Image Credit: Blizzard and us.battle.net

Quoting the official battle dot net website:

The battle for Pandaria is approaching a fever pitch. Her resources are plundered. Her earth is scoured. The Alliance and the Horde are at each other’s throats – but great dangers lurk within their own ranks.

While Warchief Garrosh Hellscream’s excavation squads bore deep into Pandaria’s Vale of Eternal Blossoms in search of chthonic power, Taran Zhu, lord of the Shado-Pan, grows increasingly concerned about the presence of outsiders in his homeland. Meanwhile, in search of new soldiers to shore up his war in Pandaria, King Varian Wrynn has been forced to turn to the Dark Iron Dwarf Princess Moira for aid.

The struggle for Pandaria threatens to engulf all Azeroth, and you’re at the forefront of the conflict.

I am also excited about the following wow content/lore updates:

• Battlefield:Barrens (I won’t give spoilers but this will be the staging point for the Darkspear rebellion)
• Cool new character title “Darkspear Revolutionary” for the Horde (sorry I have no active alliance toon to get the counterpart title “Hordebreaker”)
• Level 85-90 XP requirements reduced by 33% in this patch. (Yo! Time to max the alts!)

I really love the Warcraft lore so I’m glad that finally Vol’jin and the Darkspears are now leading some revolt against Garrosh. I have just finished reading the Tides of War novel several weeks ago, and every time I see Garrosh in-game I make it a point to “/rude” him whichever toon I’m logged in . I also remember doing some wow scenario last year (the one where Garrosh ordered Vol’jin killed but the troll shadow hunter mon survived) and I’m loving how this “oust Garrosh” plot is turning out.

Cant wait til my wow weekend!!!

You can read more about WoW Escalation: Patch 5.3 here and here

Like WoW and warcraft? Kindly visit my other wow posts here

Related posts:

1. World of Warcraft in the Philippines
2. WoW Blizzard Sale: WoW Battle Chest US $5 Only – Save 75%

I learned about this change because Dreamhost occasionally sends “catchy” announcements via their newsletter (see below)

Hi Menard,

Last year in January our domain provider, Verisign, hit us with a price increase for .com and .net registrations, with another increase coming in July for .net. As irritating as these increases have been for us, we’re sorry to say that any protests regarding these increases have fallen on deaf ears. We’ve held off on passing this increase to our customers for an entire year simply because we didn’t want to believe it was true.

However, we are sad to report that we’ve allowed reality’s harsh embrace to alter our thinking on domain pricing for .com and .net domains. As of June 15, 2013, we will be increasing the price for .com and .net domain registration and renewals to $11.95 per year.

Due to our commitment to non-profit organizations and all of the good work that they do, we will NOT be increasing the price for “.org” domain registrations and renewals at this time. They will stay at the current rate of $9.95 per year.

We’re sorry to be the bearers of bad news and wish we didn’t have to follow in Verisign’s footsteps on this, but them’s the breaks.

Thanks for your understanding.

Should you have any questions please contact us at support@dreamhost.com.

-The No-So-Happy DreamHost Domain Registration Team

I’m fine with this price increase as their domain reservation and renewal services are good. Thanks to Dreamhost team for this timely announcement!

No related posts.

The Croods Game got some update via Google Play Store before the month of May started. The Croods Game Version 1.1.0 update gives out some exciting twist to the game. The Croods animals each now have their own favorite decorations and this will boost resource build time by 5% each.

In the above Croods Game screenshot, the 3 decorations around the Fish Cat gives 5% boost each

So my The Croods Game tip for the day will be to give each of your important and critical animal homes their favorite decorations.

The Croods Game Level 20 Level up is also great as it will give Free 100 Croods crystals as a reward. But what find amazing is that Level 21 is still coming soon.

Because I want to enjoy The Croods Game I tried some experiment that I hope can result to The Croods Game Level 21 cheats . For the last 2 weeks I tried concentrating and finishing Grug’s Forklift invention

but I am not impressed with the results.

Yes stockpiling sticks and stones completes Grug’s Forklift invention and will reward free 30,000 coins, but the wait process is very very long (Zeaver home build-wait-time is around 190+ hours and the zeaver is very slow and can only produce 3 sticks at a time). And after completing forklift invention, you will just see this message:

and all quests are coming soon:

That ends my much anticipated The Croods Game Level 21 cheats.

I hope Rovio will give some The Crood game updates soon…

Related posts:

1. Free Android Apps: The Croods by Rovio and Dreamworks
2. Very Late Angry Birds Post

On my current level, tasks (Gran’s chores) are really hard and expensive.

