

Upgrading my MacBook (Aluminum, Late 2008) with a Samsung 850 Evo SSD (250GB)

2017-02-01T16:48:00.000+08:00

Back in early 2014, I upgraded my then ancient MacBook (Aluminum, Late 2008) from a measly 2GB to a whopping 8GB of RAM. The speed improvement when booting up and opening apps was glorious indeed. I was planning back then to also replace the stock hard drive (HDD) with a solid state drive (SSD) but I thought the 8GB RAM upgrade would do me just fine. And so I put off the SSD upgrade until the time that I could justify the need for one.

Fast forward to 2017 where my old reliable MacBook is evidently performing not so well anymore. 8 years of continuous daily use had taken its toll and I'm left with no choice but to finally replace the stock HDD with an SSD in a last ditch attempt to improve its performance.

I thought it would be easy enough to do the SSD installation on my own. Just buy a Samsung 850 Evo 250GB SSD, clone the contents of the HDD to the SSD, remove the HDD from the MacBook, slap the SSD back in and presto! my MacBook will be running 10x faster in no time.

Easy peasy right? Oh boy was I ever wrong.

First off, I found out that the SSD is not formatted out of the box so I had to do the formatting myself. To do that, I put the SSD in a USB/SATA drive enclosure and connected the SSD to my MacBook via the USB port. I tried to erase and format the SSD using Mac OSX's Disk Utility but the formatting process failed repeatedly. I Googled this particular issue and found out from the various forum threads that it could be due to a faulty or incompatible cable on my USB/SATA drive enclosure. One workaround suggested straight away replacing the HDD with the SSD and using a bootable El Capitan USB drive to format the SSD with the built-in Disk Utility. So I went that route and ended up with the SSD not being detected by the MacBook upon booting up.

Now what? What else am I left to do?

As a last resort, I removed the SSD from the MacBook and again put it back inside the USB/SATA drive enclosure and see if this time around my MacBook's Disk Utility can successfully format the SSD.

Lo and behold, it worked! I guess the cable inside the SATA drive enclosure was loosely connected or something hence the earlier formatting failure. I'm not entirely sure. Anyways, the SSD was formatted successfully and I was then able to clone the contents of the HDD using the Carbon Copy Cloner app.

Next step was to install the SSD on my MacBook. I used a Phillips #0 screwdriver to remove the single screw holding the HDD caddy bracket in place. After several attempts I ended up ruining the cross head.

Notice how you can barely recognize the cross head of the screw? Yep, it became a round head screw courtesy of yours truly.

I tried using a rubber band, super glue and other tricks to remove a stripped screw but to no avail. To cut the long story short, I finally gave up trying, and just brought my MacBook to a laptop repair shop just to have that damn screw removed. And then the repair guy (Sir Tony) was able to remove the screw in just a couple of seconds! Trade secret, he replied when I inquired on how he was able to remove it so easily. (I was not around when he removed the screw).

(To be continued...)

How to prevent iCloud calendar spam

2016-11-30T09:42:00.002+08:00

Here’s what you should do to prevent iCloud calendar spam.

Option #1: If you don’t use iCloud for your calendar, open the Settings app on your iPhone and System Preferences on your Mac. Head over to iCloud settings and disable calendars to stop iCloud syncing and event invitations.

Option #2: If you want to quickly get rid of the spam, just decline the calendar invite. The good thing is that the event will just disappear from your calendar. If it’s still there, make sure you disabled “Show Declined Events” in your calendar app settings. The bad thing is that the spammer will receive a notification, proving that you viewed the notification, you use your calendar and your iCloud email address is valid.

Option #3: Create a new iCloud calendar, move your spam events to this new calendar and delete the calendar. Make sure you press “Delete and Don’t Notify” when you get a prompt. This way, the spammer won’t know that you saw the notification and that this iCloud email address is valid.

Option #4: Go to iCloud.com on your laptop and open the Calendar web app. Click on the gear icon and open Preferences. In the Advanced tab, you can choose to receive calendar invites as emails. The good thing is that your email client could catch the spam before it shows up in your inbox. And emails are less intrusive than calendar alerts anyway. The bad thing is that you won’t receive any push notification for new calendar events, even genuine ones.

{source: techcrunch}

How To Catch Pikachu As Your Starter In Pokemon GO!

2016-07-09T19:59:00.000+08:00

Pickachu, I choose you!

There've been rumors going around that you'll be able to catch Pikachu as one of your starting Pokemons in Pokemon GO! Just like Ash Ketchum, you too can start with a Pikachu of your own and the video below will show you how:

Instead of tapping one of the original Pokemon starters, we need to walk away from them and make them respond 4 to 5 times. Pikachu will then appear along with the 3 original starters and you will then be able to catch him with your Pokeball.

Top 3 Books For Learning iOS Development

2016-03-21T09:20:00.000+08:00

iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide (5th Edition)

iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide leads you through the essential concepts, tools, and techniques for developing iOS applications. After completing this book, you will have the know-how and the confidence you need to tackle iOS projects of your own. Based on Big Nerd Ranch's popular iOS Bootcamp course and its well-tested materials and methodology, this bestselling guide teaches iOS concepts and coding in tandem. The result is instruction that is relevant and useful.

iOS 9 Programming Fundamentals with Swift: Swift, Xcode, and Cocoa Basics

Move into iOS development by getting a firm grasp of its fundamentals, including the Xcode IDE, the Cocoa Touch framework, and Swift 2.0—the latest version of Apple's acclaimed programming language. With this thoroughly updated guide, you'll learn Swift’s object-oriented concepts, understand how to use Apple's development tools, and discover how Cocoa provides the underlying functionality iOS apps need to have.

