Happy Friday everyone – Time for Carl!
Yes, it’s a beautiful and sunny July first, and it’s time for more jokes from my faithful camera-bear, Carl…
Have a great weekend everyone, and have a safe and happy 4th of July (Assuming you celebrate the 4th of July. If you don’t, well – have a nice Monday 🙂 )
Change your Passwords!
I’ve been meaning to write this for a few weeks now, with all the LulzSec hacking attacks going on. In recent months, this group (and others like it) have compromised hundreds, maybe thousands of systems, and publicly released hundreds of thousands of account usernames and in many cases, passwords. And get this – sometimes the systems that are compromised don’t even know it, so you can’t rely on the media or a hacked company to tell you about a hack 100% of the time. Hackers have gained access to personal and financial information from retail sites, gaming sites, even media forums, so I just wanted to warn people and talk about passwords a little… (more…)
Ditto’s Video Bloggy Thingy – June 28th, 2011
Here we are again, my weekly video bloggy thingy, which I have kept to a pretty much weekly schedule for a while now- yay me!
So this week I talk about the amazing Ravenwood Ball, I got over 400 followers on Twitter, my current status in game for Digby and Destiny Hexcrafter, and I discuss the finer points of the Wizard 101 blogging and fansite community, which is pretty awesome, isn’t it?
Madame Jasmine and the Pet Derby
So I wanted to do some fun and exciting Pet Derby videos. Getting set up to play pet derby this time was, for some odd reason, far more problematic than I remembered.
The first video is just a comedy of errors trying to even start a Pet Derby race, and the second is me doing not very well in a race. I thought it was pretty funny… Madame Jasmine did not.
Ravenwood Ball – Thank You Fallon!!
Tonight was the wonderful and amazing Ravenwood Ball, put together by Diary of a Wizard! I had a REALLY good time, got all fancy in my new outfit, and saw so many friends from Ravenwood Radio and the other great blog sites and a lot of the Twizards. I know I probably added another 20 people to my friends list too!
It took me about ten tries to port into the main party at Ravenwood – I’ve NEVER seen it so full! The place was a SEA of people! It was pretty slow, but we could move around. I took a ton of screenshots. After a while at Ravenwood I stopped at a few of the satellite parties and saw some AMAZING houses, beautifully decorated. I really need to be better at decorating my house!
Here is a gallery of screen shots I took at the party. If I didn’t get to meet you or talk to you, I do apologize – there was just so much going on, I couldn’t possibly say hi to everyone, but I gave it my best shot!
The Destiny Project, Week 8
Here we are at Week 8. Destiny made level 16 this week, and than means VAMPIRE! That was a welcome addition to my spellbook, especially in Krokotopia. I needed to use Banshee to defeat a lot of the higher ranked enemies, and Banshee doesn’t give me any health back. With Vampire, I can take out Nirini bosses and get most of my health back at the same time.
Destiny get Vampire!
It’s Friday, that means Here’s Carl!!
Carl tries some science jokes this time… well, they’re kind of about science. It is Carl, after all..
Ditto’s 200th YouTube Video – behind the scenes with Ditto and Miss Narrator!
So here it is – after about a year and a half (My first video was posted on February 16th, 2010) and over 100,000 total views, I have reached the near-mythical 200th video! Well, it’s a pretty big number to me, anyway. My 100th video was… well… sad. For this one, we wanted to do something very different, something we had never done before, so we decided to shoot a behind the scenes video as we recorded the latest episode of ‘The Daring Adventures of Ditto’! Miss Narrator and I had a lot of fun doing this, and I REALLY appreciate the fact that Miss Narrator happily agreed to be on camera for the first time ever! I didn’t even have to bribe her with strawberry scented shampoo! We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!!
Tonight – Ravenwood Radio AND my 200th video!!
Tonight, be sure to tune in to Ravenwood Radio as they record Episode 43!! There will be an all new Daring Adventures of Ditto, Episode 27, as Ditto and Madame Jasmine enter Dragonspyre, PLUS a special announcement at the end of the episode about my very special 200th YouTube video!! It’s a big first for us, so you definitely do not want to miss it!!
The Destiny Project, Week 7
I’m still in Krokotopia and doing well. This week I wanted to talk about something new that’s happened a couple times now, something I wasn’t quite expecting. You see, someone running around in all starter clothes in Wizard City is pretty normal, not out of place at all. Krokotopia, however – that’s obviously a different story. (more…)
It’s Friday – Time for Carl!!
It’s time for Carl again, and he’s got some good ones today! Carl loves all the positive feedback he gets for his weekly jokes, so thanks everyone, we’re glad you like it!
Ditto’s Video Bloggy Thingy – June 16th, 2011
Hey all, here is my Video Bloggy Thingy for today! I am at nearly 400 Twitter followers and I’m almost at 200 videos!! That’s amazing!
Digby has almost made it to Malistaire (I think), that is pretty exciting! Destiny is doing well, too, I am enjoying that experiment, I hope you are too!
What kinds of things do you do outside The Spiral? I like hiking and gardening and sometimes even canoeing (as long as my fur doesn’t get wet!) Maybe I’ll take some video of that to show everyone? We’ll see… Anyway, enjoy the video!
Play Safe – Check those links!!
I got a very official email yesterday from another gaming company (NOT Wizard 101 or KingsIsle), warning me that my account might have been compromised and giving me a handy link to a very official looking website so I could go and change my password. The problem was – I don’t play that game, and I’ve never had an account with their system. It was a scam.