For example, Evolving Fish Cat home will cost you 24,300 coins

While building a Zeaver home you will need to shell out 32,400 coins

So to help fellow Croods players with some ideas, I’m sharing these The Croods Game Tips.
The Croods Game Tip #1 Evolve Berry Bush as soon as The Croods crystals are available.
Berries are the first resource and it’s like the foundation of all other Croods resources.  Evolve both berry bushes to at least 24 berry production-capacity.

Just be careful because evolving berry bush will need a lot of The Croods crystals (50 crystals for the 24-berry production, 100 crystals for the next level).

The Croods Game Tip #2 Need Free Croods Crystals? Remove Rocks and Trees.
Yes removing rocks and trees will give some XP points and the much valued Croods crystals. But you will need some Croods coins to do it.
Removing Big Trees will yield some 20 XPs and 3 crystals

Removing Big Rocks will give out some 40 XPs and 4 crystals

And to avoid the Croods Crystal waste due to accidental clicking that I mentioned in my previous post, it is recommended to do a 1-time removal of trees and rocks in 1 area and spend the crystals asap (maybe for Berry bush upgrades, see Tip #1 above)

The Croods Game Tip #3 Evolve Traps to boost luring/trapping luck.

Grug is a kinda weak when it comes to luring /trapping higher level Croods animals so help him by evolving the traps.

This cost croods coins and sometime croods crystals too.

The Croods Game Tip #4 Help Grug with his inventions

This is one of the costlier tasks in-game. Grug inventions are needed to progress and expand in the game. Help Grug with his inventions and get some extra coins too (but a lot of resource needed and the inventions are in 3 stages).
Here is Grug invention materials needed (Folklift, Stage 3)

Hope you liked my Free The Croods Game Tips and Cheats post. You can also visit my previous post: Free Six The Croods Game Cheats and Tips  know more The Croods Game Cheats.

Related posts:

1. Very Late Angry Birds Post
2. Angry Birds Space Launch on March 22

Here is Adam Levine and Blake Shelton singing “Come Together” with the new coaches Usher and Shakira for The Voice Season 4.

Video Courtesy of Youtube.com and user Talentshows

We will definitely miss Christina Aguilera and Ceelo Green but I believe Usher and Shakira will bring much fun to the show too! With this performance and the first episodes of the blind auditions we can see that the four coaches have good chemistry and Season 4 will be an exciting season for The Voice USA.

The Voice Season 4 premiered last week and is NBC is currently airing some blind auditions episodes. Will try to do more post about The Voice soon…

No related posts.

The Good
Bypass Roads FTW!

The Tiaong Bypass Road and Candelaria Bypass Road are great developments to South luzon travel. The Tiaong bypass

have been around for some time while the Candelaria was inaugurated at the last half of the year 2012.

Btw, the Lucena-Pagbilao-Atimonan roads are in better shape now

The Bad
Wangx2
Somewhere along our way to Batangas (Sto Tomas town I believe), the traffic was moving at a snail pace, the suddenly a convoy of vehicles with a police car in front did a counterflow along Maharlika highway. The plate is easy to spot and identify so I just asked my assistant to tweet it for me:

Dahil may nag counterflow na “2″…

— Menard Osena (@Menardconnect) March 28, 2013

“Akala ko hanggang Manila lang sya, pero abot pala ng probinsya yung utak-wangx2 nila.” (Sorry I can’t help it. As much as possible I avoid #politics and political commentaries here in menardconnect.com so I will keep it as short as a 1-liner)

For the uninitiated on what does that plate number stands for kindly visit this wikipedia page

The Ugly
Sariaya!

Yup, Sariaya traffic was a mess! I twitted about it here.

Supertraffic #sariaya #quezon southbound. #everyyear #walangnagbago

— Menard Osena (@Menardconnect) March 28, 2013

My tweet is worth a thousand words. Nuff said! I really hope that they (sariaya local government officials) fix and remedy this recurring problem soon.

This south luzon travel explains why there have not benn much post here at menardconnect.com. But I’m back in Manila and will be blogging more often soon…

No related posts.

I discovered this Free Android App The Croods game by Rovio and Dreamworks over the weekend and I liked it very much. The Croods game is free for Android, and is also available for free to iPhones and iPads. I discovered a lot of good game tips over the weekend so in the tradition of my free six video, my six cafe world cheats, my free wow mounts and my other free six series posts, here are some Free Six The Croods Game Cheats, Tips and Tricks:

The Croods Game Cheat #1. Fastest way to level is to follow Granny and do Gran’s chores.
Yes you hairy oafs Gran gives good advices at the start of the game and this true all over the course of the game. And by doing her chores you gain good The Croods XP experience points and free Croods coins.

Just follow Gran’s advice. As much as possible DO NOT create new homes/structures yet or upgrade existing ones before Gran tells you. Because Gran will request it as the game progress and it’s a waste of time/resource re-doing the structures/upgrades.