Programming iOS 9: Dive Deep into Views, View Controllers, and Frameworks

If you’re grounded in the basics of Swift, Xcode, and the Cocoa framework, this book provides a structured explanation of all essential real-world iOS app components. Through deep exploration and copious code examples, you’ll learn how to create views, manipulate view controllers, and add features from iOS frameworks.

How To Play Clash Royale on Your Mac Using Genymotion

2016-03-04T12:12:00.001+08:00

After being soft launched a couple of months ago, Supercell's MOBA + CCG hybrid mobile multiplayer game Clash Royale has been finally released worldwide this week on both iOS [AppStore] and Android [Google Play]. But if you don't own any mobile device, you can still play Clash Royale on your Mac using the android emulator Genymotion. To help you accomplish this, you can follow the steps described below:

1. Download Genymotion here.

2. Download VirtualBox for Mac here.

3. Download Genymotion ARM Translation zip file here.

4. Download Google Play for Android 4.3 zip file here.

5. Install Genymotion and VirtualBox. Open Genymotion, click Add and choose Samsung Galaxy S4 4.3

6. Click Run to start device emulator. Login using GoogleID account when prompted.

7. Drag and drop the Genymotion ARM Translation zip file onto the device. Click Ok when prompted to flash the device. After the operation is finished, restart the device (close and then open it).

8. Drag and drop the Google Play for Android 4.3 zip file onto the device. Click Ok when prompted to flash the device. After the operation is finished, restart the device (close and then open it).

9. Open Google Play and search for Clash Royale to install the game. (If you encounter a "Device not compatible" error message, click on the device Settings -> Apps -> Google Play Store -> Clear Data. Then go back again to Google Play and you will find that Clash Royale can now be installed on your device.)

10. After successfully installing Clash Royale on your device, you will then be prompted to install Google Play Games. Click INSTALL to proceed, and then you'll be able to play Clash Royale on your device.

11. You can now sit back, relax and play Clash Royale on your Mac!

Popular Life Hacks in the Philippines

2016-02-24T12:19:00.000+08:00

You can always ask for a free newspaper in the morning from McDo or Jollibee even if your bill is below the required minimum amount for a free one. They don't usually care.
Mercury Drug sells bottled drinks and other packed foods that are a lot cheaper compared to 7-11 and Mini Stop.
Tired of queueing up at BPI? Take advantage of their express assist online service by scheduling withdrawal and deposit transactions.
Food hacks - if you are working in Makati go buy your food in Jollijeep much cheaper - Hakwer 101, bang for the buck - Cheap massage? Go Nuat Thai for only 250 pesos. - Going to Enchanted Kingdom? There's a shuttle back and forth in Makati/Ayala MRT - Quick merienda? - Get a Turon in SM malls in Makati for 12 pesos only. - Grab Taxi or Uber - you need this to survive the Hell of Manila - Always look out for Grab Taxi coupon codes - Cheap Karaoke in Timezone - Easy tickets in Timezone just play "Big Drop". I managed to get like 5000 of tickets.
If you arrive at NAIA and the queue at the taxi rank is full, catch the free bus to Resorts World on the bottom level (you have to pretend you're going to check in) and then once you get to one of the resorts world hotels, ask the doorman at the hotel to flag you a taxi.
The BPI iOS/Android app has a "Transfer to Anyone" service that does not need for the transferee's account info to be enrolled. Just use wisely.

Philippine Passport Renewal Appointment at MarQuee Mall 2016

2016-02-18T10:07:00.002+08:00

The Department of Foreign Affairs - Satellite Office, Angeles City, located at MarQuee Mall, informs the public that starting 12 January 2016, all applicants who wish to apply will be required a confirmed appointment except for the following:

1. Senior Citizens
2. Pregnant (with medical certificate)
3. Persons with Disability (PWD) (PWD with card / ID)
4. Baby ( 0-12 months old ) ( may include one (1) parent traveling companion legitimate )
5. Minor seven (7) years of age (7 y / o and below) (may include one (1) legitimate parent traveling companion)

How To Get An Appointment:

1. Go personally to DFA Angeles
    Mon - Fri (10am-12pm) (4pm-5pm)
    Sat (10am-12pm) (3pm-4pm)

or

2. Send an email with the following details to angeles.sat@dfa.gov.ph and attach a valid id picture (clear and readable):

Last Name:
First Name:
Middle Name:
Complete address:
Mobile number:

Fallout Shelter: How To Get Infinite Lunchboxes

2015-06-21T06:34:00.003+08:00

Fallout Shelter [AppStore] is an iOS mobile game where you create and manage your on vault as a overseer at Vault-Tec. The main objective is to expand your vault to gather resources, knowledge. and create a thriving community.

A player is rewarded a LunchBox upon completing certain missions and each LunchBox contains 4 Fallout Shelter cards (which can be any multiple of the following: Cap, Food, Water, Power, Weapon, Outfit, Dweller). A player can opt to buy one or more LunchBoxes with real money via iAPs but a certain redditor found a bug which allows a player to get an infinite number of LunchBoxes.

