Day 1-2 AWA-con

So I was going to post this yesterday but I figure beginning of day 3 is still with time frame. So let us see what all I can remember.

Day 1: spent way to much money way to fast didn't realize it till I check to see if I could afford a Dvd set that I wanted which was $90. Went to a few panels that I enjoyed but other then thatvi was in the dealers room and the artist alley.  The panels were the best I mostly went to prop building panels on both days but more on that in day 2. The prop destressing panel was great I'm a fan of the guys that build the props. 

Day 2
Woke up slowly got dress quickly. I cosplayed at Randel Oland from Pumpkin Scissors (you can Google/Bing him). 3 people knew who I was. The only photos of me were by my friends which was nice of them. Leatherworking panel was amazingly useful I now know how I'm going to fix my belt. So that it works better (velcro sucks). Metalless armour panel was entertaining but none informative since the materials talked about can all melt in a hot car. The sculpting class was great I now know what it takes to make things look amazing and the details you can get with improve tools. Soul Eater podcast was hilarious I might post up a clip from that on my YouTube channel if I do then ill link it over for you guys/gals to see. Went to a "rave" where I danced kinda felt like cas from supernatural cuz the Randel Oland outfit has a trench coat and I hugely suck a social engagements (curse of antisocialness: -20 to people all skills). Around 4am Sunday the "rave" stopped and I decided to head back to the hotel room to get 3 and a half hours of sleep before day 3 schedule started.

Part 1 Travel to AWA 2012

So the travel from my home to my friends which is a 2 hour drive was very entertaining to say the least. We had a few laughs and remembered the past years events. We got lost a couple times well more like 4 - 5 times, which was entertaining to say the least. After arriving at my friend's house we went out to eat which was fun especially since my friend was making a very good point about how I've been to her house 5-6 times and still get lost on the way here.  Then we came back to her house, checked over the schedule for AWA, played a few board games of which were; Robo Ralley (very fun game), Inca Treasures(I'll edit in the real name of the game later), and Ticket to Ride.

Victory scores for me:

1. Robo Ralley: 2nd with 3 rally points (or what ever they are called)
2. Inca Treasures: 2nd with 23 points
3. Ticket to Ride: 2nd with 97 points

I'm kinda noticing a trend there with the whole 2nd place-ness <---i big="big" gonna="gonna" it="it" m="m" make="make" off="off" p="p" that="that" word="word">

It's approx. 4:23AM @ this current point. Gotta wake up at 7:30AM to take a shower and get everything ready to head to Atlanta in the morning.

 

AWA 2012 Prep.

• Cosplay Outfit - check
• Money - check
• phone charger - check
• clothes - check
• toothbrush and toothpaste - double check
• shower gel - check
• boots - check
• laptop - check
• thumb drives - check
• SD cards - still looking for the last few
• extra cables - check
• camera - still getting them together
• tripods - check

I know I'm going to forget something on this list right before I leave and not going to be able return to get what I need. Here's to trying to keep up with everything that I need to have before I leave. Need to GPS all the locations that we are going to be going to so that I can have directions. I've been waiting for this trip for a year now and I am so glad that the time for AWA 2012 is here already. When I come back it's back to the grindstone. Trying to spend as much time getting everything together so that I can toss everything in the car tomorrow and get the last few things done before we leave. Still have to run up a budget for the weekend. Ya know the whole don't spend all your money in one place saying. I'll run through the house tomorrow and make sure that everything I need is in the car. Last minute rush is always the fun part. Yeah I could have had everything set aside so all I had to do was just load up and go but what fun would that be especially when most of the fun from a trip is running around the house in a crazy haze trying to make sure you have everything then realizing 20 miles down the road you forgot something that you really need for the trip like a phone charger or laptop charger. We'll here's to making sure I have everything before I leave and cherrio.

How Chuck Norris would survive the zombie apocalypse.

Chuck Norris would round house kick the first zombie in the head and the rest would just die.

-from conversation with a friend-

Demolition team joke

All you need for a demolition team is Chuck Norris.

Quick post about cell phone problems

The past few months have been a constant disappoint when it comes to my 4G HTC inspire (or which ever phone model it is) and it's ability to connect to the internet, or lack there of. I finally decided that I needed my 4G phone to be more then just a texting/calling/camera device. I went to the AT&T store just up the road with all intentions of upgrading it but realized I still had some sort of attachment to this phone. I asked the lady about the upgrade anyways but that wasn't worth the time it took to ask the question because she was just a sales lady. The tech she transferred me to was nice enough to go more in depth and find out that I still had my 3G sim card from my last phone in my slightly newer 4G phone. Turns out that's a bad idea. Moral to the story retail stores for AT&T aren't the place to go just head to the nearest actual AT&T store. They can be nicer and are a lot more helpful...at least this time around.
Also on a side note getting mad at the person helping you never works to your benefit. The woman that was across the room was a complete nuisance I felt bad for the associate help her.  If any of this helped you out please share it with people you and techs you meet the are having this issue.

The FBI moneypak ransom Trojan/Virus scare

     So about a month ago I got the greatest scare I could have ever imagined. My trusted laptop that I use for research, tech work, and various other task came under the attack of a very annoying lockout virus/Trojan. I read through the text carefully then plugged in my trusty boot-able thumb drive, running the newest version of Ubuntu. After rebooting my laptop, I started researching what could have locked me out of my laptop. Using keywords like FBI, MoneyPak, ransom, and so on. I came across a few pictures that looked like the screen that had locked me out of my system so I began researching the title that was given on the webpage "FBI MoneyPak Ransom Virus". I went through a few websites that said to just run a virus scanner on a boot-able drive or other childish nonsense like paying the fee because it was from the FBI. 

     After a few days of running scans from all manners of different thumb drive sources none of which had any effect, which I still find odd, the system wasn't fixed. I decided to make a few attempts to log on to the computer and start a virus scan before the computer finished running through the boot-up process. On the last attempt I noticed that the wireless switch was in the off position on the laptop and since I hadn't tried this approach to fixing my issue I allowed it to fully boot. Ten minutes later the lockout virus/Trojan still hadn't popped up. This allowed me to understand the basic running of the virus/Trojan.

Basically:

1. As soon as the computer attempts to connect to the internet it prompts the virus/Trojan to activate.
2. Once a connection is established it runs the next portion which is to lock you out, but if the connection is not made it halts the virus.(This lets me know that the virus doesn't store IP information on infected system or if it does it needs an open connection to fully activate)
3. Once active it blocks out all other programs to do anything but look pretty on the hard drive.
4. This is very annoying and it has to be destroyed.

This whole story brings me to the easiest fix so far:

1. Disconnect the computer from the internet so that when it attempts to connect it can't. Best thing to do is remove the wireless card, ethernet cable, flip the switch or any other means of a physically disconnecting from the internet. (This is so far the only quick means of getting through the boot process without being locked out.
2. Next, open up network settings and proceed to remove the current connection settings from your system. For example if your at John Doe's house and his network connection information is saved under that name delete that information and then reconnect. This will reset your IP address. (fast and efficient for the moment). 
3. Search for a virus scanner online since you probably don't have one installed (I do now, I'm running malwarebytes free edition all I really need)
4.  Before the virus can catch up run a virus scan using your favorite scanner. The virus should pop up in the scanners result section. After that just go ahead and remove the virus from the system, allow the system to reboot and you're done.

As I said this happened to me about a month ago and my system is still running nicely which is why I am writing up this blog about it. If you know of anything better that would help out in the future please leave a comment. Please share this with your friends, techs, and just help to spread the knowledge.