An example of a Phishing Site - Always check the URL
These scams, called ‘phishing‘, are a two part process. They send people an email that looks like it’s from some ‘official’ source – their bank, or Facebook, or their favorite video game. This email will contain a ‘call to action’ – it will tell them that they need to log into their account to fix or verify something, and there is usually a serious consequence for not doing it, like your account getting canceled.
I’ve also seen this starting to pop up on social networking sites like Twitter as well, where URL Shorteners like bit.ly can mask a URLs true destination. If you see some ReTweet about getting prizes or rewards from your favorite game, double check the link and be really careful!
The second part of the scam is a website, usually crafted to look exactly like the ‘real’ website, that will collect the username and password of everyone who tries to log into it.
It’s a fiendish plan, to be sure – send an email telling someone they have to log into their account to fix something, and then give them a link that looks like it’s a real website that will instead steal their password and let the bad guys into their account to steal their stuff.
To combat this and stay safe is easy, as long as you know it’s there.
- First, always remember that no website or game is going to send you an email asking for your password.
- Second, if you get an email telling you to log into a website to correct or change something, look very closely at the sender’s email address and the address it’s trying to send you to. Instead of wizard101.com it might be wizardlOl.com – it doesn’t look too different, so you have to be careful.
- Finally – instead of clicking a link in an email, go to the main website yourself and log in there, so you know you’re putting your credentials in the right place.
Phishing scams aren’t hard to avoid, you just have to know what you’re looking for and remember, never trust an email that’s asking for your account information or telling you to log in right away – no reputable company would do that. Always check the URLs and if something looks suspicious, don’t put in your user information, that’s the safest play.
Play Safe!
Return to Crab Alley, Part 7 – a breakthrough!
Through the use of calm reasoning (and dropping meteors on people) Ditto finally learns where King Thermidor – the REAL King Thermidor – is being held captive! Now it’s a race against the clock to save him!
The Destiny Project – Week 6 – Krokotopia!!
So this week I finally finished up Wizard City and made it to Krokotopia! The Gobblers were definitely troublesome, I was defeated a number of times , but I finally got into a good rhythm with my traps and blades, using a combination of ghoul and banshee.
I’m currently at level 14 – I’m only a hair over below level 15. I would have kept going for 15, but wanted to get the article done for the week and ran out of time. I’ve got 768 health and 43 mana now – health isn’t bad, I can hold my own, but at 3 mana points per banshee and 2 per pixie or ghoul, my mana pool goes fast, especially in a boss fight. (more…)
Carl’s Friday jokes!
So what do you get when you cross an elephant and a chicken? I guess you’ll have to watch Carl the Camera-Bear to find out!
Happy Friday!!
Return to Crab alley, Part 6! Into the Breach!
So there I was, minding my own business in Crab alley – sorta – and I see this big hole in the wall, with guards around it. I wonder if maybe this is where King Thermidor is hanging out?
Return to Crab Alley, Part 5
Well this is taking a lot longer than I had imagined… I might post these with a little more frequency now, as there are still a bunch of parts still to come!
This was my favorite part so far – we finally reach the throne room in Crab alley to speak to the king, only to find… some big scary looking purple guy saying he’s King Thermidor! Yikes!!! So now, instead to clearing things up, getting to see the king has only increased the mystery!!
Pet-A-Palooza all week! Cool news!
This is fun news – KingsIsle just announced a week long event called ‘Pet-A-Palooza’ that’s running this week, the 6th through the 14th, and you get a free pet snack as soon as you log in during this week! Plus discounts on pets and, more importantly, NEW PETS! Check the link and other official info below!
https://www.wizard101.com/game/promotions/petapalooza
Between June 6th 2011 and June 14th 2011, you can adopt some interesting pets!
All our pets are on sale, some up to 50% off their regular Crowns price! For this special event, we’ve brought back some previously retired pets and there will be new pets released throughout the month of June!
Visit the Crown Shop to buy your pets today!
We’re also giving you a pet snack the first time you login during Pet-a-palooza! The random snack will appear in your Gift window the first time you log in to the game between June 6th and June 14th.
The Destiny Project – Week 5
Destiny faces off against some gobblers
It’s starting to get interesting. I made level 13 this week, almost to level 14, and I’ve completed everything in wizard city except Colossus Blvd. – I’m about halfway through Gobbler-Town now. Taking on multiple opponents isn’t as tricky as I expected, but I DO need to take a secondary school, so I’m going to ask for some suggestions. Currently I’m thinking either life, to help with more healing options, or ice, to get that tower shield. Is there another option? What does everyone else think? (more…)
It’s Friday – Here’s more Carl!!
Carl the Camera-Bear is back with more jokes… enjoy! Well, TRY to enjoy, I guess… they’re still pretty bad jokes.
Ditto’s Video Bloggy Thingy, June 1st. Ravenwood Ball!
Yeah, I should use a script for these… So here is my weekly video bloggy thingy, and the main topic today is the amazing Ravenwood Ball from Diary Of a Wizard! Parties, prizes, fancy outfits – what’s not to love?!? I know last year’s ball was amazing, and this year’s promises to be even more awesome! For more information check out diaryofawizard.com!!
Return to Crab Alley – Part 4
Ditto continues his adventures in Crab Alley – after all his investigation it seems like the only person who can clear things up is King Thermidor himself – but how Can Ditto get in to see him? Like most things in Ditto’s life, there will be pastries involved with this one…
Ditto returns to Crab Alley, part 3
As Ditto is investigating the mysterious happenings in Crab Alley, it becomes clear that the only person who can really straighten things out is the king himself – but can Ditto get to see him?
Ditto Monster's Bloggy Thingy 