When starting the game out there is a bug that leaves you stuck in "Tutorial Mode". Basically in Tutorial mode every other "collect 50 resources" mission will give you a Lunch Box for a reward rather than caps, As long as you never finish the missions "equip a dweller with an item" (weapon or outfit) and you don"t finish the mission "Sell an item" then you'll have one mission slot that rotates between 3 other "tutorial quests" which have a lunch box reward 66% of the time. The 3 quests you get end up repeating in "tutorial mode" are "collect 50 food", "collect 50 water", and "level up a dweller".

Important to note: You can equip dwellers with weapons and outfits, and you CAN sell items.. but if you turn in those quests then the "tutorial mode" ends and the amount of lunch boxes you get from rewards drops drastically (to below 10%).

I ended up playing on a new vault today for about 4 hours.. in that span time i was able to build a 3 basement deep vault with 4 slots of fully upgraded power and water, which precisely give me 50 of each resource on the timer, and then i was also able to build a plethora of other rooms as well and get my population up to around 30, with 3 legendary dwellers. My economy is horrendously stable and I've opened somewhere in the ballpark of 50 lunchboxes.. I've obtained about 10 legendary cards and 55 or so rare cards. Its been fun.

In short, don't do the sell and item/weapon or the equip armor ones. It makes the third quest cycle between 50 water and 50 food and rank up dweller. Giving you infinite lunch boxes.

Here's How You Can Listen to DZMM AM Radio On Your iOS Device for Free

2015-04-29T10:56:00.000+08:00

Step 1. Download the free Mobile Flash Browser iOS app - Puffin Web Browser Free (App Store)

Step 2. Copy and paste the following url http://dzmm.abs-cbnnews.com/page/audiostreaming.html on your Puffin Web Browser and wait for the page to load. Then press the play button to start listening to DZMM AM Radio station on your iOS device for free!

*You can also listen to the following AM and FM Radio Stations:

DZBB http://streema.com/radios/play/10139
DZRH http://streema.com/radios/play/3378

Monster Radio RX 93.1 http://streema.com/radios/play/2031
Yes FM 101.1 http://streema.com/radios/play/13209
Magic 89.9 http://streema.com/radios/play/2360

Apple Watch Games

2015-03-10T12:27:00.000+08:00

Based on the same puzzle mechanic found in their newest iOS release BlastBall MAX, developer Monkube has adapted the game for the smaller Apple Watch screen and dubbed it BlastBall Duo. The "duo" refers to the multiplayer nature of the game, as this is a 1v1 multiplayer game. The gameplay uses the same make-5-in-a-row with moving board pieces that the bigger BlastBall MAX uses, but condensed down to Apple Watch size. BlastBall Duo should be available sometime in Q2 of this year.

Hatchi has been around for a few years now, and totally nails the look and feel of those old LCD virtual pets that were all the rage in the late '90s. Now with the Apple Watch, your Hatchi will live on your wrist as well as your iOS device. Developer Portable Pixels says the Apple Watch version will arrive as an update to Hatchi following the launch of the device, and will be free for all current Hatchi owners. Because apparently that's something you can do? Cool.

{source:neogaf}

Guide for Rerolling Terra Battle Characters

2014-10-11T11:42:00.000+08:00

Since a newly created Terra Battle account begins with enough Energy to immediately recruit a random character, many players choose to repeatedly create accounts and clear the tutorial until their first free recruitment ("pull"/"Pact") is a particularly strong one. People who have played PaD (Puzzle and Dragon) know exactly what I'm talking about here. If you're not completely sure you're going to stick with this game for a while, it might be worth it to just keep your first pull and then restart once you know you like it, since the early game will go by pretty quickly once you know what you're doing anyway.

Caveat: for a couple reasons, I don't consider rerolling as critical in Terra Battle as it is in PaD. First off, though higher-graded characters are rarer to obtain from a pact, every character in the pact pool is unique to pacts. You will never spend premium currency and get some garbage monster you could farm up in ten minutes just by playing the game. Second, there is no such thing as leader skills in this game, which means that there are no strategies which depend upon owning a specific character. Lastly, the difference between a very rare character and a more common one is far smaller than it is in PaD--the rare character will probably have a gimmick skill or two and slightly higher base stats. For every SS murderboat in the game, there are A or B graded characters who fill the same basic party niche with 90% of the effectiveness, and gain levels faster to boot.

Still, at least half of you are going to bloody well do it anyway, I suppose. It is a definite edge as you approach endgame.

OBLIGATORY REROLL TIERS TO ARGUE ABOUT

Unique named characters are graded B / A / S / SS. The little piece of paper which pops out of the envelope will be gold if the character you're about to get is S or SS. The very first character you obtain is always either Bahl the Dark Duelist or Grace the Archer--these reroll tiers are talking about your first gachapon pull after playing the tutorial. Once you clear chapter 1, you should be able to open your first day bonus in the mail with 5 energy.