The Croods Game Cheat #2. Group similar structures (homes) together.
Keep structures or homes close/adjacent/near each other so that it will be easier to manage. I learned this in Warcraft, Starcraft and other games and this is generally useful for most games, the Croods Game included.

Here I place my Molarbear homes and Bunny Beast homes near each other so that I can create carrots and stones faster.

The Croods Game Cheat #3.Use Capacity. Queue it.
Chores can be done in queue (or sequence) when you have needed materials.
Look at the image below. My Molarbear is currently doing 6 carrots on queue.

I can feed my Molarbear with more berries so that it can do production queue up to 16 carrots and the bar below it will reach full capacity (see next image).

Capacity can be increased when evolving homes.

The Croods Game Cheat #4. Need Free Croods Coin? Trade with Ugga and create Ugga’s soup.

This is the safest Free Croods Coins tip in-game.

This is win-win because you create soup to level up the creatures and have Free Croods Coins rewards. But if you are a rich kid then go buy some Croods coins in game.

The Croods Game Cheat #5. Be Careful with the Crystals.

On my current level, the Crood Crystals are the hardest to get and therefore the most important resource in game in my own personal opinion.

I don’t know if this is really game design or maybe my phone is just too small for the game but the upgrade using crystals mechanism is so easy to use accidentally and there is no confirmation. See image below

Yes, pressing this crystal will instantly finish the resource production or animal home upgrade. But when there are lot of clickable items in the game screen (example is that there are many items to harvest already) its really easy to accidentally hit on this crystal. But again, if you are a rich kid then go on buy some Croods crystal in game too

The Croods Game Cheat #6. Increase cave storage.
As the game progresses, cave storage becomes very important because it will tell you how many resources you can keep.

Cave storage needs lots of Croods crystals and given the difficulty of crystals in-game, I would recommend paying attention to this tip and upgrading as soon as resources permit.
As a bonus cheat: like my usual game cheats and tips post, I always encourage safe gaming, meaning don’t cheat, don’t run other app/exe/scripts/surveys that promises to give you free Croods coins or free Croods crystals. There are lots of malware, spyware, keylogger, malicious downloaders, fake apps, fake surveys out there that are masquerading as cheat tools and engines. Always be safe in your gaming. OK?

Hope you like my Free Six The Croods cheats and tips post.

Update 2013.04.20

For more the Croods tips and tricks, kindly visit my new post: Free The Croods Game Cheats and Tips Part 2

Related posts:

1. Free Six Info: Facebook PetVille Cheats and Tips
2. Facebook Angry Birds Cheats and Tips

Rovio and Dreamworks teamed up in making The Croods game for Android and iOS. Cool game! Its a hunt, gather, tame, build game. The games features the characters from the movie The Croods.

To give you an idea here is the intro video from Rovio and Youtube

Another video of the gameplay of the Free The Croods game:

Quoting the Facebook Page

FROM THE CREATORS OF ANGRY BIRDS AND THE CREATIVE MINDS AT DREAMWORKS ANIMATION: A FREE NEW GAME BASED ON THE UPCOMING MOTION PICTURE PHENOMENON!

MEET THE WORLD’S FIRST MODERN FAMILY: THE CROODS! THESE CAVEMEN ARE BREAKING OUT OF THE STONE AGE WITH THE USE OF A NEW R-EVOLUTIONARY TOOL: THE IDEA! THE CROODS WILL HUNT & GATHER THEIR WAY THROUGH SPECTACULAR NEW LANDSCAPES AS THEY TAME FANTASTIC AND NEVER-SEEN-BEFORE CREATURES. HELP THE CROODS SURVIVE THE WILD…AND EACH OTHER!

Try it, its available for free download via Google Play

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rovio.croods

Its also available for free for iOS iPads and iPhones (Apple Store)

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-croods/id582579535

And available for free too via Amazon Apps

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BSW0M34/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00BSW0M34&linkCode=as2&tag=rovioentert-20

I will try my best to come up with The Croods Cheats and Tips post soon

Related posts:

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2. Angry Birds Space Cheats: Golden Egg Location Part 2 – Super Mario

RSA Conference 2013: On Security Awareness, Hacking Back and Going Offensive Legally
by Menard Osena (Solutions Product Manager)

Two weeks ago, I attended RSA 2013 Conference in San Francisco and was impressed by the number of participating security vendors. The addition of the Human Element and Breaking Research in the technical track sessions also provided a refreshing stroke to this year’s presentations.

Below are some of my experiences and insights on some noteworthy discussions involving security awareness, hacking back, and going offensive legally.

The 7 Highly Effective Habits of a Security Awareness Program

Samantha Manke and Ira Winkler of Secure Mentem discussed their views on the difference between security training and security awareness. They highlighted the importance of a security culture in companies in enabling employees to apply best computing practices on a daily basis, resulting to long-term security awareness within the organization.