The game hasn't been soft launched for that long, I haven't played nearly as much as the Chinese/Japanese sperglords, and this is merely my own personal opinion. Still, I'm pretty confident in making these claims. From most desirable to least:

SS-grade healers
Fighting in this game involves dealing damage and taking it, so you're not going to get very far in this game without healers. Your storyline healers are irredeemably bad*, the best farmable option is only mediocre, revival magic is seriously handy in the endgame, and there's actually not that many dedicated healers in the game. The three SS-grade healers are probably the most uniquely useful characters in the game for this reason. Amimari has a fair amount of offensive power, Amina's revival spell affects the whole party, and A'Misandra has the ability to block enemy healing effects.
It's important to note that their skillsets aren't unique. Two B-grade characters (Sorman and Kuscah) have the same basic skillset--multiple healing spells, a healing boost passive, and a single-target revival spell. Still, if you're going to reroll for anything in particular, a SS healer is the way to go.
Kuscah is apparently going to be given out to all new accounts until 11/3. Enemy damage output in endgame is so high that having two dedicated healers will be quite useful, but endgame is quite a while away. The SS mages may be a better starter pull for the coming month.
SS orbling mages
There are four SS-grade mages who share the same skilset but have different elements; Lewto in Fire, Piz'fer in Ice, Jennish in Lightning, and Zerro in dark. And what a skillset! The big draw is their area-of-effect spells: between their jobs they have access to five stacking Pincer Area spells once fully leveled. Throw in a self-revival passive in their first job and a self-healing spell in the third, and you have a comically durable mage with powerful spells which can affect the whole board.
A and S graded elemental mages also exist, but in general lack the self-revival skill and have only 3-4 nukes. Still, they usually have their own gimmick abilities and will probably actually be superior to the SS grade mages until endgame, because of their lower EXP requirements and easier job changes.
Yukken, the Negotiator
Yukken's skillset is at first glance a pretty ho-hum physical attacker. However, she has access to all three weapon types between her three jobs, which means she'll never be at a triangle disadvantage in a stage. Weapon triangle is pretty drat important in this game, affecting skill proc rates in addition to combo damage. If you're going to guarantee having only one SS attacker, there's a good case to be made that it should be the most versatile one in the game.
Burbaba is an A-graded character who likewise has access to all three weapon types and is a very good starting pull for the same reason. Lategame, he'll fall off due to his more defensive i.e worse passives and three attacking skills compared to Yukken's completely ridiculous array.
The rest of SS grade
I mean, everything's in this grade for a reason, right? For reference, the rate of pulling a SS-grade character seems to be approximately 5%. The tutorial can be run in maybe 6 minutes. Have fun!
Levitate-users??
The first really bad wall the game will throw at you is in Chapter 18, which is really quite obnoxious since it gates access to the good job change farming areas. Chapter is incredibly, obscenely, throw-your-phone-annyoing because of the huge number of stage hazards in it. Characters who have access to Levitation--Eileen in A grade and Gatz/Zafitte/Ellvern/Gegonago in S grade--quite possibly justify their existence as starters solely by their ability to trivialize chapter 18. The flip side is that easy access to Levitation takes up space in the skillset which could be used for offensive skills. Of the five, only Gatz has access to offensive skills before job change, and Eileen never gets any. Still, probably worth it.
Characters with direct combat skills
Characters who don't get any damaging/healing skills in their first job are similar to dedicated supporters in other games--often quite good, but not if they have nobody else to support. Take a pass on them for your first character, for that reason. Almost as bad are theoretically combat-focused characters who don't get their first attack until level 35 or 65.
Everything else
Seriously, if your first pull is something without an early attack skill or anything else distinguishing, your life is going to be miserable for a while.

TIPS AND TRICKS

There was talk going around of people who followed the game's twitter getting a code for 5 energy (i.e one additional pull) upon the release of the game. If it's implemented as I suspect it's implemented--as a single code which is just distributed to everybody and invalidated in a few days--a single reroll attempt will give you two shots at a good starter pull just as soon as anyone can figure out what the code is. EDIT: here it is dhth66nWXVCbjdTC; go to Options to input it.
There is a toggle to speed up combat animations in the upper right of the battle UI. No, I don't know of a way to automatically turn it on every fight.
Quitting the app and reloading in the middle of the battle will return you to the beginning of the current floor. Poor decisions over whether or not the game refreshes the RNG seed/monster spawn has plagued this game since the beginning of beta. Players were at various points, abusing this behavior to reroll individual farming zones in hopes of rare spawns, or trying to find the correct sequence of moves which would guarantee a drop. More confusingly, the iOS and Android versions of the game had different save/load behavior at different points. At the very least, you can still force quit the app if you're in a story dungeon run which has gone south, allowing you to restart the current floor.
Your stamina refreshes when you clear a chapter for the first time. Try not to waste too much of it, though it may be unavoidable in the beginning of the game.
For quite a while, the best bet for leveling up your characters is going to be the hourly Metal Zone dungeons. They can be rather infuriating, since enemies in the dungeons will flee if not killed instantly, but the experience return for your stamina is unrivaled. Remember that you can bring characters higher than the level cap (they just won't get experience) and that bringing a team of less than six characters increases the individual share of experience each character gets. The Japanese wiki (linked at the top of this post) is currently the only web site I know of which displays Metal Zone times, though I don't make any claims for accuracy.
If Metal Zones are not open, or you have a team of disparate levels to power up, some of the storyline stages have much higher experience yields than others. Since you get an experience bonus for killing many enemies in a single turn, and another one for getting kills on the first turns of a floor, the ideal experience farming stage is one with large blocks of enemies which you can easily kill with a single combo. 10-6 (19K xp), 12-5 (25K xp), and 20-1 (200K xp, but hellish to run) are popular.
Certain points in the story are quite nice to get to. Chapter 4 gives you a free B-graded elemental sword character and a job change for your starting character. Chapter 8 unlocks the second Metal Zone. Chapter 9 unlocks the second Hunting Zone. Chapter 10 gives you a free S-graded status healer. Chapter 12 unlocks the third Metal Zone. Chapter 17 unlocks the fourth Metal Zone. Chapter 18 unlocks the third Hunting Zone.
Job Changes in this game are not analogous to "evolution" in the traditional sense. When one of your characters gains an additional job, you can freely switch them between their learned jobs. Each job has its level tracked individually (so a character could be level 30 in their first job but only level 10 in the second) as well as a unique skillset. Second and third jobs have higher stats and often stronger skillsets but you are encouraged to level all of a character's jobs, since characters may "import" learned skills from their other jobs.
The Hunting Zone rotates between days of the week, and generally provides the materials required to job change. Tuesday drops elemental rings and (very rarely) ores. Wednesday drops weapon materials and (somewhat rarely) tears/particles. Thursday dungeon drops both tier 1 and tier 2 racial materials. In order to job change, a character will generally need 15 of their racial material, 15 of a specific elemental ring or weapon material, and 3 rarer special items. A and B grade characters need 3 Tears for their second job, and 3 Particles for their third. S and SS characters need three Ores for both their jobs.
Exception: for their second job change, SS grade characters require a rare weapon drop from a specific boss. By all accounts the drop rate is infuriatingly low, but at least you can target the drop you want. Unfortunately, a recent patch changed around the drop locations, so I don't have a guaranteed accurate list for you right now. I'll edit one in here when I find it.
Tears can be found with decent probability in Hunting Zone 2, but searching for Ores and Particles is kind of a fool's game. You should consider waiting until Hunting Zone 3 to search for those--with the caveat that Hunting Zone 3 is gated by Chapter 18. Chapter 18 is kind of a brick wall for low-information players, and you may need the power boost from job changes to get past it. It's an annoying double bind, and choosing either to grind for job change materials or levels will be infuriating either way.
A particular farmable mob, the Regenercell, is the next best choice for players who did not start with a powerful healer. You are simply Not Going to Get Past Chapter 18 with the healer the game gives you at the beginning. Regenercells can be farmed from stages 14-7 and 14-10, and you should absolutely bite the bullet if you're still stuck with the default healer at that point.

{source: somethingawful}

Stream Torrented Movies Without Jailbreaking Your iPhone/iPad

2014-10-09T08:38:00.000+08:00

MovieBox is an iOS app where you can browse through a bunch of popular movies and tv shows and then start streaming them right away. From there, you can select the quality of the stream you want, then start watching. While MovieBox doesn't require a jailbreak, it does require a workaround to install it. Here's what you need to do:

First: Go to Settings >> General >> Date & Time. Deselect Automatic and change the date to September 16th
Second: Open Safari and visit this page http://www.pgyer.com/moviebox
Third: Tap the green button to install Movie Box
Fourth: Open MovieBox after it has installed and tap Trust on the developer notice
Fifth: Return to Settings >> General >> Date & Time and switch back to Automatic

{source: lifehack}

Where can I buy the cheapest iPhone 6 in the Philippines?

2014-10-06T09:54:00.001+08:00

The iPhone 6 is not yet officially available in the Philippines (iPhone 5S is still the latest iPhone available on Apple Store PH as of October 6, 2014) but you can still get Apple's bigger than bigger smartphone from some reputable online stores.

The cheapest iPhone 6 (16 GB model) available right now so far can be purchased from Lazada's online shop for P37,890.

DBGadgets (link)

Price List as of 8/6/14:
Apple iPhone 6 16GB – P39,500
Apple iPhone 6 64GB – P45,000
Apple iPhone 6 128GB – P49,990

KimStore (link)

Price List as of 8/6/14:
Apple iPhone 6 16GB – P38,900
Apple iPhone 6 64GB – P44,900
Apple iPhone 6 128GB – P50,000

Lazada (link)

Price List as of 8/6/14:
Apple iPhone 6 16GB – P37,890
Apple iPhone 6 64GB – P42,350
Apple iPhone 6 128GB – P47,140

A Photoshop Template of Apple Watch GUI

2014-09-23T08:35:00.002+08:00

The first Apple Watch GUI PSD. The idea is to help other designers get off the ground designing beautiful Apple Watch apps faster and better. This is also a way of us giving back to the design community. We've been able to learn a lot using the tools and templates made by amazing designers.

{source: dribble}

Terra Battle Strategies, Tips and Tricks

2014-09-16T09:08:00.000+08:00

Terra Battle (Apple App Store Google Play Store) is an online free-to-play tactical RPG puzzle game by Mistwalker, Hironobu Sakaguchi's video game development studio. The mobile game is similar to Tetra Master, where you move freely around a grid-based map to flank your enemies and crush them in a pincer attack.

To help you get the most out of this game, here are a few Terra Battle strategies, tips and tricks:

1. Make sure to login and play everyday. You get bonus coins and energy for consecutive daily plays.

2. You gain additional 5% boost for monster creatures when you get a duplicate monster drop.

3. Farm the 3rd battle in Chapter 3 to level up quickly and get skill boosts. There's a sequence there where you have 4 to 5 monsters arranged vertically that you can kill easily in 1-2 turns, and get massive experience bonus.