They presented the results of their recent study conducted among Fortune 500 companies in the Health, Manufacturing, Food, Financial and Retail sectors. This study focuses on security awareness campaigns that companies implemented and how effective these were. They came up with key findings that lead them to create their 7 Highly Effective Habits of a Security Awareness Program, which are:

1. Create a Strong Foundation
2. (Have) Organizational Buy-in
3. (Encourage) Participative Learning
4. (Have) More Creative Endeavors
5. Gather Metrics
6. Partner with Key Departments
7. Be the Department of HOW

My key takeaway for this session is of course the last part.  We, the information security professionals, should be the “Department of HOW” and not the “Department of NO”. We must focus on how to allow users to do what they want safely, not simply saying no to our own customers and further locking down systems.

While I understand the need to establish dos and don’ts in company security policies, we should raise the bar and let security be a key part of solving business challenges, not an obstacle to it.

On Hacking Back and Going Offensive Legally

During the conference, I attended several sessions discussing intriguing concepts like hacking back and going offensive legally. One of the sessions was Highway to the Danger Zone…Going Offensive…Legally presented by George Kurtz and Steven Chabinsky of  CrowdStrike. The discussion focused on the idea of active defense as a form of offense against targeted attacks affecting companies. They clearly differentiated this concept from hacktivism and online vigilantism. However, Steven Chabinsky, being a lawyer, also expounded on its complexities like the differences of laws and legislation in different countries, making the concept difficult to define as of the moment.

Another session that covered very similar ground was Is it Whack to Hack Back a Persistent Attack?. Trend Micro’s Dave Asprey moderated this session. He was joined by Davi Ottenheimer of EMC Corporation, David Willson of Titan Info Security Group and again  George Kurtz from CrowdStrike. The panelists discussed the active defense/ hacking back phenomenon and its legal, ethical and business liabilities and complexities when practiced over the Internet.

Conclusion

My personal key takeaway from these sessions is the active defense concept entails risks and complications that may spur more problems instead of solving the situation. Instead, organizations, in particular security administrators, should have the correct mindset when it comes to targeted attacks and deploying an inside-out protection.

For now, I would stick with law enforcement agencies and private sector partnership as the best (and safest) path to combat targeted attack, exemplified by the Rove Digital Takedown last year.

Original article RSA Conference 2013: On Security Awareness, Hacking Back and Going Offensive Legally from : Trendlabs Security Intelligence Blog – by Trend Micro.

My special thanks to Jonathan, Gelo and Badette for their assistance with the article. Special mentions to my RSA 2013 session buddies (Benj, Cathy, Paul) their ideas and encouragement (they really kept me awake and sane during the RSA week)!!!

I miss my free six series so I will post more SF and RSA stuff here in menardconnect.com soon…

Related posts:

1. Malware Blog – World of Warcraft Scams: Mist of Pandaria, Free Mounts and Phishing Galore
2. RSA 2009 Day 3, Day 4 and Day 5

Image Credit: McDonald’s Philippines and facebook.com

I am having hard time accessing Mcdo Philippines website so I will assume a lot of folks are accessing the site and confirming this offer.

Quoting the official Mcdonald’s Philippines website:

Hooray for National Breakfast Day! On March 18, Monday, McDonald’s Philippines, joins 5,000 McDonald’s restaurants in Asia, Middle East and South Africa in staging the region’s first and biggest breakfast celebration to date—National Breakfast Day.

Filipino customers will join in the fun and have another great reason to cheer Hooray for Today!.

All McDonald’s restaurants serving breakfast in the country will be offering 1,000 delicious McMuffins for FREE from 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM via Dine-In, Take-Out, or Drive-Thru.

Terms and Conditions:
•Coupons for the FREE McMuffin will be given to 1,000 customers on a first-come-first-served basis.
•Coupon must be surrendered to the crew upon redemption. Redemption does not require any purchase.
•The coupon is valid for dine-in, take-out and drive-thru only.
•Only one (1) coupon will be given per customer.
•Only one (1) McMuffin can be claimed per coupon.
•Only one (1) coupon can be redeemed in a single transaction.
•No coupon, No free McMuffin.•Coupon/offer is not exchangeable to cash and/or other McDonald’s products.
•McDonald’s reserves the right to refuse redemption if coupon was found to be tampered with.
•Only original McDonald’s issued coupons will be accepted.
•Free product may vary from illustration. McDonald’s reserves the right to replace the free item at its discretion, without any prior notice.

So tomorrow, just go to the nearest McDonald’s early and grab some coupons for the FREE McMuffin OK?
Kitakits sa Mcdo!!!

For more details kindly visit:

http://www.mcdonalds.com.ph/home/featured/national_breakfast_day

No related posts.