4. Grind the Metal Zone 1 early on (opens after Chapter 2) to the max level 20 with your 6 starter characters. You'll need to grind gold during the weekend coin events to pay the 1000 coin entry fee.

5. As much as possible, try to move multiple characters in a single turn. Characters can be positioned to execute chain attacks with allies. Take advantage of bonus items on the map to boost your attack combos.

6. Take some time to raise the second job of your multi-job characters since the stats may end up being way better. Also at level 20 you unlock another slot to use another skill of the other jobs so you can have your second job with the skills of the first as well and vice versa.

7. Having 2 healers in your party of 6 is great for boss fights.

8. Save you energy for recruiting rare characters that can undergo 3 types of job changes.

9. Try to kill as many enemies as possible in single turns, in order to rack up an experience multiplier. Optimal areas will tend to have both large amount of enemies and formations that encourage multipliers.

10. (Added on 8/6/2014) There are some Terra Battle monsters with top-tier skills that can be farmed from certain chapter levels:

Level 3-5
Lizardfolk Hero (Spear) - a little better than the standard knight
Beastfolk Hero (Sword) - a little better than the standard warrior

Level 4-3
Sabertooth King (Spear) -multiple spear attacks

Level 6-10
Cybergolem (Sword) - learns megasword,gigasword and sleep attacks

Level 7-10
Mantledrake (Wizard) - comes with multiple fire spells

Level 9-10
Golem (Spear) - high defense, has both spear and sword attacks

Level 14-7
Regencell (Healer) - definitely an improvement over the standard healer, comes with more healing spells and better stats

Suggested Areas for Power Levelling
-Metal Zones (very high EXP yields, varying stamina and gold requirements)
-Level 5-8 (~11,000 EXP / 7 stamina)
-Level 12-5 (~25,000 EXP / 10 stamina)

Harry Potter's Story From Severus Snape's Perspective

2014-09-03T10:05:00.001+08:00

His home life left a lot to be wanted. Poverty in the sixties in England was no joke, especially in a mill town where alcoholism and beating the family was the norm, rather than the exception. Pre-Thatcher UK was a different place. Working class people did not get to hang around middle class or upper class ones. It was unheard of. And even though his father was worse than most, he still would have grown up fine if he wasn't different.

Crooked teeth due to malnutrition causing his jaw to be underdeveloped. His nose had been broken by his father so many times that it would never have a semblance of normalcy. His mother didn't do much. His father didn't like much of anything. Always hungry, resorting to hand-me-downs not only from his father because they were too scarce, but from his mother as well. He was bullied relentlessly. He learned to steal, lie, cheat and fight very well by then.

He was nine years old. Both his curse and his hope could be summed up in one word: magic. And he had found someone he could share it with. Her name was Lily. They couldn't meet in public, because she was middle class, and the scandal would cause both their parents to force them apart. But that would be fine, because once they went to Hogwarts, they could be seen together in public. And that made everything seem better.

Severus Snape got sorted into Slytherin. He heard good things about it from his mother, when she spoke of a time when she wasn't so beaten down. Lily was in Gryffindor. His hope that they could be seen together in public vanished in that moment. His hope for acceptance from his peers got destroyed by the first night, when he was beaten for being a mongrel, a half-breed. His impure blood and his poverty made him a pariah in his own house.

Four Gryffindor students would hunt him down relentlessly. Still, his life on the street prepared him for it. Along with his talent to invent spells, he rarely came out wanting. But the staff were a problem. He was always blamed, because Horace Slughorn, his head of house, was surprisingly cold towards him. Many years later, he understood that being a brilliant half blood from an abusive background scared the old man, parallels to Voldemort running through his head. But as a child, he learned that he needed to make alliances with his loathsome dorm mates.

It wasn't a choice, not really. He needed protection, and they needed someone to help them with potions and were afraid of his inventiveness with curses. Some of them were actually rather decent. Avery and Rosier didn't sneer at him anymore. Sure, he had to learn a bit of their ideology so he could understand what they were talking about. He didn't really agree with it, but they offered him something he didn't know he wanted - a chance to belong.

He saw that Lily was listening to her friends. They all told her he was evil, disgusting, horrible, dark. And what was worse, he saw how she was attracted to James Potter, his main bully. It all came to a head when once again, Potter had humiliated him in front of the entire school. She came in and lashed out against James, but she was holding back a smile. She had found his humiliation funny. He had never felt so hurt, and so angry. So he said the most horrible thing he could think of to her. If she wouldn't learn to respect him because he was weak, then she would never feel what he would like her to feel.

She never forgave him. She forgave Potter for everything though. The fact that he was a bully, treated her possessively, was arrogant beyond belief, that was forgivable. Because he was rich, handsome, and oh so popular. Severus knew he would never be any of those. But, he could be powerful. He could have a group of allies that would be even more impressive than schoolyard popularity. He may have not believed in what they believed, but he didn't care.

They offered him everything he wanted. A higher education which he could never afford. Recognition for his brilliance. His own lab, with a couple of assistants. And really, as far as he knew, they weren't so bad. There were rumors, yes, but they were mostly a group of Slytherins, and everyone hated them and thought they were pure evil anyways. He brushed those aside.

He went to Albus Dumbledore, to try and get the Defense Against Dark Arts position, as that was an acceptable reward from his superiors. He tried to sneak into get an advantage, and while he heard some bullshit "prophecy" from the other side of the door, he was kicked out by the owner of the establishment in short order. He returned and told everyone the story. For some reason, the Big Man took some interest in it.

He returned to his lab, enjoying his work, the high salary, and within a few years, he could finish paying off the huge debts his father ran up. Life was fine, all in all. That is, until he heard that Lily was being targeted. He asked the Big Man to spare her, but Voldemort was unwilling to commit to anything other than saying he would try. So, he went to Dumbledore.

He became a spy. While she wasn't a friend, Lily had been the only person who had (for at a time) liked him for who he was. She became like everyone, who had just saw in him what he could offer. That meant more than she would ever understand. That was his most important memory - that at one time, someone actually cared.

Teaching was a nightmare. He loved Potions, but the students had no inclination, talent or respect for the subject. He had to be vicious in order to establish ground rules in the classroom. Some people remembered him as a beaten down runt. He had to disabuse them of that notion.
And then she died.
...

The next few years were a blur. Dumbledore and he knew that Voldemort would return. He learned to relax a bit with his sixth and seventh year students, who had some talent and respect for his subjects, but he could not drop his vicious monster persona. He favored the sons of his "comrades", and despite his disgust with the fact, didn't nurture the muggle-borns. He played up his loathing of Gryffindors. All to prepare for Voldemort's inevitable return.

And then came Harry Potter. No doubt rich and pampered like his parents were. A celebrity for all the wrong reasons - he stole the credit for his mother's sacrifice. And he looked just like James. When he first looked at the boy, he saw him looking back and wincing. The same instinctive hatred his father felt, no doubt. But he decided to give him one chance. If he had read to first chapter of the book, he'd know the answers. Just like Lily did. Perhaps he was her son even if he didn't look it except for his eyes. Of course, he didn't. James and his lazy arrogance all over again.

But those eyes haunted him. Every bad thing that happened in his life could be summed up with those eyes. And just like with Lily, all semblance of emotional control was lost whenever he looked at them. And protecting that little liar, who broke the rules over and again, lied (badly) to cover it up, and had his friends lie for him... and physically assault him for trying to defend the little shit. With the protection of everyone else in the staff, naturally. Of course they would. It was James Potter all over again.

And then, Dumbledore decided to reward the little idiot for his rule breaking. By humiliating Slytherin again. After all those years making Slytherin work together and understand that a single person couldn't beat them united, the headmaster took that away. His house wouldn't recover from this lesson in years to come.

Things got worse, as defense teacher after defense teacher were more incompetent, stupid, or plainly risked the students' lives (Remus Lupin would never give information about Sirius Black, no matter if he could protect the students by doing so). He returned to spying. Of course by then, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin did all they could with their bountiful spare time to make him a pariah in the Order. Really, to expect them to change was too much.

And then Dumbledore went and got himself killed. He tried to save him, but only ended up extending his life. The vicious bastard of a headmaster commanded him to become a murderer. And excused Harry bloody Potter for trying to murder another student, because really, the rules were beneath a Potter. Just a slap on the wrist for him. Some things never change when a Gryffindor tries to murder a Slytherin. No doubt in a few years he would brag about his wonderful "prank".

And then he became a killer. And the most hated man in the world. All to get a chance to protect the children of the school - because if he wouldn't be running the glorified concentration camp the school had become, it would have been Bellatrix and it would become a charnel house. He saved them from the worst of it, and managed to help Potter and his friends from behind the scenes. Getting them the sword, keeping the Death Eaters off their backs, all he could with the information he got from Phineas.

And then, just as he had a chance to complete his mission, get the final bit of information to the ungrateful brat, the rest of the staff decided to revolt. He didn't fight back. He just protected himself and ran. He'd find another chance to get Potter the final piece to Voldemort's fall.

Then, as he had guessed would happen, he finally died. As he got the infomation to Harry, he mused about his life. He failed to protect Lily. He failed to protect her son, who had to die. He never moved out of his home. All of his relationships were disasters, as he could not tell anyone the most important things about his life. He had no family. No friends. His last one, Charity, had begged him to help and he couldn't. He was the most hated man in the world. He would be remembered in history as the murderer of Albus Dumbledore. But finally, he didn't need to prove anything to anyone. It wasn't a happy end. But at least it was an end.

{source: Mu-nition}

High Value Hearthstone Cards That Are Worth Crafting

2014-05-10T10:25:00.000+08:00

In Hearthstone [AppStore], you can build up your card collection by leveling up each of the nine available class heroes, buying expert card packs, playing in the arena and last but not the least, crafting. You can craft cards using dust, and those blue glowing bits of powder can be pretty hard to acquire as you can only get them as a reward in arena or by disenchanting expert cards. So you need to make sure that you craft only the cards that are worth their value in dust.

The following are some of the high value Hearthstone cards that are worth crafting:

Argent Squire

Argent Squire's low mana cost and Divine Shield generally allow you to deal 2 damage for 1 mana, potentially killing 2 separate 1 hp minions in the early game.


Harvest Golem

Harvest Golem is generally considered a solid choice for a 3-cost minion, due largely to its Deathrattle. The combined stats of the Golem and the Damaged Golem equal a 4/4, making the card basically efficient.

Knife Juggler

This card is a very strong card because of its special ability. Each time you summon a minion, it hits a random enemy for 1.

Defender of Argus

While the Defender of Argus has very mediocre stats for its cost, the powerful Battlecry more than makes up for this by reshaping the board upon play. Extra points in Attack are always welcome, but creating a double defence from enemy attack will force your opponent to re-assess their strategy.

Azure Drake

Azure Drake is a sturdy 4/4 with two key abilities: Spell Damage and card draw. It is almost identical to the basic Ogre Magi, the only difference being the card draw effect, and an additional 1 mana cost.

Argent Commander

This is one of two 6 mana minions with charge available, the other being Reckless Rocketeer. This leaves you with the choice between 1 more Attack or Divine Shield. In most cases you should opt for the Argent Commander since he basically gives you a free Attack into anything, regardless of its damage potential, and lets you deal quickly with, for example, high-damage Taunt minions.

Google Doodles For The Philippines

2014-05-10T09:45:00.002+08:00

So far there are four Google doodles that were created specially to commemorate Philippine holidays.

The first one is the June 12, 2009 doodle celebrating the 111th Independence Day of the Philippines.

The second one is the June 12, 2012 Philippine Independence Day doodle.

The third one is the May 13, 2013 Philippines Elections doodle.

The fourth one is the June 12, 2013 Philippine Independence Day doodle.

Pocket Trains Strategy Guide, Tips and Tricks

2013-09-28T08:39:00.000+08:00

If you're looking for a strategy guide or tips and tricks on making tons of coins and bux in Nimblebit's latest iOS game Pocket Trains, then look no further because listed below are tips and tricks on how to best manage your fleet of Pocket Trains on your way to global locomotion domination. A word of caution though before you plunge into this addictive game -- Pocket Trains will take over your life if you're not careful!

Build up your collection of trains, transport cargo across your network, and expand your network to unlock better trains and more lucrative jobs.

Delivering Cargo - Do I need to stop at a station to deliver cargo, or does just passing through work? For example, I have cargo for station A and B, do I need to stop at A and B separately or can I just head straight to B, passing A along the way? Things get dropped off automatically as you move through, no need to stop.

Jobs Don't Regenerate - Once you stop at a station, the jobs for that train will remain the same until you leave (and return).

Not All Jobs are Created Equal - Jobs to the same location may have different values depending on a scale of 1-4 coins. Also, a single job may have 5 cars or 1 car. Watch out on how many cars your train can pull and balance the value of each job with your capacity.

One Train per Route - You can't send more than one train per track. Plan carefully and accordingly.

Trains Need Fuel - Transporting jobs uses up fuel and your train will need to eventually re-fuel before getting back to work.

Trains can Break Down - Maintenance will need to be performed after a certain mileage is put on. This can be paid for with coins or by using a spare part.

Common Issues
Tracks
Expanding your track network will cost coins. The cost is dependent on the length of the track you are unlocking. You will need to pay an additional coin fee to assign an engine to your new track. Always keep that last point in mind. Also, you will get significantly less coins back from closing tracks. Plan very carefully as you expand.

Railroads
A railroad is separate from a track. A railroad is the network of tracks assigned to an engine. The cost to start a new railroad (i.e. add another engine to your empire) goes up significantly with each railroad you add.

You create a new Railroad by hitting the New RR button in your menu, assigning it to a Train in your Yard, and selecting a city to start the Railroad from.

Assembling new Trains
While earning coins and bux, you will occasionally see a Train Part show up as a job. If you deliver this, you will have a crate in your Craft list. It'll cost 10 bux to open it and it will contain 1 part for a Train. Once you have enough parts to build a new train, you can build an Engine or a Fuel Car (building these costs nothing) and place the newly built equipment in your Yard.

Note: There are two types of Crates, Normal and Special. You can get Special Crates by doing events and leveling up.

FAQ

When do new train types start showing up in my crates?
Around level 5 or 6 for the step up from Steamers.

Are the parts in crates determined by the level you were when you received the crate or when you open the crate?
When you open the crate.

Can I change the engine on a railroad without re-buying all the routes?
Yes! Get the train currently on that line into a station, click on the Train button, and select 'Swap Engine'.

How do I know when I'll need to repair my trains?
You'll get a pop up notifying you when your train needs repairs. It'll also get a little caution symbol on your train list.

What can I upgrade my train to do?
Trains can receive upgrades by adding extra engines or fuel cars. Check the Train info screen to find out what upgrades, if any, you're allowed to buy.
Extra Engines increase your cargo capacity by 50%.
Fuel Cars increase your fuel capacity by 100%.

How do I gift parts? What's a friend code?
To enable cross platform sharing, Nimblebit implemented their own friend codes and the game will prompt you for your friend's code when you gift a part. It's found on the Options screen in the Menu.

{source: somethingawful.com}

Deck Ref - Scrolls Edition

2013-08-02T07:03:00.000+08:00

"Deck Ref - Scrolls Edition" [AppStore] is a handy app that allows you to:

• Easily find all the scrolls currently available in the Scrolls strategy collectible card game.

• Instantly search for scrolls by name and attributes such as resource, rarity, type, subtype, offensive and defensive ability.

• Build and save multiple decks.

• Load decks from the Online Scrolls Deck Builder (http://www.scrollsguide.com/deckbuilder) by just entering the deck id. (requires internet connection)

Note: This app is not a game but a reference only.

Scrolls content and materials are trademarks and copyrights of Mojang, AB or its licensors. All rights reserved. This app is not affiliated with Mojang, AB and http://www.scrollsguide.com.